A suggestion: let's set an upper limit to population score!

[Marko Polo]

I just looked the HOF of GOTM2 and saw that the two first names there had over 10000 Civ2 points. The only way to get that high scores is to grow your population - and that's the most tedious work I can imagine! Believe me, I played once to achieve my personal high score and was able to get 14500 in emperor. In the end I had no other way to increase my population than to start transforming mountains/hills to grassland (I didn't knew the food caravan trick). Never again!

We all know that everyone can grow his population with hard work so that's no achievement at all. This measures not your skills but your committment for sacrifying weeks of your precious time doing some boring and repeating work.. <IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/wink.gif" border=0> which could be used more wisely for hmm.. er.. start a new exiting game of Civ2! <IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif" border=0>

In fact, I strongly feel that Civ2 developers should have set an upper limit to population score and rewarding better earlier game ends - THAT would have measured your skills.

I like the GOTM scoring as it tries to fix the Civ2 scoring by rewarding earlier game ends in a clever way - but IMHO one final touch is still needed. What do you think?

[This message has been edited by Marko Polo (edited April 10, 2001).]

 

[stormerne]

No I disagree. I do not support limiting population growth in GOTM. In my opinion, it's fine as it is.

In normal Civ2, high scores are all about population. In GOTM we have a strong early finish bonus because growing populations is too easy. It's tedious. It's not most of what makes a really good Civ player.

But in GOTM, it's very important to note that we do not remove the rewards for "endgame" perfecting. We simply reduce the rewards.

The problem with GOTM #2 was NOT with population limiting or lack of it. It was having a large map at a level that wasn't too difficult.

You should check out the following for a more complete discussion...
http://forums.civfanatics.com/Forum20/HTML/000034.html#12

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[Cactus Pete]

Marko,
I'm in agreement with you: growing population seems incredibly tedious and obsessive. However, judging from the results of GOTMII, our opinion is shared by few others. This is, indeed, a site for fanatics!We sane and rational folk are badly outnumbered. I encourage you (and anyone else who holds a similar viewpoint) to compete with me and go for the green!

 

[Smash]

well..the system still rewards tedium rather than skill.I landed GoM2 in 1225ad and get an "average" gom score.I could have spent the next 800 years growing and probably could top 15000-20000 but why?Am I upset-gosh no..but someone else might be.
This is the system.It ain't perfect but it'll have to do.If you are willing to do the matter of fact late game growing-then you will get high GoM scores.I will not.

It does seem odd that a 300ad conquer game will look poor compared to 1850,1 pet city large population game.

Just play for fun.I'll be lookin at those early finishes.

 

[shadowdale]

I don't support the max population score - or do I??? It could make the game more interesting, in a way. I mean, then every one would really have to try and win the game ASAP!!!
No what I think we should do is to award medals to the winner of the GotM AND the fastest completed games!!! That way there would be a wider spread on the medals!!! I know that some would think that there should also be awarded medal for the highest scoring, but looking at the results that would give to many medals to too few people!!!

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[Marko Polo]

Originally posted by Smash:
Just play for fun.I'll be lookin at those early finishes.<IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/smile.gif" border=0>

Me too!

The whole concept of playing a game is just that, to have FUN. Saying that, I must add: a little friendly competition with others is fun too - at least to me.

About the tedium vs the skill issue in the score counting: I read the thread Stormerne suggested. What I learned that there already was an effort to make endgame score puffing less appealing: to increase the early ending bonus factor from 4 to 7. Sadly, this isn't enough as GOTM2 HOF clearly shows.

I know that it's difficult to find a 'perfect' scoring system - one which would encourage a player to end the game as soon as possible. However, the whole point of creating GOTM-scoring system was just that, according what I've been reading here. Well, enough of this stuff now, I think I've made my point clearly enough.

Btw, when I look those GOTM2 results, my personal top three would be:

1. Cactus Pete-----500AD
2. KaaK------------890AD
3. Smash-----------1225AD

No offense to the 'official' winners..

 

[Marko Polo]

Btw, I wrote my previous post BEFORE I saw Shadowdale's post.. so I (apparently) agree with him that three earliest game ends should be rewarded too!

 

[Matrix]

I could make some list for people who ended fastest. But I will have to take some time to think about what (sort of ranking) to make of it.

But as for the main ranking I truly believe the GOTM scoring system is fine as it is. Stormerne is right when he says we don't want to <u>rule out</u> the bonus you get for the ending phase->growth. After all, when you have the option of doing this, that's a prestation on itself. I didn't, because I couldn't. But when your cities are done growing, you don't have to play further. That's also what's the GOTM score is preventing.

B.t.w.: I saw early by the posts of Stormerne, that he's a smart guy and therefore he also helped me (by my request) with getting this scoring system. As for the webpages and the manual work - that was my action, but all the rules for it has been made with great help of him. So thank Stormerne for all of this as well.

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<IMG SRC="http://home.hetnet.nl/~maartencl/tmp/MatrixBW.gif" border=0>
<FONT size="1">Studying chemistry means: having fun, drinking beer, having more fun, drinking more beer, hang above the toilet and have a good night sleep!

And each time Pedro says: "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrggh", I feel so good!!!</FONT s>

 

[goodbye_mr_bond]

Let's not forget that this game is called 'Civilization', not 'War'. Early finishes are impressive, but in a way they're no more challenging on their own than a perfectionist finish. I personally find it a bit boring to switch to Fundy and crank out crusaders, if that's all I'm doing.

The real challenge for me is to do BOTH: growth *and* war. I'm rather proud of my GOTM II, because it was the earliest I've ever launched my SS on such a big map, and growing my cities quickly was a big (and not at all tedious) challenge. In fact, I didn't quite reach my pop. goal of 320 mil as I'd hoped, by launching too soon.

It's interesting and challenging to plan ahead the best time to switch gov'ts, launch a SS, max out the science rate without hurting pop growth, etc. These things are all part of the game and should definitely be reflected in the GOTM score.

STill, I think that doing a separate HOF for early finishes could be a good idea, though Matrix's girlfriend might disagree

. To make it easier, though, why don't we just award a certain set block of points to the three earliest, or something like that?

For example, an extra 1000 points for earliest, 750 for 2nd earliest, and 500 for third just added to the score and tabulated along with everyone else?

 

[Smash]

He has enough to do allready.

but maybe in future we could agree to a spaceship only game.Then all conquest.

GoM2 was perfect for a spaceship game.Least I thought so.But also could be conquered quickly depending on how the ai did in each player's game.It would probably be easier for Matrix if it was all one or the other.

 

[Thunderfall]

Originally posted by Smash:
He has enough to do allready.

but maybe in future we could agree to a spaceship only game.Then all conquest.

GoM2 was perfect for a spaceship game.Least I thought so.But also could be conquered quickly depending on how the ai did in each player's game.It would probably be easier for Matrix if it was all one or the other.

Very good point, Smash.

It'll make the comparison more meaningful if everyone aims for the same goal.

 

[Cactus Pete]

I am reluctant to disagree with our noble administrator, but the solution that Smash proposes and Thunderfall supports is not optimal. It would seem that, among fanatics, one man's passion is another man's tedium; and, if a game is designed to be played only one way, then some men will be relegated to tedium. Better to go, then, with some version of Mr. Polo's solution and allow each to chose his own style and each style to have its own champions.

 

[Smash]

well..thats true.

There are many ways to arrive at one of the two goals.Some just ain't gonna score well.With the conquer bonus removed,you're just gonna have to get that population level up if you want a highscore.Not all that different from the way the game keeps score.

I think next month,I'll look for a decent OCC spot to work with.

 

[Matrix]

Look at the results of the numbers 11 to 16. Doesn't that cover the bonus for an early finish??!?

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<IMG SRC="http://home.hetnet.nl/~maartencl/tmp/MatrixBW.gif" border=0>
<FONT size="1">Studying chemistry means: having fun, drinking beer, having more fun, drinking more beer, hang above the toilet and have a good night sleep!

And each time Pedro says: "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrggh", I feel so good!!!</FONT s>

[This message has been edited by Matrix (edited April 11, 2001).]

 

[stormerne]

I just want to say something. Not strictly on topic, and it's been said before by other people. But I still want to say it.

I am once again impressed and amazed by the intelligence, maturity, and creativity of the active members of this forum. It far exceeds that found on most of the other forums and mailing lists that I frequent. This thread is a testament to that, as are many others. I applaud you all!

Now back to the plot...

 

[Matrix]

That's an interesting point you got there, Stormerne, so I replied in the Off-Topic forum:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/Forum8/HTML/000381.html , because I expect many replies.

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<IMG SRC="http://home.hetnet.nl/~maartencl/tmp/MatrixBW.gif" border=0>
<FONT size="1">Studying chemistry means: having fun, drinking beer, having more fun, drinking more beer, hang above the toilet and have a good night sleep!

And each time Pedro says: "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrggh", I feel so good!!!</FONT s>

 

[Jabah]

Hi everyone, lots of interesting posts here.

Since I don't want to spent all my free time playing CivII (or at least spending hours in the end of game part of it), I am afraid that I will probably never (or rarely) be in the top3 of a GOTM (at least GOTM II like) except changing the rules the way Marko Polo suggested ... which I don't want.

I was quite happy with my game, sending the earliest SS of all my Civ plays (1694AD) and second of the GOTM (I am very impressed by Smash 1225AD SS) and I could have send it probably 10 turns before (50 years?), had I not completely ****ed up with the repartition of Component/Structure/Module trying to build a big, cheap and slow SS which I had to upgraded later (I had no table saying what to build so I kept having low probability of succes, apparently if you want 100% with more that 10.000 colons you need more than 3 engins...)

I think that the 7 factor is probably not strong enough IF you want to prevent people from going optimizing the end of Game in order to be in the Top 5.

I am NOT suggesting to change any rule but it could be really interesting to do the following experience :
Ask someone who finished quite late with both a very high score and a very high GOTM score (Kev is probably the best one to ask) if he can give you regular saved file of his game starting when he discovered Space Flight and then calculate what his GOTM score would have been if he had send his SS for each of this saved game and then try with another time factor.
If you want to prevent him to delay his launching, you have to put a time factor strong enough so that you have your best GOTM score by launching his SS as soon as possible.

BTW, question to all the GOTM top scorer, did you often check your GOTM score in order to maximize it ?
In other words did you launch your SS :
1. When you had no hope/possibilities of going higher (in GOTM score)
2. When you get bored
3. End of the month
4. As soon as possible


Jabah

 

[Marko Polo]

Jabah, qood questions. I hope you get a lot of answers for this one! I've been wondering the same things. "What would the GOTM HOF look like if everyone ended his game ASAP?". IMO continuing the game with a ready but not launched space ship or with a 'pet city' is quite artifical and I doubt if the designers of Civ2 really meant that..

 

[BigWheel]

Originally posted by Jabah:
... did you launch your SS :
1. When you had no hope/possibilities of going higher (in GOTM score)
2. When you get bored
3. End of the month
4. As soon as possible
Jabah

I guess I'm a 3/4, in that I rushed through the end game trying to beat the buzzer.

Normally when going for a high score, I wait until 2008 to launch and virtually my entire civilization is involved in cranking out the 67 pieces for a complete ship. For GOTM2, first I got down to a pet city - I had to 'cause everyone went nuke crazy - then I built my SS at a leisurely pace, using only "mature" cities. The rest were busy growing more citizens.

So I could have launched sooner, by putting more cities on the task; I also could have finished days/weeks later by maxing on population. For me, it's the M in GOTM that will always limit the population score!

 

[Kev]

Originally posted by Jabah:


Ask someone who finished quite late with both a very high score and a very high GOTM score (Kev is probably the best one to ask) if he can give you regular saved file of his game starting when he discovered Space Flight and then calculate what his GOTM score would have been if he had send his SS for each of this saved game and then try with another time factor.
If you want to prevent him to delay his launching, you have to put a time factor strong enough so that you have your best GOTM score by launching his SS as soon as possible.

BTW, question to all the GOTM top scorer, did you often check your GOTM score in order to maximize it ?
In other words did you launch your SS :
1. When you had no hope/possibilities of going higher (in GOTM score)
2. When you get bored
3. End of the month
4. As soon as possible


Jabah

I would be happy to look back at my saved files and try out some scenarios when I return home. I'll see how they work out.

As far as how monitored my score, mine is probably a unique situation. I was happily going about the tedium of terraforming and trying my hand at the food caravan thing for quite a while. I had a ship ready to go very early and a pet city for even longer. Lots of tedium. Then, in reading some posts on the GOTM forum, I made a bit of a discovery - and that was the scoring system that gave an earlier finish a bit more of a bonus. Urg. I went home and the first thing I did was launch my ship.

In essence, I very likely saw a great deal of diminishing returns as my efforts to raise my score slightly in turn probably lowered my score with the time I was losing.

I think the best thing to do under the circumstances now is to get a good score as possible as quickly as possible, do things that will give a large boost to that score (settlers into cities, we love the _____ days, spaceship if available, etc.) and then end it.


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