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1.1 Scoring Change

1.1 Scoring Change

Will be applied rectoactively

We've been analysing Metaverse data and while the scoring was taking the game turn into account, it clearly isn't enough.

That is, even if you're taking the game turn and dividing the score by that, one can still sit on a lead indefinitely.

So for 1.1, the game turn will be squared so that it has a much more significant impact.  In addition, the difficulty level will be applied exponentially.

Existing Metaverse scores posted will be retroactively modified. So, for instance, that 4million score that someone got by playing the system will end up being 13,300 instead (though we're going to delete the score entirely since it was a clear case of abuse). 

In terms of Metaverse scoring, it isn't just the faster you win, there's a sweet spot where you maximize your civilization's various strengths.  I.e. if you were to win on the first turn, that wouldn't really give you a great score because you haven't accomplished much.  I don't know what that sweet spot is.

The scoring system works as follows (in 1.1):

Each turn your population is taken, then multiplied by the difficulty level to the 1.1 power. That amount is then divided by the game turn.  The final result is taken to the square root.

Then your research score is taken into account in a similar way.

And economic history.

And military history.

Overall, population probably counts a bit more than the others.

What's new in 1.1 is the difficulty level being taken to the 1.1 power and that this overall score is then divided again by the game turn.

However, so that scores don't get ridiculously small, we are multiplying 1.1 games by 10. So there will be an advantage to using 1.1 over 1.0x at that point.

This will start with this week's beta of 1.1. We plan to release 1.1 final early next week.

42,151 views 82 replies
Reply #26 Top
Well actually galaxy size does figure in.. population. More planets = more population. Population is a part of the score calculation. So, having said that.. I wouldn't advocate extra consideration for galaxy size.

I agree wholeheartedly. The effort put into a game is mainly defined by the number of planets you'll have to manage, much more than the galaxy size.
Reply #27 Top

Galaxy size is largely irrelevant. It's the # of planets you have to deal with that makes it tough IMO.

Internally, Tough is 80. Masocistic is 128. When taken to the 1.1 power you're talking almost twice as many points.

Reply #28 Top
OK... so is a score of 400-something normal for a tough game? I just got one and I freaked out. Earlier I got another game, 900 points, and freaked out too, so I didn't submit it.

EDIT: When are the metaverse scores going to be changed? Who will be affected? All pre-1.1 scores? Or what?
Reply #29 Top
Anyone? Has anyone submitted a 1.1b3 game??? I've looked around but it seems nobody has yet done it... and I will apprehensive about it.
Reply #30 Top
In 1.1b2, I scored 10,280 on a tiny map against two races. Flipped over to check the metaverse and didn't submit... geez... I hate cheaters/exploiters.

Ladies and gentleman, whichever category you place yourselves into, THIS IS A GAME OF CONQUEST.

Even if you are building and trading, you should still be focused on conquering opponents whether it's cultural or brute force. At least in the Metaverse. Leave the obsessive-compulsive style for non-metaverse games.

I'd like to see planet flipping and civilization flipping scored nicely as it's the hardest way to conquer a civilization. Such factors will give players incentive for more sophisticated style--especially since turns themselves will not mean as much. That should appease the long term gaming sessions.
Reply #31 Top
hey frogboy, does "rectoactively" mean "through an active rectum"?
Reply #32 Top
Anyone? Has anyone submitted a 1.1b3 game??? I've looked around but it seems nobody has yet done it... and I will apprehensive about it.


Yes, I did last night.

Started the game after work at about 1730 eastern time played off and on throughout the entire weekend. Total spent on game about 15 - 20 hours. (Saved games on gigantic with the options I had set up and normal 12 turns being a save were about an hour between.) Really the beta 1.3 is much more stable if slower on my system than the first edition. None of the gigantic games on first edition made it more than a year before they would fail. This one lasted the gambit.

Total score on a military conquest was 29750. Although you couldn't really see it as my score didn't seem to go up at all or if it did it was a very small amount. Which leads me to my problem with scoring.

If I have a score and its posted on the MV than it should be added directly not be freaking 10% of the score added to my freaking total.

I have 27 submitted games, the first one being a check to see if scoring actually worked way back when it was first allowed. 26 Wins and only 235,460 points! Lets do some very simple math.

235,460 / 27 = 8,720.74 (per game average)

Yet I played each game 100% of the time. Total accumulated points = 1,250,791

That gives me a whopping 18.82% of my total points counting as my game score.

Some more stats:
27 Total Games
26 Wins
01 Losses

27 Total Games
9 Military Wins
12 Political Wins
1 Technology (Beyond Mortality)
1 Cultural Wins
1 Defeat

Game Size (although stars, number of planets, and habitable planets tend to stay at occasional, the selections change occasionally throughout game play but the average should be uncommon to occasional)
27 Total
2 Gigantic
13 Huge
6 Large
6 Medium

Difficulty: (havent tried suicidal, somehow I think my tech selection order wouldn't work, I keep waiting for you all that do to brag a bit on how your pull it off.) Overall difficulty shown at end of post .
27 Total
6 Crippling
8 Painful
6 Tough
5 Challenging
2 Normal

Overall though the 18% of total score counted is what really chaps my broken backside. I understand that military, political and cultural victories count differently... but they shouldn't be counted twice! They are already accounted for in the individual game score, are they counted in the total too somehow or were they or will they be?

I have tried to make sure I did not submit any bogus scores especially after the beautiful, lovely and talented CariElf mentioned there was a problem. So what the freak am I do wrong here? There are what 5 folks who have more or as many games. One of those folks has an extremely difficult level setting (three cheers) two of them folks are almost exactly the same difficulty wise as me, the other one is on a lower setting difficulty wise. BTW, none of them are in first place, although they are all or have been in the top 25. (more cheers for them)

Anywho.

I look forward to the change in scoring as the old system obviously had some serious flaws.

W/R
Suralle Straykat
Kat Lord @ Large
Reply #33 Top
PUFF!!! That went my score!!! This reminds me of GC1 and the rat race for masochistic games

Why to change the system?, it was working fine, just few bugs, now just getting 29k for a tough game is not a good move.
Reply #34 Top
While I think this whole score thing is just plain silly b/c you never are comparing apples to oranges (if it meant something, we would all be playing the same exact scenario). Scores are just an accredidation for how much you play and it serves as a good record of the games you've played. It really doesn't mean one player is better than the other.

Saying that...

Galaxy size, # of oppenents, difficulty and planet / star abundancy should be the major contributors to score. It's all about density.

Playing a small / medium with abundant planets is like playing a large / gigantic with occasional. The # of opponents is very key to galaxy size with the # of opponents making it much more difficult.

However, I'm beginning to think whether tech trading is enabled is another multiplier in the equation. I've played a few games with it disabled, and it seemed I was able to roll over the AI pretty easily even on painful.

In the end, I guess I see where scores could be helpful, but unless you and I are playing the exact same maps, except we each use our custom races and our own strategy, score really is meaningless. I'm hopeful that some future version of MV will allow for this.
Reply #35 Top
I think the population scoring takes into account the game size actually. The bigger the galaxy the more planets the more population. I remember reading way back when that the theoretical planets that could support population max was something like 5000 planets.

I still do not understand why only 18% of my overall total is being counted in my scoring. I doubt that I every will. I do not like green eggs and ham...

W/R
Suralle Straykat
Kat Lord @ Large
Reply #36 Top
What the... how are you guys getting 29k for a TOUGH game? I got 400! (Given that I sat on my butt doing nothing but ending turns until I've researched pretty much everything), but it shouldn't be this low should it?
Reply #37 Top
On the new beta 3 it will be this low.
Reply #38 Top
http://metaverse.galciv2.com/index.aspx?g=player&id=138

This is Surelle link and you can see the 29K game on CRIPPLING!!!!
Reply #40 Top
Why to change the system?, it was working fine, just few bugs, now just getting 29k for a tough game is not a good move.

Did you miss the post about how the high score was set by a four year old hitting the end turn button?

Reply #41 Top
Nice whiny rant there.
However, If you think for about a second, you might realise that if all scores are lowered, then those 29k might mean a lot more then they used to.
Reply #42 Top
You're exaggerating, mayito. The pre-1.1 scoring system needed to be changed because it encouraged silly game milking for the Metaverse. My impression of the 1.1-Beta-3 system is that the emphasis on dividing by the number of turns has been overdone a little, but it's the right idea in general.
Some problems come to mind: Having "no tech trading" or "slow research" will penalize your score although it shouldn't in my opinion. And I hope the difference between the difficulty levels will be enough: Games on harder difficulties tend to go a bit longer because it's harder to overcome the AI. The bonus because of the difficulty level shouldn't be outdone by the time penalty.
Reply #43 Top
I am going back to my version before the beta and let the system recalculate my 100K games.
ummm...
Existing Metaverse scores posted will be retroactively modified...we plan to release 1.1 final early next week.

So, it'll be 100k for what...a week? This thread shows that the scoring system is pretty arbitrary. It makes sense to me that harder games would equal larger reward. It also makes sense to remove known exploits from the scoring system. There are larger windmills to tilt at than this one, my friend.
Reply #44 Top
bECAUSE if someone else's 4 year old will keep hitting end turn for 365 years... I can use my 4 year old to that Heh, like I would. Hands off Daddy's machine. You see the point though, the door is open for whoever else to do same thing and it must be prevented from being abused.
Reply #45 Top
Lets just wait and see how the new scoring method works out. I myself believe that my games have been worth what i've been getting.. IF there has to be a big drop in the scores that i'm getting (as I play games up to 39 years up to challenging level on a huge map and takes me over 36 hours of true game play)

My main concerns are that if someone finishes a game long before they've built up their pop and haven't gone right threough the tech tree then they shouldn't get as higher scvore as someone who does.. otherwise we'll all just end up playing short games for the max reward for time spent playing.. that too is ok.. but with the new scorring method i feel that those playing at the lower levels will get more bang for their efforts than someone who plays the harder levels and takes everything to their max.. I do agree that games that go on over say the 50 year mark should be penalised

But there again.. that would dsepend on if they are using slow or fast techs .. at the moment I did try very fast techs once and didn't fine that me score was reduced by much compared to when i played normal techs .. this needs to be resolved too..

no matter what scoring system stardock chooses it won't please everyong.. so long as its a fair reward for the effort you put into it it'll be ok with me.. as EVERYONE has ALWAYS had SCORES calculated in the same manner.. and thats all that really matters to having a fair scoring system.. EVERYONE CAN ALWAYS GET THE SAME SCORE AS ANYONE ELSE IF THEY DO THE SAME THING..

I CAN'T SEE WHY PEOPLE SHOULD BE REWARDEDor quick games when they havn't experienced and developed everything.. I know that there are those of you out there that totally disagree.. that recon that the quicker you finish the game the more score you should get no matter how little techs or pop dev youve had. and that is totally absurd... as thats not playing the Full game as it was designed to be played.. if they wanted quick games then they would,'t allow planets 100b max pop or have so many techs that take ages to research

Just wait until people find flaws in the AI and start using it to their advantage.. i can see some more people complaining that those players are using cheesy tactics and that they should be stopped.. Its not cheating its playing the game as it is.. we've always published our tactics and stratagies on how we are ablwe to geet the big scores only to be called cheesey players and cheats.. we publish them to that others can do the same and that if stardock wishes then they can change the ai to match how we play..

As it is the GC2 is a lot harder to platy than GC1.. and now its getting even harder.. I used to play suicidal (the highest level on GC1 and win an military victory on a huge map in about 4 hours .. now on challenging and tough its taking me 4 days (at least 36 hours of game play) to win in the same conditions and get the max points without turn nurfing.. I agree that that shouldn't be rewarded.. but the penaltys should only cut in once you've reached your max pop and all devs have been researched..

what brad has said sounds like its an interesting method of scoring.. so long as it doesn't penalise those who go for the max pop and max techs .. and sure reward those who can get all of that in the least amount of turns as long as they are using the same speed tech tree ai players, difficulty level, habitable planets, star density, map size, etc.. If they have the same set up and do it quicker then yes they should be rewarded

but all in all like i said first we'll just have to give it a go and wait and see
Reply #46 Top
Also don't forgetANY scoring changes Should also be retro activaly applied to already submitted games like they were in GC1 when ever a method of scoring changed.. as i'm sure Stardock will be doing so that no matter what version of game that your playing with that your scores will be on par with everyone elses.. (just to keep those who don't like the newer scoring system benificial and not updating the GC2 to the latest version just so that they can keep on getting the old scoring methods


Reply #47 Top
But there again.. that would dsepend on if they are using slow or fast techs .. at the moment I did try very fast techs once and didn't fine that me score was reduced by much compared to when i played normal techs .. this needs to be resolved too..

Fully agreed. Otherwise very fast tech would be a no-brainer for Metaverse games.
Reply #48 Top
I have to disagree on one point. And thats galaxy size = more pop so pop gets the score. What if I chose to play a large galaxy, abundant everything, and played a type of occ (intentionally limiting myself to a single system). the larger the galaxy, the harder it would be.

personally, I would only play that for the challange and not the score. But someone will. If it factored total galaxy population with your empire's population that might work. Of course if you take a military victory both numbers would match.

IAE: obtain a tech victory with 10% of total galatic population vs a tech victory with 50% of the total galatic population
Reply #49 Top
In #38, mayito8888 stated:

http://metaverse.galciv2.com/index.aspx?g=player&id=138 Link

This is Surelle link and you can see the 29K game on CRIPPLING!!!!


I've been following the scoring change with interest, but I, too, was somewhat surprised to see my score change so dramatically when I kicked the difficulty up a notch.

My games are here: Link

Here are my two most recent scores, including one I just finished (started with beta 2, finished with beta 3A, and it took the 3A scoring mechanism). Both are military victories in gigantic galaxies, with each game lasting 7 years.

* (finished April 1): challenging: 102K points
* (finished April 12): painful: 36K points

I am looking forward to the recalculation, as I expected to move up more than 9 measly slots for my rapid victory on painful.

Reply #50 Top
One of the problems I see is going to be how youre score is going to affect the total overall for your empire. Many points are going to be lost.