GOTM 15 Results & Congraulations

[wwassme]

In looking at the global rankings, it doesn't appear that there are that many people who play and submit both the vanilla and Warlords game each month. There aren't even that many people who submit at least one game each month. Accordingly, I don't think the pairing of the GOTM and WOTM has the potential to "skew" the global rankings all that much.

Also, since, as I understand it, your global ranking score in any particular game is your Firaxis score expressed as a percentage of the highest Firaxis score (or your "speed" score if higher, which I still don't understand how that is calculated), all the pairing of the GOTM and WOTM does is improve your global ranking score if you played a better game relative to the highest score in one over the other.

It is true that, for the particular pairing of GOTM15 and WOTM5, the WOTM score was better for everyone who played both (at least on a quick look). That, however, is a function of Thorrez being the only player who managed a victory in GOTM15, which made the loss scores of everyone else small relative to his score. If Thorrez hadn't played or won, everyone else's global ranking score would have increased dramatically. For example, B.A.V.'s global ranking score would have gone from 14.473 to 100 and yvesb's score would have gone from 13.958 to 96.447. For WOTM5, there were many victories and no large Firaxis score gap between the top score and many of the players.

 

[slowrider]

Duh, weally?
I'll tell you more:
No conquest victories
No domination victories
No spaceship victories
No time victories

It weally was obvious early on there was only one viable VC and if I could have accepted that and executed well (as Thoraz did --> Congrats!) it was a very winnable diplomatic game. In hindsight I played a brilliant game.

 

[slowrider]

I definitely think cultural was possible. The timeline for the spaceship losses seems to give enough time. Of course, cultural deity wins always require some luck (the diplomatic elements can twist against you in ways that are not always controllable).

I agree, the timeline seems reasonable (varies in the submissions from 1697AD to 1817AD or turn 369 to turn 427 for the AI to launch), but after the original submission (trying to win cultural) I tried 3 more times to win culturally and couldn't have won by turn 427 even unmolested. I'll be the first to admit that my games were suboptimal but I have to believe they were pretty good especially with my experience with the map. First time I tried diplomatic (ever) I won no problemo.

 

[Lexad]

Cultural was definiyrly winnable. And if our huge continent and HindiRusi and islands were enough, domination also. Not space, I fear, and I seriously doubt about conquest.

 

[Htadus]

An outstanding example of Diplomacy at its best. Congratulations to all who submitted. An extra congrats to Thorrez. I guess this is sort of a victory ha?

 

[Thorrez]

Thank you every one. Not to bad hoping for my first award and getting 4

 

[Khalid]

Congrats Thorrez, definitely a great game.

 

[slowrider]

Cultural was definiyrly winnable. And if our huge continent and HindiRusi and islands were enough, domination also. Not space, I fear, and I seriously doubt about conquest.

If you and DaviddesJ think it’s possible I have to respect that … you guys have a lot more experience and knowledge than me. I cottaged, cathredaled, and GP Farmed my heart out 4 times trying the Godotnut approach and maybe could have won by turn 450 but that wasn’t good enough (the latest launch submitted was 427). My personal conclusion, for my skill level, is that without the Pyramids, on Deity level, cultural is out.

The big takeaway for me though was learning the power of the diplo option. I’ve never done it so it wasn’t even a consideration playing the game initially but after seeing Thorrez’s post in the final spoiler I gave it a shot and it was remarkably effective. It will definitely be a highly option for me in any future deity game. What was surprising was that I was able to get to Mass Media first and build the UN. That’s even though I didn’t get to Liberalism first, had to hack a cottage city out of the jungle and was playing against Gandhi. In other words, on deity level with less than ideal conditions and even playing against other UN hawks it’s very doable and maybe that’s something important to remember for future reference. I was never the tech leader but was able to branch away from the pack to MM first. The others weren’t far behind so you have to keep your foot on the gas but it seems like a fairly reliable approach given that the AI seems to tech in a pretty consistent way from game to game. Of coarse the UN is only half the battle but at least your hat is in the ring. In this case, especially with all the hindsight, it was obvious to avoid religion and all trades with Russia and Japan. That along with giving stuff away in the end gets you voted in. Actually avoiding religion and trading with unpopular civs (no matter how tempting) is something that has benefited me in subsequent games so that’s another lesson learned.