Adventure Five Results

[Sullla]

The Google Docs spreadsheet for the Civ6 Epics/Adventures has been updated to include Adventure Five. We had no finished games and only suboptimal made it to Turn 200 to reach all three scoring benchmarks. Needless to say, this is another disappointing result from a competition perspective. I blame myself for this, as I haven't been finding the time to play these games either. Really wish I had played this one, as my initial test run of the first 50 or so turns to check playability was significantly ahead of these results (I immediately attacked and captured the nearby Industrial city state to gain some space). Part of the fun of Single Player events is playing your way out of subpar starting positions, or at least it used to be in this community. This game didn't seem to catch anyone's interest aside from timmy, who couldn't finish due to an unlucky early AI rush.

I have one more game idea on my list to try. If there's no interest after that, I think the Civ6 competitive events are probably dead. At the very least, someone else will have to take over the responsibility for running them.

[Alhambram]

I was interested to play it, but I just couldn't find time to play it.
Moreover the main goal was exploring religion game play mechanic, well in that regard I was busy with my own version of religious game play in PBEM 2 with a religious victory as result in a multiplayer game.

[Singaboy]

Maybe you can get some consolation from the fact that PBEM for Civ 6 is really popular.

[Bacchus]

Yeah, when there are 11 people involved in playing MP, as there are with two concurrently running PBEMs, the pool of people left for SP events is pretty small.

I also think that expected completion times are taken from when the community was what, at least 10 years younger than it is now? Maybe these aren't reasonable, and maybe it's fine to have overlapping, longer-term events. Or maybe we need young blood.

[TheArchduke]

PBEMs running, the old guard retiring.

The community has taken a turn for the worse by the negative response to CIV V which imo was over the top and unfair. It also became a bit toxic through that if you ask me.

[Sullla]

The events already run much longer now than they did in earlier periods. We had a Civ3 Epic that ran for TWO WEEKS and it had 14 people enter and play to completion. We also routinely had two or even three Epics running at the same time. A Single Player game of Civ6 takes, at most, 10 hours to play all the way through. If there isn't a desire to finish in five weeks, adding more weeks won't make a difference. The community as a whole simply has shifted from being Single Player variant-focused to Multi Player focused over time. The 2002-2005 era Realms Beyond would have been eating this game up and doing all sorts of crazy stuff. Our current active players don't share the same interests, and that's fine.

[Ichabod]

I liked the idea of the adventure and I played it. I captured an unescorted Greek settler and I was in a very good position, I think. But Cleo declared war and her units converged o my Capital at the same as some stray greek units, so I lost my Capital.   So, I stopped the game there... But I'm interested in the next adventure and on challenging maps/variants.

[LKendter]

I do want to get more involved, but Civ5 really killed the game for me. I developed way to many other interests, and just can't seem to find the time for these.

[T-hawk]

I think the Internet has fragmented attention spans.  I don't think any single-player game anywhere gets the volume and depth of community analysis that Civ 3 and 4's early days had.  It's just too easy to go click on Youtube or Facebook or Twitch or Netflix for passive idle entertainment rather than booting up a mentally demanding investment of a game.  With your phone, you don't even have to get out of bed and sit at a proper computer.  I don't think the lessened interest is the fault of Civ 5 or 6's design or our scenario design or anything else related to the game.  Civ 3 and 4 came at the right time when internet communities existed but hadn't yet splintered into a million self-promotional channels.  That was a unique moment in history and won't be repeated.

Twitch in particular amazes me.  People are so lazy that playing video games is too much work and they'd rather watch somebody else play for them.

[Dp101]

Sorry for the upcoming semi-offtopic rant, but I really take issue with the below statement.

Twitch in particular amazes me.  People are so lazy that playing video games is too much work and they'd rather watch somebody else play for them.

If you honestly believe this, then IMHO you really don't understand the community that forms around streamers. If you look at the top streamers, it's almost always either competitive players or community-focused streams. The former gets views through a combination of people trying to replicate the strategies and tactics of the top players, or those who just want to see what the game looks like at the highest level. There is no alternative method through playing the game that allows the viewers to experience those things themselves, or, at least in the case of getting better, the entire point is to play the game themselves later. Characterising people watching streams as laziness just completely misses the point of both these groups of people watching.

The latter kind of stream is also something that cannot be captured by playing the game yourself. Many people watch the popular streamers not for the game itself, but for the personality of the streamer and/or their friends. They watch to hang out and laugh at jokes, not because they are too lazy to play. In fact, in most cases with those streamers, what game they play matters very little, and people tune in regardless. Those who watch enjoy those streamers because they don't have any kind of community of their own to play games with, and try and share in the fun of the streamer to substitute for the lack of fun they find in their own play. Again, not laziness.

There's many more reasons that people will tune in as well. For example, at the release of a game, I know I've often watched streams of gameplay to get an idea of what it's like to actually play without me needing to make a purchase first, and the uncut nature of streams provides a more realistic experience of how the game works than more highly edited youtube content. Similarly, some people cannot purchase a game for a variety of reasons, and simply cannot experience the game in any way other than reports, videos, and streams. Yet another reason that draws people to streams are esports, providing both the rush of being in a crowd and supporting their team combined with all the other reasons to watch high-level gameplay. In conclusion, laziness is probably one of the last reasons that people watch streams. If people watch streams out of laziness, then that must also be the reason that they watch youtube videos and read reports, they are all just different methods of experiencing someone else's perspective of a game.

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With regards to the actual civ event, I don't know why there aren't that many submissions. I was travelling during the period and don't much like the religious mechanics, so didn't participate, but I can't speak for anyone else.