Team Play of the GOTMs - Concept Discussion

[ControlFreak]

I love Wanderer's idea of a month on month off. (actually if we get enough teams, this could be half teams on while other half teams off so each month still has competition.) That solves my problem of having to start the next GOTM without the benefit of "debriefing".

Now that I think about it, I guess that could be done voluntarily by not signing up to a team roster every other month. But then I would feel like I'm missing out on play that I could be participating in.

Also like the idea of multiple civs in a PTW game.

 

[ltcoljt]

I suggest you set up a sign up thread and then divide the number of players by four, five or six (whichever leaves the least remainder). Then use some statistical manner in which to appoint team captains. Then the team captains pick the remaining players one at a time (playground style) This will give us something to follow while waiting for the game to be release and puts the research burden on the captains.

Final team score would be the average score for the team (dropping one, presumably the lowest). This is needed so that teams don't lose automatically if a member is bitten by real life and can't finish on time.

Add a small bonus for the number of victory conditions covered to encourage diversity but not so large that it would always be necessary so that people can still feel free to play the way they enjoy the most.

Then the top three teams could stay together for the next month (probably need to cap that at about three months in case some super team emerges).

This would be fun I think and should not affect the individual competition.

 

[cracker]

LtColjt,

I think you have the perspective right on target.

We are sort of screening for interest levels in the players that we might think would fit into the veteran and leader categories. While it would not be an absolute requirement to have players at all skill levels it would definately seem to be a good idead to at least have some support among the skill leaders and communiuty leaders.

One of the reasons for opening this discussion now, is to let people develop a sense of how this might fit into the game sequence of events. I think that if we had teams in place now there would be a lot of active pre-game coaching and specific questioning going on. Some people feel more comfortable asking a question directly to a known individual and at the same time we often see some of our best answers when knowledgable players focus in on specifics that answer questions for just a few individuals.

If we get enough player interest at the Veteran and/or Leader levels to support a player sign up list then we will try to process through those steps including the whole sequence of "the Team Draft" so that we could support a short two game season that will cover Gotm19 and Gotm20. This will keep the commitmnet short during the trail period while we develop the community sense of what we need to be doing.

We are not saying that we are doing this Team concept yet. We are looking for inputs from players at all levels who might participate in this process of looking at the same games in a different way without having to add more games to the play schedule.

 

[hotrod0823]

After reading comments and trying to see how this fits into the GOTM community it appears that some are very open while others are a bit more adverse to it and think that a team game with specific win conditions may tie there hands too much. Ala "you can get that if you want it at the Tourny Page".

I realize the original concept is to incorrporate this extra into the regular GOTM game allowing players to play one game and use this bonus as a spur for conversation etc.

[edit] I am all for anything that brings about discussion and more insight into the game even when comparing players across vast play levels and attempts at differing victory conditions.

[edit]

Bamspeedy is right, trying to get the team victory condition from the start may adversely effect the player GOTM score and change that players style.

 

[cracker]

Hotrod,

I think you may be getting us too far off track here and may be creating unwarranted confusion.

The quick game concepts will not be for competitive play on the same scale as the main GOTMs and will not be used as a substitute.

The concept of encouraging teams to spread out and cover different victory conditions would be to promote a better understanding of game play while discouraging the "copy me" or "only one good victory" mentality.

Neither of these concepts have anything in common with the tournament play which divides players up into self selected difficulty categories and eliminated the complexity of balancing the map conditions with mutiple strategic victory options.

I just do not want us to get too confused and too far off track here.

 

[Plutonium239]

If the idea here is that the most skillful players take on a few padewon learners for each GotM, I think that sounds great. Having that kind of small group interaction with questions and answers would be great for both pre-game and at the spoiler points.

I'm not really sure how I feel about the different victory conditions part. It almost seems more SG like. I do understand the idea of not wanting everyone in the group simply mimicing the leader's methodology.

At any rate, I'd definitely sign up. It sounds like a great chance for those of us who are new to Civ3 to hone our skills.

As an aside: You're killing me with this large pangea map for GotM 18, Cracker. I'm only now playing my first standard size map.

 

[Yndy]

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
I think it's a good idea in some aspects, but not a good idea in other aspects. I probably won't participate myself.

I had a small contibution in the development of this concept and I would like to respond to your comments Bamspeedy. The reason behind diversification of victory types is to get the players play to the best of their abilities instead of them following the leader's style or tactic. So this feature actually tries to handle your concerns Bamspeedy and not complicate them.

The leader should discuss with its team and let them decide what victory they wish to choose and the reason, whether it is the fact that they are used to that victory or the fact that they may want to try one they have never tryed before. Leaders like you might favour some victory type and build style but you could give good advices regardless (e.g. you are still able to on number of workers). If you think that a player lacks a skill that you can not teach him you can very well point him towards best references (e.g. point a space ship players towards, Ribannah, Kemal And DaveMcW's posts in those GOTMS where they did pursue those victories)

Another thing is that besides the leader/captain there will be at least one pretty good player. I would find it normal for the captains to choose that pretty-good player that has an opposite play-style then they do. In consequence the team could still have a pretty good ability to advice inexperienced players.

As some have wrote the influence of the diverse victory condition could be modelled so that players are happy with it and not feel restrained by it.

In the end I would like to outline that we are very keen to get the opinions of good players as without their acceptance this concept could not work.

Thanks all for the help,

 

[Bamspeedy]

Ok, Yndy, I guess I was a little worried that each team would be encouraged to try and have each player on the team get a different victory condition. Like if there was bonus points for having 1 conquest, 1 culture, 1 spaceship, 1 domination you would get more points than if there was 2 or 3 spaceships, so 1 person would be encouraged not to go for the spaceship as they would miss out on some bonus points.

I guess it's mainly the competitiveness of the team concept that I'm shying away from. I mean, if I make a bone-head move, that's fine when playing for just me. But it puts alot more pressure when there are 3-4 other people 'depending' on me. I've played other GOTM's for the first 100 turns or so and just didn't finish the game either due to time (Rome game), hated the map/start (Germany game), the civs/world situation just didn't interest me (most island maps) or I took a gamble that didn't pay off (I still would have won, but with a terrible score). If any of these things happen, I just don't bother to finish the game, no big deal. But that wouldn't be the case if I was on a team. I could care less about how 'enlightened' I am, if I don't want to finish a game, I'm not going to.

Many other top players seem to like this idea, so go with it. Don't let me stop you. I will gladly offer input into those threads if people want them, but I don't want to be on a team.

 

[mad-bax]

Hmm...

Bamspeedy's comments are an example of what I was trying to say in my earlier post. The better players will generally score higher than the less experienced players. The pressure on the better players to do well and complete the game is therefore disproportiontely great. On top of that they have the additional demands placed upon them of people like me asking them to critique my gameplay whilst being constrained by the spoiler rules.

The effort required for a leader to make a good job of his/her role should not be underestimated and IMO something has to be done to make this idea attractive to (or at least easier for) them.

Maybe some method would need to be devised that would reduce the "weighting". This could be handicapping, or a substition score, or leaders score not counting or a completely non-competitive format.

I do disagree (dare I?) with Bamspeedy on a couple of points however.

Weaker players like myself I would guess, would not opt not to play a game because it was an island map or for any other reason that you could mention. I for one just want to become competent, which in part means being able to handle whatever is thrown at you. Sure, an experienced player may have a gameplay style that he/she would not want to deviate from, but most of us I think would find much of interest in any GOTM.

Although the idea of a completely non-competetive format does deal with some of the issues, and certainly would not prevent me from participating, I think that the competive element is attractive to many people.IMHO A non-competitive format would not be as popular.

Finally, the idea that a leader may give poor advice because the game on which he/she is commenting is outside the leaders "field" as it were is true, but not really a problem for me. People learn by doing. What they need sometimes is just an alternative. They can then implement the alternative and find out for themselves if its better or worse. IF the teams change members every few games, then improving players will be exposed to a range of alternatives, which will serve to broaden their experience and improve their game.

As it stands I can see alot in this for me and people like me, but precious little in it for potential leaders. I hope that something can be done for people like Bamspeedy, because despite what he says, he is probably alone in thinking he would not be good leader.

 

[el_kalkylus]

I like the idea of team play. The way it was suggested is fine by me.

I think I understand what Cracker means. If you give directions or advices to some people (including me), they won't think for themselves, and they will continue to ask for directions and advices to see if they are correct or not. I have been a very bad student this way when I studied math until I got a wakeup call doing a big essay. I can't say that I am a good student now, but at least I try.

The team play of the GOTMs would probably not help newcomers to get better at civ3 more than the normal GOTM (IMO), but it certainly sounds like a fun thing to do. Hopefully more players want to join here then.

 

[DaveShack]

As a newcomer to both Civ3 and GOTM, the idea of having gentle guidance from an experienced player sounds like a great idea! I like the team play idea as stated

Here are some additional suggestions for ways that strong, experienced players can pass their knowledge on to newcomers in a non-competitive setting. Two concepts from the Chess world could be used, though Civ3 is much more complicated and pretty much non-deterministic so they won't work exactly the same way.

Kibbitz games (sp?) -- the crowd watches and tosses out ideas, but it is up to the player to decide which ideas to accept (if any) and play the actual game. This would clearly not work on a turn by turn basis, but what about periodically submitting a save file every few turns (5-10) for comments? The democracy game might be doing this already, although the few turn chats I've looked at don't have a lot of explanation about why decisions are made.

Post-mortem analysis -- after the game is completed, the player and interested parties replay the game from the score, while discussing alternative moves. In many cases the alternates get played out in committee to some depth. It would seem that if a QSC log is sufficiently detailed, it would be well-suited to this type of teaching, if enough strong players are willing.

Whichever way this goes, looking forward to signing up, now just hope that the GOTM goes fast enough to leave time for learning!