HOF Challenge Series III Discussion

I will be posting the results of Series II tomorrow. Time for review and thoughts on Series III.

1. The scoring using all difficulties was uneven at best. Do we want to try multiple difficulties again? This time the scoring adjustments would have to be worked out in advance.
   
2. What was good about the games in Challenge Series II?
   
3. What was bad about the games in Challenge Series II?
   
4. What would be fun to try in Series III?

Denniz said:

Time for review and thoughts on Series III.

Click to expand...

Denniz said:

1. The scoring using all difficulties was uneven at best. Do we want to try multiple difficulties again? This time the scoring adjustments would have to be worked out in advance.​

Click to expand...

Challenge II Difficulty Level turn offsets:

You are being too hard on yourself. I would say that only Games #1 (Conquest with unusual settings) and Game #5 (Religious, but only in regard to the initial difficulty level turn offsets that penalized high difficulty levels more than lower difficulty levels).

The difficulty level turn offsets for Game #5 were probably right on the mark, though the data may not be there to support it. The Barbarian requirement did penalize the higher levels much more than lower levels.

So, in my opinion, only Game #1 remained clearly off the mark with regard to the usual settings that make the Game especially hard at high difficulty levels and relatively easy at low difficulty levels.

Please Continue Permitting All Difficulty Levels:

Yes, definitely permit all difficulty levels. It increased participation from all levels of Players, especially among those that prefer the challenge provided lower difficulty levels.

Some Players of higher difficulty levels either played at those levels despite some settings that made it more difficult, played at lower than their level (usually, gasp, Settler level) or avoided Challenge II entirely. The settings should either be more flexible or be chosen so as to not give the lower levels "unfair" advantages over the higher levels. Such settings include Barbarians, No City Razing and Complete Kills (the latter is really only problematic for Conquest).

Adjusting Challenge III Difficulty Level turn offsets:

The data collected in Challenge II should be used to improve the difficulty level turn offsets for Challenge III. Levels that scored well in Challenge II for particular Victory Conditions should have their turn offsets reduced slightly, enough so Players will perhaps move up one level from Settler or move down one level from Deity, dependent on Victory Condition.

The difficulty level turn offsets can best be fine tuned by using either flexible settings or settings that do not unduly increase the challenge for some difficulty levels (usually higher one) versus other difficulty levels (usually lower ones).

I agree that the Difficulty Level turn offsets for Challenge III should be published and not changed during the Competition, except possibly for severe errors that in the Sole Opinion of the Staff organizing the competition should be corrected immediately (rather than waiting for Challenge IV to so so).

Denniz said:

2. What was good about the games in Challenge Series II?​

Click to expand...

Allowing All Difficulty Levels. It permits a greater diversity of Players and greater communication between Players at different Difficulty Levels. We can all learn something new about the Game at different Difficulty Levels in each of the Game threads. This has also greatly increased participation in the Challenge, since many Players no matter how hard they try are not able to Win Monarch, Emperor or Immortal Level Games with the most flexible setting (including Leader Played).

For the past few years, I've played almost exclusively Deity Level Games, except for an occasional Gauntlet (even that is rare). After several years, I've finally Played a Settler level Game for Challenge II Game #5. It was an eye opener for me. Although it is nearly impossible to outright lose a Settler Game, it is a real challenge to achieve an Early Date, especially with the No Tribal Villages (No Huts) setting. I have learned to value Games at Lower Difficulty Levels, even though I will continue to Play almost exclusively Deity Levels. My threshold for playing Games at less than Deity Level is now lower, which in my opinion is a good thing. More importantly, I will view Games at less the Deity Level with far more respect than I've had in the past few years.

Denniz said:

3. What was bad about the games in Challenge Series II?​

Click to expand...

Although the usually very restrictive settings were intended to provide greater Challenge (hence the name "Challenge <Roman Numeral>"), in conjunction with allowing all Difficulty Levels, it resulted in Players challenging themselves even less by selecting the lowest Difficulty Level (Settler), making almost a mockery of each of the Games. There were Players who did resist this easy path for the most part, like winner shulec, who typically played the Highest Difficulty level they were capable of (in this case Deity).

Denniz said:

4. What would be fun to try in Series III?​

Click to expand...

What would be fun is wide open settings for each Victory Condition, including Time Victory and even "Score" Victory which would be any Victory Condition where the highest Score Wins. This would include allowing the Player to choose any Leader, except Huayna Capac (Incan Leader).

For extra challenge, especially for the Lower Levels, require No Tribal Villages for all Games. This would help eliminate luck at popping Settlers and Workers at Lower Levels from Winning entries. I'd actually prefer open Tribal Villages and simply adjust the Difficulty Level turn offsets at lower levels to compensate for the huge advantage of Tribal Villages at those lower Difficulty Levels.

Please choose Map Size and Game Speed of HoF Tables that are either empty or have few entries, especially those whose Date perhaps later than it could be compared to adjacent Table entries. This will engage those Players who want to get a #1 position in a Table, especially at higher Difficulty Levels. This is also a good reason to leave the settings very flexible.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you:

Thanks again to Denniz and the rest of the HoF staff responsible for the Challenge Series, its Rules and its Officiation. Denniz in particular has really worked hard to make the Challenge Series the Success it has become and yet to Be!

Sun Tzu Wu

I agree with all statements were posted above.

I kind of wrote my thoughts on the Series on a different thread so I will just take this opportunity to thank the HOF staff for putting this sort of thing together and thank the community and regular posters for their advice and enthusiasm.

I didn't post regularly during the series as I was flying home fore weddings, bouncing between continents, doing traveling during my vacation and losing jobs and finding new ones during most of the Series. I did find people's posts and game write ups to be immensely helpful and was happy to earn some Top 10 results. If I had time, as I said elsewhere, I would have liked to try higher levels, different tactics, etc. I look forward to the next one because I will likely have more time and be in front of the computer more during III.

I participated in this one (playing and actually being able to submit) this Series because of the open difficulty, so please keep that it. I know in time I will play more comfortably at higher levels, but I just don't have the time that I did with Civ 2 and 3. These Series Challenges are very helpful and provide a great learning curve, similar to the Gauntlets, which I also enjoy.

As usual, Sun Tzu Wu has very eloquently pointed out the good and the bad you asked for and I second (or third) his thoughts. I do have some suggestions for themes or making things a bit different. Perhaps the Challenge series is better for them than the Gauntlets. I was wondering about using some of the other aspects of BtS for some games. I gather that played one of the included mods (Gods of War, Charlemagne, etc.) would not work as many people would need to learn them first before competing, let alone the issue of making them BUFFY compatible. But what about advanced starts, allowing unrestricted leaders, playing as a team with one AI against the others or having certain goals?

Just some examples,

1. an OCC cultural game where you must form a PA with Tokugawa (or some other hardass) while competing against culture-whores

2. a peaceful domination game where you cannot declare war but gain vassals willingly or PA with a huge empire

3. playing as Napoleon against European civs with always war, as a New World civ against the Spanish and others, or other historically tinged scenarios

4. requiring or disallowing target wonders, relying strictly on a EE, signing a PA with the worst enemy of everyone

I realize some might not be possible or difficult to check, (it could be as simple as saving the game before something is done), but I thought to mention them to get other ideas to develop.

Thanks again.

I very much enjoyed this challenge as the first was a bit out of my league at the time. I agree with most of what STW had to say. A few things though.

1) The level adjustments need to be tweaked and definitely need to be published from the beginning and in a way that is simple to understand.

2) More needs to be done to incentivize playing at higher levels if you are able to do so.

While I played some higher level games initially, eventually, I just started playing settler games because it was easier for me to gauge my turn goals and to get in quick games. My time is limited, so I was unlikely to continue playing games that I knew wouldn't help me place as high as I would have liked. Hence, despite being a comfortable Monarch/Emperor player, I ended up playing most of my games on Settler. I will be the first person to admit that my finishing third with all Settler games is a little troubling.

3) Lets not include map sizes larger than Standard than as I think it excludes too many people from completeing the competition and encourages below level play. I had several games crash before I was able to get game four done. Most of these were higher level games that I would have won easily, but couldn't finish, so I just ended up doing a settler game.

4) I like the idea of including non-Ancient starts and other non-traditional games, but I would have absolutely no idea how to normalize them.

5) Perhaps the standings could be adjusted to include level based comparisons as well as a single normailzed ranking, kind of like the EQM tables, so that those who only play Noble and lower can be compared to other players who submit those level games, etc? This may encourage more higher level play while allowing all skill level players to participate. Again, I have no actual idea how this would work, but...

Anyway, Challenge II was a lot of fun and hopefully III will be even better!

Denniz said:

I will be posting the results of Series II tomorrow. Time for review and thoughts on Series III.

1. The scoring using all difficulties was uneven at best. Do we want to try multiple difficulties again? This time the scoring adjustments would have to be worked out in advance.
   
   I strongly oppose having multiple difficulties for each game of the next Challenge. The intent of this was to encourage play at several different difficulties. Overall, I feel this was not accomplished. There was an overwhelming number of settler submissions (Including four from myself that were my best scores for that particular game.) The following are numbers of settler submissions per game:
   
   Game 1: 17 of 20 submissions
   Game 2: 14 of 30 submissions
   Game 3: 10 of 17 submissions
   Game 4: 12 of 15 submissions
   Game 5: 17 of 22 submissions
   Game 6: 15 of 34 submissions
   
   Total: 85 of 138 submissions (62% of submissions).
   
   
2. What was good about the games in Challenge Series II?
   The option for multiple games to be played at lower difficulties facilitated greater participation (with the above caveats). I was happy that I was able to play some deity games for the challenge.
   
3. What was bad about the games in Challenge Series II?
   I think large and huge maps need to be avoided.
   
4. What would be fun to try in Series III?

Click to expand...

Sun Tzu Wu said:

Allowing All Difficulty Levels. It permits a greater diversity of Players and greater communication between Players at different Difficulty Levels.
Sun Tzu Wu

Click to expand...

While I cannot dispute what STW is saying, I felt, while playing the game that was my biggest challenge, Game 6, at Deity difficulty, it would have been more helpful getting advice from those who were playing the game on Deity as well. The input I received in regards to my struggles was helpful, but, input I received on challenge I games was much more beneficial because it was from those playing the same difficulty level. Reviewing saved games was also extremely beneficial, but not helpful for games played on a different level.

I played this game with a primary and secondary motivation. My primary motivation was to win the games that I could win at deity. For these games, I was not competing against anyone, I was simply trying to accomplish this goal. After accomplishing this, I really enjoyed competing with the other top scoring games in each category. The competition is more of a driving factor than the challenge of the games. I don't believe that a fair scoring system can be used to compare games submitted at different difficulty levels.

Note that the original intent of the Challenge I was for to challenge players win every game in the challenge. In Challenge I, only 4 of 29 participants won every game. In Challenge II, only 8 of 40 participants won every game. This shows me that completing every game in the challenge is not a priority for most participants. I think this opens the door to have 10 to 18 games in the challenge.

I recommend against allowing games to be played on any difficulty level. Here are some potential alternatives:

1. Have 10 to 18 games that will allow only one difficulty level for each game ranging from settler to deity.
2. Make divisions and allow players to only submit for one division.
3. Make the games playable in only two or three difficulties. For example, Game 1 playable on Emperor, Immortal, or Deity. Game 2 on Noble, Prince, or Monarch, Game 3 on Cheiftan, Warlord, or Noble... and so forth.
4. Set a minumum difficulty for all games at Noble or some other level.

Thanks to Dennis and everyone else for setting up these challenges.

Good comments, thanks. Keep them coming.

I should mention a few things have taken away from your comments here and elsewhere that I will being using going forward.

• No more maps above standard size. In hindsight it seems obvious but it I didn't really give it enough though when setting up Challenge II.
  
• I am inclined to continue the all difficulty thing as it did bring in more players. Although, a one-off single difficulty game or two might spice things up. Wide open Goody Hut fest anyone?
  
• Picking from tables that were very popular over the years at all levels would have made for better adjustments. (Sorry STW, but I tried using the emptier tables in Challange II. More submissions mean better numbers in the long run.)
  
• For whatever reason decreasing the number of games for 10 to 6 only increased the number of people playing all the games only a little. Almost in purportion to the number of participants. I think I will increase the number again this time.

So assuming we have with the following victory conditions available:

• Conquest
• Cultural
• Diplomacy
• Domination
• Religious
• Space
• Score

No Time victory. Too long, too dull, etc.

What settings should be manditory/illegal for each victory conditon to make them fair and challenging yet still fun?

• City Flipping after Conquest
• No Barbarians
• Raging Barbarians
• Aggressive AI
• Random Personalities
• Permanent Alliances
• Always War
• One-City Challenge
• Require Complete Kills
• No City Razing
• No Vassal States
• No Tribal Villages
• Choose Religions
• No Random Events

What were the best gauntlets? Which of those translate best to all difficulties?

Finally, I have to work under a few limitations. Every challenge has to be acceptable as a regular HOF game. Tweaking the rules sounds inviting but there are limits to what I can change in the time allowed.

Denniz said:

What settings should be manditory/illegal for each victory conditon to make them fair and challenging yet still fun?

Click to expand...

In my humble (not actaully playing anymore ) opinion...

Mandatory

• City Flipping after Conquest
• Aggressive AI
• No Tribal Villages

Illegal

• No Barbarians
• Random Personalities
• No Vassal States

As for Barbarians, either normal or raging, or preferably a mix of both in different games.

Denniz said:

[*]I am inclined to continue the all difficulty thing as it did bring in more players.

Click to expand...

What do you propose to do keep Challenge III from becoming the 2nd Settler Challenge?

Denniz said:

What settings should be manditory/illegal for each victory conditon to make them fair and challenging yet still fun?

Click to expand...

I don't think your questions implies this, but I would recommend against having any one setting universally or predominantly present (such as Agg AI in Challenge I). I believe that there should be at least a few games allowing huts and a few allowing no barbarians.

Denniz said:

No more maps above standard size. In hindsight it seems obvious but it I didn't really give it enough though when setting up Challenge II.
...
I think I will increase the number again this time.


What settings should be manditory/illegal for each victory conditon to make them fair and challenging yet still fun?

• City Flipping after Conquest
• No Barbarians
• Raging Barbarians
• Aggressive AI
• Random Personalities
• Permanent Alliances
• Always War
• One-City Challenge
• Require Complete Kills
• No City Razing
• No Vassal States
• No Tribal Villages
• Choose Religions
• No Random Events

Click to expand...

I think if you are going to increase the number of games to 10, one large map would be nice and not too cumbersome. I have a slow comp and would not mind 1/10 large. No huge maps.

no barbs / raging barbs should be rare exceptions. I'd like normal barbs required on ~7 games (assuming 10 total). No barbs is slightly cheesey. Raging barbs + GW really hampers the AI below a certain level and on certain maps.

Not a fan of tribal villages / random events...my opinion is NTV/NRE for all games. But some people like them...bleh.

Even though I did not submit a game for it, the challenge last series with no city razing was fun and frustrating. I must have tried that a couple dozen times on emporer...came close twice. At least one game with conquest / NCR again. At a medium difficulty level like price or monarch. Switch the map from pangea to something else.

I'd also like to see a dom game with no vassal states mandatory. Mostly because I think the vassal system mechanics are broken.

At least one OCC game...probably space since you already did diplo last series. And I'd like most of the games to be possible to choose OCC...but not mandatory. Obviously I really like OCC, but I don't think it leads to better finish dates than a well-played non-OCC game...so I'm not sure what exploits it leads to or why you avoided it so much last series.

cas

edit: I agree with shulec... I don't think we need one 'themed' predominant setting like Agg AI in the first challenge.

Challenge 3!

First off, thanks for the delicious games in Challenge II. It was like shoving a square peg into a round hole getting some of those leaders to victory most of the time. The special settings really spiced the games up.



For challenge III, I'd like like to see the settler difficulty eliminated, perhaps allow Chieftan to Deity. No Large or Huge maps, they really turn people off.

I'd also like two rampage maps please
Ragnar on a water map, or Cyrus on Great plains.




Cyrus on great plains is absolutely insane when the capital has 7 cows on the start. He can rush in any direction, found a dozen cities in a hurry, crash his economy in a microsecond. It's like the world's fastest car with horrible steering. If he must have an economy, people can always choose the wimpy green part of the map

When can we expect the challenge series?

Nice work in administering these. As to a goody huts fest: I love 'em; I hate 'em. Definitely not every game. They can be managed effectively with mapfinder and a little organization. For example: use mapfinder to generate 50-100 reasonable maps. (They need not be perfect maps.) After that, select reasonable starts and play 10 turns or so and save game to a separate folder. Rinse and repeat until you have 5 or so candidate starts. Play one of these out further until you have one you wish to finish. That's hut popping in a nutshell.

I have also studied a number of rainforest maps and counted hut locations if a person were to say, "when in doubt follow the river." No comment on my findings but there are a couple of other methods to finding huts in rainforests. Test and be sure to count, count, count.

So maybe hut popping isn't completely scientific-less, just don't have too many of them.

Airny said:

When can we expect the challenge series?

Click to expand...

Probably sometime over the weekend.

Current plan:

1. Conquest - Noble thru Emperor
2. Conquest - Settler thru Warlord
3. Domination - Prince thru Deity
4. Domination - Settler thru Noble
5. Cultural - Monarch thru Deity
6. Cultural - Settler thru Prince
7. Space Colony - Monarch thru Deity
8. Space Colony - Settler thru Prince
9. Score - Settler thru Deity (no adjustment planned)

Options (except Score which has none):
Required: No Vassal States, No Tribal Villages
Must Not Be Checked: No Barbarians, Random Personalities, One City Challenge

No Leader, Opponents, or Map Type requrirements.

The difficulty ranges is something new. I varied the ranges by victory type. Mostly the break points were just a gut feeling.

I still have to work out the difficulty adjustments but I hope to release the challenge tomorrow.

Thoughts?

You want to allow Inca (Huayna Capac)? Don't do it.
I like the enforced Barbarians.
Tribal Villages takes out a lot of benefits for lower difficulty levels, that's fine with me.
I could also live with a game which rules out Mansa Musa, because he always trade and that's why I would always take him as an opponent.

Denniz said:

Current plan:

Must Not Be Checked: One City Challenge

Click to expand...

The OCC seems to be a very popular. Diplomacy games tend to be popular too! I would also like to see a religious game. Without these, this looks like a five game challenge to me.

Denniz said:

No Leader, Opponents, or Map Type requrirements.

Click to expand...

I'd really like to see more structured setting. Without these settings, defined, it is just like filling an HoF table. I like the idea of different leader requirement for similar victory types, so that the lower level games are totally different than the higher level games. I don't want to see a lot of JC/Darius/Huayna games.

Denniz said:

The difficulty ranges is something new.
Thoughts?

Click to expand...

I think this addresses the difficulty problem very well!

Thanks for putting the work into making this Challenge.

Denniz said:

Current plan:

1. Conquest - Noble thru Emperor
2. Conquest - Settler thru Warlord
3. Domination - Prince thru Deity
4. Domination - Settler thru Noble
5. Cultural - Monarch thru Deity
6. Cultural - Settler thru Prince
7. Space Colony - Monarch thru Deity
8. Space Colony - Settler thru Prince
9. Score - Settler thru Deity (no adjustment planned)

Click to expand...

The exclusion of Religious Leader Diplomatic Victory and the standard UN Diplomatic Victory is a fatal omission. How can a balanced set of Games exclude these Victory types.

I still don't like the exclusion of the Time Victory. If its considered too long, the Ancient start could be replaced by any later Era start, like Industrial. Or just leave the start Era completely Open.

Denniz said:

Options (except Score which has none):
Required: No Vassal States, No Tribal Villages
Must Not Be Checked: No Barbarians, Random Personalities, One City Challenge

Click to expand...

The requirement of choosing either "Barbarians" or "Raging Barbarians" makes Deity starts more difficult. This may result in some Deity Games with "Raging Barbarians" and early completion of The Great Wall. I'd prefer the Barbarian setting to be completely Open. The Barbarian requirement for Deity Games makes getting #1 Games very difficult due to the need to channel meager early Hammers towards defense against Barbarians rather than on what needs to be built early for a #1 HoF Win.

Of the few Victory types selected (missing Religious Victory, Diplomatic Victory and Time Victory), only the Conquest Victory and Space Colony Victory are really viable for One City Challenge. Even so, what is the point of restricting Games to be not One City Challenge when it is viable to use? One City Challenge is very effective in Diplomatic Games and in Space Colony Games.

Denniz said:

No Leader, Opponents, or Map Type requrirements.

Click to expand...

This is a great decision that really makes all my complaints minor in comparison, except the lack of Religious Victory, Diplomatic Victory and Time Victory Games.

Denniz said:

The difficulty ranges is something new. I varied the ranges by victory type. Mostly the break points were just a gut feeling.

Click to expand...

Does one have to play all 9 Games or does one have a choice between each of the two Games in each Victory category that has two Games? If this is the case, I'm not sure that has been made clear. If not, I don't think this was a good choice to keep most Games being either Settler or Deity level.

Sun Tzu Wu

Interesting feedback.

I wasn't thinking of allowing Inca. I figured that allowing otherwise wide open leaders and opponents might make for some interesting interactions in the forum about choices. Same for Map Type. Plus last time may have been too restrictive.

The competition would be all 9 games. The split was to get challenge players to play both high and low difficulties on the same settings. (I was even contemplating a bonus for completing all 9 games.)

One variation I was thinking of was to allow huts on the lower difficulty games. Removing the barb requirement on the higher might be might a good way to balance that.

OCC is an interesting option but I think that for the challenge everyone should play the same kind of game.

I find that Religious victories seem to be pretty easy considering that most people should be able to win it at high levels. I considered making the 10th spot Diplomatic but since I wanted Score it would have to be all levels unlike the rest.

More feedback, please.

Denniz said:

Current plan:

1. Conquest - Noble thru Emperor
2. Conquest - Settler thru Warlord
3. Domination - Prince thru Deity
4. Domination - Settler thru Noble
5. Cultural - Monarch thru Deity
6. Cultural - Settler thru Prince
7. Space Colony - Monarch thru Deity
8. Space Colony - Settler thru Prince
9. Score - Settler thru Deity (no adjustment planned)

Options (except Score which has none):
Required: No Vassal States, No Tribal Villages
Must Not Be Checked: No Barbarians, Random Personalities, One City Challenge

No Leader, Opponents, or Map Type requrirements.

The difficulty ranges is something new. I varied the ranges by victory type. Mostly the break points were just a gut feeling.

Click to expand...

Map Size will still be limited to Tiny through Standard, right?

Denniz said:

Interesting feedback.
The competition would be all 9 games. The split was to get challenge players to play both high and low difficulties on the same settings. (I was even contemplating a bonus for completing all 9 games.)

Click to expand...

Why is there no option for Conquest for Immortal and Deity levels? As long as Complete Kills is not required and Razing is allowed, Conquest can actually be easier at Deity than Domination.

I would split the lower and higher levels based on the "defending" military unit that the AI is provided for free (when in fact it is provided at all):

Archer: Monarch, Emperor, Immortal, Deity
Warrior: Settler, Chieftain, Warlord, Noble, Prince

Thus, I would run all Victory Conditions at Settler through Prince and Monarch through Deity, except for Score and Religious Victory.

Denniz said:

One variation I was thinking of was to allow huts on the lower difficulty games. Removing the barb requirement on the higher might be might a good way to balance that.

Click to expand...

I suspect that allowing Tribal Villages on Lower Difficulty levels will be a vastly bigger Advantage than allowing "No Barbarians" on Higher Difficulty levels.

Denniz said:

OCC is an interesting option but I think that for the challenge everyone should play the same kind of game.

Click to expand...

Isn't it enough that everyone would have the fair option to play either a OCC or non-OCC Game? I don't understand how banning OCC benefits the HoF Challenge Series III? Can you explain?

Denniz said:

I find that Religious victories seem to be pretty easy considering that most people should be able to win it at high levels. I considered making the 10th spot Diplomatic but since I wanted Score it would have to be all levels unlike the rest.

Click to expand...

Maybe you could make the 10th Game a Religious Victory? It would give Players a challenge of how high a Difficulty level they can attempt and still Win a Religious Victory. Many Players still don't know how to Win a very early Religious Victory. They struggle well into the ADs in many cases.

Is there a reason that a Diplomatic Victory can't be the 11th and 12th Game of the Challenge? Given that there will be no Large or Huge Maps in HoF Challenge Series III, or especially difficult settings, I would expect that most Players wouldn't have too much trouble finishing 12 Games, especially if OCC were allowed.

Sun Tzu wu