Sid Meier's Civilization V

Edit history:

SDAVerification: 2018-03-13 02:00:55 pm

2018-02-20 09:43:55 am

Game Page: Doesn't exist yet

Sid Meier's Civilization V () (pc) [Any %] [Single Segment]

Decision: Reject

Reason: The category is based on setting the game to end after one round (one button combination press). While other games have speedruns accepted on SDA that are just a button or button combination press (Clue etc), they don't depend on changing the in-game settings to render them trivial.

https://queue.speeddemosarchive.com/verificationfiles/2141/

This run will be available for a month. After that these link(s) will no longer work.

Thread title:

SDAVerification

2018-02-20 09:43:56 am

Run Information

Sid Meier's Civilization V () (pc) [Any %] [Single Segment]

Verification Files

http://v.speeddemosarchive.com/civilization5-20180214/

Please refer to the Verification Guidelines before posting.

Please post your opinions about the run and be certain to conclude your post with a verdict (Accept/Reject). If you wish to remain anonymous, you can also send a pm with your reply to 'sdaverification' (please state clearly in that case which run you have verified). This is not a contest where the majority wins - Each verification will be judged on its content.

MAS8705

Edit history:

MAS8705: 2018-03-06 06:38:57 pm

2018-03-04 11:00:08 am

SDA Apprentice -- (3-1)

So... Umm... I'm not entirely sure what I'm more shocked about. The fact that Civ V apparently can end in a few seconds, or that you can actually get a peaceful win with the War Monger Gandhi. The runner said "I submit it here as it is a good contester for fastest run on SDA," even though I think that honor still goes to Clue for being one second long. Either way though, no denying that this was straight and to the point.

Don't know if setting up "Max Turns" will change the category a bit, but either way, it is difficult to argue against the end result. If that's fine, then I'll say Accept. Otherwise if the "Turn setting" isn't supposed to be tampered with and we focus solely on the actual game itself and winning through the various means, then I'll say reject.

I suppose overall, I'm split due to not knowing the nature of how this would work.

LotBlind

Edit history:

LotBlind: 2018-03-06 11:22:52 am

2018-03-06 11:06:04 am

Games like this allow for a wide range of options to customize the campaign, but we have to be sensible about which combinations should be allowed. The general principle is going by the default options for "arbitrary" things like land size, number of competitors etc., going with the easiest settings, or something no-one has really done on SDA at least, going with the most difficult ones. If it's unclear whether a setting makes things more difficult or easy it's probably smart to just leave it alone. I don't see any instruction on the Speedrun.com page about extra settings so I guess the fastest settings are used. Am I right?

This particular category is difficult to ban based on one of our written rules, but it does feel really frivolous... and I think I'd like to not accept anything this trivial. All this run is saying is you can twist the game's rules to a ludicrous extreme. Watching the run doesn't tell you any more than a one-sentence description of how it was done would. At least with Clue, Where's an Egg? and a few similar games, it's just the way the game happens to work out the box. I think for SDA, people will have to leave the turn limit to unlimited, and we'll accept a run for each victory type. If there's some sufficiently non-arbitrary way to define a max difficulty run (max competitors for starters), that could be considered, as well as a default settings run, which I presume will have more than one computer player and play out different from these min runs.

my view is,
reject

Games like this allow for a wide range of options to customize the campaign, but we have to be sensible about which combinations should be allowed. The general principle is going by the default options for "arbitrary" things like land size, number of competitors etc., going with the easiest settings, or something no-one has really done on SDA at least, going with the most difficult ones. If it's unclear whether a setting makes things more difficult or easy it's probably smart to just leave it alone. I don't see any instruction on the Speedrun.com page about extra settings so I guess the fastest settings are used. Am I right?

This particular category is difficult to ban based on one of our written rules, but it does feel really frivolous... and I think I'd like to not accept anything this trivial. All this run is saying is you can twist the game's rules to a ludicrous extreme. Watching the run doesn't tell you any more than a one-sentence description of how it was done would. At least with Clue, Where's an Egg? and a few similar games, it's just the way the game happens to work out the box. I think for SDA, people will have to leave the turn limit to unlimited, and we'll accept a run for each victory type. If there's some sufficiently non-arbitrary way to define a max difficulty run (max competitors for starters), that could be considered, as well as a default settings run, which I presume will have more than one computer player and play out different from these min runs.

my view is,
reject

Tigger77

2018-03-08 04:04:51 am

I survived MIKE-Fest 1

I can see your point about it being frivolous, the reason I submitted it here was that it was a candidate for the fasted run of any game (until Wheres an Egg? got the improvement to being 1 Frame long).

As for what it shows, the game gives you the options to change the rules that much, I don't see how it is significant different from Clue and Where's an Egg? as the only different is that those games predefined rules make the runs trivial to the same degree (there is the same number of skill required for all 3 runs (nearly non)).

I think it would set a dangerous president to reject a run based on some changes in the options that the game itself gives to the player. The line to draw would get very muddy very fast. Like why is it ok to change the difficulty or rounds of fights or any other options but this specific options of the term limit should be banned?
The category is any% after all, and there any-advantage the game allows should be used IMO.

I also think we don't need to fear a submission wave of AAA-games that do that as this is really a special case and that was the reason for my submission. To show that a AAA-game that is known for it's long playtime can be finished with a single input sequence.

I can see your point about it being frivolous, the reason I submitted it here was that it was a candidate for the fasted run of any game (until Wheres an Egg? got the improvement to being 1 Frame long).

As for what it shows, the game gives you the options to change the rules that much, I don't see how it is significant different from Clue and Where's an Egg? as the only different is that those games predefined rules make the runs trivial to the same degree (there is the same number of skill required for all 3 runs (nearly non)).

I think it would set a dangerous president to reject a run based on some changes in the options that the game itself gives to the player. The line to draw would get very muddy very fast. Like why is it ok to change the difficulty or rounds of fights or any other options but this specific options of the term limit should be banned?
The category is any% after all, and there any-advantage the game allows should be used IMO.

I also think we don't need to fear a submission wave of AAA-games that do that as this is really a special case and that was the reason for my submission. To show that a AAA-game that is known for it's long playtime can be finished with a single input sequence.

LotBlind

2018-03-09 11:08:05 am

I'm not worried about lots of submissions like this, but I don't want to see tons of lazy speedrunning either. We have made mistakes with this in the past, on one or two occasions that I can remember. In specific, we probably shouldn't have allowed the category for Metal Max where the player effectively retires early getting a sort of default or joke ending. Those types of games there are more of, especially amongst sims and strategy games. In a sense you're getting an ending but it's a kind of default ending for quitting. While you do WIN the game here, the similarity is that in both cases, it's a direct derivative of category definitions that the entire run exists.

Literally the front page update could just say "Oh yeah and if you set the time limit to 1 turn in any symmetric game that allows you to do that, you'll randomly win". You have to remember that for Clue and WaE? those are THE ONLY ways to play and win. Here it's a result of intentionally abusing a larger palette of options to create a category that doesn't need to exist in anything other than a side note in the wiki. It's not even funny or surprising. Category definitions – which DO rely on factors like this – have been reasons for rejection in the past. There are other categories that I have seen (100% in Donkey Kong 64 I think) which ignore some particular setting or option or even some glitch because of similar reasons.

If you think about a fighting game, whatever your settings are, it will basically never boil down to buffering some inputs. Also, it makes a lot of sense to go with the least number of rounds seeing as your strategy will not vary between them anyway.

So all in all, let's just go by common sense here... nobody wants to see this. I was a big fan of your Mercenaries 2 run, and none of your other runs have had issues with category definitions, so even though you don't seem to have a lot of time these days, maybe you can chip away at some project with a bit more substance anyway.

I'm not worried about lots of submissions like this, but I don't want to see tons of lazy speedrunning either. We have made mistakes with this in the past, on one or two occasions that I can remember. In specific, we probably shouldn't have allowed the category for Metal Max where the player effectively retires early getting a sort of default or joke ending. Those types of games there are more of, especially amongst sims and strategy games. In a sense you're getting an ending but it's a kind of default ending for quitting. While you do WIN the game here, the similarity is that in both cases, it's a direct derivative of category definitions that the entire run exists.

Literally the front page update could just say "Oh yeah and if you set the time limit to 1 turn in any symmetric game that allows you to do that, you'll randomly win". You have to remember that for Clue and WaE? those are THE ONLY ways to play and win. Here it's a result of intentionally abusing a larger palette of options to create a category that doesn't need to exist in anything other than a side note in the wiki. It's not even funny or surprising. Category definitions – which DO rely on factors like this – have been reasons for rejection in the past. There are other categories that I have seen (100% in Donkey Kong 64 I think) which ignore some particular setting or option or even some glitch because of similar reasons.

If you think about a fighting game, whatever your settings are, it will basically never boil down to buffering some inputs. Also, it makes a lot of sense to go with the least number of rounds seeing as your strategy will not vary between them anyway.

So all in all, let's just go by common sense here... nobody wants to see this. I was a big fan of your Mercenaries 2 run, and none of your other runs have had issues with category definitions, so even though you don't seem to have a lot of time these days, maybe you can chip away at some project with a bit more substance anyway.

Tigger77

2018-03-10 01:21:15 am

I survived MIKE-Fest 1

I'm not having a problem getting the run rejected as it was no work in the first place.

I just want to avoid that a rejection is based on arbitrary bases like it feels wrong. The consistency of SDA is one of it's best features IMO.
Please discuss with the other moods how to avoid those options change abuse in a SDA (good) way 😀

If that fails I will withdraw the submission as the fastest run is taken by where's an egg? Anyhow.

IsraeliRD

2018-03-10 11:17:08 am

Dragon Power Supreme

Metal Max is the same as Clock Tower for me because of ending F which is "don't even try just bye" and I think there's another RPG somewhere on the site that also does the quickest way out. This run isn't the same as those.

I'll go with reject because I think it should focus more on the actual gameplay rather than a "look what happens if I set the turn to 1".
I don't think we have other games here that do that, either? If we do then here is a precedence for accepting this run. Otherwise, this is an arbitrary category that isn't acceptable, imo.

LotBlind

2018-03-11 10:09:22 am

I don't get what's so interesting about what the fastest runs are.

The thing that comes with evaluating a lot of speedrun category ideas is that you see more and more that past a primary layer of concerns (easy-to-define, different from other potential categories etc.) there's a secondary tier where you just kind of have to go with an intuitive or common sense judgment. Sure, we could allow this but the main point is it doesn't seem to have any practical value, and if anything, is a bit disappointing for those who see "Civilization V" in the update only to discover it's just this cheeky thing. They'd feel cheated. I sure would.

Looking forwards to your next submission!

SDAVerification

2018-03-13 02:00:56 pm

Decision posted.