GOTM 2.0 Brainstorming

[LowtherCastle]

Here's a not-too-specific design idea for the new geniuses (in particular Erkon):

Try making a game that has a second bump in the road. Something that throws even the experts for a loop just when they thought they had the game under control.

 

[da_Vinci]

I'd like to see a development that makes each game more interesting for all players, not just the ones competing for the awards. And I don't think we need more awards...

How about some sort of ladder instead of the rather uninteresting global rankings? You could get to challenge someone ahead of you on the ladder by stating one or two victory conditions (not time!) and then the one with the earliest finish date wins. That way there would be lots of "duels" going on which might make for some competitive challenges all over the board.

I like this ladder and challenge idea, as some way to introduce head to head competition may be what the next generation is going to be about. But a head to head that originates in the basic XOTM format.

What might the challenge rules look like? Maybe you can only challenge the one immediately ahead of you? And before you can challenge the next one, they are entitled to a rematch, on VC of their choice.

One or two VC options in the challenge and rematch? Might need two, else who ever gets by Jesusin on his cultural rematch? Or, be a man and take him on in cultural? (Peace 'em, Peace 'em all?)

How would the sawtoothing difficulty enter into this? Would challenges be limted to a particular range of difficulty? How would multiple tiers of difficulty per game, if adopted, fit? Maybe then, challenge is a VC (or two) on a specified level?

Would there be time challenges and score challenges? Or maybe two (or even 3) ladders?

Sounds like a way to put the pretenders like me where they belong!

dV

 

[da_Vinci]

Here's a not-too-specific design idea for the new geniuses (in particular Erkon):

Try making a game that has a second bump in the road. Something that throws even the experts for a loop just when they thought they had the game under control.

Maybe we have to program in Universal Events ... like random events but everyone gets the same ones at the same time?

Otherwise, second bump has to be an omitted (or even better, a disinfomed) game detail ... such as "oh, we said pangea, but it is really continents ... our bad" or, "oh oops, not 6 AI, 10 AI"

That would shake up the experts, after they stopped shaking their fists ...

dV

 

[Lanstro]

Idea similar to advanced start...

How about occasional games where you start not at 4000 BC but at say, 60 turns into the game. You then have to get your civ out of the mess that the devious map creator has gotten it into (eg already well behind in techs, or suboptimal settling, or bad religious choices, or losing a war, or hell, maybe even in a very strong position).

Possibly these games would be even more interesting if you restricted the winning conditions - but not sure about that.

 

[kcd_swede]

Brainstorming

16.- What about "solve the problem" competions? Like checkmate in 3 moves in chess... You take a save of a game and you have to build Oxford in 3 turns, or get to Alphabet in 10 turns, or trade as much as you can in 12 turns...

I'd love if somebody ran such a problem set, not necessarily in conjunction with GOTM.


I'd like to see in BOTM some advanced starts. This would also have the advantage of facilitating setting the adventurer/contender/challenger by starting each with different amount of bonus-buying cash.

 

[kcd_swede]

Idea similar to advanced start...

How about occasional games where you start not at 4000 BC but at say, 60 turns into the game. You then have to get your civ out of the mess that the devious map creator has gotten it into (eg already well behind in techs, or suboptimal settling, or bad religious choices, or losing a war, or hell, maybe even in a very strong position).

Possibly these games would be even more interesting if you restricted the winning conditions - but not sure about that.

Yes, I'd be interested in an occasional non-ancient start as well.

Other ideas:
1) make possible to submit saves at specified dates (suggest 0AD, 500AD, and finish) once competition opens. Can give awards for high score at each date, though not necessary (and I'd never get one anyhow).
2)Open spoiler threads more quickly or even as soon as game submissions open to help us who typically finish game in first few days and forget about the funnest moments when the spoilers finally open. (Cheaters will find ways to cheat anyhow, so why the wait?) This way we can write up immediately and maybe get feedback/tips for the next session?
3) Must submit save for that spoiler date prior to participating in spoiler threads. E.G.- OAD save before you can read/write OAD spoiler, etc.

 

[toller pretzl]

Brainstorming

How about an award for Most Remarkable Result, the MRR-award. From the HOF we take the fastest finish date for each map and victory type. Now, whoever does best compared to this date, wins the MRR.

For example, let's say that on noble and continents the best date for domination is 300 AD and for culture it's 1200 AD.
Now in one GOTM Jeffa wins domination in 350 AD and Gosha190 wins culture in 1225 AD. Then Gosha190 gets the MRR.

 

[Alquest]

Being a complete noob (like.. still have no idea how to CS-slingshot, do not know techtree by heart, etc) I do like to play the game. I like to see my civ devolping, and I like happy people..And I like a (winnable) war from time to time..
Also, i may be a noob in this community, some friend who play civ4 as well do ask me things (and I even can provide some advise..)
However, as xOTM concerns.. I do loose on higher levels. I do not like loosing, and I ques nobody likes to loose. So maybe adding some scenario's thingy's in the game might be worthwhile. For example.. if your units are on strike for 5 turn (yeah.. i have that sometimes..) you receive 500 gold... If you are way behind in tech.. you receive techs.. if the AI lands on your ground and you have just one archer.. you reveive adeqaute defence. This should be a choise: Do you want to receive 10 Infantry? / 500 gold, etc), as, off course, you will not be mentioned in HOF, ranking etc.
It might provide players like me to complete the game which is, in itself, rewarding. It would give me an insight what is required to win, and, perhaps more important, ill get to the modern age which would be nice for a change...
Suggestions are examples.. I'm sure the civ comm can come up with better (more equalizing) one. Another advantage is that this does not affect the current setup/gamepllay which so many of you do appriciate. (never alieniate your current customers in the pursue of new customers..)
Note: I really appriciate the entire site/setup/contributors. I have learned a lot from visiting this site, however... i just dont have the time it would require...

 

[orb]

I'd like to see the following changes:

I like global ranking, but I would rather results were ranked by victory type with those (highest) players getting the same points towards global ranking...e.g. The highest Conquest win scored the same (in global ranking terms) as the highest Culture win regardless of date/population/etc etc...

I would also like to see a Personal Hepthathlon for each player to encourage all players to complete their own personal bests for each of the victory conditions...This would allow players the option to play to beat other players, or to beat their own PB's in a certain victory type.

I love the analysis of starting position....This is great for showing the outcome of the pre-game discussion.

 

[Lexad]

Advanced Start
Different era starts, not just ancient
Allowing to pick one of 2-3 leaders you deem most suitable for the VC in mind

WE shouldn't stray off too much, though, as there are enough other unique tourneys - HoF Gauntlet, regional site non-reloads, Deity/Immortal Challenges hosted by Unconquered Sun and other high level players.

 

[Lexad]

How about an award for Most Remarkable Result, the MRR-award. From the HOF we take the fastest finish date for each map and victory type. Now, whoever does best compared to this date, wins the MRR.

Unfortunately, quite a number of low-level results in HoF table are sub-par.

 

[toller pretzl]

Unfortunately, quite a number of low-level results in HoF table are sub-par.

That is indeed a problem for the MRR-award. I wonder if that would still be the case if you updated the HOF with the fastest finishes from past GOTMs. After all, they are HOF-compliant games, no ? And often quite good.

On second thought, it's not really a show-stopper though. Suppose the diplomatic victory from HOF for a given GOTM is sub-par. The best players would simply recognize that and choose diplomatic that month, to totally smoke the HOF

 

[toller pretzl]

[ retracted ]

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Lots of good ideas here.

How about some more erratic map adjustments, such as minor civs or such? Unfortunately changing how leaders act conflicts with HoF or I could provide some nasty XML leaders that are far more threatening (or in some cases, deliberately annoying) than AIs we currently see.

 

[Lexad]

That is indeed a problem for the MRR-award. I wonder if that would still be the case if you updated the HOF with the fastest finishes from past GOTMs. After all, they are HOF-compliant games, no ? And often quite good.

On second thought, it's not really a show-stopper though. Suppose the diplomatic victory from HOF for a given GOTM is sub-par. The best players would simply recognize that and choose diplomatic that month, to totally smoke the HOF

Unfortunately, GOTM are not HOF-compliant (explicitly mentioned), as HOF does not allow map to be played by numerous players and has significantly stricter testing.
Some fastest GOTM finishes are also sub-par - I should know, landed a few myself
Still, all theses measures just substitute points with some other single-dimensional criteria, which I do not believe is the key to make GOTMs more popular. Most complex measures proposed are targeting the top players, most of which (with notorious exceptions like jesusin) were not that willing to participate in GOTM Gauntlets initiated by Erkon and Obormot, which had pretty much the same target. So I'd rather propose on variety/fun for average player rather than making strong ones interested. They are sufficiently interested by current system of medals and fast finishes afaik

 

[Frederiksberg]

Perhaps require everyone to post a sequence of intermediate saves by a set dates, then encourage discussion of the date1 saves by allowing them to be downloaded only after the date2 saves are posted.

Any scheme where intermediate saves are made accesible would certainly require a mechanism to prevent the saves from disclosing too much immediately useful (i.e. in the current game) information. An intermediate save scheme might also be applicable to SGOTMS - we used to have midgame spoilers, but they disappeared. With access to midgame saves they could come back in some form...

What would a ratings system in GOTM look like? Probably not global rankings, which reward participation as much as skill (how else am I so high ). A ratings system would need to rank based on completed games ... and perhaps need a separate rank for each version (G,W,B).

Chess ratings are based on the assumption that the performance of a player in a single game can be modelled as random sample drawn from a normal distribution with a standard deviation of 200 ELO points and a mean value which is the ELO rating of the player. It is certainly possible to formulate a similar statistical model to describe the performance of GOTM competitors. Unlike chess you will often see that "bad" results are not reported (submitted) in GOTM so any GOTM ratingsystem would have to take into account that only the best performances are recorded for some players. Thus the system should somehow reward the player who submits frequently, but maybe not as much as the current system. I think you are rigth that a rating system similar to the one in chess would have more appeal to most people than the current ranking system.

15.- What about extreme maps, SGOTM stile?

16.- What about "solve the problem" competions? Like checkmate in 3 moves in chess... You take a save of a game and you have to build Oxford in 3 turns, or get to Alphabet in 10 turns, or trade as much as you can in 12 turns...

We could start another set of games for the non-standard maps. My preference is for standard maps since I still have trouble with the basic strategy - let alone strategy to cope with non-standard maps. But there is often a call for these types of maps. Perhaps a MOTM (map of the month) where a heavily customised map is used?

How about occasional games where you start not at 4000 BC but at say, 60 turns into the game. You then have to get your civ out of the mess that the devious map creator has gotten it into (eg already well behind in techs, or suboptimal settling, or bad religious choices, or losing a war, or hell, maybe even in a very strong position).

Seems there is much interest in non-standard games. I remember someone - maybe it was LC talk about quick challenges from Civ 3. I don't know exactly what they are but the idea of running some faster games with non-standard objectives, maps, etc. appeals to me . Since there are so many ideas among the players it might even be possible to run a competition where non-staff members provide the ideas and saves for "Challenge of the Month". My preference would be to have a separate competition for these "weird" games so that the regular GOTM games are preserved as only moderately modified.

 

[jefferee]

The most valuable part of GOTM participation for me, as an average player and GOTM noob, is that I can compare my tactical and strategic choices (and the results of those choices) to other players. I can also post results in the spoiler thread to get helpful pointers from other players. This is especially helpful if I am trying a new tactic or playing for an unfamiliar victory condition, and as a result I frequently do both in GOTM games.

That said, what about adding some sort of award(s) related to score that can be consistently won by a victory condition other than conquest or domination? The Civ4 scoring algorithm tends to favor wins by conquest or domination, to the extent that these two victory conditions appear to account for over 90% of the medals.

As such, there is little incentive to play for score when pursuing other victory conditions. Only the fastest victory of each type gets a medal, so if you are going after a cultural or spaceship win, the only thing that matters (as far as awards and rankings are concerned) is speed.

It would be interesting to see the optimum strategies for high-scoring spaceship, diplo and cultural wins--I suspect they would be a little different than the optimum strategies for fast wins in each category.

 

[wwassme]

What might the challenge rules look like? Maybe you can only challenge the one immediately ahead of you? And before you can challenge the next one, they are entitled to a rematch, on VC of their choice. dV

I like the idea of personal challenges. However, I'd prefer it broader than the person immediately ahead of you (although limited to challenging only people ahead of you and perhaps with a limit as to how far up). The relative global rankings are in constant motion and strongly influenced by whether someone submits in a particular month. Plus, it wouldn't be very worthwhile to challenge the person immediately ahead of you if he/she has no interest in a challenge. I suppose some of those issues would take care of themselves if it was a ladder system with people electing to be involved as opposed to using the current global ranking system.

P.S., based on the combined rankings after BOTM14, I'd get to challenge DS.

 

[wwassme]

Seems there is much interest in non-standard games. I remember someone - maybe it was LC talk about quick challenges from Civ 3. I don't know exactly what they are but the idea of running some faster games with non-standard objectives, maps, etc. appeals to me

I like this idea as well. As someone who has a limited amount of time to play due to RL constraints, I'd prefer some games on quick/normal speed or with smaller maps that can be played with less investment of time. As I recall, LC was talking about games that were played up to 0 AD or 1000 AD and whoever had the highest score at that point won.

Playing those types of shortened games would allow exploration of more leaders, map types, etc., with less difficulty in completing the game each month.

 

[kcd_swede]

That is indeed a problem for the MRR-award. I wonder if that would still be the case if you updated the HOF with the fastest finishes from past GOTMs. After all, they are HOF-compliant games, no ? And often quite good.

On second thought, it's not really a show-stopper though. Suppose the diplomatic victory from HOF for a given GOTM is sub-par. The best players would simply recognize that and choose diplomatic that month, to totally smoke the HOF

GOTM's are not HOF compliant. HOF requires a random generated map. HOF requires a map may not be played more than once.

However, a combination of HOF tables and GOTM results tables --taking the better of the two for a set of conditions -- might be workable. Its a nice idea, actually. I think GOTM staff may find the additional workload not to their liking... but hey, thats why they get the big bucks....