SGOTM 2 Discussion thread
The other thread was getting a bit long, so I've split out these posts to kick-off the SGOTM-2 discussions.

Please use this thread only for things like discussions on the variants, or issues that affect all teams. Thanks!

-ainwood




Since SGOTM2 is gathering steam this thread deserves a bump for the new players.

My first time out and I get the lead :eek: Where's that quick start hints thread again?

I presume that based on GOTM8 just means a map with same settings.

Civ: Germans
Difficulty: Monarch
Map size: Standard
Map shape: Continents.3
Barbarians: Raging Horde
Climate: Normal
Temperature: Temperate
Age: 4 Billion Years
Game: All victories; Restarting players off
Opponents: 6 Rivals

The first post in the announcement cum sign up thread contains a link to the original announcement. The link is in my sig.

The map is the same as GOTM8 - well... nearly... ;)

Alamo: you are the lead, but you don't have to play first. You just get to decide who plays first ;)

I knew there had to be a catch.

Genghis Khan thinks the variant for SGOTM2 is to easy, because signing MA's with all the civs against your opponent in the vote he says will remove the challenge from the variant.

I am willing to modify the variant with the following restriction.

If you call a vote for the UN, you must be at peace with ALL your opponents

So... It's up to you people... do you want the added restriction or not?

You know where my vote is going.

I'm fine with either that or can't have any active alliances when the vote is called.

Hi Mad-Bax,

Are we supposed to avoid looking at other teams threads, similar to the GOTM where you can't look at a spoiler thread until you get to a certain level?

BTW - thanks for all the work. This is alot of fun and appears to have brought in several first time SG players. :goodjob:

Love AlanH's new scoring system. I am unworthy. :worship:

handy - There was a link to the rules in the sign up thread. From now on it is NOT permitted to look in other teams threads. With the forum software upgrade it is a trivial matter to see who is browsing which thread.

If you think that this has not been made clear enough I will ask Karasu to underline it in the maintenance thread.

Genghis Khan thinks the variant for SGOTM2 is to easy, because signing MA's with all the civs against your opponent in the vote he says will remove the challenge from the variant.
If you call a vote for the UN, you must be at peace with ALL your opponents

I agree with GK's more relaxed No MA, No MPP when you call for a UN vote.

The point is to not wash out your bad reputation with a state of war. That is a diplo bug anyway, IMHO. Civs should abstain if they don't like you but are at war with the other nominee.

Edit: By opponents do you mean chairman nominees? That sounds reasonable, and less restrictive in some ways.

Edit II: How about this - No war linked to a MA/MPP against competing chairman nominee(s) at the time you call a vote.

Please *promptly* flag up any problem you find with the new scoring and file management system. We have 13 teams depending on this system, so any glitch needs to be addressed quickly to avoid disruption.

Either use this thread to notify me and the other teams, or PM me. Do NOT assume I'll pick up information from any other team threads. I shall abide by the "no lurkers" rule while playing this game just like the rest of you.

Also, for information, any team member can upload a file, at any date in the game. When you submit the save file please enter your team member name exactly as we have it on the database to avoid rejections. It's not case sensitive, but any spaces or punctuation must be accurate.

I just want to be clarified on what exactly the saved game names have to be. I have sifted through the original discussion thread and i can't find it.

... I am willing to modify the variant with the following restriction.
If you call a vote for the UN, you must be at peace with ALL your opponents ...

The restriction suggested cannot be accepted because we are going to play the AW game with Diplo win. Just to put it short and plain simple.

I just want to be clarified on what exactly the saved game names have to be. I have sifted through the original discussion thread and i can't find it.
Jut name it whatever you like. It gets renamed when its uploaded to the server using Alan's remarkable upload page. :)

Jut name it whatever you like. It gets renamed when its uploaded to the server using Alan's remarkable upload page. :)
Thankyou ;)

With 60something players and only four people with an opinion I will not be changing the variant this month. There is enough in it I think to make it interesting. I also need to make sure the variants don't make games drag on for 6 months, or make them too daunting for the majority of players.

Sorry Genghis - If it makes you feel any better I would prefer the more restrictive variant if I were playing a standard SG.

Not a problem, just throwing the idea out there.

Good luck everyone!

handy - There was a link to the rules in the sign up thread. From now on it is NOT permitted to look in other teams threads. With the forum software upgrade it is a trivial matter to see who is browsing which thread.

If you think that this has not been made clear enough I will ask Karasu to underline it in the maintenance thread.

Please make a sticky thread in this forum with only! the rules in it and not allowing others to post in it. As it is now, it't impossible to find the rules - especially if you changed them.

grs: Yes it's needed, and in fact I promised the staff that I would do it 4 weeks ago :o The rules are not finalised yet, and changing them in the middle of a game is difficult. Nevertheless I will do it.

handy - There was a link to the rules in the sign up thread. From now on it is NOT permitted to look in other teams threads. With the forum software upgrade it is a trivial matter to see who is browsing which thread.

If you think that this has not been made clear enough I will ask Karasu to underline it in the maintenance thread.

Thanks. I like this as a rule so the other teams can't peek at our thread to see how far behind them we are. Also I can't peek & see them making fun of me in their threads. :lol:

Sorry for the dumb question, I should have read the thread more closely before I asked. :blush: I'm the kind that glances at instructions - if at all - before I charge ahead to do something.

Handy slinks away to read the rules (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1733966#post1733966)...

Can someone give me a bit of clarification?

I have seen references to RBC rules etc., but what ruleset are we actually adhering to? Lkendter, RBC, GOTM? Or is it just a complete free for all?
GOTM-rules I guess. :crazyeye:
So it's gonna get pretty nasty out there :devil2: ..... on the other hand, we do wanna win the diplomatic way! :love2:

Yes, let me confirm... We are playing and have always played by GOTM rules. Last month as a variant of sorts teams were given a scoring bonus for abiding by RBCiv rules.

SGOTM in game rules are identical to GOTM Rules

I am writing up a rules and FAQ post that may be stickied shortly, and when the rules and scoring and the general way that this event works settles down into something we can all live with for a while, I'll put a web page together.

Is there anything that can be done about people posting their saves on the wrong turn? It's going to be a nightmare to read that list if we don't get everyone on the same page.

No it's impossible. This is the fourth game like this I have run and it's always the same. However if you tick the little check box on that page tant says "Display as a graph" you get a graph which you may find easier to read.

If you have a specific suggestion as to how this can be improved, please contact Alanh and he'll discuss it with you. :)

Only suggestion I can make is to not allow the file to be uploaded, unless the correct year is in the save... Or can be build form the save. There seems to be a validation system to check the saves, so make this one of the criteria. Now keep in mind this is coming from someone who has no idea what he's talking about, just making suggestions.:p

Is there anything that can be done about people posting their saves on the wrong turn? It's going to be a nightmare to read that list if we don't get everyone on the same page.
Why should we reject a save at turn 41? Or 55? People may not be able to play ten turns, or they may be incapable of counting up to ten :p, or they may be at a critical point in the game where playing an extra turn makes sense before handing off to the next player.

I can give you a checkbox option to only list turns that are multiples of 10 if you like? How would that be?

... or they may be incapable of counting up to ten

You are not talking about me, Alan, are you... :smoke:

Thank you Alan, but to save you some trouble, I'll just view it in graph form. Maybe you could add a link, or on the page itself, the proper year numbers and the turns they represent... I know MB posted it somewhere, but if I hadn't have saved it on my computer, I doubt I'd remember them. I don't want to make this hard for you guys though... you've already done so much hard work on the system.

Thank you Alan, but to save you some trouble, I'll just view it in graph form. Maybe you could add a link, or on the page itself, the proper year numbers and the turns they represent... I know MB posted it somewhere, but if I hadn't have saved it on my computer, I doubt I'd remember them. I don't want to make this hard for you guys though... you've already done so much hard work on the system.
:hmm: That's why I listed BOTH parameters - turns and years - and they are both included along the X axis. You have that information already. How would you prefer it to be displayed?

You are not talking about me, Alan, are you... :smoke:
Why ever would I be referring to you? We all know rocket scientists can count .. it's in tbe job spec.

Only problem is you can only do it backwards: 10 .. 9 .. 8 .. 7 .. 6 .. 5 .. 4 .. 3 .. 2 .. 1 .. Ooops!

It might be a good idea to create -- similar to the GOTM -- spoiler threads where teams may discuss game progress once they meet certain criteria. What do you think?

Only problem is you can only do it backwards: 10 .. 9 .. 8 .. 7 .. 6 .. 5 .. 4 .. 3 .. 2 .. 1 .. Ooops!

:rotfl:
You have a point there :crazyeye: I'll tell my colleagues... :rotfl:

It might be a good idea to create -- similar to the GOTM -- spoiler threads where teams may discuss game progress once they meet certain criteria. What do you think?

In my opinion this is clearly a good idea. Assuming the staff agree I'll open a spoiler when a few of the teams have reached the MA.

Yes, why not.

I had some doubts about it -mainly because the existing team threads are already 'spoiler threads', if you take my point. So it may turn out that an 'official' spoiler thread could be somewhat redundant.
Another option would be to split the team threads themselves according to those criteria, and 'open' them to the teams who have met the criteria, but this would not leave any room for discussions.

It would be nice to have a dedicated space for cross-checks and comparisons, and it need not be based on the same approach as the GOTM spoilers. So yes, I'd give it a try.

A plain spoiler thread sounds a bit redundant, but there could be some discussion about various strengths and weaknesses. A volunteer could browse the team threads and do some comparison and contrasts to gets things rolling.

Actually.... I was thinking more along the lines of inviting the team leader for each game to write a summary of his/her teams game for the spoiler period, and once that post has been made, then allowing the other members of the team to post. People can then discuss tactics and how unlucky they were with leaders, and any "surprises" there may or may not have been etc.

The leaders would not have to post at the same time obviously.

I think their needs to be a way that the teams can share their experiences while the game is still fresh in their mind. I intend to try it anyway. I would rather just try it and see if it works, than theorise endlessly about what might work. If it stinks I'll drop it. :)

That sounds good. I'll bite.

Thank you Alan, but to save you some trouble, I'll just view it in graph form. Maybe you could add a link, or on the page itself, the proper year numbers and the turns they represent... I know MB posted it somewhere, but if I hadn't have saved it on my computer, I doubt I'd remember them. I don't want to make this hard for you guys though... you've already done so much hard work on the system.

I thought the incidence of non-standard turn counts was decreasing, but they are still coming. So I've added a row at the foot of the submissions table to list the date of the latest save for each team, as a link to the save. Note that as we move along in the game you will be able to choose to start the table at a later date so that it will not get too long. In this case, the bottom row will continue to show the lastest submission by every team, even if DGIT and bugsy are still on turn 40 when we are all finishing ;)

Ouch... :p Not sure about Bugsy but DGIT has been plagued with some bad luck... looks as if we're gonna be stuck in the stone age while everyone else is flying.:p

Thanks for the links for the saves Alan! Makes life a whole lot easier.

Ouch... :p Not sure about Bugsy but DGIT has been plagued with some bad luck... looks as if we're gonna be stuck in the stone age while everyone else is flying.:p

Thanks for the links for the saves Alan! Makes life a whole lot easier.
Whoops! Didn't realise you were on DGIT :blush:. The reason I knew you were behind was that you, bugsy and STAFF are the teams that were ahead of us in score last time they posted saves (since then bugsy has fallen back a little but STAFF are still hanging in there), so I've been watching your (non) progress on the score chart with particular interest. Sorry to hear it's all turned pear-shaped for you :cry:

Things are a bit better, and we just pulled out 30 turns today (saturday). Feeling a bit better about the progress now, or wish we stayed a bit behind? hehehe... I wonder what's going on with Bugsy... hope the training day game isn't slowing him down... I'm sure all of us in that would be willing if he had to play here. (hint, hint):p Now, since I don't know if it's him that's holding up the progress, we'll just have to leave it at that. And things didn't really turn bad in the game, just had a few skips and delays.

Not so pear-shaped anymore.
Our place on the scoreboard is looking rather sweet actually :p

Now, as it would seem we were the top team at this stage, (taking your spot BTW Alan), we will hope to keep up the curve, though i am wondering at your scoring.

I really want to know if its just a fast expansion or a early war taking everyone elses territory? My bets on fast expansion as the surrounding terrain hardly screams 'production machine' too me.

Not so pear-shaped anymore.
Our place on the scoreboard is looking rather sweet actually :p
Sandbaggers! :D

Now, as it would seem we were the top team at this stage, (taking your spot BTW Alan), we will hope to keep up the curve, though i am wondering at your scoring.You were always above us. That's why I was watching you so closely. Do you mean you are wondering about how Xteam is scoring so high, or about the way the scores are calculated in general. If the latter then it's just good old Firaxis, taken straight from the save. It should match up with the figure you see in F8. If the former, then we're probably doing similar things, but you started them a little earlier than us - the score difference only represents about 2 turns BTW - but we'll just have to wait for the end of era spoiler to find out :D

I really want to know if its just a fast expansion or a early war taking everyone elses territory? My bets on fast expansion as the surrounding terrain hardly screams 'production machine' too me.
Firaxis counts territory and happy/content/specialist faces. You're obviously building lots of cities and giving your citizens way too many goodies.:mischief:

Firaxis counts territory and happy/content/specialist faces. You're obviously building lots of cities and giving your citizens way too many goodies.:mischief:

On the contrary, our citizens live under the oppressive rule of ministers Oblivion, Alerum and Smackster who are hopefully to be joined by another two ministers soon. They are given no luxuries to eat, drink, wear or smell and are forced to go and settle new areas for the Motherland in untamed lands of grey warriors and horsemen who ride out of the blue :whipped:

... given no luxuries to eat, drink, wear or smell and are forced to go and settle new areas for the Motherland in untamed lands of grey warriors and horsemen... You've settled Reading, then? :D

... You've settled Reading, then? :D
Not yet, but we are going to visit soon, don't worry no spoiler here. I of course am also from Reading originally, so we are not just playing for the team, but also for the honour of the town too.

I like the idea of the spoiler too, and I think most teams will support doing a GOTM like write up of their game. I wonder if our score lead for instance would show up in a QSC1000BC comparison. In fact I wonder how we did get that lead, I think all of us on our team are used to the real Demi Gods expanding beyond our comprehension.

Smackster

Not yet, but we are going to visit soon, don't worry no spoiler here. I of course am also from Reading originally, so we are not just playing for the team, but also for the honour of the town too.

I like the idea of the spoiler too, and I think most teams will support doing a GOTM like write up of their game. I wonder if our score lead for instance would show up in a QSC1000BC comparison. In fact I wonder how we did get that lead, I think all of us on our team are used to the real Demi Gods expanding beyond our comprehension.

Smackster

You're from Reading? Reading england or USA?

I too am baffled by our early score lead. Me and Alerum are only Monarch players and i have been surprised by our higher score than everyone else, it just seems odd that people in teams who are helping Alerum (and me briefly) in a training day game are on teams below us in score :confused:

O well, i don't really mind

Water off a duck's back! Can't get a rise out of these Reading people :confused: Oh well, they do say where there's no sense there's no feeling.:mischief:

I agree the spoiler's going to be an interesting read. Both of us neeed to watch out for the other teams though. At this stage in the game these score differences are really very small. The real differences will happen when bigger decisions are taken. Better early expansion gives you more choices when those options start to appear, but you still have to "seize the day".

You're from Reading? Reading england or USA?

I too am baffled by our early score lead. Me and Alerum are only Monarch players and i have been surprised by our higher score than everyone else, it just seems odd that people in teams who are helping Alerum (and me briefly) in a training day game are on teams below us in score :confused:


Yes from England, although Woodley to be exact. I have lived away from Reading for 18 years now though. Actually I live very close to Reading, Massachusettes, USA, right now, it certainly confuses people here when I say I'm from Reading originally.

There are a few explanations for our good score, 1) is that your trainers were very good, 2) is as AlanH says the score doesn't mean much right now, I would like to see the QSC comparisons however, and 3) that I'm on your team :lol:

Smackster

Kool, i am from Tilehurst. I must admit i am surprised to find someone else origanally from Reading on the forum. 18 years. Phew. Its changed a lot since i was born, and im only 15.

Yea, the spoiler will be interesting.

Yep, the score will really matter later on.

EDIT: Just to let anyone reading know, we aren't going to blabber on and spam up the discussion thread anymore, we have taken our discussion to our own group.

I agree the spoiler's going to be an interesting read. Both of us neeed to watch out for the other teams though. At this stage in the game these score differences are really very small. The real differences will happen when bigger decisions are taken. Better early expansion gives you more choices when those options start to appear, but you still have to "seize the day".

I agree, reading the other team's threads after the game is over will be interesting. Don't expect too much from my spoiler, I'm a slow typist. Perhaps I can draft a team secretary. :lol:

I've never played purely for score before, so seeing what other teams scores are has gained my interest.

Would it be possible to add the members of each team to the scoreboard, or perhaps as a separate chart? It would be fun & interesting (to me anyway) to see who is on each team. It would also be helpful to know which teams, if any, are playing a variant like AW that affects score.

Signups
Have you considered a site similar to the upload site with a "form" for lack of a better word that you could have players complete to help you assemble the teams. Perhaps something with drop down boxes such as:
1. Highest level you have beaten
2. Have you ever played in an SG before?
3. Do you wish to play a variant? [Options: This month's variant, AW, 5CC, etc.]
4. Would you be willing to lead a team? [Definitely, only if you need me, No Way.]

The site could compile a running list of signups similar to the generated list of players who have submitted a GOTM.

I'd do it, but I'm a consultant by trade, so I don't actually DO anything. :lol: Beyond that, I don't have any programming knowledge or skill.

Team Handy Rally Cry: Avoid the spoon.

Thanks for the ideas. Keep them coming. I've been meaning to do something to provide the team lists. I think putting them on the main submissions scoreboard would be too cluttered, so I'll probably set up another linked page. We already have such a list for mad-bax to manage the team lists behind the scenes, so I just have to create a cut-down version without his editing features.

Re Signups:

Interesting idea. mad-bax looks after teh team formation process, so I don't have a feel for the process there. I think this game exceeded our expectations on signups, with 13 teams and 65 players. If this trend continues we may need some more formal way to collect data, and you will probably see some sort of form, or forms, as you describe. It will be a challenge to design though. Just one example, we have to find a way to collect info for players who want to sign up as ready-made teams as well as for individuals.

A consultant, huh? Been there, done that :rolleyes: Well, you at least have to do enough to ensure that the client knows there's more to be done ;) And I think there's a lot of skill in convincing someone to lend you their watch to tell them the time, then selling it back to them along with a proposal to supply a new one. :D

Alan - Hat's off to you for building the scoreboard to accept saves 1 year off from the 10 per player. We have some players new to SG's that are learning as we go. The graph option was also a stroke of genius. :thumbsup:

Sadly, we are a ways off from being able to join the Middle Ages Spoiler thread. :( Must be further behind than our score would indicate.

Just had an idea. Would it be possible on the score chart to change the color of the Teams score value when they enter the next Age? If so, by looking at the chart of scores you could get an idea if you were ahead, behind or in the midst of the pack as far as Tech research was concerned.

Wouldn't that be considered spoiler info?

More so than the score itself? :hmm:

Well, score can be achieved several ways, so while I agree that score is a bit of a spoiler I don't think it divulges specific information about the game progress. It does provide a bit of feedback about how the teams are doing, which seems to me to add a bit of spice to the competition. However, if you think it offers too much data then perhaps we should hide it :hmm:

But if a team plays slowly and could see when other teams are reaching the Industrial, for example, then they'd have a clear target to aim for, which they would then know is achievable.

Perhaps you are right. And I hesitate to say this, since you are threatning to hide it :eek:, some of the scoreline slants indicate certain actions. :hammer:
I don't really think you could use that info to change the way you play the game, though.

You're imagining thngs ;) I suspect there are lots of different ways to get your territory score to rise very fast indeed on this map, depending on how you prioritise .....

I thought it would be interesting information from a "where are you compared to others" point of view, just as the score is also interesting. I can see how the information might impact individual game play (especially if a team intentionally lags behind to see how the competition is doing), but in general I suspect the individual team's approach to the game is fairly set by now. Besides, the change of color will indicate a change of era within a block of 10 turns which is somewhat generic. And I can get the same general information based on when posts are added to the Spoiler thread and when the last save was (well, more or less; it tells me the latest date when they might have entered the next era).

These games are not being played in a vacuum; we know that several other teams are playing also and the game could be a long one, therefore a lot will happen before you find out much of what has gone on. I think the score definitely adds spice to the competition, and I thought this information would also. If it is felt to be too informative, that's fine too.

I'm open to adding it if the game managers are happy to do so, but I'll need some way to get the information. I may be able to extract it from the save if I can find out where that data is hidden. Alternatively I can provide a pop up in the submission form, but that would rely on teams not providing disinformation (or making mistakes :rolleyes: ) Otherwise, someone will have to browse the team threads and input the data manually.

It would also be nice to know which teams are playing the variant. According to the original team chart, we (Team Peanut) are the only ones playing it. Have others declared, or do they have to declare that they are playing it?

I don't think they have to declare it, because there's no score bonus for it. If they succeed in the variant objective then they may be eligible for the green laurels.

XTeam is going for it.

Anyone can tell me what the spoiler thread is for? I never played GOTM and don't assume everyone understands it.

@microbe,

spoiler threads were introduced in the GOTM to let players illustrate their progress and discuss approaches and tactics, gloat for their brilliant performance or mourn their unbelievably bad luck...

Being the GOTM a kind of competition, there are restrictions to viewing and posting in spoiler threads, so that players who have not yet reached a certain point in the game (or haven't even started) do not gain foreknowledge of the map, civs, resources and so on.

We are trying to do the same with the SGOTM, although its being a team event will surely give a different flavour to the SGOTM spoilers. My hope is that it will become a nice place to talk and joke about the game, but we'll see of course.

Would it be possible on the scoring data page to also put the team names in the middle of the chart so that it is not necessary to scroll to the top to see which team goes with which column?

I've played around with the submissions list, and produced a variant here (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/sgotm_submission_list_new.php)

This version includes a summary table at the top, which lists for each team:

- A link to the latest save, with its date
- The latest score
- The software version
- The cast of characters

You can choose to show or hide the new summary table, and since the latest saves are now in this list I've defaulted the rest of the page to show the graph. But you can still see the old list, except I've changed the starting date options to 50 turn intervals, and it defaults to the one that shows all teams' latest saves near the top.

Please tell me whether you like this version here in the discussion thread. If so I'll make it the standard one and relegate the previous one to history. As ever, if you have any suggestions please let me know

Nice addition, Alan. :thumbsup:

I like it. Thanks for the hard work AlanH.

But, one thing bothers me about it - the staff team is on the highest curve - surely this is a mistake :cringe:

The staff team is clearly benefiting from the fact that I absconded. IMHO mad-bax should level the playing field for the next game by moving me back in there to slow them down :D

I shall be very interested to see how things develop in the next few hundred years. With multiple scientific civs, the PtW teams will gain a significant advantage from the multiple freebie techs. We'll have to watch closely to see if any of them are capable of exploiting that advantage ...

Sorry about my dashes messing up the line spacement on your new chart thingy Alan :sad:

Sorry about my dashes messing up the line spacement on your new chart thingy Alan :sad:
It doesn't show any problems here. Can you put up a screenshot? I am suffering at the moment because my "beloved" (NOT!) Pentium has turned its toes up, so I can't test my pages in IE and see what you deprived Windows users can see currently :mischief:

Not only his dashes but also my spaces...

I was wondering what he was talking about as well with the dashes. I use Mozilla, and it looked fine to me. So, I opened it up in IE and it does look like the picture above.

This is what it looks like on a Win XP box using Mozilla 1.5:

How horrible! IE strikes again!

Here's what it looks like in a decent, w3c-compliant browser :mischief:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/sgotm_submissions.jpg

I've changed a width value. What does it look like now?

No different.

Oooh Kaaay:hmm: How about this? I've told it not to word wrap the name list text ...

Nope.
Guess we will have to live with it, or get another browser :p

I think it just treats spaces and commas like newlines for some reason. Maybe this can be suppresed in the html code?

One more try ... :p

I think it just treats spaces and commas like newlines for some reason. Maybe this can be suppresed in the html code?
No, it's word wrapping on the spaces and treating hyphens as separate words. The basic problem is it insists on making that right hand column narrow. I have found and removed a rogue width spec. A decent browser would ignore it because it should use the widest spec in the column, but IE was never, ever, anyone's idea of a decent browser (it's acually better on a Mac, but still not good)

Now it works :thumbsup:

Thankyou :D

Look at this...! :banana:

Thanks guys. It's patient testers like you that make an old softie very happy :sob:

Thanks guys. It's patient testers like you that make a softie very happy :sob:

Only until you see the new scores... :mischief:

I've already pointed out that you guys are taking an unfair advantage by not having me on the Staff team to slow you down :p

... and since your screenshot show that you have the 150 BC Paint job open currently, I assume we have you to thank for the turns that pushed the Staff team's score line off the scale? :( :mad: :hatsoff:

I wondered whether you'd spot that. :D I should've known you would! :hatsoff: too.

Just checked out the new scoring list (in IE - which looks great now, thanks to the testers). Anyway, this is a fantastic update! (Like having your cake and eating it too!) Thanks for your work on this and other GOTM projects, AlanH! But I have to keep repeating to myself ... "Score isn't everything ... score isn't everything ..."

The new list is much better, keep it.

I think they're both good and if you don't think it's giving away too much info (I know I for one can't read anything out of that list, but maybe that's because we're like 5 saves ahead of most teams :p), the submission page could be displayed as on Alan's test page: with the team summary on top followed by the complete list of submitted files below.

:goodjob: Alan.
But you really have to stop this nonsense about defecting to the staff team. We'd be lost without you :confused: Think of the staff as your enemy, they're :evil:

I only have to change one file name to make the new one the default. I get the feeling that is the majority vote, so .....

Done :D

For all who hate change, the old one is still available at http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/sgotm_submission_list_old.php. But you can adjust the new one to look like that just by hiding the summary. And BTW the settings you select are in the url, so if you bookmark the page when it's in the format you prefer, it will reappear in that state each time you open it or refresh it.

(bows down to AlanH) Thanks so much for the new chart! It's a hell of a lot easier then the old list. No more odd number years!!! I'd :mosh: into you, but don't have a smiley for it.:p

Well, the old chart is still there, you just have to select it in place of the graph below the new chart, and if the latest save from a team is an odd year then that's what will be listed in the new chart. So you'll still see them from time to time.

I'd say thanks, if I knew what a :mosh: looked like :hmm:

Very simple... two smilies smashing into each other, and making a grimacing face.:)

And even if it throws in the odd year, still won't make the chart more difficult to read. And being able to see the whos on the team... very nice.;) The only thing I can think of that would make the game better is if the Staff team would let the governer run 10 of their turns instead of a player.:p:p That would be very nice! (Yes, I'm on DGiT)

I was trying to find the rules on moving the palace, as I know that the exploit under it was under some debate a couple months ago. What are the rules on that? The official link from the GOTM website is not very clear on what the final verdict was. What is the official verdict for SGOTM2?

@Pindicator: The list of allowed and banned ploys/exploits is here (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/gen/rules2.shtml). The "Red" list includes the remote palace rank corruption exploit.

Thanks AlanH, after the issues put forward in that discussion thread, I was wondering if there had been any re-writing or clarification of the rule, but I will interpret it as written as well as in the spirit of the game.

Since Team Kuningas has finished there game, we are free to lurk in the other team's threads. Right?

Since Team Kuningas has finished there game, we are free to lurk in the other team's threads. Right?Sure, as long as you keep what you find out to yourselves. Feel free to come and laugh at Xteam's efforts, but don't throw rotten fruit and veg, please ;)

Team Kuningas has finished domination win at 980AD.

Congratulations :goodjob:

One less contender for the Golden Laurels!

I've modified the submissions status screen so that the victory bonuses for the final saves for teams who have finished are not plotted on the graph, otherwise the victory bonus reduces the vertical scale excessively. However, the final Firaxis score for these teams is shown in red in the summary listing.

What about a 2nd spoiler for the teams finished to describe how they did it?

What about a 2nd spoiler for the teams finished to describe how they did it?One of them hasn't even admitted to having finished, even though the submissions system tells the story ;)

The Game Master isn't back from Disneyworld yet, so I guess we have to wait for him to ride the magic carpet, shake the woofle dust from his hair and open a new thread ....

PS Presumably only teams who have finished will be allowed to read it if and when it's posted unless spoiler 2 is for the end of Middle Ages. Better get moving!

Let me add another suggestion: as the Firaxis score is nice, but the ranking will be according to Jason score (AFAIK), can you put the Jason score for the teams finished in the team summary table?

can you put the Jason score for the teams finished in the team summary table?
Your wish is my command ;) How's that?

Looks good as usual, Alan :)

Regarding the spoiler, I think another one would be nice. I am inclined to think that two spoilers are probably too many at this point, but I may be wrong of course.

If there are no objections, I can open the second spoiler thread for those who completed.

LogPlot and fine analysis of Fraxis scope.

Here is detailed analysis of Fraxis scope. Because it growth exponentially at the beginning of the game it is reasonable to plot it in Log scale. Also, to emphasize fine variation of progress I normalized it to our “average” growth (Lowest vs all other teams). The legend is Hue, aktos: red, and other teams in alphabetic rainbow scale Alamo: orange, ankka: yellow, bugsy: yellow-green, dgit: green, handy: green-blue, kuningas: light-blue-green, offa: light-blue, peanut: dark-blue, scout: dark-dark-blue, staff:violet, tao-violet-red, x-team: red-violet. Black line indicate Fraxis scope.
Now some features are visible. First there is two pronounced crisis: young civ crisis and mid-life crisis when exponential growth is not possible. (It looks, that X team reach next mature crisis). First crisis normally associated with second settler production, and its depth depend how well capital prepared for that. Details in “Open period” shows that teams managed this period differently and digit team did it in the “best” way. Then we can observe “Settler Factory” period: at this time growth is truly exponential (linear in Log scale) and we can find who did it, how successfully, and when stop. So, put this dates in your summary. Interesting tendency is, however, that smaller young crisis, the stronger midlife crisis. Good exception Kuningas – moderate young crisis and no midlife, bad exception Scout: “normal” young crisis and strong mid-life. Particular features of mid-life may be very different and if you can put this details in summary will be nice.
There are two remedies against that: military expansion and Republic (Monarchy). For our team I showed that with letters “w” and “R”. Also, please state these dates or periods in your summary.

Ivan: I haven't had time to study the graphs properly, but they are great. :thumbsup:

The first minimum appears to either coincide with the first settler (and the temporary loss of pop) or the length of time to get the first settler out. DGIT din't seem to have this. Did they build a granary before settler? If not it may be a reason.

The linear part of the graph is settler factory production of course. The gradient shows how well the settler factory was managed, this is true too.

I think that those teams that experienced the mid-life crisis probably began military expanxion too late. At late stages of the settler factory, settlers have to walk further and are building more corrupt cities, and so rate of change of score decreases. Military expansion must start b4 the settler factory outlives it's usefulness.

Later in the game, most teams games fall away. MAybe this is due to having more cities players become less efficient, and slacken off. Maybe some of it is due to less productive and slow growing cities because of all the jungle. I'm not sure.

What is clear though is that by any measure team Kuningas definitely played the best non-variant game.

We (Digit) built one warrior and then the Granary, helped that with a well timed forest chop and then started on the settlers. For some time I think we had just that one warrior exploring (took a little risk with barbs), as we were pumping just settlers. Also we finished the irrigations before doing any road building. So we really maximised time to get settlers out, at risk of losing something to barbs.

However, this scheme backfired as we took forever to meet our rivals, and so probably lost out on some important trading turns. We lagged in tech, and only caught up much later on when we made peace with the English after war. In hindsight, a second warrior exploring would have really helped.

The result was we were later to Chivalry, and late to capture our continent.

Smackster

That's a really interesting graph Ivan... It has been a while since I have tinkered with logarithmic scales.

Interesting that you describe our team as having a "normal" early crisis and a "strong" mid-life crisis. I'll have to look at exactly when that dip in the scale was...

I know that as we reached the middle ages we lost a couple of settler pairs to raging hordes of barbarians. This, combined with a rough anarchy period going to republic about the same time.. might have contributed to this "strong" mid-game crisis.

We also took what I hope was a unique approach to the game (and yes, we're playing the variant). I can guarantee that our approach affected the score, because it's the most anti-score driven approach I think I've played. :mischief:

Excellent work, Ivan! :goodjob:

I'm not sure I understand the graph yet. What does zero on the y axis (ie the x axis line) represent?

Any horizontal line represents the average RATE of score. So if you have a positive gradient you are doing better than average, and if you have a negative gradient then you are doing worse than average.

Really we should be using the theoretical best game formula for jason for the transformation... I might even do that for SGOTM3 - which by the by has been announced >>HERE<< (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=1974907&postcount=1)

Sorry, I'm obviously being thick. Friday night, end of a long week and all that. :confused:

I can understand how *one* horizontal line can represent the average score, or rate of score, but not *any* horizontal line. Ivan talks about "score", I think, not "rate of score" (1st derivative). But, whatever the Y-axis represents, if the X-axis is the average of the values of the team lines then surely there should always be as much variation below it as above it. But I don't see this in the image we have.

Really we should be using the theoretical best game formula for jason for the transformation... I might even do that for SGOTM3If we can get to where I understand the graph and how to calculate it, I can add it to the submissions page as real time feedback.

A horizontal line through Y=0 means you are average. On any given turn you have the average score, and therefore rate of score.

A horizontal line through Y=2 means that at any given turn you were 100 points better than average (10^2 = 100), but your rate of scoring is only average.

I must confess, having written that out the Y scale seems a bit compressed to me (without going to check it). I suppose he might have divided instead of subtracted the average, in which case each line depicts the proportion of average. i.e how many times better than average. That would explain the Y-scale. log2 is about 0.3 (in my head :eek: ) I think. So some teams were scoring 2 or 3 times the average. Personally I think his average is a bit wide of the mark. There is only 1 team below Y0, there should be 6.

As I said it should be normalised to perfect Jason. I think Ivan asked for it in fact, but I don't have the power.

A horizontal line through Y=0 means you are average. On any given turn you have the average score, and therefore rate of score.

A horizontal line through Y=2 means that at any given turn you were 100 points better than average (10^2 = 100), but your rate of scoring is only average.

I must confess, having written that out the Y scale seems a bit compressed to me (without going to check it). I suppose he might have divided instead of subtracted the average, in which case each line depicts the proportion of average. i.e how many times better than average. That would explain the Y-scale. log2 is about 0.3 (in my head :eek: ) I think. So some teams were scoring 2 or 3 times the average. Personally I think his average is a bit wide of the mark. There is only 1 team below Y0, there should be 6.

As I said it should be normalised to perfect Jason. I think Ivan asked for it in fact, but I don't have the power.
No, Y zero is our team "avarage". If you above you above our avarage. (Assuming, that we grow exponentially). Three teams keep exponential growth, but Kuningas has much larger increment then we and aktos. I took (my programm of course) Log of score of each team each data and substract our avarage growth, that is linear in Log scale. Because of that black lines (Fraxis 100, 310, 1000) bend down.

So, if you take point (x,y) at my diagram (say at a cure of some team) the score will be equal to: Exp(3.82022+ 0.0162733*x+y). So at 550BC (x=100) three teams has score larger than 310 and one (bagsy) almoust 310 (308). When you intersect thin black line you get turn number, when you got this score. For example all teams at 840 AD had score larger, then 1000.

Very intrigueing graph, Ivan :goodjob:

Xteam inputs re. Ivan's graph:

I am assuming the Xteam curve is the one that peaks near X=210, Y=0.5.
There appear to be several interesting events on our curve. We have to remember that the data points are ten turns apart, then I assume the curves are smoothed, so the curve may not track the real time events precisely:

1. It looks like we had no juvenile crisis as we built our second city.

2. Our relative growth flattened out a lot at turn 70 (1250 BC) and turned negative at turn 90 (750 BC)

Looking at our turn log for this period I don't recall anything specific but it looks like we shifted emphasis towards building more warriors for future upgrade, knowing we were going to hit Russia shortly. We were alternating settlers and warriors in Berlin, but we were also producing settlers in Hamburg. We did have one ten turn sequence where no new towns were founded. Then another where there were three settlers in transit at the end of the set. I think this may also have been the point at which it was taking a lot longer to get settlers from the core to their destinations. And maybe were light on workers to handle the terrain improvements we needed as our empire grew.

We declared war on Russia in 590 BC (Turn 98) so this is a little before the 'w' on the graph. Our early war only resulted in razed cities as the AI pop-rushed cities with zero culture down to pop 1, and we were shifting settlers a long way from our core to populate the vacated spaces. So I think this phase probably accounts for the down-turn.

3. Our low growth phase bottomed out and turned back up at turn 115 (250 BC)
This was the critical time in the game when we really started to capture and occupy Russian and French territory, including Paris and the Pyramids, we got a Great Leader and built our Forbidden Palace in France, we flipped to Republic, and we switched back from military to settler building, all in the space of twenty turns.

Our 'R' was a 6 turn revolution starting at 230 BC (turn 116)

4. We levelled off and turned over again at turn 210 (950 AD)
That was precisely the turn at which our notes show that we had finished homeland expansion:

Our mainland territory is pretty well tied up now.....
There's a Settler with a Sword ready to build on the NW island. .... There's another on a Galleon off the south west coast of the island.

From there on we didn't want to trigger a domination victory, and to get closer to the limit we would have had to take territory on the other continent which we chose not to do. So I'm guessing that the only thing that stops our line running down parallel with the black lines is that we continued to expand our population and tried to keep them happy. But with a four turn research program to finance we had no spare cash for entertainment, so we were building happiness stuff as fast as we could in the big towns. We also avoided all the optional techs, so we took Sistine, Bach, etc opportunistically, and didn't research Sanitation until after we had Fission and were cruising to the end game. Very few cities grew past 12 until the last10 turns of our game.

I know this is total spam, but it's just too funny to keep to our thread. We had some of the ususal "diplomatic" stuff arise, and that stupid Trade Advisor piped up. You know the one. She remains pouty-faced even when you've acquired 2 of every imaginable resource...

...then one of my team came up with this little gem:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Good_News_2.JPG

That is beautiful :)