Gentle Adventures - Feedback

[Kukulcan]

Well, I picked up Adv-1 because I knew the one was going to be easy:
I wanted a chance to explore the game without having too think too hard about
how exactly I was going to go about winning it.
I ususally play a game from a very low level at the outset, and then ramp things up
once I get the feel for the game.

I knew I probably wouldn't survive Adv-2, so it was nice to see a less-demanding
alternative with which I could whet my appetite.

Some folks (I think both Arathorn and Jester) have suggested a ten-point scale for
identifying the difficulty level. I think that would be useful: Gentle / Extreme are
plenty descriptive, but one person's "gentle" could easily be another's "extreme."
Recall, for example that once upon a time, AWM was extreme; eventually folks were
playing AWE and AW-Diety! If I know, for instance, that I am struggling to keep
afloat in difficulty-5 and difficulty-6 games, then I would probably know to stay
away from 9's and 10's (for now), but might be tempted to try a 7 or 8.

Anyway, I think I'm starting to ramble, so let me sum up by directly answering
the questions....

It was a fun game. I think victory never was REALLY in doubt. Bumping "gentle" up a level or two would be fine (and welcomed) by me.

I certainly would have thrown my hat in the ring for Epic-1 if I had owned the game at that time; and hope to participate in Adv-3 and/or Adv-4 if I can get ahead of my work responsibilities.

[Mike Lemmer]

I think a 10-scale is too detailed. A 5-scale or even a 4-scale will suit our purposes much better.

[Carloz]

Or perhaps a fractional scale, like Planck temperature. "This is 0.43 Kylearans of difficulty."

[theGrimm]

To what extent to the sponsors play the game before posting it as an adventure? Because otherwise an accurate scale of difficulty is almost impossible. Even then, too many factors affect difficulty, even in the same game. Do Ghengis and Monty turn on each other, or on the human player? Same game, totally different difficulty level Why agonise for hours rating a game that is too complex to be rated? How would you rate a game of chess, before you know your opponent?

Based on comments until now:

I think "Extreme" and "Gentle" are just fine, besides <normal> Adventures. That's three difficulty levels, if you want to be technical.

I don't think you need an extra adjective for <normal> Adventures.

I think Sirian's intentions where just fine, and we're over analysing.

I think Adventure 1 was a bit too easy even for a gentle adventure. I mean, even I beat it

[Kylearan]

Hi,

while I think a numerical difficulty rating would be great in theory, I doubt it would work in practice. theGrimm's point is a good one: Since we don't want to lock out the sponsors playing the game, and forcing them to play it through before posting the start file is a bit much, all you can rate is the set-up plus some initial turns. And while someone's "gentle" might be another one's "extreme", so can someone's "2 out of 10" feel like "6 out of 10" to the other player. At least "gentle" and "extreme" sounds more intuitive than an abstract number.

Most of the time, the level of difficulty can be inferred from the description anyway. Warlord game with an extra worker? Don't need the "gentle" label for that to see it's easy. Monarch game with a tundra start? Looks tough! Prince with a green start? Must be somewhere inbetween... etc.

The label helps to give a hint what the players await, of course. Sirian had already played some turns into Adventure 2 to see that there was no garden Eden hidden somewhere for the Azteskimos, so the label gave an additional hint that this game is really as hard as it looks. I think the current labeling is fine; I rely much more on the description anyway.

"This is 0.43 Kylearans of difficulty."

Somehow I feel the urge to point out that I do NOT play CIV six hours a day...my only CIV activities are two SGs and the RB events, and that's it. More the wife wouldn't allow anyway. (And there are several better players than me here as well, although some like Arathorn do not realize that yet... )

But exactly for that reason I prefer the harder games: My gaming time is limited anyway, so I'd like to use it wisely to explore uncharted territories. My preference for harder games should of course NOT influence this tournament in any way! I'll gladly stick to the extreme adventures and the innovative variants. I think it's very important to have easier games as well, to keep RB a mixed community.

-Kylearan

[Jester]

There was awhile when I used the "Sirian" as a measure of civilization skill. I figured I was somewhere around 0.3 Sirians.

Any ranking system is going to be made problematic by the need to rate the game after very few turns. Gentle is probably fairly easy to tell, although it may lead to the occasional surprise. Normal and Extreme are much more difficult, as a game can easily be much easier or much harder than expected. A 10 point system is no more inherently bad for that than the existing "three" point system, really.

Maybe a five point ranking would be better. It's all just an estimate, anyway, based on the opening. That's all we can really ever give people, and beyond that, well, that's why they're called "adventures".

-Jester

[Taziar]

For me the decision on playing an adventure is currently based on map size. My pc just won't handle normal maps after the middle-ages and huge maps start lagging after the first turn. So i picked up adventure 1 because it was a small map the difficulty level is a bit to low for my liking but I learned a few things nonetheless.

Warlord is probably a one timer mainly because a free settler or worker can gain one player enormous advantages another one might not get. Other than that it might be a good difficulty for an OCC attempt (great free settler on OCC ).

This brings forth one type of ranking we could add which is time-based so we can have a fast adventure. This could involve smaller maps, OCC's, quick or normal game speeds. I know from experience a small map OCC space ship launch on epic speed doesn't take more than 4 hours which is great! Especially with several people here that have limited time for games.

As one might expect I'd love to see some OCC's as adventures it brings great possibilities (you can actually get Heroic Epic+Ironworks+West Point+Red Cross in one city on OCC ) and restrictions. Best of all they teach you humility in the face of your rivals (most of the time you won't get nearly as many units as the AI's).

Anyway hopefully i'l get some upgrades soon for my pc so I can actually enjoy more enemies and bigger maps

P.S. Don't think I only play OCC i like having more than one city most of the time

[MadDogTrebonius]

How about simply <normal>="Challenging". There are then three levels:
- Gentle
- Challenging
- Extreme

Or you could use the skiing metaphor. Green Circle, Blue Square, Black Diamond

[Griselda]

Hehe. It's still possible to break a leg on the bunny slope if conditions are right!

Another thing we want to keep in mind is the growth in the community over time. What we consider easy and challenging at this point won't be the same a year from now. It's true that we will develop at a different rate depending upon how much we play (among other things, of course), but the average ability of the community will change over time.

It seems to me that a numeric scale would make it harder to take that into account. Once would expect that an "8" difficulty game starting today would be equally as challenging as an "8" starting next year. As the community grows and some players need even greater challenges, would we then need to inflate our difficulty scale to account for the harder games? Yet, if we describe the challenge rating of a game with words, it seems like that difference could be more intuitive and have room to grow with the community.

I also expect that as the tournament and the game matures, we will all become more savvy at choosing games that are a good fit for our playstyle and ability.

[Herbie]

HmHmmmm....

I like "gentle" adventures very much, since I simply like to win...
(Who doesn't ? You might have bought the game to play "challenging games", but if you always loose, you won't play anymore...)
What really attracted me, was the variant rules in epic one. From there to Adventure One it was only a small step. I skipped adventure two simply because it was on a level I knew I couldn't win (and because I have not soooo much time...). I missed Adventure Three because of the "savegame issue" and lack of time, and I am actually playing Adventure 4 , even it being a Monarch (and I just... can't... win... on Monarch... because I liked the idea of "no Alphabet" very much.
I even would play an adventure on Settler-difficulty if it has a nice variant rule.

So, everything taken together: Why giving those games any titles like "gentle", "extreme" or such at all ? I think people will play them mostly because of the fun with the variant (okay: I will...). You can tell the overall difficulty by level and rules and decide for yourself wether to play or not to play...

hmmm... I did wander away slightly from the original Question...
To answer that: Yes, bring on some easier games from time to time, so I won't loose the interest in those adventures (because I am loosing each and every game... see above). And I think there are players with all kind of Skillrange from 0.0 Sirians (me...) to 1 Sirian (HE-WHO-IS), so there will be a Game for everyone !


There are just some other, very important Questions left:

Are there negative Sirians ? (like with Celsius or Fahrenheit, or is it absolute like Kelvin (so: there's not a player worse than me...)

and:
Is 1 Sirian maxed out ?

8)