I have only played military conquests; I do know that MC scores much higher than the other victory conditions.

ok, i'm editing my game so it might depend differently now so never mind.

"In any game once you are stronger than the remaining players combined it is no longer interesting."

I totaly agree and I now, after reading this thread, think much much much (more) less of the metaverse. Since when does it take skill to prolong an easy victory?

If you are clearly way ahead (of all races combined) in all categories you should get full points no matter how you obtain your win. Retiring should even be an option for full points here too. Heck, maybe the game should just automatically end!

Also, does the game really require more skill to play with more planets/stars/opponents? Why would total end pop etc have anything to do with the scoring? And don't even get me started on the weird ranking system of the metaverse itself!

There will always be these anomolies in GalCiv - the Core design was to put out a Fun Game, not a competitive game. You cant bolt on a competitive scenario to a design that was orientated for Fun. To retro-fit competitive aspects properly would be a huge exercise to eliminate the root cause of the obvious anomolies.

For example the silly military starbase array technique solely designed to boost scores. There is no skill involved in it, and its a little obvious the player has used it when the score leaps into high hundreds of thousands, so really there is little point in using it.

If you approach the Metaverse with the mindset of it being a serious vehicle for competition you will be sorely disappointed, that was not Stardocks intention when creating it. The problem arises of course when the tense twitchy serious competitive player type uses it. They are of the mindset that they are the norm, everyone plays to "win", and therefore the Metaverse is useless. They are way off track, the vast majority of players are in this for a bit of fun and dont give a hoot for the score as such.

It does what it sets out to achieve, if individuals assume its there for serious competition, they will hate it - move on and find a competitive game to suit the mindset - not all people and all games have to be, or actually are, competitive beasts. The latter does not, and never will, sit well those who wish to be seen as "world champion" at everything.

Regards
Zy

In my last MV game my aim was to maximize my empire's potential. So I continued to build NLCs on research bonus tiles after I completed the tech tree instead of replacing my labs with factories and stock markets. I also continued to build dreadnoughts with decent defenses and good speed, instead of just filling them with weapons for the maximum military score.

Not necessarily true. I have only built out a full military starbase array in one game...And I couldn't post that game due to a serial number issue. My current game will be 700K+ without a starbase array.

I bet in late game (long after you could have won the game) you are pumping out huge hulls with ultimate miniaturization, loaded with nothing but black hole eruptors solely to boost your military score. I don't find milking an already won game solely for a higher score to be fun. In my 2nd DA 1.6 suicide game(I resigned in the first which never happened in DL!) which I'll post as an AAR, I got the message that my influence was covering 88% of the galaxy and I will win an influence victory in 10 turns if this remains above 75%. I had taken out a minor, the Krynn, the Torians, and then the Thalans who had the Restaurant of Eternity leaving the Drengin, Altarians, and Korath. My forces were already mobilizing to take out the Drengin which I'll try to do tonight before the game ends. An influence victory scores much less than a military victory but this is a non-metaverse game so I don't care. By the time you can win an influence victory you are in the mop up phase of winning a military victory which is not very interesting which is why I enabled this victory option to avoid prolonging an already won game. Also, I had close relations with the Korath, so I could have allied with them and then taken out the Drengin and Altarians to win an alliance victory.

True! But then getting ~150K for a two year gig, abundant all, suicidal, military victory DA game doesn't seem quite reasonable either. I have been trying to see if a million point game is practical under my computer system (pulling out every dirty trick, of course). It just might be. That is the challenge I'm getting out of this game...

I did want to make the point that there are multiple ways of getting really big points though. I know several of the big score people take radically different approaches and it's not fair to over simplify what it takes to get the really big scores. There is some overlap, but there are also some things unique to many of the big score players. For instance, others have had significant difficulty duplicating Wyndstar's all research build approach, I still can't come close to doing the colonization job that Magnumaniac is famous for, Mumble is the master of detail, and I'm just much faster at getting to an early victory than almost everyone else (high military skill and a couple of good dirty tricks) and thus the extra points.

To get big scores, you have to win, win big, and win early in some way, shape, or form. I am milking the game to get the really big scores, but the milking would be pointless if I wasn't good enough to drive to total domination in a time frame that is beyond most people. Since the total score is not representative of your final stats, but your stats over time it still says something when you have a big score. Namely that you can dominate the game much earlier than other players who haven't reached that scoring level. To say that all you have to do is build a military array is just wrong and minimizes what is really necessary and that impression is what I really wanted to correct. If someone tries to just build a military array in year five or six after they have won, they will find that it isn't worth much score wise.

I have found the scoring system to be a useful way to drive myself to find ever better and more efficient ways of beating the AI; The scoring system represents a good way of judging my efficiency. It still represents a good way of judging my efficiency compared to others...Just how many points is person X getting in a five year Suicidal game compared to me?

This arguement has gone on before and I assume will continue forever. I agree that there are flawed elements to scoring, but I disagree that means that score is meaningless.

I have nothing against the idea that some folks don't care about the score and just wish to win the game and get on to the next. I support this concept to the fullest and is a large part of why classes were incorporated into the AltMeta. Certainly if you choose to finish up with an influence victory then there is really no basis to compare your score to a military victory with as you point out a full military starbase array and many ships parked under it. Fine. That comparison is meaningless to make. I grant that. However, I would suggest that comparing your influence victory to other similar sized influence victories does have some meaning. Yes, is still is by no means perfect but there is meaning there.

Similarly let's take two different players playing similar gigantic galaxy military victories both using an array of military starbases and many ships parked under them. One of these players score a respectable 300K and the other scores 600K. I submit that there is a difference in these two games and that the person that scored 300K could never reach 600K no matter how many ships he built or how long he "milked" the score. There is a difference in these two games and the difference is an indication of overall skill. The difference is really due to winning both sooner and smarter. Again I'm not saying that score is a perfect ruler that measures everyone the same, just that to suggest that score means nothing is just as flawed logic as it is to suggest that it means everything.

For a different challenge, see what score you get, using any manner of tricks, on a certain difficulty level. To achieve a high score on a lower difficulty level is much harder than getting the same score on a higher level. My goal is to break 200k on challenging. Not sure if it has been done and then i will try a similar score but on normal...

Sounds like a blast! I think I'll join you, but work up from the bottom.

The highest cakewalk score I could find was ~13K. I'm running a small cakewalk game now (started it last night). I'll see if I can break that.

I'm not shooting for a set high score. I'm too new at the game, and am still learning what's what at this point.

For one second I was tempted to play a gig abundant all cakewalk game!

On reconsideration, I think not though!

That would be about as fun(NOT!) as milking an already won game.

For those that still care, Purge, how do you score >900K in a suicide, abundant everything, gigantic map, DA game?

Pick very fast tech.

Turn off super events.

9 minor races.

Abundant all, of course!

Pick:
+50 Economics
+20 Morale
+50 Social
+30 Military

Pick the federalists for the economic bonuses.

Pick super-breeders. Flip from 100% to 50% approval as cash allows from day 1.

This is basically a custom Torian race, but you can get slightly better bonuses with a custom race. The Torians are the only race for which I consider this to be true.

Pick four or five opponents (seems to be optimal, keeps the AI weak enough and limits group research).

Set relations to friendly for all opponents.

(I don't Ctrl-N, well rarely)

Use the all factory strategy.

Get lucky and get two economic and one morale resource on the initial push.

Focus on morale and economic techs (and move up to manufacturing centers early).

Build the MCC for the economic bonus.

Build extra survey ships early.

Stop colonizing early and focus on building a completely unbalanced society with only manufacturing centers (don't do ICs, so you can use them sooner) and two farms on every planet...I had about forty to fifty planets and they were all (yes, every single last one) manufacturing planets. Build the Artificial Slave Center. Even with the three galactic resources, all the morale and economic techs (and wonders), the MCC, and fully populated planets, this heads you straight for the wall. This is, so far, the first and only came that came together well enough for me to literally make every planet a manufacturing center.

Use this massive manufacturing advantage (start adding them up - racial bonus, survey ships bonuses, all tech bonuses, slave center, and all manufacturing planets) to beat the AI early...Just before you start hitting the wall. With research focus on all these manufacturing planets, narrow research focus (no colonization techs, etc.) and trade with minors, you should be able to get a limited tech advantage. Switching to 100% military production with forty manufacturing center planets moved me from no military to ~7 times the next strongest AI in about two months. I could pop out a fully loaded large ship every four to six turns on all planets with attacks approaching ~100 while the best AI was building mediums in the thirties and the worst AI was small in single digits.

Every planet added to your empire with all these bonuses should be net positive on the cash flow, even when nearly empty and should help keep pushing the wall back out.

Get lucky and get the economic prosperity event early and preserve it.

I did also use a good selection of dirty tricks on the AI...Pretty much every good dirty trick that has been posted in the last year...One is NOT generally known, has never been posted in the GCII forums, is game unbalancing and fits within the rules of a fair game...I did a bug report on in it in early DA beta, but it's still there. That is as much as I will say about that particular dirty trick!

I did build massive numbers of BHEs (leaving eight in orbit so you receive the bonus for being in planetary orbit). On a cost per point basis, it's not the most effective ship, but system limitations start to become more important. I did NOT build a military star base array. This let me run the game out extra years.

After fully populating the galaxy, I ran at ~28% approval all turns, except election turns (being one of those dirty tricks). I left the Yor with one planet to prevent victory (and another of those dirty tricks). I also left all planets with some manufacturing capacity and a starport. At some point I only use research focus on planets that don't have any social builds....Later this transforms into using focus on the odd man out planets (military when majority social builds and then flips to social focus with 100% military builds as they develop). On the final score, something like 10K or 11K from tech is typical. Almost all my points are coming from the economy and the military with a reasonable amount from social.

Also spend down under the 20K treasury penalty every turn, especially with the economic bonus. Peak gross income ~1.4 Million BCs a turn...I was using all of that on ship maintenance somewhere around year six???

Also (since I know you have the same video card as I do) after a couple of years my video card will time out on game load, even with everything turned down or off. I've found that if I load one of the earlier saved games and then load the current saved game, it takes less time to load the current saved game and I can avoid the video card timeout...Most games.

I'm sure there is more...But that is what comes immediately to mind.

Are you saying you don't keep morale at 100% until you max out your population but instead have morale at 50% on the first turn? Does the super-breeder receive a population growth bonus when morale is <100%?


Do you pick the weakest AI opponents or the strongest for more of a challenge? It seems to be the consensus that the Iconian Refuge is the weakest in DL and DA; in DL 1.2 the Drath Legion, the Iconian Refuge, and the Terran Alliance, had the weakest AI algorithms. To my surprise the Torian Confederation has performed poorly in my few DA 1.6 games; perhaps this is the exception to the norm. The Drengin Empire is a paper tiger to an experience human player since much of they military score is based on their many corvettes which easily fall to ships with good armor.


Are you saying you didn't have any stock markets on these planets!? How many morale centers did you have on each planet? Did you only control 2 economic and 1 morale galactic resource? I place only 1 farm and 1 morale center per planet with generally an equal number of factories and stock markets. In the late game are you replacing factories with stock markets so that you may fund a larger military?
Playing on a medium map with common stars/planets I'll build a network of 4 economic starbases to boost my core planets but on larger maps I won't bother because of the much larger number of planets.
In DL 1.2 everything abundant gigantic maps with loose/tight clusters had almost 500 planets, I understand this is up to almost 1000 planets in DA 1.6. So in your games at the end of the colonization phase you only control 50 planets vs. the 4-5 AIs controlling ~900 planets!?
I think gigantic maps are easier than medium maps in that gigantic maps have many more galactic resources. An experienced human player is much better at grabbing key galactic resources early and getting AIs to go to war so he/she may capture their galactic resources with a waiting constructor when the other AI destroys their starbase. Controlling all the galactic resources on a gigantic map sure helps negate the huge bonuses the suicide AIs receive.


Do you bother with the expensive evil weapons in the early/mid game? The evil beam weapon has attack 12 vs. phasors (same level tech normal beam weapon) attack of 3 and the evil missile which is only 6.
What date do you normally reach the point when you control nearly all the planets and are just milking the game for a higher score? When do you normally end your games and how many huge ships with BHEs do you have?


Is this pure luck or do you have a trick to increase the odds of getting and keeping the economic boom? If the boom ends do you just reload the last turn and hit end turn, repeating this process until you get the boom to continue?


How much memory do you have? I recently upgraded from 512MB to 2.5GB; I sure wish I had this extra memory when I played those gigantic everything abundant games!

I think the total planet count was 917, including class ones. At the end of my colonization phase I had ~50 planets....But the AI was still colonizing even after I had fully built out my planets. So while some of the AIs were probably at ~150 planets by that time, they had far fewer built out planets (90% only have one or two buildings) and there was probably another 200 planets that hadn't yet been colonized. Some only had two or three planets that I would consider to be manufacturing planets. About the time they have exhausted themselves from colonization, I am peaking for military strength. It also means I don't need to research any of the colonization techs at all...This is partially an artifact of the gig maps, but I've done this on a large map as well. Also, on the truly large (huge/gig) if you can get AIs on the economic edge due to expansion to declare war on each other some of the time it seems to freeze them up...Permanently. I think what is happening here is a problem with the AI algorithm. In early stages on suicidal, the AI is buy happy and it simply uses it's huge advantage to buy things every time it see an opportunity. By giving it lots of demands on its resources that are immediate I think the AI buys itself into a permanent hole and every time it gets some spare cash it immediately spends it, instead of using it to build up the infrastructure to give itself more capital return. It then reacts by raising taxes and pushing morale down, causing a population crash. I've seen AI planets with morale in the teens before...I suspect some lease spending going on here as well...Another reason for fewer AIs, it's easier to bait them into doing this...The Iconians do it whether you bait them or not.



Absolutely. Also the AI doesn't really have any strategic sense, only tactical sense. This doesn't really matter on a medium map, but it does on Large or greater maps.



I had this one by end of game year two (year three). My unbalancing dirty trick cuts down the time and it is a pretty huge flaw...But I've done a huge abundant all in the same time window without it (my first DA metaverse game, I didn't play it out for points at all) and I'm better now than I was then...I don't bother with the early expensive evil weapons. This is one of the advantages of very fast tech. With research focus, I can push up the weapons tech tree pretty fast while I'm building out all those manufacturing centers, making the early evil weapons obsolete very quickly (and one less thing to research). I always go torpedoes. I like to make it to anti-matter before pushing out big numbers of ships. I keep the research focus going once I start building ships though and I'm usually obsoleting designs pretty fast. I usually have ~8000 BHEs by game end. It varies slightly depending on how many shrinkers I get and how expensive I can make the BHEs. They were about 65K a pop in this game. I'm not at the game computer, so I can't check the total on this one, but it was significantly more due to the economic event and I was spending all 1.4 million BC every turn on ship maintenance.



I wish! This is only the second economic prosperity event I've had since playing metaverse games. I used to see it more often pre-metaverse. I'm not sure if it's some change in my play style that has affected the frequency, or just luck of the draw. I just reload if it ends (usually I just quit for the night and load it back up the next day from the previous save - effectively reloading). It doesn't appear to increase or decrease the odds of it going away when you do this. This, I have to admit, is out of the context of game play!



I'm at 3GB now. I did buy an extra gig for this game about halfway through last year. It made a huge difference at the time. I keep thinking I should buy a new computer, but then I look at the specs on my Frankenstein creation of almost four years ago and it's not that far off from the average computer being sold now...So I buy diapers instead!

In my medium map games with very fast research I would go with the evil beam weapons for most of the game (picking up normal advanced weapons from the AIs during invasions). Playing on a gigantic map you have many more planets so research progresses much quicker plus the colonization expansion lasts much longer so you have more time before the AIs get aggressive.

You really have to tailor your strategy to your map size, your victory goal, and your avatar's abilities (e.g., logistics is much more important to the super warrior[first-strike advantage] than other super abilities).

On gigantic maps do you bother with economic starbases?
On gigantic maps do you bother with trade routes for the trade income and/or improved relations?

I don't bother with economic starbases or with trade routes. The thing with Gig maps is that working for the universally applied bonuses is just so much more profitable. Even when looking at them VS gaining stuff through war, the economic starbases and trade routes take time to be cost effective, and I've always been able to get almost immediate returns through war, both tech and economic boosts. I would only go with economic starbases or trade routes if I found myself in a game that was effectively stalemated and looked like it would run for a long time. Or for the relationship improvement. Given my level of aggressiveness, this just doesn't ever happen. I have been looking at trying to play some smaller maps again, maybe I'll hit a circumstance there where it makes sense.