Epics Feedback

[Sullla]

We don't have a game opening or closing this week, so it's a good time to get some community feedback. I'd like to run this thread to hear some opinions on what you'd like to see in terms of future Epics/Adventures. Here's what the tenative upcoming schedule looks like:

Warlords Three (Medium difficulty, points scoring system: diplomacy)
Epic Eleven (Medium difficulty, points scoring system: culture)
Adventure Twenty (Gentle Adventure, fastest finish: domination)
Epic Twelve (Extreme Adventure, no scoring, restrictive variant)
Adventure Twenty-One (Medium difficulty, "crazy" variant a la Adventure Nineteen)

That's designed to take us up to the end of July, where we can re-evaluate things based on the release of the next expansion. For now, I'd like to get some of your responses to these questions:

1) How do you feel about the difficulty of the games we've been running? Would you like to see more Gentle/Medium/Extreme games?

2) Should we run more Warlords games? (I've been sticking mostly with Civ4 1.61 because the turnout was VERY low for the first two Warlords games, so please let me know if you want more games on the expansion!)

3) What kind of games would you like to see? Let me give you some general types:
a) Fastest-finish competitions (ex: Adventure Four)
b) Points scoring (ex: Warlords Three, Epic Eleven)
c) Restrictive variant (ex: Always War, Honorable ruleset, etc.)
d) "crazy" rule-breaking game (ex: Adventure Nineteen)
e) no scoring

4) What game speeds should we use? More Epic speed, less Epic speed? Should we experiment with Quick or Marathon speeds? (There was a very low turnout for Quick speed in Adventure Seven, and Marathon is pretty broken, but we CAN run games if there is desire for them.)

5) Are the games too long? Too short? There have been a lot of incomplete games turned in recently - should we try to implement scenarios that are easier to finish quickly?

6) Anything else I haven't covered yet: what would you like to see that we're not providing right now?

Looking forward to what you come up with. Thanks!

[Atlas]

The upcoming events sound good to me.

I prefer Warlords (with Vassal states turned off) to 1.61, but neither is a deal breaker.

As for game (of course I have not reported on a game in months ) I prefer the "restrictive" variant and "crazy" rule breaking games to the more competitive or points based games.

I don't see any problem with Quick speed games, but with those (due to distance and the "tiled" nature of civ) quick games need to be played on small maps or really crowded larger maps otherwise you will never catch an AI wrong footed militarily (that is one of the problems with Marathon, you always catch the AI wrong footed with a war declaration).

[scooter]

5) Are the games too long? Too short? There have been a lot of incomplete games turned in recently - should we try to implement scenarios that are easier to finish quickly?

For me I think that since I'm relatively new here, my problem has been trying to pick and choose which games to play, and which to pass on. Sometimes I think I'm semi-ADD in that way that I have ended up playing half of all of them, instead of all of half of them, if that makes any remote sense. Possibly other people who are newer like me are struggling with the same thing? The other thing is we're just wrapping up what is probably the most hectic part of the year for most people (sure was for me).

All that said, I really do think the idea of a short game once in a while might not be a bad idea, for those who are lacking in time, run a scenario that would either be a quicker game, or maybe even a game on quick speed on a small map every now and then. I don't know how many people would be interested and would play, but it might be worth a shot.

As for the different types of games, I really like a balanced set of games. My favorite I think would be (haven't been around long enough to be positive) "fastest to get X victory condition" games, because everyone has the same exact goal in mind, but you get to see the different paths to that goal, makes for fun reports. Enough rambling for now, I need to get back to work on Epic 11...

[Compromise]

Here are my opinions:

1) How do you feel about the difficulty of the games we've been running? Would you like to see more Gentle/Medium/Extreme games?

I favor the Medium and Extreme games.

2) Should we run more Warlords games? (I've been sticking mostly with Civ4 1.61 because the turnout was VERY low for the first two Warlords games, so please let me know if you want more games on the expansion!)

I now have Warlords. So for me, I can go either way. I'll probably get the new expansion too, unless early reviews indicate that it is way too unbalanced.

3) What kind of games would you like to see? Let me give you some general types:
a) Fastest-finish competitions (ex: Adventure Four)
b) Points scoring (ex: Warlords Three, Epic Eleven)
c) Restrictive variant (ex: Always War, Honorable ruleset, etc.)
d) "crazy" rule-breaking game (ex: Adventure Nineteen)
e) no scoring

My favorite thing about RB events is to stretch my thinking. So, I like options b, c, and d here. Fastest finish usually just feels like a standard game of civ, and no scoring (without some "crazy" variant or "role-playing") often leaves me unfocused or just treating it like any old random standard game.

4) What game speeds should we use? More Epic speed, less Epic speed? Should we experiment with Quick or Marathon speeds? (There was a very low turnout for Quick speed in Adventure Seven, and Marathon is pretty broken, but we CAN run games if there is desire for them.)

Time is a premium for me, but I'm used to Epic. So, I prefer anything but Marathon.

5) Are the games too long? Too short? There have been a lot of incomplete games turned in recently - should we try to implement scenarios that are easier to finish quickly?

Shorter is better for me just because of real life time constraints. Warlords 3 and (perhaps...since I'm still playing it) Epic 11 seem to be okay. Epic 10 was going to take too long for me.

6) Anything else I haven't covered yet: what would you like to see that we're not providing right now?

It's great to have new events again, and all the new faces are great. I really appreciate the "comments from the sponsor" threads and posts. The thinking behind things is very compelling to me.

The biggest problem I have with Civ games is that the end game just drags on and on. It's not a problem if there is some true suspense at the end (as there was for me in an upcoming report), but if it's a Large map, Modern warfare ending, then it's just torture for me.

I don't know how Civ can address this without going to advanced scripting of city governor actions, but perhaps RB events can be designed so that playing through the end-game tedium. I thought Epic 10 had this right: The game is essentially declared over at a certain point whether you've met a victory condition or not. Epic 11 seems to be good in this regard too with scoring opportunities time-limited. This also prevents end-game score milking. (When I play competitively, I feel compelled to milk when given the opportunity. But I'd really prefer to not have the temptation.)

That's all I can think of at the moment. If anything else comes to me, I'll post again. And thanks once more to those who are sponsoring all these new events.

[Swiss Pauli]

For me, the most interesting games are the ones where a variety of approaches can yield good results, so there's more to be had (and learned) from reading the reports. 'Potluck' is the classic in this regard, but Adv 19 came pretty close. And I'm not a fan of the most extreme games (Epic 10) as they're (a) beyond my skills, and (b) tend to allow fewer strategies.

As to the incomplete games, well, we've gone from famine to feast in terms of RB events (including SGs), so I guess people have filled their diaries with other commitments, CIV and otherwise, and are trying to squeeze RB games in. Maybe extending the reporting time for the next Epic by a week or so may help in reducing the number of incomplete games?

I'd like to see a 'killer' variant for Warlords; three is the most interesting so far, but I feel the best are being kept/created for Vanilla.

[uberfish]

1) How do you feel about the difficulty of the games we've been running? Would you like to see more Gentle/Medium/Extreme games?

I think it's a good mix, after you correct for the factor that a couple of the games turned out more difficult than intended.

2) Should we run more Warlords games? (I've been sticking mostly with Civ4 1.61 because the turnout was VERY low for the first two Warlords games, so please let me know if you want more games on the expansion!)

Expansion games are fine, but they should take advantage of the features that aren't in vanilla in the scenario design to attract more players.

3) What kind of games would you like to see? Let me give you some general types:
a) Fastest-finish competitions (ex: Adventure Four)
b) Points scoring (ex: Warlords Three, Epic Eleven)
c) Restrictive variant (ex: Always War, Honorable ruleset, etc.)
d) "crazy" rule-breaking game (ex: Adventure Nineteen)
e) no scoring

A, B and C. It's more fun to me if there's a competitive aspect.

4) What game speeds should we use? More Epic speed, less Epic speed? Should we experiment with Quick or Marathon speeds? (There was a very low turnout for Quick speed in Adventure Seven, and Marathon is pretty broken, but we CAN run games if there is desire for them.)

Marathon will result in a bunch of incomplete games. Any of the other speeds are fine. The thing that most bogs down games is heavy warfare, so please don't disable the non-military victory conditions.

[TheArchduke]

1) The difficulty is right imo. I am a regular monarch player, so I enjoy the easy going on Prince or the ruthless higher levels.

2) I like warlords, I play it in MP. But with the new expansion coming, I guess we shouldn´t bother too much with Warlords anymore as the Vanilla has a higher interest anyway. When the expansion comes out we can re-evaluate.

3) I like those best:
c) Restrictive variant (ex: Always War, Honorable ruleset, etc.)
d) "crazy" rule-breaking game (ex: Adventure Nineteen)

4) Epic and Normal are fine. Quick sucks imo. And I would love to try out Marathon once.

5) I am a student, so I have no time constraints. Atm.

6) Actually.. Multiplayer events would be fun.

[sunrise089]

Warlords Three (Medium difficulty, points scoring system: diplomacy)
Epic Eleven (Medium difficulty, points scoring system: culture)
Adventure Twenty (Gentle Adventure, fastest finish: domination)
Epic Twelve (Extreme Adventure, no scoring, restrictive variant)
Adventure Twenty-One (Medium difficulty, "crazy" variant a la Adventure Nineteen)

This sounds great - nice mix of things

1) How do you feel about the difficulty of the games we've been running? Would you like to see more Gentle/Medium/Extreme games?

They've been great - many have been very playable, none have totally scared me off.

2) Should we run more Warlords games? (I've been sticking mostly with Civ4 1.61 because the turnout was VERY low for the first two Warlords games, so please let me know if you want more games on the expansion!)

I CAN, but prefer not to if it means fewer people play. If you do use Warlords, to echo Atlas, please no vassals.

3) What kind of games would you like to see? Let me give you some general types:
a) Fastest-finish competitions (ex: Adventure Four)
b) Points scoring (ex: Warlords Three, Epic Eleven)
c) Restrictive variant (ex: Always War, Honorable ruleset, etc.)
d) "crazy" rule-breaking game (ex: Adventure Nineteen)
e) no scoring

I prefer C and D for the simple reasons that fastest finish without a variant feels like GOTM and no scoring tends to not draw in the more competitive players. My problem with B (and I know if speak for very few others) is that it can be too much to keep track of. I can think of a variant easily as I play, but a 20 different element scoring system forces me to constantly refer to a printout and makes it too easy to forget to optimize my game for the system.

4) What game speeds should we use? More Epic speed, less Epic speed? Should we experiment with Quick or Marathon speeds? (There was a very low turnout for Quick speed in Adventure Seven, and Marathon is pretty broken, but we CAN run games if there is desire for them.)

I prefer Epic, but would never choose to pass up on a game due to it being on Normal or Quick

5) Are the games too long? Too short? There have been a lot of incomplete games turned in recently - should we try to implement scenarios that are easier to finish quickly?

There's nothing wrong with the game, there's something wrong with the players. Like scooter said below it's easy to try to play every game and finish none. I still am going to submit a report for Adventure 19, it's just taking me forever to type up. That's my problem - I try to put some effort into the report to live up to the creative reporting standards of many of the other players, but run out of time. I know for me having more than a day between the end of play time and when the report would need to be submitted would greatly help. Of course you can say I should just manage my time better, but why do that when others could do it for me

6) Anything else I haven't covered yet: what would you like to see that we're not providing right now?

I echo others that comments from the sponsor is a great new feature. The only other thing I would like to see is an updated main page - I know it isn't a huge deal, but last time I checked results from Epic 8 were still not even up.

6) Actually.. Multiplayer events would be fun.

- I strongly echo this sentiment. I simply have more fun playing with other RB folks than random people I meet in the lobby. I know I could try to join some MP clan, but RB Civ plus SGs take enough of my time, I don't really want to try to work my way into another group. Plus, if we had a RB MP event that was advertised and supported by more than a handful of players, we could even do RB vs RB MP and play with a variant. Something I've never done before.

[LKendter]

Warlords with EPIC speed. I am so use to playing at epic that it hurts my performance when I don't play it. Looking back at Adv19 I would have picked a different tech if I had realize how badly the faster game speed would impact me getting to the new world.

[T-hawk]

1. Difficulty mix is about right. Gentle Adventures are important for the community and well worth the schedule slots. I even use them to test weird game plans and variants on occasion.

2. I wouldn't play Warlords; I'm quite happy with the core game. (OK, I'm burned out, but Warlords doesn't offer anything to change that, and in fact exacerbates it with yet more subsystems to manage.)

3. Either points scoring or crazy games. Fastest finish lost its appeal long ago, and non-scored events lose their intrigue quickly and bring lots of incomplete reports. Most of the elegant restrictive variants (Always War) have been done, and I'm not often a fan of synthetic variants ("Charis Variant Soup") such as the original Epic 15.

4. More Normal, less Epic, though I understand I'm in the minority on that one. But please do gear the speeds towards the game types - Epic for military conquest or higher difficulty, Normal for builder oriented games. Quick might be worth an occasional tryout; Marathon probably isn't.

Also, I think it's silly to tie Epic speed to the games that revisit the Civ 3 Epics. Sirian did that originally to minimize confusion on the word Epic, but there are times where it falls flat. Epic Eleven in particular gets very little payoff from being on Epic speed and incurs lots more tedium, IMO.

5. To encourage complete game reports, you need a scoring system to provide some sort of carrot. Without that, players retire when eventual victory is clear and there's nothing left to chase.