Strategy Challenge startup/ SC #1 Pre-challenge discussion

[Betafor]

This is all sounding good

It's the morning before I leave.

As to total culture vs cpt - i personally have nothing against either one. Though total culture would probably be more fair, one city would be "fair" because its not as if one person can do artists and another can't.

That said, i think it should be total culture. The date is pre-mass media, but (if you're good) post music, meaning that a beeline to music for cathedrals(which is what i was talking about via boni) is not only viable, probably a good idea, whereas if it was cpt, you wouldn't really care about it until the last min.

 

[mice]

Quote:
Originally Posted by mice
A Taoist in Tokyo. Must have a Taoist missionary standing in Tokyo by earliest date, not playing as Toku.

Whacky i know. maybe for later challenges.
I really like the sound of that idea [/QUOTE]
Me too. For this next challenge, culture sounds like the way to go. But later this missionary one could be good. You have to get to philosophy fast, and then be freinds with or conquer Toku. Not difficult in itself but it's a race. Best strat might be to bribe someone to attack Toku, and then send the missionary when Tokyo is controlled by the friend - except the AI cant take cities well.

About the culture challenge, total culture makes sense doesnt it? No rules needed. How about a date 1600 ? or is that too early for a good number of cathedrals ?

 

[cabert]

Me too. For this next challenge, culture sounds like the way to go. But later this missionary one could be good. You have to get to philosophy fast, and then be freinds with or conquer Toku. Not difficult in itself but it's a race. Best strat might be to bribe someone to attack Toku, and then send the missionary when Tokyo is controlled by the friend - except the AI cant take cities well.

that's not challenging! tokugawa is a weakling!
i thought it was about diplomacy! (= tokyo should be japanese)

About the culture challenge, total culture makes sense doesnt it? No rules needed. How about a date 1600 ? or is that too early for a good number of cathedrals ?

1600 is good enough! cultural grandmasters have victories before that date!

 

[Calavente]

Keep in mind, carl and everyone, that we kinda have to have some security, our restrictions have to be hard coded(finish date) otherwise how would we know if you really didn't switch civics then back before u posted the save?

I'm seeing the variables for these coming mainly for the victory conditions, NOT from map changes/difficulty/ yada yada, though that would be good.

Agreed about keep smap size smaller- standard or below? I think standard should be... well... standard.

I agree that there shall be some hard-codded restrictions but :

in the case of civics it is easy :
just study the turn log of the winner (not of all players) : discovered feodalisme and not switching to vassalage ??? cheater !!! changed back to slavery ??? cheater !!!

(oh just a thought) for this kind of challenge it is best if the leader is spiritual : because you would have at least 20 changes of civics : not waiting for multiples changes..etc.

 

[pigswill]

So its total amount of culture in one city (not culture/turn). Leader will make quite a difference; industrious different strategy to philosophical etc. I'd go for a fairly neutral leader (not industrious, not philosophical); maybe Tokugawa or Julius? Standard settings, vanilla game, prince level.
Cheating is difficult to monitor, maybe if you reload, have multiple attempts etc then you just admit that you've done so. I'm more ok with cheating than I am with lying about it.

 

[carl corey]

I've given up on reloading in a normal game some time ago, when I realized I wasn't getting any better if I learned only after the fact instead of using my mind before acting. But I see how in these cases reloading could be useful to save some time if you branch at a certain point - in "Lust for Gold" I could have reloaded and not built the Chicnen Itza to see the difference. But I'll definitely mention it if I do it.

As for the leader, I haven't played with Toku in a long time. I miss those Samurais. I'm all for it. On the other hand, other challenges could use more "suited" leaders to see how we can use their abilities in the context of the challenge. As Calavente said, a spiritual leader for the "new civic=best civic" one should be useful - not much choice of using it though -, or a civ that has a good early UU for the "hero" challenge: you'd actually stand a chance of bringing your hero to a good level by using him for normal combats, and not only against the last weak unit in a city.

 

[cabert]

a spiritual / philo (saladin!) leader would be the easiest, put since it's the same for everyone, this doesn't really make any difference.

I'd like this to be at prince level please (monarch could be good too, but it's not everybody's best guess)

 

[carl corey]

Yeah, prince please.

 

[Lynxx]

I definitely think total culture is the way to go as people could otherwise resort to strange strategies as deleting all troops on the last turn to get the culture slider up even higher...

About saving and reloading. I dont think we should be so hard on this as you normally dont have enough time to play through one entire challange in one night. I played lust for gold in two sessions, so perhaps a maximum of four saves and reloads is good enough, and remeber, peoples computer might even crash from playing civ4, mine have, and then you must be able to reload from a autosave. I think we simply must trust peoples honesty.

Another fun challange could be you alone on a continent with raging babarians at deity level and the goal is to have the most cities by 1000ad. If its a tie the total population will count.

 

[carl corey]

Lynxx, we were talking more about reloading from an older save. I've played Lust for Gold in more than one session too, and crashes can indeed occur, but those aren't the situations we were talking about.

Oh, and deity? Ouch. I'll have to up the level a little bit...

 

[Tyrant Roger]

I think it important - at least in the early challenges - that the conditions and rules of play be kept simple. Do not select unusual kinds of maps or other conditons. This will make it hard for players who are used to playing more traditional settings from competing fairly or from wanting to participate.

For the same reason, play on Prince rather than Monarch; vanilla rather than warlords.

I don't see the need for restricting player choices or strategies in at least some of these challenges. Let people do what they want with their civics, etc.

If the challenges are done in familiar conditions, they are more likely to be instructive to those following the challenge in how to improve their play than otherwise.

 

[mice]

I think we simply must trust peoples honesty.

I agree. Most of the people on these boards are interested in playing the game fairly I think. I'm guessing most people dont; reload after a combat. Reload after a bad decision to declare war. Replaying the game is OK IMO to try a different strat approach. That's what it's all about. The challenge should be set up so that nobody has to check a turn log.

Another fun challange could be you alone on a continent with raging babarians at deity level and the goal is to have the most cities by 1000ad. If its a tie the total population will count.

I tried this on lakes at monarch level with Mansa and it was really good training. Might be too easy for the experts,but great for noobs who have never tried these settings. You dont have to beat the AI to a space race on Monarch, you just have to survive the barbs, which is doable and fun.

But dont want to distract from the thrust of this thread which is to settle on a challenge. It seems like it's all agreed except the leader, how about random? and map?

 

[carl corey]

I don't know, I'd say don't divert from usual maps. No islands and such, we want more "normal" situations. Maybe keep continents too at least for this one? Anyway, size should be standard at most. Oh, and random leader should be fun, but what if we run into Isabella again? Maybe restart then. Should be allowed.

Tyrant Roger, I was mostly thinking out loud about some of the things I'll probably try out at some point. If enough people like them we can turn them into challenges. If not, no problem with me. Of course, there's no point in combining too many rules since it would make the result difficult to assess. And as you've said, we're more likely to improve when we have a simple and clear purpose in mind.

 

[mice]

Carl Corey, I agree on the maps.

So we're getting there. The thread starter would make a game, Random leader,Continents,Standard size, Normal speed,Prince difficulty, - reload if it's Isabella. Victory to player with ; most total culture in any 1 city at 1600 AD.

how does that sound?

 

[carl corey]

Perfect.

 

[Betafor]

Gone for one day, and already everyone's thinking my way, maybe if i want to turn for president I should go on vacation .

I agree with every post above this one. The only real issue i see is the issue of security and reloading.

It will be neigh on impossible to give everyone a "fair" game by restricting what you can do- the best(and easiest) way is to get rid of restrictions(besides no cheating or whatever its called in vanilla). Whether you trust this community or not, a) it's just for fun and b) If everyone is allowed to save/reload, is it really unfair? save/reload gives you things like knowledge of a map/tendancies of AI - things that you will know anyway since we are allowing multiple entries. Besides, anyone weird enough to cheat in a nonprized competion over the internet probably isn't proffessional enough to keep it realistic.

btw, Spamalot was AWESOME!

I got the T shirt - "I'm not dead yet!"

 

[pigswill]

Anyone who opens up a submitted save is going to see the map, consciously or not they'll retain a bunch of information.

 

[carl corey]

Well, I did only look at the spoilers for "Lust for Gold" only after playing my own game. So if you post your game earlier than the deadline, just be sure to put it behind a spoiler tag, so it at least removes part of the tentation. I didn't in the last challenge since I thought I'm one of the last ones to play it and that all the others still playing have already started it and couldn't be influenced my what I've done. But I'm not going to complain even if someone reloads to change their strategy, of course we can learn just as well from those games too.

 

[cabert]

so, who opens the challenge?
please put a link here.

If it's not too late, i'd like a spi leader, please.
Or HC.
Not and industrious leader (i'm seeing more wonders in the "fix the trash game" SG than i do in all my other games together) ... please...

 

[carl corey]

I'm ok with whatever leader, even going random, but I see there's a bit of a difference in opinion here for most. If we can't reach a consensus, I'd say let mice - as the originator of the series - or Lynxx - who won the last one - decide. Let's vote who shall decide.