WOTM 05 Results & Congratulations

If you want to continue the analogy, playing for speed might involve trashing your car the moment you buy it by running it faster than it's supposed to go down a racing track. Playing for score might involve keeping your car well serviced for ages, then suddenly trashing it by driving it up a mountain that's far steeper than it's designed to go up. Neither would be seen as good examples of looking after a car.

Of course, I agree. Your analysis goes one step beyond what I was talking about. My point was: in military victories, playing for score is more difficult than playing for fastest finish. In other words: the current score formula is more relevant than a formula based only on speed for military victories.
But I'm sure you have not missed that I think the current formula can be improved ...
 
How many cities were left in that last civ you vassalized?
If you had not vassalized, and won by domination, how high would the score have been? Would you have doubled (medal + award)?

It has always kind of bugged me when the winners neglect to post spoilers. I'd have done one by now if I thought I might win-I'm a little surprised honestly. So why don't I write one and answer your questions there?
 
Now my curiosity is up! How many cities were left in that last civ you vassalized? In my limited Warlords experience, they won't capitulate until there is only one or two cities left.

dV

In my game, Huayna vassalized when he had 6 cities left. I took 3 cities from him, and he was actually about to take one back and destroy my entire invasion army with a SOD when he surrendered to me :crazyeye:
 
Also, congrats to all the winners!

Perhaps my luck has changed...after getting wiped out quickly in WOTMs 2 and 3, and failing to finish or even submit 4, I placed 28th this time...my first time in the top quarter of the standings :)
 
Oh my! :eek: I was not intenting to insult anyone with my reference to real winners and real talents, other than to acknowledge that there are many more talented players that I who are lower on the list ranked by score. I see that my choice of language was misleading, and I apologize to anyone who felt is was a criticism or insult to them. :blush:

That's OK. :)

I can't see how it can be argued that winning later takes more skill.

It is because I felt you think this, that I said you don't understand what you are talking about :mischief: . When playing for score, the importance of population factor prevents you from doing several things as

- stopping research early
- razing cities
- extreme pop rushing
- producing only military units
- accepting extreme WW

At each moment, you have to find a balance between the different aspects of the game, especially speed and population. For what I have experimented :crazyeye:, this complexity requires more skill than the extreme techniques listed above, that are the basis of quick military victories.
 
It all comes down to what you mean by "skill". I think we can all agree that playing for high scores (as opposed to fast wins) takes more time and effort. This has always been true, back to the early days of Civ3 at least. One point of view is that, because such results depend more on being willing to spend the time to manage large numbers of cities, they naturally depend less on skill (i.e., there may be many highly skilled players who don't get such results just because they aren't willing to put in the time and effort). A different point of view is that such wins require new kinds of skills (in addition to time and effort) that are of value in their own right. I don't think there's a single "right" answer (which is why it's good that Civ can be played in many different ways).
 
It is because I felt you think this, that I said you don't understand what you are talking about :mischief: . When playing for score, the importance of population factor prevents you from doing several things as

- stopping research early
- razing cities
- extreme pop rushing
- producing only military units
- accepting extreme WW

At each moment, you have to find a balance between the different aspects of the game, especially speed and population. For what I have experimented :crazyeye:, this complexity requires more skill than the extreme techniques listed above, that are the basis of quick military victories.
Well, let's put what I said in its full context:

I think that within any victory type, a faster victory should generally reflect a more skillfully (i.e. efficiently or elegantly) played game (I could be wrong here, as I have little experience with non-military wins). I can't see how it can be argued that wining later takes more skill. Winning early usually means winning small (or at least relatively small), and it seems that winning later and bigger is more rewarded in score, except after 1800 or so when the lateness factor starts to overcome size growth.

To the extent that very fast military victory will always be faster than very fast culture or diplomatic (or space for that matter), then we really can't compare across victory types in any meaningful way. Which is why we have the type-specific awards, which are based on speed.
I am curious, EEO, do you feel that winning later takes more skill in the non-military victory types as well? Or are your comments limited to military victories?

You seem to suggest that stopping research early, razing cities, extreme pop rushing, producing only military units, and accepting extreme WW are easy ways to play, and require less skill than doing the opposite of each. You might be right, but at present that seems counter-intuitive to me, mostly based on my sense that the novice usually plays doing the opposite of all of these. I know I have not mastered all of these yet, maybe when I do I will see it differently? :crazyeye:

I guess my thoughts on this are mostly colored by my own experience, which is that as I gain new skills, my ability to score relatively high has outpaced my ability to win relatively quickly (pretty much restricted to domination wins so far), which has left me in awe of the speed demons! But maybe my experience is not typical?

Then again, if I just agree with your arguments, maybe I can take more pride my 19th score ranking for this game! ;)

dV
 
It all comes down to what you mean by "skill". I think we can all agree that playing for high scores (as opposed to fast wins) takes more time and effort. This has always been true, back to the early days of Civ3 at least. One point of view is that, because such results depend more on being willing to spend the time to manage large numbers of cities, they naturally depend less on skill (i.e., there may be many highly skilled players who don't get such results just because they aren't willing to put in the time and effort). A different point of view is that such wins require new kinds of skills (in addition to time and effort) that are of value in their own right. I don't think there's a single "right" answer (which is why it's good that Civ can be played in many different ways).

Good point. Before Civ4, I agree that obtaining high scores was a matter of time and effort (in Civ1, Civ2 and Civ3 I always played for fastest finish). In Civ4, it's different, probably thanks the influence of Jason score.
Sure, the concept of skill is not easy to define, but it's generally correlated with complexity level. As you have more parameters to take into account when going for score, it seems not absurd to say it requires more "skill". I am not sure it requires significantly more time and effort in Civ4. Maybe the problem is it gives less fun ...
 
Well, let's put what I said in its full context:

I am curious, EEO, do you feel that winning later takes more skill in the non-military victory types as well? Or are your comments limited to military victories?

My comments are relevant for military victories with the current score formula. A formula judging properly other victory types is still to be invented.

You seem to suggest that stopping research early, razing cities, extreme pop rushing, producing only military units, and accepting extreme WW are easy ways to play, and require less skill than doing the opposite of each. You might be right, but at present that seems counter-intuitive to me, mostly based on my sense that the novice usually plays doing the opposite of all of these. I know I have not mastered all of these yet, maybe when I do I will see it differently? :crazyeye:

I didn't say it's easy: it requires important tactical skills. But the strategy involved is limited in such a way that I can describe it within a few lines.
I could not do this so easily for a high score military victory ...


Then again, if I just agree with your arguments, maybe I can take more pride my 19th score ranking for this game!

Well, the question is how many people were really trying for score :p ?
 
It depends on the map a lot. I agree that fast conquests on a pangaea map and low difficulty level are trivial. But as the map/level gets more difficult, it gets more and more interesting to play for a fast military win. You do need some kind of a balance between research/expansion, you do need carefull planning, etc. Also note that the strategy for these kind of games depends on the map type the most. You need to create a unique plan for each map (especially in civ4!). This actually makes fast military wins the most interesting on harder maps. Milked games don't depend on the map type that much, because when you have cavalry against longbows and can research astronomy in 5 turns it doesn't really matter much anymore.
 
With all due respect to people devoting their efforts to achieving high scores, I have yet to play for one, primarily because going for different quickest victory types requires significantly differing playstyles and strats. Even the fastest conquest may be achieved with Impi (WOTM5) or Grenadiers (GOTM14) depending on map settings and difficult level. While milking for score seems to me pretty much the same - the start may differ, but in the end it should be still the same spamming coastal cities to avoid dom. limit + HG with +/-max number of cities + beeline for Biology and Communism and turning everything into farms - I think I got it right, correct me if not. Being the best surely demands much skill here, but how interesting is this after 20 G+WOTMs? Dunno.
 
While milking for score seems to me pretty much the same - the start may differ, but in the end it should be still the same spamming coastal cities to avoid dom. limit + HG with +/-max number of cities + beeline for Biology and Communism and turning everything into farms - I think I got it right, correct me if not. Being the best surely demands much skill here, but how interesting is this after 20 G+WOTMs? Dunno.

That's it ! You have to do all that and conquer the world as fast as possible. That combination of constraints makes the complexity ...
But I agree, it becomes boring ...
 
I didn't say it's easy: it requires important tactical skills. But the strategy involved is limited in such a way that I can describe it within a few lines. I could not do this so easily for a high score military victory ...
I wonder if both have pretty straightforward strategies, and score is achieved by managing a large number of tasks and tactics that are of moderate difficulty, while speed requires fewer tasks that are more difficult to execute correctly? If one accepts this proposition (I am sure there will be disagreement), then the issue boils down to which package represents more skill. For me, I would tend to rank the skill of the package by the skill required for the one most complex task, not by the sum of the skill required by all of the tasks. Others will see it the opposite. And we are back to the eye of the beholder.

Well, the question is how many people were really trying for score :p ?
Good point! I guess my first instinct to not take my placement too seriously was correct after all! :D

dV
 
I wonder if both have pretty straightforward strategies, and score is achieved by managing a large number of tasks and tactics that are of moderate difficulty, while speed requires fewer tasks that are more difficult to execute correctly?

That sums it up for me, and is why I always play for fastest finish rather than highest score. Both score and speed goals require a strong knowledge of the game and good decision making skills, but going for speed usually requres a lot less time. As Lexad mentioned, once the game is won, the procedure for maximizing score is much the same--and therefore a bit tedious in my opinion. I would rather start a new game and ponder those critical first moves than run a hundred workers around for hours. But, to each his own--many of the gold medal games have been very impressive in both speed and game insight.

Also, going for fastest finish provides more variety in gameplay because you can focus on the various victory conditions. That usually isn't the case when going for score.
 
For me, I would tend to rank the skill of the package by the skill required for the one most complex task, not by the sum of the skill required by all of the tasks. Others will see it the opposite. And we are back to the eye of the beholder.
dV

For some equations complexity will be a summation of the complexities of the variables, but in others it is an exponential relationship. I think Civ4 is a bit in-between. So overall when evaluating skill level across games, I say more variables (will tend to) = greater complexity.
 
Doc TK was again not quite able to grab gold, but again showed his consistency.

Thanks - I think. Man - this must be a record for second places. And someone different beats me every time.

But I'm very happy because I think this is paired with the deity level GOTM for ranking...
 
Thanks - I think. Man - this must be a record for second places. And someone different beats me every time.

But I'm very happy because I think this is paired with the deity level GOTM for ranking...

Paring for a game alternates between the previous and subsequent games, because pairing is always done in reverse order, starting from the most recently published game.
 
Paring for a game alternates between the previous and subsequent games, because pairing is always done in reverse order, starting from the most recently published game.

I'm not sure I follow that. Reading what you've said literally, that seems to imply that each time a single new set of results (say result N) is published, the paring gets reversed as N gets pared with N-1 (until publication of N, N-1 would've been pared with N-2. I'm numbering through the GOTMs and WOTMs so that if N is a GOTM then N-1 was a WOTM, N-2 was a GOTM etc.)

Well that's how I understand your comment, but that isn't what I see on the global rankings: The global rankings are showing that the most recent result, WOTM05, is currently not pared with anything. I do notice that the paring order isn't the same as the game release order, which I guess has something to do with your remarks but I'm not clear how.
 
I'm not sure I follow that. Reading what you've said literally, that seems to imply that each time a single new set of results (say result N) is published, the paring gets reversed as N gets pared with N-1 (until publication of N, N-1 would've been pared with N-2. I'm numbering through the GOTMs and WOTMs so that if N is a GOTM then N-1 was a WOTM, N-2 was a GOTM etc.)

Well that's how I understand your comment, but that isn't what I see on the global rankings: The global rankings are showing that the most recent result, WOTM05, is currently not pared with anything. I do notice that the paring order isn't the same as the game release order, which I guess has something to do with your remarks but I'm not clear how.

Getting an unfair advantage by actually looking at the current table, eh! :rolleyes:

Yes. The results appeared out of order due to recent erratic finish dates. So I've changed the sort order to use start date. Now it conforms with my description :)
 
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