GOTM - 01: A New Beginning. Pre-Game Discussion

[Simone1974]

I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet: In Civ IV, cities spread irrigation, even without Civil Service, but not if they are on hills. And, you can build farms on resources that need farms, even without irrigation, but you don't get the +1 food for the farm until you irrigate the tile.

So, if you settle on the hill, then a farm on the corn SE will only be +2 food, until Civil Service. But, if you settle 1E or 1S, then a farm on the corn will be +3 food as soon as you build it. Right?

Mmmh, I think you can farm there due to the presence of the resource (corn?)
AFAIK, cities don't spread irrigation.

 

[DaviddesJ]

AFAIK, cities don't spread irrigation.

Yeah, I think I was seeing something else (still not sure what), which led me to perpetuate this apparently false rumor. There might be a bug that only appears in certain situations---for now I'm just keeping an eye out for it. Sorry about that.

 

[wmtrexler]

Hello all
This looks like a lot of fun. I look forward to participating in my first GOTM.

Good luck to you all.

Page 14 already...I feel like I am starting late.

 

[Richie]

only two quick questions,

- how it's possible there are 50 submissions already (people who finished civ4 gotm#1?) if save file was given today ?

- why submission form has button to upload replay file? do we need to play replay after victory to create autonatically replay file? what important information is inside replay file?

 

[AlanH]

@Richie: The save game was published a few days ago, right after the patch was released, as indicated in the news announcement. Players are very quick off the mark. Some submit within hours of the save being released. The submissions now stand at 69.

We prepared the submission form before we knew what we could find out from the save file. Please remember that this game has been out for precisely one month. None of the staff had access to Civ4 saves for the released product before that. In that time we have had to learn what we can of the structure of the file in order to see what we can extract from it.

I took the decision to request the replay as well, in case we needed that in addition to the save in order to validate the entries. Although it looks as though we shall be able to extract all the information we need, at this stage and for this game I still prefer to ask you to provide the replay file as well. Is it a big deal? Fifty Seventy players have managed it so far ...

 

[Civgeek]

It has been a while since I played a CivIII COTM or GOTM; whats the sort of average number of people that submit for those? 70 in the first few days seems a great number to me. Great in terms of participation, not so great in terms of how well I will do ...

 

[AlanH]

116.36 submissions per game over the life of the Civ3 competition. It peaked at over 240 for GOTM 25, and ran at around 140 for the COTMs until a month or two ago, when Civ4 started to absorb everyone's attention. The stats are here. Look at the "Victory conditions" graph to see the total players for each game.

I'm fully expecting Civ4 GOTMs to exceed the best performance of the Civ3 games, at least for a while.

 

[Richie]

AlanH thank you for answers, and I must assume you, that you took wrong my question, it's not a big deal for me to upload even 10 files I wasn't angry at all ot smth like that, I just was curious and wanted to know what's for replay file, thanks again for explananation

 

[AlanH]

AlanH thank you for answers, and I must assume you, that you took wrong my question, it's not a big deal for me to upload even 10 files I wasn't angry at all ot smth like that, I just was curious and wanted to know what's for replay file, thanks again for explananation

My question was genuine. You made me worried that I may be asking players to do a lot of extra work to provide the replay file.

You see, I have a minor problem that I can't play this game myself, as I don't have a PC. So I rely on feedback from people like you to judge whether I'm asking you to do reasonable things.

 

[civaddict098]

im sure this has been mentioned before but i didnt wanna read everything.

whats keeping people from cheating using the world builder?

 

[waylander]

Has the file been removed. I am on the Game Page and I see the message
Click on the image below to download the start save file.

But there is no image to click on below? Has the save file been removed?

Waylander

 

[SamE]

im sure this has been mentioned before but i didnt wanna read everything.

whats keeping people from cheating using the world builder?

Well, AFAIK, nothing. It's not any better than playing through an entire game and then playing it again and submitting your second save.

I guess the replay would tell the GOTM staff a bit about whether the player 'looks' like they've played it before, but they likely wouldn't be able to prove it.

It's not a huge deal, no cash prizes or anything, so I would hope no one cheats just to win. They could do that in the normal games, but it ruins the fun. Besides, nothing says that someone who's never played it before or seen the WorldBuilder couldn't beat someone who cheats. I'm not sure it gives them that much of an advantage.

 

[AlanH]

Has the file been removed. I am on the Game Page and I see the message
Click on the image below to download the start save file.

But there is no image to click on below? Has the save file been removed?

Waylander

This is what you should see at the bottom of the page. Try the scroll bar?

 

[AlanH]

@£ CivAddict098:

SamE is right. What's the point of cheating? If you beat someone by cheating, there's no prize, juts bragging rights. What are you telling the world? That you are a better player? Or a better cheat?

There's a limit to what we can do to prevent cheating. We tried using a start file with password protection, but the protection system seems to be flawed.

 

[Rhymes]

@£ CivAddict098:

SamE is right. What's the point of cheating? If you beat someone by cheating, there's no prize, juts bragging rights. What are you telling the world? That you are a better player? Or a better cheat?
.

You'de be surprise how many people only want bragging rights..... thats the "king of the internet syndrome".

But I think that the amount of cheaters is a small minority... Still.. you should check with particular attention the 10-15 best scores, therer are ways, even for me, to recognize am obvious cheated game from the repaly file and the reload tracing....

 

[AlanH]

therer are ways, even for me, to recognize am obvious cheated game from the repaly file and the reload tracing....

Don't even think that we won't do our very best to look for it!

 

[waylander]

This is what you should see at the bottom of the page. Try the scroll bar?

Yah, that never showed up. The bar below the link does but the image never did. This was at home on dial-up. It shows up fine at work. I guess I will just have to take it home on a flash disk.

 

[bgruesbeck]

AlanH,

GOTM is a really neat idea and I'm sure that you have your hands full with keeping up on cheaters, scores, and replys... but I have to ask why don't you have a pc? It just sounded like I should ask the question since no one else has yet...

 

[EMan]

Mac addict?

@bgruesbeck: Welcome to CFC.

 

[ainwood]

AlanH,

GOTM is a really neat idea and I'm sure that you have your hands full with keeping up on cheaters, scores, and replys... but I have to ask why don't you have a pc? It just sounded like I should ask the question since no one else has yet...

He does have a PC. Some slow old beast that runs windows 98. Uses it as a door-stop I believe.