GOTM 150

[Ali Ardavan]

Rivered Straits

Game of the Month 150: December 2013

Civilization: 1 Russian settler (for the third month in a row! This may be a record)
Starting techs: None
Difficulty: Emperor
Total players: 7
Restarts: on
Barbarians: Restless Tribes (-0)

Special rules: First hut, regardless of when you pop it, must yield an archer. Save and reload as often as necessary to achieve this.

Map: Custom designed known 40x250 round. The world consists of one land piece which is mostly glacier and mountains. In between the two there is a river running on a strip of fertile land that runs from the South pole to the North pole. Human player, playing Russians, starts near the South pole. AI rivals start near the North pole. The strip is 5 tiles thick near the South and North poles and 1 tile thick in between.

Note: known map means you can open the starting save in the map editor at any point in the game.

Deadline: Feb 3, 2014

Please be sure to follow the submission guidelines when submitting your game (please do not send your files in a .zip file. Attach them directly to your e-mail with your name in the save file). No extra save is needed.

You can download the game here.

Please send the savegames only to civ2gotm@gmail.com.

Have fun.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

Folks, this is huts galore! The map has 10,000 tiles and very little ocean. How to approach hut popping is an important element of your strategy in this game.

If you have been waiting to play a zero city conquest, this is your chance. There are enough huts here to allow for raising a mighty none army.

 

[Peaster]

I guess a player could wait so long to pop a hut that Archers are obsolete. That would be a surrealistic way to end a game, eternally re-popping the same hut!

 

[Inkerman]

Splendid, something novel for the holiday season.

I think archers are a 30% chance for huts popped early on (2-move military being another 30%, and money and technology being 20% each.) So popping one early on (before iron working is discovered) would avoid losing the ability to pop huts, although that would certainly make your game different.

I think I may pop a few more than one in fact, it may remind of playing one-arm bandits. Let's hope I can work out a reasonable plan for that. Will be interesting to think what players do with the settler once it isn't needed for huts. And it is a very long way to the far end of the map, so a lot can happen.

 

[dbthewise13]

Sorry, this is not directly related, but is there any way to open the .sav files if I'm using CivII:ToT. This is the message I get: "Failed to load game: file is in obsolete format"

 

[Peaster]

One old strategy on large land masses is to beeline for seafaring (even before monarchy), make explorers and pop pop pop. If I have a chance to play this gotm, I will certainly consider that idea. I was never able to thoroughly analyze the merits of hut-popping vs ICS, but suspect popping is better on some maps, probably including this one.

@db: Hate to be negative, but I think there is no way. I don't own ToT and am not 100% sure.

 

[Inkerman]

One old strategy on large land masses is to beeline for seafaring (even before monarchy), make explorers and pop pop pop.

I agree explorers on such a large, difficult terrain map would be lovely. You could settle and not pop huts (so as to keep control of your technology tree), discover seafaring, build explorers, and then start seeing how lucky you are this Christmas.

But maybe you would not care to "beeline" to get seafaring. In the early stages at least there seems a case for not starting a city, so that a large NON army accumulates. Pop huts for long enough and seafaring will likely appear (you may very well find alphabet hard to discover, and if you are very unlucky you will get Invention beforehand, and that stops techs appearing at huts.)

If you do settle and wait to pop, and you use explorers, then you could start with distant huts so that any units are NON. That would be where the stipulation of first hut = archer will be useful, to ensure the explorer you have worked so hard for and spent so many turns moving isn't immediately lost to barbs. But even that first hut next to the starting square needs to be left if that's the case.

 

[elmenhorster]

a bit off topic question to gotm players.
how would one know if a player altered rules.txt during the game and changed back to default before finishing? also one can simply save game anytime, toggle cheat mode uncover map and expose AI naked while checking status, location of cities and units, production ect. then load back saved game and continue next turn like a god. Sure there are more, but rules is the most significant and anyone can neglect it just like that like snap of two fingers without you even noticing. Is it all about honor? how do you prevent gotm from such cheats?

 

[mackerel]

If a meaningless victory appeals so much to you, there is little to prevent such a strategy. Remember to correct your rules.txt for the checkpoint saves at 1AD and so on. It's entirely possible you'll outscore the veterans here and win your very own gold or green or blue star, a place in history on this internet forum, or even the respect and admiration of up to ten people who also enjoy this game. Keep up the deception for a year or two, if you're so inclined, avoiding the uncomfortable questions from admiring competitors wondering how to duplicate your astonishing successes. Take pride in that well deserved e-glory. It's totally worth the days of effort.

 

[Inkerman]

...also one can simply save game anytime, toggle cheat mode...how do you prevent gotm from such cheats?

Hi elmenhorster,

Yes how strange, 150 games and still going, just - not a "flash in the pan" or a "one hit wonder"!

I agree with mackerel, but I would write it differently....

Perhaps you know the answer but don't quite believe it? Your question shows good knowledge of CivII, the computer program, but the answer also depends on a good understanding of GotM play and players.

Imagine you are going to play - or perhaps even become a player yourself. Read the rules, open a text editor and commence a log, load up a game, and start. Write what you do in the log. GotM 150 will do - although you will probably want the map editor open too so it's a bit more complicated than most games. Don't look at the spoiler thread until you have gone so far it won't spoil the game for you - in this case I suggest until you have swapped maps with an AI civ. Then write a spoiler post.

You can even actually post it if you like as the thread is now started, but anyway, if you do do all that as if you were a GotM player, I think it will help you answer the question.

I would agree if you said GotM is not suitable for everyone. I expect some people would find it hard to play CivII, never to go back and re-play for a better outcome. In fact there isn't even a rule on looking at the spoiler (just a custom), and some players have limited their games more than the rules require (e.g. no black clicking, no bribing cities.)

The technical answer is that GotM players must provide save files for 1 AD and 1000 AD which are then published with the answers for anyone to examine. We have analysis tools - and of course more testing may be possible in the future. Sometimes we ask for additional save files - with storage so inexpensive and CivII being so well-written, and games played over several sittings, players invariably have many nowadays.

regards, Inkerman

 

[elmenhorster]

take anything, if there is a loophole, there always someone who exploits it, regardless of what your opinion is mackerel. I've even encountered cheating when playing online, where "toggle cheat" option is unavailable.
Now image instead of being awarded gold or green or blue or purple or whatever color you prefer, you get awarded real money for your results, what would happen then?
Default civ2 game is too vulnerable, the only way I see here is to bust open .sav files with hex edit and unravel all your evil deeds, unfortunately majority of bytes and their meanings consisting the file are still mystery, at least to public eye, I mean I can already see without loading a game if cheat mode was triggered, but there's a lot of room to discover.
Now scenario type gaming and new scenarios can be protected to the fullest, and I know how to do it, but of course it would be unwise to spoil it.
I'm against cheating no doubt about it, I just want to see what other people have to say about this topic, which is sensitive enough that I can expect all kinds of outbursts amongst I may find something interesting and gotm is a perfect target for.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

I don't think anyone here would deny that a cheater could probably go undetected for a while, it is just that at this time we don't think it is worth the trouble to prevent cheating. Mackerel argues that the GOTM isn't exactly a high priority target. I will add that there is also an aspect of reputation to consider. For example, if I were caught cheating, all the other contributions I've made to discussions would be tainted as well. There is also a question of how bad it would be to find out that someone cheated; since the GOTM is a comparison game, the fact that one person cheated doesn't mean that the others could have done better in their game.

If you think you've been having problems with cheaters online, why didn't you just start a topic about that and ask if we knew any ways to make it more difficult?

 

[Ali Ardavan]

As guessed and as others have pointed out, we are on the honor system. A full proof system is probably impossible; a nearly full proof one prohibitively expensive in the amount if time it takes the graders to implement it. Since this is done for fun and there is no material reward, we are assuming there is no cheating going on. Of course we do not know for sure.

Hope to see you join us in playing soon.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

Judging from the spoiler there are still quite a few people playing. The deadline is here by extended to Feb. 17.

 

[Magic_gorter]

Results are up.

 

[Magic_gorter]

Hall of Fame is updated.