CivIII at 'poly

[Jaybe]

Elite, Veteran, Regular, Conscript(??).
Either played on the same level, with Regulars' score given a handicap of 33% over Veterans (if you WANT to track scores);

or Veterans play at higher difficulty, though that might make it "difficult" to compare games.

[Dominae]

Kon, I meant one veteran players plays the same game as all the novice players. I agree that 1 on 1 comparison would is not the way to go (I guess my basketball example was confusing).

Jaybe, I think both veteran and novices should play at the same difficulty level. This allows for easier comparison of the games. It makes little sense to compare games when one player is on Diety and the other on Regent. The point is not to "level the playing field", but rather to give the novices concrete examples of what they could be doing better.


Dominae

[Tassadar500]

Dominae that's a great idea. But as a novice you cant have a one day old vs. one of our ISDG'ers.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Nuclear Master
Dominae that's a great idea. But as a novice you cant have a one day old vs. one of our ISDG'ers.

The novices would only play in these games by choice, of course. If someone is still stuck on Chieftain then I sign up for this kind of thing anyway.

It's okay if the veteran "wins" all the time, that's sort of the point. The novices can then check out what they did differently. Beating the veteran is not the point of the whole exercise, it's just a fun way to entice people to play. If the novices get too hung up on not beating the veteran then they're clearly in the wrong place.


Dominae

[Tassadar500]

Ok but there is almost no point if your a Chieftan and the "Veteran" is waiting to play on the new "Sid" level. Why not just do a normal AU course then?

[Dominae]

The difference between my idea and a normal AU course is that the veteran plays on the novice's difficulty level.

Most "novice" players fall somewhere near the Regent level of difficulty. Just to make it tough, set up the "beat the expert" game at Monarch difficulty. Assume Sir Ralph is the veteran this time around. Then Sir Ralph plays the game on Monarch, as do all the other novices. Clearly Sir Ralph will do very well, as he plays most games on Emperor. That's fine. As long as the novices have a basis for comparison (i.e. the same game at the same difficulty), I think they will learn something from the experience.

The reason this is different from normal AU is that the veteran players play on the higher difficulties and the novice players on lower difficulties, and therefore comparing games is difficult (consider the tech pace on Diety compared to Regent). Basically every time we do an AU course, we would ask a veteran player to drop down a few difficulty levels so that his or her game could be compared to the newer players. Like I said above, the whole "beat the expert" aspect is just marketing.


Dominae

[Rhothaerill]

Marketing...but teaching too. That's why I like it.

[vmxa1]

All the players that wanted to should be able to play the match against or maybe I should say with the vets.
Sounds like fun if they are willing to put up some DAR's.

Maybe others could toss in their perspective after each DAR. What amI saying who could stop them?

Anyway I enjoy reading the GOTM stuff, althought they have too many. I just select a few to follow.

[TheArsenal]

"Beat the Veteran/Expert" ("Challenge the Veteran/Expert" has a half of a degree less intimidating sound to it) is a great idea. It provides a way to improve the game, plus an undoubted element of competition without an over-expectation of winning. And novices or not, by sheer fact of being here, players who come to this site want to become better players, and would welcome such an instructive game in the form of mild competition. I would.

This is a long thread, and I can't remember if this has been mentioned. Apologies if so:
For 402, for example, I intended to play from Day 1, did something else that weekend, and came back to the forum to find it was released four days or so back. I think AU games should be set up with hard starting dates advertised in advance, giving plenty of time to schedule to play the first day, if you desire. Thursdays or Fridays if possible to get weekend play in. Because once one gets behind on it, sometimes you don't feel like jumping in.

[vmxa1]

That is not a bad idea, but people should not be worried about starting late, it is not a race.
On the Might and Magic board special games are created all the time and people start them after others have finished all the time.
I do think having a start day that is good for the most players is wise.

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by vmxa1
That is not a bad idea, but people should not be worried about starting late, it is not a race.
On the Might and Magic board special games are created all the time and people start them after others have finished all the time.
I do think having a start day that is good for the most players is wise.

I agree. A good start day (perhaps a Friday) is better than a haphazard day. However, if you don't start on the same day as everyone else it isn't that big of a deal. I started AU208 about two and a half weeks after everyone else, but I still enjoyed it a lot (despite losing).

[stonewall]

Hi all.

I guess I don't see the point of worring about the starting date. I just started AU 107 !! After seeing this thread, I looked into AU again and decided to give it a try. I have been playing Civ for a long time, but don't consider myself any better than average. I just don't take the time to perfect my skills. Anyway, therefore I was always a bit intimidated to try an AU and do an AAR for all to read. But now I have plunged in. I will post a link to my AAR once I finish the game and maybe get some good feedback.

[TheArsenal]

clarification:
I do think people should be encouraged to go back and play older AU games and jump into games at any time. I'm just saying if you're looking forward to starting one at the beginning, knowing when it starts helps. Plus, hard dates and such give things an "event" feel to them. Marketing and all that.

[stonewall]

Ahh...

Marketing would be very good and easy to do if / when a new AU webpage is setup.

[Theseus]

I agree with both points made in the last several posts:

1) We should do a bit more marketing of new AU courses as events, including a more public discussion of upcoming courses and their settings, intelligent hard start dates, target dates for DARs, summary tables of DAR results per DAR era, awards, etc.

2) I'd very much like to see us re-casting AU in such a way that people DO in fact go back and play older games, including the possible AU Intro course, once they are up and running.