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

[DaviddesJ]

Whatever slight or disrespect doesnt come from our not listening to you but from our not adopting all the things you want. Such is life.

I don't feel slighted or disrespected. If people choose something different than what I suggest, that's entirely up to them.

I do get frustrated that you put words in my mouth that aren't what I said. Not as bad as Alan, but still, I say one thing and then you respond as if I said something else. It's entirely unnecessary. You could respond to what I actually said.

I offer my opinions as to what would make the GOTM more successful. That's supposed to be the point of the thread. But maybe we should change the subject line from "feedback appreciated" to "feedback unwelcome".

The only way to resolve arguments over "exploits" is to have a simple, clear list of what's allowed and what's not allowed. This has worked well in the past. Plenty of things on the "not allowed" list have not been detectable or enforceable. (Opening the save file to look in advance at the map, for example, is certainly not allowed and yet anyone can do it and there's no way to stop it. That's just one of dozens of examples.) Not putting stuff on the list of rules because you can't enforce it is a bad idea. In my opinion.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

please. youve been putting words into peoples mouths through the whole thing as well. this isnt a one-sided ordeal. youve also answered in antagonistic, inciting language. i tried to be respectful in my responses but you have been less than so in yours so i dont feel the need to be ever-so polite anymore. i did respond to what you actually said which was the suggestion of your shoulds and shouldnts (and a list of rules is one of them).

but to be specific, a list of rules for the unenforceable isnt necessary. in many ways it informs people what they can do and still get away with it.

 

[tommynt]

Maybe that is not what you are talking about, but it definitely is what i am thinking the word exploit implies. I would like to ask you to refrain from hinting that poeple here are cheaters and dishonorable. That only shows your lack of politeness.

for some here its very easy, every1 who does better as them is obviously exploiting, as they just have to when doing better as the king or queen of perfect playing.

For me its has been exploiting to do brokken RAs before patch which allowed occ deity wins, now they got patched, a kind of obvious sign for something to be brokken before. Others enjoyed this playstyle - and u know what - I didnt care at all.

The most clear sign for an exploit, which is defined as a design oversight which gives players an unfair advantage, is that it gets fixed after some time. When it comes into designers mind or attention. But defintaly not when some1 is screaming EXPLOIT.

This is just a game and when for some1 winning is so important that he/she rather doesnt play at all when there is a chance of loosing, its not the game which is brokken but the guys/girls mentality. Loosing is just part of playing. U learn that best in multiplayer. But as some in here dont play mp they r used to allways win as well its easy to allways win vs ai.

And thats it also with this pointless discussion wheater scores should be "published" in some special thread or not, it just doesnt matter! This whole forum is about posting a starting save and then people discussing how to play it or play it best. Part of this discussion is that it gets mentioned which play/playstyle brought which end of the game.
And thats it.

 

[Ribannah]

You dont remain idle. There are plenty of things a civilization could use but knowing that somehow a worker, longswordsman, cannon, public school, a military base, stock exchange, then Brandenburg Gate over the course of a few hundred years is somehow the most logical approach to a wonderful Utopian civilization is against the grain of the game.

I am wondering what, according to you, IS the most logical stuff to build at that time in the game.

Really, what else is there than relatively useless stuff (Frigate, Hospital, Big Ben in my TSG44)?

I'm guessing that leaving a forest or two to chop is also an exploit in your book?

 

[DaviddesJ]

but to be specific, a list of rules for the unenforceable isnt necessary. in many ways it informs people what they can do and still get away with it.

Yes, that's the point.

If you aren't going to tell people what's allowed and not allowed, then you've given up on the idea of a competition. This was the fundamental idea that made GOTM successful, and it's a shame if you now suggest we abandon it.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

I am wondering what, according to you, IS the most logical stuff to build at that time in the game.

Really, what else is there than relatively useless stuff (Frigate, Hospital, Big Ben in my TSG44)?

this is where immersion goes out the window for many. the game gets reduced to implausible efficiency. a player knows that it's all unnecessary at this point but the ruler of a society doesnt. do they want more happiness whether they need it or not? how about the Eiffel Tower? So many City-States would love me even more by building it.

This isnt about adopting a purely role-play like attitude for the game but it also isnt about throwing all rationality out the window over a game mechanic not reflective in real life (the game cant replicate that stuff accurately anyway.)

 

[Ribannah]

Maybe that is not what you are talking about, but it definitely is what i am thinking the word exploit implies. I would like to ask you to refrain from hinting that poeple here are cheaters and dishonorable. That only shows your lack of politeness.

Of course. Cheating is OK, but to speak up against it is not. This is how far we have come.

 

[Ribannah]

this is where immersion goes out the window for many. the game gets reduced to implausible efficiency. a player knows that it's all unnecessary at this point but the ruler of a society doesnt. do they want more happiness whether they need it or not? how about the Eiffel Tower? So many City-States would love me even more by building it.

This isnt about adopting a purely role-play like attitude for the game but it also isnt about throwing all rationality out the window over a game mechanic not reflective in real life (the game cant replicate that stuff accurately anyway.)

This is not at all implausible. It's called planning ahead, and is done in our society all the time. My house, for instance, was completed for 80% before anyone knew that it would be built. And I'm currently involved in plans for an expedition to Mars, even while we don't know when and how we'll be going yet or what the means of transportation will be.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

Yes, that's the point.

If you aren't going to tell people what's allowed and not allowed, then you've given up on the idea of a competition. This was the fundamental idea that made GOTM successful, and it's a shame if you now suggest we abandon it.

why, how dare you put words in my mouth. i never suggested we abandon competition and i certainly havent given up on it.

(see how silly it is to put words in people's mouths after decrying it from others? inference and assumption are common efforts from everyone participating in a debate. yes, it was said in sarcasm, but there isnt a font to suggest that so i said it explicitly so you would know.)

Who says that's the fundamental idea that made it successful? I would imagine lots of other things behind the efforts of the GOTM staff made this successful. I couldnt simply reduce it to one idea that did.

And we did tell people what is and isnt allowed: Oxford and Rationalism bugs. Explicitly telling people not to do other tactics that arent bugs will certainly encourage others to find info on those tactics and use them. To some degree, game naivete plays its own regulatory ability. (there are still tactics im aware of that im glad i dont use. when i first learned of some of them in Vanilla i felt i was about to ruin my interest in the game.)

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

This is not at all implausible. It's called planning ahead, and is done in our society all the time. My house, for instance, was completed for 80% before anyone knew that it would be built. And I'm currently involved in plans for an expedition to Mars, even while we don't know when and how we'll be going yet or what the means of transportation will be.

So, what are you planning ahead for in a few hundred years? have you maximized your monetary overflow for your great-great grandkids? Will they achieve victory in the fastest time possible?

It is implausible in game terms.

 

[tommynt]

Of course. Cheating is OK, but to speak up against it is not.

maybe some1 who was against a mod which might detect cheating and not even uploading his/her game should not talk about cheating but rather be sillent?
Just my opinion..

 

[DaviddesJ]

Who says that's the fundamental idea that made it successful?

I said it. It's just my opinion. I've been watching this thing for 10 years and that's what I see. The brilliance of GOTM was taking a game that everyone played in their own way, often with a lot of reloading, fresh starts, etc., and saying, "We're all going to play by the same ground rules, and the experience will be a lot more interesting because we can compare our results with each other." It was a brilliant, fresh idea in 2003, and it fostered a community that has lasted for a long time.

And we did tell people what is and isnt allowed: Oxford and Rationalism bugs. Explicitly telling people not to do other tactics that arent bugs will certainly encourage others to find info on those tactics and use them.

The GOTM (and CFC) philosophy has always been to disclose everything so that everyone has the same information. I think that's served us well. I discovered a major exploit/flaw/feature in Civ III, a non-obvious consequence of how corruption was implemented. Would it have been better to keep it secret so that some knew about it and some didn't? Publicizing it helped the community understand the issue, and deal with it. Openness and honesty is much better than trying to keep inconvenient things under wraps. It interferes with the sense of community, and it doesn't work anyway.

The people who want to cheat, can always cheat. You can't stop that. What you can do is set the ground rules so that everyone knows what they are. If you avoid talking about what the ground rules are, simply for fear that mentioning something will let the cat out of the bag, you fragment the community a million ways, because everyone has a different opinion on what's ok. The one power the moderators have, and the reason they need to use it so carefully, is the power to declare what's allowed in GOTM and what's not. This power should not be overused but neither should it be shied away from. Judicious use of the power is essential. In my opinion.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

hmmm, now that i see this thread, i'd like to briefly apologize for getting side-tracked in some of the debate myself. I wonder if we could get back on task to discussing GOTM feedback and away from some age-old debates on things like exploits.

DaviddesJ has at least stayed on topic on thread relevance. I'll try and relegate my discussion of exploits as to how they directly affect GOTM and not what is or isnt an exploit. That is simply a topic that people will agree to disagree on.

Thanks, and my apologies.

 

[Ribannah]

Nice tactics, Hammer Rabbi.

The problem is, that if you don't want to define 'exploit', you can't very well discuss how exploits affect the GOTM. This while good definitions have been provided during those ages that it has been debated.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

Nice tactics, Hammer Rabbi.

The problem is, that if you don't want to define 'exploit', you can't very well discuss how exploits affect the GOTM. This while good definitions have been provided during those ages that it has been debated.

I think we can talk about exploits broadly, not specifically, in relation to GOTM. Definition is for another thread, not the feedback thread, imo.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I've edited my response above to improve the tone. Thanks for the reminder that we can all be more civil.

 

[Ribannah]

The brilliance of GOTM was taking a game that everyone played in their own way, often with a lot of reloading, fresh starts, etc., and saying, "We're all going to play by the same ground rules, and the experience will be a lot more interesting because we can compare our results with each other." It was a brilliant, fresh idea in 2003, and it fostered a community that has lasted for a long time.

It's a bit older than that, even. Thunderfall started the GOTM2 in February 2001, following a suggestion by Stormerne.

Comparison games, outside of a GOTM framework, are of course much older still.

 

[Ribannah]

So, what are you planning ahead for in a few hundred years?

We plan to go to Alpha Centauri.

Have you maximized your monetary overflow for your great-great grandkids?

The entire monetary system will collapse next month with the end of the Maya calendar. We will not reintroduce it.

Will they achieve victory in the fastest time possible?

We intend to set out for Alpha Centauri before the year 2300.

 

[Halcyan2]

Upcoming games I would like to see (for the civs which have not been featured yet):

Austria: MILITARY VC on a CONTINENTS map (lots of potential fun with Diplomatic Marriage!)

Babylon: Diplomatic or Military VC. (Science VC is too obvious, and we already had a Cultural VC with Korea, who is similar to Babylon)

Denmark: Military VC (so you can make the most out of the new pillaging rules)

Inca: No preference

Polynesia: Cultural VC (to encourage use of Moai)

....really hoping we get some new civilization dlc's soon!

 

[pholtz]

Doing my first GOTM for a LONG time. G&K and the fall patch are bringing me back to Civ. In the current game, we have an in progress report at 80, then the complete game. I've only done though 103 so far, but it seems like we could have another progress report at 170 or so? Sad that I won't be able to read any more on the game until I finish it.