News: Game of the month for Civ V - feedback appreciated

Market the GOTMs more. Although there is a good bunch of folks playing GOTMs, I'm surprised that more people don't play them. I've tried to plug them here and there on the Strat forum. Why not just make a sticky thread in the strat and general forums about GOTMs - what they are and why you should play them.

FWIW, I didn't play the civ4 games because I couldn't be arsed to install and keep the HOF mod up to date.

I don't really care how I do compared to other people, other than as an interesting comparison, and I generally play civ with the goal of playing each turn as quickly as possible. Forcing players who wouldn't cheat/reload in the first place to jump through extra hoops is reminiscent of DRM in games which causes extra work for all the non-pirates.

So, I deal with the GOTM (by not playing) the same way as I deal with games with DRM which is too much hassle (also, by not playing).

I've even played a number of GOTM games without the HOF mod, but obviously, this prevents me from submitting them.

I'm not saying the HOF or similar mods shouldn't be required, just giving my take on why I don't participate more often. :)
 
Suggestions/my ideas:

Get rid of the top score awards and only have fastest finish, or vice-versa. You could change this month to month. I think similar things have been suggested by others in threads and their schemes might be good.

But currently, there are too many things being competed for and especially on lower level GOTMs things get crazy - you have dozens of middle-of-the-pack victories and neglected areas make for some awarded things to be not very consistent.

On easier difficulty levels, set certain victory conditions as the GOTM goal. On higher levels maybe all can be left open.

The very best thing of course would be if civ5's scoring system wasn't broken relating to different victories but GOTM staff can't really do much with that.

There should be no Challenger save. And yes, I do take Challenger saves a lot, but the problems are:
-It's either a straight handicap to your final results, and can make the game play way different (removing earlier resources especially for the latter)
-Nobody plays it meta-game wise; people avoid it to have better chances at a top victory.

The Adventurer class is fine but there never was a need for challenger - just make harder games/difficulties to begin with if really needed. A Noble game bumped up to Prince on Challenger doesn't add much of value to better players nor to the purpose of the GOTM (but Adventurer always can help/encourage new players to GOTM)
 
Have difficulty level determine level of competition...e.g., Target, Target + 2 (Challenge), Target - 2 (Adventurer). Then I believe it is fair to say Target should alternate between King and King+1 (Emperor?)...although perhaps game #1 at Prince instead to warm us up.

This may seem arbitrary, but let me explain my reasoning:

Game #1: Choices of level: Chieftain/Prince/Emperor
Game #2: Choices of level: Warlord/King/Immortal
Game #3: Choices of level: Prince/Emperor/Diety

From then on, even numbered games will follow pattern of Game #2; odd numbered games will follow pattern of Game #3.

The logic is as follows:

(1) There is always a choice to either increase or decrease (down to Warlord at least) your difficulty by a single step from one GOTM to another. So if it's too easy (or too hard), you can move up (or down) one level next time you play.

(2) There is never the same difficulty level twice in a row. So, you *have* to decide whether or not you are going to move up (or down) in difficulty level. I believe this will encourage people to take more of a challenge and try something new rather than same-ol-same-ol or trying to determine whether they want to make a HUGE jump or not.

(3) Three games is manageable; more than that becomes a lot of work for the GoTM team, so that's why I don't say one at each difficulty level!

(4) Players seeing their accustomed difficulty level +/- 1 are more likely to participate than players seeing their difficulty level +/- (especially +) >1.

(5) Your favorite difficulty level (assuming it is >= Warlord) is no more than 1 month away from being played!

What do you all think?
 
It's been about 2.5 years since I participated in GOTM at all, but I might come back for Civ5 (depending on how great it is :lol:).

GOTM is a great concept, but its one weakness, from my point of view, has been the inability to compare with the best players while also having varied games. The GOTM has always had an emphasis on the final score, which is understandable since that's how Firaxis designed the game, but, unfortunately, playing for high score makes every game look pretty similar. If you pursue less-common victory conditions, most people aren't doing the same thing, and you lose the fun, which for me was in comparing my game to other people's. The Eptathlon unfortunately exacerbates this, by encouraging people to play for different victory conditions than everyone else, rather than a lot of people all pursuing the same victory condition.

The Challenger idea seems unsuccessful and should be dropped unless someone comes up with a way to reinvigorate it. I like the idea of a harder game (particularly in months when the difficulty is low), but the whole idea of GOTM is to have lots of people playing the same game, so adding a third level either makes it lightly populated or splits the audience too much. I wish we could keep the Contender games at Monarch-plus and the Adventurer games at Noble-Prince, but even if we can't do that, I don't think more than two levels per month is a good idea.

Godotnut's suggestion of a "monthly challenge" makes sense to me. I don't think it has to be just "fastest victory of type X", though. I think you could use the opportunity to introduce other kinds of goals, too. Or games with certain restrictions (e.g., "don't research X") that limit the most common strategies and force players in new directions. But those are things that would keep a long-running GOTM series fresh; I don't think you need that variety in the first 6 or 12 months.
 
Oh, and I just think all of the ideas about restricting what information people can use in playing, about how the game works, etc., are not realistic. It doesn't even have anything to do with reading the source code---different people had very different levels of knowledge of the game even in Civ3 days with no access to the underlying code. And that didn't keep us from discovering quasi-exploits, analyzing AI behavior, and so on. I understand that some people feel that others who study the game more thoroughly, to the point of playing "test games" and the like, have an "unfair advantage". But it just doesn't seem like something that it is feasible to control, so it's moot whether it would be desirable.

I could personally sort of enjoy a game in which the rules were different every time you played, and you didn't know them all in advance, so you are all competing from a position of comparable ignorance.

But Civ 5 isn't that game.
 
Sorry, am late to the thread. I sporadically played the civ4 Gotm, in particular preferring the epic speed games on higher difficulties. The things that made me not play in any given month were:

- games with difficulty less than Monarch
- gimmicky game settings/start conditions that differ greatly from standard settings (eg I think there was a game where you started with a great scientist and an artillery, also did not like the deity game with an absurdly good start position which made the game more akin to emperor)
- quick game speed
- I also skipped normal game speed months unless the difficulty was higher

I understand that you have to cater to a crowd that likes all sorts of difficulties, speed and unusual settings, so outside of running several Gotms simultaneously (or instead converting to a game of the week!), I'll be unlikely to increase my participation.

A sideshow series of short 'challenge' game that greatly differ from standard games would appeal to me though. I would play short games with goals like 'fastest to x tech' or 'most population at year x' or 'first to wipe out civ x' or 'first to gain alliance with 3 city states', that ran alongside the flagship Gotm.
 
Also very late to this thread. I am excited to participate in GOTM and HOF for this iteration of Civ.

So far I am really enjoying the play but there is alot to adjust to...well worth the $60...Hopfully it can keep me entertained as long as Civ IV....or longer with expansions.

Why I participated very little in the GOTM and HOF for Civ IV? Keeping up with the mods was a pain and a couple of times I ended up having to reinstall and patch. I got into a funk and ended up giving up. I played a few without the Mod but I would rather be able to truly participate. I am optomistic that the Civ V process will be more streamlined.

What am I looking forward to? Interesting starts on challanging maps.

What do I think should be included? In game challanges like first to comnplete a policy or build a certain wonder or stuff like that. Variable difficulty settings for thos of us who (for now) have no hope of victory on Immortal or Deity but still want to play, have fun and learn.

Cheers all! I hope I make the standings at some point.

Joel
 
Not played much Civ recently but very excited by new challenge of CivV and now CivV GOTM already!!!! Just briefly looked through the comments but a couple immediately stand out for me:-

KC Swede:- Handicap. Not sure exactly how this would work but it would very likely encourage many more submissions. Maybe allow games to be played at ANY difficulty level (with prize for highest score at each level?), but once you have won a prize at that level you must progress to next level. The top players would likely compete at tough levels from the start and the rest of us would have an opportunity to compete at our entry level and possibly gain "promotion" with time. This would probably be very cumbersome to set up and run I guess.

Ribannah:- Stories. The stories are one of the best things about GOTM:- anything that encourages these is a good thing!

Finally, on behalf of those of us with limited gametime and / or a slow pace:- all games at Normal Speed (this will probably NOT be popular with most players!)

Very impressed that you are so quick off the mark with this:- you do a great job!
 
I would like to participate more in GOTM, but I usually can't stand to play on anything faster than marathon, or at least epic speed. More marathon and epic games!
 
Given the many reports of weak AI even at high levels, we may also want to construct some GOTMs with worse-than-random starts to make the games a bit more interesting. Hopefully this will improve over time, but it sounds like a problem now. (I haven't played enough to be sure of the problem myself.)
 
I think everyone should always go for the same victory condition. It makes it a lot more enjoyable for me as you can directly compare games. I remember a while back there was a tournament structure for civ3 on here where we played one game a week and the victory condition was set. That was infinitely more enjoyable to me than GOTM, although I've enjoyed GOTM over the years as well.

As for my participation levels being low, it really doesn't have much to do with the setup. I just tend to play pretty hardcore for a period of time then take long breaks from the game. So I'll participate when I'm playing the game but when I'm on a break I don't play obviously.
 
I'm definitely going to join in the GOMs but I'm waiting till they get rid of most of the dumb bugs..

In Civ4 you can still get an unlimited number of free techs from the Oracle or from liberlaism with a few well-timed keystrokes. The xOTM community has lived with the existence of bugs and exploits in Civ4, and can do so in Civ5.

Basically, if you think you see a bug or exploit, you are duty bound to notify the game admin before you take advantage of it. If its questionable, don't do it. I'm sure the test series will lead to the development of a list of forbidden known exploits for Civ5, just as it did for Civ4.

BTW: You can still find that list for Civ4 if you need a reminder that even though a lot of the stuff has been patched out, it wasn't always so smooth with Civ4 either. But the xOTM's have adapted to imperfections.

Ahh yes... longing for the good 'ol days that never were.
 
IMO ideally rewards should be given based upon how well someone played the game regardless of the VC chosen. What I'm talking about is quality of play. I'm mostly familiar with the civ 3 xotms and there the top of the charts is invariably crowded with military vcs. But what if someone plays for e.g. an SS win and plays with a high quality? Doesn't matter because their score will place them below the top military scores. Sure they will get an reward for the top SS victory but that's a poor substitute for the scoring not being equitable among vcs.

Having said this however I have to admit that I don't know how one could come up with a system that measured pure quality of play. Sure you could stipulate that only one vc is allowed for a given game but that isn't all that interesting to me. I think that by the game having more than one vc option adds to its richness. And so I believe that the otms should allow for more than one vc. Then what to do?

I suggest that the rewards charts should have a separate column for each vc allowed. Then the highest scores for each vc can be equivalenced and there would be as many winners as there are vcs. The remaining scores could be normalized against the highest. Now this doesn't tell which game was played the "best". But it does throw out the idea that one particular vc produces the best quality of play all the time. And by having all the vcs on an equal footing there will be a higher level of interest in the otms.
 
I think everyone should always go for the same victory condition.

Civ5 rewards warring so much that even if I were going for another victory condition, I'd probably wipe out the AI, except for a single capital. (This also keeps the turn times faster.)

In Civ4 you can still get an unlimited number of free techs from the Oracle or from liberlaism with a few well-timed keystrokes. The xOTM community has lived with the existence of bugs and exploits in Civ4, and can do so in Civ5.

Basically, if you think you see a bug or exploit, you are duty bound to notify the game admin before you take advantage of it. If its questionable, don't do it. I'm sure the test series will lead to the development of a list of forbidden known exploits for Civ5, just as it did for Civ4.

BTW: You can still find that list for Civ4 if you need a reminder that even though a lot of the stuff has been patched out, it wasn't always so smooth with Civ4 either. But the xOTM's have adapted to imperfections.

I suspect he was mostly referring to bugs that make the gameplay experience significantly less enjoyable, as opposed to exploitable bugs.
 
I've even played a number of GOTM games without the HOF mod, but obviously, this prevents me from submitting them.

Care to give us a clue as to how you did that? Clearly it's possible after the results are published, as we post a link to the WorldBuilder save. But I get the impression you played during the live game, which shouldn't be possible without some significant hacking ....
 
Care to give us a clue as to how you did that? Clearly it's possible after the results are published, as we post a link to the WorldBuilder save. But I get the impression you played during the live game, which shouldn't be possible without some significant hacking ....
And maybe you want that clue in private? :mischief: ;)

dV
 
Care to give us a clue as to how you did that? Clearly it's possible after the results are published, as we post a link to the WorldBuilder save. But I get the impression you played during the live game, which shouldn't be possible without some significant hacking ....

Yes, sorry for any confusion, I play them after they're done.

I've played only maybe a half-dozen of them, so I can flip through the archives to find interesting looking games. :)
 
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