SGOTM 11 - Phoenix Rising

[kossin]

Hey Kos - Congrats on your victory. This was a fun game. Wish we had some like you...or you

GB and chatted on EC the other day. It would be nice to get that going. I suggested the possibility of maybe upgrading to an Immortal Cookbook with our favorite evil mapmaker.

Oh c'mon! Besides the harder version of the WK game [and maybe that Gandhi one, but it turned out easy in the end!] I made on Gumbolt's request , I've been less evil than Soirana (Shaka game, anyone?).

The way I see it, there are a few options:
-Emperor College/University (not a cookbook)

Any games can be used for this, with suggested (not mandatory, but greatly useful usually) report dates. Games can be fairly easy and diverse and rather frequent as there's no need to wait for voting plus you don't get to play from the "best save". Either you allow players to play as much they want right away or open up the new rounds after a few days (or on given days... say you open the game on every Saturday/Sunday, then on Monday/Tuesday round 2 opens, Wednesday/Thursday round 3 and Friday/Saturday the final round.​

-Emperor Cookbook

Same format as before. The challenge here is to keep the games interesting because the voting round tends to make the game easier. As well, you don't want the game to be too hard (see WK Cookbook, hard version). Takes a bit longer on the mapmaker as he needs to tweak the map more and try it out a few times.​

-Immortal Cookbook

Similar to a Emperor College/University, the map used can be easy/diverse as the inherent AI bonuses make up for the easier approach format. Might or might not scare some players away [not too sure what's the level of active players on Strategy&Players recently as I haven't been too active over there]. Might lure in stronger players too due to Immortal difficulty.​

Epic vs Normal speed

Doesn't matter to me really. I know Gumbolt favors Epic, as he a warmongering beast, but otherwise Normal is as usual the more balanced speed... it teaches you quite a few things on how to play efficiently since mistakes have a bigger impact.​

 

[lymond]

Here's my take....I like the Cookbook style mainly because there is not much like it. I don't think the endgame is as important with the EC (or IC) as the overall process is, although I've suggested ways of trying to make the end game more attractive for folks.

We have several series named on a Difficulty and just posting a save and basically letting folks play. The approaches are all different. TMIT will come on an finish the game in like 15 minutes ( ) while some might post several times and report their progress along the way. It's still fun and educational but there's not a lot of rhyme and reason to it. Noble's Club is the about the only thing going. I tried your DU but it didn't seem to get much interest.

I like the Cookbook style because it requires folks to be focused on specific targets that we can then analyze. It requires everyone participating to stop and look at what's going on - evaluate the situation. The voting can sometimes be a little tedious granted. These are my suggestions:

1) I like the 4 round format. Possibly make the round so that the date of the final "voting" round ends at a point well before any victory would be achievable. At that point a final save is chosen and, given the situation, a target VC is picked. Everyone then plays to the end and posts their saves and reports. The best victories can be announce - adding a little GOTM flavor to it. This plays into the next point:

2) Have a panel of experts such as Kos, TMIT evaluate each voting round. Only one needed for each round. In other words, take the vote out of the equation and let an expert decide which is the best save to continue with and explain why.(this is how folks learn) As in the normal spirit of the EC, it doesn't have to be the best save in terms of score/dominance/whatever, but rather the save that may prove the most interesting.

3) The reason for point two is that I think the vote process often fails due to the inexperience of newer players in evaluating saves at a given point and all the factors that go into. This has been a failing of the EC even though the format is still very good. For instance, newer players may not recognize when a better player has rexed and set up the empire for success in the long run.

As far as Speeds, I think there is a simple answer. Just alternate Normal and Epic every other turn. I'm more of an Epic player myself generally but have been trying to play more Normal lately to get used to it, since I play a lot of GOTMs.

By the way, Kos, why don't you ever play the GOTMs.?

 

[vranasm]

Cookbook is best, since posting WB save with people playing along is not sufficient for comparision. And I think there is enough of WB saves threads. NC Club being the most known.

Alternating voting could be interesting, if you really want to step-up to Immortal from Emperor (gumbolt+lymond) I am fine with it, but then it should be done Monarch Cookbook to complement it a bit, I have a feeling there is a lot of people on s&t on monarch-emperor diff, maybe run 1 test to see if there is interest?

Problem with alternate voting is that somebody who doesnt play the game has to invest the time to read through, let's say 10 saves and make notes etc. etc. Does he will have the willpower to do it? And dont forget in 2 months probably most people will at least try CiV and maybe sooner because demo is on the way...

If the series would be Monarch+Immortal, I think Gumbolt or you lymond can safely do the voting on Monarch since you certainly are guarantee of quality voting on that level.

 

[lymond]

V reminded that I meant to speak to the strat forum. While overall the strat forum seem less active the usual - I would think CIV5 and the succession game had something to do with that - I have seen a surprising influx of newer players recently as well as some that have been around a little longer. I think there are still plenty of folks around that would be interested in this game.

Speaking to CIV5, at least for myself, I will probably buy it first thing and tool around with it. However, I've invested a lot of time into CIV4 and expect to play it for a long time. CIV3 went strong for many years after CIV4 release and still has GOTMs here. I don't expect everyone to just throw CIV4 in the trash bin although there may be a bit of a down period at the release of CIV5 just for the newness. CIV4 is a great game with excellent visuals that will hold up for a long time. I actually bought CIVIII a while after CIV4 just to try it out and really struggled with the visual aspect - just couldn't get into it. Probably would have loved it 10 years ago but graphics have just come so far now. Although CIV5 appears to look great, I don't think it's a major difference between 4 and 5 as that seen with 3 and 4 - which is a very huge difference IMO.

Anywhoo, a Monarch Cookbook in addition to an Immortal Cookbook may be a good idea. I might be willing to administer the Monarch one while playing the IC. The bottom line though is that there really aren't any high level learner games out there. One thought here is that IC and MC could share the same exact map. The map maker could save the base map as WB and convert them to an Imm and MC save. The series would run separate but the MC players could look at the IC results to see how those player performed. It would simultaneously cater to those wishing to reach the intermediate and difficult levels.

V - also keep in mind that cookbooks are geared to folks trying to achieve the next level. So say being an Emperor player is not required. I was not an Emperor player when I first start playing.

 

[vranasm]

V reminded that I meant to speak to the strat forum. While overall the strat forum seem less active the usual - I would think CIV5 and the succession game had something to do with that - I have seen a surprising influx of newer players recently as well as some that have been around a little longer. I think there are still plenty of folks around that would be interested in this game.

you should not be that surprised with the influx of players...in last 6 months there was big sellout of CIV Complete Edition...Even I got it that way after reviving from history...at first I tried it 5 years ago and forget it for 5 years...

I fully understand that Cookbooks are not intended for flexing. Will see if you make only Emperor I will participate, if you make MC+IC I will try probably both, but in MC->IC order to not have advantage in MC through IC, because I like your thinking with sharing maps ;-). And there can always be rule for ruling out too good saves from clearly too advanced players.

 

[kossin]

By the way, Kos, why don't you ever play the GOTMs.?

Several reasons, but mainly time constraint. Playing SGOTM11 meant I had fewer time for the DR series for instance. Playing xotms would further reduce my free time on civ.

 

[Gumbolt]

Doesn't matter to me really. I know Gumbolt favors Epic, as he a warmongering beast, but otherwise Normal is as usual the more balanced speed... it teaches you quite a few things on how to play efficiently since mistakes have a bigger impact.​

There is nothing wrong with war mongering. I just like bashing the Ai early. An early rush in the right place can make emperor level a bit easier.

I think doing emperor cookbook on Immortal will balance it back to an emperor cookbook. Why make a save tougher if we play from the best save. I don't think there is a huge jump from emp to immortal level. From what I can see most player can still grab liberalism.

@ Lymond I think a 4 voting round would be more ideal. I think most games can be won by round 2-3 anyway. Rounds past 1300ad seem rather trivial and time consuming. You can always add a round if there is real interest.

Not sure on the expert panel. You might end up playing rounds from the same player. It would avoid playing a Chinese save where some fool rushed the English without a plan on how to make peace. lol

Inexperience in voting can be sorted by the person running game over ruling a save. Again sometimes a tough save can be good for new players. No one wants to walk a game from start to finish.

Theres no reason why we can't run a monarch and a immortal one at same time.

I liked my other idea. Doing a series where players play up to 1ad. As most players struggle with the start. The start defines a game really.

 

[kossin]

There is nothing wrong with war mongering. I just like bashing the Ai early. An early rush in the right place can make emperor level a bit easier.
For certain. However, I think most players can figure out how to properly run a war/rush + recovery by themselves (having TMIT videos available is a boost here).
But learning to manage an empire for commerce, GPP etc.. is another thing entirely and requires more practice.

I think doing emperor cookbook on Immortal will balance it back to an emperor cookbook. Why make a save tougher if we play from the best save. I don't think there is a huge jump from emp to immortal level. From what I can see most player can still grab liberalism.
Agree. Especially in a cookbook format, the selected save is usually strong enough to allow most players to win the game after a round or two has been played.

@ Lymond I think a 4 voting round would be more ideal. I think most games can be won by round 2-3 anyway. Rounds past 1300ad seem rather trivial and time consuming. You can always add a round if there is real interest.

Not sure on the expert panel. You might end up playing rounds from the same player. It would avoid playing a Chinese save where some fool rushed the English without a plan on how to make peace. lol
Well, it can be nice and encouraging to have so-called experts chime in but it's really time-consuming. Just looking through 20ish first rounds can take a good hour to fully examine the saves (check the turn-by-turn log is long but you get the most info there) and then some more time to write what you found.

Inexperience in voting can be sorted by the person running game over ruling a save. Again sometimes a tough save can be good for new players. No one wants to walk a game from start to finish.
Agree again.

Theres no reason why we can't run a monarch and a immortal one at same time.
Two series is easy to do, map usage depends on the want. I'm not sure using the same map on Immortal and Monarch would always be best as on Monarch you can get away with things you can't on Immortal.

I liked my other idea. Doing a series where players play up to 1ad. As most players struggle with the start. The start defines a game really.
I've been thinking about that for a long time but never got around to do more than that. Up to 1AD with suggested checkpoints (t50 = 2000BC, t100 = 375BC - for normal speed, not sure about Epic). Since it's fairly quick to play through that date, a lot of games can be made in a short time of span.

And then add the disclaimer:
-bonus points if you prove you can win

Answers in bold.

 

[lymond]

I agree with most of what yall have discussed. I think the 1AD idea could be another series or occasional 1-off games. I still like the idea of the cookbook taking us further into the game.

I also like idea I mentioned - which I don't think received a response - of making the end game more interesting. Whether voting stops at a round 3 or 4, the administrator makes a decision on a common VC to achieve - or it can be voted by the group - and then everyone tries to go after it. I think the discussion around the VC would be interesting an educational.

 

[Kadazzle]

To elaborate on your idea, lymond, how about the person running the game chooses what victory everyone tries to achieve at the start of the game? For example, Gumbolt would make/load a map, look at it, see what victorys can be achieved and post saying everyone must try to achieve a Conquest victory. This way, it is much easier for everyone to get a grip on who has the best save, or who is in the best position as everyone will be trying to reach the same victory condition.

Obviously this removes some freedom for playing the game, but it's just an idea.

 

[Duckweed]

Several reasons, but mainly time constraint. Playing SGOTM11 meant I had fewer time for the DR series for instance. Playing xotms would further reduce my free time on civ.

You should try to play some xotms, many of those games had a good design and were fun. Trying for different VC also let you learn something new. My primary goal to participate BOTMs was to be better prepared for SGOTM11 and it paid off.

 

[kossin]

You should try to play some xotms, many of those games had a good design and were fun. Trying for different VC also let you learn something new. My primary goal to participate BOTMs was to be better prepared for SGOTM11 and it paid off.

I guess I play more for fun than for competition. Finishing first in the SGOTM wasn't a goal for me, I wanted more to 'compete against myself'.

I understand there are plenty of things to learn from xotms but in my situation it's either that or DR atm. For the moment I'd rather finish DR but this SGOTM has opened up my mind on deep-research focus and whipping a lot more than I usually do.

 

[Gumbolt]

I guess I play more for fun than for competition. Finishing first in the SGOTM wasn't a goal for me, I wanted more to 'compete against myself'.

I understand there are plenty of things to learn from xotms but in my situation it's either that or DR atm. For the moment I'd rather finish DR but this SGOTM has opened up my mind on deep-research focus and whipping a lot more than I usually do.

@ Kossin - Fancy doing an immortal map for a cookbook? Minimal changes to difficulty just make sure it is fun.

 

[kossin]

Sure. I've bumped the old Emperor Cookbook bullpen on S&T so we can decide what to do there (mainly leader at this point).

 

[Gumbolt]

Sure. I've bumped the old Emperor Cookbook bullpen on S&T so we can decide what to do there (mainly leader at this point).

Good idea. I always struggle with Zara for some reason. No idea why.

 

[Gumbolt]

Looks like one team has retired/ thrown in towel. Not sure if this means we would get the wooden spoon or not.

Electing not to finish might disqualify you from the wooden spoon. Shame really as you can still try and goad the AI into attacking you. Toku is a useful tool when it comes to this. Except he does not always attack who you want him to.