Well I'm DYING to know .... is BTS GOTM starting next week ??

[DaviddesJ]

I still don't see how comparability is decreased. That is, I still don't see how the current Challenger, Contender , and Adventurer are comparable (at all).

There's somewhat more comparability in the current system. There's no way you're going to finish faster because you play the Challenger rather than Contender start. But it's quite possible to have a faster finish at Emperor than you would have had at Monarch (because the AIs tech faster).

 

[Trynthlas]

On the issue of multiple divisions...(cross-posted from this thread)


Well, my argument in favor of a "division II" for the GOTMs would be that there comes a point where the difficulty level is simply too far above one's playing ability that they simply won't learn anything from it. So from my perspective, I shouldn't even bother with this month's game, since in all likelihood (unless something very odd happens) I'll just be slaughtered.

I wouldn't say that it could prevent someone from being/becoming a regular player of the game or lose interest, because I imagine many many people will just enjoy playing SP games on their level by themselves. However, the (to newer or lower-level players) insane difficulty for the GOTMs as they stand now does indeed shut off that aspect of the Civ community to us because it becomes not just "too hard" (challenges are good) but simply unapproachable and an exercise in futility.

There are, of course, other avenues to learn and improve in order to get to the needed level to participate, such as browsing the many educational games posted around the forums, playing SGs at slightly lower difficulties with more experienced players, and so on. However, the GOTM playing field suffers, I think, due to the lack of an avenue for newer players to enter.

 

[DaviddesJ]

However, the GOTM playing field suffers, I think, due to the lack of an avenue for newer players to enter.

This is just bunk. You didn't play GOTM 23, did you, even though the difficulty was Noble. I'm frustrated by the posters who keep asserting they don't play because the difficulty level is too high, yet they don't play even when it's low.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Criticism of current system:
Forgetting about the above discussion, because it's not going anywhere without more participation from the major players around here, I issue the following provocation/criticism/proposal to the powers-that-be. Their response to this affects me in no way whatsoever, because I'll never play the Adventurer level.

There are currently 16 medals/awards given for CIV XOTMs. At least seven of those are some sort of consolation award (i.e., not including the silver and bronze, which some have argued in favor of abolishing). Considering this glut of awards, why no awards for the adventurer level? I propose the following awards for Adventurer Class (names subject to change by resident literary gurus):

Adventurer Gold -- highest final score
Adventurer Conquest -- fastest conquest victory
Adventurer Domination -- fastest domination victory
Adventurer Cultural -- fastest cultural victory
Adventurer Space-- fastest space victory
Adventurer Diplomatic -- fastest diplomatic victory

---------------------------

Pros:
1. These award can be added to the system, as is.
2. They may motivate people to play adventurer who other wise don't play or who don't feel they are ready to contender.
3. This 'experiment' will give us a bit of data concerning our above discussion (although, imo, better would be a 'real' CIV adventurer game, see below).

Cons:
1. The current Adventurer system of adding a worker, for example, is not a 'real' CIV game, as boxed and sold by Sid Meier. (In 'real' CIV games, you never start with a worker.) But this is not really a con of my proposal, but rather a con of the current Adventurer system and it's my opinion only, not a fact. I don't know where the idea of this type of beginner game came from, but imo, giving someone a free worker in no way prepares them for higher levels.

 

[LowtherCastle]

There's somewhat more comparability in the current system. There's no way you're going to finish faster because you play the Challenger rather than Contender start. But it's quite possible to have a faster finish at Emperor than you would have had at Monarch (because the AIs tech faster).

Again, we talking across different definitions, I fear. I'm thinking of comparability in civ_steve's sense:

I think GOTM is primarily about improving Civ game play (GPR and Awards are side issues, but still nice!), and this is achieved more through challenging oneself and comparing that game result to others played by more skillful players, then by seeking a fun game at a comfortable level.

In other words, to compare one's result with another's to improve one's own game, both games have to be the same (ignoring RNG, of course).

This is just bunk. You didn't play GOTM 23, did you, even though the difficulty was Noble. I'm frustrated by the posters who keep asserting they don't play because the difficulty level is too high, yet they don't play even when it's low.

Well, I appreciate Trynthlas' post and I highly doubt he thinks it's bunk or intended it that way. I surely didn't take it that way. For all you know he did play iGOTM 23, but didn't submit it, just as you often do. He makes a clear point and imo it stands a legitimate view of one member of our community that deserves to be heard just as much as any other.

Of course, you have every right to express your frustration about arguments other posters make. One would think you could express it without lashing out. (Did you notice he joined the community Nov 07?)

I don't know the Forum Rules too well, but I doubt agressive attacks, such as calling a post 'bunk,' are in the spirit of the community. You might consider getting into someone else's shoes first. Or just ask the question: "Did you play GOTM 23?" and respond to the answer you get.

 

[da_Vinci]

There's somewhat more comparability in the current system. There's no way you're going to finish faster because you play the Challenger rather than Contender start. But it's quite possible to have a faster finish at Emperor than you would have had at Monarch (because the AIs tech faster).

Good point ... I suppose this applies more to "peaceful" VC's than to 'kill 'em all!" ? (I could be wrong, of course.)

So if you are good enough, a higher difficulty level can be a bonus, rather than a handicap ... no wonder the elite players want higher difficulty!

This is just bunk. You didn't play GOTM 23, did you, even though the difficulty was Noble. I'm frustrated by the posters who keep asserting they don't play because the difficulty level is too high, yet they don't play even when it's low.

Bunk is in the eye of the beholder. While this might seem like a bogus argument to you, what matters to the issue of attracting potential new participants of begining skill is whether this argument reflects how they think about the GOTM series.

The noble games are pretty rare in XOTM now, so I can imagine some potential begining players don't even look every month, assuming that difficulties will be higher than they would like to play.

I am curious ... do you not see any advantages to a tier system? Or do you see loss of comparability as trumping all benefits? Seems to me that if the non-elite players are willing to sacrifice some comparability of their games to the elites, why not do tiers?

Surely, the elite players are not interested in comaparing their games to mine! They want to compare to their fellow elites, and within-tier comparability is intact. In fact, if tiers puts all the elite players in the same tier (instead of scattered between contender and challenger), one might argue that the elite comparability is enhanced by tiers ... even more so if it entices some players back.

dV

 

[Frederiksberg]

Even if you refute my arguments, my beard is no match for you.

This is kinda hard for me to verify - allthough I never met a Swede who couldn't use a shave ... and a haircut. Just think of Bjørn Borg, the archetypical Swede...

My whiskers are getting longer.... Actually, I think a significant (although inadequate) change would be just to have two levels and give the lower level their own set of level II awards.

True, this is the main drawback of using three tiers. If the mid-level players want to compete with the big guns, and we believe that both the Monarch-level and Deity-level players are happy with the current spread of the Contender difficulty level, then why have a Challenger class at all? So the question then is, who wants a Challenger class in the first place?

I enjoy playing predator in the Civ3 GOTMs. If I could raise my bar a bit in CIV to become as competitive here as I am there, then I would personally love a Challenger class. But if only <10 people would play it every month, I agree it probably isn't worth it.

Maybe the better approach would be to change first to a 2-tier system where the "Adventurer" class is directed at beginners and "casual" players and the "Contender" group is run in the same way as it is now with the exception that no Noble and Prince games are offered? This seems to require a minimum of changes and practical problems. A 3rd advanced tier with predominantly Deity games (In line with Balbes's subdivision) could then be added later if enough players and interest is present...

As I see it we are addressing two problems here:

1. GOTM is too difficult for newcomers (At least that's what Morpheus11 and Blubmuz claim and I tend to agree).

2. Some of the best players stop playing or play less frequently. Supposedly because they lack challenges. (Sounds like a plausible explanation to me).

A 2-tier system would provide a solution to item 1 since the Adventurer class could offer some easy games. Regarding item 2 I don't think that the best answer is to make the game difficulty higher because the real competition is against other players. New, harder challenges are better created by increasing the direct competition between the top players. This can be achieved by using designated VC's for some or all games. I suggested a special GOTM with only one allowed VC but other formats could be contemplated like the "Predator Challenge" from Civ3 mentioned by civ_steve:

They are (or were) relevant to the Civ3 GOTM. Discussions just like this have been held multiple times over the years. At times we seemed very close to dropping the Predator Class, but I think the element that really made it stick was the Predator Challenge (tr1cky's idea originally, I think), where many of the Predator players would play for a certain VC, or other game objective, mostly for 'bragging' rights. End result - a lot of espirit d'corps among the Elite players, the knowledge that you beat the best that month, and as a side effect, it opened up some of the other VC's to the Open class players, so the intermediate players had more access to awards.

My point is that you don't need a "Predator" or "Challenger" class to do this it could just as well be implemented in a 2-tier system. That would also enable "average" players to play the same game as the top players and compare their results with them.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Bunk is in the eye of the beholder. While this might seem like a bogus argument to you, what matters to the issue of attracting potential new participants of begining skill is whether this argument reflects how they think about the GOTM series.

Well, what matters is actually true, rather than what they believe to be true. If they believe that high difficulty is the reason they don't participate in the GOTM, but that's not actually true, then creating lower-difficulty games won't help.

I am curious ... do you not see any advantages to a tier system? Or do you see loss of comparability as trumping all benefits?

I already said (in this thread) that I'd personally be very happy with a system where I can play Immortal or Deity every month.

 

[Trynthlas]

DaviddesJ - I did not in fact play GOTM23, as I had not entered the CivFanatics community at that point (which LowtherCastle kindly pointed out). Were that not the case, I would very likely have played and submitted a game.

Also, were there a Monarch or lower game available this month, I would gladly play it




(ps, thanks to the suggestion of another poster in the other thread I'm currently babbling in, I will be attempting not to get myself totally demolished in this month's Emperor level game )

 

[DaviddesJ]

Also, were there a Monarch or lower game available this month, I would gladly play it

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=251044

 

[Trynthlas]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=251044

Heh...well just a teensy-little problem there, as I have Vanilla and BtS, but not Warlords

 

[morpheus11]

This is just bunk. You didn't play GOTM 23, did you, even though the difficulty was Noble. I'm frustrated by the posters who keep asserting they don't play because the difficulty level is too high, yet they don't play even when it's low.

DaviddesJ this is a little harsh. I went back and pull the difficulties from the last 11 months (GOTM 15). So, if someone started looking at this forum around February this year this it what they would have seen.

GOTM 15 = Deity
GOTM 16 = Prince
GOTM 17 = Monarch
GOTM 18 = Monarch
GOTM 19 = Emporer
GOTM 20 = Immortal
GOTM 21 = Monarch
GOTM 22 = Monarch
GOTM 23 = Noble
GOTM 24 = Monarch
GOTM 25 = Emporer

I am going to use myself as an example. I just recently decided that I was ready to move up to Noble difficulty earlier this month. After checking this forum for 8 months and seeing games that I felt were far to difficult for me and wouldn't be entertaining for me there is a game at Noble. At this point in my real life I had situations that came up that prevented me from playing any games let alone Civ. Then I get back on and find I missed a Noble game and now there are 2 months of games I am not comfortable with.

So, before you through a hissy fit about people wanting more games below Monarch b/c they didn't participate in the 1 Noble and 1 Prince game this year you might want to think of their side of it.

I don't live through Civ which is probably why I am still playing on Noble. To be clear I am not trying to critize the past, but improve the future.

 

[Niklas]

2. Some of the best players stop playing or play less frequently. Supposedly because they lack challenges. (Sounds like a plausible explanation to me).

Judging by the Civ3 community again, I'd say this is very plausible indeed. There are a (not insignificant) number of people who only play when Deity+ games are offered.

@DaviddesJ: Who says Prince isn't a brick wall to some people?

 

[Thrallia]

I still don't see how comparability is decreased. That is, I still don't see how the current Challenger, Contender , and Adventurer are comparable (at all).

I found the current challenger, contender, and adventurer very comparable. When I first started the GOTM, I played adventurer only because I was not comfortable at any of the difficulty levels provided. I lost each time as well, but by comparing my gameplay with everyone else's games(contender or challenger included) I was able to single out where my mistakes were that were causing me to lose despite being given an edge over the competition. I eventually used that knowledge to win a few games. If the contender and challenger games were played on higher levels, and adventurer at a lower level, then I would likely have won the games I was playing, and I would definitely have felt that comparing my game to the contender or challengers was pointless because they were playing difficulty levels that in my head, I couldn't see myself ever having a chance at winning on. So, I would likely have won more games, but I doubt I ever would have learned as much as I have.

So my question regarding this proposed tiered level system, is whether there is a way to make it at least somewhat comparable, where adventurer players will still see a reason to compare their games to contenders, and see a reason to try to advance from Adventurer to Contender.

Maybe the better approach would be to change first to a 2-tier system where the "Adventurer" class is directed at beginners and "casual" players and the "Contender" group is run in the same way as it is now with the exception that no Noble and Prince games are offered? This seems to require a minimum of changes and practical problems. A 3rd advanced tier with predominantly Deity games (In line with Balbes's subdivision) could then be added later if enough players and interest is present...

I disagree with having entirely separated classes when going by level. If we were to adopt the tiered system being promoted, I would think we definitely need 3 classes in order to accomodate both the beginners and the elite.

For adventurer, I would speculate that anywhere from chieftain or warlord, up to Prince would be eligible for rotation.

For contender, there needs to be an overlap with adventurer, or the 'jump' from one class to the other will seem to many an impassable hurdle(jumping from prince to monarch is no easy feat your first few times). So I'd propose Noble to Immortal as the range for Contender players.

Finally, Challenger would run Emperor to Deity, and in order to qualify for the Eptathlon, you must do it on Challenger.

Winning two or three medals and/or three or four fastest finishes bumps you up from one Adventurer to Contender. I'm not sure if there needs to be a requirement for being bumped up to Challenger, but if there is one, I would think it'd be achieving a fastest finish in every victory condition, or otherwise proving your dominance in contender to the point where you cannot be considered regular competition there anymore.

 

[BLubmuz]

I'll try to summarize and to make a proposal:
the 3 levels can be in the spirit of the present adventurer/contender/challenger
but they need an overlap:
adventurer: from Chieftain to Prince
contender : from Noble to Emperor
challenger : from Monarch to Deity

But as i never been tired to repeat, it's often a problem of map and settings:
Morpheus listed the last 12 or so GotM, but a monarch with AW and raging Barbs and those map conditions (Rome IIRC) was far beyond the possibilities even of the better players. Only a handful of players submitted a winning game, and i can bet they has a lot of luck, not only skills.

If anyone remembers GotM10 (China - Immortal) with those map conditions a monarch player can win, or lose learning something, not being just frustrated.
Same thing for GotM09 (Inca-Emperor), but with some degree of increasing the difficulty for the other continent: if the AIs there was peaceful, you were toasted (or in trouble, at least), if they fought each other it was quite easy (see spoilers)and i can remember lots of posts about a quechua rush, to discover our closest neighbour was some 40 turns away.

I remember a lot of fun for the fantasy realm/Zulu GotM, btw a map not submittable for the HoF (i'll never understand why... pity, it's so fun).

 

[da_Vinci]

Well, what matters is actually true, rather than what they believe to be true. If they believe that high difficulty is the reason they don't participate in the GOTM, but that's not actually true, then creating lower-difficulty games won't help.

We will probably have to agree to disagree on this one (nothing unusual about that), but I would argue that what matters to a person's behavior is what they believe to be true. Ideally that would match what is actually true, but when these diverge, the believed truth will determine behavior.

So if a meaningful number of potential players of GOTM believe that its difficulty is out of their league, that belief determines whether they play or not. Regardless of whether we think that belief is warranted.

Now if we think that the problem is that their belief is mistaken (but how can that be, as this is a subjective judgement), then maybe the solution is to change their beliefs without changing GOTM. But if we think their belief is valid from where they are at (my opinion), then the only way to change their belief is by changing GOTM.

But as I have said before, if expanding the appeal of a GOTM experience to new or less skilled players is not someting we want to do, then this part of the discussion is moot.

dV

 

[DaviddesJ]

So if a meaningful number of potential players of GOTM believe that its difficulty is out of their league, that belief determines whether they play or not.

No, it doesn't. It's quite possible that many people say, and believe, that the reason they aren't playing is because the difficulty is too high. But if you give them a lower difficulty option, they still won't play. It's their belief about why they aren't playing that is wrong, not their belief about the difficulty of the game.

I don't think that most Noble level players, who are put off by the idea of trying to play Monarch, are likely to participate regularly in a Noble level GOTM even if it is offered. Maybe they will try once, but I think they will finish far behind the more competitive Adventurer level players (the ones who participate now, even though they aren't competitive with the top players), and then soon you'll find they don't come back.

That said, I'm perfectly happy to offer them an easier game option (as I've said all along), especially if that comes with a harder difficulty option for me.

 

[Harbourboy]

I lose 90% of the GOTMs I enter. But I still enter them, because that's how you learn. Who wants to play and beat Settler all the time?

 

[LowtherCastle]

So my question regarding this proposed tiered level system, is whether there is a way to make it at least somewhat comparable, where adventurer players will still see a reason to compare their games to contenders, and see a reason to try to advance from Adventurer to Contender.

In terms of how you have learned, I take this to mean that you might have played adventurer (proposed system, I mean) till comfortable then you would have switched to contender and been able to compare with better results. Adventurer is not necessarily a long-term stopping point. The shortere the better.

I lose 90% of the GOTMs I enter. But I still enter them, because that's how you learn. Who wants to play and beat Settler all the time?

Truly. Deity on occasion is good medicine... Adventurer-level players are never forced to play adventurer level.

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

I'm a contender.

I really like the idea of using seperate difficulty levels for the game of the month.

I really like the idea of having adventurer awards for fastest victories on the easier setting.

I'm not sure whether I support 2 tiers with a victory condition of the month to satisfy the most hardcore players or if I support 3 tiers with the top one immortal/deity for the most hardcore players.