Reminder: Finishing and Submitting Games

[ainwood]

We are making every effort to improve the speed in which GOTM results are processed.

One thing that would really speed things up is for people to submit finished games, rather than saves from the turn before the end.

To do this, please play until you have won (or lost). The game will announce the win / loss, and then cycle through the screens that show you the replay, the top 5 cities, the histograph etc, and then it will return to the map, giving you the option of exiting, or "Lemme play a couple more turns".

Choose the "Lemme play a couple more turns" option, then immediately save the game as your submission.

This will enable us to extract your final win conditions, date and score from the save file, rather than have to load up the file and play the last turn, so will save us a lot of time. It also eliminates the problem we sometimes have where it is difficult to determine exactly how to win the game....


Thanks,

The GOTM Staff Team.

 

[Hammurodi]

Hi,

sorry to say that my gotm25 submission fell afoul of this, but when I clicked "Lemme play a couple more", the game crashed, so I took the save from before. As it was VERY late at night I didn't note any error messages etc... Sorry!

(This was ptw1.27f conquest, and I had done the ottoman leaderhead hot fix (copy the ottoman one to the needed but unused arab one - does this make sense to you?)

But I agree - a save with "I'll win soon" is not quite the same as one with "I have won"

Cheers
Hammurodi

 

[AlanH]

Just to emphasise this point, as a newbie staffer I have just spent four or five hours loading and playing the last turns on twelve GOTM25 games that were submitted at the turn before completion (in one case a couple of turns). It's not rocket science, but it takes a lot of time. Some of the games still require unit moves (I just hit space), and there are sometimes AI requests or demands between turns. And then there's always the fear that something you do may change the roll of the dice compared with the way it was played out by the original player.

So please, let's have a save from the start of the turn after victory/loss. Clearly you can't do so if it crashes, but we need to investigate that case to see if there's something to learn. If there's a problem with your set up then it could affect GOTM26 as well, and not necessarily after the end of the game.

 

[fourknee]

I apologize for sumbmitting my 25 game in the turn prior to victory.

I was just going off the text on the submit page that you can do either and I overlooked the fact that after is preferred. You might want to change the text on the submit page.

For all future games, I will make sure to give the save game after victory turn.

 

[AlanH]

There's no apology necessary. Until Ainwood posted this thread and I was dragged into the padded cell where they keep the staff around here, I was also confused as to which was preferred. I suppose it should have been obvious, but it's now crystal clear to me which, and why

 

[ainwood]

Thanks guys - no need to apologise for submitting an incomplete game - the submission page does say either, and we can handle them. But, as AlanH notes, an incomplete game adds to the workload, and we're just trying to streamline the process.

 

[Dianthus]

Hey ainwood, The Return of the King is only 210 minutes long, so you can't still be at the premiere! Of course, if watching the film over and over lets you carry on holding Liv's hand then I'm sure we can pretend the 2nd, 3rd.... 100th time it still the premiere .

 

[Takeo]

would it be possible for people to still include the save from the turn before in addition to the turn after? the reason is cause the turn after does not let you retire and watch the replay of the whole game like the turn before will. i download games and watch this to see how people developed their empire

 

[Dianthus]

Originally posted by Takeo
would it be possible for people to still include the save from the turn before in addition to the turn after? the reason is cause the turn after does not let you retire and watch the replay of the whole game like the turn before will. i download games and watch this to see how people developed their empire

You can still do this with the turn after games, you just need to use my CRpViewer or ainwood's Alternative Replay Viewer.

 

[ainwood]

Originally posted by Dianthus

You can still do this with the turn after games, you just need to use my CRpViewer or ainwood's Alternative Replay Viewer.

A promo for me!

Note that my viewer doesn't support PTW 1.27f at the moment - just needs recompiling, but I haven't got around to it just yet..

 

[Takeo]

i'll definately have to download both of those, thanks!

 

[Shevek]

Is there any difference in the function of these replay viewers? Is the difference sufficient to make it useful to have both?

Oh, and thanks for clearing up the confusion as to which save to submit. I always had it wrong too. But from now on I know better, of course.

 

[Dianthus]

Originally posted by Shevek
Is there any difference in the function of these replay viewers? Is the difference sufficient to make it useful to have both?

I'll give you my opinion, trying not to be biased .

Both applications allow you to open a .sav file and replay through the event log, textually showing the events and visually showing the territory at each point in time.

ainwoods is less complex, has the event location feature, and should run fine on any machine that can run Civ.

Mine supports PTW 1.27f, has a fancier display (can zoom/scroll and see resources/terrain features), but requires a machine with a reasonable 3D graphics card (works fine on my brother's P2@400Mhz with a Geforce 2 card).

My CRpViewer also allows you to open my .crp file format. I've released .crp files for all GOTM's back to GOTM14. Each .crp file contains all of the .sav information for players that submitted. This allows the CRpViewer to show the 2 games in parallel for comparison purposes.

 

[ainwood]

I'll be even more biased: Use Dianthus' version.


at least until I get conquests & ptw 1.27f support added....

 

[Shevek]

Thanks for the explanation. I will try Dianthus version then and see if my (a bit oldish) compi can handle it. If not I always can se the alternative. Isn't it just great to have choice?

 

[captain chaos]

HI,

I also have often had the problem that the games crashes durring the victoriey screens (occasionally defeat). The error in my case Civ 3 1.29f is caused by missing entries in the pedicon.txt (not sure of spelling ) file. I have been able to repair the file by inserting the necessary entries. You can even point to files of the incorrect race if you do not have the correct files.

 

[ainwood]

Originally posted by captain chaos
HI,

I also have often had the problem that the games crashes durring the victoriey screens (occasionally defeat). The error in my case Civ 3 1.29f is caused by missing entries in the pedicon.txt (not sure of spelling ) file. I have been able to repair the file by inserting the necessary entries. You can even point to files of the incorrect race if you do not have the correct files.

This is a problem that has now been fixed. Downloading the add-on packs again will remedy it for players who have this problem (in fact, is was fixed within a day or so of the download being available, so most shouldn't have it IIRC).

If this happens, just send-in the save from the turn before the end.