"Conquest, Open, or Predator?" Division Discussion

[Borealis]

Note: To avoid spoiling those still playing the current GOTM, please do not discuss specific play scenarios from GOTM20-Spain until July 1. Thank you!


Which division do you think you will play in for future games at certain levels, and why? Would a particular civilization, map style, victory goal (for Predator), or difficulty level help you make that decision? What other factors would affect a choice to compete in a particular division?


Also, if you don't know which division to play in, here are some questions you can answer that will help give other suggestions: What difficulty level have you played at? Do you have a favorite civilization trait (e.g. Industrious) that you play much better at? What map size/water composition do you like the best? What else affects your play?

Edit: Also, a tip for newer players to the GOTM: Waiting until the Quick Start Challenge timelines are released will help you pick a division- as the results are grouped by playstyle, timelines will be available to show players how different games compare across the divisions.

 

[Ambiorix]

Personally, I think I'll be playing Open, no matter what. I don't really like the idea of being helped, even if it means I'll be going down fast. Also, learining the possibilities of the new extra units would take up even more preparation time, I fear. I usually try to play according to the traits of the civ I'm playing, so I didn't feel like going for conquest with the commercial and religious Isabella this month.
Currently I don't have much time to play any other game than the Gotm, so I take that one as it comes, in whatever difficulty or map setting. No preferences whatsoever for civ traits, although I should add I'm too lazy for intercontinental warfare. Maybe we could have a No-Intercontinental Warfare Class ? Just kidding.

 

[Borealis]

Currently, I'm playing in the Open division, as I've just arrived at the point where I can try Deity with some chance of success, but don't want to overkill on Deity Paranoia Factor by going for conquest with raging barbarians. In the future, I'll probably play in the Predator class most of the time, returning to Open according to different victory conditions. If I'm playing several very peaceful or very warlike games, I may not want another game that will be much like the others and pick Open for the variety there.

Why? I'm comfortable with Emperor, and after several QSCs and Succession Games, I want to try different things and still be able to discuss them with the GOTM community, as reading and replying to the spoiler threads at the end of the month is what makes the GOTM fun for me. I lost GOTM-Babylon, but I still had a lot of fun from it, and trying Deity when I was playing Regent at the time was eye-opening. Doing the QSC, and discussing the game with other players at the end, helped me improve my play enough so that I could try future GOTMs with more confidence.

 

[tao]

Open Division. I will move to predator, when

1. I made the Top 10 list
2. it is a regent/monarch game and I don't want to try something new (RCP, early archer rush, cultural win,.. )
3. I get bored with Open Class
4. .......
   [/list=1]

 

[TedJackson]

I think I'll stick with Open Class for the forseeable future as I'm still on the learning curve

I think it will be interesting to see how many new players are drawn in by Conquest and whether they stay and migrate to Open over the next few months.


Ted

 

[CruddyLeper]

Well, I'm stuck with Open unless Predator comes out for 1.29f - but I'm not really complaining, because GOTM is still a lot of fun.

I doubt many people would say I'm competent enough to win on Predator - which is the attraction. I could do with a bigger challenge, although there's still a lot for me to learn in the Open class.

 

[DaveShack]

It depends on the difficulty that month.

My experience is that the goodies were not enough to make Conquest that much easier, so on Monarch and below I'll play open to get full credit. Since it doesn't appear that there will ever again be a way to compete and choose our own difficulty levels, I'll be forced to either skip the Emporer and Deity level games, or play Conquest and expect to lose.

 

[RufRydyr]

Unless it's Deity or maybe Emperor I'll go with Predator class. I played open on gotm20 and lost, but I've had several wins on deity. I like the extra challenge of Predator, but Deity is too hard as it is!

 

[Svar]

Gotm20 was my first and also my first deity game. I played open because I didn't understand the differences with the other classes and don't know how to use the class icons.

If I can survive a deity game maybe I can win at the lower levels. I'm currently trying Gotm19 and I hate small maps!

 

[flexo]

In GOTM20 I played Conquest simply cause I still had nightmares from the last Deity game and needed a bit of a boost. Next time deity comes around (hopefully not for a few months) i'll probably try to go back to playing open games. But one thing is sure I won't play conquest games on anything but Deity.

I might concider trying a predator game on l3 or l4. But not above that for the moment.

So it will be the 'open' road from here on for awhile.

 

[Smirk]

I think the conquest division needs a better name.

I'll play predator when the victory condition is something I would have played anyway since there is no inherent benefit for playing the more difficult game.

 

[rabies]

I will be sticking to predator only from now on. I thought about it for GOTM20, and chickened out at the last minute. Now I regret it. I still have a ton to learn in this game, but after having tried several hard games and some variants (RB games) I find I learn faster when the game is harder. Thus, win or lose, I'll go for predator.

I'll also pitch in my vote now to see the predator class game introduce variant games into the GOTM..like always war. In other words, some other way of making the game more challenging than just handicapping the player with less to start with..or constant raging barbs. I'm sure you guys can dream up some cool ways of putting an extra challenge into the predator games and still make them fun. =)

 

[mudfoot]

Played open class in GOTM20 and that's what I'll stick to for future Deity and even Emporer games. Although I won, I'd never played on Deity before, because I wasn't that comfortable with winning on Emporer yet. GOTM20's ideal start position made this a very fun (and winnable) Deity game, but I'm not ready to say I can do this on every Deity game, let alone stand a Predator style game!

For anything below Emporer, I'll probably try a Predator game. I believe that it will make even those levels very challenging and therefor fun!

mudfoot

 

[AlanH]

Having played (and still playing) GOTM20 at Conquest level you've enthused me to try for Open class in future games - whether I eventually win or lose this one. Luckily, I don't have to consider Predator for lower levels yet, as I run Mac v 1.29.

GOTM20 is all we have as an actual example of class variations. I'm not at all sure I used the extra goodies to best effect in GOTM20, and I suspect my game might even have gone better in the Open class, because I was trying to juggle with more options than usual at 4000BC and screwed up at least one decision at that point. Of course, that also depends on whether the other civs were set up to behave differently in the two classes. There seems to have been a big variation in the reported development of the AI civs, and I'm not sure whether this is a class thing or just the good old RNG and chaos theory at work. [ Cracker: I've tried to make this paragraph general enough to avoid being a spoiler. ]

I haven't played enough variations of the game yet in my first 6 months to have any preferred starts. My first few games were all Romans up to Monarch on continents, and then I spent time trying out on GOTM18 and 19 - that's about it.

 

[Green Light]

I'll propably choose Open if the difficulty level is above Monarch, below Monarch i'll definately go for Predator.

Monarch level games i'm not sure, maybe Predator, depending on civ and other things Cracker might reveal before game.

 

[Qitai]

Give me Predator in civ3 V1.29 and I will take it. Maybe a game without FP or not allow to any research. That would be tough on any level.

 

[Peanut]

Open class at least from now on for this little Peanut, after astounding myself by winning on diety this month.

I could not have played Conquest seriously without thinking about Terry Pratchett's luggage stampeding about the countryside - too distracting for my eccentric mind.

I think that a Peanut Predator would have been a recipe for Peanut Paste this month, and probably in most diety games for a while. That little boost at the start was good.

At a lower difficulty level, I'll have to think seriously about taking on the Predator challenge.

 

[Yndy]

I’ll probably keep playing Predator. GOTM 20 Predator was just fine. I find how hard it is to win by an imposed victory condition even if this one was pretty straightforward.

 

[TriviAl]

Played conquest for GOTM-20. I'm confident on Emporer, but had never had a deity game get out of the medieval times. I now realise this is because I give up to easily! However, the GOTM factor kept me pushing to finish it.

The rest of the lessons I've learned, MMing, Trading (thanks Moonsinger) and settler factories really didn't hurt either. Think I've finally killed most of my bad Civ2/SMAC habits.

Will play open for any more deity games. Would consider Predator for any other level, dependant on whether it sounded like fun....

A side question: Can anyone tell me how to work out a Jason score?

 

[Svar]

TriviAl,

Try here