Poll: Preferred xOTM speed?

[da_Vinci]

EDIT: @da Vinci: How about just asking people to give their preferred percentage for each speed, considering that we're a community that would like to pelase everyone, at least occasionally? That way we'll also know how many people here can add up to 100%, among other things...

That is actually the next level up from ranking each speed in order of preference ... stating the prefered frequency of that speed. Does the CFC poll system allow for this type of response?

If not, then if this is important enough, one could have a thread where players post preferred % of games that are each speed, someone could enter that into a spreadsheet, and the mean and median proportions for each game speed could be easily determined.

I still wonder if marathon or quick is so unfavored by a meaningful part of the GOTM community that those speeds would dramatically cut participation for those games. As I said before, that is a different poll question.

dV

 

[JackOfClubs]

Well, you have to be careful not to get so detailed that people don't know how to answer. I chose Normal in this poll, but I don't mind Epic occasionally. I really don't like either Quick or Marthon, but I could probably force myself to play if there were something else interesting in the specs. But I have no idea what percentage I would choose if the poll were asking that. Maybe a 5-point scale (Strongly Agree - Strongly Disagree) for each speed might be useful, but is that even possible on these polls?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

EDIT: @da Vinci: How about just asking people to give their preferred percentage for each speed, considering that we're a community that would like to pelase everyone, at least occasionally? That way we'll also know how many people here can add up to 100%, among other things...

Definitely some good ideas for what a poll could be like if we wanted one, but I fear not only that the situation is more complex than almost any poll will give, but that trying to arrange GOTMs too much by polls in the way that this thread is suggesting will backfire. As an example of why, here's a couple of my own preferences:

• Before I started playing GOTMs, I only ever played on normal speed. Those games took long enough for me to rarely finish them, so why would I want to try epic? If a poll had happened then, I'd have voted for normal speed only. Ever. It's the fact that entering GOTMs forced me (at the time, with some reluctance) to try epic that made me realize that (for me) epic is actually more fun and feels better balanced than normal.
• Thanks to my experience of GOTMs, I now like surprises. I like the idea that when I'm opening a GOTM, it may well contain some feature in the map or the options that it would never have occurred to me to play with, but which will throw up some interesting game twists. Sometimes those features work well, sometimes they don't. For example, I've learned through the GOTMs that I like always war and fantasy-realm maps, but I don't like highlands maps at all, and that going for domination on a water-based map is a big mistake if you don't have a spare month to hand , but I'm not complaining about having been given the chance to try those out.

ISTM that if you start trying to set games on the basis that, eg. X% of the community wants option Y so therefore we'll use option Y X% of the time, then you're going to lose that element of surprise, of the unknown, and the GOTMs will be poorer for that. People will start calculating what the settings for the next game will have to be, based on what hasn't showed up for sufficiently long that the %'s require it... I rather doubt that's really what many in the community would want.

 

[Underdawg]

To those who report that their normal speed games take quite a bit of time:

How many hours does it take you to finish a normal speed game?

Is it because of the nature of your hardware specs? Or do you just take long amounts of time taking turns?

 

[JungleIII]

I prefer:
80% Epic
20% Normal

My two bob...

 

[da_Vinci]

I prefer:
80% Epic
20% Normal

My two bob...

OK, so far, the mean, median and mode results are:

Marathon 0% all three statistics
Epic 80% all three statistics
Normal 20% all three statistics
Quick 0% all three statistics



dV

 

[ngraner42]

I agree 80% Epic, 20% Normal, a sprinkling of the others.

No change to the statistics.

 

[da_Vinci]

I agree 80% Epic, 20% Normal, a sprinkling of the others.

No change to the statistics.

Well, to account for "sprinkling" we need something like 5% Marathon, 75% Epic, 15% Normal, 5% Quick in the stats ...

5% is still only one every 20 months within a version (assuming once a month per version continues).

Maybe 7/12 Epic 3/12 normal, 1/12 marathon, 1/12 quick?

dV

 

[BLubmuz]

I like Epic and Marathon.
The RL time involved drastically changes not for speed, but for the map settings: standard/huge or high/low water (where possible).

To be clear: a Marathon game on a standard/high water map is far shorter than a Normal game on a Large/low water map.
Useless to say also for map of the same size, a Great Plains/Oasis takes much longer than a continent/pangea.

Also, if you fight lot of wars influences the RL time needed, so another variant is between a peaceful and a warmogering game.

Someone can say this is not true, because at any speed he MM everything any turn, but i don't think the majority of players do so (not me, at least).

 

[oyzar]

i would go wih 10% epic 90% normal.. Also with any amount of micromanagement it takes alot more time on the slower gamespeeds.

 

[Niklas]

Definitely some good ideas for what a poll could be like if we wanted one, but I fear not only that the situation is more complex than almost any poll will give, but that trying to arrange GOTMs too much by polls in the way that this thread is suggesting will backfire. As an example of why, here's a couple of my own preferences:

• Before I started playing GOTMs, I only ever played on normal speed. Those games took long enough for me to rarely finish them, so why would I want to try epic? If a poll had happened then, I'd have voted for normal speed only. Ever. It's the fact that entering GOTMs forced me (at the time, with some reluctance) to try epic that made me realize that (for me) epic is actually more fun and feels better balanced than normal.
• Thanks to my experience of GOTMs, I now like surprises. I like the idea that when I'm opening a GOTM, it may well contain some feature in the map or the options that it would never have occurred to me to play with, but which will throw up some interesting game twists. Sometimes those features work well, sometimes they don't. For example, I've learned through the GOTMs that I like always war and fantasy-realm maps, but I don't like highlands maps at all, and that going for domination on a water-based map is a big mistake if you don't have a spare month to hand , but I'm not complaining about having been given the chance to try those out.

ISTM that if you start trying to set games on the basis that, eg. X% of the community wants option Y so therefore we'll use option Y X% of the time, then you're going to lose that element of surprise, of the unknown, and the GOTMs will be poorer for that. People will start calculating what the settings for the next game will have to be, based on what hasn't showed up for sufficiently long that the %'s require it... I rather doubt that's really what many in the community would want.

I couldn't have said it better myself, so I won't try. So my vote is to follow DynamicSpirit's thinking 100%, and other ideas 0%. How does that affect your median?

 

[da_Vinci]

I couldn't have said it better myself, so I won't try. So my vote is to follow DynamicSpirit's thinking 100%, and other ideas 0%. How does that affect your median?

Fatally, I think, since your vote is to stop voting! There goes my job security

dV

 

[Thrallia]

I don't think you need to worry about being put out of your job as GOTM pedantic poster

 

[civ_steve]

I voted Normal - maybe I'll be able to submit more games!

Variety is probably better, howerver.