I wanted to take a few minutes here to focus not just on the medal and award winners who deserve or admiration and congratulations but also to focus in a broader sense on the players who have performed well enough to place in the top 40 positions of the last two GOTM games.
The 40 positions represent less that 20% of the submitted games but clearly illustrate some important points about the quality of the community in general and also the emerging skills and performance levels that we see across all skill segements of the player pool.
Some new players to the GOTM games are put off by the fact that they see the names of many top performers at or near the top of the rankings on a month after month basis. A player who plays their first game and comes in at 170th or 214th place might make the wrong interpretation if the look up a fail to recognize that new and emerging players are constantly moving up into the top 40 positiosn by taking advantage of the QSC game discussion and the detailed spoiler and strategy discussions that accompany every game. It is almost impossible for any player not to improve in skill and also to not evolve to where they can get a lot more enjoyment out of the challenges that come from raising their personal game skills to new levels.
I know I speak on behalf of all the GOTM staff members when I say that we want to use the attached table image below as a basis to focus on a number of individual players and acknowledge their personal performance and achievements in Gotm20-Spain as well as in other recent GOTM games:
Qitai - Is performing fantasticly, in only his second GOTM game after several strong seasons as a tournament player. His Silver medal in Gotm19 and Gold Medal in Gotm20 combine with dominating QSC performances to reinforce that excellent players focus on game winning skills from even before they begin each game and that they do well in almost any game situation.
DaveMcW, Alexman, Moonsinger, Bremp, and SirPleb - Are always top skill performers in the games but you see them moving around in scoring positions and trying new things that focus on specific strategy choices that they feel would be fun or appropriate for each game.
Snaga - Is another new and amazing player appearing in only his second GOTM game and is truly demonstrating his command of the domination aspects of the game. He is clearly a long term player, but represents a great example of what we might hope our community can attract in terms of players who have not played in the past but who now may find the extra challenges of the GOTM worthy of their participation.
Mark Cutt - Is another strong emerging player who has only joined us in recent months but who is clearly performing at or near the top of the results in each game.
Zwingli and tao - Represent some of the top players who have only recently joined use from the MAC tournament land where they were seemingly permanently trapped in an outdated version of the software. What is even more amazaing about their performance is recognzing that they have overcome a 9 month experience and knowledge gap to adapt the drastically increased tech costs and trading challenges that they did not have to play against just 3 months ago.
Ronald, Yndy, and ADel - are nother set of players that reliably finsh in the top 30 positions by focusing on strong early game skills as well as chosing a variety of enjoyable ways to win ther different games.
Green Light - Is the top scoring emerging player in this month's Gotm20 game. He only begin playing the games regularly in Gotm18 and when he finished in 46th postion and in Gotm19 he was at 53rd position but this month he surged up to 13th position indicating that he is probably always well within reach of the leaders in any given game.
Mazarin - first joined us in Gotm15-Russia at 146th position but has actively played in the past two games at a much improved level. Will he share with us what he has done to make the great improvement?
Kemal, Karasu, Creepster, Darkness, and Hurricane - are consistent top performers taht always seem to be well within reach of the top three finishing games of any victory condition.
Acivguy - a new and emerging player who so far seems to have taken out a long term lease on 16th position?
Txurce - another refugee from MacCiv-Land but in this case he seems to be gaining positions by leaps and bounds in an oscillating adaptation mode. Position 5s in Gotm17, 15th in Gotm18, 73 in Gotm19 and now up to 19th in Gotm20. An example here that seems to be absorbing all the new features of the game and emerging as a future consistent player.
Black Hawk and Sinner - both of these players first joined us in August 2002 and have since become consistent strong players playing in virtually every game.
Xevious - first joined us for the painful Babylon experience in December where he like almost all other players was disemboweled by Conquest at the hands of Xerxes, Shaka, and Tokugawa but managed to survive in spirit until the new year and is now regularly in the top positions.
Renata - first joined us in Gotm17 when the games became available in PTW and her debut was at 45th position while her sophomore game won her a fastest space ship victory award. Consistently in the top 30 to 40 positions and always in the hunt for an award.
This now moves us into a range with a large number of emerging and improving players that are playing great games and moving into tough contention for recognition for their excellent game play:
Rabies, Drazek, Gozpel, mad-bax, Greebley, and jeffelammar - all turned in ecellent game form Gotm20 to move them up into the emerging contender game categories.
We could continue down the player list ane every individual player represents a fantastic set of play examples of making choices to enjoy their games in new and exciting ways that expand their personal enjoyment as well as the quality of the shared experience.
We as your staff want to just take this opportunity to that every player at every skill level for continuing to play strong games and to make the final results of the GOTM games add up to be such a special experience.
and then some. 
. The amount of time played should be recorded in a somewhat different way, e.g. only record time if there is mouse or keyboard use. But as it is now, is fine by me! This way I get to freak out a lot of fellow Civ'rs! :devil2:
) Still, it's better than I thought I would do.
)
