The HOTW VII - Setup Thread IV - We Talk Too Much

[Robert]

wow, I'm 4th in-game wise..........
I must have done some incredible story telling and diplomacy stuff to gain that!!!



/attempt to poison your minds with 'vote for cs' stuff

[Glohithia]

CS, dont forget the sympathy inroads either. Having a child, dealing with an overly hormonal (read: potentially crazy) wife, and being sick should sway some votes, dont you think

Disclaimer: We dont have kids, so the part about your wife is a guess, from stuff my brothers told me

[Toni]

to Glohithia

[KunojiLym]

No, on the second week I'll be midway in the air >_>

[Robert]

Yeah, there's a wife involved with getting children! It's amazing, the start of the creation process is wonderfull, and they take care of the delivery totally themself, which is horrible!

And thanks for your 30 points already!! Really appreciated, I'll shove some good points back!

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
Ok, I did a very rough tally of objective points for HOTW7 so far.

Bulgaria 54.5
Arabs 34.5
Choson 17
India 14.5
China 12
Vikings 11.5
England 8
Kushren 7
Egypt 7
Inca 5.5
Celts 4

Again, this is just a rough estimate. But I want to make the point that even though there is a distinct power imbalance in the game, the outcome is far from certain, and under our point system the outcome can never be certain.

There are three subjective categories. 11 voters for each category. For each category each voter must rank civs (excluding their own) 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. For which that civ gets 3, 2, or 1 points respectively. So a unanimous 1st place choice for any category earns that person 30 points (since the person can't vote for themselves).

Now we can't know how people will vote, but let us assume for the moment that Nolan was an amazing storyteller and roleplayer in this game and was a universal number 1 choice. Let us further assume that she was the most spectacular, cunning, manipulative diplomat in the game and was also the clear number 1 choice for that category.

Finally, lets assume that Toni got his dominate position in the game purely from a superior skill with the game mechanics and wasn't given any points at all from diplomacy or story telling.

After calculating that, the top two places look like this:

Nolan - 67
Toni - 54.5

Now lets assume Toni, in his skillful playing had a slight edge in the military category voting. But lets also say that while Nolan wasn't a huge military power, she successfully defended herself from an invasion, and at another point successfully won a small border war with another small neighbor and won a city.

So even if Toni wins this category gets 22 out of 33 points possible. And Nolan gets 11 out of 33 possible. Then Nolan would WIN THE GAME.

Wrap your brain around that. A civ as small and Egypt could WIN this game if a person exhibited dominant diplo and storytelling skills.

All the people who have been complaining about Toni and I running away with the game I suspect have either forgotten about the point system altogether or they just didn't realize how important this is. Sending up the spaceship doesn't win someone the game, being a comprehensive diplogamer is what wins someone the game. This includes the actual objective gameplay BUT ALSO subjective categories such as diplomacy, story telling/roleplay, military accomplishments.

So EVERYONE has a shot in this game, and any diplogame that uses this point scheme. I really, really, want to impress this point on everyone. At no point in this game should anyone have felt like they were just going through the motions waiting for it to end. Even Nolan who is 3rd from last in terms of objective points has a chance to actually WIN this game.

Diplogames mean that no one is ever out of the game unless they give up.

No comments?

[Robert]

No, not really. sounds good!

[Toni]

Looks good! I just would like to ask when people start voting that they write a very short reason why they did so.

[Robert]

Originally posted by Toni
Looks good! I just would like to ask when people start voting that they write a very short reason why they did so.

+1

And maybe before voting starts all players can write a short reason why they think they should be voted for for all 3 categories. (no long boring stories, but just short explanations)

[deity]

Originally posted by CyberShy
+1

And maybe before voting starts all players can write a short reason why they think they should be voted for for all 3 categories. (no long boring stories, but just short explanations)

Yes, I agree with this Cyber. All of us write, then we vote after. Only those that write can be voted for - this solves the problem of subs etc. So if lz writes as to why he should be voted for he's included; if OT or Conq don't write something up they are not included. We should allow a solid amount of time to do this - like a month or so.

And I agree with ozzy... I'll dig out that spreadsheet I started.

[Robert]

A month may be way to long. It's the internet, we must be able to do it within a week.
In a month I've totally forgotten what HOTW even stands for!!!!

[OzzyKP]

It would be good too to reveal at that point all the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that has gone on that most people don't know about (assuming we did a good job). Then people can better judge how skilled a diplomat we really were. Also any good roleplaying PMs or IM conversations and such should be exposed.

[Toni]

I like what was said!

And lets get it over with, HOTW8 is waiting.

So we playing this friday or what? And if not when are we playing?

Also it will be nice to see ppl sujesting a start date for HOTW8.

I say we start asap after HOTW7! If we are taking a break 1 week now, 2nd of March looks as good date to fire up HOTW8.

[Robert]

I'm fine with you guys deciding something else, but I would hate it for myself to miss the last session. I have been roleplaying /civplaying towards that last session(s). But you guys aren't wrong if you continue without me.

Are you sure that it'll only be one more session?
It looks to me like you guys need at least 2 more sessions if only to finish the space race. Not to mention what happens if all those rumored wars really break out. But on the other hand, HOTW5 ended without a huge war as well, so maybe diplogaming has finally reached civilization

[Toni]

From what my secret services tell me, the Space Ship will be ready to launch in about 30 turns! So 1 more session is a good estimate. Of course not counting any possible wars