Gotm22 Results and Congratulations

[cracker]

The results for GOTM22 are now available and we want to take this opportunity to play the first Document DemiGod difficulty level game even before the Civ3Conquests Expansion pack gets released to the public.

In pretesting this game and based on our experience with other games which might target a 20k Culture victory, we knew that this game would play out almost exactly like a domination or a conquest type game except that those players who chose to shift the game into cruise control and hold off to wait for the 20 K victory would just have to avoid triggering domination or conquest until their wonder power added up in one city.

For some people, the lure of conquest/domination would be too great.

For others the opportunity to capture a seldom sought out 20k culture victory built upon the bodies of leaders spawned from lots of warfare would be a great experience. (Who was that Joe Capp guy anyway?)

The results mimic these expectations and once again provide us with a great opportunity to highlight fantastic game results by many players including a number of new personal bests.

One thing we should point out in the results is that we had quite few less submissions in the easier conquest class game than we have had in some recent months. We continue to analyse the data surrounding this effect and do not fully know if the this is a result of players being intimidated by the "DemiGod" difficulty or if it is just because our former conquest class players are just all moving up to the open or predator class games.

Hopefully you all had fun in this Viking game and there were definately lots of interesting approaches to putting the smack down as we look back through the save games and the spoilers.

Congratulations again to everyone who played the game and in particular to all our high scorers and victors.

Gotm22-Vikings Results

 

[Yndy]

It was a great game. I’d like to congratulate the winners, the GOTM team but also people that managed to hang in there and get that 20K victory.

Special congratulations to gerdy, civ_steve, and Bebek, playing predator class and hanging on till they got the elusive 20K victory. I tried to do that but just couldn’t.

Lowest rank ever for me (it’s 141 if you’re not into scrolling all the way down) but at least I had a good time.

 

[cracker]

When I saw that you scored much lower than normal, I assumed that meant you had a new girlfriend and were distracted.

 

[Email10]

Again a very nice GotM and since I try to follow the tournament goals I get to play in ways that I normally wouldn't. Like this time when I pursued a 20K victory. For my standards I think I played a close to optimal 20K game, without many mistakes which got me a pretty early victory (1830). Then I look in awe at SirPlebs and Yurians 17th century victories. Amazing games guys!

Congratulations also to all awardwinners!

 

[Darkness]

Great GOTM. Congrats to all who played.

2 questions:
1- cracker, I noticed in the table that there are 4 players who won the 100K cultural way, but I didn't see an award for the fastest of those (Svar, 1872 AD)....
2- Pure curiosity. No rush or anything, but when can we expect the QSC results, 'cause it will be quite interesting to see who chose what site for their 20K city....

 

[JonathanValjean]

Qitai, I can barely believe my eyes: 410AD Conquest on Demigod! Amazing! Also, Sirpleb, my hat is off to you for your overwhelming tournament victory, and you even played predator to make things a little more interesting! Well done!

 

[Wycka]

Hy,

to SirPleb couldn`t believe it`s possible to score so high with 20K victory despite Demigod difficulty. Ques I need to check which wonder you didn`t have in your city
Compassion to all Sweden players with loss of your minister and I`m sorry it coincide with great joy you brought to us lithuanians with Eurobasket2003 victory (Think that`s not of topic because of vikings)
One more thing, as I think I would rather prefer SirPleb kind of victory over Qitai conquest in reality

 

[Offa]

Great to have the results at last. I am very pleased to sneak into the top 20. However, it seems clear that the Jason score favoured dominination/conquest victories (like mine) this month. The many cultural wins appear to have falsely low scores. There are an impressive number of 20k victories, 17th century ones are astounding.

Qitai's win is superb, and his excellent reports about how he did it are much appreciated, and very helpful.

Why don't we get the time played this month? This is one of the most important stats to anyone with any remaining RL.

Is the qsc still happening?

 

[Email10]

Originally posted by JonathanValjean
Also, Sirpleb, my hat is off to you for your overwhelming tournament victory, and you even played predator to make things a little more interesting! Well done!

Actually Yurians 20K win was faster, and I think the tourney is based on fastest victories so that would mean SirPleb would be the first (but still very impressive) runner-up.

Wycka: Thanks for your sympathy, and congratulations to the win! I'm a big basket fan myself, but not of swedish basket.

 

[kryszcztov]

At last some results, thanks ! Expecting too much... and this is it : I dropped a bit from my last month's best result, whatever way you look at it (GOTM rank : #67, Medal rank, open rank...). I thought I had made a good game, but the lack of prebuild in my capital slowed down my cultural victory, and I must say my berserk warfare (1st time) was pretty ineffective... But I'm happy, because this was my 1st cultural victory ever (1896AD, still quite nice), and I would almost never aim at it without this kind of competition, that acts like a whip on my brain !! And I think I'm ranked #10 (was better last month) in the open class Medal ranking, so all is not lost, I can still have my name somewhere at the end of the season !!! And more important, I have still a lot to do before getting the best players' skills, that's what will keep me playing here. Congrats to all !

 

[Txurce]

I'm happy to finally contribute to the cracking of some of the eggs that Cracker buries in the GOTMs:

The additional Viking Leaders with unlikely names (like Joe Kapp) were all notable quarterbacks from the history of the Minnesota Vikings professional football team.

 

[JonathanValjean]

Originally posted by Email10
Actually Yurians 20K win was faster, and I think the tourney is based on fastest victories so that would mean SirPleb would be the first (but still very impressive) runner-up.

You are exactly right! I overlooked that, even though Yurian had a nice little award to the left of his name.... That'll teach me to look at the results at 2:30 a.m. and try to analyze them!

 

[Kaiser_Berger]

Wow, I'm suprised....I didn't expect to finish as high as I did (34th). My highest finish in the Jason era, IIRC. Congrats to everyone on great games!

 

[Naboo]

Is there a page explaining all the medals?

 

[Offa]

I just re read the end game submitted thread and remembered *'s great game. Why isn't it here?
Are any other games missing?

 

[cracker]

Offa,

[One] game was excluded from the submissions list for excessive reloading that was 3 to 5 times higher than any other player. 227 reloads for an average of less than 1 turn played per reload.

I did not focus on this issue in the results presentation in an effort to not draw attention to one of the infrequent conduct issues that we sometimes detect in the game submissions. If you would have asked me this question privately I would have provided you with this same answer, privately. It is not that these issues are secret it is just that if there are 100 people in a room, 98 of those players are clearly not doing things that would be questionable and therefore we do not consider these issues to be significant as long as we watch for them and are willing to exclude games that are clearly not conducted as cleanly as the games submitted by all their peers, frinds, and neighbors.


For the record, remember that "saving" to be safe has nothing to do with the screening process, it is restarting the game to replay moves or peak ahead that leaves a distinctive signature.
Only two out of the 162 submitted games displayed conduct problems which resulted in their being excluded from the results. The careful and thoughtful review of these games by multiple members of staff resulted in an additional 5 to 6 days of delay in publishing the results to make sure that the exclusions were appropriate.

 

[Aeson]

The Medal Play results page has been updated to include the game 5-3 (Cultural 20k) 'results'. The 'tournament' scoring system still hasn't been implemented, should have some time to do so this next week, so remember the rankings there will change (slightly). I think SirPleb's game will jump Yurian's for example, as the difference in base score was many times that of the difference in date.

The time played numbers haven't been compiled for GOTM22, due to technical difficulties and time conflicts on my part. Sorry.

 

[Hergrom]

Yep, SirPleb beats Yurian 98.38% to 94.94%

Green Light is tops in Open at 97.77%

Akots is tops of Conquest at 98.19%

Hergrom

 

[civ_steve]

Thanks for the congratulations, Yndy! (As I look with, maybe a bit of envy, at SirPleb's, Yurian's and MarkCutt's higher scores ) And congratulations to all the participants, including a fine bunch of 20K games!

It's interesting to look at the Medal game results, which list all the games by final victory date. Yurian's and SirPleb's games are all by themselves in the early 1600's. Then there are 3 games in the late 1700's and one at 1830. Finally, from 1848 on there is a rough continuity of games. It appears to me that the 2 frontrunners did nearly everything right, plus a bit of leader farming. The next group probably did most everything right, with maybe an extra ancient era Wonder, or a couple more Middle Age wonders. And the rest of the pack had slight differences from game to game to account for their gradually increasing victory date.

This would not be a hard map to just go turtle and play a peaceful Culture20K game; but it's really hard not to use the Berserk unit!

 

[Xerol]

138th with the highest-scoring histographic loss. I think I've finally found my biggest gameplay flaw: Not agressive enough in any respect. Looking at the 3 GOTM's I've submitted(20, 22, and this month's) and numerous other games, I've found that my gameplay sequences always go towards preventing an AI victory without actually pursuing anything myself, and I've been perfectly content to sit in the middle of everyone else with 5 cities, while everyone else has upwards of 40 or 50, and not try to do anything about it. The only wars I've ever initiated were to "finish off" an opponent that attacked me but was mostly crushed by my defensive army, and then crushed some more by any units I produce while at war. Here's what I've been doing so far, and what I think I could do better with it:
1) Building all improvements before doing any units.

Looking at 20+ opening games by me, I've found that any time I've played a religious civ, one of the first builds was a temple(sometimes even as a FIRST build) and with almost every game(religious or not) I was building improvements before I even had 3 units on the board. Also, a first settler was usually a non-priority until I was at least pop.3 in the capital, not trying to synchronise production with population to get a second city out ASAP. However, out of the 24 games total that I analysed, and the 15 that had a temple built before 2000 BC, 12 resulted in either a 100k or 20k cultural victory.(difficulties ranged from regent to emperor) While an early temple can be a good move for a culture-centered win, it diverts production from where it's needed most, and that's expansion and defense(especially on higher barb levels)

2) No targeted goal.
I've found myself just sitting there most games, building any and all improvements possible, regardless of whether I need them or not(for example a hospital in a mostly-desert city) although the focus is mostly on cultural buildings, and then building units only when the city is completely decked out in a full set of improvements. Regardless of whether or not I have a chance to actually win culturally, I still build tons of culture. This kind of leads into #3...

3) No wonders.

In both GOTMs 20 and 22(not going to go into 23 because it's still open) I had failed to secure even a single wonder. Now, in my "local" games, I usually get one or two at least, but in those cases it was due to an extraordinary start position. (i.e. with lots of production & food and probably next to a river) I need to start going after wonders more agressively, possibly including prebuilds and GLs. This once again leads into #4...

4) No military.

I finally realised that an "all-builder" strategy will almost never work. I need at least some military units. The only wars I initiate are those to finish off weak opponents or maybe once in a while to get a resource. Lack of military = lack of wining wars = lack of GLs which leads to lack of wonders. In GOTM 20, i continued playing even after losing, and was attacking the Ottomans. After finally defeating a particularly pesky Mech Infantry(sacrificing about 20 MA in the process) I took out a few infantry & riflemen, then took the city on the same turn, but I had destroyed a Ottoman GL!. Despite the lower chances, getting a GL on defense could prove to be a potential strategy as well, being able to remain mostly peaceful, while still getting the rushing capability that is needed to secure wonders when slightly behind in tech.

5) City layout.

I've got to get that "waste no tiles, share no tiles" philosophy out of my head. In a desperate effort to use as many tiles as possible exactly once I end up sacrificing good city positions just so that every city has 20 exclusive tiles to itself and only a few mountain tiles get wasted.

But, a general conclusion I've drawn from this: I'm too passive. Not agressive enough at all. The only "good" thing I can draw from my game paths is that I get a lot of culture flips. Well, that and my "good ability" to analyse the start position and pick out something good.

One thing especially that I missed in this month's game: The amphibious ability of the UU. Had I known this, I probably could have used it to my advantage(given the fact that I had filled my sub-continent and that attacking directly from the sea would have given me a better chance at taking more cities) and perhaps had a better score.