New! Elite Quattromasters Challenge

[kovacsflo]

That is okay.

Thanx

Now I have a chance to be a (normal) QM by the end of February

 

[billybgame]

So much to learn and do here......

I've been taking stabs at Games of the Month, and now Gauntlets. Only play with the HOF Mod now, as well. So, I guess it's time I started sending in some results. So, this interests me. But, it is perplexing, at first, for sure. Some newb style questions:

Ok...so let's say I submit a Noble HOF game.

1) Will it then count towards both the Quatro and the Elite Quatro? For instance for Machiavelli in both? Or, whatever other categories that are in both?

2) For the regular Quatro, does it have to be a victory? The Quatro page does not say "victory"....just "valid HOF entry"

3) On the Status tab, what are the numbers 1 and 2, atop each column? Also, if I understand correctly, this page shows your entries? Or, no? If not, what is it?

I probably have more. Sorry to hijack this thread, but I saw no other Quatromaster sticky, or FAQ.

 

[bestje]

1) A game will count towards anything it is eligible for, the elite is the same as the regular with a few extra exclusions; inca, duel map size etc
2) yes, as far as I know you must win your game to be eligible
3) the 1 and 2 are because you have your best 2 scores counting for each category

 

[The-Hawk]

Good point. RoA is perfect for trying out different leaders with late UUs. It makes no sense that these games don't count for LoN. I'm still lobbying for them to count for map quest too.

I've been thinking about this some more, and I am convinced it is better the way it is currently set up. "Elite" should mean "hard", there should be differentiation between status levels. "Quattromaster" means you have breadth, i.e. you are excellent across Civ IV conditions (you can play all leaders, all victory conditions, etc. at a given level). Therefore, "Elite Quattromaster" should mean you can win hard games across the breadth of Civ IV.

Deity with future and modern starts is not so hard. If they allow RoA starts to count for leaders and maps, then LoN and Mapquest are completely nerfed. Everyone will pop in a bunch of deity future start conquests to fill out all the leaders and many of the maps. LoN will be meaningless, simply a matter of jamming your way through 33 tiny future conquests at deity (zzzzz). Everyone will be able to do it. If not deity, then immortal. If not immortal, then emperor. The point is, they can cover the majority of the quattro requirements at a level they normally would not be able to win.

Granted, people will still struggle to accomplish some of the more difficult maps and victory types. But differentiation between elite levels will boil down to a relatively small number of games (e.g. how high a level can you finish a time victory with ancient start). Elite quattro will not mean "hard across the breadth of Civ IV", it will mean "hard in a small subset of victory conditions, patient enough to plow through 33 future era conquests". I think this is against the quattro philosophy of breadth of play.

Deity with ancient starts is very hard. Why water down the holy grail of all-expansion, elite deity status? With all ancient starts, even immortal will be a very healthy challenge. My ultimate goal is all-expansions immortal. Given the requirement for 33 LoN ancient starts, it might take me years to get there. If I do get there, I'd hate to share it with a zillion other people who did 33 future starts to fill out LoN.

RoA is simply another dimension to round out the number of challenges. It will be simple to cover, I think the easiest of all the challenges. 7 games at Deity level, use vanilla leaders. This will meet RoA requirements for both vanilla and all-expansion at all elite levels. Heck, you have 3 of the 7 already, only 4 to go!

PS... if I were to change one thing on the elite challenge, I would also eliminate tiny maps as well.

 

[WastinTime]

There are just too many easy ways to win Diety. Why is Ancient Tiny Conquest ok for you? Why is Ancient Space race with Perm Alliances ok for you? Diplo and culture wins are simple on diety, any size map, any leader.

So why pick on RoA and make it such a horrible fit for EQM? If I'm gonna bother to play a game, I'm going to aim for 90 -100 points. Why should I complete 12 RoA games on 12 maps with 12 different leaders...some which could be very challenging, and then get no credit for those leaders/maps. Do you know how hard it is to get twelve 90+ point games? QM is designed well, so a clever player can have a good game count for several slots. EQM is ruined with the RoA restriction. It just feels so wrong. I'm not sure how that is not obvious to everyone. Please, everyone, try to think clearly on this before they ask for a vote.

Don't forget, if you take EQM seriously, you need 2 scores for each RoA, that's 14 games, not 7. (12 non-ancient games)

If people want to fill requirements with easy games, you can't stop them. The scores will indicate the best games/players.

I agree, Tiny maps should have been cut too.

I would also be nice if Huge and Large (maybe even standard size too) scored the same. Almost every game I play has to be on Huge just for the score. This was the biggest mistake they made in designing QM...until RoA came along. Scores should be about competition between players, not map sizes. Standard Diety games should be able to get 100 points. Is it too late to revive that discussion?

 

[shyuhe]

I agree on the mapsize limitation. Maybe EQM should ignore map size and require standard sized games? That would be fair to everyone (computer spec wise) and would translate well to most games that people play otherwise. Plus it would increase the competition (since it would decrease the number of 90-100 point slots). Barring that, allowing standard, large, and huge maps all to score 100 points on deity (with raging) would have been nice. I'm guessing huge maps were given a bigger modifier because it requires a better game over a longer period of time but I still don't like it...

I'm pretty ambivalent about RoA not counting for LoN and MQ. Then again, I probably won't get around to RoA unless the settings come up in a gauntlet game.

 

[Denniz]

The irony was I had thought about making standard the only size. I may have posted about it in the cheese thread at some point. But I thought that it wouldn't go over very well.

I have posted polls about the Tiny Map size and about the Gauntlet difficulty requirement.

I am still unconvinced that allowing anything except ancient starts for LoN or MapQuest is wise. I do know that allowing modern and future starts back in is not something I am willing to consider. The idea was to make it more difficult to become an EQM.

I don't know precisely where the line is between keeping the game alive and making it too difficult, but I don't think that RoA only counting for one requirement is that bad. I am not sure why it is okay to require x games but not x+14.

 

[cabert]

RoA is only a handful of games, no big deal.
Most of us already have ancient and future starts anyway.

But LoN is too tedious on "all expansions".Why not just keep the 17 leaders? That's already a lot of games.

 

[shyuhe]

The irony was I had thought about making standard the only size. I may have posted about it in the cheese thread at some point. But I thought that it wouldn't go over very well.

I'd be a fan of the standard only size requirement (or allow standard+ size so that all the large/huge games aren't lost). Maybe a poll on this would be informative too? Perhaps choosing between standard size only, standard/large/huge being given equal QScores, and the current format?

I don't know precisely where the line is between keeping the game alive and making it too difficult, but I don't think that RoA only counting for one requirement is that bad. I am not sure why it is okay to require x games but not x+14.

I think some of the gripping about RoA is that its requirements came out at the same time that the LoN got expanded for all versions. If you're going for the bare minimum EQM, then it's about 30 LoN games for EQM + 6 more for RoA. So RoA will account for about 15% of the total games required by itself. As to whether that's good/bad, it's tough to say. As for me, I will probably cheese my way through the LoN and RoA requirements... I'll just submit my quality games for Machiavelli and Tempi purposes. The full LoN is just grueling and I've given up any hopes of having a good QScore for it.

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

I'd be a fan of the standard only size requirement (or allow standard+ size so that all the large/huge games aren't lost).

I'm in favour of having standard/large/huge all score the same. But I like the idea of small maps to help get through the tedium of LoN and MapQuest (you end up with low Qscores so it is balanced out).


Although I am unlikely to ever finish QM status, it is a nice lofty goal.

 

[WastinTime]

You can make QM by playing only 18 games. For some, that is a "lofty goal", right Jimmy? (Doesn't x+ 14 sound like more now?)

LoN is already too long (46 games)...people are upset about that. RoA makes it 58 !

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

18 games is a lot... 58 is

My personal preference is for QM/EQM status to be easier to achieve (less games) and the real bragging rights or competitive element to be for QScore and QM/EQM ranking (higher quality of games).

 

[shyuhe]

Doesn't the addition of RoA = more games? So doesn't that go against the purpose of the EQM to foster better quality instead of quantity? I understand part of the appeal of late era starts is to encourage use of late game UU civs. However the current major is a modern era game and everybody is playing Asoka, not a German or American!

 

[pholtz]

Doesn't the addition of RoA = more games? So doesn't that go against the purpose of the EQM to foster better quality instead of quantity? I understand part of the appeal of late era starts is to encourage use of late game UU civs. However the current major is a modern era game and everybody is playing Asoka, not a German or American!

Now they are, but from my reading Germany was the first choice of many. I find it interesting when the unexpected choice is discovered to be better.

Edit: voted in both of the polls, thank you Denniz

 

[The-Hawk]

There are just too many easy ways to win Diety. Why is Ancient Tiny Conquest ok for you? Why is Ancient Space race with Perm Alliances ok for you? Diplo and culture wins are simple on diety, any size map, any leader.

I agree there are relatively easier ways to win deity, but why add more (even easier) ways? If ancient tiny conquest is easy, then future tiny conquest is trivial. I would eliminate smaller maps altogether.

EQM is ruined with the RoA restriction. It just feels so wrong. I'm not sure how that is not obvious to everyone. Please, everyone, try to think clearly on this before they ask for a vote.

This is a different question. I'm would be OK with eliminating RoA altogether I'm also OK with keeping it, just to add some variety. However, if we keep it, we shouldn't let it nerf the other challenges in an attempt to save a few games played. I'd prefer to see it eliminated rather than back off a requirement of ancient starts for LoN, etc.

PS... I believe I am thinking clearly on this.

The scores will indicate the best games/players.

I would also be nice if Huge and Large (maybe even standard size too) scored the same. ...snip... Standard Diety games should be able to get 100 points.

I find these last two quotes inconsistent. If we really want scores to indicate best players, then we need to differentiate scores. While mapsize might not matter for culture or space, it does for warmonging (and time victories, and maybe even diplo a little bit). Conquest is a much bigger challenge on huge maps than on standard, the scores should reflect that.

My personal preference is for QM/EQM status to be easier to achieve (less games) and the real bragging rights or competitive element to be for QScore and QM/EQM ranking (higher quality of games).

Not sure it will work this way if we allow non-ancient starts. Especially if we do not differentiate mapsize. If someone can score more points with a future start, standard map deity conquest than another person with an ancient start, huge map immortal conquest, then I would contend the score does not equate to bragging rights.

 

[Denniz]

I realize that the LoN is pretty long but if we accept less than all of them then the ones that are hardest to win with will be the ones left off. They are also the ones most likely to be played as non-ancient starts if we were to allow it. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

 

[billybgame]

So much to learn and do here......

I've been taking stabs at Games of the Month, and now Gauntlets. Only play with the HOF Mod now, as well. So, I guess it's time I started sending in some results. So, this interests me. But, it is perplexing, at first, for sure. Some newb style questions:

Ok...so let's say I submit a Noble HOF game.

1) Will it then count towards both the Quatro and the Elite Quatro? For instance for Machiavelli in both? Or, whatever other categories that are in both?

2) For the regular Quatro, does it have to be a victory? The Quatro page does not say "victory"....just "valid HOF entry"

3) On the Status tab, what are the numbers 1 and 2, atop each column? Also, if I understand correctly, this page shows your entries? Or, no? If not, what is it?

I probably have more. Sorry to hijack this thread, but I saw no other Quatromaster sticky, or FAQ.

Hate to quote my own post, but can someone of upper ranking please verify.......do you have to achieve Victories, with all of your eligible HOF entries? The wordings on all the categories, except one, I believe, say "valid HOF entry". Nothing about Victory. Seems I recall someone suggesting to me before, when I asked about this months ago, to send in games, whether victorious, or not. Which, makes me wonder all the more.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

My ranking is lowly but you do need to win the games you submit. Otherwise I'd have lots deity losses submitted already

 

[Denniz]

Hate to quote my own post, but can someone of upper ranking please verify.......do you have to achieve Victories, with all of your eligible HOF entries? The wordings on all the categories, except one, I believe, say "valid HOF entry". Nothing about Victory. Seems I recall someone suggesting to me before, when I asked about this months ago, to send in games, whether victorious, or not. Which, makes me wonder all the more.

Sorry, the HOF only accepts victories. You are probably remembering something said about the GOTM.

 

[billybgame]

Sorry, the HOF only accepts victories. You are probably remembering something said about the GOTM.

Ok....thanks...that clears that up...yeah, maybe it was GOTM. Yikes, that really makes Gauntlet a hard one to achieve!