Trait comparison game 2 - America.

nanomage

Longbowman
Joined
Mar 12, 2008
Messages
710
Location
msk, rf
Hello.
I've finally found some time to host and hopefully play the second TCGame.
The idea is experimental trait comparison is that we play the same game with only one difference from player to player - the second trait of our leader. For example, first one was played with Agressive leaders of Byzantium.
This is not beginning yet, as i think we should first agree upon restrictions - we allowed too many things to be loose in the first one, and that led to our games being quite uncomparable.

This time we play America, as a civ with essentially no UU or UB.
About the fixed trait, coin has decided it to be Expansive.
Speed i believe should be fixed epic. (or normal, don't know :( )

I'm open to suggestions on what map whould we pick and is it worth it to define early-game strategy, in order to make games more comparable. I have also no idea on what to do with difficulty. Should i encourage every player to play on the same difficulty, or is it better for each to pick the difficulty most fitting him?
Please write anything that you think can help me to make the seriesmore useful and entertaining!
 
restrictions is purely nonsense. Forcing someone to play not his game will not increase any value....

to get better comparison you just need to attract more players. Restrictions won't serve a thing...

Edit: me likes expnasive. Would play Shaka again...
 
Votes:

Normal speed

No events or huts (they shatter comparisons)

Fractal map gives variance to the map type without being extreme

Same difficulty is preferred, otherwise we'll get a monarch horse archer rush clearing the continent while players on immortal might have to wait until renaissance...hardly comparing traits then.

Well, let's see how everyone else feels.
 
Votes:

Normal speed

No events or huts (they shatter comparisons)

Fractal map gives variance to the map type without being extreme

Same difficulty is preferred, otherwise we'll get a monarch horse archer rush clearing the continent while players on immortal might have to wait until renaissance...hardly comparing traits then.

Well, let's see how everyone else feels.

I tend to agree with the above as well - especially along the lines of same difficulty level. If we do that, we probably should consider monarch or emperor. Monarch is more likely to attract the largest audience, but emperor is probably a bit more in line with the skill level of the people who played the first one (since I think we had some like me who are moving up to immortal, and some who are already comfortably immortal players).

Some really interesting leaders though - I hope this series can attract a bunch of players. GW, Joao, Peter, Izzy and one of my favorites, mehmed - should be fun.
 
i tend to agree on map script fractal, and difficulty emperor.
we will have no restrictions or guidelines for early-game strategy, but i'll try to pick map and opponents to lessen the chances of choisy decisions (i.e. rush/not rush, SE/CE, so that player will be more or less forced into similar styles of play)
events and huts will be off (as in the first one)
barbs will be on.
 
I don't think we need to constrain actual play - some of that IS dictated by traits, after all.

Maybe we should poll the difficulty, to see what people want generally. I'll play anything...even deity...although that wouldn't be pretty.
 
As far as game speed goes I'm not sure that fixing it will provide the best results. Sure in a scientific sense it makes perfect sense. The fewer variables the better. In a "I personally feel that epic plays way too slowly and would rather not play" sense I think you will just lose out on some of your potential test group.

It seems agreed upon already but please not terra again (I think that was the last map script you did). Perhaps it was just the neighbors but that game was no fun and right now I'm blaming the map.

For the difficulty I will play anything with the caveat that my deity still involves lots of BC losses, but not to barbs anymore!
 
Actually game 1 was tectonics AFAIK, which was why we got a bajillion plains tiles.

Speed is a "fine line" sort of thing. On the one hand, allowing it to vary gets us more people willing to participate. On the other, games played at different speeds aren't comparable. It's enough that the optimal tactics change completely. For example, in a recent monarch student game I saw someone pull an immortal rush on immortal epic against a civ that probably required at least 20 tiles of travel. A protective target. Try that on normal...I DARE you. Even if you were to succeed, the results would be far less ideal. Marathon would be even worse ----> you could have cleared that part of the continent completely! Finish dates will always be sooner on slower speeds, but the real issue IMO is the variance in strategies available...was SPI really better than ORG for that early rush? Well, if SPI was on marathon, yes! Around 50% better (functionally more)!

So I don't know what to do with that either, but since this is a trait comparison game, I find it hard to allow speed variance and still buy the argument that we're comparing anything remotely similar.
 
It was techtonics. Thought up the wrong map type that starts with a T. As far as speed that is definitely the issue. I play marathon up to 1ADish once in a while just for kicks because it is a completely different game. Epic even plays different. Can always fix the speed at normal or epic and just see how many people play. While it is less data I do not think anyone is writing a journal article based on the findings!

Edit - Though quite frankly no matter what we do there will be a ton of variance simply due to skill levels. Watching one of the deity players on the board stomp monarch so badly I feel bad for virtual Shaka with Toku while a monarch level player struggles with Gilgamesh doesn't really prove a thing either... /shrug
 
i would not make big buzz of comparison... How many people finished first one?

I ma still watermilling farming these plains...
 
In a "I personally feel that epic plays way too slowly and would rather not play" sense I think you will just lose out on some of your potential test group.
i can't help it :( i always felt epic is waaay too fast. if honestly, i find even marathon extremely fast, but alas - i'm alone here. I believe i certainly should fix speed, and i lean towards epic because i like it slower. But normal maybe an option too. Let's see if any epic-haters express their opinion here.
As AI_shizuka said, "no more tectonics". The second will be on Fractal map. There will be a poll about what difficulty to play, and it will decide.
 
Definitely normal speed. It gives you no advantages over the AI, which the slower speeds do. Besides, even epic can become a slog. Difficulty no higher than emperor (I have yet to beat emperor, I am trying though;)).

Oh, and what leader? Different leaders, coupled with different players, will lead to wildly different games. I do not think you'll get any comparison worthwhile, but we will have a fun game/series
 
personally i'd play normal to marathon monarch to diety:lol: [although last one would force be to make sad post about being killed....]

but prefer something in da middle like epic immortal...
 
i understand that different players will play differently, but, alas, leader still must be different - it's the whole point of the series.
i play hammy, you play alex, and then we try to see if organised is better than philosophical or vice versa. - that was the idea!
 
And what were the results of the first game?
not much results there were, because different games were played at different speeds and difficulties, and, with different strategies, turned not even remotely comparable. it was fun though :lol:
they can be found here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=319859

if this game succeeds to any extent, i guess i'll put those links to my sig as all those cool series-hosts :lol:
 
i would say first part had five more or less finished games max....

I would rate fun as main result although... have not pulled such nonsense in long time...
 
hi!
here's the zip of wbsave
View attachment TCGIIamericafin.CivBeyondSwordWBSave.zip
to choose your leader, open it in a text editor, find 142-nd line (it is LeaderType=LEADER_ISABELLA) and replace LEADER_ISABELLA with any of the following
LEADER_WASHINGTON : TMIT
LEADER_SURYAVARMAN : michmbk
LEADER_SHAKA : Soirana
LEADER_BISMARCK : budweiser
LEADER_PETER : Single Malt
LEADER_PACAL
LEADER_MEHMED : PaulusIII
LEADER_JOAO : Duckweed
LEADER_ISABELLA : Lansky
LEADER_CHINESE_LEADER : Earthling
The last one should be mao, not qin.
everything should work fine, at least i was able to start isabella game. If it does not, let me know.
Here is the start.
4 FrozenScreen.jpg
I do ask you to tell which leader do you choose to play, so that i can keep track of who is who.
i do ask you to post updates with saves and srceens of cities/fin.advisor/tech advisor on following checkpoints:
1.after you have climed your land, be it through rush, REX, or blocking.
2.the first GP
3.1AD
4.liberalism
and any other time you consider to be important.
Please mention your wonders, GP's, wars, and any other thing you would consider important.
General thoughts are always welcome, too
 
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