1st Apolyton CtP2 Tournament: 23 April - 23 May 2002

Locutus · April 23, 2002, 19:11

Note: This tournament is closed. You can still download the savegame and submit results in this thread, but your score will not be added to the rankings anymore. Check the Tournaments Section to see if there are any new tournaments running if you do want your score to count.

Well, y'all asked for it, so here it is: an Apolyton CtP2 Tournament (formerly known as Game of the Month, renamed for consistency with Civ3 section and because the duration and frequency of these tournaments are not set in stone (yet)).

This first Tournament will be rather conservative because this is new for everyone and we'll all have to get the hang of this and flesh out the details of the rules. I'd like as much people as possible to participate (even if you're not too fond of the setup), so we can see what kind of an audience is out there (both quantity and quality). For these reasons I chose to run the first tournament without any mods or other oddities of any kind. All that's required to play is the v1.11 patch. We'll see about mods and different difficulty levels next month...

The rules are pretty much identical to the Civ3 Tournament and explained on the website. The first Tournament will last 3 weeks. This should give everyone enough time to play while still giving me plenty of time to evaluate the results (both the game results and the way the tournament went) and set up a second tournament before I leave for a study tour through Asia (from 28 May to 18 June).

Any feedback on any part of the Tournament, whether it's about the game itself, the rules, the setup, anything, is very, very much appreciated. Ideas for what kind of games (mods, maps, etc) should be played in future Tournaments are welcome as well...

Oh, I don't know if all the discussion will fit in a single thread. Should things get crowded, don't be shy to start (a) new thread(s).

Thanks to Markos for allowing this and assisting me in setting up the (PHP part of the) website.

Here's the game for this first Tournament:

Theme: Colonization
Mod: Original game
Level: Very Hard
Size: Regular Map
Barbarians: Raiders
Civilization: Spanish
Ocean-Land: 30%
Island-Continent: 50%
Wet-Dry: 50%
Warm-Cold: 50%
Uniform-Diverse: 80%
Few Goods-Many Goods: 50%
World shape: Earth World
Bloodlust: Off
Pollution: On
Opponents: 6 (Portuguese, Dutch, English, French, Inca, Maya)
Victory types allowed: All

Game file

Website

And below are the unofficial results of the 1st Apolyton CtP2 Tournament (entries with a number in brackets behind the name are not official; the names in bold are the winners per victory type). The official results can be found here.

Code:

Endyear
-------

Rank   Player		Victory Type	Year	Points   Cities	 Pop	Advanc	Wonders	Feats	Last Research
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1   Maquiladora	Diplomatic	1190 AD	11,090   24 	 269	 29	 5	 4	Cavalry Tactics
 2   mnbryan37		Bloodlust	1270 AD	16,070   37	 351	 28	 8	 3	Bronze Working
 3   Locutus	(1)	Diplomatic	1335 AD	12,200   32	 316	 36	 7	 2	Mod Metallurgy
 4   Locutus	(2)	Bloodlust	1495 AD	14,050   55	 652	 42	12	 2	Oil Refining
 5   Jesper Portus (2)	Diplomatic	1530 AD	18,260   48	 735	 64	11	 6	Mass Transit
 6   Jesper Portus (3)	Bloodlust	1575 AD	19,590   55	 846	 66	12	 6	Conservation
 7   Dale		Bloodlust	1785 AD	20,070   46	 724	 49	 7	 4	Adv Naval Tacts
 8   francois		Bloodlust	1882 AD	21,050   53	1043	 62	16	 6	Quantum Physics
 9   Jesper Portus (4)	Bloodlust	2052 AD	27,980   68	2987	103	26	 6	-
10   Jesper Portus	Gaia Controller 2052 AD	27,450   67	2967	103	26	 6	-
11   centrifuge		Gaia Controller	2250 AD	28,670   74	4033	103	29	 9	-
12   Martin Gühmann (2)	Bloodlust	2268 AD 30,820   74	4128	103	28	10	-
13   Martin Gühmann	Gaia Controller	2268 AD	30,275   73	4098	103	28	10	-
14   DeanToth		Bloodlust	2300 AD	28,890   60	1623	103	30	 7	-
15   DeanToth (2)	2300 AD		2300 AD	28,340   59	1604	103	30	 7	-
16   Immortal Wombat	2300 AD		2300 AD	22,325   40	1277	 82	20	 4	Virt Democracy

Endscore
--------

Rank   Player		Victory Type	Year	Points   Cities	 Pop	Advanc	Wonders	Feats	Last Research
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1   Martin Gühmann (2)	Bloodlust	30,820	2268 AD   74	4128	103	28	10	-
 2   Martin Gühmann	Gaia Controller	30,275	2268 AD   73	4098	103	28	10	-
 3   DeanToth		Bloodlust	28,890	2300 AD   60	1623	103	30	 7	-
 4   centrifuge		Gaia Controller	28,670	2250 AD   74	4033	103	29	 9	-
 5   DeanToth (2)	2300 AD		28,340	2300 AD   59	1604	103	30	 7	-
 6   Jesper Portus (4)	Bloodlust	27,980	2052 AD   68	2987	103	26	 6	-
 7   Jesper Portus	Gaia Controller 27,450	2052 AD   67	2967	103	26	 6	-
 8   Immortal Wombat	2300 AD		22,325	2300 AD   40	1277	 82	20	 4	Virt Democracy
 9   francois		Bloodlust	21,050	1882 AD   53	1043	 62	16	 6	Quantum Physics
10   Dale		Bloodlust	20,070	1785 AD   46	 724	 49	 7	 4	Adv Naval Tacts
11   Jesper Portus (3)	Bloodlust	19,590	1575 AD   55	 846	 66	12	 6	Conservation
12   Jesper Portus (2)	Diplomatic	18,260	1530 AD   48	 735	 64	11	 6	Mass Transit
13   mnbryan37		Bloodlust	16,070	1270 AD   37	 351	 28	 8	 3	Bronze Working
14   Locutus	(2)	Bloodlust	14,050	1495 AD   55	 652	 42	12	 2	Oil Refining
15   Locutus	(1)	Diplomatic	12,200	1335 AD   32	 316	 36	 7	 2	Mod Metallurgy
16   Maquiladora	Diplomatic	11,090	1190 AD   24	 267	 29	 5	 4	Cavalry Tactics

Solver · April 24, 2002, 08:07

Bah... if the tournament used a mod, I'd give it a go, but this way, no way. The default AI is very easy even on Impossible, and here you can just overwhelm it easily. Moreover, only 6 enemies.

Sorry guys

.

Locutus · April 24, 2002, 15:16

Ow, come on, play!

It should be interesting to play unmodded for a change (and it's only 1 game). See if you can win before 2000 BC

No matter how boring the game might be for vets, winning the competition still remains a challenge...

I know the game is probably boring for many people, but I want it to be as open as possible to newbies/lurkers and I want to get an idea of how good everyone is (to see if we need to split up in two leagues next time): if we play on Cradle Deity and only 10% of the participants can actually win, that doesn't say much about how good the other 90% is...

But it's good to know you're at least interested...

centrifuge · April 24, 2002, 20:11

Okay, so what's the deal?

I started the GOTM, but am getting weird messages, for example after killing a barbarian a message popped up that said "Contemptible", and everytime that a new unit is built a mesage comes up that says "as evidence that better relations may lie ahead." I checked against other unmodded games, and only this one is giving the strange messages, therefore i can only conclude that this particular saved game was created with a mod? or am I missing something?

Locutus · April 24, 2002, 20:23

Hmm, do you have the patch installed? Are others having this problem?

centrifuge · April 24, 2002, 20:29

Yes, I've got the patch installed. Everything else about the game seems normal, it's only the messages. Here's another one "ireconcilable", it said this after going into a hut. I heard the chaching noise so I'm assuming that I found some money.

Locutus · April 24, 2002, 20:40

Hmm, you'd say it's a problem with my patch then, but so far everything else is working fine for me as well, including Succession Games... Can other people report whether or not they have a problem? Then we know which of us should reinstall some files...

Hermann the Lombard · April 24, 2002, 21:15

Quote:

Originally posted by centrifuge
Yes, I've got the patch installed. Everything else about the game seems normal, it's only the messages. Here's another one "ireconcilable", it said this after going into a hut. I heard the chaching noise so I'm assuming that I found some money.

Did you /reloadslic . . . that clears a lot of "message" buglets.

centrifuge · April 24, 2002, 21:19

Pardon? You'll have to clarify "reloadslic" I'm not very wise as to the inner workings of the game quite yet. However, I did just do a reinstall of the game and patch to the default directory, and amazingly enough, this fixed an earlier problem that I was having with the activision WW2 scenario!!!

But, the weird messages in the GOTM remain

Locutus · April 24, 2002, 21:22

Hermann is right, this will solve probably your problem, it's not patch-related at all. Quite stupid of me not to think of it earlier - heck I should have put this on the website.

Open your chat window ('-key) and type "/reloadslic" (without the quotes). Press enter and close the chat window. Now the messages should be gone.

centrifuge · April 24, 2002, 21:32

That did it guys! Thanks a heap!!!

Locutus · April 24, 2002, 21:57

No prob. Now I know at least one person is actually playing

DeanToth · April 25, 2002, 03:57

HI I am a newly registered forum member. I am playing the tourny too!

I have had CTPII since it came out and have only played single play. This tourny will be a good warmup for getting some multiplay going (it's been a few months since I played and i'm a little rusty).

I also had the weird text prob (things like "almunicar"). But the reloadslic worked. What the heck causes this? Is it cuz of loading someone else's save file? I've never ever had weird text in a single play game.

Oerdin · April 25, 2002, 04:29

The none modded MP verision is just fine. I'd love to play if we can get an eight player MP game going then I'm sure I could be competetive. Just name the time and the place and I will find a way to be there.

DeanToth · April 25, 2002, 04:40

I am playing the tourny with no mods, as the rules say... so why would the weird text problem appear?

Hi oerdin (where does this name come from anyway?) - - -

Anyway, I notice you are in San Diego too. It's 1.30am, are you up too? I am in the middle of my tourny game right now...

I'm in the registry, my email/msn messenger/yahoo messenger IDs are there... feel free to wire me. I'll be up for a while.

Anyway, back to my game. I'll check my email/messengers if you want to contact. Later.

Solver · April 25, 2002, 08:05

Another couple of words. I haven't been playing CtP for months, and restarted it two weeks ago. Then I took some time to actually learn the game, for it's different from Civ and needs a different approach. From all of this, my opinion is that, if we play MedMod for the tourney, we'd need the difficulty level at, say, Hard - so that most people would be able to win. Yes, Deity Cradle won't be possible for everyone, and that's not the best thing, but I think that even for tourney games there should be a challenging AI.

Original unmodded AI cheats much about city growth, it has large cities. While I've found that the MedMod AI actually won't expand too much - it prefrs getting fewer cities, but having them developed better.

Locutus · April 25, 2002, 08:35

DeanToth,
Great to hear you're playing

Yeah, the text problems have to do with loading someone else's game. I'll make a note of that on the website soon.

Oerdin,
The name of this feature may be a little confusing (I would have prefered 'Game of the 'Month' but Markos choose 'Tournament' for Civ3 - and GotM more or less obliges you to have exactly 1 game a month, no more, no less...), but if it wasn't clear: this is a *single* player tournament. We all download the game and play it for ourselves, on our own. Then we (you) submit the savegame here in this thread and a ranking will be made based on that savegame. The ones who win their game the earliest or with the most points win the tournament...

A multi-player tournament would be cool to have sometime as well, but we first need to get this feature going, I'll see how much interest there would be in a 'real' Apolyton MP tournament after that...

Solver,
Yes, MedMod King level would do as well when it comes to difficulty level. However, I not only want the game to be fairly easy, I also want the amount of work involved for new players to be as low as possible. Installing Cradle or MedMod can quite a hassle, it would only deter new players from participating in this Tournament. I first want to build up some sort of an audience and only then move on to the mods. Playing with mods is quite a change from playing with the original game, so it would be a very overwhelming experience for new players (some handle this with easy, others with more difficulty), something that we should guide them through step-by-step IMHO...

Don't worry though, next month we'll probably play a MedMod game (maybe Apolyton Pack)...

Solver · April 25, 2002, 08:42

Good points Locutus

. Though I must say installing MedMod is very easy - good job.

Maquiladora · April 25, 2002, 10:41

Heh, its about time. Hmm that is that a coastline...

ps i noticed a little error on the CTP2 tournaments page, it says the date for the first game is ''1st Apolyton CtP2 Tournament: 23 April - 16 May 2002''.

Martin Gühmann · April 25, 2002, 11:02

Quote:

Originally posted by Locutus
Yeah, the text problems have to do with loading someone else's game.

One question did you set up the game on a non English version? If yes than you have the reason for the need of /reloadslic. The wired messages are cuased by a string alteration. That's the case if you use a save game that is saved on a different language version of CTP2.

-Martin

Locutus · April 25, 2002, 11:33

Maquiladora,
Call me an idiot but I don't see what's wrong with that, could you elaborate?

Martin,
I dunno, is American a non-English language?

And I seem to remember from other threads that centrifuge has an English version too.

Centrifuge, out of curiosity, are you from the US/Canada or from some other part of the world? IIRC the US version of the game is slightly different from the international version, that might explain the need for /reloadslic... (but IIRC the (main) differences are in the installer utility, not in the game itself)

centrifuge · April 25, 2002, 14:12

Quote:

Originally posted by Locutus
Centrifuge, out of curiosity, are you from the US/Canada or from some other part of the world? IIRC the US version of the game is slightly different from the international version, that might explain the need for /reloadslic...

I'm from the U.S. Boise, ID to be more specific. (No potato jokes please

)

DeanToth · April 25, 2002, 14:46

I for one applaud the decision to use the un-modded game for the first game-o-da-month. I and my ex-roommate are both CTPII nuts, but we've never played with any mods at all.

It scares me ever so slightly when I see mention of the "hassle" of installing mods....

That said, I am really looking forward to trying the mods since I am tired of having so much fun in the hard-scrabble early part of the game where I always feel like I'm about to lose and then suddenly, there seems a magic moment when i get my first 12-stack of catapults when I am invincible for the rest of the game.

I got modswapper and am about to d/l apolyton mod and some others to try out.

I understand apolyton-mod makes the game "the way it should've been out of the box" and am looking forward to trying it. (even though most players here mention that it is aging and that the other mods like cradle and med are preferable).

DeanToth · April 25, 2002, 14:53

so if there is a typo in the date for the tourny... then exactly what is the cut-off date? I need to know when to submit my save file

On that note, when I submit it, should i only submit my autosave file? or the whole "ferdi" folder zipped? And I name the zip "deantoth.zip" right? and is this the thread where I attach it?

Also, when I first copied the save file, i didn't know what folder it should go in, so i made on called "tourn" and started the game fine.

But after a turn went by, i looked in my games save folder and a new folder called FERDI was there automatically. So now i save in that folder.

In the future it may be a good idea for the tournament zip's save file to already be in it's properly named folder to avoid confusion.

Or am I just missing something?

Oerdin · April 25, 2002, 15:16

Quote:

Originally posted by DeanToth
Hi oerdin (where does this name come from anyway?) - - -

Anyway, I notice you are in San Diego too. It's 1.30am, are you up too? I am in the middle of my tourny game right now...

I'm in the registry, my email/msn messenger/yahoo messenger IDs are there... feel free to wire me. I'll be up for a while.

Anyway, back to my game. I'll check my email/messengers if you want to contact. Later.

A long time ago when I used to play AD&D my favorite PC's name was Oerdin Farr. Although I gave up playing RPG in the early nineties I still use this name as my handle because I'm sure no one else will be using it.
I'll send you an e-mail Dean and we'll see if we can't get a game togeather.

TheArsenal · April 25, 2002, 16:13

I think for the first tournament game, these parameters on the unmodded game are fine. When I clear some time, I'll download it Monday and start playing next week. It will be interesting to see how I fair against the Big Guns.

I would say moving forward (at least for the next game), we should play the ApolytonPack mod, as its so close to the original game it doesn't lend an advantage to those who play the (other) mods over the original game and have learned their idiosyncrasies.

DeanToth · April 25, 2002, 16:18

BIG guns? I take it you mean the other experienced multiplayer/modders on this forum... if that is the case, then I am a "small gun" like you.

though I've had CTPII since it came out, i've only played unmodded single player games (but I've played it to the ground)

Though I too noticed the AI shortcomings. I am greatly looking forward to tryin the mods and multiplay

Immortal Wombat · April 25, 2002, 16:22

The Big Modding Guns on the whole seem to play quite little of the actual game, just mod it. Its the multiplayers such as Oerdin who'll probably do best.

TheArsenal · April 25, 2002, 16:47

Quote:

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
The Big Modding Guns on the whole seem to play quite little of the actual game, just mod it. Its the multiplayers such as Oerdin who'll probably do best.

Perhaps. But we're playing against the AI. And anyone who looks at the game, and in their minds can conceptualize the internal mechanics to the degree I have witnessed here, ought to be Big Guns whether they play or not. Every day I read something here that is not intuitive unless you look at the files (which I don't) that has to at least marginally increase modder's playing ability.

And besides, the bigger I build up you guys, and the muli-players for that matter, the more satisfaction I will take if I do well.

Immortal Wombat · April 25, 2002, 16:50

True.

*goes to find the Ai files*