HOF Cheese Annex (unofficial poll)

[Harbourboy]

Gauntlets could definitely be used as a way of rewarding cheeseless behaviour. It can take me two weeks to complete a gauntlet, but only 1 hour to fill an empty QM slot.

I like the marathon analogy mentioned earlier. Recognition should be given to everyone who finishes a marathon, from the athletic Kenyan who does it in 2 hours to the arthritic pensioner who walks it in 7 hours. The Kenyan gets the gold medal and the world record, but they both get a certificate, and they are both recognised as being one up on the couch potato who stayed home and played computer games all day).

Same for Hall of Fame and Quattromasterdom. They need recognise both skill (high scores) and perseverance (number of completed games). I think someone who manages to submit every Gauntlet in a year deserves just as much credit as the person who submitted that one brilliant top scoring one.

 

[Miraculix]

As far as QM ranking and cheesy games, I think folks might be overreacting a little. Two reasons... First, I believe this will be self policing over time. The competition for future space times is already happening. Second, I think "cheesyness" is a continuum. If we eliminate what seems to be the "easiest" way to win, then something else will now be the easiest, and people will gravitate to it. Get rid of that one, they will find the next. Maybe we should disallow Huayna altogether?

I have a different opinion on Future start Space Race games.

We don't know yet whether it is possible to outperform Future Space Race games at fast speeds. I believe it makes sense to discuss what to do in case people get convinced that these games are 'unbeatable'.

I agree that we should not try to continuously disallow strategies that seem to be marginally easier than other strategies at any given time. However, Future Space Race is not a marginal strategy but rather extreme. Let me explain why.

With an Ancient start I would have problems winning a Space Race game above Noble level. And even at Noble level, I would probably have problems scoring above average in the respective table. This means that with a Huge map and raging barbarians, the best Qscore I could hope for would be (0.4+0.1)*1.0*50% = 25 points. On the other hand, with a Future start game I am able to:
1) Win easily on Deity level
2) Perform within a few turns of the #1 game in all Deity/Huge tables except Marathon. This is because the #1 game in these tables seems to converge rapidly towards a 'theoretically minimum' date as people continue to improve their strategy.

So although my 'nominal' civilization skills are worth about a 25 Qscore points, Future Space Race games allow me to fill most of my QM slots with games having a Qscore between 90 and 100. By submitting 16 Future Space Race games, I have been able to increase my QM score from about 67 to 92 in a few weeks. Some people compare Future start Space Race games with playing Inca. I don't believe playing Inca is even close to having a similar impact on the QScores.

I would say that a single strategy that allows a person to score 4x his nominal score and fill most of his QM slots with these games is quite extreme and should be dealt with.

In the meantime, I am going to continue submitting Future Space Race games to fill as many QM slots as possible. (Unless Wastintime achieves #1 position with an Ancient start game. )

 

[Harbourboy]

Nice analysis, Miraculix. I never intend to play future starts as I find the ancient era more interesting. I would only ever play a future start if it came up in a gauntlet.

Actually, I think I will probably only ever play gauntlets from now on (plus GOTM, which is not HoF), because gauntlets are fun and I like devoting a decent chunk of time to working through how to complete them. This leaves no spare time for non-gauntlet HoF submissions. The only time I can think that I would do a non-gauntlet game for HoF would be if I completed a HoF-compatible test game for GOTM (e.g. a Ramesses II Terra Standard Prince game while getting ready for WOTM9).

 

[superslug]

As promised, some various thoughts:

• Pentathlon

As HOF-III players know, their Quartermaster's Challenge had an event known as Pentathlon, which required a submission of every mapsize. This event was deliberately dropped for Quattromaster's because Huge maps in Civ4 are nothing short of atrocious on computer resources. Instead League of Nations was devised as a replacement.

Interestingly enough though, we do assign the most points to Huge maps and scale down from there. It's possible a bell curve would be more appropriate, peaking on standard, with Huge and Large matching Small and Standard, and Duel getting the least amount of love at all, if any.

• League of Nations

When designed, it was known that it penalized Vanilla users. Even if it chose the best 18, there would still be a selection advantage for Warlords players. It was decided not to worry about it based largely on our experience in HOF-III, where after the XP's started rolling out, Vanilla submissions became practically extinct. That hasn't happened in IV, as Vanilla remains quite strong, possibly due to the Gauntlets.

Of course there's going to be more of a problem with this once BTS is released. Then again, I have to wonder how someone can be such a Civaholic that they compete in CFC's Hall of Fame and not own an expansion pack a year old?

• Gauntlets

The Gauntlets have taken hold more so than expected. I do believe they are the heart and soul of the Hall of Fame.

• Inca

If they need fixed, it's up to Firaxis to do it.

• Duel-sized maps

They weren't really intended for single play. If we add new levels to the Challenge, Duel may not make it.

• Future starts

There is always the possibility of a point scale on era starts, penalizing later age beginnings, but with the proposed BTS feature of buying advanced starts, this issue looks more and more problematic.

• Cheese

I look at submissions all the time and think "that's a quality game" or "that's a crap submission (filler material, etc)". However, I'm not going to publically state which games are which. First and foremost, that's because I'm here to judge the legality of the games, not the games themselves. Secondly, one person's cheese is another person's brainfood. Some of my own submissions are Future Duels, and a few of them I had didn't just play to fill a slot, I actually had a ton of fun, which is the ultimate point.

Then again, I too believe the HOF can be "more better" (as Denniz put it). There's two things I'd like to see happen most of all. First, I'd like to see the Quattromaster Challenge heightened in stature. We're the preeminent competitive environment of the largest Civilization community in the world, the Hall of Fame is the top of the food chain. The things that were done in Hall of Fame III directly impacted the very development of Civilization IV, and what we've done here has influenced patches and expansion packs both. We make the game as much as we break it, the two go hand in hand.

On the flip side, I think there's room for improvement in our submissions though. There's this general attitude out there that in order to play for the Hall of Fame you have to be seriously anal about milking for points and spending hours plotting tricks to save a turn or two. It drives me absolutely bonkers that people see that as a prerequisite for HOF competition. We welcome all submissions played within the rules, the tables sort themselves out as far as who is great, who is good, etc, etc. I have no idea how to expand on this one at this time though...

As far the as the overall Challenge goes, some kind of multilevel split seems to make sense. I almost wonder if an easier lower level shouldn't be added where Gauntlets aren't required, and then a higher level added where career Gauntlet submissions would be cumulative, a global rankings of sorts. That *might* make it more accessible and yet more elite simultaneously, but at this point in the evening, I'm in strong need of dinner and could very much be talking out my rear.

 

[Harbourboy]

We're the preeminent competitive environment of the largest Civilization community in the world, the Hall of Fame is the top of the food chain.

Wow, and I'm in the Top 40 of that esteemed group. I now feel honoured instead of incompetent. Although...

"that's a crap submission (filler material, etc)". However, I'm not going to publically state which games are which.

I will publicly state that my last 5 submissions before making QM were definite crap filler material (Quick Duel Warlords Domination with different leaders - I did 5 in two days).

The Gauntlets have taken hold more so than expected. I do believe they are the heart and soul of the Hall of Fame.

They have quickly become the heart and soul of my playing. Much more so than GOTM because GOTM is a one-shot pistol, whereas you can have as many attempts at a gauntlet as you have time for.

where career Gauntlet submissions would be cumulative,

That is what I would most like to see, out of all the suggestions made in this thread.

 

[Mutineer]

It seems I need to explain and expand my basic idea.

HOF right now is practically dead. Fastest games are Incas Vanilla rushes and always will be. Hof attempt to compare games by criteria that made games in compatible.

I would propose follow system:

Fastest win in any combination of Major Game version/victory condition/map type/map size/speed/ leader gives 100 Base points.

Best Turn befor (BTB)= Number of turns from 4000BC to fastest win.
Best Turns after(BTA) = Number of turns form fastest win to 2050AD.
Game Turns befor (GTB) = Number of turns from 4000BC for this game
Games turns after (GTA) = Number of turns for this game to 2050AD.
Total turns = number of turns from 4000BC to 2050AD in that game speed.

Number of turns always assumed from 4000, no matter what actual starting date is.

Slower wins give:

Base Points= 100* GTA/BTA*BTB/GTB

So, you never get 0 base point, but amount of point you get fall reasonable fast.

I would ignore minor factors, like barbarian on/off, sea level low/high, climate until there enough statistic for this entry (Probably never).

So, that make culture win on settler on due map quick speed= deity conquest of normal speed normal map.

Well we can easy correct that by applying reasonable difficulty/map size/speed modifiers.

Difficulty seems logical to use
1-7 for settler immortal diapason, 10 for deity.

Map size. Duel 0.2, small 0.5, normal and bigger 1
Speed. Fast/normal 1, epic 0.8, marathon 0.5

Slower speed always benefit human player, when fast speed is better for some winning conditions then normal.

What will it do?
It will entice people to play different leaders and all wining conditions for the same point and place in table. It make winning in different setting with different winning conditions compare.
Frankly, right now Hof itself is dead, as nothing beat quecha rush.

 

[Dracandross]

I just submitted quick deity spacerace of 1810 with ancient start , so I think this debate is pointless. Yes I know its was on tiny map, but if it's doable on tiny its doable on bigger maps too, just takes more tries. And even if its not doable on large/huge quick its just 2 games that are out of equation and thats hardly gamebreaking considering Qscores.

I think that it will be lot easier to do it on normal, as speed is significantly slower. In my opinion only fix we need for QM is elite-QM and point decreasing factor if there are very many games that have same finish date. That would prevent easy 30points from prince (not that its much anyway) and in case future spacerace is too easy on huge/quick after enough tries there will be many identical finish dates as theres less variability.

For now Id say Inca is alot cheesier than future starts. There should be discount of points if playing easy civ compared to hard one. Like +x% if you conquest on nonaggro non early uu civ and so on for other types too...

 

[Denniz]

I just submitted quick deity spacerace of 1810 with ancient start , so I think this debate is pointless. Yes I know its was on tiny map, but if it's doable on tiny its doable on bigger maps too, just takes more tries. And even if its not doable on large/huge quick its just 2 games that are out of equation and thats hardly gamebreaking considering Qscores.

I think that it will be lot easier to do it on normal, as speed is significantly slower. In my opinion only fix we need for QM is elite-QM and point decreasing factor if there are very many games that have same finish date. That would prevent easy 30points from prince (not that its much anyway) and in case future spacerace is too easy on huge/quick after enough tries there will be many identical finish dates as theres less variability.

For now Id say Inca is alot cheesier than future starts. There should be discount of points if playing easy civ compared to hard one. Like +x% if you conquest on nonaggro non early uu civ and so on for other types too...

I am sure it is possible for ancient starts to beat out the future starts. The question is will anyone ever bother to submit those games. Eliminating future starts from the elite level wouldn't alter anything if that did happen. But if it doesn't we're covered. It might even encourge people to try those ancient starts.

 

[Dracandross]

The question is will anyone ever bother to submit those games. Eliminating future starts from the elite level wouldn't alter anything if that did happen. But if it doesn't we're covered. It might even encourge people to try those ancient starts.

Surely, when they are easiest way to number one position. Now theres so many free and easy points most will run for them

 

[Dracandross]

I thought a bit of current Qscoring and I think it could be done more rewarding for harder games. As this thread was about getting easy points from some games there could be good way to diminish that without altering games you can go for it.

I think that monarch level is breakpoint that games start to really grow harder and standard+ size gives alot more work to do, too.

Obvious reason for monarch+ getting harder is that AI has starting defensive unit. Mapsizes small+ have enough opponents to make game a bit more messy.

My idea is that instead of Qs rising 10% for each dif and mapsize it could rise faster in the end. Heres some possible numbers:

Settler .10 Duel .4
Chief .15 Tiny .55
Warlord .20 Small .7
Noble .25 Standard .90
Prince .30 Large .95
Monarch .40 Huge 1.0
Emperor .50
Immortal .65
Deity .80

And barbs should give points depending on mapsize / difficulty as barbs are lot easier on small map and easy diff

up to Prince Monarch+
Duel-Small/Norm-Huge Duel-Small/Norm-Huge
Normal Barbs .03 .06 .1 .15
Raging Barbs .06 .09 .15 .2

I prefer not to have drop for later starts as they will fall soon as theres enough ancient starts.

Scoring might show a bit messy but at least it will encourage playing larger maps more but not punishing hard if your comp cant handle large/huge maps. It will also encourage using barbarians and give credit for using them at higher levels alot more.

On a sidenote elite QM could instead of putting certain difficulty level to finish game have score based cutter. For example all submitted games must have 50%+ (or some other %) of the maximum possible qscore for that slot. I mean if it finishes as top game. You dont have to get 50% qs to qualify game just must have settings to allow that amount. Example

Settler slot has maximum Qs now .2 (diff+barbs) *1 = 20 points. To qualify for elite QM submitted settlergame must have maximum points of 10+ ie if no barbs it has to be huge (10pts) or with raging barbs it could be duel (also 10pts). Final score what you get from game shouldn't affect it. With my proposed way of counting scores elite QM would also be more of a challence as lower games would need barbs and/or bigger map to qualify.

 

[Shoot the Moon]

On a sidenote elite QM could instead of putting certain difficulty level to finish game have score based cutter. For example all submitted games must have 50%+ (or some other %) of the maximum possible qscore for that slot. I mean if it finishes as top game. You dont have to get 50% qs to qualify game just must have settings to allow that amount. Example

Settler slot has maximum Qs now .2 (diff+barbs) *1 = 20 points. To qualify for elite QM submitted settlergame must have maximum points of 10+ ie if no barbs it has to be huge (10pts) or with raging barbs it could be duel (also 10pts). Final score what you get from game shouldn't affect it. With my proposed way of counting scores elite QM would also be more of a challence as lower games would need barbs and/or bigger map to qualify.

My two cents: What about instead of basing it off of QScore, base it off of the place it has in the HoF table. For example, to qualify for "elite", a game must have a top 5 slot in something. Obviously, this means someone can be kicked off of the elite list if one of their games is bumped. I would therefore propose a "probationary" period. (I may not have thought this through fully, so if there is something stupid or pointless about my idea, feel free to tell me)

 

[Dracandross]

My two cents: What about instead of basing it off of QScore, base it off of the place it has in the HoF table. For example, to qualify for "elite", a game must have a top 5 slot in something. Obviously, this means someone can be kicked off of the elite list if one of their games is bumped. I would therefore propose a "probationary" period. (I may not have thought this through fully, so if there is something stupid or pointless about my idea, feel free to tell me)

Well, if you count that you need to have lots of games in top range that has no real meaning. I see it's a way to show who does well. If only top 5 can stay there it's nothing for ones outside top 5. And even now table can sort out that. I thought it was idea to make QM worth something not just mindlessly submitting duel conquests with each diff and each nation at prince level+few future starts. Therefore way to make slightly bigger maps or smaller ones with barbs would be nice.

-Dracandross

 

[azzaman333]

My two cents: What about instead of basing it off of QScore, base it off of the place it has in the HoF table. For example, to qualify for "elite", a game must have a top 5 slot in something. Obviously, this means someone can be kicked off of the elite list if one of their games is bumped. I would therefore propose a "probationary" period. (I may not have thought this through fully, so if there is something stupid or pointless about my idea, feel free to tell me)

It sounds like a good idea, but if up to me, I'd require that you must have a top 10 game for each category in the QM (Map Quest, Gauntlet, League of Nations, etc) to be an elite QM.

Also, the Inca are too good for just about any game on Monarch+, but I have no idea what to do about that...

 

[killercane]

It sounds like a good idea, but if up to me, I'd require that you must have a top 10 game for each category in the QM (Map Quest, Gauntlet, League of Nations, etc) to be an elite QM.

Also, the Inca are too good for just about any game on Monarch+, but I have no idea what to do about that...

Kind of like the Iro in Civ 3? There will always be a "best" civ to play for HOF games. I agree you need a top ten game in each category though, even though I dont know what an elite QM even is!

 

[azzaman333]

Kind of like the Iro in Civ 3? There will always be a "best" civ to play for HOF games. I agree you need a top ten game in each category though, even though I dont know what an elite QM even is!

However, the C3C Iro weren't inherently the best at everything. OTOH, the Inca (as far as I can tell) are.

 

[Misotu]

Just back from holiday and browsing through this thread. There are a lot of good ideas here. I agree with a lot of what The-Hawk said earlier in this thread, but the following is an abridged version of one of his comments with which I am very strongly in agreement:

:
I think we should allow all game types. No matter where you draw the line, there will always be a way to play that is relatively "easy" compared to the rest .... A better way to fix the QScore and ranking issue (maybe caused by cheesyness) is to modify the scoring itself. This means trying to better identify the real toughness factors (or more penalize the easy factors).

Like The-Hawk, I would have absolutely no objection to changes to the Q-score formula to try to reflect the true difficulty of a particular combination of settings. As more data is available from more games, this might need to be done from time to time for quite a long period as it seems optimistic to think that the first correction would be perfect. It's probably an iterative process and, yes, there'd be an adverse effect on some existing scores but it wouldn't bother me if I dropped down the table like a stone all of a sudden After all, that will happen (& is already happening!) anyway as much better games than mine are submitted (Congrats Bram ). I don't really see the difference to be honest. I'd rather be part of a competition that developed and improved over time - more games is good and more variety is even better.

I also like the suggestion that the Gauntlets should score more highly. I think this would encourage even higher levels of participation and would also encourage people to play a wider range of settings than they are otherwise likely to choose. The current set-up definitely means that I tend to favour particular leaders, victories, opponents, settings and so on, because they are much more rewarding score-wise. It would be great to have a real incentive to play the leaders and victories I find more difficult!

I noticed a suggestion that QM might be run as an annual competition, which I thought was interesting. I remember there was some discussion a while ago about whether the HoF entries should "devalue", score-wise, over time. I think the HoF is a different matter - a permanent record of the best games ever - but with QM, this might be an opportunity to reflect current, rather than historic, activity? It might be a bit dramatic to clear the board completely annually (and actually, if people are playing really good quality games rather than the "cheesy" shortcuts, it's an awful lot of games to play in a year!) but it would certainly keep QM current and lively. Alternatively, perhaps games could simply cease to count after a certain period of time, so that older games were dropping out on a rolling basis each update?

 

[Harbourboy]

I also like the suggestion that the Gauntlets should score more highly.

Yes, because that gives everyone a chance to stay motivated in the HoF. Without gauntlets, there isn't much to aim for once you have reached QM, but aren't one of the real experts who can submit top ranking games in everything. Completing Gauntlets represents a major challenge for me, and it would be nice to see that recognised in my score / ranking / title / something.

At the moment, completing every Gauntlet does virtually nothing for my HoF scores or QM rankings, even though I do find them to be a lot of fun.

 

[Ozbenno]

At the moment, completing every Gauntlet does virtually nothing for my HoF scores or QM rankings, even though I do find them to be a lot of fun.

I know I'm not a good enough player to actually win a gauntlet so I use the gauntlets as a chance to play civs that I haven't submitted games as before (or now that I have played all 24, civs that I have only submitted 1 game for), that way it will increase my league of nations score, hence my QM score. If I get time I may try the gauntlet again as a more suitable civ.

 

[Methos]

Without gauntlets, there isn't much to aim for once you have reached QM,

Personally, I disagree. I enjoy working my way up the rankings. Having said that, this past update I dropped by two.

 

[Dracandross]

It sounds like a good idea, but if up to me, I'd require that you must have a top 10 game for each category in the QM (Map Quest, Gauntlet, League of Nations, etc) to be an elite QM.

Also, the Inca are too good for just about any game on Monarch+, but I have no idea what to do about that...

Which leads to major problem. If there is to be more than one elite QMs how in hell you can score in top ten within all of those different styles. Everyone goes with Inca to get within top 10 and after that it's impossible to score within top 10 with any other civ. Therefore it can't be based on top games. This might take time though because there aren't so many HoF players but still...

Only way to avoid playing only Inca is to give some civs bonuses for QS and some penalties. I'm not familiar what are bad civs but for conquest oriented games any non aggro will at least fill that. Easy to find who is on low priority is to check which nations have bad scores on league score table.

A lot played leaders are most likely eliz, gandhi (warlords), saladin (vanilla), mansa.