GOTM 8 - Regoarrarr

[regoarrarr]

I don't know if any of you guys do the Game of the Month over at Civ Fanatics, but I just finished up my replay.

I thought some might enjoy it, and I know I'd certainly enjoy seeing if anybody else here at RB has a writeup for their participation. If you haven't played, there is still a week to finish the game. But since there already exists a spoiler thread in the GOTM Forums, I figure it's not a problem to post my completed game.

Needless to say, my writeup has spoilers for the game, so if you're planning on playing and haven't finished, don't read it (yet!)

Hopefully nobody at RB will mind my posting this - after all, there are no Epics / Adventures closing today, so that means a boring Monday with no reports to read!!!

My report is at http://www.regoarrarr.com/civ/replay.php?story=14

[Sullla]

I did not play GOTM8, nor do I have any plans to play it, but I did enjoy reading your story. That was one of the most amazing starting locations I've ever seen before. Pigs, fish, gold, and copper - wow!

One question though - was it worth it to play all those test games, figuring out a pre-determined path to take? That doesn't seem like it would be particularly fun to me, but to each his own. (If people are really creating mock-up maps to do dry runs for the GOTM, I can't see myself ever taking part in it.) I don't want to come off too negatively here, I'm just curious as to what your impressions were after such extensive preparation for this game.

[Bede]

They do love to do dry runs over there on the GOTM board. Seems to me to take a lot of the fun out of it because it is all focused on finding the quickest path to some "optimal path" as determined by a short handful of players before the actual file is even opened.

Since the consensus of the crowd for this one was that domination/conquest victories were going to come late, I picked it up and played it to Domination - skipping any "slingshots". Well, they were right about one thing - the logistics to get to a Domination victory on that map were a killer, but great fun trying to track the shortest path through the island maze so that the dominoes would fall in some kind of reasonable order. I really wanted the game to end in 1945 but I missed that one by 18 years.

[regoarrarr]

One question though - was it worth it to play all those test games, figuring out a pre-determined path to take? That doesn't seem like it would be particularly fun to me, but to each his own.

Yeah I enjoy doing those test games. It's not so much having to find that "perfect" path, at least not for me. I am never going to be as good as folks like DaveMcW, and I don't particularly have a huge desire to be that good.

One of the things that I enjoy about games like Civ is the analysis part. Trying to figure out the best way to do things. And in the early game, it is possible to maximize a particular goal. As the game gets further on, it's a lot harder (or impossible) to do so, since there are so many variables.

One of the reasons that I'm not as good of a player as I might otherwise be is that I tend to play too fast. I get going in the spirit of the game, and miss things by playing too fast. I find it hard to "slow down"

Anyways, I'm glad that you enjoyed the report

[Sirian]

One of the reasons that I'm not as good of a player as I might otherwise be is that I tend to play too fast. I get going in the spirit of the game, and miss things by playing too fast. I find it hard to "slow down".

Sometimes "good" is a relative thing.

There are four avenues of pleasure in gaming. The first and largest is to relax into something rhythmic. The second is to face and overcome adversity. The third is to explore new territory. The fourth is to share with friends or rivals.

I cherish each. Sometimes my needs differ. Sometimes paths one and two become mutually exclusive, as pushing myself hard is not necessarily relaxing. Sometimes paths two and three become mutually exclusive, as it takes familiarity with game mechanics to master the stiffest challenges as measured entirely objectively.

Over time, I've moved in to a place where relative challenge has replaced objective challenge, for the most part, in my own gaming. I'm not sure if this is a natural outgrowth of variantism, or a sidebar to it. All forms of challenge involve an equation. There are the abilities and knowledge on the one side, the obstacles on the other. Adding to one's own abilities and knowledge will tip the equation, unless one also adds absolute difficulty to the other.

Everything depends on whether you are more focused on the journey or the destination. I still focus on both, but I've moved toward the journey, where it is the balance between the two sides of the equation that matters, not so much what the defined values are on the obstacle side. That is, piling up the highest values on the obstacle side used to be my main focus, but now I'm choosier with what I employ on the ability/knowledge side.

What I've tended to move toward is employing only the stuff on the ability and knowledge side of the balance that I find rhythmic and aesthetically pleasing. I can then manipulate the challenge side to reflect any flavor I like, be it easy, medium, hard or crushing. The idea being that great gaming always involves all four paths simultaneously, and I'm becoming fussier about that in my old age.


- Sirian

[Sullla]

Yeah I enjoy doing those test games. It's not so much having to find that "perfect" path, at least not for me. I am never going to be as good as folks like DaveMcW, and I don't particularly have a huge desire to be that good.

I've played Dave twice in Multiplayer games, and stomped him pretty thoroughly both times. He seemed not to do as well with random settings and against human players. (And I mean that in the nicest possible way, he's a good guy.)

I guess there's no point to this post, other than I'm feeling mischievious tonight.

[regoarrarr]

Yeah I wasn't trying to say you weren't good Sullla I was going to put your name in the original message in a list of the various good players, but then I thought if I put you in, then what about all the other players, and I didn't want people to be left out. So I left it at one.

Plus, I figured if the list of players better than me got TOO long, I might get depressed and cry

[Ruff_Hi]

I got bored waiting for the next epic / adventure so I also played GOTM VIII ... downloaded the start 5 days ago ... and submitted my results on the same day. The write up of my game is here.

Don't really know what to say about this game except that I expect it will be a while before anyone beats it!

[regoarrarr]

Nice. I'm kind of surprised you got the CS slingshot that late - I don't know if you read over in the post-game thread over at CFC but some people had the Oracle built by an AI in the 1800s BC!

Your game here sounds very similar to what happened to me in Epic 1.

[Ruff_Hi]

Nope - didn't read the posts. I was drifting along for the early turns before I realized that the Oracle CS Slingshot was really on the cards.