Should the AUSG continue?

[Rhothaerill]

Due to lack of turn saves being posted in the past ten days I'm forced to admit that interest in this game has declined. Please vote on whether or not to continue this game as is.

[Taian]

I'm having fun with it as is...seems Master Zen and I are carrying the flag for the Dominators I think it's still effective for showing different strategies from the same position and why each person chose that way of doing things. The intent is still being met, just not with the same initial volume of games to view.

[alexman]

Personally, I'm not too eager to continue.

I think the main problem is that for all teams the game has reached a point where it can be safely declared as already won.

[Mountain Sage]

Originally posted by alexman
Personally, I'm not too eager to continue.

I think the main problem is that for all teams the game has reached a point where it can be safely declared as already won.

well, yes.
Let's do the next one on Emperor, or Deity.
But I will play this one to the very end (even alone).

[Arrian]

Sorry, I've gotten wrapped up in a couple of different things:

-PTWDemogameII
-World Series
-Hotseat game with my gf.

-Arrian

[vmxa1]

I think we can see now why the owners are reluctant to provide a forum for AU.
So why did it break down? Was it the fact that it was too easy?
The turn around time too long? Critics too harsh? Competion too strong? Other reason? Maybe it was just the format was not suitable to many players? I do not know, but it seems that we need to have a few clues, if there is going to be a chance at sustaining courses and interest.
I left out real life as it can be expected that some of that would pop up. With some 17 players, I doubt that was the main issue.
I can see a few getting trapped by RL, not everyone each week. Most should be able to miss a turn or two an come back.

The other idea that wondered about was if people felt that strain of reviewing othres games in public.

[alexman]

Perhaps it was also the fact that people put a lot of effort into their own block of turns, which they didn't like abandoning for the next block.

It's also because there is an inherent instability in this sort of comparative play. You play to compare your game and strategy, so if somebody quits, it makes it more likekly for others to quit since there is less against which to compare, and that makes it even more likely for the entire game to stop.

If there is another AUSG, I suggest:

1) Having one single team. That way if participation declines, there will hopefully still be enough people to vote and to get a good choice number of saves.

2) Adding the option of continuing your own save (instead of the voted one), which can be considered for voting for the next block. That way if you don't have enough time to implement your brilliant strategy in one block of turns, you can try to finish it in the next.

[Arrian]

Perhaps it was also the fact that people put a lot of effort into their own block of turns, which they didn't like abandoning for the next block.

This did have an effect on me. It wasn't the reason I haven't continued the game (the other reasons I mentioned, plus also the time required to properly evaluate another team's block of turns, also played important parts), but it was there. For me, part of it was the cold hard truth that there are aspects of my playstyle that are sub-optimal (which I already knew) and yet I am unwilling to change. This means I will not improve much - the basic purpose of AU. It also means that my turns were not going to get chosen, at least not until after the game was clearly won by those who played differently. To boil it down to its essence: city spacing. There was no way that my wide spacing was going to be chosen, because it was clearly suboptimal play. End of story. I understood that, and was fine with it, but it *did* diminish my interest.

-Arrian

[vmxa1]

Yes, I felt the impact of the voting. I did not like it when you have say 4 games and 1 or 2 are superior to the others. What do you do? No matter what you do it will be unkind to the others. If I say nothing about the lessor games, that is felt. If just say nice game, that is felt. So I do not know how much that impacted the different people. Some times the difference was very small.
But if you do not get the intelligent review from players that see things differently, you will gain nothing. I think the brutal review is probably the most useful one.

The idea was really to help others. No one in the run was unable to play well. Lots of people like to play loose as you do Arrain, that is fine, but will not compare well in GOTM style critique.

So maybe Alexmans suggest is the way to go? That is basically what most of the AU games were in the past. People played at their own pace and style. The thing is that no reviews were done and not as much pre turn strategy was mentioned. This means the people that come behind, will have a harder time getting something out of it.

The one real useful thing in this format is that people that drop in after the fact will see the idea behind the play, not just here is a snap of how the AI got crushed.

[Mountain Sage]

Instead of only 30 turns rounds, I was thinking about playing the beginning of the game until the end of the Ancient Times.
By then, the different strategies will become clear: warmongering, cultural, peaceful etc. ant the results (gold-techs-expansion...)
Then we can create teams -officials or not- and everybody could play according to his own style (Court Haus and myself as builders, for instance), after having chosen a particular game.
1 age later (or half of it), we could post our DARs again and the (informal) teams could vote again.
Players could also switch teams. For instance, if a PP game is clearly impossible, let's join another more aggressive team.
Anyway, I had great fun playing other people's games. I learned a few very useful things and especially I could 'touch' the results of different tactics and strategies.

[TheArsenal]

I stopped playing purely because RL yanked me away for a couple of weeks. I still don’t know when I’ll be able (if I will be able) to continue for awhile.

That said, I agree that a couple of changes going forward wouldn’t hurt. With these kinds of things there is always going to be an attrition rate. The single team idea, and playing only until the end of the Ancient Age, sound like they would help curb it some - or at least make it non-fatal by making the entire process relatively quick.

There is also a Catch-22 of sorts built into the process that I didn’t realize until a couple of play blocks in. Those, who by definition (read: me) can benefit the most from AU, would also by definition be the ones to receiving the harshest criticism and would come to the realization their turns would never be used. I kidded around about being thin skinned when my turns were critiqued, but I can imagine that these two factors are a major disincentive for a lot of people.

Perhaps the idea above of being able to continue play on your own block would help. This would allow the individual to decide if they can incorporate the criticism into their own game and play another block, or to decide whether to take these lessons and apply them to someone else’s block. But, as I said, the “not good enough” combined with throwing your well thought out block away, can’t be fun for anyone but the most studiously determined. And it has to have that element of fun.

- edit: clarity

[GodKing]

In the past 3 weeks, I have an average of 3 posts / week. RL. I just have not been around to do much lately. I would like to continue, but truth be told the game is already won.

[Dominae]

I think we should stop this particular AUSG. There's not enough interest anymore.

For my part, I made a decision not to play this game due to time constraints. I had to pick between AU210 and the AUSG, and I picked the former. I stopped tuning in to the DAR threads because I wanted to read them all at the end (which could have been interesting).

I chose AU210 over the AUSG mainly because, as others have pointed out, the AUSG got to the point where it was a little too easy. It's great to teach stuff to the less-experience players, but I have a feeling everyone was having a field day with this one.

I feel sort of dumb never having played from someone else's turn...I'm open to it, I really am!

Maybe the format is not so great. But I'm willing to give it another try. I suggest we start a new game, but seperate the team by difficulties instead of victory conditions. Everyone would have to play at one level higher than they usually do. Thus the players in each team could "pull together" (even though everyone is playing solo) in a challenging game.

Or, we could just have one Deity-level game going, and just throw everyone into one team. If people can get over their fear/dislike of Deity, this would probably be the best learning experience.


Dominae

[vmxa1]

I like the idea of having it done by levels and play above normal, instead of down one as happens in many AU's games. Most play down one as they have come to learn that the maps are going to be stiff (nasty). This was not the case ,in the last one, as we had no special rules to live by.

A deity game would be great, but may degenerate to only one or two players doing it all. I for one have only played about 4 deity games to the end since the game came out and only one with PTW. I was planning on doing a run to test the use of camps and then do another deity run. So I would enjoy seeing one, that is not OCC.

[Konquest02]

If we stop (and even if we don't), I think we should give a HUGE to Rhoth who carried all of the AUSG on it's own.



I have stopped playing due to time constraints (got 4 exams in the last 3 weeks), but I will play the next AU course (either normal AU or AUSG) for sure...

--Kon--

[Rhothaerill]

Thanks Kon.

I think it's probably time to see this particular game pass on, but for anyone who does wish to continue the game on their own to the conclusion please do so and post DARs, etc.

I am not averse to creating another AUSG game, but I agree it needs to be tweaked a bit more. I think the intent of the game...to provide a good range of starts to a specific game and provide a lot of strategy tips...was met, but alexman and Dominae are correct that the game was too easy and the end is decided already. If another one is started we should definitely discuss a means to limit the frustrations inherent in the way I had set this game up (not having your save picked being the chief frustration ).

Also, I think the next one, if pursued, should wait for Conquests to be out for a while first to give everyone time to purchase and start playing with the expansion. None of us would be too interested in playing a new non-Conquests game once Conquests is out I imagine. I wouldn't be able to design a new scenario until after the 17th of November anyway, but I also think Nuclear Master has an idea for the first Conquests AU game.

[vmxa1]

Yes I can go along with the big thanks for the work Rothi.

[Mountain Sage]

Originally posted by Rhothaerill

Also, I think the next one, if pursued, should wait for Conquests to be out for a while first to give everyone time to purchase and start playing with the expansion. None of us would be too interested in playing a new non-Conquests game once Conquests is out I imagine. I

I fully agree with you. Once C3C is out, we will all be like kids in a toy store:
'my civ is better'
'mine is meaner'
'mine is ugly'
'yours is badder'
'my civ rocks better than yours'
...

BTW for all your efforts

[Theseus]

I heartily concur with all of the compliments for Rhothy... well done, my man!!

I'll go ahead and play out the domination game with anyone who wants to, even though, yes, it's basically won (if you can put up with my sometime absences and tardiness... RL and other commitments mess me up but bad).

In the alternative, do we want to lump all the games together and play out the game as one team?

I just still think playing someone else's block, even though it's painful, is a great way to learn... it has been for me at least.

And I agree, we need to have fewer teams and tougher games in the future.

Again, great work Rhothy... look at this first AUSG game as a training ground for future efforts.

[Rhothaerill]

Thanks Theseus. And I do look at this game as a training ground for future AUSG. It provided a look at what worked and what didn't. Even though it was the first time for this format for all of us, I think it moved along pretty well for a while. Plus it was my first real attempt at creating a scenario. This one obviously wasn't hard enough, but thanks to this game and some suggestions by Dominae I think AU210 turned out to be a better scenario.