XOTM award and ranking overhaul?

[DaviddesJ]

How did you come up with your winning strategy in SG1? As I recall you guys were discussing one and then out of the blue you came up with a different one.

For Monarch conquest, I think there's not much grand strategy beyond (1) get to Astronomy as fast as possible, then (2) kill everyone. As I recall, we sort of went astray on our research path to Astronomy (couldn't lightbulb what we intended), but then we stumbled onto a different research path that also worked out quite well. I'd say the ingredients of success were (1) early decision for War Chariot rush of our neighbor, executed well, (2) reasonable research path, and (3) lots of careful combat execution, including a whole lot of ship chaining. That's really about all there is to it (imho).

 

[LowtherCastle]

(1) early decision for War Chariot rush of our neighbor, executed well,

Right. This was what I was talking about:

Hey, here's another, completely different idea. Suppose we start building a settler as soon as we reach size 2. I think this gets us the settler 6 turns earlier than if we wait to grow to size 3. We put the settler near the horses and connect them up quickly. Then we build War Chariots and blitz Catherine.

DO you remember what gave you this idea? Just toying around with the idea of using the UU, or what?

 

[DaviddesJ]

Right. This was what I was talking about:
DO you remember what gave you this idea? Just toying around with the idea of using the UU, or what?

Yes, I think that's right. Certainly it wasn't based on any experience, since I'd never played a game with War Chariots before. It was more that I thought it would be more interesting to actually use the UU, than that I had calculated that it would actually be effective. (Couldn't really do that calculation, anyway, since we didn't know that much of the map at that time.)

I do think that it's generally important in Civ4 to be focused. I.e., as I recall, I argued that we should either do the rush, in which case we should basically do everything we could to maximize the rush, or not do the rush, in which case we should not worry about WCs and just play peacefully. I firmly believe that either of those strategies could have worked about equally well, if executed properly. (The rush may actually be easier to execute, just because it's over in relatively few turns, one way or the other.)

I'm not a big fan of the "slow rush". Partly because it takes time to absorb the captured cities, and the earlier you can grab them, the more they will actually pay off. Especially with a chariot rush, where the concern is your opponent hooking up metal and building spears (or even axes).

 

[Obormot]

Aye, there's the rub...

This is the key. But what is the key?

The key is this: How to teach a deeper understanding. But no, that's not the key. So what be the key?

The key, it be this: Teaching Obormot how to teach a deeper understanding.

Why Obormot? Because methinks he wants to teach. And to piss off Grey Cardinal, Balbes and Lexad...

Actually I am pursuing a very clear egoistic goal here in this thread. Soon I might start playing GOTMs again with BtS coming out, so I want to convince everybody to change the rules of the competition to make it as fun as possible. That is why I started this whole talk about awards.

 

[Lexad]

Soon I might start playing GOTMs again

 

[LowtherCastle]

Actually I am pursuing a very clear egoistic goal here in this thread. Soon I might start playing GOTMs again with BtS coming out, so I want to convince everybody to change the rules of the competition to make it as fun as possible. That is why I started this whole talk about awards.

Ah hah! In that case...

I am in favor of the current Gold/Silver/Bronze medal for points for one simple reason: I like competing for score. That is most fun for me. Far moreso than for speed. Change the scoring system all you want, just make it a competition for score, keep the three medals, and let us all know the scoring system.

For that matter, maybe the BtS scoring system is improved...

EDIT: Yes, I meant here to keep the current G/S/B awards AND speed awards (see Obormot below). I also agree with Obormot/da_Vinci that the Cow be downgraded to minor status, not included in the Eptathlete award. I think the current Eptathletes should be polled on that, perhaps. Perhaps that change could be rolled out only for BtS and Warlords if they disagree for Vanilla.

Also, if there will be a Challenger version, which I also think is good, maybe it should also come in a G/S/B format if it gets enough particpation.

 

[Obormot]

That won't work as I said before; there are too many of us who prefer speed over score, and convincing all those people won't be possible. Also it seems to be very difficult to convince the GOTM staff to go against traditions. For the same reason it is not possible to leave only the speed awards. So, I guess, we'll have to leave with both sets of awards.

But there are things we can do. First of all I want to get rid os the cow. I have milked a game up to 2050AD once, back in civ3 days and I decided that I will never do it again. As far as I know nobody likes playing for the cow; people only do it to complete the statue or win it by accident when nobody plays up to 2050. All it does currently is: (1) force people to either do extremely tedious and unfun actions or abandon the idea of winning an epthatlon, either leading to decreased interest in the competition; and (2) distracting people from competing for other awards, leading to decreased competition for those awards and thus again to decreased interest. Fixing the problem (1) requires pretty much zero amount of work from the admins (just make an official anouncement, I guess?); (2) it won't make any people unhappy with the decision; (3) it is a small, but substantial improvement to the awards system.

The second step would be "VC of the month". This option propably requires some more discussion, maybe we need a separate thread for that. As I see it, the mapmaker anounces a chosen victory goal before a game starts for people who want more competition. For example we can compete for a "fast cultural win" this month, then for a "high scoring domination" next month, etc. (I am not sure if a high scoring space/culture/diplomatic make any sense though). Again, (1) the amount of work to implement this feature is rather small; (2) it propably won't make many people unhappy: those who want more competition will get it, those who want less competition will also get it by pursuing other VCs; (3) it could significantly increase the interest in GOTMs and (4) it won't go against traditions: a similar feature already existed for some time in the civ3 GOTM.

Of course, there could be other improvements, and there were many good suggestions made in this thread, but they were either controversial (some people like them, others don't) or very difficult to implement (creating a new scoring formula for example). I think we should use a step by step approach here. Convincing ainwood to get rid of the cow would already be a huge step forward. Then we could move on to more difficult stuff.

 

[Erkon]

I've been studying the event logs provided at the GOTM results site. This have helped me to understand how successful players have played. For example, Obermot was very slow at the start of WOTM 07 Persia, Immortal but this may be because of the challenger setting. The research rate and capture rate is easy to analyze. The site is a valuable source of information, but you need to read between the lines.

After reading about the ALT-E log feature, I've been using it myself. I try to log my decisions and events that are not saved in the autolog. This is a very convenient way to explain how you're playing since you don't need to ALT-TAB to a notebook. I would encourage more players to use it since it makes the event log easier to understand. Example: "I choose to attack <AI> because of <reason>."

The most difficult part of explaining a game session is to describe the mental process that leads to timing related decision, because it's often based on gut feeling (at least for me). It's fairly easy to explain and understand lightbulbing techniques, building strategies and combat tactics. But how do you decide when to attack? Or build another city? Or trading a tech? Of course there are indications of AI progress and sometimes the decision is easy (I attack as soon as I have enough units or the correct set of units or have access to the UU etc). But when should you start a fast/slow rush? At what pace to you expand in the BC years? How do you predict that your economy will not fail? What is the concequences of delaying the rush for ten turns to improve economy? It takes experience to learn these things and skills to predict the future events in a game. I would appreciate if more players used ALT-E to record such decisions.

 

[da_Vinci]

But there are things we can do. First of all I want to get rid of the cow. I have milked a game up to 2050AD once, back in civ3 days and I decided that I will never do it again. As far as I know nobody likes playing for the cow; people only do it to complete the statue or win it by accident when nobody plays up to 2050. All it does currently is: (1) force people to either do extremely tedious and unfun actions or abandon the idea of winning an epthatlon, either leading to decreased interest in the competition; and (2) distracting people from competing for other awards, leading to decreased competition for those awards and thus again to decreased interest.

I would suggest that we keep the cow but take it out of the eptathlon.

I think the cow belongs more with the low awards (shields) than with the speed awards. Why? Because it can be won by a player of a skill level that would not be in contention for speed awards or score medals (like me).

And in the one case where I won it, I did go intentionally for it, as it was the only objective left to pursue given how the game progressed (no personal best for speed could be obtained). It was tedious, but also instructive to pursue the cow. But as you say, I can't see making a habit of it. But like playing scales to the musician, some tedious practice can be beneficial.

So I say keep it as something that the new and/or developing players can shoot for (hopefully not more than once ), but remove it from being a concern for the advanced players.

dV

 

[EEO]

My impression from other threads is that this is a game option in BTS, not the default.

I had not heard earlier about slavery changes. It will be interesting to see what they are.

David,

Since BTS is available in Europe a few days before America (never seen this in the past for any civilization game ...) I can answer this question now.

First, you were right: "only trading techs that you researched yourself" is an option, not the default.

About slavery changes:

1) It is now medium upkeep

2) The "slavery revolt" event can happen only if you run slavery civic ( I presume that probability it appears in some city grows with citizens poprushed in this city, but I got no evidence for that in xml and py files: I would have to dive in the code to know)

As an indirect effect on slavery, the caste system civic is somehow enforced by the following changes

1) + 1 for workshops with caste system

2) The Mausoleum that let Golden Ages last 50% more

3) The first Golden Age can be launched by only one Great Person