That would probably give clues concerning what is and isn't detectable by the GOTM staff to anyone who's thinking of reloading. So probably not a good idea.
Reloading in GOTMs
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That would probably give clues concerning what is and isn't detectable by the GOTM staff to anyone who's thinking of reloading. So probably not a good idea.
JerichoHill
Bedrock of Knowledge
This would be really helpful
The-Hawk
Old Original Geezer
Well done!
Sigh.. this is very disappointing to hear.
Amen! I've been away from GOTM for a couple of months to focus on HOF. However, I would say this message holds true for HOF as well.
To all the staff supporting both GOTM and HOF... keep up the great work...
Meatbuster
formerly Robo Kai
So this means the results of GOTM 10 to WOTM 2 will be coming out soon?
ngraner42
Ultrarunner
The problem with reloading is the same as with steroids in sports. If you allow reloading there will be people who will reload 100's of times to get better die rolls (you can re-sequence events). In order to compete you would be forced to do the same, which is tedious and would take away from enjoyment of the game.
The reality is people cheat and that policing the cheating is what is causing so much headache for the staff and contributing the delay in the results. Regardless of what you do, people will continue to cheat. As this is just an informal game with no substantive awards, for most the cheating centers around what is enjoyable not about some kind of gain.
Rather then fighting the cheating, you can capture 90% of it by having the players self admit to it. This does a couple of things. It saves the work of the staff in checking all the games that have self admitted to it and is more inclusive of the vast majority of players out there who are not used to playing without reloading. There are not that many people who submit games and even fewer now.
By not awarding medals or counting the scores towards life time achievements, you do two things. You give an incentive to people to continue to try to minimize their reloading and im not sure why you would need to check the recordings as you can create a filter that filters out all the marked games and make it the default method for listing, thus making it totally invisible to anyone who plays without reloading.
Regardless, bravo to those that did it without reloading, you have my respect.
Rather then fighting the cheating, you can capture 90% of it by having the players self admit to it. This does a couple of things. It saves the work of the staff in checking all the games that have self admitted to it and is more inclusive of the vast majority of players out there who are not used to playing without reloading. There are not that many people who submit games and even fewer now.
By not awarding medals or counting the scores towards life time achievements, you do two things. You give an incentive to people to continue to try to minimize their reloading and im not sure why you would need to check the recordings as you can create a filter that filters out all the marked games and make it the default method for listing, thus making it totally invisible to anyone who plays without reloading.
Regardless, bravo to those that did it without reloading, you have my respect.
Please tell me what we should do with a submission that's been reloaded? If we rank such entries we are implying we can compare them. In what way are they comparable? You seem to be asking us to provide a reward system for the best Civ cheats! 
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No - it means that the results of GOTM 11, GOTM 12, WOTM 01 and WOTM 02 will be coming out soon!
Reloading doesn't seem such a big deal and I'm fairly certain that most of the people here at one point or another reloaded a game (any game) for any number of reasons... That is all good and fine when playing for your own enjoyment but when said game is competitive (such as GOTM) and there are some pretty clear rules set for the would-be contestants (such as no reloading) then you cannot set said rules aside and still compete without being guilty of cheating. Furthermore, while results achieved while cheating can be compared to other results not involving cheating you cannot derive anything generally useful from said comparison.
For the competition to remain fair and equal for all contestants then obviously everyone has to play by the same rules. Those rules, however, could be changed to allow or disallow any number of things including reloading as is the topic here. That is a process that both the GOTM Staff and the players are responsible for.
Without blowing this way out of proportion though I'll recommend the following: Play the game by the given rules and submit it by those same rules. Then play the game again any way you like and for as much as you like. You are very much allowed to do that I'm sure. I haven't been around here for long but I've seen several people post about their second and third and Nth attempts at a given game and that's perfectly alright, those attempts just aren't eligible for comparison under the rules.
Play for fun and keep playing for fun! Over and out!
For the competition to remain fair and equal for all contestants then obviously everyone has to play by the same rules. Those rules, however, could be changed to allow or disallow any number of things including reloading as is the topic here. That is a process that both the GOTM Staff and the players are responsible for.
Without blowing this way out of proportion though I'll recommend the following: Play the game by the given rules and submit it by those same rules. Then play the game again any way you like and for as much as you like. You are very much allowed to do that I'm sure. I haven't been around here for long but I've seen several people post about their second and third and Nth attempts at a given game and that's perfectly alright, those attempts just aren't eligible for comparison under the rules.
Play for fun and keep playing for fun! Over and out!
da_Vinci
Gypsy Prince
da_Vinci
Gypsy Prince
If playing without reloading is not enjoyable, then by all means reload, just don't expect to be able to submit it to the competition.
The competition is intended to allow you to compare your skills at the game to other players. Bad breaks, and "oops I shouldn't have" mistakes are part of the game and of your skill. So when you reload, it is not really your skill at the game on display. I don't see what value reloaders get from seeing their tainted game in a ranking list. Do they really believe the illusion that such a ranking creates?
There is already a way to mark your reloaded game, it is called not submitting !! None of us care to see a tainted game submitted and listed. Comparing a tainted game to the rest of the field only has value to the player of that game, so just don't submit, and just compare the tainted game to the list in the privacy of home or office.
In theory, cheating could range from reloading once to reloading every turn, to playing the game twice and submitting the second one, etc. Why should those who want to play an honest game have such play cluttering up the scoring list? And how does ranking cheating games separately have any meaning?
Lenin once said "better fewer, but better" If fewer submissions is the price of fair games, I'm willing to pay it.
I don't get the implication that somehow people are powerless not to reload. Just don't do it. It's not tobacco, alcohol, or cocaine. And if people can't resist reloading, then just don't submit. It's that simple. End of discussion.
dV
Yup, we only had 5 seconds before ... Nah! GOTM10 results are coming out as well!
@Mythinite: very well said! Honestly folks, what is so difficult about playing the game, turn by turn, until it ends, and submit your first, untarnished result. Then, if you feel like doing it, play it again, or play the difficult parts with different strategies to see what works. Post in the spoilers about how you solved that difficult problem, and what you learned. Completely legitimate, you get to participate in the main competition AND improve your game result.
And, what can be said about someone who reloads to improve their result as it is occurring, and submits that game when this other option is available to them? It seems clear to me that they are more concerned with Score and Ranking, to their advantage, then in participating in a level competition. If it were purely the desire to improve their game position by reloading, they could do so, see their final result, and NOT submit.
@Staffa: there are players who do this already, who PM the GOTM moderators to say they reloaded and to exclude their game. I applaud their honesty and decision to abide by the GOTM rules. Unfortunately, there are players who don't, and any option to self-admit would likely be ignored by them.
I know there's a lot of new and inexperienced players who feel overwhelmed; the desire to reload and correct some mistakes or fix a situation is probably really powerful. I urge you to either finish your first attempt and submit it, then go back to see what you can do better (like Mythinite suggested), or go ahead and reload, try to do better, but don't submit.
(edit - crossposted with daVinci )
@Mythinite: very well said!
Honestly folks, what is so difficult about playing the game, turn by turn, until it ends, and submit your first, untarnished result. Then, if you feel like doing it, play it again, or play the difficult parts with different strategies to see what works. Post in the spoilers about how you solved that difficult problem, and what you learned. Completely legitimate, you get to participate in the main competition AND improve your game result.And, what can be said about someone who reloads to improve their result as it is occurring, and submits that game when this other option is available to them? It seems clear to me that they are more concerned with Score and Ranking, to their advantage, then in participating in a level competition. If it were purely the desire to improve their game position by reloading, they could do so, see their final result, and NOT submit.
@Staffa: there are players who do this already, who PM the GOTM moderators to say they reloaded and to exclude their game. I applaud their honesty and decision to abide by the GOTM rules. Unfortunately, there are players who don't, and any option to self-admit would likely be ignored by them.
I know there's a lot of new and inexperienced players who feel overwhelmed; the desire to reload and correct some mistakes or fix a situation is probably really powerful. I urge you to either finish your first attempt and submit it, then go back to see what you can do better (like Mythinite suggested), or go ahead and reload, try to do better, but don't submit.
(edit - crossposted with daVinci
)
Regardless, bravo to those that did it without reloading, you have my respect.
Ummm, thanks, but it really isn't all that difficult to do it without reloading.
lroumen
Warlord
Hmm... silly question (with first an explanation).
My computer is a dead-right sub-recommended one and on large maps I often end up with out-of-memory errors. Standard size maps are just about everything I can handle right now, but even those end up with out-of-memory errors if I play for too long at a time.
I have noticed that with hotseat and non-GOTM games the auto-save sometimes becomes corrupt, especially when my memory runs out and I Crash to Desktop. To circumvent these problems I save manually very often (sometimes almost every turn when the computer starts to slow down). When it really goes slow I CtD and have to restart the computer, or I just restart my computer just to be certain.
GOTM9 I even didn't make it to the end because the game became too slow and I retired.
Because of the way I save and restart so often, it may seem from my replays that I reload far too often in my games. After a CtD I also do not continue from my auto-saves because I simply do not trust them to be non-corrupted. I do replay every turn exactly as done before I CtD, but when I CtD very often in a short timespan and restart/reload the last save it may seem like I'm reloading with prior knowledge of the events ahead....
Is this type of gaming allowed? I would say yes, because I replay every turn exactly as I've done before, but I would like to know the official stance on this.
On the bright side of things, I've recently acquired a laptop which meets the requirements of the game so I can play more constant now.
My computer is a dead-right sub-recommended one and on large maps I often end up with out-of-memory errors. Standard size maps are just about everything I can handle right now, but even those end up with out-of-memory errors if I play for too long at a time.
I have noticed that with hotseat and non-GOTM games the auto-save sometimes becomes corrupt, especially when my memory runs out and I Crash to Desktop. To circumvent these problems I save manually very often (sometimes almost every turn when the computer starts to slow down). When it really goes slow I CtD and have to restart the computer, or I just restart my computer just to be certain.
GOTM9 I even didn't make it to the end because the game became too slow and I retired.
Because of the way I save and restart so often, it may seem from my replays that I reload far too often in my games. After a CtD I also do not continue from my auto-saves because I simply do not trust them to be non-corrupted. I do replay every turn exactly as done before I CtD, but when I CtD very often in a short timespan and restart/reload the last save it may seem like I'm reloading with prior knowledge of the events ahead....
Is this type of gaming allowed? I would say yes, because I replay every turn exactly as I've done before, but I would like to know the official stance on this.
On the bright side of things, I've recently acquired a laptop which meets the requirements of the game so I can play more constant now.
JerichoHill
Bedrock of Knowledge
Iroumen, you're not alone in that problem. I have no doubt that I got pegged in a GOTMs a ways ago for that very reason.
I did the same thing you did, and got myself a new laptop and those problems no longer affect me. I DQ'ed myself from the last GOTM because of a bone-headed move on my part which necessiatated a re-load.
When I had those problems, I was told that if it happened, do your best to reload from the last autosave you can and do exactly what you did prior, until you get to that point. But since it happened frequently...meh, bad computer.
I think that the posting of how to edit your .ini file to autosave every turn was a really good idea. I've done that now too, and I think that will help out.
As a compromise idea/solution, would it be possible to include in your submission code an option to check a box if you reloaded? This code, if marked, would allow submission of the game but would not rank the game according to score. IE. You'd have GOTM submissions that were not market and not pinged for reloading appear first by score, and then after the last non-reloaded game, the other games... Some way of record keeping would be nice for us still somewhat novice players
I did the same thing you did, and got myself a new laptop and those problems no longer affect me. I DQ'ed myself from the last GOTM because of a bone-headed move on my part which necessiatated a re-load.
When I had those problems, I was told that if it happened, do your best to reload from the last autosave you can and do exactly what you did prior, until you get to that point. But since it happened frequently...meh, bad computer.
I think that the posting of how to edit your .ini file to autosave every turn was a really good idea. I've done that now too, and I think that will help out.
As a compromise idea/solution, would it be possible to include in your submission code an option to check a box if you reloaded? This code, if marked, would allow submission of the game but would not rank the game according to score. IE. You'd have GOTM submissions that were not market and not pinged for reloading appear first by score, and then after the last non-reloaded game, the other games... Some way of record keeping would be nice for us still somewhat novice players
DaviddesJ
Deity
You could probably add enough memory to run the game properly, for less than the cost of the game itself....
lroumen
Warlord
It's a 6 year old computer, spending money on it is a waste. I acquired a laptop from work so for the moment I'm covered, but at times when my laptop is busy doing hard-time calculations I'm going to have to play on my old one again. Hence I'm asking if I can continue to play on my old computer with the said tactics.
DaviddesJ
Deity
Ribannah
Fighter Druid
My 5-year old computer is borderline. 
I get the same memory problems but only after a longish session, and I can see it coming so I save and restart from that save. However, I am also occasionally plagued by an overheated video card and that can cause the game to die.
I get the same memory problems but only after a longish session, and I can see it coming so I save and restart from that save. However, I am also occasionally plagued by an overheated video card and that can cause the game to die.
Transparancy works the best. Police cars out in the open are best at controlling driver speed; police cars hiding are best for writing tickets. What is the goal here? More tickets or less speeders? Publish all results, symbols next to games for "tampered" game files. Allow readers to draw own conclusions. Serves to be: less work for mods, everyone sees everything, no feelings hurt or accusations made. All problem solved.
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