Competitive GotM Succession Games

[samildanach]

Would there be any interest in competitive SGs under the auspices of the GoTM. That is teams of GotM players are each given the same start postion as in the normal GoTM and compete for the best Jason score. If you are interested or if you think its a bad idea post here. Equally if your involved in the organising of the GotM and you think its a good or bad idea and also with regard to increasing your workload and if this is realistic given your already heavy resposibilities post here.

 

[DaveShack]

There was a previous, similar thread on team play of the GOTM. I think that idea lost out to the current Conquest / Open / Predator idea.

I would certainly be willing to play in a SG format where the team must have a specified number of members, and of a certain mix of skill levels. For example, a team might have 6 members, of which at most one may come from the top n active players (maybe n=10), one must come from ranks 11-50, two from ranks 51-100, and two from ranks 101+. This might only be a guideline, as the participation at the various levels might require adjustment of the cutoff levels.

This format would be good for having the more experienced players giving training to the less experienced members of the team. To eliminate confusion, maybe the SG could be played on the same map as the previous month's GOTM, or if there were enough resources for map creation, it could be played on a separate map entirely. In both cases it would have to be administered and scored separately.

 

[cracker]

d8575,

We would still very much like to support the option for some sort of team play games or team/mentoring approaches.

Our current general sense is that these concepts have moderate support from players at the intermediate and less experienced levels while we are uncertain of the level of support at the experienced and advanced levels.

We are working on several technical features that should free up resources to do more of this fun stuff once we get the automated timeline/QSCscore utilities working so that everyone can do quick games easily and once we get the advanced database tools in place so we can report results of many different types of games then we will be more strongly encouraging and almost pushing these game concepts.

I still think these 'team' concepts are great ideas and would like to see more discussion of how they might work.

If experimental teams can be formed to test the ideas, we can build you the starting game files to meet your game specification if they essentially use a xxxx.bic or xxxx.bix file from a past GOTM. You can have a game that is much different from the original GOTM that is was based on, we just need to minimize setup time if possible.

 

[samildanach]

I would certainly be willing to play in a SG format where the team must have a specified number of members, and of a certain mix of skill levels.

This is what I had in mind d8575 I think that this might be fun. However, I'm against the team mentoring approach as this may bring the result down to which team has the best elite player on board. I think that the less experienced players like myself would get alot out of an elite players advice on game situations but I doubt that they would get much out of it in return. What could be fun for the elite player is being put in "unusual" strategic positions by the brain farts of players like me and having the challenge of saving the team from oblivion. Kind of like at the battle of Waterloo where Napoleon retired from the battle with stomach ache only to return to the battle 2 hours later, to find that the guy he had left in charge (Marshal Ney) had thrown a major brain fart and despite his best efforts couldn't retreive the situation (maybe Sir Pleb could have).
As regards to how it would be organised I was thinking of an annual event where in order to qualify you would have had to competed in 3 GoTMs in the previous year. The reasoning for this is that there appear to be several excellent players who compete in SGs but not in the GoTM as hotrod pointed out in another thread and this might be a way of luring them over here.

 

[Smirk]

I'm not too sure how the SG are played but the team play is intriguing.
I agree that it would more enjoyable to have balanced teams, you could even base these on the global ranks, just get a list of who all want to be involved and set up teams with a good mix of skill levels.
I'd like to hear more from people that have played the SG games and can explain how it all works or links to posts that do this.

 

[DaveMcW]

Can a team play GOTM21 as a succession game and be ranked in the results list? I assume their team score wouldn't count towards the individual players' global ranking.

 

[LKendter]

Part of the problem here is the nature of a SG.

It works with posting turn by turn reports which would break the spoiler rules. Trying to do a SG where everyone had to e-mail notes to each other would be awkward to say the least.

 

[DaveShack]

Originally posted by LKendter

Part of the problem here is the nature of a SG.

It works with posting turn by turn reports which would break the spoiler rules. Trying to do a SG where everyone had to e-mail notes to each other would be awkward to say the least.

That's an excellent point. Without a set of n secured forums, one for each team, to make it competitive would require a PM / email based solution, or something else secure. Another option which would be less impact to the forums but still some impact to the players, would be to attach a password-protected file and use the forum for "it's there" messages. I think most of the ZIP utilities allow a file to be password protected... And the save would have to be protected anyway if it was stored in the files area...

Cracker's note suggested this might be an idea which would get official support, if there is enough interest. Any other ideas of ways to fix the spoiler / inter team security problem? Any ideas for recruiting the best players to serve as mentors?

 

[Yndy]

Part of the problem is whether the mentoring process should be directly involved here.
I imagine that one could start on a game, go with it for the standard 10 turns (or even more I suppose) then submit to the following player. But is the next player supposed to give detailed advice on the mistakes of the other one or not?

I know that even in the current SG’s the players have comparable skills, if you’re an experienced player you may not want to tell a guy how to press F2 and see if there are any trade routes available. That’s too basic and one should learn at least the basics by himself before being mentored.

Following on this discussion though I can see one opportunity here. Say we have teams of two. Each team member can start GOTM 21 but the more experienced player (Player 1) forwards his QSC notes and save to the other player as soon as he finishes (a deadline should be set). Player 1 keeps playing and submits to get normal score and all.
The second player (Player 2) can play his QSC in the first part of the month (and submit it), but then picks up the QSC from Player 1 and plays on. When he submits his game will be recorded as Player 2 (Player 1). No global ranking score will be recorded for Player 2 but the game will be scored in the monthly GOTM list.

Further on Player 1 could pick up the QSC of Player 2 and continue the game to end his game as Player 1 (Player 2), but in this case his score would not be recorded in the global ranks (or it could as it would probably score lower).

The only thing is that when the switch takes place (I strongly suggest end of QSC), Player 1 could have map knowledge in excess of the game he picks on (say he already found the other continent in his QSC but takes a game where the continent is not found. He will know where to go to find the other continent).

What do you think? I would agree to share my QSC save to one guy, but would he agree to waive his score in global ranking? Would the players that are normally in the middle pack better agree to someone scoring above them because he picked on a better-played QSC?

 

[CdB]

I think it would difficult to mix SG games & GOTM due to the scoring issue. Added to this, approach is different :
- GOTM is a competitive game andyou share your approach afterwards in Spoiler threads
- SG would involve sharing & discussing strategy continuously

Personnally I would not mind playing SG games except it is already hard to find time for GOTM so ... realistically I would not be able.

 

[ControlFreak]

I love the SG concept, where you get to interact with other players continuously. In fact, I've been contemplating dropping the GOTM so that I can play more SGs. I am a slow player so playing GOTM gets me into the spoiler thread at the very end of the month. I get very little interaction that way as most of the discussion has come and gone, or I have to read through 30pages of posts to catch up.

What I would miss out on is the maps that Cracker and team create, and the pregame theorizing that I do get to partake in now.

If I could drop my single player GOTM in favor of playing on a GOTM SG team I would do it in a minute. However, since most SG games take longer than a month to play, I highly doubt that the SG version could be put on the same scoring schedule as the GOTM. The only way I see possible is if we space players out by Time Zone so the game is constantly in use.

BTW, for those that don't know what an SG is, there is a Succession Games subforum in the Stories section . There are some great games being played and some great players playing. Check it out.