GOTM 49 Results & Congratulations

[ainwood]

GOTM 49 gave the player a pretty hopeless starting location, with a Unique Unit that, whilst good for the defense, would be only marginally useful in pursuing a quick domination or conquest. Looks like that didn't hold people back too much, because again we had a leaderboard dominated by fast conquests and dominations.

The winner was klarius, who triggered domination in 630 AD. Not fast enough to net him the fastest domination award, though.

In second place was Megalou who also grabbed the fastest domination, beating klarius by a few turns.

Rounding-out the leaderboard was tR1cKy - grabbing the fastest conquest, although this wasn't one of his ancient-age conquests, as he did use knights & persian mercenaries.

Summary of Medal Winners:

klarius: 630 AD Domination Victory, 10,379 points.

Megalou: 590 AD Domination Victory, 10,225 points.

tR1cKy: 660 AD Conquest Victory, 10,200 points.

 

[ainwood]

Other Award Winners:

Shigella: 1620 AD Diplomatic Victory, 6,889 points.

Marc Aurel: 1906 AD Spaceship Victory, 5,644 points.

Denyd: 2050AD Histographic victory, 6172 points.

Chamnix: 1780 AD Cultural 20k Victory, 4,733 points.

Note: No Culture 100k awards this month!

 

[ainwood]

Fredrico: 1740 AD Conquest Victory, 5,813 points.

Randy: 1804 AD Diplomatic Victory, 5,313 points.

wolp: 1912 AD Domination Victory, 4,115 points.

Oryctolagus: 1798 AD Domination Loss, 1,185 points.

donsig: 970 AD Conquest Loss, 580 points.

See the full list of results here.
See the updated pantheon of heroes here.
See the updated Global Rankingshere.

 

[Megalou]

Congrats klarius; seems to me like my inability to connect resources to aztec-land made you finish well ahead of me.

Finally a fastest domination victory! Seems like I've tried for years...

 

[Niklas]

@Megalou: Congratulations! Only one more to go, guess this spices up the cow challenge a bit eh?

@tR1cKy: Not only the winner of the challenge, but of the award as well! Well done!

Congratz to all other winners as well. Too bad I couldn't finish this one...

 

[civ_steve]

4th Place! Holy ----!! (This competition is diluting rapidly, unfortunate but to be expected with CIV out)

Congratulations, Megalou! I know you've been trying to get that globe for a long time!

 

[Megalou]

@civ steve
Thanks - Next time you will seize it, perhaps.

Sure, the classic gotm has diluted, with only 36 entries. But while some have left that could beat us sleeping (and maybe did) others who still compete have improved their game vastly.

 

[tR1cKy]

In game 48 i said that it was my best performance ever, now i must repeat myself - first award and first medal! Being in this competition has improved vastly my skill (yes Megalou, i think i'm one of those you mention ) - my 1st attempt ended up with an anonymous 36th place, and when i looked at the scoreboard i was asking myself how was it possible to win so fastly... now i'm biting the tails of the top dogs still around, and i feel there is still room for improvement...

Now a special

to all those who picked the challenge. Well done guyz! I'm sorry for you Niklas, this game truly deserved to be played. Me too i missed the 2 epic maps of Japan and Russia because of the lack of time.

Hope to see more contenders in the game 50. Civ4 has taken an heavy toll this time. For the future, with the mainstream of players now hooked with Civ4, it is reasonable to think that the Civ3 gotm will be mostly played by die-hard aficionados. Usually those people have a better computer knowledge or at least the will to understand better the game mechanics, so it's possible to make up more unusual competition, such as tiny crowded maps, custom-made civs or modded games of some sort. I think we need to keep the interest alive, and this approach could help. Any opinions?

Finally, congrats to all the award winners, and thanks to everyone for simply being here. See ya in game 50!

 

[Marc Aurel]

Oops, an award for me? And in this game? I had so terrible bad RNG luck in the beginning losing 4 archers against 2 warriors after early Arabian DOW on me that I lost all hope for this game and only continued to not have my ranking brought down due to not submitting.
So the award may be a little compensation for that bad RNG luck and at least it is an award and my first ever. OTOH its value is questionable without any competition. So I join tr1cky in the invitation : Keep the Civ3 GOTM alive by participation! This competition should live on!!
Congratulations to all other medal and award winners!! Especially to tr1cky due to his challenge efforts to make Civ3 GOTM interesting and klarius for the overall best game.

 

[MarcoPolo]

Congrats to the people that won. From looking at the starting location it's amazing that you could even pull off a win at all.

 

[denyd]

Wow a cow

I finally picked a victory condition that no one else picked

Congratulations to all those you finished and to the other winners

 

[Niklas]

Hmm, what's up with the cow? The first post gives it to klarius, but in the results list it say denyd. Considering denyd got a histo win, I suspect the latter is correct, in which case the first post (and the front page notice) could need some reformulation...

@denyd: That's what getting awards is mostly about, choosing the "wrong" VC.

 

[AlanH]

Sorry about the cow. A subtle software error I introduced in our back office stuff during our "process of continual improvement" AKA "replacing old bugs with new ones"

 

[Shigella]

Congrats all, and especially to Denyd for bagging the cow.

@Megalou - congrats on clearing the biggest hurdle on your way to a statue.

civ_steve, Megalou and I are all one step away now. Unfortunately, I won't have time to even get started on GOTM50. RL is kicking my tail this month, and I am hopping in a plane in a couple of hours to go work in India for a month. Things will be so busy over there that I'm not even bothering to pack the program CDs, that way I won't even be tempted to try completing it. If all goes well, I'll be back for GOTM51.

I am curious what is up with the schedule from this point forward - any insights from the staff?

 

[AlanH]

I am curious what is up with the schedule from this point forward - any insights from the staff?

This is the second intimation I've seen that people think the schedule will change in future. I am not aware of any reason to believe it would. I'm not sure what's fuelling this, and I have no insights to impart on what I believe to be a non-topic.

- Am I missing out on a rumour mill somewhere? .

- Is this a subtle hint that players *want* a change in the schedule? If so by all means open a debate on the subject.

- We changed the closing date for GOTM 50 to give players an extra two weeks to submit over the holiday season. Is that unsettling you?

As far as I am aware we shall release GOTM 51 on 15 Jan, and COTM 21 on 1 Feb, and the schedule will continue on that basis until and unless circumstances change - all the players walk away - staff commit collective hari-kiri - the world ends - something of that order.

 

[Shigella]

Alan,

Thanks for the reply. Don't know where I got the idea that there could be schedule changes in the works other than the delay in the due date for GOTM50 and earlier speculation by some members that GOTM/COTM could be open to changes.

For the record, I prefer keeping things just the way they are.

As an aside, it looks like i might not even compete in GOTM51, as I won't be back in the states until the second week of February.

Now, I've gotta go catch a plane!!!

 

[ainwood]

The only thing that may change the schedule is that with the release of Civ complete for the Mac, we may a.) Drop the Vanilla Civ option for the classic GOTM (Not likely, as some mac users may not get civ3 complete); 2.) we drop the classic GOTM and run only a conquest one (or vice-versa) - will only happen if we start getting only a few entries per month.

But as Lan says - if people want a change, then please start the discussions.

 

[Niklas]

Being in this competition has improved vastly my skill (yes Megalou, i think i'm one of those you mention ) - my 1st attempt ended up with an anonymous 36th place, and when i looked at the scoreboard i was asking myself how was it possible to win so fastly... now i'm biting the tails of the top dogs still around, and i feel there is still room for improvement...

I too feel I fit into this category. My first attempt was an even more anonymous 60ish place in GOTM38 China, my first ever win on emperor. I've constantly improved though, and managed to grab my first award in 41 Persia. Now I'm up to 5 , and I still feel I'm learning new stuff all the time.

Hope to see more contenders in the game 50. Civ4 has taken an heavy toll this time. For the future, with the mainstream of players now hooked with Civ4, it is reasonable to think that the Civ3 gotm will be mostly played by die-hard aficionados. Usually those people have a better computer knowledge or at least the will to understand better the game mechanics, so it's possible to make up more unusual competition, such as tiny crowded maps, custom-made civs or modded games of some sort. I think we need to keep the interest alive, and this approach could help. Any opinions?

I second this. I really enjoy the twists that the SGOTM's are using, they're not "just another game". We couldn't use the exact same kinds of twists for the standard GOTM's since some would invalidate some victory conditions (like OCC, AW, make AI win...) , but others could work (like Hydrophobic). And custom content in various ways are always fun to see, for instance the "chinese wall" of the Mongol COTM was really cool. It doesn't have to be much, but I think a little extra's would go a long way towards keeping the interest up. At least mine.


In other news, like Shigella hinted, the fight for the next Eptathlon is heating up. With tR1cKy's Predator Domination Challenge, 50 will be a tough time for anyone who's after the globe (like civ_steve). And me and Megalou are in an epic struggle over the cattle herds. Let's assume for a moment that Redbad manages to claim the globe by going victorious out of the tPDC. And that I grab the Cow in front of Megalou's nose (or foot perhaps?). Since Shigella won't compete this time around, that would mean 5 of us one step away at the start of GOTM51... Someone should start taking bets on this!

 

[civ_steve]

Yeah; it's a shame tR1cKy isn't running a Predator Cow contest for GOTM50

No bets for me. It was a year and a half before I won 2 Awards back to back; then 6 Months before 2 more Awards back to back, and now 9 months again before the last 2, back to back. I figure I'm due about next fall!

 

[Niklas]

- Is this a subtle hint that players *want* a change in the schedule? If so by all means open a debate on the subject.

- We changed the closing date for GOTM 50 to give players an extra two weeks to submit over the holiday season. Is that unsettling you?

As far as I am aware we shall release GOTM 51 on 15 Jan...

Yes, in a sense this is unsettling me.
I normally have trouble finishing the GOTMs within the set timeframe of one month. It would never have been possible with GOTM50, what with the holidays and the large map, so the extra two weeks are more than welcome. But does that then mean only two weeks for GOTM51? This is the reason I thought a schedule change was due in one way or another, I couldn't possibly manage to finish in that short a time...