C-IV Warlords SGOTM 04 Maintenance Thread

[AlanH]

I'll start a sign-up thread when I have a game to announce.

SGOTM spoilers have never been very popular. Even if several teams publish a summary, there is seldom any real discussion. I suspect that the main issue is to do with the wide variation in speed of play. The normal single-player games are all over in a month, so there's never more than a couple of weeks separating most of the players, and they can discuss the game while it is reasonably fresh in their minds. SGOTM teams are not so well synchronised. A second issue is that team members may not feel comfortable disclosing information about their decisions and actions mid-game, and once the game is over they go off to do new things.

 

[Harbourboy]

Thrallia volunteered to write our spoiler but he is away for a couple of weeks, right when the spoiler thread opened.

 

[Jenarie]

I got the impression that no one was allowed to post except for one team approved summary which would disallow discussion although that might have been a misinterpretation of the rules on my part.

 

[AlanH]

The rules state:

"To qualify to POST in this thread a nominated scribe from your team must post a summary of your game up to the point defined above".

This applies to all players. So once the team scribe has published your spoiler you are free to post in that thread.

 

[DaviddesJ]

"To qualify to POST in this thread a nominated scribe from your team must post a summary of your game up to the point defined above".

Maybe this rule is unnecessarily restrictive?

It doesn't seem to be accomplishing the goal of encouraging teams to post summaries.

 

[AlanH]

It only really reflects the way the single player GOTM spoilers work. Players summarise their progress, and discussion ensues. The summaries provide a context for the discussion, and demonstrate that the teams involved have met the spoiler conditions. The summaries don't have to be works of great literature, if that's what is discouraging you.

 

[DaviddesJ]

It only really reflects the way the single player GOTM spoilers work. Players summarise their progress, and discussion ensues.

There's no requirement in the GOTM spoiler threads that players post their own summary in order to participate in discussion.

The summaries provide a context for the discussion, and demonstrate that the teams involved have met the spoiler conditions.

I'm only saying that they don't do this if no one actually writes them. And as an empirical observation, you might get more participation and more content in the spoiler threads, without this rule. Just a theory.

 

[AlanH]

There's no requirement in the GOTM spoiler threads that players post their own summary in order to participate in discussion

Sorry if I didn't express myself well. I don't think I said there is, but most players entering the GOTM spoilers do so before commenting. When a team is playing there needs to be some signal to say that the members of that team have reached the spoiler point.

I don't think it's fair on the other teams to allow team players to post questions or comments on their games with (a) no indication that their team is eligible and (b) no basis for comparison of the progress to date.

 

[BLubmuz]

I think it's correct:
Once a team has posted (and they *must* agree if and what post) a member of that team can post his personal comments or questions regarding the other posts.

We did so for our (still alone) spoiler: i wrote a text, submitted to the team approval, corrected (also my poor english), then posted.

BTW i suppose there was an explosion of spoilers, but i was definitely wrong.

 

[Jenarie]

Alan, I think it is very reasonable to expect a team to post before participating in the discussion. And now that it has been explained I can see what the rule meant. But I think that maybe I'm not the only one that first read the rule as saying no discussion was allowed... maybe it would help to spell it out a little more.

Of course that doesn't help with getting the summaries posted in the first place.

 

[AlanH]

I'm not sure where the scope for misunderstanding arises, but I've added another sentence to the posting qualification statement:

"To qualify to POST in this thread a nominated scribe from your team must post a summary of your game up to the point defined above. Any member of the team is then free to add more information within the limits, and to discuss and comment on other team reports."

Does this help?

 

[DaviddesJ]

I guess I don't see why it would be "unfair" to anyone if players from all different teams feel free to post in the spoiler thread after they have reached the spoiler condition. The fact that they are posting is the evidence that they have reached the spoiler condition. No one seems to complain that we have a problem in the regular GOTM with people getting an "unfair" advantage by posting and participating in spoiler threads without posting an adequate summary of their own games.

The current system isn't working, it seems to me a more open system might have a chance of working, and I don't see how it could be worse than the totally empty threads we have now. No discussion can start because almost all of the SGOTM players aren't permitted to contribute or reply unless or until their team fulfills this "requirement".

 

[AlanH]

It's a minimal requirement. I doubt if players who can't put together a simple summary of their game so far are going to put much effort into discussing the game, either. And if no one posts any progress information, what are players going to discuss?

I've suggested other reasons for the spoilers not working - are you suggesting that they are invalid?

 

[DaviddesJ]

I think there are a variety of reasons for lack of spoiler activity, but one of them is that it's considerably more effort to put together a summary of a game played by several different people over a period of a couple of months, than a summary of a game played only by myself over a few days.

I think there are lots of things that players could discuss. Overall strategy and goals. Timetables for various key events. The public score graph, who is ahead and why. I'm not sure how much of this discussion to expect, there might be very little, but I still think it could be more than what we have now.

Anyway, it's just a suggestion. I'm not even a participant in this cycle, I have no stake in it one way or the other.

 

[AlanH]

Previous games have had more summaries posted. This one may only have one because I opened the thread late. I can't go back and undo that. But even when we have had summaries, there was very little discussion. The first Civ4 game had a "Trash Talking" thread that attracted more activity than the spoiler.

 

[AlanH]

The next Vanilla SGOTM Sign up Thread is posted here.

 

[da_Vinci]

Just to alert those still playing SGOTM 04, the new patches, which automatically install with a BtS install, will lock you out of SGOTM 04 unless you set up a dual install.

The thread with all the details is here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=232115

dV

 

[AlanH]

This game has been rolling for four months now. Please can the teams who are still playing try to wrap it up by August 26? I suspect that, if you don't do it by then you never will.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Okay, if you insist. We were hoping to play forever....

 

[AlanH]

You can play until hell freezes, by all means, but I'll publish the results a bit before then