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Metaverse scoring shock

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Metaverse scoring shock

from Stardock Forums
Well...I just finished my first game, playing on medium/tight clusters/all AI on beginner.
I achieved a cultural victory in 2199.

The game was a blast, in fact it was almost like two separate games (pre and post resource rush). Oddly enough, the Drengin and I started next to each other, so i thought they'd mop the place up with me, but we were on good terms the whole game.

What I don't get is my metaverse score. Based on briefly looking at other folks scores, I expected something in double digits, based on map size, easy AI, and the fact i tend to play pretty slowly/methodically. I nabbed an 1172.

Folks, I'm not very good at strategy games in general so this seems peculiar to say the least. Morale was poor late in the game (about 35 avg once I boosted a morale-mining starbase). I had no military to speak of (a few battle axes I think, none of which ever fired a shot).

Hey, I'm not complaining! :D I'll take it however I can, but I was hoping someone could enlighten me.

Thanks for reading my harangue.
952 views 41 replies
Reply #26 from Stardock Forums Top
"3598 for cakewalk."

I am so disgruntled with the scoring system (and some of the quirks, like untradeable trade goods) that I have stopped playing Galciv, for the time being.

But I still visit here, and will try Galciv again, when these things have been sorted out. In the meantime, I am off to Simcity4. :)
Reply #27 from Stardock Forums Top
Forceinfinity (#24): I may be able save a little trouble. On a recent tiny/crippling game I timed it so that I could win by culture, alliance, or military conquest on the same turn (taking one extra planet from the Altairians for the military victory). The scores were approximately 1300, 1500, and 1900, respectively.

Coffeedragon (#26): The trade goods are again usable for trading purposes through genius intelligence, if not quite as valuable as before. I would have preferred fixing the leasing system, but I'm definitely having fun again. Still, 3598 for cakewalk (for a small map, no less), says that something is very, very wrong with the difficulty scoring.
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Reply #28 from Stardock Forums Top
It seems to me that the Tech victory involves WAAAYYYYY to much clicking of the turn button at the end of the game with not much else happening. Sort of GalCiv's version of retirement...
Reply #29 from Stardock Forums Top
Tech victory is for those who can maintain their own
little corner of the galaxy, but cant do much else.
Reply #30 from Stardock Forums Top
Tech victory is for those who can maintain their ownlittle corner of the galaxy, but cant do much else.
End of quote


Actually tech victory is also for a couple other situations:

1) You get lucky enough to conquer a planet belonging to a race that has FF

-or-

2) You get caught in an ugly quagmire situation where you're not going to be able to end the war quickly or anytime soon

Believe me, I had one game on Crippling where I needed the tech victory because I wasn't going to win any other way
Reply #31 from Stardock Forums Top
I realize that Stardock has a limited number of programmer hours to spend on GalCiv development, and they have performed admirably. However, I hope that they continue to refine and play balance the metaverse. It is unique in all of computer gaming. IMO, its very existence can draw players in and keep them playing. Eventually some other game will compete for our attention with its promise of galactic conquest and colorful box art. But the metaverse can transcend that, and keep people playing and upgrading (eventually to GalCiv 2 :d ). The metaverse with its medals, rankings, and empires, could keep people playing this game way beyond the normal lifecycle of a PC game.

By the way, look for other gaming companies to copy the metaverse model that Stardock has created. Will they do it better than Stardock? I don't know, but I think Frogboy and company have the advantage right now.
Reply #32 from Stardock Forums Top
CM,

Let me put this a different way, and a little more directly.
Suppose you play a game on simple and thoroughly dominate econ, tech, mil etc.
This was the greatest win you can conceive of at that difficulty level.
For the sake of argument lets say that win is worth 2000 points.

Now, in your opinion, relative to that score, what would a victory by the narrowest of margins be worth on crippling or masochistic? What about an equally successful victory at those difficulty levels? Other difficulty levels?
Reply #33 from Stardock Forums Top
Actually I am pretty sure sense 1.04, the computer
can not research final frontier.
Reply #34 from Stardock Forums Top
Hmmm I made a test game to try and see how that 3,6k score for tiny / fool was achieved... Now I think it's a bug... My testgame took like 10 minutes and was finished in spring of 2180... My score (81) was indeed so low, that my overall score dropped by ~100 points. Don't think you can do it much faster since the Transports need some time to travel... Maybe late 2179 can be done but I don't think that would make a difference of 3,5k.
Coffeedragon: Well... sad thing... I am looking on the scoring system with not more than some side interest... It does not scratch me, if it is screwed since it's not what brings the fun in this game...

I even don't want em to focus on it to make it better before they improved the game itself!
[Message Edited]
Reply #35 from Stardock Forums Top
You know, doing research is cool, but you can see your score without submitting and screwing up your ranking (unless of course there is a problem that occurs during submission).
Reply #36 from Stardock Forums Top
If the 3600 score wasn't from a very fast win, then I would guess it was some kind of Tiny / Abundant, with cultural victory turned off so that he could get all of the wonders and trade goods and build up a large population. Sounds like an excruciatingly boring game to me, but to each his own. That said, I don't believe the most dominant cakewalk victory should be within a factor of 10 of the "worst" masochistic win scorewise.
Reply #37 from Stardock Forums Top
Staffa: The 1.04 AI is most certainly capable of researching Final Frontier. The Torians have it in my current game, and I'm trying to decide if buying it off of them would be too cheesy of a win, or should I just research it myself (almost there).
Reply #38 from Stardock Forums Top
I think the metaverse still needs a lot of tweaking.
Reply #39 from Stardock Forums Top
It's sad that winning by Cultural Victory is penalized. I think it's the "nice" way to win. After all it was put in the game originally as a way for the Humans to win over the Aliens to their way of life in a peaceful way. Which is a much "nicer" way to treat other beings than to wipe them out. But, if we want to have better scores on the Metaverse, now we have to turn Cultural Victory off, which is just a shame. I wish there was no difference between the type of victory that we accomplish. I do think that the difficulty level should be the largest factor in determining the score. The harder the difficulty, the higher the score. But, please, not the type of victory. :)
Reply #40 from Stardock Forums Top
3600 for a Cakewalk... That's just not right. A glance at Staffa's scores shows his average is probably not much better than that. It would be ridiculous if the number one in the metaverse got there playing only Cakewalk games.

Cakewalk games should never score that much - the player is just playing to milk the score, and should really of upped their difficulty level.

I suggest that the raise to the power of 0.75 that I believe all the scores go through as part of their calculation should be adjusted for different difficulty levels. Raising to a fractional power basically enforces diminishing returns, so lowering it would make it a lot harder to get decent scores at lower levels.

However, to be really honest, I'm not that bothered. There are other things I would rather see.
Reply #41 from Stardock Forums Top
I don't know about other's learning curve, but it was rather hard for me to go from AI normal to AI intelligent. Yeah, it became easier when I've learnt fastest way to frigates :( Imho, good tactics for lower difficulties can be not that efficient for smarter AI. So far, every difficulty level changes game dramatically for me. Metaverse is rather good scoring system right now, better than was before, but an option to see best players based on game difficulty would be welcome.