SGOTM 13 - Maintenance Thread

[AlanH]

Thanks for reminding everyone of the deadline. Please note that 1AD might be close to end-of-game for some teams - one way or another ...

Unless multiple teams make a good case, I don't see any need to extend the current deadline. All of the teams appear to be making progress, and it's up to each team to ensure that they can achieve it.

[Gumbolt]

Alan seeing as no other team has posted I can only conclude most are still happy with 4 months.

We will play on assuming 4 months. 5 months does seem a bit long!

[kcd_swede]

Originally Posted by Gumbolt

Alan seeing as no other team has posted I can only conclude most are still happy with 4 months.

We will play on assuming 4 months. 5 months does seem a bit long!

Unusual Suspect votes NO on extension. And if the rest of you could also play 1.18 turns per post this could really put the M in SGOTM.

[Compromise]

Enough silliness! We all know that the "M" in SGOTM stands for Megadekasecond. The very idea of messing around with this wondrous unit of measurement is nearly inconceivable.

[nocho]

So I just bought Tapatalk which is an app for the iPhone (and Android I think) to have access to any VBulletin-based forums, like CFC. CFC seemingly installed it the other day to make the access possible, it was also discussed in site-feedback.

Now the thing is, it seems to work pretty great, but it has the behaviour that it shows the first few lines (dunno, 50 or 100 chars or something) of all threads when you browse to a forum. This obviously is a bit awkward for the SGOTM forum as it shows some (though little) information about all teams threads. I'm not sure if this preview is a feature that can be disabled. Besides, I obviously don't know how this App technically works, but I hope the "preview" doesn't provoke that your user gets registered as having actually read any of the other teams' threads.

Obvious question is how to manage the use of Tapatalk regarding this particular subforum. After I noticed this behaviour I actually didn't dare to browse to this subforum with Tapatalk (I'm now typing this on a regular PC...), but some team's thread showed up in "Latest" (which shows the last posts made anywhere on CFC) with (small) part of the post made. To be specific and perfectly clear about it, I unwantingly saw first part of a post made by Deckhand of the Unusual Suspects at 15h51 CET... (nothing very spoilery btw, but that's besides the point).

It would be a shame to outright prohibit the use of this App for any SGOTM member as it does seem to be a very nice tool for browsing VBulletin-based forums, especially if you're also active outside of this particular subforum.

Anyway, I thought it good to bring this to attention and let moderators decide about it. Obviously.

[Deckhand]

Originally Posted by nocho

I unwantingly saw first part of a post made by Deckhand of the Unusual Suspects at 15h51 CET...

OH NOES!
All my secrets are belong to you!

In general, this doesn't worry me. >99% of the time nothing spoilerish will be revealed this way. Plus it is easy to cheat intentionally and I have confidence that none of us are doing that. But there is the <1% of inadvertant info spill that would be spoilerish. Interested to hear the moderators take.

Originally Posted by Compromise

Enough silliness! We all know that the "M" in SGOTM stands for Megadekasecond. The very idea of messing around with this wondrous unit of measurement is nearly inconceivable.

An excellent unit, 115.740740740 days by my calculation. Fits perfectly with our < 4 months schedule. Is there ever enough silliness?

[nocho]

Originally Posted by Deckhand

OH NOES!
All my secrets are belong to you!

In general, this doesn't worry me. >99% of the time nothing spoilerish will be revealed this way. Plus it is easy to cheat intentionally and I have confidence that none of us are doing that. But there is the <1% of inadvertant info spill that would be spoilerish. Interested to hear the moderators take.

If the Maple Sporks unexpectedly rise to fame and glory, you should know part of the credit is yours. Especially if we end up with the wooden spoons.

More seriously though, I must agree that the information you (unwantingly) get this way is rather limited and not really useful in any way, but it's still spoilerish obviously. It must be a bit like the user/thread search function that infamously came to attention a couple of SGOTMs back. Anyway, if the moderators forbid the use of Tapatalk I'll try to get my money back from the App-store.

[AlanH]

There are a gazillion ways to get sneak peaks at the team threads, so I'm not going to get excited about one more.

This is a friendly competition; there is no way to police it for 100% security given the environment we live in; and I have better things to do with my time than to try to work out new ways to stick my fingers in the dyke.

I am sure you all try to play the game in a spirit of fair competition.

[Gumbolt]

Can I clarify a few rulings Alan.

I think quite a few teams have probably been posting their live save in the thread to conceal their true scores/ finishing dates. Hence why we still have a few early BC/AD scores.

Is there an expectation for the live save to be submitted after each turnset? Or can a save be played 2-3 turnsets and be posted at the end as long as the save is posted in the forum each time?

Also the teams that have perhaps finished. I assume they will be required to submit their final save before the deadline arrives even if stored in the team thread?

Also rules on reading other teams threads. I assume a team can't do this before the final save is submitted even if the game is complete on their team thread.

Whilst this may or may not apply to most teams it is interesting to determine proper procedure here.

[kcd_swede]

@Gumbolt: Not sure what's unclear to you. Rule 7 in the SGOTM reference page covers this:

7. Saves must be transferred by uploading to the >>SUBMISSIONS PAGE<< and downloading through the >>RESULTS PAGE<< This enables statistics to be collated and presented to the world, and it offers some protection for your game.

In extraordinary circumstances, this can be over-ruled by rule # 1, of course. But... If the server is accepting submissions, the permission to transfer saves by other means that we were given earlier (under rule #1) does not apply.

Some teams will be slower than other because they have more discord on establishing a strategy. Once a strategy is established, though, executing it doesn't take long at all.

[Gumbolt]

Originally Posted by kcd_swede

@Gumbolt: Not sure what's unclear to you. Rule 7 in the SGOTM reference page covers this:



In extraordinary circumstances, this can be over-ruled by rule # 1, of course. But... If the server is accepting submissions, the permission to transfer saves by other means that we were given earlier (under rule #1) does not apply.

Some teams will be slower than other because they have more discord on establishing a strategy. Once a strategy is established, though, executing it doesn't take long at all.

It is the timliness of this procedure I am questioning. It is possible all teams have submitted all their saves within 24 hours of playing. I just want to make sure all teams know what is expected of them.

[AlanH]

Unless the server is down, which has not been the case for more than a few days, saves are required to be exchanged within the teams via the server. If a save has not been uploaded then it cannot be played by the next team member. Simples.

If you select List of Saves in the format menu on the progress page, you can hover your mouse over each save entry to see when it was uploaded. All but one of the teams has uploaded a save in the last week.

Note that you will not see the final save if a team has finished, until after the game is over.

[Duckweed]

@Gumbolt

AlanH gave rather clear hint in previous post regarding the game progress of most teams already.

Originally Posted by AlanH

Please note that 1AD might be close to end-of-game for some teams - one way or another ...

If you take a look at the BOTM history, you will see that early AD domination and conquest victory in Immortal level and below were quite normal.

[Gumbolt]

Oh GOTM submission list page appears down as of now! Could just be my connection but I doubt it.

12 days left!!

[AlanH]

Help! The sky is falling!

Exchange files as I described above if you can't use the server!

[AlanH]

Everyone has finished - and won!

Here is the Results and Congratulations thread.

Don't forget to use the replay facility to see and compare animated maps, events and graphs, as the teams built their empires.