Trivia game notes 04-05-08

[samgrant]

This is a new reworking/updating of the thread titled "New Game - New Features, etc. " , below:

http://civilwartalk.com/forums/war-b...tures-etc.html

Since it is not a 'new game' anymore, I want to delete the info about the 'new game' stuff, but retain the info about the current Trivia game features, as well as some tips and strategies as to how to answer the questions.

So here it is:

1) Players may suggest their own questions.

You all will be able to submit to me your suggested question via the question thread or Private Message. I will try to use one player submitted question each week. The submitter of a question used will be cited with their question. The submitter gets automatic credit for the question.

This may be an opportunity for some of the more competitive of our players to try to outfox his/her fellow players.

However, keep in mind that I will decide which player’s questions will be used, and if I decide a submitted question is either too difficult or too easy, I probably would not use it. I may, on the other hand modify (edit) such a question in these cases to make it more or less difficult, and then use it. I expect some folks might submit such interesting questions, that I would be negligent not to use them.

I must add that I hope you all will not deluge me with all the questions you may have dreamed up over the years. Try to submit the ones you find most interesting.

Update 06-21-08: Very few palyers have submitted questions. I am at a loss to expalin this. You folks cannot be any more lasy or unimaginative than I am (?)
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2) Prizes!

Well now that I have gone out that limb about prizes, I’ll need to explain about this.

I had first thought of prizes because another CW trivia game I participate in does offer a monthly prize. Not something I’d want for myself, but if I ever won it, I could instruct that it be donated to some school, etc.

So as I assumed responsibility for our game, I began to think about what I could do if there were prizes.

I decided that I could not put it on Ami and Mike as to expenses, theive so much as it is.

So here is what I came up with:

A prize for each ‘winner’ of the 6 week game, to the high scorer, no matter which division. I also have figured out a rule so that no one may win more than one prize until all consistently participating players have won a prize. I want to spread these around.

These ’prizes’ will not be “fabulous prizes”, no Cadillacs or washer/driers. These will be ‘token prizes’ nothing very special, but a token of appreciation and of achievement in the game. Mostly Civil War related books and DVDs.


TIES: I got some wacky ideas about how to settle ties, but nothing decided yet. We can work it out if and when that happens.

See the Rules thread for mor about prizes.
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As my questions will not come from ‘trivia oriented’ sources, you can throw away all your Webb Garrison books. They will be all origianal questions.

Most of my questions will come from things I variously come across here and there, which I find odd or interesting and that are perhaps not common knowledge and that I think you all might enjoy learning about. To add variety I have instituted the ‘submit your own questions’ feature.

You might not like my questions for a variety of possible reasons - they are too hard, they are too easy, they are too trivial (but how can a ‘trivia’ question be ‘too trivial’?), or are not enough or too much about the battles, or not enough or too much about the political, economic, or social issues of the time, and you can let me know what you think. I know I won’t be able to please everyone. I will try to make it, as well as I can, challenging, fun, and somewhat educational.

Sometimes my questions will be in the form of several clues, from which you will need to connect in order to ultimately lead to the answer. So they are sort of like little puzzles to solve.

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Tips on finding the answers:

Another thing I may do with some questions is to include in the clues, something I'll refer to as 'curveballs'. A curve ball is a clue which is entirely valid, but which is somewhat deceptive in that it may suggest something other than what it really means. Curveballs will not be highlighted in the questions.

(Example: If I use "White House", is that the one in Washington D.C. or the one in Richmond, Virginia, or White House Landing, also in Virginia? You can be reasonably certain that I would not be referring the Presidential Palace of the Kyrgyz Republic! ... or can you?)

Another tip: If in my question, I use a certain phrase, do not expect that phrase to match a searchable source. For example, if I use the phrase "three little girls"(Game 52, Week 1), it may be because I don't want to use the exact searchable phrase "three young girls". So you can't count on the questions to have the same phrases as the sources for the answer.

Try variations of the words that are used in the question. (eg. If "he died", doesn't work, try "he was killed".) etc.

Also all of my questions may be ’solved’, by using various web searches. I think you all have Internet access (If you don’t, send me an email and we’ll see if we can work that out.).

I’m not stickly relying on books because while you all, presumably, have web access and can Google or use some other search engine, I figure you all don’t own the same books. However there are some ways to search books online. The Amazon "Search Inside" and the Google "Books Search" tools (see below).

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Many of you already know several sources of CW/WBTS information, so I’ll just suggest a few, and if you like you can submit suggestions as to additional helpful on-line sources.

If the questions are about people, some might be:

http://famousamericans.net/

http://politicalgraveyard.com/

http://www.findagrave.com/

If you think the answer might be a General:


http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/generals.html (better than most CW Generals sites as it notes battles and wounds, dates of promotions, place and date of birth and death, and often pre and post war occupations)


http://home.ptd.net/~nikki/csagenls.htm (Confederate)


http://home.ptd.net/~nikki/usagenls.htm (Union)

Battles:

Civil War Landscapes Association (cwla) - Home Frame

Chronological list of Civil War Battles

http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/pottery/1080/ (good for Order(s) of Battle(s))

To find an Order of battle on Wikipedia:

battlename "confederate order of battle"

(eg:
Gettysburg Confederate order of battle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
battle name “union order of battle”

(eg: Vicksburg Union order of battle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here’s a method I have found very useful, but some of you may not be aware of:

This is the Amazon “Search Inside” feature, and here is how to work it;

Go to the ‘books’ category at Amazon.com, enter the word or phrase you wish to search on, and click on the ‘Go’ button. You will likely get a long list of books, some of which have a picture of the book with a big red curvy arrow and the words “SEARCH INSIDE” on top of the picture of the book. (If it says “LOOK INSIDE”, that’s not gonna work.), Then you can either click on the book and when the page for that book comes up, click again on the picture of that book. You’ll get another page with a search function on the left. Enter what ever other clue you might be interested in and see if the book contains anything about that clue. (An alternate way to get to this page is to: from the long list of books page, look under the book title, etc for the word “excerpt”, next to this should be a page number. Click on that page number, or if you see “See a random page”, you can click on that, and you will get to the ‘Inside Search’ page.)

An example: The question has something to do with some guy who was killed while leading a cavalry charge ordered by Judson Kilpatrick at Gettysburg.
Go to Amazon, books section, enter “Gettysburg”, click “Go”. The first book on the list I get is Stephen Sears’ Gettysburg. OK, I click on “page 75” where it says “Excerpt”. Now I’m ‘inside’ the book. I enter “kilpatrick”, “charge”, and “killed” (without the quotes) and 2 pages are listed where the words ‘Kilpatrick’ and ‘charge’ and ‘killed’ appear. This is promising!
Read each of the pages for names. You will find the names “Merritt’ and “Elon Farnsworth” in the context of an Kilpatrick order to attack or ‘charge’. Now to finish your quest go back to Google and enter “merritt” and “Gettysburg” together or an advanced search with “elon Farnsworth” as an ‘exact phrase’ along with “Gettysburg”, see which one was killed. There’s your answer.

I used to do this with the book Civil War High Commands, an excellent, but expensive source book for high officers, but I think they turned off access after I searched it once too many. But it is a great way to search something like Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders, and other books. Unfortunately, Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders does not have the “Search Inside” feature.

But you may have more to work with by using:

Google Books Search. What it does is sort of what Amazon’s “Search Inside” thing does only much easier and less restrictive. If you have a question, let’s say about Grant’s floating headquarters, go to Google, enter “books” and click ‘Google Search’. Then click on “Google Books Search”, and enter your search words. In this case try “grant” “vicksburg” “headquarters” “ship” (or boat or steamer or ….) vary your clues, and you might find what you need. Sometimes books have more, or better, information than the web, and Google Books is a good research tool. Also, you can access both Generals in Gray and Generals in Blue, and Civil War High Commands, which you can’t access at Amazon.

The Google Books search is something I tend to use frequently for researching questions, so I'd advise you also use it to find the answers. One of our best players has told me that the Google Book search has been a valuable research tool for answering the questions.


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Sam