Re: Freeciv League

Hi!

I think the league itself is a great idea, but i'm affraid only by
defining some options, you won't be able to give equal chance to the
players. The main problem is the map generator now. You didn't wrote
which generator method u wanna use, but i saw some duel games w/ gen 2.
Eg last time hc and jan(tm) played a duel, and they had to restart 4
times to get nearly equal islands and starting pos. If u say the players
should play againts each other only once, it even gets a bigger problem.
I did some leages in quake3, and know palyers are very sensitive for the
equal circumstances (in quakes even the client gui options are
restricted in the competetions...it's like if we would define the usable
tilesets in freeciv!). It would be very frustrating for them to lose not
because of skill but totally random things. Of course in long term skill
is dominating, but not when you have only one chance againts a player. I
think this behaviour of the generator is now a bottleneck overall for
the freeciv community to move into more 'serious' competitions (like
clans in team games, etc), so have more fun :) The following solutions
came to my mind:

1, using referees: an experienced and trusted dead player should check
in the begining if the conditions r similar for the players. It's ok for
competitions, but doesn't solve the daily problem of unbalanced maps in
team games etc.

2, use predefined maps for competitons: by hand-made custom maps you can
provide equal chances. But in this case you'll need a lot number of
maps, to avoid players should learn them or use the logs to cheat. i
don't know if there're well known and respected map makers in freeciv
community, but if it would be possible to ask them to create such maps,
and then use this maps in finals and semi finals of competitions. Till
that they shouldn't be published. Of course after that they would be
available for public usage, so others could test their own tactic on
them, and learn form the first players mistakes (who are in this case
top players, don't forget!).

3, improve the generator: it's the hardest, and the best solution imho.
As i now have neither the knowledge nor the time to examine the code
deeply, i just can write the ideas came to my mind, not provide patches
sorry :( It's hard to define which is a good island, or say from 2 which
is the better in 100 accuracy, but we don't need that imho. W/ some
basic checks we could improve the equality of maps greatly. I think the
most important factors:

a, number and positon of whales: the sum(x: 1->n)(distance of whale x
from the starting pos in land movement points), where n is number of
whales around the island, should differs max 10 percent for the players.
Of course the formule can be sophisticated highly, this is just the
basic idea.

b, number of other islands can be seen from the main islands by
explorers should be the same. (or if not, a more than X % advantage in
a, criterie should be provided for the player who can see less islands).

c, the same for islands visible by trireme exploration around the main
island.

d, the number of specials on the island should be (almost) equal.

And if a map don't apply these, drop it automatically and generate a
new. And/Or modify the code to be closer to these, so it's faster to get
a good map. Even if a lot of maps has to be dropped in the begining by
the server, an 1-2 minute waiting worths imho the fact of balanced maps.
And for competition it's fundamental. Btw, for competition these aren't
enough, eg then we should modify d, to have the specials provide an
almost equal food/prod/eco in each island.

What do you think about these?

bye, hirisov

2003-02-01, szo keltez=E9ssel Adam Czachorowski ezt =EDrta:
>=20
> Hi
>=20
> Few days ago we (polish players) started a Freeciv League. It consist in
> playing 1 on 1 games with predefined options. Every player must play
> with other excatly one game and send to us results. The league is
> currently only for polish players, but if you want, we can start another
> league for all players.=20
> You can find more info about league here[1]. =20
> If you would like to play in World Freeciv League inform us at our
> forum[2]
>=20
> The existence of league depends on number of players, so if you want to
> play inform us immediately, but remeber that you must have some of free
> time to play.
>=20
> The league will propably start in March, so there's still a lot of time.
> I'm writing it becouse we want to know how many players would like to
> play.=20
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> [1]: http://civ.org.pl/freeciv/liga-eng.php
> [2]: http://forums.civ.org.pl/viewboard.php?BoardID=3D14
>=20
> Regards
> Adam
>=20
> --=20
> Adam Czachorowski=09
> gislan-h7QdYz1kt/[email protected]		http://civ.org.pl
> [email protected]	Najlepszy polski serwis o grach cywilizacyjnych!
>=20
>=20