Organizing 2020 End of Year Competitions

[Quintillus]

With recent reflections on the fact that this year will be Civ III's 20th anniversary, as well as on our late comrade Balthasar, I've been thinking about his legacy and specifically the monthly, yearly, and decade-ly competitions a fair amount this month (see also my post in the Annivesary sub-forum about starting to organize a new decade award competition for this fall).

It appears that the yearly awards fell off the radar after 2016, and the monthly ones in early 2017. We'd run into some challenges with not always having enough new material for monthly competitions, and as the annual awards were based on the monthly ones, they both dried up once the monthly ones did.

However, taking a quick stock of the forums and Downloads Database, I think we have enough material for an annual awards competition for 2020, across several categories including Unit of the Year, Leaderhead of the Year, PCX of the Year, and Scenario of the Year. In fact, in Unit of the Year, we have hundreds of new units, with @Delta_Strife having had a very productive year.

I'd be willing to take the lead on organizing some year-end competitions, though in some categories I'd seek additional input on which entries to include as contestants. In any case, one of the main goals would be to elevate the visibility of creations that may not have become known to those who don't visit every sub-forum (myself included).

I will be making one executive decision on a change of format. As many categories have fewer than 25 entries, I will likely be including all new entries in several of the categories, such as Leaderhead of the Year, rather than requesting entries be submitted via dormant Monthly Competition Submissions Thread. The exception being Unit of the Year, where some assistance will be needed in narrowing down the candidates. My current thinking is to request that Delta Strife select one unit per month (or one per quarter, if he prefers) to include in the competition, and depending on the number of other units either including all of them, or asking their creators to similarly select one per month or quarter to include. Failing that, I'd likely ask for the forum members at large to nominate units for the competition.

Thoughts? Nominations? Requests to retroactively have 2017 through 2019 competitions as well?

 

[Kyriakos]

Yay! I advise (since there was a long pause) to allow creators to also nominate their own work.
Though I am not sure if nominating more than one creation (in a category) by the same creator will make sense (I was always against it, but it's something you can think about ).
I would be very happy to see the contests return and I think you are the best person to do it!

Having 2017-2019 contests would also be cool, why not? Maybe one contest (with subcategories) for 2020 and one for (all) the rest?

(wait - for some reason I thought I had made my latest cities in 2020 Turns out they are from 2018. So yeah, like i said , maybe one contest for 2017-2020)

 

[Civinator]

Sorry, but I never was a friend of this kind of competition. It only discriminates all those modders, who have invested a lot of time and genius, too and who are disqualified, that their work is inferior to the work of others.

 

[Nathiri]

Sorry, but I never was a friend of this kind of competition. It only discriminates all those modders, who have invested a lot of time and genius, too and who are disqualified, that their work is inferior to the work of others.

I wouldnt think of it in this way. Its more to attract attention to the modding scene as a whole, then secondarily to a specific modder for people to look at in the future. Oftentimes its hard to choose between different units or leaderheads anyway. What a End of Year Competition does is it drives traffic and people start to have conversations. What is happening with civ3? Oh, this was made and that etc. It's important to actually have a few starting mods/graphics in order to have something for someone to think of when having those conversations. With the sheer amount of mods available, it is definitely hard to narrow it down to just a few. The goal is just to show there is action in this forum and the game is not dead.

 

[register]

Sorry, but I never was a friend of this kind of competition. It only discriminates all those modders, who have invested a lot of time and genius, too and who are disqualified, that their work is inferior to the work of others.

That's concept reversal. You could say something like that about anything, like sport competition for instance. Everyone who lost the race and did not qualify to stand on podium is discriminated.

 

[Kyriakos]

Contests are fun, imo

Besides, by now there are so few of us, that it doesn't matter. The winning option will probably get 3 votes

 

[Vuldacon]

An Honorable Listing of All Artists and their Work in All Categories with the Winners could at least acknowledge All Contributing Members.

I basically agree with Civinator in that we do not want to discriminate against the work and contributions of other Members but rather show respect for All Members and their Contributions... that said, just because someone Wins a contest does not mean all others are inferior but rather that the Winners received more votes for many different reasons.

It is true that Contests are a good way to gain attention and promote collective areas of interests.

I agree that Artists who have Many creations in a category could select what they want to represent their contributions. As before there could also be a Winner of the Most Contributions in a Category.

If there is doubt about having contests, perhaps a Vote could be set up to see how many are in favor of or against contests here.

 

[Civinator]

Please count me out of all of this.

 

[Kyriakos]

Please count me out of all of this.

Come on! It's all for fun. It's not like anyone advertises how many times he won.

 

[Quintillus]

I think it's important to respect anyone's wishes to not participate.

At the same time, I also agree with what Kyriakos, Vuldacon, Nathiri, and register have said about the main point being showing the activity of the forum, and it being beneficial to the overall health of the forum.

I've also been on the "losing" side of a contest, with my scenario editor being tied for the least votes in the "Utility of the Decade Award". I agree with Vuldacon that there are many reasons for votes... personal interests, previous familiarity with a mod/graphic/etc., impressions made by a two-minute skim of an entry's CFC thread. I look at it as an opportunity for interest to grow in a creation that was never created for the sake of winning an award in the first place (which I hope is the case for nearly if not all creations at CFC).

With the current feedback (and most of it positive), I think my plan will be to go ahead and start curating the 2020 contests, reaching out to those who have creations ahead of time and giving them a couple days to opt out if they prefer. I'm still pondering what the right balance point is for multiple creations; as I recall in the past there typically (?) was a limit of one per creator per month, but at the end of the year there could be multiple entries from a creator if their works won the monthly contests in multiple months. I'm leaning towards something that would approximate that, but will have to look at the number of creations per creator in the unit category to have a better idea of what is reasonable.

With potential decade awards coming up, I don't want to have yearly ones that cover all of the last 4 years. That said, I also don't know how much work curating the 2020 contest will be, so my current thinking is to get the ball rolling for 2020, and afterwards examine whether a grouped 2017-2019, or individual ones for those years would make sense. That would of course also depend on participation and feedback from 2020; if the most popular contest really does only get 3 votes, it might be a bit silly to also go back for each of the three prior years .

 

[Kyriakos]

I guess I can participate in 2020 with my modest militia camp graphic

 

[Ozymandias]

A suggestion: don't make it a competition, at all. Find some way (and I'll certainly give it some thought) to make it an "honor role," perhaps simply listing mods, all graphic types, etc., in order of the number of downloads each have had, perhaps stopping at 10. And highlighting them in some (admittedly, in some as yet unthought of way) to draw attention to this community.

I believe that our C&C community remains the degree of vibrancy that it does, because Civ3 has an entirely different appeal then Civs 4 ar15 through 6. I gagged on Civ 4, and glanced at 5 and 6 with some degree of horror.
I remember the glee which attended waiting for Civ3, with the assumption that it would be a much improved iteration of Civ2 ( ). I believe that Civ3 - especially as improved upon by (at random) @Civinator, @Quintillus, and @Vuldacon - is, ironically perhaps, overall "best of breed."

So let's celebrate it by highlighting it, along with some of the magnificent graphics which (again, randomly, just off the top of my head) @Delta_Strife, @Kyriakos, @ronning - and MANY others - have provided, and how much more wonderful the understanding of the game's mechanics - and utilizing them brilliantly (once again, off the top of my head) @Quintillus and @Civinator have made game play..

Just a thought.

- Oz

 

[Vuldacon]

Ozy... Now that you mention "Highlighting" Civ3 Works and Members as a sort of "Honor Roll", rather than a Contest, that could be a Good way to go. It would at least avoid the "Winner/Loser" results of a contest.

...and the Best Way to Do This is?

 

[Kyriakos]

I mean, you can have a contest, just with no winners? (ie don't update the contest winners thread)
I think that just posting the stuff won't lead to any discussion, really (?)

I am not against the idea, and anyway if I won I'd donate my winnings to charity