A little better quality control on this month's GOTM

[alain]

je vois que ma partie donne droit a beaucoup de discussion.....

a cela je repond 2 choses:

1) concerne MSGT John Drew reply
"So he only had three cities to build his puny but highly successful army of veteran horsemen"

et oui et alors en constuisant d'abord des chariots et en economisant de l'argent science et luxe à 0 pour les upgrade vous obtené une armée de 20 horseman pret au combat de plus ces 3 villes en produise d'autre tout les 3 tours ....

"Alain did not even concentrate forces to take Salamanca since he also took Washington at the same turn"

C'est juste pour terminer rapidement j'ai envoyer la moitié de mes forces au sud et l'autre à l'est.....

"The Iroquis also had swordsmen (road-connected iron)"

le fer etait connecter mais les iroquois n'avait pas de swordsmen uniquement des spearmen facile a battre....

2)concerne reload
il y a peut-être trop de reload selon votre police sur ma partie, mais que dire des excuse bidon de certains, quelques exemples très croustillants:
A)I don't know exactly how many times I'm reloading while play the GOTM. 20-50 times I mean. Sometimes I do 1/2 units movements of the turn and begin thinking what to do further. If I havn't inspiration I quit the game and return some hours later (if have got time).
B)We even have GOTM players who play during their lunchtimes
at work.

En conclusion et a mon avis être pointilleux sur le nombre de reload est une aberration quand on voit que 17 joueurs sur les 20 premier du dernier classement detourne complétement l'esprit du jeu en prolongeant leur partie jusqu'en 2050 (milking) pour améliorer leur score artificielement.....

PS: toutes mes excuses mais je rentre de vacances et j'ai vraiment pas la force de repondre en anglais.....

 

[Serg]

alain!
I also know english language very bad but please try to write your letter on english.

 

[ainwood]

Ghengis or DOY could do this better, but here goes....

Originally posted by alain
je vois que ma partie donne droit a beaucoup de discussion.....

a cela je repond 2 choses:

I see that my part gives a lot of discussion.

I will respond with 2 things:

1) concerne MSGT John Drew reply
"So he only had three cities to build his puny but highly successful army of veteran horsemen"

et oui et alors en constuisant d'abord des chariots et en economisant de l'argent science et luxe à 0 pour les upgrade vous obtené une armée de 20 horseman pret au combat de plus ces 3 villes en produise d'autre tout les 3 tours ....

And yes there is then initially the chariotrs, and economically the gold, science and luxuries are 0 for the upgrade you obtain an army of 20 horsemen close to combat in addition these three towns are producing others all the three turns.

"Alain did not even concentrate forces to take Salamanca since he also took Washington at the same turn"

C'est juste pour terminer rapidement j'ai envoyer la moitié de mes forces au sud et l'autre à l'est.....

It is just for finishing rapidly I have sent half of my forces south and the other (half) east.

"The Iroquis also had swordsmen (road-connected iron)"

le fer etait connecter mais les iroquois n'avait pas de swordsmen uniquement des spearmen facile a battre....

The iron was connected but the iroquois had no swordsmen only the spearman easy to defeat.

2)concerne reload
il y a peut-être trop de reload selon votre police sur ma partie, mais que dire des excuse bidon de certains, quelques exemples très croustillants:

Concerning reloads: There is perhaps lots of reloading according to your police on my part, but that said the excuse can of some, some very crusty (????) examples.

Not sure about that bit - think he's saying that others have listed some vey 'crusty' excuses

A)I don't know exactly how many times I'm reloading while play the GOTM. 20-50 times I mean. Sometimes I do 1/2 units movements of the turn and begin thinking what to do further. If I havn't inspiration I quit the game and return some hours later (if have got time).
B)We even have GOTM players who play during their lunchtimes
at work.

En conclusion et a mon avis être pointilleux sur le nombre de reload est une aberration quand on voit que 17 joueurs sur les 20 premier du dernier classement detourne complétement l'esprit du jeu en prolongeant leur partie jusqu'en 2050 (milking) pour améliorer leur score artificielement.....

In conclusion and my opinion ???? on the number of reloads is an abheration when one sees that 17 players out of the top 20 in the last tournament results completed the spirit of the game by prolonging their until 2050 (milking) to increase their score artificially.

PS: toutes mes excuses mais je rentre de vacances et j'ai vraiment pas la force de repondre en anglais.....

P.S. all my excuses but I return from holidays and I have not really the strength to reply in english






And now my head hurts!

 

[Chieftess]

Hmm.. my French is rusty, but...

Moderator Notice: Please write in English on these forums.

Parle se vous ple English en CFC.


(I know I spelled it wrong... like I said.. VERY rusty)...

 

[willemvanoranje]

alain, english = anglais voulez-vous parler anglais dans cette forum si-vous-plaît?

 

[Cartouche Bee]

Originally posted by Aeson
ainwood,

I played through GOTM10 trying to beat alain's conquest date tonight. I'm a bit rusty at early conquest, had so-so luck in combat, but still was able to finish off the last AI at 410BC. I did do some reloading, probably about 30, though I'm not exactly sure yet how the counter works and didn't keep count (partly cause I didn't know which would count ). Most of my reloads were to get a good start, playing with city placement, tech path, and huts. I also tried to explore as though it was my first time on the map, sending warriors west as well as south and east. It certainly could be done without any reloading, although it would require a lot of luck. I'm not sure I believe that alain's game was played by the rules, but it is possible as far as I can tell.

If there is other evidence you guys are holding back, I understand. I personally don't think it's right to keep back that information, makes it impossible to explain or defend for anyone who really is innocent. Also, it really cuts back on the amount of testing that those methods.

Here's the final save.

Thanks Aeson, I'll have a look at it tonight and see where you went wrong.

But seriously, I'll compare the games abit to see how they correlate. As far as I know we are not holding back any info, the case revolves around the actual logistics and realm of possibility under the rules. Did you use more than 2 SOD's? Did you rush chariots?

 

[Yndy]

willemvanoranje, you also got it wrong.

ainwood: i'd edit your post but can't. You had a couple of important mistakes:
- he said that he built his army by building chariots every three turns in his three towns and then upgrading to horses with the money he saved.
- by rephrasing his words he said that he won't excuse himself but quote serg and other guy saying that many reloads cold be explained in certain situations
- he said that policing his number of reloads is silly while 17 of the top 20 milk the game thus clearly breaking the spirit of the game ( artificially increase their score).

Remembering the Valeri Kousnetsov incident, I have to notice that angry people tend to write in their native language. I wonder why? Maybe you could try call me cheater and see what language I am responding lmao.

I'm not defending alain but given the circumstances I would not be sure that he really cheated. If Aeson got to a similar result (even with reloading) than it is clear that what alain did is possible (maybe not probable). Alain should from now on get excellent GOTM results to make us sure he's not a cheater, and maybe try domination, culture, spaceship to show us that he is that good (if he did conquest that good he should be able to prove at the others as well).

Maybe i'm not coherent right now so I'll stop.

 

[Aeson]

I think I used a much better city placement scheme than alain (second city at 3600 I think), and rushed a lot of Archers, along with a few 10 turn/rush Horsemen. No Temples at all, a nearly complete road network to all the AI's homelands (except for the Germans), and I think 7 luxuries hooked up. I built about 8 Chariots by the time I had researched Horseback riding, and had sent a couple of them out exploring.

I went for an early warrior gambit, 8 Warriors in all (most Elite from barbs by this time), all targetting cities which hadn't upgraded to spearmen yet. I timed the attacks for when they hit size 2. 2 of the 8 succeeded, and those two cities basically handled their respective civs (England/Rome) with rushed Archers. Winning in England was the best thing that could have happened, save taking a few more cities! The rest of my Warriors, and some of my Chariots were on Worker duty, stealing as many as possible from the AI. If the AI ran their Workers into their cities, I'd just wait around the outskirts of town, and then get the Workers for peace. Once the Workers were captured, they started building roads wherever they were at. An extensive road network is the only way that early of a conquest would be possible.

I got a bit unlucky with the respawns, they always seemed to pop up in the worst possible location. The American respawn was awful, on a hill with a river on 3 sides. Lost or had to retreat with 10 Horse attacks before it fell (some of which would have been avoided if I could have seen the river clearly). I actually hooked up Iron and rushed some Swordsmen in desperation, but the city fell a couple turns before they could get there.

I did get a Leader quite early with a Chariot (named Lucky). I built the FP with it, but it didn't make any real difference. I think 3 Horsemen from my FP core (basically 1 city) saw action. The rest produced from those cities were all pop rushed.

I normally only sent 2 or 3 units at each city, and just tried to flood the entire map with as many as I could. Each mini-stack would support nearby ones, but only commit to forming the SoD if absolutely necessary. The road network really helped here, as each stack could basically cover 12 tiles. As more stacks were produced, the others moved further and further out. The only exceptions were the last few cities after the respawns, everyone was concentrated as much as possible (mostly on the American respawn).

My largest stack otherwise was 4. Probably why I took so many casualties, but it's really the only way to cover that much ground.

---------------------------

The only doubts I have about alain's game being possible are that he built Temples, and the start he used. Building right where you start, roading to the southeast, then hitting that hut with the first Warrior gives a Settler much earlier than what he got. Maybe that's a point in favor for him though, as replaying the start a few times would have made that apparent. It's a bit risky of course, barbarians would sack the city, but your Worker could get out of the way because he's on a road. The slower start sequence makes me wonder a bit.

Temples are completely useless on Regent in a BC's conquest. Especially considering that the road network necessary for the conquest will keep everyone happy with luxuries, and no techs are needed past Map Making so every penny can go towards happiness. Temples are 60 shields a pop (2 Horses), and it's just too much offense to sacrifice for them.

Cut out 180 shields early that I put into units, and I probably wouldn't have broken into the BC's at all. I ate through about 60 Horses altogether (~35 surviving), along with another 30 Archers (~20 surviving), and 15 (mostly dead) Warriors to get the same result. I can't say how many Horses he lost of course, but it's just so much more efficient to pop rush Archers near the action. You can build the Warrior to take care of the unhappiness, wait a turn, and then rush the Archer. A Horse requires an extra 10 turns, or leaves the city defenseless and unhappy. Regular Horsemen aren't worth that much either, the retreat makes them almost like conscripts on the attack.

I did have rather high casualties on offense, so maybe he just had better attack rolls. That and only being able to play a turn or 2 at a time (for whatever reason) could explain everything in his game that I can think of.

 

[Green Light]

Originally posted by ainwood
One other issue: When I first load up Civ from the desktop, then choose the save file and load it, the whole process takes around 3 minutes late-game on a reasonably fast PC (1 GHz, 256 MB SDRAM). 4 minutes if I have to boot the PC as well. If someone is making 100 "legitimate" save and reloads (ie starting a new session), then I estimate they are spending around 300 - 400 minutes (thats over 5 hours!) a month just waiting for civ to load and then to load the save game. Perhaps a rationalisation of the playing sessions would be beneficial?

Just took time with watch
59 seconds from boot-up to playing civ3
22 seconds just start civ and load
maximum of 15 sec load time inside civ if loading marlas map in late era, normal maps max 5 sec even in future tech times

1.5 ghz, 512mb.

This just to prove that youre wrong in the time issue

And BTW if someone uses map-stat or apollo, they count as one load each time too, dont they.

 

[Cruise]

No i dont think so, because it's read only and nothing is being altered in the savegame. Ainwood knows more about it.
Aeson, what strikes me most is he hardly has any troops in the end, together with the temples he started with. And he did take cities fast with less units because he built temples, so the odds decrease to take cities that fast. That in combination with a ridiculous amount of 70+ reloads i can't believe anyone can take him serious. His reply also says enough; In defense attack others.
Just think of this: Play a civ3 game in which you start up civ3, load up the game, play one turn, and then save+close civ3 again. And that about 70+ times. I don't buy it and it would be naïve to think there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Remembering the Valeri Kousnetsov incident

He did submit a game again in gotm10 in which he cheated again by file editing, but this time he tried to cover it up some by selling his temples he built 2-3 turns after founding his cities before the finish.

 

[Cartouche Bee]

In Alain's game, Lyon's completed it's temple in 1325BC, so the main thrust of his military production came from the first two cites, Orleans never did build a temple. I'm not really sure about the translations (above) but this does not seem to coincide with the claim that the initial armies were built from the first three cities, yet the offensive drive began about three hundred years before Lyon's war production came on line.

If you look at the two power charts from the games you can see Aeson had a commanding lead based on the better start, but surprisingly Alain's power was ahead of Aeson's around 750BC.

Regardless, a lot of luck was required to produce either result, Aeson claims about 30 reloads and I'm not sure if those reloads were to produce better results to accomplish the demonstration or not. If Aeson required 30 reloads to enhance the game he produced, I doubt one could really claim Alain's game was produced solely on skill and luck. Both games provide alot great ideas on ways and means to accomplish fast conquests. If half of the exchanges on the boards had any where near the information that is demonstrated in these two games, we would all be the beneficiaries.

 

[Amao]

I'm glad to know you guys have better quality control now. But I doubt ainwood's job can cover every kind of cheat possible. i.e. I have two computers, I will play GOTM on one, every turn it will give me an auto-save, then I copy that auto-save to the other computer, and I play every possible way there, including save/load. Then I come back and play it. It's score won't be as well as pure save/load, but sure it's cheating.

I'm sorry that I can't afford play civ w/o save/load. But I love this forum. I learned lots of, lots of skills just reading those posts from spoilers. Those top dogs are really admirable. And you civ cops are great, too.

I just want to say: you may cheat, you can get higher scores, but please don't submit cheating save files. Keep here clean.

Note: This letter is written on 12th, but couldn't post then.
It seems too old now. sigh

 

[willemvanoranje]

Originally posted by Yndy
willemvanoranje, you also got it wrong.

already expected so....it's been over a year since my last french class...ah well, I think he understood the mod in the first place. (btw, le or la forum)

 

[duke o' york]

Despite the excellent job done by ainwood, he asked me to translate the post below and as a francophile I could hardly refuse.

Originally posted by alain & Translated by duke o' york
I see that my post gave rise to a lot of discussion.....

To which I will say 2 things:

1) with regard to MSGT John Drew's reply:
"So he only had three cities to build his puny but highly successful army of veteran horsemen"

Yes, by first constructing chariots and by saving money with the science and luxury rates at 0 to pay for the upgrades you can obtain an army of 20 horsemen ready for battle and these 3 cities can also produce 3 more every three turns.

"Alain did not even concentrate forces to take Salamanca since he also took Washington at the same turn"

It was only to finish quickly that I sent half of my forces to the south and the other half eastward....

"The Iroquis also had swordsmen (road-connected iron)"

The iron was connected but the Iroquois didn't have any swordsmen - only spearmen who are easy to beat....

2)Concerning reloading
There was perhaps too much reloading in my game according to your mods, but what can you say about the excuses some people use? A couple of particularly interesting examples being:
A)I don't know exactly how many times I'm reloading while play the GOTM. 20-50 times I mean. Sometimes I do 1/2 units movements of the turn and begin thinking what to do further. If I havn't inspiration I quit the game and return some hours later (if have got time).
B)We even have GOTM players who play during their lunchtimes
at work.

In conclusion, in my opinion to be fastidious about the number of reloads is a disgrace when you see that 17 of the top 20 players in the first and second levels completely ruin the spirit of the game by making their game last until 2050 (milking) in order to improve their score by this artificial means.

PS: Please accept my excuses for posting in French but I have just returned from my holidays and I simply don't have the strength to post in English...

I'm not entirely sure how necessary that was, as ainwood did a pretty good job, but I enjoyed it and if it gives rise to more discussion about alain's comments on the nature of reloading and milking and the potential they have to spoil the GotM then it was worth it.

 

[alain]

Thanks Yndy for what you say, it's clear that my result is possible with a good strategy and luck....

..."I'm not defending alain but given the circumstances I would not be sure that he really cheated. If Aeson got to a similar result (even with reloading) than it is clear that what alain did is possible (maybe not probable). Alain should from now on get excellent GOTM results to make us sure he's not a cheater, and maybe try domination, culture, spaceship to show us that he is that good (if he did conquest that good he should be able to prove at the others as well)."

I'm already have good result with culture in GOTM 08 & 09....

Strategy answer :Why I built a temple in Paris???

Aeson say "The only doubts I have about alain's game being possible are that he built Temples"

I'm not remenber exactly my production but it was ~ that:
first 2 warrior to explor, after that a barraks and here I really want to built chariot but I need Horses before and It is not connected with a road in this moment so I decided to built a temple so I can have lux & science at 0 to spare gold for the upgrade (very important is to not discover horseback riding before you want to have your fisrt war so you can built a lot of chariot=horseman......

Ok I hope that you have no doubts more Aeson and when you try to play the game 1 time more with the strategy i describ here up and without Archer and more warrior you will have ~ the same result with mine...

 

[Aeson]

The reloading I did was to simulate a 'lucky' start, along with undoing some stupid mistakes that normally I'd take the time to avoid in the first place. Things like letting a city go into disorder, not pop rushing right when a city hit size 2, ect. From the huts I wanted an early settler of course, a couple of Warriors, and then mostly Barbs. Took a lot of early reloading to get things right.

Reloading is the only way to guarantee the luck, which if I had had in the first place, I could have played the game with minimal reloads. I still didn't have very good luck overall, losing more Horses than I'd normally expect to. If I had reloaded combats, I could have won before 800BC.

I think alain's power jump had to do with him holding off on Horseback Riding longer than I did. You can pile up some gold, and produce 150% more Chariots in any given time than Horsemen. I got a much quicker start, but my upgrade to Horsemen wouldn't have been as strong. It may have been enough advantage to overcome the early Temple expenditures. Also there is enough time to produce roughly 80 Horsemen by 390BC (have to rush ~20 regulars though), so he could have had a much higher casualty rate than I did. If the save can show how many Horsemen he actually produced, that would help a lot. From what I can tell, he could have flooded with single Horses for the most part, losing about 50 of them in the process.

It's unlikely, but I've had a few unlikely games myself, luck happens. I'd say 1 in 20 or 30 games I get that kind of good luck that it would be necessary for me to play that sort of game without any reloading. As CB has noted, alain certainly knew what he was doing, so the skill level is there. Given the number of submissions, you'd expect a few to have gotten really lucky (and vice versa). If that luck strikes in a game where the player has the skill to take advantage of it, you get this sort of result.

The 70 reloads in the BC's is high. It might have been malicious reloading, it might have been situational. I don't see anything that says this game had to be cheated. Maybe it's 95% likely that it was, but who's to say if he was in the 5% or not? Valeri's game was certain, this one isn't. I just think we have to give the player the benefit of the doubt.

Reloading will always have this problem. Reloading doesn't give results which are impossible to obtain otherwise. Anything possible with just reloading is possible without it, however unlikely the result. So what we're left with is a reload count, which could be saying he had 70 playsessions, or that he was reloading between 70 of his saves, or a combination of the two. The counter can't differentiate between the two possibilities. As such, it's not proof of anything.

 

[Cruise]

Reading Alain's french post i kind of read a small confession about reloading in there.

On the whole, and looking at other players something which really strikes me and worries me is that a majority of players who are competitive in early victory games have a huge reload count compared to players who don't play to win and submitted a 10AD save file with it. Especially in gotm11 the figures are quite clear. All i can conclude from this reloading happens a LOT, and i don't believe all those players are playing in short sessions.

 

[col]

That seems a sad but fair conclusion if the data is as you suggest.

 

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by EEKthedog
On the whole, and looking at other players something which really strikes me and worries me is that a majority of players who are competitive in early victory games have a huge reload count compared to players who don't play to win and submitted a 10AD save file with it. Especially in gotm11 the figures are quite clear. All i can conclude from this reloading happens a LOT, and i don't believe all those players are playing in short sessions.

The sessions need not be short in real-life time, just short in turns.

Personally, I make all kinds of calculations during my turns, and in addition I keep a full log. Further, I micro-manage everything, and each turn I check the entire map and do a full round of diplomacy.

So while someone else may play a hundred turns in one hour, sometimes I play only one!

 

[Aeson]

I agree that a majority probably wouldn't play a lot of short sessions. The problem is that there is no way to differentiate between those who do play in short sessions, and those who are reloading. I would think those who are finishing well are the one's who take their time in making decisions, rather than rushing through turn after turn. That would result in more play sessions on average early on. There are those of us who go so far as to 'sleep on' a single move early in the game. To some extent that could explain the differences.

I think it's valid to assume there is reloading going on, maybe even widespred. But I can't think of a valid (or feasible) way of determining who exactly is doing it.