News: GOTM103 Results and Congratulations! And the Eptathlon goes to ...

This game was a score fest with 18 results above 10,000 points! (And no Ambulances, since there were no defeats.) The top 6 games were above 12,000 points as there was a massive scramble for early BC Victories! Whew! Topping all scorers, taking Gold and fastest Domination (AND playing Predator ) was ignas! Congratulations to all Medal and Award recipients!
With a very respectable Spaceship Victory Lanzelot joins the Eptathlete club! Congratulations!

Classic GOTM 103 Results:

Summary of Medal Winners:

ignas: 550 BC Domination Victory, 12,863 points.

Megalou: 430 BC Domination Victory, 12,563 points.

Memento: 800 BC Conquest Victory, 12,447 points.


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Fastest Finish Award Winners:

Neo666: 1410 AD Cultural 100k Victory, 11,936 points.

PaperBeetle: 840 AD Diplomatic Victory, 11,207 points.

Lanzelot: 1295 AD Spaceship Victory, 10,463 points.

Pjutr: 1645 AD Cultural 20k Victory, 9,564 points.


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Other Award Winners:

EvilConqueror: 600 AD Conquest Victory, 10,620 points.

CKS: 1760 AD Cultural 20k Victory, 7,220 points.

Cyc: 1856 AD Domination Victory, 6,072 points.


>> See the full results here.
>> See the QSC results here.
>> See the updated global rankings here.
>> See the latest Pantheon of Heroes here.
>> Award symbols are listed here.

End of Classic GOTM 103 results.

Hey...

1 submission, one award. Can't beat that. Thanks, civ steve.

Congrats to everyone else!

grats to the winners.

btw:i hate the jasonscore

Yeah! I placed 18 out of 21. Not bad for a first time out. Wait, ONE is the best? Drat.

Memento said:

btw:i hate the jasonscore

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Me too...

(I will never understand, why a 600AD conquest is better than a 1295AD spaceship, if the "optimal target dates" are (quoted from the Jason Calculator page for GOTM103):

To equalize the different victory conditions, the following values were used:

Conquest 350BC
...
Space Race 1130AD

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I would really like to play different VCs more often, but it looks like for good scores Conquest or Domination is required. (I remember only 2-3 exceptions: ignas once won gold with an incredible 12000 points 20K victory, Drazek did the same recently with an excellent 100K game, and klarius won gold with a spaceship a couple years back, iirc.)
But other than that anything but Con&Dom just isn't competitive...

Lanzelot said:

But other than that anything but Con&Dom just isn't competitive...

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Well, that depends on what you are competing for, I suppose, but it is certainly true for getting Jason points.

Long ago, people were encouraged to play for different victory conditions by having an official contest for one particular victory type in each game. (All victory conditions were acceptable for the GOTM, but only one counted toward the medal series.) One might have a less formal proposal for each game - much like the predator challenges - to see if people would buy into them. The predator challenges have seemed to be sticking to relatively short (in real life) game types, though; I don't know if the time required to complete a spaceship game is the problem, or if it is the different playing style.

I don't like playing military games very much (and I'm not very good at them), which is why I still haven't broken the top half of the field in terms of Jason score and why I'll never be earning an eptathlon. I might go for the low scoring version (collecting shields) someday, as I do have several red ambulances already, from long ago.

As I understand it, the reason why the military VCs perform better under the Jason system is becaue the par dates for all VCs were compiled with reference to the award-winning victory dates of players in GOTM under various game conditions, not the victory dates players would get if they were trying to maximise their base score at the same time as shooting for a VC. But there's one particular VC which is almost definitionally equivalent to maximising your base score; domination, and conquest is pretty similar to domination in most circumstances. So for those VCs, there's no real tension between maximising score and getting a good date, so they score better under Jason. Basically what I'm saying is I just don't think the par dates were calibrated correctly.
Congrats on the 'tath by the way.

It's interesting that Memento congratulates the winners, as if he wasn't one himself despite getting fastest conquest (ever) and a bronze. It's true that the fastest finish awards were once more esteemed, as there were more competitors. But it was also generally assumed, IMHO, that if you wanted to compete for the medals you should choose domination or conquest. I'm not saying that those two VCs are more difficult than the others, but it has traditionally been the choice for those who want the fiercest competition. You could say that the value of the gold has been self-regulatory, although not regulated by Jason score.

Perhaps in most cases domination is favoured over conquest. Conquest is favoured over culture 100K, and so on. But that is a known fact that provides legendary status to gold winning 100K games, diplomatic games or spaceship games according to the sensibility of most players.

I believe there is a lot of truth in what Megalou just posted. Thats probably one of the main reasons I never got into the GOTM. For me, Civ3 wasnt calcuating how quickly I could eliminate the other occupants of the planet, or bring them under my submission. It was a game of being a Civilization, not of being the nazis.

I always wondered why you guys didn't have Games of the MONTH instead of Games of who could finish the fastest. For me, C3C is more of how much fun I can have while playing it, not how quickly I can end this nightmare. That's another reason I only choose to play the Huge Pangaea, 60% water, 5 billion year maps. All those years I watched these players win on paper thin islands crowed with opponents, I thought these guys aren't world leaders - they're mathemeticians. But then again, I played Ultima VII without ever buying the hint book. But I digress.

I'd also like to see GOTM expand it's horizons. I believe I posted something similar in the SGOTM fora.

Cyc said:

For me, Civ3 wasnt calcuating how quickly I could eliminate the other occupants of the planet, or bring them under my submission. It was a game of being a Civilization, not of being the nazis.

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Cyc said:

For me, C3C is more of how much fun I can have while playing it, not how quickly I can end this nightmare.

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I agree with every single word. A couple of years ago, in most of my games I tried to win as a completely peaceful nation, never declaring war, only defending when attacked. And it was always a challenge and a lot of fun.
However, I have to admit (to my disgrace) that nowadays I do like a quick and dirty bloodshed once in a while... -- But not game after game after game...

Perhaps in one of the next games we can have a "Peaceful Predator Challenge" or something...

Megalou said:

It's interesting that Memento congratulates the winners, as if he wasn't one himself despite getting fastest conquest (ever) and a bronze.

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There are 9 others winner.

I forgot that i play the fastest conquest ever. Now I feel a little better, but still find the jasonscore stupid.
firaxisscore is the better way

Lanzelot said:

Perhaps in one of the next games we can have a "Peaceful Predator Challenge" or something...

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I have enough trouble without playing predator, but if you have an idea for a month when the difficulty isn't too high, I'd give it a whirl.

When there were more participants, there was a lot more variety evident in the games submitted. This was probably partly because people who played something besides conquest and domination wrote better spoilers (since they had more interesting stuff to write than "eliminated Mongols on turn 37"). The games submitted may have had the same percentage of C&D wins, but the spoilers didn't. For sure, I'm not holding up my share of the spoiler threads now, although I keep meaning to keep better notes. (Somehow, my preschoolers suck my time up.)

With a lot of submissions, too, it seems that some good player would try something weird and different most months (like SirPleb's always-war-until-the-UN-is-built diplomatic victory).

You CAN have a high scoring SpaceShip victory; the problem is you have to play a Domination style game all the way until you launch, in other words, aggressively expand your empire until you're at just below land domination and keep your pop count just below the pop domination amount. Unfortunately, this takes resources away from Fastest Spaceship contest. Firaxis score is all about land and people (happy counts twice, unhappy counts zero) with a little more thrown in for Tech and Wonders (I think). Jason score extrapolates out from current position, so you don't have to play to 2050 AD to achieve high score.

Cyc said:

For me, Civ3 wasnt calcuating how quickly I could eliminate the other occupants of the planet, or bring them under my submission. It was a game of being a Civilization, not of being the nazis.

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Althogh I also agree with what you say, there are definitely other perspectives. According to this one, you might just as well feel morally charged towards eliminated chess pawns, which are no less animated than AIs. Personally I may also feel bad about throwing a teddy bear in the garbage, so I'm not saying I don't understand your point. I just don't see any reason why you must think of this in moral terms, as long as the rules are being followed.

civ_steve said:

You CAN have a high scoring SpaceShip victory; the problem is you have to play a Domination style game all the way until you launch, in other words, aggressively expand your empire until you're at just below land domination and keep your pop count just below the pop domination amount. Unfortunately, this takes resources away from Fastest Spaceship contest.

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Yes, this is exactly the dilemma that PaperBeetle mentioned above: if I would have played this game in domination style, I would have gotten a higher score, but a slower finish date, because I could not have traded the same number of techs from the AI.

So for the spaceship VC playing for the fastest finish conflicts with playing for a high score. For the dom & con VCs playing for the fastest finish practically coincides with playing for high score, and this is the reason, why these two VCs do much better than the others in terms of Jason score.

In order to equalize this a bit better, Jason should add a bigger bonus for a fast finish (or as PaperBeetle put it: the "par dates" should be calibrated differently). But I guess this would be a major "research project", and with interest in Civ3 declining, no one would probably be willing to put the effort into it...
And it would probably be unfair to the games of the last 7 years: if we come up with a different Jason algorithm, would we then recalculate the scores of around 90 GOTMs and 74 COTMs and re-assign all the medals and awards...? Certainly not.

Megalou said:

Althogh I also agree with what you say, there are definitely other perspectives. According to this one, you might just as well feel morally charged towards eliminated chess pawns, which are no less animated than AIs. Personally I may also feel bad about throwing a teddy bear in the garbage, so I'm not saying I don't understand your point. I just don't see any reason why you must think of this in moral terms, as long as the rules are being followed.

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You may have misunderstood what I was trying to say, Megalou. The essence of my meaning was contained in the second paragraph. The first paragraph mainly just set up the second, with a twist of my sick sense of humor. It referenced my opinion on the speed of the Victory, or Fastest Finish.

But the post as a whole was about the enjoyment of the game. I could make the comparision of visiting America's National Parks. I personally like to take my time when visiting these Parks, trying to take in as many of the great aspects as I can. If I was one who would spend the time and money to go to these Parks and then zip through them as quickly as possible, perhaps trying to be the visitor with the fastest finish, I would quickly grow tired of the hobby.

So I'm not thinking of this in moral terms, unless you would consider spending money on a computer game and then trying your best to end the games as quickly as possible to defeat the meaning held in the title of the game as a moral wronging. Chess, in my opinion is different than C3C in regards to enjoyment. In chess you use the pieces supplied to you to eliminate the other player. While I enjoy playing chess, the game does not allow me to build Wonders or explore the frontier in hopes of planning and building cities. There is no Commerce to manage or alternate tech advancement. Chess is more geared towards concise and deliberate moves to set up and execute the killing blow in a timely manner. I have beaten people in 7 moves. What a waste of time.

Have to go.

No response, Megalou? Did I hurt your feelings? I'm sorry. I didn't mean for those terrible teddy bear memories to resurface in your daily activities. Just because I don't think of the game according to your moral terms, doesn't mean I'm not sensitive enough to talk about your troubled past. Get back up on that horse again and let's continue the discussion. Ok?

I was just about to respond. To me "being the nazis" had very heavy moral undertones. (Or, judging by your latest post: overtones.) If the human leaderhead acts like a Nazi leader then the chess queen acts like a murderous psychopath by the same token. Whereas I understand if people want a more "civil" or life-like civilization, with high moral standards (eg not being evil even if you can get away with it,) the absurd chess comparison was meant to show that it is not necessary or "natural" to view the game in that way. My key phrase was different perspectives and I hope I have now laid down the two perspectives more clearly than in the last post.

As for time consumption (well put by the way,) I simply play more civ games as a result of finishing faster. Longer games can be cozy or pleasant in a way, but I can't deny that it often gets a bit tedious to maximize research and I don't see why, in a science game, I should build things that do not maximize research or why I should have corrupt towns wasting food instead of assigning as many scientists as it can. I stopped looking at the pretty arial views 8 years ago.

But the science games do get more interesting at deity level.

Troubled past. I wouldn't think so. Nothing troubling about having loved a teddy bear enough to feel sorry for it. It's quite nice to be able to step in and out of different perspectives.

Glad to see you're still smiling Megalou. That's a good sign.

But to be blunt, there were no moral overtones in my post. I was talking strictly gaming enjoyment. The reason I used the nazis is because they had one of the best military machines known to man. That's it. They were quick and effective. Structured and disciplined. A country-crunching machine. My point was the name of the game is Civilization. I enjoy developing a Civilization in my games. Does that have heavy moral undertones? Not in my book.

I've played the game since Civilization has come out. One of my great disappointments in the internet was finding out how many civ players played the game just to destroy the other tribes. Not that I felt for the other tribes, but because I knew they hadn't developed their Civilization. It doesn't take much thought to build military units and send them to your eemy (who would be everyone). Using thought was one of the major draws to this game for me. Using the internet hasn't gained much in credit as far as the other users, but I like this site, even if I do feel like an outsider.

Thanks for the discussion. You sparked my interest when you claimed I must think this way or that. Congrats. You found a sore spot. I needed to respond.

Megalou said:

I just don't see any reason why you must think of this in moral terms, as long as the rules are being followed.

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As you (cyc) know, the word "you" has a specific and a general sense, so perhaps you (cyc) should go easy on the cynisisms. Misunderstandings happen so easily! I tried to give some other clues, like the collective right to have different perspectives within a collective, but for some reason you seem to overlook it.

The reason I misjudged your view on moral is probably that I had no idea that you consider it easy to win by conquest or domination. You write "It doesn't take much thought to build military units and send them to your eemy (who would be everyone)." I had no idea you have this view and I do not understand it, so I read other things into the nazi business.

Which VC requires most thought? It's an interesting question which I'm not going to discuss here. Bye.