Steam treats them as different games, don't know about purchasing BTS only but when you install BTS it doesn't install Vanilla or Warlords.
That info is helpful to know and it contributes to the discussion. If Vanilla still must always be installable by anyone who buys BtS on Steam, but just needs some extra work to set up, I'd say that we're still talking about the inconvenience argument, but it does add another pain point to said inconvenience.
To me Civ 4 is synonymous to BtS. That's the game I've played the last 10 years
My experience is different, but that's likely because I've played more Game of the Month games than I have made HOF submissions. In the GOTM competition, participation in Vanilla and Warlords games has happened during all of that time, except perhaps for the last year, where participation rates overall in XOTM* games have dwindled, to a point that it became hard to get enough participants to justify regularly running Vanilla and Warlords games.
* X meaning any of G for Game aka Vanilla, W for Warlords, or B for BtS
So, there are many players who have been playing all 3 expansion variants for quite some time, and some of those people have made submissions in the HOF.
I'm not going to claim that these people make up even a significant portion of the HOF submissions, but I will say that there are other perspectives beyond BtS being the only expansion version having been played over the last 10 years on these forums.
For those who are interested, a pretty good list of differences between the expansion versions has been compiled and stickied on the main GOTM forum:
Game Play Differences Between Expansion Packs
That was going to be my next suggestion, if the consensus was that Space Race should be included in EQM.
Maybe that's a good spot to start, then. Make it 3 months long and let's see if we can generate some good discussions on the subject.
We can also try to help people through any technical challenges that they have encountered in getting Vanilla and/or Warlords set up to play HOF games on their computers.
Maybe people who give it a shot will find that they detest it, or maybe they'll enjoy the variance offered by somewhat different gameplay. Or, maybe no one will participate, as Gauntlets are seeing not too many people playing them these days.
But, make it attractive enough (say, Monarch Difficulty Level) for people to get a reasonably-high Difficulty Level for their Machiavelli Master category and perhaps we'll see people submitting a game or two just because doing so helps them to complete a category, just the same as would a Gauntlet which helps to fill out a Map Quest Master category. Or, drop the Difficulty Level a bit for the first one and host a higher-difficulty-level one afterward, as many people will need to get into those expansions for the first time or will at least have to dust off their past experiences and remember how they used to play.
Vanilla and Warlords play differently, but this applies to ALL victory conditions.
Unless I am mistaken, I believe that people who have submitted Vanilla or Warlords games can have every one** of their games contribute to a BtS Machiavelli Master category.
** Any submission that is already ignored for the Machiavelli Master designation would continue to be ignored; I'm not sure what those are, but they might ignore Non-Ancient-Era starts, for example.
One of the options being discussed, that of removing the requirement of Space Race games, when looked at from another perspective, reduces the value of submitting Space Victories for Vanilla or Warlords games, either now or for past submissions.
From the perspective of maximizing a contribution toward Master designations, people who have submitted Vanilla or Warlords games, whether in the distant past or since then, have been able to have those contributions count toward both of their Vanilla + Warlords Master designations and their BtS Master designations. We'd essentially be devaluing submissions from one of those categories.
So, the point is that there is an impact to other players, some of whom may not currently have an active voice, but do like coming back to the forums and reviewing their historical achievements, and who then may sometimes decide to make other contributions to the forums while they are there. We're essentially talking about removing a value for some of the past submissions of existing HOF players. If that decision is the one that gets made, so be it, but at least take the time to consider things from the perspective of past players coming back to the site, only to find that the rules have changed out from under them in a way that does devalue some of their contributions.
Thus, I suggested a possible alternative approach that focuses on adding value, by exempting any one category while at the same time adding a new category (Espionage), so that we aren't taking anything away from anyone, and to also preserve the current approach of the HOF where any** Vanilla or Warlords submission can contribute toward a BtS Machiavelli Master category.
I'm not even sure what would happen to a historical HOF view (since you can view by date using a drop-down list) if we removed a category--would looking at previous dates show that category or not? But, at least by adding a category and exempting players from needing to complete 1 of those categories (assuming that doing so is technically possible), people's historical scoring would remain unchanged or possibly would go up if they had submitted Espionage games, but scores wouldn't go down. Relative rankings would change a bit, but no one would feel that things are being taken away from them.
Compared to the other victory conditions, the only additional difference in Space Race is that it does not contain the extra 10 turn wait at the end (normal speed). Why is this lack of 10 turn wait so special, to make a Vanilla/Warlords Space Race game essential to displaying complete mastery
Oh, but it's so much more than that. Let's go through some highlights from the Game Play Differences Between Expansion Packs list as a good place to start. Now, granted, a some of these points apply to any Vanilla or Warlords game, but some are unique to Space Race games.
- In Vanilla, capturing an AI's capital (or an AI capturing your capital) can destroy Space Ship progress, if I understand the list correctly
- In Vanilla, the Space Elevator is often worth building due to differences in the end-game tech tree, such as Robotics being needed for a Space Ship Part and the Space Elevator only needing Robotics to start building it
- In Vanilla, Research and Wealth build items start off at 50% Hammers and are not augmented by Hammer-multiplying Buildings such as Forges, but are augmented by Libraries, Universities, Observatories, Research Labs, Academies, Oxford University, Markets, Grocers, Banks, and Wallstreet. Since Space games often last long enough to build a lot of Research and Wealth, the tech path and build items chosen can be quite significantly different
- In Vanilla, Calendar obsoletes Monuments and there is no Mausoleum of Maussollos Wonder, so it is a tech that often comes with a bit of pain to research, making it less of a no-brainer to take the tech in trade for access to extra Happiness Resources
- In Vanilla and Warlords, Factories have no Health penalties from Resources such as Coal and Oil
- In Vanilla and Warlords, there are less techs, so there are subtle differences. As one example, without the existence of the Aesthetics tech, you must compete harder with the AIs to build The Parthenon, as that Wonder gets unlocked really early on at Polytheism. Also, since Alphabet leads directly to Literature or Drama, you can either beeline The Great Library or beeline an unlocked Happiness Slider while still being able to trade techs with AIs who haven't teched Alphabet themselves. Meanwhile, Alphabet does not lead to Currency, so you have a different set of choices when evaluating whether to go for Mathematics (which unlocks Currency) or Alphabet after Writing
- In Vanilla and Warlords, Spies work significantly differently, such as requiring Gold, not Espionage Points, for Missions, and only being buildable out of a City with the Scotland Yard National Wonder, which is built like any other National Wonder (in only one City) instead of being a specially-constructed Building made from a Great Spy (Great Spies also don't exist) and instead of Spies being buildable as a Unit out of any City
- In Vanilla and Warlords, Religions, not Espionage, can control visibility of AI Cities, which can encourage you to more actively spread a Religion to AI Cities
- Some Leaders have different Traits, such as Saladin not having the sucky Protective Trait in Vanilla and instead having Gandhi's BtS Traits but with a decent Unique Unit that can engage in combat
There are many other differences, but those are some of the ones that can change your strategy or tech path for a Space Victory game. Anyway, hopefully this list can give some people a bit of encouragement to try it out. Sure, the older HOF Mods lack the Pre-Chop Forest option, which is a minor inconvenience, but many people on the forums have been playing these previous expansion versions and some of these people have been able to get along by quite fine with submitting completed GOTM submissions, which, like HOF submissions, are generally games that are played until a Victory Condition is achieved and which must use a HOF/BUFFY Mod.
while a Vanilla/Warlords Domination or Time game wouldn't be required?
From my understanding, players currently have the option to have their Vanilla or Warlords Domination and Time submissions count toward a BtS Machiavelli Master designation, as well as toward a Vanilla/Warlords Machiavelli Master designation.
So, it is not a hard requirement, but the option exists to play and submit such games, while the option also allows your submissions to count against a Vanilla/Warlords Master designation.
As for the technical, downloading and installing, I have bad experiences for getting things to work. There are customassets and other overriding things. Hell, for some reason I cant run a S&T forum game from another user. I have asked why, to no avail. It is easy for you to say that installing instructions are properly documented, but in real life for a causual player there are obstacles. First of all you need to read and understand english fluent. This excludes a large part of world population, especially Asia). Then if program not work at first try (due to OS, disappeared discstations or whatever), many will just walk away from it and probably try some other of zillions of games. (Not to mention something shiny that ends with V or VI.)
Thank you for sharing your experiences. I'm sorry to hear about the troubles that you have had to suffer through.
As for custom assets, have you had a chance to try out using the
Assets Checker tool?
It's possible that the other user decided to install BUG as a Mod instead of in Custom Assets, and you did the opposite, or vice versa.
It might help for you to generate a game and ask a third player to try loading both your game and that other player's game, to see if the problem can be better narrowed-down.
