best dates discussion

Well, I'll be there, for the classic games anyway. Conquests possibly after Christmas.

Cheers,
Renata
 
WackenOpenAir said:
If it counter productive and delays your victory date, that means while you gain territory score, you lose early date score. So you think the early date bonus needs to be increased?

I personally feel victory date is the only thing that should matter. early victory is the true measurement of skill. If any choise is made in the game that will delay victory but increase total score, that feels just wrong to me.
Yes, I feel the same. Also, it seems to me that the victory date is the only objective measurement.
 
Whilst we are getting somewhat off the original thread topic, I thought I'd pick up on a few points, and there have been some excellent ones come up in this discussion. On the scoring side, I think that two games a month is encouraging people to go for faster victories.

And a bit of a discussion about the difficulties: Yes, we have had some friendly starts, but the start is only part of the game. On a lower difficultly (regent, maybe monarch) in terms of competing against the AI, I think that the way you progress the ancient and middle ages are more important than the start. On higher difficulties, the start is more important, because you need to beat the AI to the land-grab phase. I don't want to turn people off with high difficulties, however finding a balance against making the game winable for a competent player and a challenge for the experienced player is difficult. That said - give it a month or two. Next month we have a deity (classic) game, and the start and map will be tailored to (hopefully) allow the competent players to get into a winable position, yet still provide a bit of a challenge for the experienced. I think the balance in GOTM 36 is pretty-good (although I was considering reducing a cow....), and I am quite happy with the next COTM balance as well.
 
ainwood said:
That said - give it a month or two. Next month we have a deity (classic) game, and the start and map will be tailored to (hopefully) allow the competent players to get into a winable position, yet still provide a bit of a challenge for the experienced. I think the balance in GOTM 36 is pretty-good (although I was considering reducing a cow....), and I am quite happy with the next COTM balance as well.

Oh, yummy! I am salivating on my keyboard. :love:
 
ainwood said:
I don't want to turn people off with high difficulties, however finding a balance against making the game winable for a competent player and a challenge for the experienced player is difficult. That said - give it a month or two. Next month we have a deity (classic) game, and the start and map will be tailored to (hopefully) allow the competent players to get into a winable position, yet still provide a bit of a challenge for the experienced.

:eek: :eek: :eek: Help! Please make it a nice friendly start so I don't get pulverised in the AA.

Back to the discussion, as a player who consistently comes in the bottom half of the rankings, I am just playing GOTM's to improve my game. I have a small hope of breaking into the top 50 and this is enough to keep me playing and submitting, even when playing against the greats!
The Global Rankings seem to be more important to the better players, as it provides an extra challenge, whereas I get a challenge just from trying to win the game.
 
Me sounding like a broken tape-recorder:

Demolishing the birth of your empire because of Palace-jump sucks and add to the score...just sucks. I still wait for Caesar to abandon Rome and try to go for better score. It is an exploit, somewhat fixed by the new rules, but still an exploit. Abandoning your first city just for score is just rubbish. To build a FP close and jump palace by a leader is fine.

Ban it!

Ship-chaining - To send numerous units over someplace when they aren't supposed to do it, by "sacrificing some galleys"...just sucks. Will make the "clever exploiters" win faster, by domination or conquest.

Ban it!

These things might not exactly be in "the best date" discussion, or maybe they are, because they DO change the score.

If they stay, why not let us continue to let us do scout-denial and stuff too. I'm quite fed up with these exploits.
 
samildanach said:
Philistine - SED definition.
A person deficient in liberal culture and refinement; one
without appreciation of the nobler aspirations and
sentiments of the GOTM community; one whose scope is limited to
individual GOTMs and is insensible to the greater glory of the GPR. :p ;)

Hey! I resemble that remark.

Renata
 
Darkness said:
OK, I guess I didn't realize that the best dates have a fairly small influence on the Jason scoring. :)

But what about my first point? Are the games getting easier? It's either that or the players are getting better, 'cause the scores are ever higher...

I have played a number of the gotm and it seems very clear to me that the standard of play has improved considerably (at least in the top third of the field, but probably lower down as well). I know that even my play is stronger than before, but my placings haven't changed much. Considering how long the game has been out a surprising number of new, strong players have appeared recently. It is almost impossible to compete without a flawless start anymore.

The recent sgotm results imply that the level of play is continuing to rise, although admittedly sgotm isn't directly comparable with gotm.

There have certainly been a lot of low level games recently, but also some tougher ones (eg the Greek gotm33). Really there haven't been many tough starts since Cracker took over from Matrix. Although fair hard starts would be great, I prefer to have games with an obvious start as otherwise we run the risk of the cotm2 magical mystery tour.
 
gozpel said:
Me sounding like a broken tape-recorder:

Demolishing the birth of your empire because of Palace-jump sucks and add to the score...just sucks.
Ban it!

Ship-chaining - To send numerous units over someplace when they aren't supposed to do it, by "sacrificing some galleys"...just sucks. Will make the "clever exploiters" win faster, by domination or conquest.

Ban it!

I couldn't agree more. Might add the 'Infinite Weath' exploit, and gpt purchase/declaration to get out of the deal.
But how on Earth should that be detected?
"Um, I lost my Rep since the AI Civ X disconnected the Harbor city needed to ship a resource to AI Civ Y."
"...had insane luck with Suicide runs."
"...stupid me left my capital undefended with an AI unit next to it, and they razed it."
 
I'm new to the C/GOTM games (since COTM4) and was at first annoyed that someone could take longer to win and still get a higher score, it seems that earlier victories should get a higher bonus. I generally go for domination wins as it seems the quickest. I see the other victory conditions as something to go for if one cannot achieve a domination victory early enough, which is what I end up doing on high difficulty levels when I just want to survive. Conquest I've never tried. I very much like the awards system as it gives one a reason to try for another victory condition.
 
Offa said:
I have played a number of the gotm and it seems very clear to me that the standard of play has improved considerably (at least in the top third of the field, but probably lower down as well). I know that even my play is stronger than before, but my placings haven't changed much. Considering how long the game has been out a surprising number of new, strong players have appeared recently.


A really good way to improve is to read the detailed posts by the best players. It changed how I micro-manage at the start, my early builds (used to do even military/expansion; now focus on expansion over military), what military I build (changed from defense, then offense to offense first/only) and how early I begin wars (used to wait for knights, now start w/ swordmen/horsemen).

I would like to see some capabilities eliminated, such as ship chaining and Palace jumping in PTW. C3C has a much better corruption calculation method to limit Palace jumping.
 
Back
Top Bottom