News: GOTM 18 Pre-Game Discussion

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WHY?

The HOF mod makes many little things easier that would otherwise be extremely tedious. For example, every ten turns, one should check to make sure that the enemy is paying you as much gold as possible for that extra resource, otherwise you should renegotiate. Also, you should be keeping track of exactly what everyone is researching by constantly checking their trade screens, so that you can continue to research a technology that is good for trading.

Those kinds of things are painful and time-consuming, but if one person does them in a competitive game, then everyone else sort of has to in order to compete. The mod allows us to play in relative calm by making those things easy, while still being competitive and preventing things like "well sure you won, but I could have done that too if I felt like keeping written records of everyone's technology path."

Maybe that's not the purpose, but it's what I [author of very few posts] decided. Am I right?

 

[MarkM]

Interesting, but that really doesn't answer the question. That describes the contents of what's in the mod, but not the WHY. I'm not so much interested in the blow-by-blow description of the mod, but "What does it do for ME?" Why do we have to load the HOF mod for GOTM games? Would I want to load it for ALL games I play?

The link he gave tells you what the mod does. Only you can answer whether you will find it useful, and he gave you the info for you to determine that.

I find it very very useful, and by the way it's also very very easy to install (only takes 5 minutes and a few mouse clicks to install and configure). But I can't say if you will feel the same, only way to get answer to that question is for you to try it.

 

[Mad Professor]

There was quite a bit of discussion about it when the HOF mod was first made compulsory for GOTM's. I can't remember when that was or where that thread might be, but if someone can come up with a link to that, you might find that discussion helpful, because people then were asking the same questions.

Personally I was skeptical and a little annoyed about it being compulsory, but have thoroughly enjoyed using it since. I find the way it arranges information very helpful. It's information you can get anyway, but the mod makes it easier to get. The HOF mod also makes it easier for the staff to be sure you didn't cheat in a GOTM! I use the HOF mod for all games I play simply because of the information layout which I really like.

The mod itself is also quite unobtrusive and stays right out of the way if you don't want to use it.

 

[Thrallia]

Interesting, but that really doesn't answer the question. That describes the contents of what's in the mod, but not the WHY.

I'm not so much interested in the blow-by-blow description of the mod, but "What does it do for ME?" Why do we have to load the HOF mod for GOTM games? Would I want to load it for ALL games I play?

It does answer your question, but perhaps not in the way you wanted it answered.
"What does it do for me?"
It gives you access to a ton of information that would generally require a lot of note-taking and micromanagement to either gain access to, or be able to benefit from. It also allows you to have the game alert you when certain events either happen, or are about to happen, eg. your city is about to grow/be unhappy/be unhealthy/pop borders; this leader has new technology/xxx gold/xx gpt for trade.

"Why do we have to load the HOF mod for GOTM games?"
It adds a layer of security to the saved files that allows the staff to more accurately, and with less effort, ensure that we have a fair and level playing field, since the GOTM is partially a competition.

"Would I want to load it for all games I play?"
I don't play games without it anymore...I had never played with it until a little before it became required, and I immediately was hooked on the wealth of information I had access to that I couldn't ever have made use of previously.

The main portions of my link that would help you understand this are the enhanced advisors and civ4lerts sections.

 

[DaviddesJ]

It also fixes one major bug in vanilla Civ4 (that is also fixed in Warlords 2.08, so you don't need the HOF mod for that).

 

[Matt_G]

There was quite a bit of discussion about it when the HOF mod was first made compulsory for GOTM's. I can't remember when that was or where that thread might be, but if someone can come up with a link to that, you might find that discussion helpful, because people then were asking the same questions.

I believe this is the thread Mad Professor was speaking of.