No I’m really not seeing your point here. I think what I'm saying is that everyone plays together and just plays at their normal level. Higher level players aren't playing "down" in any way and lower level players aren't required to play at a higher level then they're used to. This counts on the fact that the score of any game is so weakly determined by level that it essentially makes no difference. So I'm thinking that what I proposed is more in line with the above quote than your initial proposal of what appears to be separate beginner, normal and challenging leagues. Even if you don't intend to make them separate and allow beginner teams to play challenging teams for example I still see this as unnecessary segregation. What’s more integrated than having everyone play together regardless of level? With regard to your metaphor the street kid will pretty much score the same as Joe Dimaggio so why can’t they play together?

That's a lot of info from Ghostwes and I need a bit to digest it all. Certainly if he declines the commissioner than I think the one (i.e. Neilo) is sufficient for the moment. We can change/add one if necessary. I was also looking at this being a kind of temporary arraginment until a more formal one could be incorporated into the AltMeta. I think most of what Ghostwes is describing fits more into what I would envision that the "final" product would be like.

I think it's obvious that Neilo and Mumblefratz are the most passionate about this endevour. So I nominate them as commissioner and co-commissioner.

Do you think you two could communicate together private (on IM or voice or somethign) and flush out a set of rules? You could give a couple days for comments/revisions as well, but I think everyone here is 'ready to go' with whatever you come up with....even if it goes through changes over time.

Again, I have web-space/forum/pic-hosting that I can devote to this if need-be. Whatever is on the forum now can be wiped. https://www.galciv.geekstorm.com/forum Let me know if you need any of this...or anything else

Please forgive me for bowing out. The rules seem to be getting too complicated for a fun little league IMO. I regretfully withdraw my participation.

Give them a little time   I know it is over my head, but it seems it will bring the gamers together. I am also quite sure it will be streamlined in the very near future. Just one question on time limit, if you go over your time, do you concede the game and surrender? Also I have no spare characters, Sorry for any inconvience.

Actually, I don't really have the time to dedicate to this and if we leave Neilo as sole commissioner then there would be no need for the commissioners to communicate in private since there would only be the one. I agree with the implied point in JeremyG's post which is that most folks just want to play and not have to get involved with defining a whole set of complex arraingments. Also when we start losing good people like MottiKhan because of the stated reason then something is wrong with the process.

This does highlight the kinds of issues we often go through in the MVC. It's very easy to come up with complex and difficult to understand rules and procedures. It's far harder to boil these down to their essence and to come up with something that's simple and fun for all.

@MottiKhan, I hope that you will consider participating once we do get this set up in hopefully a simple and straightforward manner. I do understand your frustration with what can be seen as the unnecessary complication of something that should be intrinsically simple but on the other hand the expectation that everything should be trivial and obvious is also a tad unrealistic.

Oh, Motti, just go and be evil for a while and ignore the messy beginnings. I think this will shake out into something fun and straightforward in the near future.

Here are my thoughts on league structure so far, in no particular order:

My opinion on league names is that it might be best to leave Earth, with its politics and all of its PC crap, completely behind and take our names from the wider universe. It is a space game, after all!

Planets, asteroids, stars, constellations, nebulae, galaxies; any kind of extraterrestrial object would do. "Halley's Hellcats", "the Centauri Stampede", "the Dark Matter Devastators", anything unrelated to life on Earth. Except maybe the seventh planet...

As far as characters, I would hate to leave one of my empires, but if it's necessary I would bite the bullet and do it. Whether we end up joining league "empires" or just posting scores, it would be cool to come up with team colors and develop a small icon to incorporate into our character portraits.

Difficulty level: I think it would be better to specify that players can play at any level equal to or greater than their Metaverse difficulty medal level. Why not let people challenge themselves as much as they want?

Game size and time frame: I know this hasn't been fully fleshed out yet, but I do know that if I am "assigned" a medium galaxy abundant planets game, for instance, to finish in a week that I will have to forfeit. Some of us have more RL commitments than others, and I hope we can find a way to compensate for this.

If this drags on for more than another day or two then I will lay out a couple different rules scenarios and get a "vote".

Don't we just love long post's

I'm just checking in, i have been working a lot the last two days. I'll be back in a few hours with a coherrant response.

Okie dokie. Sorry for voicing my frustrations. I'll try to be a little more patient in the future.



You're so right. There's all too little evil in the galaxy now. I must go forth and spread the word.

On the other hand giving us a little push is not totally out of line. I do expect that we'll see something soon after the 4th.

I remember some wise older individual said to me patience is a virtue. Ah obi wan.  

Hi all. It seems the longer we leave this the harder and more complicated it will get. Firstly i am happy to run this on my own, if that is Ghostwes's decision.

It seems to me that some direct action needs to be taken, so, i will take the plunge and outline the following set of rules. These are as streamlined as i could make them keeping fairness in mind. Feel free to comment, i may have forgotten something, but apart from a collective outcry from you guys i feel these will be what we use for now at least.

They won't be perfect, they won't make everyone happy but i feel more procrastination won't get us any closer to perfection either.

A few points first,

1) All games are to be Metaverse games only. No cheat flags.
2) Only games by affiliated league characters will be accepted.
3) Screenshots or details of character used for the submitted game are to be posted in the (soon to be) Metaverse League Results thread. Only games and scores posted in this thread will be accepted.
3) All rounds will have a 1 month time limit, any player that has not submitted a game in this time will receive 0 points for that round.
4) Characters may be new or old. There is no need for a seperate League empire, though we do encourage you to make such an empire if possible.
5)There are to be 4 players per team. This can be adjusted in the future as participation rises and falls.
6) All teams will be required to select a team Captain. All team names and players and the who the captain is, is to be posted in the soon to be official thread for all to see.
7) Players play at the same difficulty or higher as their MV medal.

Game play, Rounds and Scoring.

Games are to be played from this selection,

Tiny map
- Military
- Alliance
- Influence
- Tech

Small map
- Military
- Alliance
- Influence
- Tech

Medium map
- Military
- Alliance
- Influence
- Tech

Each round will feature the map size, with the 4 victory conditions played.

If round 1 is Medium then it will look like this,

Player 1 is playing medium military,
Player 2 is playing medium alliance,
Player 3 is playing medium influence and,
Player 4 is playing medium tech,

These are constant across all teams, and it is up to the captain to decide who plays what game.

The scoring is,

2 points for a win in the correct manner.
1 point for any win
minus 1 point for a defeat or resignation.

Bonus points are only for wins in the correct manner,
1 bonus point for fastest game
minus 1 point for slowest game
1 bonus point for highest scoring game in each category.

The non changeable settings are as follows and will be randomly selected prior to the beggining of each round.

All Victory's enabled (this is always on)
Allow Surrender's
No Mega Events ( to level the playing field between the DL players and the DA players)
No Super Abilities (see above, i don't like it either, but it makes it fair)
Galaxy Size
Tech Rate
Star Density
Anomolies
Minor races on or off
Number of planets
Habitable planets
Number of stars
Intensive algorithms on or off
Asteroids
Blind exploration on or off
Tech trading on or off

Players are free to choose any other settings.

I'm sure i have forgotten something, please point it out if i have.

I will wait a couple of days for feedback in this thread then i will create a new thread outlining everything in this post, and will call for players to create their teams, select a captain and post in the official thread.

This compettion will last us 3 months, aftewhich we can adjust any or all of the settings based on the feedback during the comp.

Also i'd like a name for our competition. So far all we have is "The Metaverse League". That's fine i guess, just thought something catchy might be nice. As Marshall said, I'd like to encourage everyone to try and keep a space/galciv race styled theme to their league team. Also i wonder if one of our more experienced AAR writers may come up with something based on the league and it's conclusion to accompany us. Just thinkin aloud again.

Neilo.

Players are gonna create their teams? Kind of defeets the purpose for having a league drawn from the Metaverse Empires, if each Empire is gonna form their own team? If it's gonna be an Empire thing then I'd have to leave that decision to my Emperor, and why not just call it an Empire tournament instead of a league?

I'm not particularly interested in making any extra effort at this point, to be honest. Random assignment of players to teams and inviting anyone to play regardless of the childish popularity contests were key things for me.

I was not aware of any discussion or posts that stated the teams had to be drawn from empires. I think this would be counter productive as it would exclude non empire affiliated players from joining the league. A team may be made up from players from 4 different empires, or 4 players may choose to create a new empire for the league. In the end there may be absolutely no empire affliation in the league at all.



Was this discussed? If so i missed that, but i would say that i am not at all against this idea.



I'm sorry if i conveyed any notion that anyone was precluded from playing in the league. Anyone can join a team (no matter the selection criteria) and participate. The only thing we ask is that they join a team or gather other players and create one of their own.


Not sure i understand you point here. I cannot see how one's popularity effects the games played, scores or teams.



It would be a shame to lose your support, perhaps once the teams take form you might be persueded to come back

I feel a little awkward chiming in with this, after basically dumping the control of the league on your shoulders. Nevertheless, I think this still needs to be hashed out a bit more.



Agreed.



Rather than making a character "league-affiliated", it might be easier to have characters that only exist for playing in the league. Granted, that means some people might have to remove characters that are already in other empires, but that's not too unreasonable a request, I don't think.



Will it also be acceptable to post the results and point to a game in your profile? Screenshots are a lot of work, and a lot of people have expressed frustration with doing them.



Reasonable.

It also lets people try several times to get a better score for the month, which is fine, IMO.



Agree with ElWhop0 here: it's gotten a bit far from my original idea. That's neither here nor there, of course; if people want to implement a different/better idea, that's fine.

For myself, though, I really think we need to start with fresh characters and fresh teams/empires.



Sounds fine. Might be better with 5 or 6, but with fewer teams, just so it feels more like teamwork.



Reasonable.



Not really necessary, but not really a problem either. It adds an extra level of complexity to whoever will be verifying all this, but since that's going to be you and not me, that's FINE with me!



Hmm, to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I understood all of that. Your system seems needlessly arcane. Do you see this as an improvement over the existing scoring for the metaverse? It seems to me that we should use the points system already in place, if only because it will prevent a lot of hassle with figuring out who scored what with what game. If you think you can handle all of that, I applaud you. Don't think I could...



The point of my original idea was that players would be randomly assigned their teams.

Better, then, if people simply sign up to the league en masse before a deadline and then are assigned onto a team before the league starts. If you like, I don't mind creating the teams, to save you extra work; since it won't be an ongoing concern, I don't think that will be too time-consuming for me.



The league I run in my other game is an ongoing affair, but for our purposes perhaps three months is reasonable. We can always make it permanent later if we need to, I guess.



I vote for "The Metaverse League"

I dunno ... it's looking more and more like a tournament, instead of the original idea which I supported. Don't mean to be the downer but, by now we could have had a sign-up sheet going and games being played/posted on the metaverse as Metaverse+League games. Instead we have big long posts and all that stuff...

I can see the need for specifying the map size and some other stuff, and I made some suggestions I thought were in-line with a league v. a tournament.

I still don't see the need to even use a different character than I am now. Just modifying my personal wishes and make the horrible, horrible sacrifice of playing a certain size map or something simple like that should be enough.

Posting with my current character to add to my Empire's score AND have it be re-scored using a league scoring system to count for my league game(s) seemed like a good compromise that would eliminate the obstacles mentioned of starting a new Empire and creating new characters.

That way more folks might have wanted to participate (was hopeful anyway) in the Metaverse as well by posting for a different set of reasons than the current crop of participants do.

I wonder what the Metaverse Council is saying about this idea? Should have had some kind of Council input by now, or did I miss it?

Anyway, it's dragging on so long and so much initial enthusiasm and offers of support via forums/websites etc. seems to have been refused by simply being ignored, it seems like the League idea was a good one, but may not be doable. In addition, I guess I just don't want to be roped into playing a tournament instead of a league. Although that may only be my perception, it still irks me to even think it.

My comment about popularity contests, while perhaps a bit too dramatic, is still valid in the sense that: while current popularity some few enjoy based on Empire-affiliation or name-recognition is fine, maybe there are those who play the game for it's own sake and might have wanted to participate in a different way.

My whole idea here is to prevent people from having to remove a character from an empire. It would seem to be in our best interest to allow as many people to play as possible, and by not having an "empire" stipulation seems to do just that. Personally i can go either way, i felt this allowed more players. I'll go with the majority on this.



Yep. When i said character details this is what i meant, i may not have worded it right.



I'm starting to get really confused with everyones idea/concept of the empire involvment. I'll address this later on when i respond to ElWhopO.



All the settings and in fact much of what i have suggested is aimed at leveling the playing field. By not making the focus the actual score you get but rather the fact you completed the assingment was the most fair way of giving a newcomer playing on normal the chance to compete with a veteren playing on suicidal. The newcomer would never stand a chance and would be discouraged quite quickly. An example i'll use is Wyndstar. He is capable of 60 to 100k scores on the smaller maps in a very short time. The only way i myself can even come close to those types of scores is with a gigantic abundant all DA game that takes 3 weeks to complete. By focusing on the fact we both won and not the score i felt this was addressed. The scores are then rewarded with bonus points.



Fair enough. i either missed this or forgot it, but i am nore than happy than to do the league this way. As for only going three months, i only did that so that we can tweak and alter what we feel needs changing and move to a permanent league after that.

Onto ElWhopO,



Nor i. Maybe i have missed the class where this was discussed but i am at a loss here.
There is absolutley no need for you to create another character to play in the league.
There is no need for one of the league teams to be an actual empire.

You may play as whatever character you like, even if that character is in an empire already, all you would do is when players are selected for teams nominate which character you are using, then when your games are done either post a screenshoy or at least a few deatils pointing out which game on your profile is your league game.

If,If all the players that have been put into a team are not empire related then they could make an empire themselves. This would make it easier to track their games and would show on the AltMeta. It is a choice.

Personally if we all could have a character spare to devote to the league and once the teams were done, were then all made into empires would be my preferred method. But doing this i feel would negate people playing who have 3 characters committed to empires already. So allowing either way seemed to be the way to go.



I know i have not been on there long, but i am part of the Metaverse Council. As is Mumblefratz who has contributed a great deal to this discussion already.



As to this, personally, since this is Galciv and it is the Metaverse, keeping it here on these forums seemed the logical thing to do.

Again i feel lost. Is not a League just a tournament but with teams? not sure i understand how this is a tournament and not a league.



Again i don't understand. How does name recognition or popularity have any bearing on the league? If someone who just bought the game today, signed up and saw this thread and decided to join would be great. They would feel they could compete against 2 year veterans due to the focus being on winning not scoring and they would get to know a great bunch of people and learn the ropes along the way.

By them not being known or in an empire, how does that advantage/disadvantage them?

i hope none of my comments are taken with any negativity, as this is certainly not my intent, i am just a little lost i think.

Neilo.

- I personally think that by making a SEPERATE character, that is not in an empire, shows that you're making a commitmnet to the league-type game style, and not just goofing around. I think that's essential for a league based on honor and trust that people are following the rules.

- I like the scoring system. Using just the built-in point system, favors people who can drag their game out extra hours just to score more points.

- What is the scoring if someone doesnt post a game? I mean, you say it's minus 1 point for a loss. Does that make it minus 2 points if you dont submit a game? What is to stop someone from playing a dozen rounds and then retiring just to avoid the extra point loss?

- Is it possible to have a military victory without first having an influence victory? If so people playing for military victory really need to have influence victory disabled.

- I'm not sure I see the point in team members playing different game-types. Why not have ALL PLAYER on ALL TEAMS playing the same type of game. To me that's a better sense of team-work....teams can give their members advice/counseling/strategy.

- As far as how the teams get made. Rather than requiring 4 players per team (I dont know 3 people to play with), how about this:

The first month it's every-man-for-him-self (or lady). From that, the top 4 (or 3 or 5) players become captains, and do a draft-pick-type-thing. This way the team size comes organicly, based on the number of available players.

No submitted score in the time allowed was 0 points. RL does get in the way at times so i thought that this was fair. As for someone losing, well there is nothing to stop them from duping the game and starting another, no. But we will be playing with a great deal of trust to our fellow players so we can just hope honesty prevails.



I had thought about this and it is a good point. yes it is possible to attain a military victory without triggering an influence one first. There may be many methods but the one i have used in the past is to leave the civ with the largest sphere of influence till last and take him over in 2 or 3 turns. that way you avoid the influence victory. It may not be possible to achieve it all the time, but then it might add a little spice to the league.

OK so if not submitting a game is worth 0 points, and submitting a game failure is -1 points, then nobody will submit a failed game.

Thanks for being so patient neilo, I'm sure you will get it worked out.

I was thinking about a fine point this a.m. - one of my un-thought-out objection(s) was based on whether or not it was possible to rig the ladder, so to speak.

Let me try to explain (I don't seem to be very good at that, but maybe I'll get lucky).
I'll underline the key points for visibility.

If the players (account name not character name) sign-up to play (just say "I'm ready to play a League game") and then are randomly and impartially assigned a team and an objective (play this type game etc), and if the teams are mixed and matched so that no same teams play together twice(according to the statistical calculations of occurrence), then it would be a League.

This isn't a factor but if character names were used, then it would be quite easy for 2-3 people to rig it to have 2-3 of their own characters on a team. If for instance those people happened to be the best players in the Metaverse, then the ladder would be tilted way out of whack. It would actually be possible for Wyndstar and Syrrus K to use two of their characters each to make up team A, and probably team A would own the scoreboard because of the mass of experience - especially playing down from their high levels.

Not saying anyone would do that, but as we all know, if there's a loophole, someday a mouse will find it.

Again to the random and impartial assignment to teams for each and every iteration (monthly?) part, that's absolutely required. This also means that for instance, even if all the players in one Empire did wind up on the same team once, it could never happen again (by the laws of statistics). The benefits are obvious, and one to note is the inability for one Empire to dominate the League ladder as well.

I hope that's clear enough? Not to be mulish about it, but if those requirements are not built-in, then I don't think I wanna play. If they are, then I would probably withdraw my objections.

Ok. This is a mixture of The way I understood things and some suggestions.

I see no reason why you can't just play with a character of your choosing, since all that matters to the league is the game your submitting for that purpose. The only reason I would see for seperate characters would be to simplify the Database of league games. That can be kept manually and you still have the meta to fall back on if anyone has a dispute on how a game was recorded, as well as the official submission thread.

It is real simple to see if anyone is using multiple charcters off the same account, so I don't believe that will be a problem. I have always believed the teams would be either randomly or commisioner chosen, to be on an unbiased even keel.

If this is to be in true league fashion I would think it requires a "season". If rounds are a month then a season should be several months. Long term participation by some players may become a factor, but hopefully we would have a true evolving league where new players come in and replace the "retirees". AT the end of a season you then could either have a draft(last place first captains choice kinda NFL style) or everyone goes back into the randomizer to start anew.

I'd also like to see empires left totally out of this. It should be totally empire independant. If a team chooses to combine their characters into an empire representative of the league that is their choice, but has no bearing on league play.

As far as scoring I really think that failure to submit should be at least even or more of a penalty than a defeat. Even if you don't have time to playout a full game you can atleast crank it up and lose or retire real quick to get your submission in and show your participation(another reason to use a character your not worried about as league play may drag your average down on an established character).

totally agree

Yes you are correct, it would be easy to see. Just click on the account name in a post in this forum and click "view [xxx] profile".

At the same time, I can just imagine how i would feel, however, if 2 months from now I happened to take time to look and found out that Team A was the two best GCII players in the Metaverse using multiple characters. I'd probably feel like throwing the game in the trash ... or at least abandoning these forums altogether.

So why tempt fate? Why should I have to look? I thought this was for fun, not a babysitting job? I charge $50 an hour to babysit (in advance!). It's actually easier to simply require one account = one league character playing right from the start. Use whatever characters, give people some room to maneuver, but no room to rig results.

I agree. Maybe a negative 2 or negative 1.5 or something, but at least same as a loss.

I agree with all else you mentioned dethadder in reply#72, without quoting it.

I'd like to chime in on a few points as it's really evolved since I was last in the thread.

Firstly - Random teams or drafted teams, both are good, but I don't want the same 4 people dominating the League. So no "sign up 4 guys and lets go" - at least give the top players a chance to be drafted by different captains each time - or make the top team disband INTO captains. Something like that, that keeps the league fresh and innovative.

There must be a bigger penalty for not submitting a score at all than for failure.
If anything, losing but at least showing you tried should be worth something, to encourage people to actually play - IE even if you dont win, just by playing you help your team.

I'm really not feeling the "No Super Abilities" rule though Nelio. The only way to make it fair is to either make everyone play DL (which I am against) or relax a bit. You can turn Super Abilities off, but what about Asteroids? The Korath clan?
They are different games and need to be treated as such - both should be allowed, but try not to clamp down on how people choose to play quite so much That's more personal opinion, though I'd be less inclined to play sans Supers just because I feel they add more variety to the races.