Game Difficulty

[Più Freddo]

Please let me know how difficult games shall be starting 2019!

If we raise difficulty levels, we can still have say one Regent game per year. We can have a separate poll about that later.

 

[CKS]

If we raise difficulty levels, then we will never get any new players. There are still people new to Civ3 showing up here occasionally, and if we have lower-level games we may be able to get some of them to play, especially if we advertised it ahead of time. My kids are willing to give regent and lower level games a try (warlord is their current comfort zone), but they won't even look at monarch and above, even with great starts. (I mention this because we are averaging about 8 submissions, so an increase of 2 isn't insignificant.)

Looking back over the last 14 games, there are four with at least 10 players - at Regent, Emperor, Demigod, and Sid (very easy game). There are four with 6 or fewer players - at Monarch, Monarch, Emperor, and Deity (very hard game). The level of the game does not seem to have much affect on the number of players.

We might play more games on smaller maps. Tiny and small maps play a lot faster than standard maps, though the research rate messes with 20k games in a way I don't appreciate but no-one else will care about. In the last 14 games, we've played one large map (a regent game with 9 submissions) and 13 standard maps.

I'd like us to continue playing at all levels and try to drum up some business among current non-players. At lower levels, we might suggest optional twists to the game to make it more interesting to better players. I don't really think mandatory victory conditions are the way to go for COTM, but optional additional conditions might be interesting. For example, one might try for conquest in a warlord-level pangaea game, but only allow attacking when your empire has access (through trade or natively) to all 8 luxes, or play a low-level tiny map for 60k with no temples allowed.

 

[Lanzelot]

I don't really think mandatory victory conditions are the way to go for COTM

I also don't like this too much. For me part of the fun is to think a bit in the beginning about which VC might be "best" for the given start. (And here I mean not only the immediate start position, but also factors that we find out step by step in the early discovery phase. E.g. is there easy galley access to everyone? Then go for a fast Dom! No safe route, not even with the Lighthouse, but there are a lot of scientifcs in the game? Try UN or space race! Things like that.)

 

[Quintillus]

I'm not defeatist enough to think we'll never get new players, although I'm open to data-driven arguments if they show we haven't had any for a few years. But assuming it isn't impossible, I support a variety of levels, with the idea being that newcomers probably won't want to start out at Demigod+. I know I personally would never have tried a GOTM had it only been at Emperor+ difficulty levels, and in my first year or two here would not have tried at Monarch+. You could probably look at my GOTM submissions now and see that very few were above Monarch, and probably none at above Emperor. It just isn't fun to be steamrolled, and if I'm going to risk steamrolling, I probably won't do so in a higher-stakes GOTM.

I'm a fan of when the GOTM/COTM alternate in difficulty. Right now they're both Demigod/Emperor, but it's not rare that e.g. one is at Deity, and the other is a Monarch. Even if the frequency were to be less, I think this multi-modal difficulty is nice so that a potential player always has a XOTM contest close to their difficulty level, whether that's at the higher or lower end of the scale.

 

[Più Freddo]

This appears to be an inconclusive vote. I will not make any changes to game difficulty levels, except that I will drop the yearly Warlord game.

I will make a fix schedule where the parallel PTW and C3C games have different levels.

 

[Captain_Jack]

At lower levels, we might suggest optional twists to the game to make it more interesting to better players. I don't really think mandatory victory conditions are the way to go for COTM, but optional additional conditions might be interesting. For example, one might try for conquest in a warlord-level pangaea game, but only allow attacking when your empire has access (through trade or natively) to all 8 luxes, or play a low-level tiny map for 60k with no temples allowed.

I am making one of the lower difficulty games now and I find this twist appealing. I will try to learn how to manipulate the rules a bit more in the Map Maker so I can throw a curve ball to the better players.
I'm open to further suggestions...

 

[CKS]

While we used to have more than one save per game, I'm not sure that there is enough interest in the GOTM right now that it would be worthwhile making different versions. I was thinking more about just suggesting it to players, not providing a save with a different rule set.

Assuming you are talking about the Ottoman game, a twist to increase difficulty slightly would be not to research any optional technologies (like literature or military tradition). An ancient age conquest competition (with a guarantee that astronomy is not needed for conquest) might be interesting for some people. There are probably lots of potentially interesting things to suggest. (Your people are afraid of the Vikings - you can't settle any towns on the coast, but it is an archepelago map.)

 

[Captain_Jack]

That Ottoman game has been made and delivered for some time. I actually think I could play it now and not remember it until the Middle Ages!
I'm working on the Aztec game for the distant future. I want to put a wrinkle in the rules, but I don't want it to be too burdensome or change play drastically. I'm not too sure how an honor system rule change would work. I think lots of players would forget somewhere along the way. I know I would. Whatever I do, if anything, I think I will hard set it in the rules.

 

[CKS]

Do you want to make an interesting rule change for everyone, or have two starting saves, one that is regular and one that is more challenging?

 

[Dragon1965]

Stupid question: how does reviewing played games work? I know what the save file is and all that, but when you select the file does it allow you to see each move as it happened, or are you limited simply to the world replay map that plays after finishing a game?

 

[AlanH]

Stupid question: how does reviewing played games work? I know what the save file is and all that, but when you select the file does it allow you to see each move as it happened, or are you limited simply to the world replay map that plays after finishing a game?

Hi

The Game Replay - beta link on the GOTM web server only reproduces the replay graphics that are displayed at the end of the game. You see the territory and city expansion of each Civ turn by turn, a list of key events, and graphs of the various parameters that are recorded in the save.

 

[Più Freddo]

And it's great!

 

[Captain_Jack]

Do you want to make an interesting rule change for everyone, or have two starting saves, one that is regular and one that is more challenging?

I made mountains impassable. It's a variant that made the game play out in a different way. I thought it was interesting.

 

[milr]

Perhaps we should create a set of small map games of lower difficulty levels and maintain submission score tables by victory type, with multiple (replay) submissions allowed and no submission time limit as a means to attract newbies, and supported by a discussion/help forum (as a retiree, I can volunteer forum monitor time)

 

[milr]

That's create a STATIC set.

 

[Più Freddo]

Actually not a bad idea. At least for a trial. One single sticky thread.

But ARE there any newbies to this 20 years old game?

 

[Captain_Jack]

But ARE there any newbies to this 20 years old game?

I am a relative newbie at 2-3 years in, but it has been difficult for me to attract anyone else to join the GOTM. Two of my sons liked Civ when it was new, and one of their friends, but all three have not done a GOTM despite professing interest and me prodding them. From what I see there are usually a few people submitting a GOTM that haven't done so in a while, so the players are out there.

I read somewhere that Civ3 is more like a board game than other games and later Civ versions and that is why it is more appealing to an older group. I don't know if that's true, but I thought it was interesting.

 

[Più Freddo]

I read somewhere that Civ3 is more like a board game

There is even a board game. Not sure if it's Civ III or generically Civ I, II and III. I have it somewhere, have never played it.

 

[templar_x]

none of them. it is a board game, after all. a very cool one, i might add. we still play it, and my 10 year old loves it.
t_x