Gotm19-Ottomans Results and Congratulations

[Aeson]

What about adding some depth to the equation by adding medals for highest scoring game of type as well as fastest finish. This makes more sense to me than these lowest scoring medals.

Idealy we've targetted the awards for fastest finish to compensate for the fact that very fast finishes do tend to score lower than they could if 'milked' out a bit. That leaves the medals mainly for those less fast, but still as well played games that are milked a bit along the way.

The Phillibuster awards are included for fun, and to make sure that there is some involvement for the newer and less experienced players. I don't know if you were around back then, but several months ago the GOTM was having some major problems. A general lack of trust in the validity of games being submitted seemed to be driving a lot of players away, as did the fact that milking was the only way to have any shot at a medal most months. Phil's contributions (among others, such as the Lowest Scoring OCC competitions, ect.) at that time were a big part of why the Staff feels things started to turn around, helping to bring a lighter side to the GOTM. Think of those awards as a reminder that score isn't everything, and that for newer players trying a tougher difficulty than they've ever played before, even a low ranking victory is still a pretty amazing victory.

 

[ltcoljt]

I might as well just shut up around here.

 

[ControlFreak]

Originally posted by ltcoljt
I might as well just shut up around here.

On the contrary ltcoljt! I think the reason that the changes in GOTM have been made is because people like you with differing opinions have been able to frankly state their idea in a constructive manner. Your comments (all of them) today have had a positive candor and I think that your ideas are getting through, even if not acted upon yet.

 

[Aeson]

The opinions and insights of everyone matter here (as long as they adhere to forum posting policy). Just realize that the Civ3 community in general is a rather analytical community, and any argument put out there is probably going to find someone who disputes it.

Regarding the scoring system specifically, any insights or suggestions are always welcomed by me. I will dissect them as best I can, as will others, but it's that process that usually leads to any advancement. And just because I don't agree with something initially doesn't mean it won't be used.

My initial suggestion as to the awards was much like yours, awards for highest Jason score for each victory condition. Discussion in the staff forum resulted in a better option from the viewpoint of the staff as a whole, which is what I detailed above. I agree with that decision, even though it probably isn't what I would have come to on my own.

 

[ltcoljt]

Well, Aeson, all I can say is you need to go back to the staff forum and let them know that "a better option from the viewpoint of the staff as a whole" means beans to the players. I think that more medals would equal more interest and let the staff eat cake. Out of 234 submissions you had only 4 100K cultural submissions and only 1 20k, so something is obvisouly less than optimal.

Ask the staff how much staying power the GotM will have for people if it's always gonna be about who conquers fastest. Why do you think Bamspeedy is playing a OCC this month? He is bored if you ask me.

 

[cracker]

Originally posted by ltcoljt
Why do you think Bamspeedy is playing a OCC this month? He is bored if you ask me.

I think you should have asked this question privately of Bamspeedy and let him give you his answer and perspective. It is difficult to put speculative words into the mouth of another person and then expect to use those words as any sort of valid support for a discussion point without creating some sort of expanded conflict or miscommunication.

In some ways, Bamspeedy's choice to play an OCC represents the ultimate Man of laMancha style decison in my book.

I want to caution us all also to avoid spoiler discussions of Gotm20-Spain outside of the defined limits for those discussions in their assigned topic threads.

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by Aeson
I have a very strong suspicion that playing from just before SirPleb's victory, you could get to a Spaceship (He probably wasn't keeping Diplomatic an option ) score that was in contention for medals.

I think so too. I believe that from my 10AD save it would be possible to get very near 12K Jason in a spaceship victory. This map was very balanced in that regard - fast research to Sipahi could be used as a key to a high scoring game for most of the victory conditions.

 

[cracker]

Sirpleb,

Let's do that!!! This month we might have some players who want a little extra excitement and a chance to follow the master.

Let us setup a Quick Game in the Quick Games subforum and use your 10AD save as the starting file. All payers would begin playing from that point in time with the objective of fastest Space Race victory from that point in time. We can use the existing Jason Score calculator and players can self report via a brief events timeline plus a final turn save file.

How long do you think it would take the average people to play a space race victory from your 10AD position??

The fact that your 10AD file is in PTWv1.21 may exclude some players but it may still be a fun and exciting play opportunity.

 

[rabies]

If I get some spare time, i would not mind trying this. I analyzed SirPleb's game in the civreplayviewer utility (great util) and was nothing short of amazed at just how fast his conquest went once it started.

Sir Pleb, in order to get 12k jason with a spaceship victory, do you feel the territory you have at 10 would be sufficient, or would you need to capture some more?

..or is that the kind of thing we should try to find out for ourselves?

I would also like to see if I can recreate the amazing conquest results from that point. how he managed to beat down the other continents so fast just astounds me. I used the same units in my own conquest victory, but they certainly did not tear through the enemy that quickly... especially Rome.

 

[Aeson]

Well, Aeson, all I can say is you need to go back to the staff forum and let them know that "a better option from the viewpoint of the staff as a whole" means beans to the players.

The point I was trying to make is that no single player defines what the GOTM 'should' be. Certainly not me, maybe cracker could if he just wanted to play by himself... which he doesn't seem very keen on.

Realize that you are a single member of the community, like any of the rest of us. Because every player's voice counts, that means no one's voice should shout the other down. You speak for yourself, I'll speak for myself, and let 'the players' speak for themselves as well.

There was polling done way back when on what victory conditions we should have, and the number (well, if we should have 'more' or 'less' relative to what was proposed then). The current award system is our best effort to conform to the results of those polls.

There are a lot of new faces since then, so if you feel strongly about adding more awards, you could start a new poll with your suggestions. The Staff mainly concerns itself with trying to provide a solution that conforms to the general opinion of the community.

 

[Creepster]

Originally posted by ltcoljt

Well, Aeson, all I can say is you need to go back to the staff forum and let them know that "a better option from the viewpoint of the staff as a whole" means beans to the players.

If you want more awards then suggest them. We are always willing to add more to the game. Not every choice will make it to implementation, but it will be fairly looked at. The staff here is not about dictating ideas out, we are part of the community, and we welcome others thoughts and ideas. There are limitations as to what we can do though. A lot of these limitations come from amount of time we can dedicate to this forum (after all this is a volunteer group) there are also practical considerations. eg there should not be so many awards as to make them meaningless. So please suggest away We have been and always will be ready to listen.

 

[ltcoljt]

Originally posted by Mark Cutt


I'm not sure I did what you were suggesting but I tried.
I correlated the changes in my mini-ranking (remind that only the 61 players that participated to both QSC and GOTM are considered) and calculate the changes in these rankings for each final victory condition.
The result is someway surprising.
It looks like Spaceship is by far the option that gives you the worst GOTM result compared with the QSC result.
I'm not sure I can explain it (maybe I made a calculation mistake)

The following table shows for each victory condition the number of players that get it (out of the 61) and the average increase/decrease of their ranking (in the 61 list)

Cultural 20k: 1 player, +14,0 in GOTM vs QSC
Conquest: 4 players, +7,8 in GOTM vs QSC
Domination: 18 players, +3,3 in GOTM vs QSC
Diplomatic: 14 players, +2,9 in GOTM vs QSC
Cultural 100k: 3 players, +0,3 in GOTM vs QSC
Spaceship: 21 players, -7,0 in GOTM vs QSC

P.S. I need to learn how to embed excel pivot tables into the post

I did not submit in the QSC because of a lost timeline. I did load the save and the worksheet and it looks like I would have finished about 34th. I won by space race at 23 place in the GOTM, so I would have been one to improve while pursuing the launch option. I credit this however to not trying for the fastest launch, but to mix in some milking with a fairly fast finish. I will try out Sir Pleb's game to settle this issue in my mind.

 

[Karasu]

Aeson and Creepster spoke for me too.

In addition to that, I have been at work for 14 straight hours and I have a design review tomorrow with RIDs coming after the deadline all day long... Which is why I am not posting too much here beyond my agreement with them.

Cheers.

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by cracker
Let's do that!!! ... Let us setup a Quick Game in the Quick Games subforum

Ok, sounds like fun!

I'll review my notes and start a thread later tonight in the Quick Games forum, and will post a link here at the same time.

First thing will be to describe the setup, see how many people are interested, and see what people think the goal should be.

It may be best to start from a 30BC save - at that point Military Tradition is one turn away.

@rabies: To get a very high Jason score with any victory from that point will require taking more territory for sure. The tradeoffs between speed, research, and quality and development of the territory remain open questions

One caution I should add to this: To get a really high Jason score in a space win from this save will be a fairly long effort, more than I spent on the conquest from that date

 

[TedJackson]

Originally posted by Mark Cutt
I extracted form the QSC and full game ranking the 61 players who partecipated to both and I created two new QSC and full game ranking with only these 61 players.

Finally I calculated how each player's ranking changed between the two competition.

Very interesting.

Purely for my own info & monitoring I have been taking my QSC and GOTM rankings and recording them expressed as percentiles.

So I have for QSC 19: 73rd percentile, GotM 19: 70th percentile.

Obviously, filtering out the non QSC rankings presents quite a different picture.

Looks like I'll have to do a bit more work than I originally thought


regards

Ted

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by SirPleb
One caution I should add to this: To get a really high Jason score in a space win from this save will be a fairly long effort, more than I spent on the conquest from that date

Well, that doesn't seem like a "quick" game to me.

 

[Smirk]

Originally posted by ltcoljt
A space race game, if played to max score, is far harder than a domination or conquest win.

Not true. Domination plays a special role in this game and especially in gotm since to have a good scoring game, no matter the victory type, you have to expand to the domination limit. The reason space race and some others are deemed easier is because you don't have to expand to the domination limit in order to win. This goes moreso for diplomatic which IMO is about the easiest way to win (as long as you don't shoot yourself by breaking deals etc).

The point is (and one that SirPleb has illustrated for many months now) is that getting to the domination limit is a root skill afterwhich you can do whatever you want in any game. You can win most any victory type without getting to the domination limit, but you can also win any type after you've reached the domination limit with a much higher score.


This isn't an all or nothing sort of strategy either you can still be working on getting to domination without sacrificing other goals like faster tech, culture (with the exception of 20k). A good space race game is both a fast expansion to domination as well as a fast tech pace.

 

[JonathanValjean]

Originally posted by cracker
Sirpleb, Let's do that!!! This month we might have some players who want a little extra excitement and a chance to follow the master.

Sign me up! I would love to follow in the footsteps of the master, Sirpleb. I wouldn't feel as if I had earned such an excellent 10AD position, but I think I could get over it.

 

[LKendter]

Originally posted by Renata
Renata <--- picked the *right* victory condition again, apparently, although I really couldn't imagine having played any other way with Sipahi

I must laugh at the quote. I fell exactly the same way, as Sipahi will eat rifleman for lunch. I barely was in the industrial age and only cared about rails and rifles. This was a rare game where I didn't even do much with factories.

================================

Originally posted by hotrod0823
Do I get the award for the greatest plummet from QSC 11th (10th) down to 62nd.

Well so much for the student beating the teacher.
Despite a weak start paranoid about a early "small" map war, I still came ahead @43rd.


================================

QSC = 43 of 98
Full = 56 of 244

This was a backwards game for me. I usually do better with the QSC and drop down in the full score.

========================

Now the challenge is can I continue this trend with #20?

 

[Taliesin]

Congratulations for all the great victories accomplished this month!

I'm new to CFC (though I've been reading the forums for months), and I'll probably submit in GOTM-21. I'll just have to be sure to study masters like SirPleb (a fellow Canuck)... otherwise I will assuredly lose.