SGOTM 19 - Also Sprach Sid

[Fippy]

About your Deity comment Doshin, i find playing that does not really help much in sgotm games. With options often limited in deity games, sgotm offers so many more and different possibilities that you can only be competitive here if you forget how deity games play.

 

[kcd_swede]

So i disagree with kcd on that, we did not play above our level this time..i know that speaking for myself at least i could still do things better.

That's good to hear! Or moaybe not, considering I'll probably be competing against you in Neilmeister's sgotm20.

 

[Duckweed]

I have been expecting another evil map from neilmeister and thought it would be available quite late.

The current SGOTM20 scenario is not attractive to me, but my only purpose of playing civ games is to have a place to talk.

I will game if most of you are coming back.

 

[BSPollux]

May I ask what made the scenario unattractive to you?
I'd like to learn from my mistakes

 

[soundjata]

I have been expecting another evil map from neilmeister and thought it would be available quite late.

The current SGOTM20 scenario is not attractive to me, but my only purpose of playing civ games is to have a place to talk.

I will game if most of you are coming back.

I'll let this one pass. We can spam the lurker thread

 

[Doshin]

I'm going to pass too. Perhaps the next one, if we can put an active team together.

 

[pomthom]

I guess I could have free'd some time for the next round but it doesn't look like we'll gather the resources!

 

[Mitchum]

Come on, you guys! Start recruiting new members or join forces with another team if you have to. Signups are looking a bit light this game...

 

[kossin]

I have been expecting another evil map from neilmeister and thought it would be available quite late.

The current SGOTM20 scenario is not attractive to me, but my only purpose of playing civ games is to have a place to talk.

I will game if most of you are coming back.

I'm up for the talking, but my time seems limited right now and for the near future. So this time around I don't want to take a regular spot on a team in case I end up not having any time... advisor spot is fine

May I ask what made the scenario unattractive to you?
I'd like to learn from my mistakes

There have been a lot of comments regarding the large size map and heavy micro requirements for religion spamming. There have been no answers to qualm the concern raised over those issues from the game creators.

Come on, you guys! Start recruiting new members or join forces with another team if you have to. Signups are looking a bit light this game...

Whether A.S.S. returns or not is insignificant in the large picture. I'm more worried about the low sign-up count.

It might soon be the time to tone-down the complexity of SGOTMs and allow reduced team sizes. Reduced duration could lead to more interesting results, maybe.

 

[BSPollux]

There have been a lot of comments regarding the large size map and heavy micro requirements for religion spamming. There have been no answers to qualm the concern raised over those issues from the game creators.

I disagree on us not answering to the concerns. But I dont want to force a discussion upon you here. So thanks for the feedback

 

[Duckweed]

May I ask what made the scenario unattractive to you?
I'd like to learn from my mistakes

A senario demanding a different grand strategy attracts my interest. This is probably too much for you as many previous SGOTMs were unknown to you. I have participated SGOTMs since SGOTM11 (only skipped SGOTM18). From 11 to 15, plastic ducks had deployed distinct strategies to achieved different goals (UN, Space, conquest, and Religious diplomatic). Both 13 and 14 were conquest victory, while the best victory for 14 should be domination and we adapted different military routes from 13 to achieved the goal. 19 was a better scenario among the last 4 SGOTMs which demanded the balance of research and military, that's the main reason why I came back. For the 1st time, we used Cuis as the major unit, which was an obvious choice for most of other teams, but a unusual choice for our team.

TBH, I don't feel a different grand strategy is needed for SGOTM20, unless the hidden goal might give significant change, while that would be a disaster design. Frederiksberg gave some good reasons why the hidden goal was not a good idea. SGOTMs provide a platform for competition. While RNG is the build-in mechanism in civ, the map designer could still reduce the effect of RNG and unpredictable elements as much as possible, so that the strategies and micromanagement skill could play the major goal in winning. SGOTM12 map has been the best design in this.

• Clear starting area so that no team can gain significant advantage from start due to gambling like in SGOTM16 and 17.
  
• No barbarian which could cause serious trouble and unbalance among teams.
  
• All AI were contacted from start so that there's no RNG effect of meeting AIs.
  
• 1 AI was given Alpha to be fair about tech trade.

OTOH, SGOTM20 are introducing and increasing those unpredictable elements. Besides the hidden goal, the major goal of 70 temples requires a lots of RNG involvement of spreading, which could cause serious effect if a team fails the spread in the last few turns. A few turns could be the determinative for laurels. Moreover, as shakabrade pointed out, the requirements of 2 religions of every owned city could be ignored without liberation limitation. What's the point of prohibiting conquest victory then?

I don't criticize your design as you are neither a senior designer nor a senior SGOTM player. I appreciate your effort and enthusiasm on getting the SGOTM20 up. As I said already, the scenario itself is not the determinative factor for my participation, a good team to play with is.

 

[Duckweed]

So unless soundjata and doshin change their mind, it's unlikely we could from a team.

 

[BSPollux]

Ok now thats what I call feedback! Thank you very much Duckweed!

If I understand your point correct your ideal sgotm would be like one of these chess puzzles. These that you find in magazines sometimes, where you are confronted with a scenario of only a few pieces and the task is to find the moves that lead to the fastest check-mate. This is a valid point and I can clearly see where you're coming from and why you prefer it. The sad thing is, I dont share your preference.

About the RNG problem. We know that randomness evens out the more often you repeat a given experiment. For example one coinflip allways results in the maximum uneven result of 100% A and 0% B. But if you add more results to that it will get closer to a clean 50/50. One might argue that a game with only a few, very important situations that include RNG would be likely to result in the most unfair scenario. Compare a game with only one AI to a game with several AIs. If there are several then they will likely use diffrent strategies and even is AI#1 behaves diffrent for team A then it does for team B, it will likely even out over the whole AI group.

This would mean that there are two ways to counter massive RNG influence: Either you reduce it to zero, or you allow it to even itself out by increasing the number of checks. I'd be infavor of the second approach, for two reasons. If the RNG factor was removed completely, then there would (theoreticaly) no point in playing the game. Just like you dont need an actual board to solve a chess-puzzle you wouldnt need to play civ to solve that civ-puzzle. There would be no sursprise in in it. And while I can understand why someone could like that, I don't. The second reason is that if you try to reduce the RNG factors to zero and you fail with it, you will have actualy increased it, by raising the importance of the few remaining checks.

I'm in a hurry so I cant go into more detail, thanks again for your feedback!
I'll be laaaate!

 

[Jastrow]

Your RNG argument, is a bit off target... You say: "We know that randomness evens out the more often you repeat a given experiment".

That is of course absolutely true... However, in civ we are NOT repeating a given experiment... The many random events in civ are both very different in weight, AND complicatedly interlinked with each other... There is a huge snow-ball effect.

A few examples....

-In OCC, at one point I was trying to optimize a particular strategy for fastest space, so I replayed the same map over a dozen times... Huts were on, and I found that for that strategy, good luck with Huts was taking 10-15 turns of my finish date. All battle luck and all other RNG combined was worth maybe 2 turns at most.

-Missing the CS-sling by one turn, on the same date a competitor gets it, because an AI roled a different build order, can make 10+ turns difference on your finish date, for one role alone.

So, adding BIG RNG roles is not the same as adding small ones, and for a competition, as many of the big roles as possible should be eliminated.

 

[BSPollux]

If you'd like to have a detailed discussion about that topic I'm all for it. Make a thread and let me know where it is.

 

[Fippy]

I think the problem here could be that building 70 temples wakes fears of monotony rather than excitement while playing.

But i also think we should not be too sensitive, cos most other things sound very interesting (like the lost capital and might be dangerous going down there).
And competition always builds in these games, one way or another

I understand all sides, but in the fun spirit of these games i hope some change their mind, maybe try other teams if one does not work out, and so on.
Even if not giving 100% this time, more players always keeps things fun.

 

[Folket]

I do not see building temples as a problem. You can whip them out in the last two turns of the game.