thbrown81
Warlord
I'm currently back in grad school and on my winter break, so I'm taking time to try and bang out some EQM games, and going through the tables I was reminded of an old discussion on the issue of cheese in EQM. I went back and skimmed through a lengthy discussion two years ago on possible changes to EQM which eventually led to the HOF Challenge Series. However, a lot of the issues brought up still seem to be present in EQM and I wonder if it might be worth revisiting adding a third QM level since 1) a lot of people have stuck with Civ IV over Civ V) and 2) the current bargain basement price of Civ IV has introduced a lot of new people who were not participating two years ago.
I really enjoy the competitive aspect of the Civ HOF, and I understand that in the HOF you are really competing against other people, so even if it has a lot of cheese, those who cheese best still rise to the top, and those are usually the best non-cheese players. But the current QM rewards specialization, and to me the greatest appeal of Civ as a game has been the emphasis on generalization. For example, I have one Top 10 rated HOF game, a Standard Noble Conquest game that I completed with SB in 2025 BC for one of the Challenges. And I can honestly say that that game was the least enjoyable game of Civ I've ever played. I didn't build anything. I moved my settler until I found an opponent, settled and walked a hut popped warrior into a defenseless city while another warrior was doing the same thing somewhere else. I then whipped and chopped DWs and fog busted as quickly as I could. That's how you win a Conquest game on Noble. But I didn't feel like I was playing Civ at all, and it certainly wasn't fun. I would also argue that the players who've submitted 50 different iterations of Tiny Religious Diety wins didn't really enjoy most of those games either. They just developed a specific victory formula and repeated it. Same with settler/ Pangea conquest. Use settler to hut pop, pop more settlers, settle next to empty cities, capture, rinse and repeat.
So EQM rewards specialization and volume of play. Which is fine. It still showcases players who are really good at the game. But I think it would be nice to find a new way to showcase players who can play a balanced game, or are flexible in their ability to adjust their games to less than optimal conditions. Obviously the Challlenge Series do that, but it would be nice to see a longer running cumulative contest that rewards it as well.
So I'm suggesting that the HOF reexamine the possibility of a new QM entitled Magna QM with the following adjustments.
1) No Religious Victories- EQM already showcases people who are good at this, and it's obviously the fastest VC to pursue on higher levels when you can't run the table with ancient/ classical units for a quick conquest. We want to reward balanced game play.
2) Barbs must be on- At higher levels, playing without Barbs makes a huge difference in strategy. Obviously not having to worry about Barbs makes it easier to pursue specific VCs earlier, but we want to reward people who can manage barbs while still developing infrastructure. The current static 0.05 modifier doesn't really do that, especially since barbs are much more of a factor on the highest levels.
3) Speaking of highest levels, I suggest that MQM only consider games that are Monarch or above. QM and EQM already provide lots of opportunities to play on whatever level people like to play on. I would recommend Monarch as the lowest level because it is the first level where the AI starts with an extra defensive unit and you can't just walk in to their capital with no-city-razing selected.
4) Link Map Size and Play Speed- Quick & Small, Normal & Standard, Large & Epic, Huge & Marathon. This accomplishes two things. It eliminates the Tiny games that form the vast majority of high level EQM games. It still allows participation from people who don't have a lot of time, but prevents the mixing of slower speeds that make it overly easy to rush a small map with ancient UU's. I realize that this takes excellent gameplay, but it is SPECIALIZED gameplay that is already highlighted by QM/ EQM.
5) Limited map selection- As mentioned earlier we are looking to reward balanced game play, which includes maintaining a army and NAVY while pursuing different VCs. This means limiting maps to B&S, M&S, Continents, Hemispheres, Fractal, Global Highlands and Terra. Archipelagos and Pangea might be added, or the B&S and M&S could be eliminated to maintain some balance. Obviously waterless maps are fun to play if you want to focus on certain VCs without worrying about a navy (and those DAMNED BARB GALLEYS) but you can already to that on the other QMs. It would also be interesting to consider weighting different maps for different VCs, assuming we have enough data to accurately predict average finish date per map.
6) Weighted opponents- Speaking of weighting scores, I assume by now the HOF has a mountain of data to use to identify the average finish date for each leader as an opponent. This would enable a scoring system that rewards people who play with random opponents (rewarding adaptation/ flexibility) or those who intentionally choose difficult opponents. Hopefully these could be weighted based on VC (Gandhi is a cupcake for Dom/ Conq, but can be a bear if you are pursuing a Cultural win). This weighting could be dynamic and able to adjust as people began using a wider variety of opponents. Obviously there is always going to be an unavoidable random element (Ragnar much more difficult when he spawns RIGHT NEXT TO YOU), but it seems to be an improvement over the current QMs that encourage selecting the weakest opponents for a given VC.
7) Make MQM an ALL LEADER CHALLENGE- Currently we know which players are fastest at using Sitting Bull/ Darius/ JC for Conquests and Gandhi/ Louis/ ?? for culture. But there's currently no specific acknowledgement of the best games with Saladin, Chuckles and Toku. So I would recommend that the primary method of completing MQM would be to achieve a win with all 52 leaders. Assuming we grandfather in current qualifying games, a lot of people would already have a lot of the games finished, especially those who've been participating in Challenge Series games.
So optimally, completing the MQM would just require you to win an ancient start non RV game with each leader. Separate tables could be kept for each difficulty level, and all finish dates would be adjusted based on VC/ Map/ and opponents (as well as games that use huts/ events/ PAs). Games of different sizes would be ranked separately as they are in the existing QMs. I have no idea how much extra work this would be for the moderators, but I think we have more moderator worthy people in the forums than we did two years ago, so there might be enough people to pull it off. I thought I would just throw the suggestion out since it doesn't look like it's been discussed in awhile. I think a new QM would allow people who like playing a less predetermined game to complete the existing QMs while being rewarded for not planning specific VCs for every game. Thoughts?
I really enjoy the competitive aspect of the Civ HOF, and I understand that in the HOF you are really competing against other people, so even if it has a lot of cheese, those who cheese best still rise to the top, and those are usually the best non-cheese players. But the current QM rewards specialization, and to me the greatest appeal of Civ as a game has been the emphasis on generalization. For example, I have one Top 10 rated HOF game, a Standard Noble Conquest game that I completed with SB in 2025 BC for one of the Challenges. And I can honestly say that that game was the least enjoyable game of Civ I've ever played. I didn't build anything. I moved my settler until I found an opponent, settled and walked a hut popped warrior into a defenseless city while another warrior was doing the same thing somewhere else. I then whipped and chopped DWs and fog busted as quickly as I could. That's how you win a Conquest game on Noble. But I didn't feel like I was playing Civ at all, and it certainly wasn't fun. I would also argue that the players who've submitted 50 different iterations of Tiny Religious Diety wins didn't really enjoy most of those games either. They just developed a specific victory formula and repeated it. Same with settler/ Pangea conquest. Use settler to hut pop, pop more settlers, settle next to empty cities, capture, rinse and repeat.
So EQM rewards specialization and volume of play. Which is fine. It still showcases players who are really good at the game. But I think it would be nice to find a new way to showcase players who can play a balanced game, or are flexible in their ability to adjust their games to less than optimal conditions. Obviously the Challlenge Series do that, but it would be nice to see a longer running cumulative contest that rewards it as well.
So I'm suggesting that the HOF reexamine the possibility of a new QM entitled Magna QM with the following adjustments.
1) No Religious Victories- EQM already showcases people who are good at this, and it's obviously the fastest VC to pursue on higher levels when you can't run the table with ancient/ classical units for a quick conquest. We want to reward balanced game play.
2) Barbs must be on- At higher levels, playing without Barbs makes a huge difference in strategy. Obviously not having to worry about Barbs makes it easier to pursue specific VCs earlier, but we want to reward people who can manage barbs while still developing infrastructure. The current static 0.05 modifier doesn't really do that, especially since barbs are much more of a factor on the highest levels.
3) Speaking of highest levels, I suggest that MQM only consider games that are Monarch or above. QM and EQM already provide lots of opportunities to play on whatever level people like to play on. I would recommend Monarch as the lowest level because it is the first level where the AI starts with an extra defensive unit and you can't just walk in to their capital with no-city-razing selected.
4) Link Map Size and Play Speed- Quick & Small, Normal & Standard, Large & Epic, Huge & Marathon. This accomplishes two things. It eliminates the Tiny games that form the vast majority of high level EQM games. It still allows participation from people who don't have a lot of time, but prevents the mixing of slower speeds that make it overly easy to rush a small map with ancient UU's. I realize that this takes excellent gameplay, but it is SPECIALIZED gameplay that is already highlighted by QM/ EQM.
5) Limited map selection- As mentioned earlier we are looking to reward balanced game play, which includes maintaining a army and NAVY while pursuing different VCs. This means limiting maps to B&S, M&S, Continents, Hemispheres, Fractal, Global Highlands and Terra. Archipelagos and Pangea might be added, or the B&S and M&S could be eliminated to maintain some balance. Obviously waterless maps are fun to play if you want to focus on certain VCs without worrying about a navy (and those DAMNED BARB GALLEYS) but you can already to that on the other QMs. It would also be interesting to consider weighting different maps for different VCs, assuming we have enough data to accurately predict average finish date per map.
6) Weighted opponents- Speaking of weighting scores, I assume by now the HOF has a mountain of data to use to identify the average finish date for each leader as an opponent. This would enable a scoring system that rewards people who play with random opponents (rewarding adaptation/ flexibility) or those who intentionally choose difficult opponents. Hopefully these could be weighted based on VC (Gandhi is a cupcake for Dom/ Conq, but can be a bear if you are pursuing a Cultural win). This weighting could be dynamic and able to adjust as people began using a wider variety of opponents. Obviously there is always going to be an unavoidable random element (Ragnar much more difficult when he spawns RIGHT NEXT TO YOU), but it seems to be an improvement over the current QMs that encourage selecting the weakest opponents for a given VC.
7) Make MQM an ALL LEADER CHALLENGE- Currently we know which players are fastest at using Sitting Bull/ Darius/ JC for Conquests and Gandhi/ Louis/ ?? for culture. But there's currently no specific acknowledgement of the best games with Saladin, Chuckles and Toku. So I would recommend that the primary method of completing MQM would be to achieve a win with all 52 leaders. Assuming we grandfather in current qualifying games, a lot of people would already have a lot of the games finished, especially those who've been participating in Challenge Series games.
So optimally, completing the MQM would just require you to win an ancient start non RV game with each leader. Separate tables could be kept for each difficulty level, and all finish dates would be adjusted based on VC/ Map/ and opponents (as well as games that use huts/ events/ PAs). Games of different sizes would be ranked separately as they are in the existing QMs. I have no idea how much extra work this would be for the moderators, but I think we have more moderator worthy people in the forums than we did two years ago, so there might be enough people to pull it off. I thought I would just throw the suggestion out since it doesn't look like it's been discussed in awhile. I think a new QM would allow people who like playing a less predetermined game to complete the existing QMs while being rewarded for not planning specific VCs for every game. Thoughts?
