A lesson in honesty: A WAY TO MAKE YOUR CIV4 EXPERIENCE MORE FUN

[al_thor]

In the current C4-GOTM, I had a stack of Cats fortified in a city (maybe a dozen or more). Well, I right-clicked on one of them and, not paying attention, hit UPGRADE. Guess what? It happened to be that the Entire Stack was selected, costing me around $1800!!!! Yikes, that's some SERIOUS cash in CIVIV. If it wasn't a GOTM, I would have re-loaded and not felt the worse for it.
Sure would be nice if the game gave a confimation window, saying "This upgrade will cost $1865. Continue?" Um.....no, I don't want to spend that kind of cash on seige units just yet......

I personally think that CIVIV went overboard with the "hover" window. The damned thing shorts out quite a bit yet, and doing things like upgrading units where the hover info is stuck over on the bottom left in a semi-transparent format, well, just sucks.

 

[Shillen]

If that happened to me I would have PM'd the GOTM staff and asked if it was ok to reload from an autosave and replay the same way without the mis-click.

 

[al_thor]

It didn't upgrade the whole stack, only what I could "afford", so it basically left me next to broke. Not a major setback, and I certainly learned a lesson. I'm too used to the old right-click on the city, select A SINGLE UNIT and upgrade. Those damned 'joined stacks' that come from using 'select all' have gotten me into trouble more than once, and probably will again.

Upgrades seem to be quite expensive in CIVIV. I find that I am buidling new and disbanding old more than I am upgrading.

It was a kick in the teeth, but I am way out front in this game, so I'll survive it. If it was on a higher difficulty level, I probably would have approached the staff about a re-load. Of course, on higher difficulty, I wouldn't have had that kind of cash available! (ha!)

 

[KevinTMC]

Also, though, I feel less inclined to reload ANY of my civ4 games because-unlike civ3-I never truly feel like the computer is cheating. Last night is a 'case in point'-without revealing details, something happened in the GOTM which-had it happened in a standard Civ3 game-I probably would have reloaded or given up. With this game I see it just as a HUGE challenge (and quite exciting). It is wierd how this iteration of the game has changed my outlook on things.

Well-put. This iteration has changed my outlook too. And I think it's a matter of respecting the game more--the play-balancing, the AI, the fairness of things that have random components.

Part of that greater respect is due to knowing that so many dedicated individuals--many of whom hang out here!--playtested and balanced this thing for so long and so devotedly. Regardless of our varied, and often very frustrating, technical experiences, I would think most folks would agree that this version is much better designed than Civ III was out-of-the-gate.

And part of the respect springs from differences in the way playing Civ IV just plain feels to me. I'd be more specific here, but it's Friday afternoon and my brain is acting like it's trying to scroll around an 18-player Terra map circa 1920 AD. Those memory leaks can sure be a ***** as one gets older...

Now, just where am I going to build that first city when I start the GOTM this evening? Ponder, ponder, ponder, ponder...

-- Kevin​

 

[Toni]

In response to:

Please note that some people believe that reloading (in particular) isn't serious cheating. We, however, consider it to be and have zero tolerance on it. Please also be aware that if you do it, we can detect it, and we will act on it.

It is my first game of the month and I did not know that people could not reload their saved games.

I reloaded my saved game and I want to be honest that I could not have achieved the same results if I would not have played with reloading in mind.

I did not change my basic strategy after reloading, it only allowed me to play "with more risk" and thus get better results. I did this because I wanted to achieve the best result possible.

If reloading is not in the spirit of the game though, then disqualify me, but please do not blame me, I was not aware I was not supposed to.

For the record, I won a cultural victory in 1890 and I have a clear general strategy on how to win a cultural victory. I may write it down someday to share with you.

 

[Merum]

Umm... I reloaded this GOTM, multiple times. I had to, because my system isn't all that, and I would bog down terribly (Thankfully Harkonnen's fix lets me play at least standard). Since I have autosave set to the default 4 turns, I had no choice but to replay some turns.

If this is considered to be unacceptable, then please, by all means, withdraw my entry. I'm sure it wasn't good enough to win anything anyway, but I don't want to be branded a "cheater" because my system is not the latest and greatest.

 

[AlanH]

I don't want to be branded a "cheater"

- This competition is being played with a new chunk of slightly buggy software, on rigs that may or may not be up to the challenge.

- We have 250 new GOTM players in this game to date. There are more *new* players in this game than the *total* entries we had in any Civ3 GOTM. Some of them may even have read the rules

Software crashes happen. If they happen to excess then please PM to let us know at the time of submission so that we can take it into account when reviewing your entries.

No player is "branded" a cheat on the strength of actions or events in a single game, whether as a result of crashes or ignorance of the rules. Some entries will be excluded from the results where it is established that they fall outside the rules. But that doesn't make those players cheats, and we hope they will continue to submit future games, played in the spirit of fair competition.

 

[Merum]

Thanks for the quick response... perhaps i should have chosen my words better there. I'm not upset and it's really no big deal... I just wanted to be up front and say that yea, verily, I did reload this game. I never really thought about crash reloads before on my previous submissions (granted civ3 didn't crash nearly as much) but as I said, I wanted to be right up front about it after reading this thread.

I was really happy to see a GOTM so quickly... Keep up the good work, and thanks!

Late Edit: I hope we stick to standard for a while... I doubt my machine could take much more. :/

 

[SwedishChef]

Maybe, after Civ4 GotM1 is completed, the admins could email all the participants. Something like, "Thanks for playing! We loved all the participation. By the way, to those of you who might be new here, we've enclosed a copy of the rules..."

 

[a space oddity]

Maybe, after Civ4 GotM1 is completed, the admins could email all the participants. Something like, "Thanks for playing! We loved all the participation. By the way, to those of you who might be new here, we've enclosed a copy of the rules..."

Hmm, I think people here are all net-savvy and know how to find things they need. Things like, say the starting save...
The results will be published on the gotm-site I suggest people having a look round while they are there.

 

[Shillen]

I think SwedishChef has a good idea. I would zip the save together with a text document that just reminded people to read the rules and had a hyperlink to the GOTM website rule page.

 

[AlanH]

Do you really think players who can't take the time to check the link from the download page will take the trouble to open a readme file and work out how to open a link from there? I suspect the heads-up emails we are sending out will have greater effect.

 

[Methos]

Getting a pm from one of the GOTM staff informing you your submission was disqualified due to reason x IMO is about the best way to learn from your mistakes.

Reminds me, I need to finish GOTM1.

 

[Pbhead]

You might have seen the thread, but my game crashed all the way no auto saves no nothing. I havent restarted playing the gotm. I want to know if restarting because of computer meltdown is legal

 

[AlanH]

Restarting is not allowed under any circumstances, as you have seen some of the map and the reactions of the AI. You cannot "forget" what you have seen, and so you cannot compete at an equal level of ignorance to other players.

 

[EMan]

In Civ 3 GOTM, you could "legally" view your rival civs by pressing the F10 Spaceship screen.

Is reviewing rivals allowed in Civ 4 GOTM, and if so, how do you do it?

 

[Shillen]

so you cannot compete at an equal level of ignorance to other players.

I think he called us all ignorant.

 

[AlanH]

... only as ignorant ... of the map ... as every other player should be

@EMan: Why would they have opened up the same hole they left in Civ3? (Actually I read somewhere that they did ) There was no way we could control, monitor or detect access to F10 in Civ3, and it was custom and practice with far too many players, so it just had to be tolerated. If an equivalent option exists in Civ4 it'll probably be treated in the same way. Think of it as an option you can choose to use, giving you the same information as if you had started a random map but defined the rivals. If you want to slightly increase the suspense for more excitement, then don't use it ... and then brag in the spoilers.

 

[ainwood]

Yes - I know of no way to find out who your rivals are in Civ4 - and I think its by design (even the 'greatest civilization' pop-ups don't have the civ names, nor do wonder completions etc).

 

[Denniz]

I think I remember reading somewhere that the Top 5 cities can indirectly give away civs from the city names. I haven't verified it myself.