GOTM2 and QSC

Methos · Dec 28, 2005

Due to unfamiliarity during GOTM1 a QSC game was not submitted. Im curious if GOTM2 will? My own opinion is that it should, especially due to the newness of CivIV. The question arises than; to what point would it end?

If QSC submissions are accepted should it be to 1000 BC or after x amount of turns?

ainwood · Dec 28, 2005

The problem is not in defining a deadline, but in defining a scoring system.

I guess we could use the in-game score...

DaveMcW · Dec 28, 2005

If someone is willing/able to extract all the data, I would be happy to write a scoring formula to plug it into.

For a very accurate scoring system, I would need stuff like food/hammer/commerce production per city, unit experience, and distance from forests to the nearest city.

ainwood · Dec 28, 2005

DaveMcW said:
and distance from forests to the nearest city.

Wouldn't total health be more useful? Although number of forests would have a use as well.

DaveMcW · Dec 28, 2005

Health isn't very useful, except as component of food production.

To counter the strategy of chopping all forests before the cutoff date, I would add the shield value of uncut forests to the final score.

Smirk · Dec 28, 2005

There was never any counter to many strategies in Civ3 for the QSC period, but then again since no one ever won the QSC there wasn't any problem ignoring balance issues.

Anyway assuming you mean for the forests within the usable area of a city this would be fairly arbitrary and would seem to reward a player that starts chopping at the outside edge of his workable land. Which is what many people would do anyway just to potentially make use of the health benefit as they get their tiles developed and resources hooked up. But if you have a city that has 2 pop, and 12 health, with 4 of that coming from forests during the entire QSC period, what possible value is the forest component?

MeteorPunch · Dec 29, 2005

It would be cool if we use the in-game score for now (GOTM2, 3?) while a better one is developed.

ps. Anyone working on a "Jason II?"

DaveMcW · Dec 29, 2005

Jason II is the in-game scoring system. It is already superior to Jason I, though it still favors milking.

MeteorPunch · Dec 29, 2005

"Jason II": Something that allows non-military victories to compete, score-wise. With Civ 3 the "other" victories could still score high (only experts could do it). I wouldn't expect this system to be developed quickly because we don't really know what best dates are yet.

I think that most of the better players are going for military victory now because it scores higher, which will start to develop best dates for military victories, but not the "others."

AlanH · Dec 29, 2005

What would be the prime objectives of a QSC?

If you just want to see who scored highest at 1000 BC or 1 AD we can simply invite players to post their scores at that date in the first spoiler.

If you want to be able to compare empires at a specific date, and to find out how the early game affects the eventual outcome, then we would need to analyse the in-game data and extract a lot of the types of information suggested by DaveMcW. That's a non-trivial task.

I don't like to dampen your enthusiasm, but we've already had two patches in as many months. Our main game management process is already trying to track and hit a moving target, and I suggest we might want to wait and see if the game is likely to change again in the short term before embarking on another major exercise. By all means lets talk about what it might look like, but please don't raise hopes for a QSC data extraction system to be ready for the next game ... starting in two days time!

DaviddesJ · Dec 30, 2005

AlanH said:
If you want to be able to compare empires at a specific date, and to find out how the early game affects the eventual outcome, then we would need to analyse the in-game data and extract a lot of the types of information suggested by DaveMcW. That's a non-trivial task.

How about a non-automated QSC? Just set a specified date and describe the information that you want players to collect: probably 10-20 numbers that people have to add up. Then create a "QSC thread" and people can compile their own QSC results and post them there.

Yushal · Dec 30, 2005

The benefit of forests remaining in city radius of a size 2, health 12 city should be obvious(?). It is a quick start challenge, not a "game ends at 1000 AD challenge. Forests have great potential for later on...

Civ 3 was suited to QSC. You get as much land/cities as possible, basically.

Civ 4 is similar, but following a Civ 3 plan might be worse than holding back, overall.

DaveMcW · Dec 30, 2005

DaviddesJ said:
How about a non-automated QSC? Just set a specified date and describe the information that you want players to collect: probably 10-20 numbers that people have to add up. Then create a "QSC thread" and people can compile their own QSC results and post them there.

I think that's a great idea. I would recommend 1AD as the cutoff point, as peaceful expansion is pretty much over by then.

DaveMcW · Jan 9, 2006

Could we start a beta test of QSC submissions? It doesn't even matter what the QSC cutoff is, as long as everyone submits at that point.

It would be very useful to have a database of QSC games and final scores.

ainwood · Jan 9, 2006

For this GOTM? If you're trying to get saves, AlanH might be able to set something up for the next one.

Requies · Jan 9, 2006

FWIW, I could write something that could calculate it in game automatically and create a file afterwards detailing it. Unfortunately, you would have to allow mods in the GoTM and I don't know how feasible that is in less than a month.

Req

AlanH · Jan 9, 2006

DaveMcW said:
Could we start a beta test of QSC submissions? It doesn't even matter what the QSC cutoff is, as long as everyone submits at that point.

It would be very useful to have a database of QSC games and final scores.

I'm still trying to sweep up my mess after getting GOTM 1 results working :eek:

, but I'll try to stick something together to collect 1 AD files in the next few days.

PS. I don't know if it's of interest in this context, but we can extract histograph information from the final saves for any turn we choose. That provides score, gpt, gnp, food yield, power and culture values as shown in the in-game histograph. So that data can be made available for all the end-game saves we have.

GOTM2 and QSC

Methos

HoF Quattromaster

ainwood

Consultant.

DaveMcW

Deity

ainwood

Consultant.

DaveMcW

Deity

Smirk

King

MeteorPunch

#WINNING

DaveMcW

Deity

MeteorPunch

#WINNING

AlanH

Mac addict, php monkey

DaviddesJ

Deity

Yushal

Chieftain

DaveMcW

Deity

DaveMcW

Deity

ainwood

Consultant.

Requies

Prince

AlanH

Mac addict, php monkey

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