the top runner with a non optimal pair of shoes can still beat a non top athlete with the best shoes in the world
its correct what you say
the point you dont consider is the CHOICE
if you put the top athlete in a competition and GIVE HIM THE CHOICE to pick whatever shoes he wants why would he run with a sub optimal pair?
why not just pick the best shoes?
So how would you implement it? what would happen with someone like me who tends to play lots of games when I'm bothering to play? I just play the same start, the same game 10 games over? Or do I expect the HOF staff to generate a heap of starts, and I just select from what's available?
To use your analogy, the current HOF setup means I can run whenever I want, in whatever pair of shoes I want, over whatever distance I want, and have my time recorded. I don't have to wait for anyone else to setup a race, I don't have to wait for someone else to hand out the same pair of shoes to me & 97 other people, I can just run when I choose to, and it still counts. Even it's just a barefoot jog around the block. Yeah, for some of my games I'll make sure I have the best shoes, the best place to run, etc. But most of the time I can't be bothered getting hold of all that stuff, I'll just choose to run in whatever I happen to be wearing anyway. That's the choice the HOF offers. I don't see any reason to take that choice away, to compel me to use HOF-issue shoes.
It's not practical at all to force identical starts for ordinary HOF play. Yes, it could be done just for the gauntlets. But unless an individual gauntlet is made with a very good start, gauntlet games aren't going to be competitive with the regular HOF games. Gauntlet games are going to be very different to regular HOF games. You can't discuss strategy, you can't refine strategy, because that means people playing when they already know lots of info that isn't normally available until you explore, like where the land is, where the AIs & CS are, where the resources are, where the ruins are, etc, etc. One of the good things about the HOF is the chance to share ideas, to talk about stuff, to see what others are doing and try and replicate or improve it. There are threds of mine in the Civ 3 HOF forum that were still getting used 3 & 4 years after I started them. What you're suggesting would remove the ability & incentive to do a lot of that.
So, your suggestion won't work for general HOF play. It will dramatically change gauntlets, make them unlike every other HOF game. It will actually make gauntlets identical to a restrictive GOTM game (it'd be the same as GOTM, but without the choice of VCs). If I want to play games like that, then I'll just play GOTM.
the top player will have the better date. It isn't just the start that makes the game, the player still has to achieve the result. The best starts are typically used when the top players are trying to beat each other out, or the not quite top players are trying to move themselves up the ranks.
