GOTM 2 Results & congratulations

[The-Hawk]

Wow!!! I can see I have a lot to learn. Congradulations

You and me both! One thing I learned is I play too slow and don't score well!

On the other hand, this GOTM was only my fourth Civ IV game ever, so I am pleased to find myself in the top fifty. Of course, I say this knowing that some of the games "below" me in the standings were actually far, far superior. Cultural victory in 1490 AD? Are you kidding? DaveMcW's civ was in the clubhouse having a victory beer before I had killed off my second opponent. Oops, wait a second... his was a cultured civ... I suppose they were sipping fine champagne. Hard to believe that scored less points than my slow domination...

Congratulations to all the winners! Not only stunning scores and finish times , but some superb spoiler write-ups to go along with them.

I am very impressed that so many people are willing to share their "special sauce", knowing it will make the competition tougher in the future. Thanks!

 

[knupp715]

Congratulations to all the players who won awards this GOTM. Great Jobs, and great scores. Thanks also to all the players who do such detailed spoilers, which really teach me new things I didn't know, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Thanks lastly, to the GOTM staff for putting this great game together. I'm looking forward to more of them.

 

[Narakael]

What a series of remarkable games !!! After looking at the results I wish I had time to replay the GOTM 02 several times and try to emulate a number of these amazing games. There is so much to learn from this.

Thanks to the GOTM team for the great work and dedication, and congratulations to the players for the creativity and display of skills.

I am seriously impressed by your game Hendrikszoon, even more so as I haven't played any conquest or domination game yet. The complexity of these games feels quite daunting to me, as there seems to be more choices to make along the way as for the Diplomatic games I have played so far, in terms of regulating the speed of conquest, and balancing that with growth.

Congratulations to all the winners, and many thanks for the great posts in the spoilers. Somebody could publish a "Civilization Thesis" from all the great ideas and strategies.

I don't know if anyone else noticed yet, but every award/medal was won by someone different! I don't know if that has ever happened before, but I doubt it.

There definitely seems to be more of a split in this game between the "fast games" and the "score games", with people going more for one or another. I find both results impressive, the early dates as well as the high scores.

A. Bradleyfeanor result who finished ~200 years earlier than the second fastest military victory by Sarum.

Impressive date indeed. I find it quite comparable to the differences in score for the medals.

Congratulations to Dynamic for managing to get a high score combined with a very early Space victory. If this is a training game I can't wait to see your focused games.

Also congratulation to jar2574 for your early Diplomatic victory. Your date was very close to mine and you have quite a higher score.

qitai either idles waaaay too much or he has to be one of the most dedicated civ4 players ever!
389 hours played !!

I couldn't help but smile when I saw that too. And here I thought I was a bit slow sometimes.

Narakael

PS: After looking at the results, I have been reading or re-reading some of the spoilers for the GOTM 02, and wanted to thank in particular Bradleyfeanor, DaveMcW and Hendrikszoon for the very insightful posts. Some great ideas I want to try: worker robbery, using great people for research (I was wondering how that works), and at some point the overall strategy for a Cultural Victory.

 

[Harok]

Congrats to all the medal winners and thanks for all the amazing write ups.

I want to forget my game as it was one or my weaker efforts where I just felt lucky to win but I still learned a lot from it.

Also want to give a big thank you to the people who run these, your efforts are much appreciated.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

My deepest appreciation to Ainwood, AlanH and Co. for another great game. This one was a real beauty: one of the most enjoyable GoTMs I have played, and that is saying quite a lot!

Congrats to all the Medal and Award winners on very impressive performances. With Hendrikszoon, DaveMcW, A'barachAmadan, and now Dynamic back in the awards, this new cIV forum is starting to feel like a familiar old shoe for me.

Unfortunately, it's the one with the laces that come untied about 10 yards from the finish line.

But not this time.

A very special thanks to everyone who took time out of their schedule to write thoughtful spoilers. In my past three years of competing in the GoTM, I have never seen as many excellent posts as there were for this game. And that thank you doesn't only go to the top performers like Hendrikszoon and Shillen, but to the newer players like Flendon who played and lost but were brave enough to post their results and contribute to the community.

And most important of all, congrats to my fiancé Nichelle for getting the Lowest Scoring Conquest Shield. As far as Conquest goes, that puts you on bottom and me on Top. Guess games don't always reflect life!

 

[Spoony]

I would also like to thank the staff for all their hard work. This was a really enjoyable GOTM which sparked many debates, 'milking' for example.

GOTM is the best way for new palyers to learn and experienced players to realise they still have far to go!!

 

[Seraphinus]

Congratulations to all winners.

One small question for the staff. What is the average score per game? On the first look I believe is much higher than Gotm 1, probably because of higher difficulty but also because we all improve our gameplay.

Gotm 3 is almost finished, I am looking forward for next one with great interest.

 

[Memphus]

I do think this has been mentioned before, but I would really like to see some sort of mod or future expansion of the game which kept track of specific actions.

I don't think it would be possible for a player to keep track of all of his actions udring a game but it sure would be interesting to see at the end of someones game:

Tech tree opened: 10 times
Citie zooms: 483 times
Unit commands: 421
--this could be broken down further as complexity would allow for example 204 worker commands
diplomacy opened: 57 times
build order changed: 82 times
worked tiles changed: 1048 (i.e. moving from more food to more productiion)
worked tiles changed per city: 54 (average)


there are countless amoutns of stats that could be compiled
But what would be the msot interesting to me is to see how this varied from one victory type to another
For example higher unit commands in a domination game,

As well as looking at the ratio of the top players to other players.
Like for example how many times did Dynamic open the tech tree? if at all? How many times did an elite player like hendrikszoon change his build order in a city, or how many times he changed his worked tiles?
Did DaveMcW look at the demographics during his cultural game?

 

[AlanH]

What is the average score per game?

GOTM 1 average score was 14521
GOTM 2 average score was 23727

Scoring in GOTM 1 was using version 1.09 rules. I don't know if there is a difference, other than the difficulty factor which was unity anyway in GOTM 1. Prince level multiplies version 1.53 scores by 1.2, so normalising the GOTM 2 average back to Noble would still give a factor of about 30% improvement.

 

[Rane Khan]

GOTM 1 average score was 14521
GOTM 2 average score was 23727

Scoring in GOTM 1 was using version 1.09 rules. I don't know if there is a difference, other than the difficulty factor which was unity anyway in GOTM 1. Prince level multiplies version 1.53 scores by 1.2, so normalising the GOTM 2 average back to Noble would still give a factor of about 30% improvement.

Didn't game one have a lot more submissions though? Like comparing apples with pears, no?

But still; a job well done by everyone who submitted. Especially the ones who had the guts to submit their lost game, I don't know if I would do that, my hat goes off to all you guys.

I thoroughly enjoyed playing both Gotm I & II, and both of those games have made me a better player, both by playing them and then reading (a majority of) the posts by players made about them afterwards. They have made me try out new strategies which i would have otherwise missed out on, and made me change my playing style by a great deal (which is a good thing, since I was never a good player to start with, hoping that'll change now... ). Thanks for letting me copy the good stuff all of you came up with.

A big thank you to the gotm team for making the contest possible,

(... Going to be starting on the third game soon, hope I have improved enough to beat Monarch level with Japan now. )

 

[jar2574]

Also congratulation to jar2574 for your early Diplomatic victory. Your date was very close to mine and you have quite a higher score.

Thanks! Your spoiler was excellent. I wish I would have gotten the oracle, and then maybe I would have been closer to your year.

Congrats to all, some of those scores are amazing.

 

[AlanH]

Didn't game one have a lot more submissions though? Like comparing apples with pears, no?

I assume you are suggesting that the players who dropped out after GOTM 1 could have been pulling the GOTM 1 average down? OK, how about if we only look at the 245 players who submitted entries in both games ...

GOTM 1 average = 16897
GOTM 2 average = 28061

So, yes, the players who only played one of the games pulled the average down in both of them, but by the same factor. The ratio of the gotm1/gotm2 averages is 0.61 for the full range of competitors and 0.60 for the overlapping set. Not a big enough difference to matter.

So sample size does't explain the score increas. Performances in the second game went up. Either it was an easier game to score well in, or players are getting better, or .... [insert your favorite theory here]

 

[Smirk]

I'm wondering what sort of value we can get out of the final saves? I can't really learn a whole lot without being able to watch the replay and you can't see this after victory, and they aren't included.

Any chance those can be included, we are submitting them aren't we?


In light of the close to 400 submissions and more last month there should be more awards. In the spirit of the Olympics which seems to break down every possible skill in hundreds of variations, we should as well. So I would like to propose the fast finishes also have gold, silver and bronze components (ie golden spaceship, silver spaceship, bronze spaceship, ...).

A. Bradleyfeanor result who finished ~200 years earlier than the second fastest military victory by Sarum.

Conquest and domination aren't exactly comparable when considering time, maintaining a large civilization takes different things in consideration which conquest does not. However, to milk a conquest victory the same sort of things are required.

 

[jar2574]

So I would like to propose the fast finishes also have gold, silver and bronze components (ie golden spaceship, silver spaceship, bronze spaceship, ...).

I would really enjoy this, if it wouldn't be too much trouble. I go for fast finishes and not high scores. (I don't like the current score system's emphasis on population.) But I realize that the current rankings already take a lot of time to compile, and appreciate the work the mods are already doing.

 

[Obormot]

So I would like to propose the fast finishes also have gold, silver and bronze components (ie golden spaceship, silver spaceship, bronze spaceship, ...).

Yes, that is a good idea. I really think we should implement this and the GPR system proposed by DaveMcW. It seems that FF are even more popular then milking.

 

[DaveMcW]

The GOTM02 Global Speed Rating (GSR) Top 50

GSR = 100 * 2^( 10 * (best_turn - finish_turn) / max_turns )

Player          Date    Condition   GSR      
Bradleyfeanor   1150AD  Conquest    100.000      
DaveMcW         1490AD  Cultural    100.000      
Dynamic         1704AD  Spaceship   100.000      
narakael        1260AD  Diplomatic  100.000      
sarum           1330AD  Domination  100.000      
Qitai           1706AD  Spaceship   98.955      
Smirk           1405AD  Domination  85.425      
jar2574         1340AD  Diplomatic  84.532      
akots           1420AD  Domination  82.775      
Memphus         1425AD  Domination  81.911      
samson          1425AD  Domination  81.911      
Roland Ehnström 1754AD  Spaceship   76.908      
Aceman          1465AD  Domination  75.310      
Solenoozerec    1475AD  Domination  73.744      
hendrikszoon    1480AD  Domination  72.974      
Yurian          1495AD  Domination  70.711      
MiniMe          1780AD  Spaceship   67.093      
pa2k            1780AD  Spaceship   67.093      
fbouthil        1525AD  Domination  66.392      
Grey Cardinal   1535AD  Domination  65.012      
klarius         1535AD  Domination  65.012      
Rain            1540AD  Domination  64.333      
pnp_dredd       1580AD  Domination  59.149      
Johan511        1585AD  Domination  58.531      
dreamvirus      1595AD  Domination  57.314      
LeSphinx        1610AD  Domination  55.537      
Bob_the_Silent  1620AD  Domination  54.382      
deluche         1625AD  Domination  53.814      
Espetec         1625AD  Domination  53.814      
chunkymonkey    1630AD  Domination  53.252      
Piscator        1640AD  Domination  52.145      
Amao            1650AD  Domination  51.061      
jesusin         1470AD  Conquest    51.061      
Rogue Knight    1656AD  Domination  49.478      
Bael            1505AD  Conquest    47.442      
Uncle_Givi      1530AD  Conquest    45.015      
ungy            1853AD  Spaceship   45.015      
cente           1855AD  Spaceship   44.080      
Yuhkong         1682AD  Domination  43.163      
horragoth       1684AD  Domination  42.712      
scoticus        1686AD  Domination  42.266      
Veaz            1560AD  Conquest    42.266      
Fror            1861AD  Spaceship   41.388      
bobarts         1702AD  Domination  38.860      
crisr           1704AD  Domination  38.454      
Shillen         1610AD  Conquest    38.052      
sir_e2          1706AD  Domination  38.052      
Spoony          1615AD  Conquest    37.655      
The-Hawk        1708AD  Domination  37.655

For more detailed analysis, see the attached excel file.

 

[A'AbarachAmadan]

First, congratulations to hendrikszoon and all the other who played so well! Scoring over 200K is just phenominal!!! And DaveMcW, for not only being able to finish in the top 3 once, but also getting fastest awards.

The GOTM02 Global Speed Rating (GSR) Top 50

GSR = 100 * 2^( 10 * (best_turn - finish_turn) / max_turns )

How do reconcile games where people purposely go for the Cow? Your formula currently gives a score of zero for anyone going to 2050. Maybe that should be another category that is calculated separately (like highest base score gets 100 and then calculate all other base scores from there) and take the best of the two (GSR, maximum base). Or better, you'd have to declare up front which you wanted to do. Milking certainly isn't the same as in Civ3 where you could still finish near the top. I can't see how I could have milked more that a few thousand more points in a perfect game.

 

[Dynamic]

Summary of both ratings normalised to 100 (Top 10).

1	hendrikszoon 	100,00
2	Bradleyfeanor 	86,91
3	sarum 	          84,68
4	Dynamic 	 83,22
5	Qitai 	            80,32
6	samson 	         77,16
7	narakael 	  76,99
8	Smirk 	           73,77
9	jar2574 	  72,67
10	Grey Cardinal 	71,40

 

[A'AbarachAmadan]

Yes, that is a good idea. I really think we should implement this and the GPR system proposed by DaveMcW. It seems that FF are even more popular then milking.

I think it would be neat on the FF page to have Gold/Silver/Bronze finishes. For the eptathlon award you could require 5 points in each category, with G=5, S=3, B=1 points respectively. There is nothing more frustrating than going for a FF and getting beat by a few turns, so you see nothing of it. I remember in Civ3 getting beat by 1-3 turns on multiple occasions; it would have been nice to see Silver or Bronze when I was close. With this many competitors, it could keep the game fresh and put more people on the scoreboard, so to speak. I would keep the global rankings page as is since some like to compete that way..and are very good at it.

 

[Dynamic]

Double post