Old World Monthly Challenge

[Jimmy Thunder]

I'd prefer a smaller map for performance reasons.

Does "lock save" protect from people reloading an earlier save to correct/change course?

Will "reset random seed" mean that everyone's random events will play out wildly differently? It would be better to keep that aspect as consistent as possible across all players.

 

[Fimbulvetr]

Random Seed Reset? To encourage save scumming?
No Undo is just annoying, nothing else.

 

[Solver]

"Lock save" is a must for any challenge, it just disables the easiest ways of cheating such as using the in-game editor to give yourself free stuff. I would not recommend "reset seed on reload" - that allows an uncompetitive, and supremely boring, tactic of reloading saves to get better events, random trait rolls, etc.

Undo is a tougher call, it doesn't let you gain that big an advantage (if reset seed is off) but it can still be abused if someone really goes for it.

Medium map should be quite okay with performance on the current build, unless the machine is below minimum spec. Besides, with no AI development, the game should not last as long.

 

[Solver]

Oh, and at this stage I'd recommend a "default leaders only" rule, so players may not pick any of the additional Greek dynasties. They're more powerful than the default leaders so if going for fastest victory, that'd be an unfair advantage.

 

[PiR]

Coming from Civ, Undo was weird for me at first.
However, I got used to it to the point that I think it would be hard to play OW without it. Specially for combat, where I am not able to predict easily how to best use 10 units, as the order matters much more than in civ.

 

[Forster]

I don't think the random seed should reset each reload. As others have said, it would make the game very different for each player and could allow save scumming.
I think all players should have the same leader rather than being able to pick their own, that would put everyone on the same footing.

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

I've come up with a solution for the "no undo" debate (although it does require a small addition by the devs).

Have a counter for the number of times you've used Undo and Undo Turn. This is displayed when you mouseover the undo button and is visible in the stats when you end the game.

Then people can continue to use undo but there can be bragging rights for those not (or barely) using it. GOTM could also offer an additional "No Regrets" award for the fastest undo-adjusted win. +1 year for each undo and +3 years for each undo turn.

 

[Fimbulvetr]

People who want to cheat, can cheat. To make that impossible, or even less easy, would require a lot of changes, it's just not worth it.
Which is why I say Undo should stay. People need to follow the simple guideline of not abusing it for scouting to critical hit testing.

 

[Ozbenno]

My bad, I somehow thought the option selected was to not reset the random seed (note to self: read things closely ). Definitely will be off.

 

[qouigv93027]

Unless we do something like HOF mod from Civ4, I wonder how the rules might get enforced.

As for the undo, I find having that available relieves so much stress. If I miscalculated something or misclicked or anything, I can go back. It's too unpleasantly stressful personally to have to worry about that kind of stuff.

If I'm trying to be very serious about it, I'd almost need to plot out all my order usage on a piece of paper to make sure I have enough left, which is so far from gaming and so close to "chore" that it might lose my interest fairly quickly.

 

[Dale]

I'm adding an undo counter. At least then you can control the option from outside the game. IE: "Only accepting submissions with less than 10 undos" or something like that. Everyone makes a mistake. Being able to undo that mistake (rather than exploring and undoing) I think is needed for player comfort.

 

[qouigv93027]

You know, that'll also be helpful in general - even for the casual game, it might be interesting to know how often you use the undo button and what your tendencies are there (especially if you want to improve them).

 

[Fimbulvetr]

I bet my normal Undo count is in the hundreds.

 

[Quintillus]

Yeah, I've come around to Undo. Probably my most common use case is I'll move a worker to a tile thinking, "I'll build X here" and then I realized, "oh, I can't build baths here" or "oh, I'm out of shrines" or "hmm I forgot I could build X, but it would be better to build X somewhere else". There are other ways to get assistance with what can be built where, but I still tend to move the worker to a promising tile and then decide "let's build here" or "let's not build here after all".

Second-most-common is realizing I'm out or almost out of orders and forgot something really important, like taking care of that barbarian invading the other side of my empire. Or claiming a city site/building a city that I really want. Being able to tell a worker, "not so fast, you aren't my top priority right now" is really nice in that case.

I was also re-reading part of one of my Civ3 stories recently, and part of the story is how due to "miswritten orders" (clicking on the wrong tile) my unit did something stupid, and got annihilated. That is part of life in Civ, but doesn't have to be in Old World.

Although I do see how when abused, it could be considered a form of cheating. E.g. let's say you declare war on the Babylonians and proceed to get destroyed, if you act soon enough (and, in extremis, potentially even a few turns later) you could undo a whole bunch of times and undo the entire war. Of course someone could try more or less the same thing in a Civ GOTM, or in Old World without Undo enabled, by reloading from a few turns back, with there being a question of how do you detect that? And how much effort do we want to put into that versus the main event, which is having fun playing the same Old World map?

All of which is to say I see the arguments from both sides, and will likely partake regardless of whether undo is allowed or not. If it's not allowed, it'll probably sharpen up my worker-planning a bit. If it's allowed, I'll probably use it lightly for worker management/things I forgot about/correcting misclicks, but not for anything crazy like undoing a war.

 

[Dale]

So a little bad news. If any of you tried the recent Test branch you would have found that Redo was borked. That was because of the undo counter. So we've had to remove it again.

Sorry, adding one is going to be a lot harder than you think. Basically, when you undo the counter also changes the game state. Which isn't allowed.

 

[Solver]

With me having killed hopes for an undo counter now, I think the latest version we released this week is a great starting point for a challenge game!

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

I'm chomping at the bit! Been playing the games of the week but it just doesnt have the same gravity or post match discussion.

 

[eddieballgame]

Yes, 'GOTM' type challenge is ideal for Old World.
Everyone competing using the same saved file/start sounds like fun.
Any game settings are fine with me.

 

[pholkhero]

People who want to cheat, can cheat. To make that impossible, or even less easy, would require a lot of changes, it's just not worth it.
Which is why I say Undo should stay. People need to follow the simple guideline of not abusing it for scouting to critical hit testing.

have to agree. if you really need to get those sweet CFC points by cheating in the GOTM, then, some perspective may be in order for you. for the rest of us, i think the "honor" system should work for the most part w/e is decided.

my 2 cents on UNDO is that the Civ gotms have worked fine w/o undo in them, and, though it's part of the game in OW, i think NO or limited undo's is best.

i also like @Jimmy Thunder 's idea of an award for no undo, but prefer "No Regerts" to be the name of the award, or category.

could even have just have 2 categories: one for limited 'undo's' (maybe 10? 5? call them Divine Mulligans) and one for none. ( No Regerts)

 

[Ozbenno]

The plan is to have this kick of 1st September! Watch this space.

As for Undo, I'm leaning towards allowing limited undos for genuine mistakes (as it is part of the game) but not for tactical reasons.