Locutus
King of the Collective
WePlayCiv is proud to announce its first official game contest! In the Games for Games Contest, we want you to submit your game reports (aka AARs) to us and we'll give away prizes for the best ones.
We want to encourage everyone to post lots of game reports on our site, as they are a great way to share gameplay experiences, generate discussions and learn about game strategy. We figured the best way to accomplish this is to dangle a carrot in front of you in the form of a prize, as an added incentive beyond it just being a great way torack up your postcount have a meaningful discussion on a gaming forum like ours.
So we will be giving away prizes for the best AARs posted on WePlayCiv over the next six weeks: the contest starts today and will run until the 21st of June. Any AARs active during that period (including ones that have already started) will be eligible for the voting process that will take place in the week(s) after the 21st of June to select a winner -- because on a site that's centred around community involvement, obviously we will let the community pick the winner!
As a start-up site we're a little strapped for cash, but by pillaging our couches we were able to dig up enough spare change for $35 worth of prizes: the winner of this contest will get a $25 (USD) game of choice and the runner-up a $10 one. These games can be either physical copies from Amazon (if they deliver to your location) or digitally distributed ones from a service that supports PayPal (e.g. Steam, Impulse, Direct2Drive) -- meaning that this contest can be open to anyone regardless of where in the world they live.
You can submit AARs for any of the games that WePlayCiv provides full coverage for, that is to say any of the Civilization games (Civ1-Civ4, Civ:Rev and even the board or card games), both Colonization games, Alpha Centauri (including SMAX) and both Call to Power games. All versions of these games and all mods for them are eligible for this contest -- we just want to see game reports, and lots of them! (Power tip for modders: posting AARs of games based on your mods for this contest can be a great way to get exposure for your creations.)
You can submit as many AARs for this contest as you want, though keep in mind that you will have to win a vote at the end so just spamming silly, poor-quality reports likely won't increase your odds (if anything it will hurt) -- it's probably best to focus on crafting a few good ones. Also, your AAR must be posted in-full on the WePlayCiv forums. While reposting AARs from other sites on WPC (or reposting AARs from WPC on other sites) is allowed, it will only be eligible for this contest if you post the full AAR on our site (and allow/participate in discussions that result from it), not just a link or a summary with a link to CFC or elsewhere. The whole point of this contest is to encourage discussion on our site!
Just to be clear, what exactly is an AAR? An AAR, or After Action Report, is a detailed account of a game of Civ (or SMAC, CtP, etc). You can find an excellent, detailed definition and explanation of AARs here, but that's basically what it boils down to. Typically AARs utilise screenshots to show as well as tell what happened in your game, they may or may not form a fiction (as in a story with characters and a cohesive narrative), it may or may not include detailed strategic analysis, or it may simply be a blow-by-blow report that recounts the events of the game. Savegames that allow readers to investigate and maybe replay the game themselves may or may not be included. Some AARs are only reported once a game has fully concluded while others are posted in between play sessions, 'as the action happens', and may take feedback from the community to decide on the next course of action.
Some examples of recent AARs:
The Geeky Greek, by Ruff_Hi: http://www.weplayciv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131
Blood and Empire, by Theben: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?t=183377
Age of Discovery AAR, by Darth_Pugwash: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=189375
A Cradle 2.0 AAR, by EPW: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?t=184192
In other words, the is term fairly loosely defined and for this contest we are not gonna provide many limitations -- let your creativity run free! There are no restrictions on how long or detailed or far along your AAR should be, only that you have it started by the 21st of June to be eligible for the voting process. So you could post a new game with a single playsession on the 20th of June and still take part in the vote (although if you can garner many votes for something like that remains to be seen). Whilst not always regarded AARs, accounts of multiplayer and succession games can be eligible for this contest as well, but there the participants will have to figure out how to divide the prize amongst themselves if they win.
Some of the details of the voting process that starts after the June 21st deadline still have to be worked out and will depend on the number of submissions. In general outlines, it will be based on a process of elimination: we will open a poll with a number of AARs as choices and pick the best one amongst those, sending the winner(s) into the next round, until we have our overall winner and runner-up.
Time to stop reading and start playing and posting, we want to see your AARs! Also, help us grow our site by telling every Civver you know about this contest and encourage them to submit their games on WePlayCiv.
Legal notice: no rights of any kind can be derived from this contest, as we do not have the money to pay laywers to figure out the legal situation of 200+ different countries, states and other jurisdictions.
If you choose to participate in this contest you agree to entrust the WePlayCiv administration to oversee the whole process in a fair manner.
We want to encourage everyone to post lots of game reports on our site, as they are a great way to share gameplay experiences, generate discussions and learn about game strategy. We figured the best way to accomplish this is to dangle a carrot in front of you in the form of a prize, as an added incentive beyond it just being a great way to
So we will be giving away prizes for the best AARs posted on WePlayCiv over the next six weeks: the contest starts today and will run until the 21st of June. Any AARs active during that period (including ones that have already started) will be eligible for the voting process that will take place in the week(s) after the 21st of June to select a winner -- because on a site that's centred around community involvement, obviously we will let the community pick the winner!
As a start-up site we're a little strapped for cash, but by pillaging our couches we were able to dig up enough spare change for $35 worth of prizes: the winner of this contest will get a $25 (USD) game of choice and the runner-up a $10 one. These games can be either physical copies from Amazon (if they deliver to your location) or digitally distributed ones from a service that supports PayPal (e.g. Steam, Impulse, Direct2Drive) -- meaning that this contest can be open to anyone regardless of where in the world they live.
You can submit AARs for any of the games that WePlayCiv provides full coverage for, that is to say any of the Civilization games (Civ1-Civ4, Civ:Rev and even the board or card games), both Colonization games, Alpha Centauri (including SMAX) and both Call to Power games. All versions of these games and all mods for them are eligible for this contest -- we just want to see game reports, and lots of them! (Power tip for modders: posting AARs of games based on your mods for this contest can be a great way to get exposure for your creations.)
You can submit as many AARs for this contest as you want, though keep in mind that you will have to win a vote at the end so just spamming silly, poor-quality reports likely won't increase your odds (if anything it will hurt) -- it's probably best to focus on crafting a few good ones. Also, your AAR must be posted in-full on the WePlayCiv forums. While reposting AARs from other sites on WPC (or reposting AARs from WPC on other sites) is allowed, it will only be eligible for this contest if you post the full AAR on our site (and allow/participate in discussions that result from it), not just a link or a summary with a link to CFC or elsewhere. The whole point of this contest is to encourage discussion on our site!
Just to be clear, what exactly is an AAR? An AAR, or After Action Report, is a detailed account of a game of Civ (or SMAC, CtP, etc). You can find an excellent, detailed definition and explanation of AARs here, but that's basically what it boils down to. Typically AARs utilise screenshots to show as well as tell what happened in your game, they may or may not form a fiction (as in a story with characters and a cohesive narrative), it may or may not include detailed strategic analysis, or it may simply be a blow-by-blow report that recounts the events of the game. Savegames that allow readers to investigate and maybe replay the game themselves may or may not be included. Some AARs are only reported once a game has fully concluded while others are posted in between play sessions, 'as the action happens', and may take feedback from the community to decide on the next course of action.
Some examples of recent AARs:
The Geeky Greek, by Ruff_Hi: http://www.weplayciv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131
Blood and Empire, by Theben: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?t=183377
Age of Discovery AAR, by Darth_Pugwash: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=189375
A Cradle 2.0 AAR, by EPW: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?t=184192
In other words, the is term fairly loosely defined and for this contest we are not gonna provide many limitations -- let your creativity run free! There are no restrictions on how long or detailed or far along your AAR should be, only that you have it started by the 21st of June to be eligible for the voting process. So you could post a new game with a single playsession on the 20th of June and still take part in the vote (although if you can garner many votes for something like that remains to be seen). Whilst not always regarded AARs, accounts of multiplayer and succession games can be eligible for this contest as well, but there the participants will have to figure out how to divide the prize amongst themselves if they win.
Some of the details of the voting process that starts after the June 21st deadline still have to be worked out and will depend on the number of submissions. In general outlines, it will be based on a process of elimination: we will open a poll with a number of AARs as choices and pick the best one amongst those, sending the winner(s) into the next round, until we have our overall winner and runner-up.
Time to stop reading and start playing and posting, we want to see your AARs! Also, help us grow our site by telling every Civver you know about this contest and encourage them to submit their games on WePlayCiv.
Legal notice: no rights of any kind can be derived from this contest, as we do not have the money to pay laywers to figure out the legal situation of 200+ different countries, states and other jurisdictions.
If you choose to participate in this contest you agree to entrust the WePlayCiv administration to oversee the whole process in a fair manner.
