GOTM 03 - results & congratulations!

[DynamicSpirit]

Congratulations to all the medal winners - some nice games there!

I think I should get a medal for the highest-scoring retired game Nah only kidding.

More seriously, I'm curious about one thing. Compare my score (at no. 174) with Matthew (175, just below me). We ended up with nearly identical game scores - 5153 vs 5126. Mine was retire, his was loss, which I thought were scored the same way. But his score was achieved - must be 30 to 40 turns before mine. So, if I've understood correctly that the final score is adjusted to compensate for the fact that you tend to get a higher game score as the game turns progress - shouldn't Matthew have a way bigger final score than me? (He actually was awarded slightly lower, 7175 vs 7213).

Obviously I've misunderstood something about the scoring?

(Not trying to cause trouble, just trying to understand better).

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Interesting that there were only about half as many entries as for GOTM2. I can think of 3 possible reasons:

1. The higher difficulty level
2. The epic game, played on a map with a lot of land area, taking much longer to play
3. Could GOTM 2 have coincided with a peak in Civ sales and hence interest?

Can't help speculating how important those factors were. I guess there'll be some clue in the GOTM4 numbers - even harder difficulty level, but much shorter game.

 

[Thrallia]

Civ4 hit its peak in sales during december, so I don't think that had anything to do with february's GOTM, although the shorter month mixed with an epic game could have had something to do with it.

I personally find epic to not take that much longer than a normal game...normal games generally take me about 6 hours, epic about 9, but I guess it takes different people more time or less time depending on their playing style.

Then again, this is also a standard map, and those time periods are for large and huge maps...I just don't see how the time it takes for a GOTM on a standard map could make a difference in whether people play or not...could be wrong though.

The only reason I can think of is that the difficulty level rose so fast.
Most people who lost or barely won GOTM3 may not have played again seeing a higher difficulty level. Then there's the fact that most people who do play the GOTM don't post, so they'd be less likely to play at a level that is more challenging.

 

[Qitai]

Didn't have time to finish. So, I did not submit.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I just don't see how the time it takes for a GOTM on a standard map could make a difference in whether people play or not...

I, for one, don't have the time to play every month. It does take me much longer than you to play a complete game.

 

[Spoony]

Originally posted by DynamicSpirit
Overestimated? I thought the usual thing was to underestimate the AI and then get conquered as a result

Unfortunately I was too cautious in this GOTM. I had never won at this difficulty before, so i built an overly strong army before attacking. The best players always seem to get this judgement right.

I read in a few of the spoilers that others had believed that the AI would prove tougher than they did in this GOTM.

 

[Thrallia]

that's fine...I probably play faster than most people...considering the fact that I am not as good a player as most people maybe I should play slower

 

[A'AbarachAmadan]

450 AD, now thats fast. To bad he hasnt written any spoiler.

That is one I'd like to read!! One of us will just have to do it next time and write one up. Some good analysis can be gained just by reviewing his end game. No wonders!! My goodness!!!

All those 200K+ scores. The level of play is getting awesome right from the start! I love this place. It is so much easier to learn how to play with so many great writers.

 

[mushroomshirt]

That is one I'd like to read!! One of us will just have to do it next time and write one up. Some good analysis can be gained just by reviewing his end game. No wonders!! My goodness!!!

I agree! I'd love to read a write up on this game, but I also checked out the save file. No wonders (except I think Stonehenge and forbidden palace), basically barracks and / or courthouses in every city. I actually have tried this strategy a few games on emperor and I think it works great for early expansion and keeping opponents down. I may try something like this in GOTM5.

In my test games it really allows to expand to a decent size when usually the AI is very aggressive and takes all the good city spots. In situations where you are alone on a continent or far from other civs, this strategy allows early expansion through conquering barbarian cities.

Of course on a continent-type map this kind of strategy would have to be modified to cross over to builder at some point after the initial continent was secured. But I bet an early strategy like this and then cross-over to cultural would work great since you would have lots of production cities anyway.

One thing I noticed was that the statistics on the save game seem to be wrong... it's obvious that more than one city was founded and more than one settler built since there are plenty of Japanese city names. Anyone else notice that the statistics seem inaccurate?

 

[jesusin]

To @DynamicSpirit
Reason 2 was the reason for me. Couldn't finish in due time. I'll be back in GOTM4, though.

Congrats to all participants.

 

[Matthevv]

Congratulations to all the medal winners - some nice games there!

I think I should get a medal for the highest-scoring retired game Nah only kidding.

More seriously, I'm curious about one thing. Compare my score (at no. 174) with Matthew (175, just below me). We ended up with nearly identical game scores - 5153 vs 5126. Mine was retire, his was loss, which I thought were scored the same way. But his score was achieved - must be 30 to 40 turns before mine. So, if I've understood correctly that the final score is adjusted to compensate for the fact that you tend to get a higher game score as the game turns progress - shouldn't Matthew have a way bigger final score than me? (He actually was awarded slightly lower, 7175 vs 7213).

Obviously I've misunderstood something about the scoring?

(Not trying to cause trouble, just trying to understand better).

I think if you lose or retire then you just get whatever your in-game score was at that point, without any adjustment for the finish date.

 

[Grifftavian]

I too am curious about the scoring. I eventully lost to a massive invasion of English Redcoats (an intresting result since I lost playing as Elizabeth in a previous GOTM reincarnation), but in checking the final scores, I counted at least 18 players who submitted a retired game and had a higher score than my conquest loss. Now, I could have retired several decades (in game years) earlier, when I still had half a dozen cities, and had a higher score than when I was finally defeated, but I thought the point of the GOTMs was to win or die trying. IMO, retired partially completed games should have their scores adjusted DOWNWARD, or even be placed in a seperate catagory, from those submissions who completed the game or played it out to the bitter end in defeat.

 

[Cromwell]

I haven't sat down to work out how conquest scoring works now, but one seemingly sensible method for GOTM purposes would be to take the maximum game score. That would remove the incentive to retire early, without punishing those who for some reason don't enjoy delaying the inevitable.

 

[baboonfan]

Interesting. I was the only player submitting a Civ 3 save. Can be found from position 231. Will someone explain?

Gongrats to all winners (and you über-humans )

 

[solvero]

450?
This is amazing!
Can someone tell what every smiley means?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I haven't sat down to work out how conquest scoring works now, but one seemingly sensible method for GOTM purposes would be to take the maximum game score. That would remove the incentive to retire early, without punishing those who for some reason don't enjoy delaying the inevitable.

Reading the threads I can certainly see how there is an unfortunate score-exploit regarding retirement where you retire just before your score starts to go down. That's very unfortunate

I don't know if this is a bit too radical, but what I personally would like to see is the population element of the score simply ignored - so the score is based on all the other things you've achieved in the game (wonders built, research, etc.) (Actually I'd quite like to have seen that in the game itself, not just something for GOTM purposes). Doing it that way would mean that the score would much more reward the people who played most cleverly, handled their economy well, etc. as opposed to the current situation where the score to a good approximation just rewards people for building the most military units and throwing them at the AI.

A side-effect of doing that would be that if you're in the process of being conquered, your score won't decrease anything like as much or at all as your empire is ripped to bits - because what the AI is basically doing is destroying your population, which wouldn't count towards the score anyway. So there'd be little incentive in terms of score to retire in that situation. And that means those people who want to retire because - in their eyes - they simply have better/more enjoyable things to do with their life than watch the slow death of their empire, wouldn't have any suspicion cast over them that they are exploiting this loophole in a slightly underhand way (I know noone's directly said that yet, but the way the conversation is going, I can see that coming )

 

[socralynnek]

You could take a look at what position the people that retired were.
I (second highest retired score) would have surely won the game if I had two days more. Not every retired game would have been a lost game.

 

[akots]

... that the score would much more reward the people who played most cleverly, handled their economy well, etc. as opposed to the current situation where the score to a good approximation just rewards people for building the most military units and throwing them at the AI. ...

Now, that is a very peculiar point of view. I'd suggest you try the "less intelligent" way to see how it works for you. It seems, that if it were that easy, everyone would be doing it. Indeed, it might be rather difficult, especially in Civ4 and especially with Domination victories.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Now, that is a very peculiar point of view. I'd suggest you try the "less intelligent" way to see how it works for you. It seems, that if it were that easy, everyone would be doing it. Indeed, it might be rather difficult, especially in Civ4 and especially with Domination victories.

Actually I have tried playing games (admittedly no higher than emperor level) where you build loads of military and go around conquering everything. And I would maintain that doing that is not as difficult - in terms of the intellectual challenge - as building a balanced moderate empire and then competing against AI civs who are perhaps as big as you to win a game. (Note: I'm not saying it's easy in absolute terms, just it's easier than other playing styles. Obviously, for the higher levels in Civ, winning requires a lot of skill no matter what playing style you use).

My experience of conquest is: For the early part of your game you do have to think very carefully about military tactics to make sure you can win out against civs that might be more powerful than you, but that situation happens anyway if you're trying to build a peaceful empire and someone attacks you. But with a conquest-playing style there comes a point where you've taken over a couple of AI civs and you now have so many more military units than any other individual AI that picking each one off through overwhelming unit numbers becomes little more than a mechanical exercise.

As for why other people don't do it - well, can't speak for anyone else but personally I don't enjoy playing games like that. I like the feeling of having built my cities and my wonders for myself. And by about the 10th time I tend to get bored by repeating the bombard-defences - do-collateral-damage - take-city routine again.

Don't get me wrong, I do think there is a lot of skill (in terms of both military tactics and holding off bankruptcy) in the people who win the fastest domination/conquest victories - even sometimes doing that before they've got catapults - I don't want to knock the achievements of those people. Or the people who win on the highest levels. But I do think there is something very wrong with a scoring system that so highly rewards that particular style of playing, to the exclusion of all other playing styles including 'builder' and balanced builder/military styles. That was the point I was really trying to make. (Also I should add I'm really getting at the inbuilt Civ scoring system here, not the GOTM which inevitably has to take the inbuilt Civ scores as the basis for its scores)

Look at it another way: Compare two of the things the scoring rewards - science and population. Science tends to be naturally self-limiting. The more science you do, the harder it is to progress further, partly because of the increasing cost of each tech and partly because trading gets harder (The 'we fear you are becoming too advanced' thing). That I would argue makes science quite a good thing to have contributing to the measurement of your game skills. With population it's the opposite: Beyond a certain point it almost naturally grows exponentially if you're playing a militaristic game. Sure, the maintenance costs hold you back a bit, but the dominant effect is that more population -> more military units -> capture even more population easily. That positive feedback I would argue makes population a very poor thing to include in the game score. (Yet not only is it included, IIRC it's weighted twice as much as each other factor!)

(edited: few bits didn't quite read right)

 

[DaviddesJ]

Now, that is a very peculiar point of view. I'd suggest you try the "less intelligent" way to see how it works for you. It seems, that if it were that easy, everyone would be doing it.

I don't think mastering rapid conquest is particularly tough. One reason "everyone" isn't doing it is because it gets boring to play a succession of games that all go the same way. Ultimately, the reason to play is to have fun, not to achieve the highest possible score. Some people have fun seeking to achieve the highest possible score, but many others get really tired of that quite fast. And what's the point of having multiple victory conditions that never get used, lots of technologies that never get used, unique units that never get used, etc., because everyone is winning every game by conquest long before the modern era?

If the same basic approach is best every time, then that's a weakness in the game. And people can respond to that in various ways, one of which is to just decide they are going to have fun playing in other ways than what's "best".