Fastest Win?

[Shillen]

Well I was looking at the GOTM42 results and I noticed there's a column for time spent playing. So I got the idea of maybe having an award for the fastest victory in played time instead of in-game date. It would be kind of like in chess when they have a certain amount of time to make a move so you have to think quickly.

Pros:
1) One more award to play for.
2) Emphasizes quick decision making. For all those people who used to not study and finish their tests first in school. Sure other people could get the same grade if they spent 8 hours studying for it and went over each problem 10 times during the test, but you know they aren't as smart as you are.
3) Gives people short on time a victory condition they can hope to achieve. Hey the cow people have their award. This would be the anti-cow reward.

Cons:
1) It only applies to PTW since vanilla version doesn't keep track. Don't realy see this as an issue as the vanilla people have plenty of other awards to compete for.
2) While it emphasizes quick decision making it de-emphasizes correct decision making as a player trying for this award would likely not play flawlessly.
3) Might be too easy on lower difficulty level. A skilled player would have to make a ton of mistakes to lose at regent for instance.
*4) Since I never use the editor or any sav file changing software or any of that crap, I don't know if it would be possible to change this time to whatever you want to through use of an external program.

Just an idea. Go easy on me.

[socralynnek]

Another Con: Players with newer computers have an advantage.

[AlanH]

a player trying for this award would likely not play flawlessly

Few people playing GOTM do so flawlessly, but surely that's the aim of the competition. There are already six awards for playing fast enough, and badly enough, to only just win, as this should result in a shield

[Offa]

Having just played what was for me a pretty fast game, I think the time "saved" is reward enough.

[Hannabir]

I would rather say that the slowest win deserves an award, to stimulate thinking before you play.
But of course it's too easy to fool the program.

[Methos]

Originally Posted by Hannabir

I would rather say that the slowest win deserves an award, to stimulate thinking before you play.
But of course it's too easy to fool the program.

Or to fall asleep with the game running, have your wife ask you to do something and you forget to stop the game, or... and the list goes on and on.

I typically never fall asleep at the computer but I do wander off and forget about the game. One thing I frequently do is multitask and become focused on something else and just forget.

[Shillen]

Well this will be my last response. I wasn't too sure of the idea in the first place, hence why I listed pro's and cons and my cons list was actually longer. But I'm actually surprised by the complete opposition to the idea (yeah only 5 replies, but still) so I'll put one last post in to support it.

Another Con: Players with newer computers have an advantage.

Do a lot of people actually have that slow of computers? Sure I have a top of the line computer now, but even my old computer from two years ago had less than a 1 second delay between turns unless the AI had units in my visible sight. But if a lot of people have slower computers then this is definitely an idea-killer.

Few people playing GOTM do so flawlessly, but surely that's the aim of the competition. There are already six awards for playing fast enough, and badly enough, to only just win, as this should result in a shield.

I think you took my sentence a bit out of context. There's no way an unskilled player would win this reward. Even if it was on regent level a more skilled person can win the game in fewer turns and even though the award is based on time played, naturally the game with fewer turns is more likely to have less time played as well. So you would still need to achieve victory with a fast date as well as doing fast turns. What I meant is that the fast player will not be making the absolute perfect move every time because they don't have the 5 minutes to sit there staring at the screen and analyzing it. They would have to value what is worth putting extra thought into and what isn't. In essence it adds a completely new set of skills to the game. There's no way this would be a fake reward like a shield reward is. IMO the shield rewards shouldn't even exist because people actually intentionally play badly to get them. That's a lot worse than this award would do.

I would rather say that the slowest win deserves an award, to stimulate thinking before you play.
But of course it's too easy to fool the program.

I don't understand this train of thought. Why should you be awarded for being slow? To finish fastest you will have to think fast. You can't do it without thinking unless maybe it was chieftain level and all you did was build 4 cities, turn research up, and hit end turn over and over. You would also likely put in 5x as much thought before starting the game than a player going for a different award would because you know you don't have time to analyze things during the game. Although you could quit out and re-analyze your strategy mid-game. There are limitless rl examples I could pull to counter your point as well, so many that I don't even need to mention one as I'm sure you can think of several yourself. Faster is just better.

But yeah I promise that's my last post on the issue. Consider the idea dead.