Civ5 TSG Series Future

[Half Nelson]

Please keep the TSG series going, they are the best way to learn and improve game technique. Personally I like a preset VC for two reasons:- (i) there is direct comparison between all entrants and (ii) I am completely incapable of deciding on a VC myself until mid-game! I also liked the principle of Monthar’s “dividing the final score by the number of turns played”, which may be a good discriminator at the sharp-end of the competition.
One disappointing feature of the last couple of TSG has been the relatively low number of submissions:- more entries means a bigger reservoir of experience to learn from (and probably more non-Dom entries). I wonder whether this is partly to do with the Emperor setting, which suits me fine but may put off a large number of new players whilst being of little interest to many (although thankfully not all) of the experten. Perhaps, even at this stage, having “Adventurer” (say Prince?) and “Contender” (say Immortal?) options would stimulate more entries?

PS:- I don't mean "disappointing feature" as a criticism of the games themselves:- TSG7 in particular was my most enjoyable CiV game to date. Keep up the great work!!

 

[leif erikson]

Actually, difficulty level is of concern to me as well. I thought about upping the difficulty to Immortal next game, but rethought it because of the reason you stated, scaring off players.

The one thing I have noticed is that players now seem fairly comfortable with Emperor. Anyone starting to play Civ5 should probably try to learn on the harder level. The TSG becomes a good resource for learning at the tougher levels as you all have been good about sharing strategies and tips when new players ask.

If we make the games on levels too easy, we would most likely start losing the more experienced players as there is no challenge in it for them, or am I wrong?

 

[MadDjinn]

Actually, difficulty level is of concern to me as well. I thought about upping the difficulty to Immortal next game, but rethought it because of the reason you stated, scaring off players.

The one thing I have noticed is that players now seem fairly comfortable with Emperor. Anyone starting to play Civ5 should probably try to learn on the harder level. The TSG becomes a good resource for learning at the tougher levels as you all have been good about sharing strategies and tips when new players ask.

If we make the games on levels too easy, we would most likely start losing the more experienced players as there is no challenge in it for them, or am I wrong?

yeah, it's a balancing act. Not sure if you can create the map first, then adjust the settings for the different diff. levels. If you could work out something there, then there might be a way to allow everyone to play the same civ/map, but at their own level. Make score adjustments based on diff level chosen. Or just score them separately.

 

[Monthar]

yeah, it's a balancing act. Not sure if you can create the map first, then adjust the settings for the different diff. levels. If you could work out something there, then there might be a way to allow everyone to play the same civ/map, but at their own level. Make score adjustments based on diff level chosen. Or just score them separately.

The problem with doing it this way is even if you manually select all the civs, they will likely be in different starting locations for each difficulty level. The terrain will be the same, but the resources might be different. We'd have to thoroughly test this idea to see if we can get multiple difficulty levels and have the same resources and starting locations.

 

[MadDjinn]

The problem with doing it this way is even if you manually select all the civs, they will likely be in different starting locations for each difficulty level. The terrain will be the same, but the resources might be different. We'd have to thoroughly test this idea to see if we can get multiple difficulty levels and have the same resources and starting locations.

well yes. This would be a bit harder to set up. Not sure if it's even plausible, but given the point about losing out on newer players vs. better players, there's got to be some possibilities in there.

Unless it came in mod form where you can select the diff. level (so that you only get your one shot) there'd still be issues with people potentially scouting lower level versions then going for the higher ones after they know where everything is.

But that's a different issue.

 

[PaperBeetle]

The question is how should we move forward, knowing no competition can happen while the game is in a state of flux, we have no mod and no release of the Civ5GameCore.dll info to create one.

We don't have a mod or access to the game code in the Civ3 GOTM, and there's been a successful competition there for 9 years now.
What we do have is the Jason score, a system of normalising scores across VCs. That allows us to rank all VCs by Jason score on the same results table, but actually that isn't crucial. Score, I would judge, is a bit less prestigious than fastest finish, and many players don't only stick to a single VC. Having said that, fastest finish awards are devalued by low submission numbers, and I am worried by the low turnout in the last couple of VotMs. I wish I knew how to turn that around, but I guess it is symptomatic of the community's broad disatisfaction with V.

 

[MinutiaRules]

... (And the method is not magical at all. Fastest finisher in each VC scores 100. Other players are penalized by how far they are behind the leader in their VC. We can assign "high score" as a VC option for people who swing that way.)

I'd like to see something like this given a try.

I would be okay with rotating among assigned VCs over time as has also been
suggested. But all VCs should be enabled though as to not take away options for the
AI.

And I'd like to see higher difficulty games on occasion. It works for the other civ versions' gotms.

Also I'd like to see assigned dates for the games to come out. Say the 1st and 15th
of the month. This is "just" a series of TSGs but it has been going on for some time
now. If some of the aspects of it were more formalized it would bring out more
interest. It can work because we have been given adequate notice of the patches
coming out so as to adjust the dates. And if an unexpected patch comes out in the
middle of the comp then we all just live with it. I don't believe that will happen all
that often anyways.

 

[leif erikson]

It can work because we have been given adequate notice of the patches coming out so as to adjust the dates. And if an unexpected patch comes out in the middle of the comp then we all just live with it. I don't believe that will happen all that often anyways.

This hasn't been my experience. It is hard to plan a game when 2K says a patch is coming before the end of February and the info appears in the middle of the month. If a game lasted a month, as with Civ4, there is little time for planning.

An example: If we had published a game for the 15th Feb, due to be finished by the 15th March, they announce the patch is coming on 17th Feb before the end of Feb, how much planning time is there in this?

edit - and then, just to make things interesting, with STEAM and automatic updates, how many players have their software updated during the game even if they do not wish it to do so?

 

[Harvie]

+1 for continuing these organised games. These are my favourite ciV games and I really like comparing strategies and results.

I think the difficulty level so far is about right. It allows most people with some practise to get a victory before 2050 AD while the better players win earlier.

I agree that domination is most often the quickest route to victory so it may be better to either specify the VC or ban domination form particular games. There may also be room for different scoring systems such as the biggest city population at 2050AD or the highest number of cities producing over 300 culture at 2050?

 

[caeru71]

I am for continuing the TSG's too, they are my favourite CiV games. I like the idea of having separate competitions for each victory condition or assigning a VC for all to go for and rotating the VC each game.

I'm looking forward to the patch and TSG8, hope they come soon. Keep up the good work and thanks for all the GotM's.

 

[da_Vinci]

If we make the games on levels too easy, we would most likely start losing the more experienced players as there is no challenge in it for them, or am I wrong?

I have not ventured to immortal in Civ 5 yet, but this recent TSG 7 had an unrealized potential to be challenging. If Siam had gone to nuking me, or had just used his big conventional force on me (in some organized way), I might not have won. Or if he used his cash hoard to buy the CS out from under me. But since he did none of these, it was all pretty formulaic.

Now if the game had no city states, it could have been more challenging, as I used them for units, food and culture. Not to mention how they divert enemy forces when I am at war.

Or if you had a game where you specified some kind of always peace condition, maybe that would be more challenging?

The question is at what level to you get the AI carpet of doom? Is fighting through that a challenge or just monotony? I don't know since I haven't tried that yet.

But I do think we should continue the series. It seems that the directions of the next (and future) patches will perhaps bring viable builder strategies to Civ 5.

edit - and then, just to make things interesting, with STEAM and automatic updates, how many players have their software updated during the game even if they do not wish it to do so?

I find that each restart of my computer resets auto-update to on in Steam. Does someone have a method to keep it off?

dV

 

[MadDjinn]

This hasn't been my experience. It is hard to plan a game when 2K says a patch is coming before the end of February and the info appears in the middle of the month. If a game lasted a month, as with Civ4, there is little time for planning.

An example: If we had published a game for the 15th Feb, due to be finished by the 15th March, they announce the patch is coming on 17th Feb before the end of Feb, how much planning time is there in this?

edit - and then, just to make things interesting, with STEAM and automatic updates, how many players have their software updated during the game even if they do not wish it to do so?

As I've previously noted, the patch required per GotM should be fixed; rather than 'at least'. It is possible for people to turn off the update for awhile if they have to finish a game. The only other thing I'd say is that if a patch come out, we might as well end the TSG early (if less than 1 week to go) or just restart it post-patch to ensure that everyone has a 'fair' whack at it vs. others.

In those cases, I'd say let the people who have already played their game decide if they want to keep the time/score or if they want to redo it on the new patch.

 

[Verowin]

GOTM is the only civ I play. we have to continue with this.

 

[Harvie]

Some more thoughts on the difficulty level issue. Is the problem that the better players finish too early and never get to play with the later units/buildings etc? This could be fixed with having a new scoring system where you play to a certain time eg 2050AD, 2000AD whatever and then get points for certain things. For example the winner could be the player with the most size 20 or above cities at 2000AD. Realms beyond used to do these sort of thinking out of the box games for Civ IV. I remember reading some Sullla's accounts of them on his web page.

 

[leif erikson]

I think the issue on difficulty level is whether new players will not wish to play Emperor or higher. They may want an easier place to start.

At least until the SDK code gets released and a mod created, I don't see us able to use a scoring system other than fastest finish (turn/date) or highest score.

 

[MadDjinn]

I think the issue on difficulty level is whether new players will not wish to play Emperor or higher. They may want an easier place to start.

At least until the SDK code gets released and a mod created, I don't see us able to use a scoring system other than fastest finish (turn/date) or highest score.

fastest finish will be fine til then. Just break it down by VC and we won't all be playing Domination only. Or ensure that there is a VC specific requirement per GotM.

 

[Half Nelson]

I am sure this must have been considered before (possibly even in this thread:- apologies if I missed it), but how about having some kind of “VC Handicap” score alongside the fastest finish. For example, looking at fastest finishes for all victory types over the last couple of TSG, turns 120, 220, 320 seem typical top rank for Dom, Diplo and Science / Culture respectively. On this basis, in a handicap score, Dom victory gets +200 turns and Diplo +100 turns added to their finish date “score” for direct comparison with Science / Culture. It would have to be scaled for game speed of course. It is a fairly blunt instrument, but will provide a comparison of sorts and should not dilute the impact of spectacular Dom performances (e.g. 450BC Dom wins!).

 

[leif erikson]

I am sure this must have been considered before (possibly even in this thread:- apologies if I missed it), but how about having some kind of “VC Handicap” score alongside the fastest finish.

This is something we may wish to consider for the future when we have the resources, such as an upload system on the server that can crank this out for us. Right now, we would have to do this manually. Not something I really want to do.

All I can say about VC handicaps is that something like this was done back in the Civilization III days. It is called the Jason score and it took a long time to develop and perfect (if you can ever call anything perfected). And there has been controversy for a long time about it. I'm not sure the staff will want to take that kind of step.

 

[AlanH]

We do have a submission system right now. The parser script finds all the saves attached to the Post-action thread and extracts the data you see in the results table. If someone can come up with a handicapping system then it can be applied, as long as it is based on the information we currently know how to extract from the save.

 

[StilRH]

I like the training series so far - it's nice to see how others approach the same game without too much rigidness/cookie cutter stuff forced upon them. Later on we could introduce different VC's as sometimes creative masterstrokes comes from such constraints. It's all good.