Community Deity Game #1 - Persia

stormtrooper412 · Nov 3, 2015

I'm probably going to meet all achievements except the first one, I was 4 short at the time but I really didn't and couldn't delay Civil Service.

Game is going on quite nicely at the moment, I can only hope the super powered tanks and arty would be enough to whittle down cities without me having to need rockets and moderns

consentient · Nov 3, 2015

Grendeldef said:
I thoroughly enjoyed the space & slightly slower pace in general even though the game wasn't that hard after getting few workers in the late 20s/early 30s. Not that that makes a game necessarily a hard one but my mind is set in a way that workerless empire on T20 is a failure.

I marked the map as hard because I assumed that I would need to fight all the way through the ages to stay competitive. NW, central and far E civs were all pulling further and further ahead even by T55, so I was frightened and started a game-long series of wars. Maybe turtling to later units made the difference. It was certainly a tough game starting wars with CBs, at least compared to most Deity games I play. If you want a truly tough one, perhaps roll a map yourself (as rotating host?) or wait until the 5th map, which I'm planning on making very difficult indeed!

Yeah, don't challenge peeps in their national sport without preparing to lose but in my current state of training I fear there would still be a contest - I'm a pathetic amateur in these days but few decades back... damn the getting old business hampers everything.

I went drinking with a pair of Finnish girls once. One of whom I was hoping to get a lot closer too. We drank from around midday until around 2am and I was just about ready to fall asleep when she said, in a voice and accent I'll never forget "Letz get saaam viskeee!" I couldn't believe this woman. The only person I'd met up to that point who could beat me. Then I realised most Finns had similar tolerances

For the mods part I can say that everything worked flawlessly

For those that had a problem with the mods, I suggest you consider whether or not you ever tried to load it with other mods accidentally activated. This can sometimes screw up games. For example, I was preparing a previous modded game, and testing it for use in this series, and I loaded it up with Fixed Prophets accidentally selected and it used the Fixed Prophets but 'knocked out' the other two. So caution, just load it from the normal Single Player menu.

stormtrooper412 · Nov 3, 2015

welp, I loaded it from the Mods menu, selecting active mods manually and then loading there. The religion mods (obviously) worked but I haven't reached Gunpowder yet

edit: the first version of the new spreadsheet is available. Feedback is appreciated

Lord Yanaek · Nov 3, 2015

Hey. It's been a loooooong time since i've played CiV (or even visited those boards), looks like i came back at an interesting time. I'll definitely try this out as i really think mods is what can keep CiV alive after so many years. Maybe at some time a map will feature some custom civilization, some of them are quite overpowered but i don't think any is more overpowered than Firaxis own OP civs and last time i checked there were some really unique ideas.

Am i right that for the purpose of the "no ranged units" achievement, cannons and planes don't count as ranged, but only bow line (and chariots of course)? I'm not sure i could actually take cities without at least planes. Also what if a military CS gives me a bowman? Should i dismiss it right away, or is it fair game to keep it?

Grendeldef · Nov 3, 2015

consentient said:
Maybe turtling to later units made the difference. It was certainly a tough game starting wars with CBs, at least compared to most Deity games I play. If you want a truly tough one, perhaps roll a map yourself (as rotating host?) or wait until the 5th map, which I'm planning on making very difficult indeed!

I was so shaken by the lack of early workers that I continued my miserable failure of worker stealing called war until I captured the 1st capital, then 10 turns of peace and at least one war ongoing till the end apart from ~10 turns I think.

I've been trying to roll a suitably hard(ish)/interesting map with Washy for ages now whenever I've had a spare moment but nothing satisfactory out of that yet but as long there's fresh coffee I can go on trying.

consentient said:
I went drinking with a pair of Finnish girls once. One of whom I was hoping to get a lot closer too. We drank from around midday until around 2am and I was just about ready to fall asleep when she said, in a voice and accent I'll never forget "Letz get saaam viskeee!" I couldn't believe this woman. The only person I'd met up to that point who could beat me. Then I realised most Finns had similar tolerances

Well, drinking beats cricket and in one's youth there must be a hobby of some sort. Obviously I could be wrong but anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that local tolerance of beer & booze is greater than foreign average. On the other hand it could be that our manners while sober are so bad that differences while being drunk are hard to spot. Either way whisky is (most) always good while beer is something I don't touch.

---add.---

stormtrooper412 said:
edit: the first version of the new spreadsheet is available. Feedback is appreciated

I'm happy that someone bothers to keep track & update one at all - everything else is just icing on the cake and the first glance looks just fine.

stormtrooper412 · Nov 3, 2015

Bob Morane said:
Hey. It's been a loooooong time since i've played CiV (or even visited those boards), looks like i came back at an interesting time. I'll definitely try this out as i really think mods is what can keep CiV alive after so many years. Maybe at some time a map will feature some custom civilization, some of them are quite overpowered but i don't think any is more overpowered than Firaxis own OP civs and last time i checked there were some really unique ideas.

Am i right that for the purpose of the "no ranged units" achievement, cannons and planes don't count as ranged, but only bow line (and chariots of course)? I'm not sure i could actually take cities without at least planes. Also what if a military CS gives me a bowman? Should i dismiss it right away, or is it fair game to keep it?

Good to see you're back

To answer your question, you can refer to OP where it's listed what counts as ranged units, in short, cannons, arty and planes are ok. I think the whole point was to discourage CB/XB rushes. CS gifts are alright

I also really like the idea of a custom modded civ, however, the few I've tested voluntarily showed all signs of being unbalanced, some even straight up OP. However, I'd really want to have my very own Serbia (even though they're a bit broken on a right map)

Grendeldef · Nov 3, 2015

More or less comprehensive coverage.

Pre WF

Spoiler :

Post WF

Spoiler :

After the dust was settled.

Spoiler :

beetle · Nov 3, 2015

consentient said:
For those that had a problem with the mods, I suggest you consider whether or not you ever tried to load it with other mods accidentally activated.

My modding experience quite limited, Acken's and the three for this. But I went carefully through the screens and also tried loading the save file before activating the mods and got an error message as expected. Then I activated the three mods and opened the save file no problem. When I load my own save file, it displays that there are mods, and list the three as expected when I click for more information.

My Pikes did not upgrade to musketmen, which is when I should have bailed, but I figured it was actually like the Zulu Impi that upgrade to riflemen. So I beelined Rifling -- but the Pike would only upgrade as usual to Lancers.

But that part of the challenge was killing my game anyway. With a dozen units that are no good for taking cities, my gpt was negative and that was a heavy drain to science. I will roll back to NC and play more conventionally. I will still try trebs instead of XBs, which should be fine since my first target has the Great Wall so no step-and-shoot anyway.

Fixed pantheon/prophets is behaving as expected.

stormtrooper412 said:
the first version of the new spreadsheet is available. Feedback is appreciated

Looks very nice. I would like a key for what ABCDE are, how many points for each, and then a tally for those points. Also, you may have people bail on the designated VC.

stormtrooper412 · Nov 3, 2015

There is a key, in the next sheet. I'm kind of torn between whether or not to assign them weights, I reckon managing them or not is more important, different people have different styles. I'm also against any rankings other than finishing speed, but maybe that's just me and like I said, feedback is important and I will follow the echo of the community

If people bail on the designated VC, no problem, I'll just mark their finish time with a different colour

beetle · Nov 3, 2015

stormtrooper412 said:
There is a key, in the next sheet.

Oops, missed that. I think it will be common for each map to have its own special achievements, so I think it might be better to incorporated the key into a single sheet for each game. It might work better the way you are going, but I think after ten games or so the achievement sheet will become too long to be useful.

I'm kind of torn between whether or not to assign them weights

Consentient did that in OP.

I'm also against any rankings other than finishing speed

I understood the achievement points to be the main ranking index? Finishing speed for tie breakers -- and general bragging rights.

If people bail on the designated VC, no problem, I'll just mark their finish time with a different colour

I see, that works! All the score will be in red of course! Maybe indicate the the suggested VC in bold italics in the Legend?

consentient · Nov 3, 2015

If people bail on the designated VC then I don't think they should be added to the sheet, really. It's there to record achievements on what are explicitly-contrived victory paths. If you want to play this map and try doing a SV, that's up to you, but it's not what this series is for. This series is about exploring certain civs from a very specific angle.

beetle · Nov 3, 2015

consentient said:
If people bail on the designated VC then I don't think they should be added to the sheet, really..

That is fair too. But won't some games will allow more than one VC? And sometimes a person really tries the for the designated VC but ends up with all the WC votes because they are taking too long...

You could assign different achievement point to different VC. For example, this map Dom VC == 20 points, everything else 0 points. I agree with you that if I get a SV while doing A, B, C, and E (11 points) then that should be ranked below someone getting a DomVC while missing all of A-E. But just not recording my game seems a bit harsh!

stormtrooper412 · Nov 3, 2015

Good point, and I definitely see the reasoning behind it. I was only thinking out loud what the backups can be.

I was thinking about the achievements all being worth the same, but on second thought, they definitely are not, even though they're all manageable reasonably.

(shame because I really made an effort to look up how to add the check mark symbol :lol:

)

GenuineRisk · Nov 3, 2015

beetle said:
I understood the achievement points to be the main ranking index? Finishing speed for tie breakers -- and general bragging rights.

I agree with ST. I see reaching the suggested VC as the primary goal with achievements as separate side goals, so finishing speed should be used as the ranking index, if any at all.

Regarding including results of people who didn't get the suggested VC on the sheet, I'm sort of ambivalent. I like the idea of suggested VCs, but I'm not sure how much of a suggestion they would be if other results were excluded from the finisher sheet.

beetle · Nov 3, 2015

stormtrooper412 said:
shame because I really made an effort to look up how to add the check mark symbol

Oh! Please keep that! I was visualizing a tally box to the right of the line that showed the achievement point tally from the check marks.

As compared to just having a number instead of check marks, that will be more work of course...

GenuineRisk said:
I see reaching the suggested VC as the primary goal with achievements as separate side goals, so finishing speed should be used as the ranking index, if any at all.

From OP as proposed, you have that reversed: Achievements (within the constraints of the designated VC) are the primary goals, with best finishing speed as a side goal.

There could also be points assigned to finishing speed, e.g. points == (500-FS)/50

If we keep using finishing speed as the ranking index, players will hardly pay attention to anything else.

stormtrooper412 · Nov 3, 2015

Actually I like both.

I've also given some thought, victory other than suggested may be recorded but obviously weighted less. Now all that remains is to work out a standardized ranking system

good to see people participating in the brainstorming, there will likely be more changes until it settles down, I really liked the DCL spreadsheet style but it would be unfair to just copy paste that

that being said, I dread the day civ5 will finally expire. Don't get me wrong, but I'm very glad CivBERT appears to be all kinds of, well, I wouldn't say terrible, but, disappointing

perhaps giving points proportionate to the win time can be reasonable, that way the "total score" can include both, and it's easily sortable, hmm? But who's to say one of the achievements in the following maps won't be tied directly to finish turns, or perhaps benchmark turns e.g. research Education before turn xyz

oh this is gonna be fun, however I'm going to need help in assessing a just weighting criterion for finish times, we'd want to encourage people to play well, but not too stressed out about what's the most optimal

consentient · Nov 3, 2015

beetle said:
won't some games will allow more than one VC? And sometimes a person really tries the for the designated VC but ends up with all the WC votes because they are taking too long...

Allow? Yes. But the sheet is for completing the objective, as I see it. I have envisaged this series from the start as being considerably narrower than the DCL. The biggest problem with the DCL, in my view is that 80% of victories were snoozefest SVs.

On the CDG there will be designated SVs, but all of the other victory types as well (except Time).

If someone can't complete Domination, they fail the VC. They can still finish their game, but it shouldn't go on the sheet, since the suggested VC is Domination. And you can always NOT vote for yourself at the WL vote, so the game goes on longer and you can win Domination up to T400 if you're crushing people's abilities to build spaceship parts.

You could assign different achievement point to different VC. For example, this map Dom VC == 20 points, everything else 0 points. I agree with you that if I get a SV while doing A, B, C, and E (11 points) then that should be ranked below someone getting a DomVC while missing all of A-E. But just not recording my game seems a bit harsh!

Why is it harsh? Should we record Prince players who lose T45 to an Oda attack? If you lose, you lose. If you fail the suggested VC on a story-based series, you lose.

stormtrooper412 said:
I was thinking about the achievements all being worth the same, but on second thought, they definitely are not

No, they're not, which was, I thought, the whole point of achievements. Having a points tally for 10+ maps will give a sense of how well each player manages to complete the stated objectives.

GenuineRisk said:
I agree with ST. I see reaching the suggested VC as the primary goal with achievements as separate side goals, so finishing speed should be used as the ranking index, if any at all.

I think the opposite. The achievements are what give you points, since they are at least difficult, and later ones might be really difficult.

If we disregard VC and achievements, then what's the point?

Regarding including results of people who didn't get the suggested VC on the sheet, I'm sort of ambivalent. I like the idea of suggested VCs, but I'm not sure how much of a suggestion they would be if other results were excluded from the finisher sheet.

I've said you can go culture, and if you do so and meet achievements, then you can be recorded. If you ignored the VC and the achievements, why would you play the map?

beetle · Nov 3, 2015

From OP:

consentient said:
Secondly, there will be suggested VCs (Victory Conditions) and a list of Achievements for each map. This will be recorded, and will take the place of the previous records spreadsheet which was focused on the ‘Top Finishers list’ and which has been abolished.

I think the above does a great job setting the tone and expectations for the series. I like it!

consentient said:
I've said you can go culture, and if you do so and meet achievements, then you can be recorded.

I completely missed in OP that you were actually condoning a CV. I have re-read OP and I still don't think that is clear.

Should we record Prince players who lose T45 to an Oda attack? If you lose, you lose. If you fail the suggested VC on a story-based series, you lose.

The DCL set the bar at five VC to be recorded. Seems fine, but it was arbitrary. The DCL scribe could have also decided to record any and all reported attempts, including failures, and that might have been fine too. The GotMs, for example, record failures. I think a main point of the record keeping is to encourage contributions from new players. You want that. So assuming the burden is reasonably light to our volunteer scribe, what is the harm of recording Prince players who lose T45 to an Oda attack (presuming that they ask their game to be recorded)?

If you ignored the VC and the achievements, why would you play the map?

Is ignoring the VC while pursing some achievements okay with you?

stormtrooper412 said:
I really liked the DCL spreadsheet style but it would be unfair to just copy paste that

I agree it is terrific! Thanks for taking that up! Absolutely, take what you can.

...that way the "total score" can include both, and it's easily sortable, hmm?

Yes, I really think you want a single default sort. By the way, how about a column for date game is submitted?

...however I'm going to need help in assessing a just weighting criterion for finish times

The formula I threw out I don't think is terrible: ( 500 minus ( turn number of victory ) divided by 50 )
Would range from 0 (for time victory) to 8 points (for a T100 finish), so it's the ball park for the other achievement points.
Points for the suggested VC could vary. For this game I think we want Dom > Culture and 0 for the others would be okay. Upon reflection, I would suggested 15 points for Dom and 5 for CV for this game. I would defer to consentient on that though, as he may have intended for them to be equal weight?

stormtrooper412 · Nov 3, 2015

I think it all ties in to my train of thought, finish times should definitely be factored but not by much since it won't be main, and victory other than suggested I suppose either worth a portion of points (e.g. half rounded down) or marked as DNF.

However, I also think finish times will heavily depend on map type and VC. Not my call in the end, if you lot don't want it to be a factor, fine by me. How about this:

4 points = <200 turns
3 points = 200 - 250 turns
2 points = 250 - 300 turns
1 point = >300 turns

beetle · Nov 3, 2015

stormtrooper412 said:
...victory other than suggested I suppose either worth a portion of points (e.g. half rounded down) or marked as DNF.

I think you want VC outside of the suggested VC to have a significant point handicap. Hence I would suggest a base score of ten points at least for meeting the designated VC. Half or zero when you are only giving out four points max for finish times is not much of a point penalty for someone who is not pursuing the suggested VC.

How about this:

I think tiered points for finishing turns is better than the formula approach I suggested, so I like your table. But I think 0 points for taking 350 turns or longer. Otherwise you just padding a point to everyone who finishes.

Community Deity Game #1 - Persia

Peacemongering Turtlesaur

Domination!

Peacemongering Turtlesaur

Emperor

Trancerelic & coffeeholic

Peacemongering Turtlesaur

Trancerelic & coffeeholic

Deity

Peacemongering Turtlesaur

Deity

Domination!

Deity

Peacemongering Turtlesaur

Warlord

Deity

Peacemongering Turtlesaur

Domination!

Deity

Peacemongering Turtlesaur

Deity

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