GOTM too low difficulty

[Raider]

First of all, let me say that in no way do I wish diminish the accomplishments of the competitors or belittle the competition itself. I just want to ask why most GOTM's are on such low difficulty setting. Monarch is so easy to win. I understand that the players compete against each other more than against a computer, but would it not add a degree of fun if the games were at least Demigod level, that is to say that the win was not nearly 100% assured for competent players?

Just asking, so don't flame.

 

[ainwood]

Well, you should at least post this in the GOTM forum

We have a variety of games, and for every player who wants a demigod game, there is one who wants regent. Since the advent of C3C, we have had quite a few new players coming in, many of which who don't enjoy the higher difficulties - the demigod game that we had had reduced numbers of players.

Seeing as we have two games per month, we are aiming to have them out-of-phase on difficulty. We have a regent Conquests game this month, complimented by an emperor classic game, which starts in a few days.

And as an aside, yes, you are playing against other players. In the regent Conquests games, many players opted to set their own variant of winning using only ancient-age units.

 

[Jove]

Arrrr, to back up Ainwood, believe me, I used to think like you, Raider, but later I realized that one can get one's butt kicked even Worse by the top players on lower difficultly levels. Maybe you need to take a closer look at just what's going on around here....

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Or, how bad in terms of score you do in this games even if are a Deity-level player normally - believe me, since you are playing against the other players and the score, CotMs/GotMs require their own tactics...
For example, high-level players tend to rely on the AI to research most techs, or at least some like Nationalism. Or on the AI having cash to fuel your own research. For me, a 16th century space victory on DG or even Deity is a lot easier than on Monarch...

 

[gozpel]

I have no confidence at all atm, let us play all games on Chieftain, so I can bully the AI for once.

I just won a Regent game after so much struggle

 

[Megalou]

I agree with everyone, including Raider himself.

ainwood, are you sure the participation dropped that much in the demigod game? Maybe people who could see themselves losing just didn't finish. A true fanatic would play to the end anyway, but it's quite understandable if you don't want to spend time doing that.

Of course none of us wants lower participation. But to qualify Raider's statement I think the truly hard games are too few. This is the upteenth time I've said this, so I won't bother anyone about it again in the future.

But to those who have problems at emperor or above: mass ugrade will take you a long way. I don't have the analytic ability of SirPleb and others, but this is one of the basic recepies for sure.

 

[Dianthus]

ainwood, are you sure the participation dropped that much in the demigod game?

That's a good point Megalou. @ainwood, do you know how many downloads of the .sav files there were?

 

[Darkness]

I also would love to see more high level games, but I understand Ainwood's argument about a reduced number of players submitting the demigod level COTM3

From the GOTM page:
COTM1- regent level: 185 players in results table
COTM2- monarch level: 167 players
COTM3- demigod level: 91 players
COTM4- regent level: 165 players

Seems pretty obvious doesn't it? But then again, the GOTM with the highest number of players is GOTM19, with 244 players, and this was emperor level.
Or players just aren't submitting if they lose....

Maybe people are just not yet comfortable on higher levels in C3C.
So maybe we should have more higher level games so that people can get comfortable at for example emperor and demigod in C3C...

 

[grahamiam]

From the GOTM page:
COTM1- regent level: 185 players in results table
COTM2- monarch level: 167 players
COTM3- demigod level: 91 players
COTM4- regent level: 165 players

Seems pretty obvious doesn't it?

perhaps, but perhaps not. august is a big vacation month, especially in europe. however, even us yanks get caught up in that at that time of year i was only able to play 1 out of 3 weekends, and worse yet, only 1 day that weekend which is why i didn't submit. even started on the 2nd but just not enough available hours in the month to complete and meet all the other rl obligations.

 

[Darkness]

perhaps, but perhaps not. august is a big vacation month, especially in europe.

Hadn't considered that yet, but it's very well possible that vacations etc., also were of influence....

 

[Offa]

I think harder levels can take longer to play, so why not give us a deity game on a small map. Even if people lose they might play on if it is quick.

 

[solenoozerec]

Since the advent of C3C, we have had quite a few new players coming in, many of which who don't enjoy the higher difficulties - the demigod game that we had had reduced numbers of players.

Alternative suggestion is to increase conquest class bonus for games at the levels higher than emperor.
I infer that we did not experience reduction in number of players in COTM3. On the contrary, I think we experienced reduction in game submissions, since many players did not finish games because they were losing and those who finished were embarrassed to submit their games. I was reading many posts where people were saying that they gave up on COTM3 or they will not submit it.
In the forum on Predator class, you admitted that current conquest bonuses could not be accounted for more than 5% of score (but in final score 15% is subtracted). It is too small anyway. If conquest class bonus will include something like lowering unit support for AI, for some people it will bring victories instead of losses. I do not lobby it for myself (I am not eligible), but for those who are just joining GOTM. We shouldn’t’ scare them of and we need to provide them a generous support on hard games.
I do not think that small amount of submissions on COTM3 should be used as an excuse to have all games to be on regent level. I am very welcome GOTM36 on emperor level this month. I hope I will see how cavalry look like again
To ensure that conquest class will not gain awards, time penalty could be applied inctead of current score penalty. E.g. if you played conquest class and won it at 900AD, your date will be counted as 1000AD with consequent influence on final score.

 

[civ_steve]

Usually there is difficulty compensation for Emperor level games and above in the form of nicer, more obvious starting positions. These benefit all classes of players, and the Conquest class gets their other bonuses in addition.

It would be interesting to see how well a true 'random' Deity game would be played by the top players. (notice the high % of losing submittals in GOTM's 7 and 14) That would be a good indication of how much GOTM has improved the level of play.

 

[ainwood]

Well, as a bit of advanced warning, this months' emperor classic game is a warm-up for next months' Deity game.

There seemed to be at least some support for keeping the Conquest and classic games out-of-phase difficulty wise, so that is what I am trying to do - and COTM5 seems to have good participation (and the ancient-age conquests / dominations are amusing and a good test).

But, the games are set for the community, not for me. If there really is support for making the games harder, then lets hear it (and I'd also like to hear from the newer players or the ones that tend to post less as well).

One thing that I would be reluctant to do is to have every game DemiGod+!

 

[Randy]

Well you asked for a new player, I've only been playing from COTM 01. I like regent to emperor.

 

[Lord British]

Perhaps on Diety and above there could be a starting bonus with Open class as well as the usual bonus in Conquest class. Just enough of a bonus to convince players to give it a go. This may encourage more players at the higher levels!

 

[bluebox]

I somewhat expected a thread like that, and I want to take the opportunity to throw in my 'two cents' here.
this cotm05 is pretty easy to win, and cotm04 was, too, but the competition is always there. It's more like playing against yourself, it's about how fast and effective you manage the game and your civ, in comparison to fight, dominate, and beat the ai.
cotm03 was not very inviting because of several reasons: it was demigod, it had a pretty unpromising start position and, after initial map discovery, it became clear quickly, that the map has its special difficulties. cotm05 is the other way round: regent, very prosperous start location, pangea maps are the easiest world forms to play.

I was thinking about cracker's games. I don't want to imply they were somehow 'better' than the recent games - the saves ainwood have been giving us were set up in a fine way with beautiful maps (e.g. gotm31-france), or, just think about the choice of opponents in the running game. They are fine with me. But cracker's regent games sometimes had some tweaking that made them pretty difficult, more difficult than regent in a random game though the ai building ratios were the same. on the other hand, his deity games sometimes were easier to play than you'd expected. i would say, some negation of the difficulties took place, that led me - personally - to disregard the given difficulty level in the first place, have a look at the game announcement and slip back to conquest if i expected the open class game to be too hard to have fun. i found it quite satisfying to win on difficulties higher than monarch for the first time though I 'knew' the game was tweaked and I 'could' win it if I would avoid doing too many dumb moves. Hey, the ai was still building for 80% or 60% of my improvement costs!

Maybe, it depends on one's attitude towards 'cheating' and the purity of the game in general. My personal view is that the basic settings provided by Firaxis are just one opinion of how the game should work. If the one who's designing a competition game thinks an ai opponent needs a start settler more or less for game balance it's fine with me when I get more sensible scenarios that lend from history or bring a special task I have to find and solve. If one thinks the best way to play gotm/cotm would be to give out random games probably disagrees with me.

I tend to support Raider, and, among others in this debate, solenoozerec, for the suggestion to make extended use of the different players' classes.

 

[A'AbarachAmadan]

I'm not new to the game, but hadn't played in a long time. I am new to Civ Fanatics, which brought me back to playing the game. (and my wife who I got addicted to it long ago; thought I'd broken the addiction, but I was wrong)

I like the variety of games, everything from Monarch to DemiGod. At the lower levels I want to see how fast I can win. I'd love a Religious/Scientific Civ w/ a capital on a river/coast combo w/ lots of shields around so I could try a 20K culture victory, which I've never done.

I also get caught up into my own game style. I like domination. The first game I submitted I tried 100K culture and did relatively poorly. You should consider setting a game challenge, such as AA conquest, and providing 2500 bonus points for succeeding at it. If you rotate the challenge between victory types it would provide an incentive to do it and develop different game skills.

 

[bed_head7]

I realize that this is not represenative of the general population, but COTM3 is the only one I have lost (of course I've only played 6 total) and probably the one I enjoyed the most. There was never any point in the game where I could just switch to autopilot, which is the case most of the time. Every little thing to get back into contention had to be done, and while in the end I missed Space Race by a turn or two, it was much more satisfying than any other GOTM I've played.

 

[Jove]

Arrrr, I just want to clarify my point. I am Definitely looking forward to another Deity level GOTM. However, I don't get hung up on the difficulty levels anymore, so long as the maps are interesting. I didn't blink when I saw that the last COTM was regent, as it was still going to be very competitive. Nearly all my civ-playing is for the GOTM, and so I'm always thinking what the other players are doing, how bad am I getting my butt kicked, not what a pushover the AI is. But that's me. Count me as no-vote, I hardly care!!!