Fluroscent
Emperor
I'll still play the Civ4 XOTM's. Scaling back may be reasonable, but personally I don't expect V to be as compelling as a competitive game for a while.
News: Game of the month for Civ V - feedback appreciated
- Thread starter Erkon
- Start date
mushroomshirt
King
Personally, I'll be switching to civ V as soon as its out & don't plan on anymore civ IV XOTMs after this set.
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2008
- Messages
- 25,088
I plan to play Civ 4 xOTMs and the SGOTM as long as yall keep making them. The same for CIVIII has been going on for a loooong time, and I think CIV4 will hold up aesthetically a lot longer than III.
donsig
Low level intermediary
Two things I have found frustrating in the GOTMs (both Civ III and Civ IV):
1) There is too much emphasis on fast finishes. Builder types aren't going to finish as fast as someone who puts 100% effort into securing a fast win of a given type. I don't think a time victory can ever out score a fast type finish.
2) Some of the games are jsut too difficult. I understand the creators try to make challenging games for the Civ experts but that makes it really tough on the rest of us to keep our interest.(That said I do like some of the spins that have been put on the game in the GOTMs. The Cyprus games and the one where we started with an artillery unit were interesting.)
What to do about these?
I doubt #1 will ever change. Time of finish is the easiest way to have a tie breaker. I personally value cities with libraries and other buildings whether they actually are 'worth it' in game terms or contribute to a faster victory. This is a personal preference and I do not have the time nor inclination to suggest a different value system for a tie breaker.
For #2, is it possible to give us a choice of difficulty level? Rather than the three levels we have to choose form know where there are bonuses or penalties to adjust the challenge rating could we have the same map but available in all different difficulty levels? Then we could choose the level we want to play at and a GOTM scoring system could be developed to compare the scores?
1) There is too much emphasis on fast finishes. Builder types aren't going to finish as fast as someone who puts 100% effort into securing a fast win of a given type. I don't think a time victory can ever out score a fast type finish.
2) Some of the games are jsut too difficult. I understand the creators try to make challenging games for the Civ experts but that makes it really tough on the rest of us to keep our interest.(That said I do like some of the spins that have been put on the game in the GOTMs. The Cyprus games and the one where we started with an artillery unit were interesting.)
What to do about these?
I doubt #1 will ever change. Time of finish is the easiest way to have a tie breaker. I personally value cities with libraries and other buildings whether they actually are 'worth it' in game terms or contribute to a faster victory. This is a personal preference and I do not have the time nor inclination to suggest a different value system for a tie breaker.For #2, is it possible to give us a choice of difficulty level? Rather than the three levels we have to choose form know where there are bonuses or penalties to adjust the challenge rating could we have the same map but available in all different difficulty levels? Then we could choose the level we want to play at and a GOTM scoring system could be developed to compare the scores?
I'm also likely to still be playing BOTMs for quite some time yet. (Especially as CivV for the Mac isn't due out for quite some time.)
You should check out the HoF Challenge Series II, then. Unlike the Challenge Series I, it let everyone choose their own level to play, and came up with a way to compare the games. This actually did succeed in greatly increasing the particpation (number of players and number of games submitted). However, it had the result of rendering only Settler and Deity level games as competitive. If you are a deity level player, fine for you. Otherwise, if you want to be competitive... you are playing a lot of Setller level games where the contest is to see who can stomp the AI fastest.
Perhaps instead if you want a builder's challenge, you should try out an informal one. In each pre-game thread, propose a set of criterion one needs to meet your builders challenge (no unhappy cities, no unhealthy cities, X number of Universities, X number of WW, X number of NW... etc). See how much interest there is in such a competition before instituting a medal for it, maybe.
BTW: if you award it a medal, it will still be the best players winning it (pretty much the same strategy as stomp the AI and milk score). But shouldn't the awards almost always go to the best players? Otherwise what do they really mean?
Ribannah
Fighter Druid
I have just finished my very last game of Civ4 and won't look back. I am really excited by the prospect of playing an entirely new strategy game where there is lots to discover and I start at the very beginning of my learning curve. 
Hi all,
Thanks for all your suggestions, ideas and comments
The release of Civ 5 is roughly a month away for most of us (except C63
) and I would like to share my view on some of the proposals, and bring up a couple of issues we face. I still want to have an open discussion so don't hesitate to state if you agree, disagree or have better ideas.
First, let me clarify the purpose with the GOTM series (and SGOTM in some sense). It's a friendly competition. That's it actually. Now, friendly means that we have fun, we help each other with advice and spoilers, we try to learn from each others to become better Civ players. Competition means that there are rules to follow, and mechanisms in place to enable us to compare against each others (we try to perform better than our co-competitors). We're not going to change this fundamental definition for Civ5 GOTM, but we need to adopt due to changes in the game, and according to what the player community asks for.
The friendly part of Civ5 GOTM
Many of you have suggested that the spoiler threads are opened earlier in time (e.g. a day or so after the game is launched), and also an earlier date for the first spoiler. I have no idea how Civ5 compares to Civ4 when it comes to development pace, but I'm sure we can try this out, although the exact details needs to be sorted out.
It seems that the expectations on GOTM is quite diverse and each player has their own view of what makes GOTM fun and interesting. This is of course good and healthy, although it requires special care so that we don't ruin the fun for people when introducing changes. This is one reason why I feel a bit reluctant to have conditions defined by the staff on a regular basis, or impose limitations on the complete field of players. In my opinion it's much better if the players organize sub-competitions, and keep those completely voluntarily. I think such sub-competitions could cover a lot of the ideas presented previously, such as "best spoiler" or "fastest real time victory" as long as they can be clearly defined. Perhaps we can find a way to make these sub-competitions more attractive? What support would be needed from the staff?
The competitive part of Civ5 GOTM
As you probably know, the GOTM series requires a security mod to ensure every player has the correct setup i.e. no modifications to the game rules. This mod has been developed by the Hall of Fame staff (aka HOF Mod), and was later improved with more features to become BUFFY. We need something similar for running the actual Civ5 competition, and this may take a while i.e. several months. We (i.e. Alan) also need to update the submission mechanism and learn how to extract information from the saves, which may be tricky if the save format is not available
We also need to revise the award system, since both conquest and religious victory conditions are gone in Civ5. There has been a lot of valuable discussion regarding the pros and cons of score based ranking, and it seems like the majority supports the removal the score medals. However, the alternatives are not yet fully explored. This is related to the amount of awards that should be distributed, the global ranking system (which currently supports both speed and score), and the eptathlon award. Again, we need to know how the game works e.g. how score is calculated, before taking any decisions.
Training series
It is thus unfortunate but most probable that the Civ5 GOTM will not start right after the release of the game. Still, we need games to be played to learn how the award system shall work, and I presume there are players who want to share their experiences, achievements, failures and questions. One way to accomplish this is to run games without the security mod, as proposed elsewhere, and with limited support for submissions. We can still compare our games since we play the same save, but the focus would be to learn from each other, and create an environment for discussions. The staff is prepared to host these games by creating the saves and setting up the associated threads. We can also suggest certain objectives for each game that will focus on the new stuff, which will direct the discussion towards specific features. Does this sound like a good idea?
Now, I know I haven't commented on all posts, but I hope I (or someone else from the staff) can dive deeper into some proposals since many of you have invested a lot of thought and effort into this thread
Thanks for all your suggestions, ideas and comments
The release of Civ 5 is roughly a month away for most of us (except C63
) and I would like to share my view on some of the proposals, and bring up a couple of issues we face. I still want to have an open discussion so don't hesitate to state if you agree, disagree or have better ideas.First, let me clarify the purpose with the GOTM series (and SGOTM in some sense). It's a friendly competition. That's it actually. Now, friendly means that we have fun, we help each other with advice and spoilers, we try to learn from each others to become better Civ players. Competition means that there are rules to follow, and mechanisms in place to enable us to compare against each others (we try to perform better than our co-competitors). We're not going to change this fundamental definition for Civ5 GOTM, but we need to adopt due to changes in the game, and according to what the player community asks for.
The friendly part of Civ5 GOTM
Many of you have suggested that the spoiler threads are opened earlier in time (e.g. a day or so after the game is launched), and also an earlier date for the first spoiler. I have no idea how Civ5 compares to Civ4 when it comes to development pace, but I'm sure we can try this out, although the exact details needs to be sorted out.
It seems that the expectations on GOTM is quite diverse and each player has their own view of what makes GOTM fun and interesting. This is of course good and healthy, although it requires special care so that we don't ruin the fun for people when introducing changes. This is one reason why I feel a bit reluctant to have conditions defined by the staff on a regular basis, or impose limitations on the complete field of players. In my opinion it's much better if the players organize sub-competitions, and keep those completely voluntarily. I think such sub-competitions could cover a lot of the ideas presented previously, such as "best spoiler" or "fastest real time victory" as long as they can be clearly defined. Perhaps we can find a way to make these sub-competitions more attractive? What support would be needed from the staff?
The competitive part of Civ5 GOTM
As you probably know, the GOTM series requires a security mod to ensure every player has the correct setup i.e. no modifications to the game rules. This mod has been developed by the Hall of Fame staff (aka HOF Mod), and was later improved with more features to become BUFFY. We need something similar for running the actual Civ5 competition, and this may take a while i.e. several months. We (i.e. Alan) also need to update the submission mechanism and learn how to extract information from the saves, which may be tricky if the save format is not available
We also need to revise the award system, since both conquest and religious victory conditions are gone in Civ5. There has been a lot of valuable discussion regarding the pros and cons of score based ranking, and it seems like the majority supports the removal the score medals. However, the alternatives are not yet fully explored. This is related to the amount of awards that should be distributed, the global ranking system (which currently supports both speed and score), and the eptathlon award. Again, we need to know how the game works e.g. how score is calculated, before taking any decisions.
Training series
It is thus unfortunate but most probable that the Civ5 GOTM will not start right after the release of the game. Still, we need games to be played to learn how the award system shall work, and I presume there are players who want to share their experiences, achievements, failures and questions. One way to accomplish this is to run games without the security mod, as proposed elsewhere, and with limited support for submissions. We can still compare our games since we play the same save, but the focus would be to learn from each other, and create an environment for discussions. The staff is prepared to host these games by creating the saves and setting up the associated threads. We can also suggest certain objectives for each game that will focus on the new stuff, which will direct the discussion towards specific features. Does this sound like a good idea?
Now, I know I haven't commented on all posts, but I hope I (or someone else from the staff) can dive deeper into some proposals since many of you have invested a lot of thought and effort into this thread
yes!!
As you probably know, the GOTM series requires a security mod to ensure every player has the correct setup i.e. no modifications to the game rules. This mod has been developed by the Hall of Fame staff (aka HOF Mod), and was later improved with more features to become BUFFY. We need something similar for running the actual Civ5 competition, and this may take a while i.e. several months. We (i.e. Alan) also need to update the submission mechanism and learn how to extract information from the saves, which may be tricky if the save format is not available
Great post, Erkon. Out of interest, have Firaxis said much about whether they've incorporated features in the game to support this? I recall when Civ4 was being produced they put a little bit of effort into incorporating some HOF-mod-like features into the game itself to try to help support our competition (eg, Lock modified assets, password-protected WorldBuilder, etc). Has anything similar happened this time around? Any contact from Firaxis staffers on this?
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2008
- Messages
- 25,088
Pure Genius!!!
As a group and in the spirit of the previous comments in your post, we can devise some friendly competitions with each training game. Of course, it may take a game or two to figure out just what competitions we can come up with.
mushroomshirt
King
ngraner42
Ultrarunner
I will definitely continue playing Civ 4 GOTM after Civ 5 comes out. It seems like Civ 5 will be different enough to in no way obsolete Civ 4. I would like to see GOTM, WOTM and BOTM all continue.
Regarding the competition, I think score is over emphasized because of milking and the advantage conquest\domination victories have.
I like the idea of everyone playing the same save file, but recognize that the highest difficulties can be unplayable for some (including myself).
I would like to state my appreciation for the staff that keeps this going. I have played Civ 4 for longer than any other computer game, principally due to the GOTM competition.
Regarding the competition, I think score is over emphasized because of milking and the advantage conquest\domination victories have.
I like the idea of everyone playing the same save file, but recognize that the highest difficulties can be unplayable for some (including myself).
I would like to state my appreciation for the staff that keeps this going. I have played Civ 4 for longer than any other computer game, principally due to the GOTM competition.
I don't see why we'd stop Civ4 GOTM, so long as there are admins and mapmakers available. It seems even Civ3 still gets around 20 players each month.
Glad to see all that reloading nonsense subside the last few days.
I, for one, think of the GOTM as mainly a competition. There are plenty of challenge/cookbook/etc. games on S&T for a more relaxed comparison of notes on a map.
Speaking of which, one way to deal with spoilers might be to just have a single early spoiler thread, and have players simply post whatever date they like in spoiler tags - much like on S&T.
One suggestion (maybe too complicated):
I was thinking that an Elo rating could work really well here, on a speed-score-combined basis (depends on the nature of Civ5 and what we decide to do with medals/awards). The current global rankings are great, but they tend to really emphasize activity over performance level and don't account for quality of opposition in the speed game. We could then either replace or supplement the Eptathlon with some sort of ratings-based Grandmaster award. Unlike the current Eptathlon, it could be gained and, subsequently, lost due to a dip in performance.
Glad to see all that reloading nonsense subside the last few days.
I, for one, think of the GOTM as mainly a competition. There are plenty of challenge/cookbook/etc. games on S&T for a more relaxed comparison of notes on a map.
Speaking of which, one way to deal with spoilers might be to just have a single early spoiler thread, and have players simply post whatever date they like in spoiler tags - much like on S&T.
One suggestion (maybe too complicated
):I was thinking that an Elo rating could work really well here, on a speed-score-combined basis (depends on the nature of Civ5 and what we decide to do with medals/awards). The current global rankings are great, but they tend to really emphasize activity over performance level and don't account for quality of opposition in the speed game. We could then either replace or supplement the Eptathlon with some sort of ratings-based Grandmaster award. Unlike the current Eptathlon, it could be gained and, subsequently, lost due to a dip in performance.
I very much like the idea of a single victory condition for those wanting extra competition. It's no fun to play a game and then have noone to compare it with because everyone else went for a different VC.
On spreadsheets; they don't win games -- decision making does. All my micro is based on rule of thumb and calculating quickly in my head and I do just fine. There's no reason to ban this, especially as you can't enforce it.
On spreadsheets; they don't win games -- decision making does. All my micro is based on rule of thumb and calculating quickly in my head and I do just fine. There's no reason to ban this, especially as you can't enforce it.
da_Vinci
Gypsy Prince
I agree, let's not ban rules of thumb and calculating quickly in the head. Mine don't work as well as yours, but it's all I've got!
Or did you mean not to ban spreadsheets ... ?
In a sense, a spreadsheet does on paper (or on pixels, perhaps?) what some can do in their heads, so in that way it is an equalizer. Maybe that is why some want to keep them, and some want to ban them?
A lot of features of the HOF mod are similar ... rounding up in a convenient place lots of game info that can be tedious to find otherwise. I don't see spreadsheets as much different ... you need the skill to build the spreadsheet properly, and to apply the results, the spreadsheet itself is just a timesaver.dV
srad
King
Yes! Please!
About score based medals:
At least some kind of award for the highest score would be nice. A proper done 'score milking' is also some kind of achievement.
I would not mind to keep it as it is.
I don't think it is a question of ending support for Civ4 GOTM. I think the question is, with Civ5's release, whether we should support the current frequency of games offered?
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll have a look at this.One suggestion (maybe too complicated
I was thinking that an Elo rating could work really well here, on a speed-score-combined basis (depends on the nature of Civ5 and what we decide to do with medals/awards). The current global rankings are great, but they tend to really emphasize activity over performance level and don't account for quality of opposition in the speed game. We could then either replace or supplement the Eptathlon with some sort of ratings-based Grandmaster award. Unlike the current Eptathlon, it could be gained and, subsequently, lost due to a dip in performance.
What would you think of a player initiated sub-competition arranged in the pre-game thread with winners determined by players in the final spoiler thread?
