GOTMCivIII Rules

[marshalljames]

I think time has come to modify the GOTM rules to reflect the new reality that Civ III openly encourages reloading.The Autosave feature provides an easy and convenient way to "cheat".And to think that people do not take advantage of this is naive and ludicrous.
If you gonna tell me with a straight face that the top ten scores submitted last month nobody reloaded?I will call you a liar.
I played enough civ games to know that when you take risky gambits you don't always win.And you have to take risky gambits and see them through in order to achieve such High scores.
So if the top ten didn't reload then they are some of the luckiest people in the world.
Enough of this nudge nudge wink wink stuff about reloading and change the rules to even the playing field and to reflect reality.

marshalljames

 

[Cerryl]

No big deal, as long as you play fairly and it makes you happy, then it's all good.

Until Multiplayer, what else can you do?

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by marshalljames
So if the top ten didn't reload then they are some of the luckiest people in the world.

I think that your statement makes a bad assumption. You seem to be assuming from your own level of skill that no one could be good enough to get such scores without either cheating or being extremely lucky. You are wrong about this. I hope that one day you will be skilled enough in the game to see that.

There is a code of honor involved. There are many who abide by it and who would not have any fun if they violated it.

I placed second last month (GOTM#2) and I will tell you that I did not reload. And I don't think I was particularly lucky. I didn't get any special resources early in the game and I lost my share of odds-on fights.

I do not play risky gambits which could cost me the game. I don't start battles unless I have very high odds of winning them. Even then I still don't start fights I can't afford to lose. I don't explore huts with settlers or workers. I don't attack villages with single warriors. I don't do anything which I think is a "risky gambit" in the sense you mean it. I do of course sometimes lose fights where I had very good odds but I just carry on. When things don't go as planned I change plans.

 

[BillChin]

I do not believe that reloading is necessary to get a high score. Good strategy, a coherent plan and a bit of luck are what are needed. It helps if you know how to best rack up points (something that I haven't figured out yet). I got a middling score for the January game (2200+), but I am doing well on the February game WITHOUT RELOADING.

I did see a lot of people in the January GOTM thread talking about very early conquest, but no one says they attacked with two warriors and lost and have to scramble to get back in the game. Seems like a full third of those that favor an early attack would post that, so I am sure there are a few cheesers out there. Though now that I thnk about it, Chinese have archers to start, but still there should be a few that lose that opening gambit and post about it.

Players that rely on the crutch of reloading tend to be mediocre players. Personally, I do not believe that the top ten are dominated by that class of cheese.

 

[Grey Fox]

If I would have reloaded the December game I would have gotteh s much higher score 12000+ atleast...

Is the results from GOTM3 up yet?

 

[Aeson]

In the December GOTM, ~20k points were possible from a perfectly played game. 15K as the highest doesn't seem an unreasonable score, I actually expected it to be much higher. Now that people understand the scoring system better, I wouldn't be suprised to see several 15k+ scores on the same type of map/settings.

The January GOTM, losing 2 warriors is no big deal in the long run, but gaining an early city is a huge advantage. That is why so many people would try it, and why a win would be much more memorable than a loss. The chance for 2 elite warriors killing 1 defending regular warrior is better than 86%.

I attacked with 2 veteran archers, which should almost always get a city defended by a single regular warrior (~96%). I did 2 kamikazi warriors, one against the Persians, and one against another Japanese city. One got lucky, one didn't, both were elite vs regular battles (~65% in favor of the elite). Taking these kinds of risks early on are in no means game breaking when they fail, especially on lower difficulties.

 

[Matrix]

On the forum of CivLadder it was a continuous battle of people who thought the best guys out there are cheaters. But those are all people who just couldn't believe that you can be that good.

I also chat or email with the top players. I even emailed someone because I thought he was cheating. (I won't mention names. ) But after a thorough explanation he explained to me how he won (also with a bit of luck) and that was quite convincing.

If there is someone in the top was has cheated, then there are enough real good players who are able to figure that out. Not me, as I'm on of the worst players. But there is enough controll through the others.

Grey Fox, I'll try to finish the GOTM III results today.

 

[ChumChum]

Originally posted by Aeson
Now that people understand the scoring system better, I wouldn't be suprised to see several 15k+ scores on the same type of map/settings.

not sure i 100% understand the scoring system yet.
i know that you gain points equal to your score plus a bonus and that for conquest the bonus is equal to
(mapsize*level*(2050-date))
or something along those lines but does the bonus differ for diplomatic, cultural, spaceship or domination?

if not then conquest is almost always better as it is usually much earlier.

hmmm....

-ChumChum

p.s. what's the point in cheating anyway? its a freindly game, there is no prizes and archers (safe), not warriors (risky) saw off those japanese.

 

[Aeson]

The formula you have is correct, just take out the map size modifier (the scoring definitely should take the map into account though). The bonus is the same for each victory condition, which does mean that conquest will give the largest bonus. Territory and Population also count towards the base score, so on larger landmass games they can overcome the early bonus scores.

 

[Eliezar]

No reloading is needed for a highly skilled player to crush the computer on anything short of deity. Overall reloading doesn't help a poor player who would lose the game end up with the highest score either. The problem is that a poor player makes poor decisions that he doesn't realize are poor decisions and then has to reload to cover the problems he is in. A poor player might do 10x as well with reloading (save from beginning finding a way to get a settler from a hut, etc) while a top player will probably only get a 5 to 10 percent benefit from it.

To give you an idea of how to win GOTM2 every time just do this.

*Pump solid settlers expanding until you encounter an enemy.
*At some point you can decide to build barracks and granaries.
*Enemy is encountered and then pop rush horses if possible and crush the enemy. Attacking is a skill in itself, but you can mass and strike or just try to hit the newer cities with 1 defender.
*Plan ahead. I started the Light House 2 turns too late and it hurt me something awful. Someone else finished it before me and my suicide scouting missions ALL failed. Knowing it was a continents game I should have started the Light House much earlier.
*Be willing to micromanage. I click on just about every city every turn AND try to trade/buy techs from every civ I can every turn.

and what I am not willing to do
*Conquer early and then milk the map. Grow your cities as big as possible and avoid cultural victory by selling off culture improvements. Finish the game on the last turn.

Oh and some don'ts...

Don't use 1 movement units as attackers if possible, they travel too slow and you lose too many of them.

Don't play passive. You advance faster by conquering than you can by building.

Don't attack with small forces. Your attacking force needs to be enough to take the city in one turn, quell resistors while healing up, and continue on without stopping. If I'm attacking across an ocean I'll probably take 5 to 6 cities on my first turn.

Don't stop producing military units. If you have 200 then keep going from 300. Every turn the game should be getting easier because your army should grow every turn. If you use 2 movement units and artillery when needed you should suffer very few losses.

I made a bunch of bad decisions in GOTM2 and finished 8th. I understand more about the game now (proper pop rushing, ways to milk great leaders, etc), realize the importance of starting the Lighthouse early if I need to find other civs, and understand what it takes to get a high score. If I was replaying game2 for the first time now and decided to milk it I couldn't see myself getting less than 15k. GOTM3 was far too easy and I didn't send in my result.

I'm sure a good player could save every few turns on the current GOTM playing small chunks per day and make them available. This would display that it isn't a reload score because reload scores need 10 to 50 turn reloads to truly have a big impact. What do I mean? I would have to reload from a long time back to restart the wonder in time to finish it. I would have to reload quite awhile back to get defenders to outskirt towns that got surprise attacked if railroads aren't around yet.

In summation, the reason you see these high scores is because the game is far too easy. The AI even on deity cannot produce as fast as a player, doesn't understand how to be a techbroker or prevent tech brokering, doesn't execute intelligent military offensives, and the AI cannot figure out how to stop a players attacks. The AI also is not programmed on how to achieve a victory and does not try for it. For instance, it would be quite easy for an AI civ to launch a spaceship except that they research needless techs before they research the laser. You can be 3 techs behind the AI and still launch before they do. They also do not devote enough cities to parts production.

And as far as noreloading goes I even didn't reload on a mismove which cost me a settler. Not that I thought that reloading for a mismove is wrong, but because I was just too lazy to do it.

If you are still struggling through GOTMs and thinking that the top scorers are cheating and nothing seems to change your opinion then maybe someone will write a detailed guide on how to crush the ai. The game really is too easy.

If you want some tips or discussion on games you can email me at foldzan@kingwoodcable.com and I'll be happy to discuss things.

Eliezar

 

[Grey Fox]

I lost two Settlers in GOTM 4, but that's only because I don't use backup forces with em... IN the beginning, that is.

 

[ERIKK]

Difficulty level/cheating

Let's wait until we have a GOTM game on deity or emperor level on a hugh pangea map with 16 civ's. I myself always play these type of games and loose a lot; simply because a) you have to fight multiple enemy's or b)when fighting, you can't focus on research and eventially get way behind on tech's (mainly due to trading between the science-civ's).

Current GOTM game was easy for the pro's because everybody was able to eliminate the first computerplayer (free techs, cities and wonder(s)) and from then on, you could simply have a breath or two and focus on the next computerplayer.

I would like to see how the professionals finish such a game as mentioned before by hearing their story on this forum. I think much of the members of this forum will be able to learn a lot. Maybe everybody eventially will see that you don't have to cheat to win this game!

ERIKK

 

[Aeson]

I've played several Huge Pangaea games on Deity and Emperor levels. I usually don't play past about 500AD, as it starts to get really tedious. Usually by that point the game is either won or lost anyways. It's possible to screw up and lose a lead, or to make a late comeback, but you are winning or losing because of your skill level, and thats not going to change much during the course of a game.

Using an Expansionist Civ with a good early UU(Iroquois or Zulu) is definitely the way to go with those settings. Even with all the AI Expansionist Civs taking their share of the huts, it's not unusual to get every ancient era advance for free, plus a settler. The techs you don't get from huts, you can trade your map for, as it should be more complete than most of the AI's. On Emperor it's possible to out-expand the AI with a settler from a hut. On Deity it's basically impossible to not fall behind in territory and culture. At least expansionist can keep you even on tech. Then a quick horse rush can get you into the lead, instead of being needed just to stay even.

 

[Grey Fox]

To clear out the scoring system...
You get points only from:

- Territory (Often the most),

- Happy Citizens. Can come up to the score from Territory at the end.

- Content Citizens (Not as much as from Happy citizens). And Specialist Citizens, I think you get as much from these as you get from content citizens.

- And finally the Bonus points from finishing before 2050 AD.

These points are also divided on the number of turns you have played. This means your score is actually your medium score throughout the game. In the beginning you might get 40 points per turn, and at the end 15000 per turn and your score might be 8000.

Hope this cleared things out, and if I'm wrong anywhere maybe Aeson or someone more familiar to the scoring system then me, can correct me...

 

[Dirty Clint]

Eliezar, Great post buddy. I agree with you that the game is too easy and am having trouble understanding people who think the top scores must be reloaders. You have explained very well how to crush the AI and unfortunately this can be done fairly easily on any level. I say unfortunately because this is not what firaxis was wanting in my opinion. One set formula should not be able to win every game and setting. I remember Firaxis talking about the game and saying that it was designed to allow the pacifist builder type to have as much chance of winning as the militaristic player but sadly this is not the case (and I love playing pure builder).
I would go as far as saying that the way pop rushing works in its current state breaks the game and is ruining the enjoyment of long term playing.

FIRAXIS - If you are listening please tone down pop rushing, maybe introduce diminishing returns or better still only one rush per city.

If pop rushing is fixed I believe we are going to see much closer competition and also greater variety of wins in the GOTM's instead of a set formula dominating.

 

[marshalljames]

Firstly,apologies to those who get high scores without reloading.I assume it's possible but to get high scores but you have be ruthless.And a ruthless person would think nothing of bold face lying,code or no code.
This was my first game at emperor and I panicked and tried what I assume is the winning strategy at this level,which is Slice and dice(I find this sought of game tedious and I am much more interested in trading and diplomacy ).My usual stragegy is navel gazing and building and supporting LARGE standing armies.Never attacking and waiting for puter to attack me.I go for democracy ASAP.
Thx to Bill Chin I will grow my cities much closer together small cities that produce are better than large cities that don't.
I would probably lose in Multiplayer game,but the Slice and Dicer who beat me wouldn't win either.To all you guys who think catapults and artillary and Battleships are useless wait till you attack me.

mj

p.s I feel I been somewhat hoodwinked by ad's for this game as it's still a slice and dice game and dip and trade are not important.And being one person the entire game is ridiculous.Genhis Khan with sons and daughters and govenors that have to be recruited was 100x better concept and game than Civ1 .

 

[Eliezar]

Before they change anything on the PC side I wish they would work on the AI some. Sure the AI gets all these units and such at the beginning on deity, but how about they make different civs act differently as a set beginning.

Maybe XXX militaristic civ gets to 5 cities and then mass produces military units and focus attack.

Have xxx expansionistic civ expand to 10 cities and then dedicate 5 cities to military and 5 to settlers/wonders/improvements.

Have xxx commercial/industrial civ use 2 cities to pump settlers and have each city build a worker (for commercial to build trade routes, for industrial for infrastructure). Have the worker ai set up to build different things.

Have xxx scientific civ use 2 cities to pump settlers and all cities get a library built as soon as possible. Have this AI also pay almost nothing for techs, but try to sell them to everybody as soon as they get them.

Along with this they should have scripted attack plans for each age if they are wanting to declare war or are attacked. Wouldn't it be great if the enemy AI would move a stack of 6 mech infantry, 10 artillery and 10 tanks along together towards your city it covets? What if some civs for late game go for a space victory and instead of going offensive they build MASS bombers and mech infantry with a few tanks. You land 60 guys on their shore and that very turn you get bombed by 20 bombers and then attacked by lots of tanks. It would be great.

Why not teach the AI to build a group of 12 cavalry and send them all after a single city. Would it be so hard?


And I guess while I'm discussing this off topic stuff I'll restate something I totally appreciate. Screw the built in scoring. A Conquest on a large map in 1800 will outscore an 1100 space race win. Score games on the year they are finished on normal sized maps as either the entire score or the majority of the score. The only problem with this is that it may be impossible to achieve a cultural victory before a conquest or spaceship victory. In which case maybe Cultural Victory should get some adjustment.

Anyway...it just seems with all the insane advantages the AI has on deity and even emporer that if it had mediocre strats it would be a great challenge. I'll never forget the game where the AI had about 6 units next to a city of mine that had 2 defenders and the city held out because about 3 of the ai units decided to raze land while the other 3 all died attacking.

Eliezar

 

[Eliezar]

completely off original topic, but...

Ghenghis Khan was a kind of fun game, but insanely easy compared to Civ III.

I think one of the chief problems with Civ III lies along these lines.

Take these as the different paths

All out conquest.
Tech racing.
Gold hoarding.
Mass expanding.
Resource securing.
Culture enrichment.

Now the problem here is that the conquest outdoes each of the other types in their own means.

Conquest allows you to get other people's techs for a peace treaty and not even have to research a single tech to stay even with the tech leaders.

Conquest allows you to not need to research so you can devote all your resources to income instead of dividing them. Which a gold hoarding person can't afford to do.

Conquest allows you to take ai cities. The ai produces cities faster than you do and thus you can take cities faster than you can naturally mass expand on the higher difficulties.

Resource securing is a crapshoot. However, a conquest player will have more total land and thus a better shot at having all the resources and luxeries he needs plus some to sell for more money.

A conquest person will dominate culture simply because their large amount of cities will produce more culture than a smaller civ fully built up. And a conquest player will also get more great leaders which in turn gives even more of an edge on culture.


And in the end score is mostly related on territory and territory is related to conquest.


Maybe a solution would be to make interciv trading more important to the economy so that it is important to keep up good relations with other civs, make civs less eager to trade science advances, make civs less trusting of you if you have a history of war and less likely to trade with you, and make conquest more difficult.

Eliezar

 

[graeme]

Of course, if you agree with Eliezar that reloading does not help a poor player or a skilled player (much), then having a no-reloading rule is meaningless and I would argue that it be abolished. I, in fact, do agree with Eliezar in this respect, although I have yet to reach the "this game is soooo easy" level.

 

[Eliezar]

Hmmm I'm living on the civ forums today (actually waiting for wife to get home and bored).

I think I should clarify my reloading thoughts.

If you reload 1 turn at a time it will have a minimal effect on a good player and a noticeable effect on a poor player. The good player is going to take the cities anyway, but the poor player may need to reload to take the city or to wait until he can take the city, etc.

If however you reload 20+ turns or more it has a huge effect on any player. Now to be honest I know that to be in the top 5 every turn is so tedious that I do not believe they reload much unless they are just super driven. If there was a real prize I could see it, but when a single turn can take 20 minutes reloading just sucks.

I stated above that I didn't reload when I lost a settler do to a faulty key stroke. I didn't reload because I simply didn't want to replay the previous 10-15 minutes 8( If you reload in that situation it is fine by me as long as you do everything the same.

BTW, I was a very poor civ 2 player and reloaded often (not in competition, i didn't know of any at that time). When I got AlphaCentauri I started trying to figure out how to win and I realized that if you know what you are doing reloading isn't really needed. That is when I started understanding that I was reloading because I sucked on turns 1 to 50 not because I was being careless on turn 150.

The reason I would say reloading should not be allowed is because you will have players who never learn the game, but win (achieve a victory condition) by scraping through with reloads. *okay if I reload 3 turns back I can get my defensive units there* This IMO cheapens the game for them and also cheapens the GOTM for the people who are learning Civ3 and don't want to reload because they feel it is cheating. BTW, since Alpha Centauri I don't really reload in any games even for fun games because I feel it makes you a worse player.

Oh yeah and my take on Clint and his 15k is that if that is a cheated game, ie reloading, then he still would have gotten around 13.5k without reloading. However someone who scraped by with a 3500 late game win and was reloading probably would have lost without it.

Eliezar