by Duke o York (aka The One With Only A Playstation
):
Not sure I like the look of this at all. It may be on Emperor, but it still seems far too easy to me.
LOL, since when has any GOTM
ever been "hard" for the experienced players?
The GOTMs need to be interesting and playable by the majority of participants. Last year, we even had a game or two at Warlord, but I like other alternatives that allow King-type players to have a playable game at Emperor or Deity (like this, or like Smash's Fundy last month).
The most experienced players are
always going to beat the AI anyway.... the challenge is more one of strategy, efficency, fun, and seeing how others approached the same game. For me personally, reading the Spoiler Thread is half the fun of GOTMs... and to me, it would be a crock if 80% of the players got creamed (like happens in the Civ 3 GOTM sometimes). Ergo, none of my personal GOTM suggestions will be for nightmare type GOTMs... the AI's role in life is to get pummeled by humans...
.
The only difference will be who chooses which wonder but I reckon that everyone should win with a start like this! I wanna read logs where people get creamed by the Zulus in the first 3000 years!
We will enjoy reading about the AI whooping up on you, Duke!
That is, when you get a PC (this Fall, right?)!
I know that you want them to be accessible, but the GotMs should be a challenge now and again too! One month you could have a Prince game with a relatively easy map but the next time I want Deity+18 on a three square island!!! Or something slightly tougher though perhaps not that bad.
Try Samson's Size-One OCC Challenge (that's where you can have only one city, and it can never ever be more than size 1, and you must beat all AIs to a SS landing!!) with this game & see what happens (Size One OCC is difficult on any map!)... Or maybe the Size 4 challenge if Size 1 is a bit frightening
(
OCC Paulicy). If
that is too easy, then stay in Despotism & allow yourself only warriors and freight/caravans.
In case anyone has been following the group of us in Andu & Kev's Deity Plus 1 (Deity+1, or Dp1) game in the succession thread (
here), levels higher than Deity can be played, but not loaded, with MGE. They must be played in 2.42 (Classic) to have error-free save/loads. And we crushed the AI, even with no bribing and the big AI advantage of D+1. I think D+5 is about as high as it will go without crashing the game (Andu is playing a D+5 individual game). The GOTM won't be at levels higher than Deity.
Anyway, the purpose of GOTMs are not to come up with nightmare challenges, but to appeal to a wide audience, be fun, and give us all the same game to play.
Hmmmm..... I've just though of a new acronym. Duke o York's Nightmare Challenge (DoYNC, pronounced "Doink"
).