This game is certainly great fun, combining the attractions of GOTM and SGs. Slightly outside the SGOTM idea, but I believe still more or less in its spirit, I think it would be fun to try a conquests game at Sid level with the same format. Given a friendly start map this wouldn't be impossible (?) and I think it would be great fun. Is anyone interested?
Game of the Month SGs - Discussion Thread.
- Thread starter mad-bax
- Start date
- Status
akots
Poet
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2003
- Messages
- 5,239
This is a discussion thread, and discussion of C3C is welcomed.
At some point SGOTM will have to meet the C3C challenge, and all ideas on the subject are very welcome here
But akots is right... If you want to play a deity SG then the SG forum is where I'd go. Getting enough players to fill 2 teams for a Sid game is a big ask though. If only I had time...
At some point SGOTM will have to meet the C3C challenge, and all ideas on the subject are very welcome here
But akots is right... If you want to play a deity SG then the SG forum is where I'd go. Getting enough players to fill 2 teams for a Sid game is a big ask though. If only I had time...
denyd
Emperor
Just for those enquiring minds (like me), would you post a starting game (Tribe, Level, Map size...) schedule (if you know it).
Some people (again like me) are involved in GOTM and a couple of SG's and it would be helpful to have an idea of what's coming so the plate doesn't get to full (or empty).
BTW: A BIG THANKS TO RUNNING THE THIS - YOU ARE DOING A FANTASTIC JOB
Some people (again like me) are involved in GOTM and a couple of SG's and it would be helpful to have an idea of what's coming so the plate doesn't get to full (or empty).
BTW: A BIG THANKS TO RUNNING THE THIS - YOU ARE DOING A FANTASTIC JOB
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2003
- Messages
- 5,239
I would really rather not paint myself into a corner too much.
All I will admit to is that the next game will be either monarch or emperor, and may be altered superficially to minimise spoiler information.
At the moment we are looking at week 3 in May for the next game, which will be looked after mainly by Karasu, since my children will be dragging me round theme parks for the better part of June.
All I will admit to is that the next game will be either monarch or emperor, and may be altered superficially to minimise spoiler information.
At the moment we are looking at week 3 in May for the next game, which will be looked after mainly by Karasu, since my children will be dragging me round theme parks for the better part of June.
akots
Poet
There is a recent superb article about variant games by Arathorn:
here
I'm still thinking how fare are the bonuses for the variants. Based on what is suggested in the Arathorn's article:
AW - 1.0-2.0 level up
Defiant - 0.5-1.0 level up
Fast or slow moving - 0.25-0.5 level up
5CC - 0.25-0.5 level up
5CC Conquest - 0.75 level up
OCC - 0.25-0.75 level up
Tactless - 0.5-1.0 level up
Obviously, 5CC and OCC bonuses depend on map size.
Also, very rough estimation based on very limited experience:
RBC exploits - 0.1-0.25 level up
RBC honorable rules - 0.25-1.0 level up but may be up to 2.0
Mad-bax's modification of rules - 0.1-0.25 level up
Also, a crazy idea: How to discourage "closed" teams. If all team members have more than average 200 (may be 150 or 100 or 300 or 250) "Global Player Ranking" points per player at the date the game starts, all bonuses are either gone or severely diminished, lets say, become 2 or 5-fold less. This may stimulate incorporation of unranked or low-ranked players in the teams and would make a "dream-team" less profitable enterprise.
here
I'm still thinking how fare are the bonuses for the variants. Based on what is suggested in the Arathorn's article:
AW - 1.0-2.0 level up
Defiant - 0.5-1.0 level up
Fast or slow moving - 0.25-0.5 level up
5CC - 0.25-0.5 level up
5CC Conquest - 0.75 level up
OCC - 0.25-0.75 level up
Tactless - 0.5-1.0 level up
Obviously, 5CC and OCC bonuses depend on map size.
Also, very rough estimation based on very limited experience:
RBC exploits - 0.1-0.25 level up
RBC honorable rules - 0.25-1.0 level up but may be up to 2.0
Mad-bax's modification of rules - 0.1-0.25 level up
Also, a crazy idea: How to discourage "closed" teams. If all team members have more than average 200 (may be 150 or 100 or 300 or 250) "Global Player Ranking" points per player at the date the game starts, all bonuses are either gone or severely diminished, lets say, become 2 or 5-fold less. This may stimulate incorporation of unranked or low-ranked players in the teams and would make a "dream-team" less profitable enterprise.
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2003
- Messages
- 5,239
Yes, I've read the article. My concern about Arathorns difficulty rating is that I don't believe it translates to score. Jason works on how quickly you can acquire land and finish the game. Arathorns ratings are based on (extensive) experience about how difficult a victory is to achieve. It is fairly obvious that a 25% bonus for an OCC game would not nearly compensate for the lack of land and population against a "straight" game.
Similarly, the diffierence in scoring potential between AWM and AWE is greater than one level because of the starting units the AI get in Emperor games.
In short, I think it is beyond me to make a fair system of bonuses. But what I can do is make the process of deciding which bonuses (or combination of bonuses) will be the most profitable when balanced against the strengths and weaknesses of a team an interesting challenge.
The bonuses are there purely as a mechanism for allowing games played to a variant (as most SG's are) to win the competition, and chosing those bonuses (for now) is part of the game IMO.
If someone comes up with a creditable bonus system then great. Unfortunately Arathorns numbers relate to difficulty rather than score IMO and would not lead to an equitable or long lasting solution.
I do appreciate your input akots, and much of what you say influences me, but in this case I only want to play with the bonuses once.
Similarly, the diffierence in scoring potential between AWM and AWE is greater than one level because of the starting units the AI get in Emperor games.
In short, I think it is beyond me to make a fair system of bonuses. But what I can do is make the process of deciding which bonuses (or combination of bonuses) will be the most profitable when balanced against the strengths and weaknesses of a team an interesting challenge.
The bonuses are there purely as a mechanism for allowing games played to a variant (as most SG's are) to win the competition, and chosing those bonuses (for now) is part of the game IMO.
If someone comes up with a creditable bonus system then great. Unfortunately Arathorns numbers relate to difficulty rather than score IMO and would not lead to an equitable or long lasting solution.
I do appreciate your input akots, and much of what you say influences me, but in this case I only want to play with the bonuses once.
akots
Poet
This is exactly as it was intended: clarification about possible difficulty under various variant games. Since Jason's score has 2 components, fraction of maximal per-turn score and early finish bonus, and both of these depend on difficulty, this might be a way to go.
How to compensate to base score as well as maximal score, this is a big question indeed. For example, with OCC, maximal base score is achieved very rapidly as well as with 5CC. At least, more rapidly, than the maximal base per-turn score for a bigger country. If ratio of per-turn score to maximal per-turn score is used, then OCC and 5CC become too powerful compared to normal game. And early finish, when all these per-turn scores are not important (similar to SGOTM1), is not always possible. The easiest way is just to disregard the OCC-5CC problem thus discouraging people to play these variants. Otherwise, a different table of Jason's coefficients is needed for these games.
How to compensate to base score as well as maximal score, this is a big question indeed. For example, with OCC, maximal base score is achieved very rapidly as well as with 5CC. At least, more rapidly, than the maximal base per-turn score for a bigger country. If ratio of per-turn score to maximal per-turn score is used, then OCC and 5CC become too powerful compared to normal game. And early finish, when all these per-turn scores are not important (similar to SGOTM1), is not always possible. The easiest way is just to disregard the OCC-5CC problem thus discouraging people to play these variants. Otherwise, a different table of Jason's coefficients is needed for these games.
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2003
- Messages
- 5,239
Yes, this is an option certainly. As with all the options I can conceive of, there a pro's and con's. A forced variant makes the scoring system fairer, but removes player choice.
Another option is to give the choice of a single chosen variant or a straight game with an award for each. The risk with this is that most of the teams opt for one of the options leaving one or two teams competing for the other award.
The third choice is to keep the bonuses and accept that they are mickey mouse for the moment, and once we have a body of data after a few games make an empirical evaluation of the bonuses and change them. Participants get choice and the ability to compete for the "clean" Jason award if they like. On the other hand the variant award is pretty much meaningless.
My personal opinion is that ainwoods suggestion is the only fair way of proceeding, but... I think the bonuses are fun and encourage people to broaden their horizons a little.
Another option is to give the choice of a single chosen variant or a straight game with an award for each. The risk with this is that most of the teams opt for one of the options leaving one or two teams competing for the other award.
The third choice is to keep the bonuses and accept that they are mickey mouse for the moment, and once we have a body of data after a few games make an empirical evaluation of the bonuses and change them. Participants get choice and the ability to compete for the "clean" Jason award if they like. On the other hand the variant award is pretty much meaningless.
My personal opinion is that ainwoods suggestion is the only fair way of proceeding, but... I think the bonuses are fun and encourage people to broaden their horizons a little.
akots
Poet
It all might greatly depend on the particulars of the game. Just imagined somebody playing AW or X-CC (less than 10-CC) in SGOTM14 and cannot stop laughing.
If variants would be an occasional possibility, predominantly intended to have more fun, then removal of bonuses is the best thing to do, probably. Unless some cheesy Regent setup will happen again. In general, GOTM is supposed to be played for score and not for some extra excitement. There is enough excitement already. Most of the games (all in my very limited experience) are great fun by themselves and getting high score is extreme challenge by itself. Hence, RBC bonus and multiple victory bonus would be more than enough, IMHO. If variant bonuses are kept as they are now, X-CC and AW would generally score substantially less than a normal game even with all bonuses. However, I may be very wrong and having more experience is a very strong point.
If variants would be an occasional possibility, predominantly intended to have more fun, then removal of bonuses is the best thing to do, probably. Unless some cheesy Regent setup will happen again. In general, GOTM is supposed to be played for score and not for some extra excitement. There is enough excitement already. Most of the games (all in my very limited experience) are great fun by themselves and getting high score is extreme challenge by itself. Hence, RBC bonus and multiple victory bonus would be more than enough, IMHO. If variant bonuses are kept as they are now, X-CC and AW would generally score substantially less than a normal game even with all bonuses. However, I may be very wrong and having more experience is a very strong point.
I think it is probably needlessly complicated to give bonuses, as it is very difficult to make them fair. If teams want to do something really clever like a 1CC AW or a 2CC conquest, I think we can all respect their achievement even if if the score isn't that good.
The bonuses for sgotm1 work out in a particularly absurd way of course as 5CC AW is almost an optimal way to play. That won't be the case very often. The only more extreme case in common use are the tiny map conquests carried out for the HOF played as the Aztecs, which are essentially a 1CC AW conquest (great fun to try if anyone wants a high score, and only have 20 minutes to spare for the whole game).
The bonuses for sgotm1 work out in a particularly absurd way of course as 5CC AW is almost an optimal way to play. That won't be the case very often. The only more extreme case in common use are the tiny map conquests carried out for the HOF played as the Aztecs, which are essentially a 1CC AW conquest (great fun to try if anyone wants a high score, and only have 20 minutes to spare for the whole game).
And really, how will we know if we can even play with the same teams over and over? madbax removed samildanach from the Slinger team to strengthen another team.
So will Offa go next from our when enough new people joins up? Or any other decent player in any team, for what that matters?
I want the teams evened out too, as madbax tries to do, but we would probably want to know how this will be ascertained in the future. Teams are supposed to be exactly that - teams, but as in every club in any sport or competition, there is a change of staff.
This kind of takes away the "thrill" if a team is constantly depleted of its members because they are too good for the overall "competition".
I would like some input in this matter. I felt very strongly to play alone first and do the OCC AW variant, but SG's are SG's and it's not much of that if you play by yourself, right?
Btw, I won my try on that theme yesterday around 1100AD, pretending I didn't know where the other island was
Yes, I'm an idiot, but I don't hide it.
So will Offa go next from our when enough new people joins up? Or any other decent player in any team, for what that matters?
I want the teams evened out too, as madbax tries to do, but we would probably want to know how this will be ascertained in the future. Teams are supposed to be exactly that - teams, but as in every club in any sport or competition, there is a change of staff.
This kind of takes away the "thrill" if a team is constantly depleted of its members because they are too good for the overall "competition".
I would like some input in this matter. I felt very strongly to play alone first and do the OCC AW variant, but SG's are SG's and it's not much of that if you play by yourself, right?
Btw, I won my try on that theme yesterday around 1100AD, pretending I didn't know where the other island was
Yes, I'm an idiot, but I don't hide it.
grs
nameless one
I too think that the boni don't add any particular flavour to the games. It would be nice to incorporate them into the actual game setup sometimes, i.e. SGOTM3 may be setup as an 5cc, SGOTM6 may be an AW game, etc. These setup rules would then be mandatory for all teams and won't require any bonus calculations.
--
grs
--
grs
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2003
- Messages
- 5,239
Well, as far as teams are concerned, I operated the idea proposed on the first page of this thread. That is, teams could pick themselves with two restrictions. First that the team must be four members (so that I could add a stronger or weaker player for balance), and second, that the team must not be a "dream team" of elite players. This is for two reasons. To give everyone an equal chance of winning (as far as possible) and to share the elite players around to the benefit of as many weaker players as possible. The problem with your team was that team (Offa, microbe, gozpel, Samildanach and barbslinger) broke both rules. I couldn't strenghten or weaken the team by adding a player because then you would have had 6 players where other teams only had 4 or even 3 players. And secondly the team contained the two highest rated GOTM players and a couple of very strong SG deity variant players too. That is why I broke up the team, and even so I gave you the option of keeping Sam.
As far as the bonuses go... perhaps they were ill conceived. When I started this I thought the SG's would be a bit of fun, and a chance to play some of the GOTM's in a different way, rather than just go for score. I have to learn that what I want is rarely what other people want. So it looks like we just have to make SGOTM score driven, rather than challenge driven. It will help with the process though as everyone going for fast domination will keep the games shorter.
As far as the bonuses go... perhaps they were ill conceived. When I started this I thought the SG's would be a bit of fun, and a chance to play some of the GOTM's in a different way, rather than just go for score. I have to learn that what I want is rarely what other people want. So it looks like we just have to make SGOTM score driven, rather than challenge driven. It will help with the process though as everyone going for fast domination will keep the games shorter.
denyd
Emperor
I do like the directed victory type games or a bonus for variants.
It seemed like there was a 6 month stretch, when GOTM had a preferred victory type as the games were also part of the Tournament game set (remember that?). Each games victory condition seemed to have a lesson about the game that could be learned by winning to that goal. How many people would play the Vikings to a 20K culture victory if there was no benefit. I'd really rather these games not always be a race to see who can kill all the AI first. As opposed to having a bonus multiplier, maybe a fixed point award can be added (similar to QSC). Take the Jason score and add 1000 if OCC, 500 if AW, 1000 if multi-type, etc.
What I would really like to see, is a the full game scored in a method similar to the QSC + Jason, so builders and warmongers would be a little more even, but that's a whole different discussion.
Once again, thank you to MB for a very enjoyable game.
It seemed like there was a 6 month stretch, when GOTM had a preferred victory type as the games were also part of the Tournament game set (remember that?). Each games victory condition seemed to have a lesson about the game that could be learned by winning to that goal. How many people would play the Vikings to a 20K culture victory if there was no benefit. I'd really rather these games not always be a race to see who can kill all the AI first. As opposed to having a bonus multiplier, maybe a fixed point award can be added (similar to QSC). Take the Jason score and add 1000 if OCC, 500 if AW, 1000 if multi-type, etc.
What I would really like to see, is a the full game scored in a method similar to the QSC + Jason, so builders and warmongers would be a little more even, but that's a whole different discussion.
Once again, thank you to MB for a very enjoyable game.
Thank you for the great job you did putting this together M-B. It was very well done. I think your goal of making the game more interesting by trying to use things other than the final score is very good. Are the bonuses perfect, probably not, for the reasons you have already gone over. Does this mean we should abandon them? I would say not yet. Perhaps we should play some more games, as you have asked, and think of it as a project to see how players meet challenges and take some time to develop more meaningful bonuses over a span or 5 or 6 games. I would not be for abandoning the current format so quickly in the name of comparing scores and competition. Just my 2 cents.
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2003
- Messages
- 5,239
What about this then...?
One variant per game. Two awards. One for highest Jason and one for fastest finish.
The winner of the fastest finish award gets to pick the next games variant from a list. The staff will then select a map they consider suitable for that variant.
Would that work?
One variant per game. Two awards. One for highest Jason and one for fastest finish.
The winner of the fastest finish award gets to pick the next games variant from a list. The staff will then select a map they consider suitable for that variant.
Would that work?
grs
nameless one
This sounds like an excellent idea. It combines being able to play variants (and beeing rewarded for it), with still being possible to play a straight game and get a high score (if not a highscore) - sorry for the pun
--
grs
- Status
Similar threads
