Scoring...

Scoring is pretty well broken.

Look at your own scores - You got 1200 points for a win at challenging in a huge galaxy and only 800 for a crippling victory in a medium galaxy.

Your win at crippling victory is far more impressive than your huge galaxy win, yet scores 50% less points.

I've seen wins scoring thousands of points with simple AIs in huge galaxies.








~SDC~

Look at my scores. The tech win has a huge score for such low AI, and for the length of time it took to play.

My scores are much higher than they should be. For comparison, check out Frogboy's record.

~SDC~

From what I've seen the larger population you have and the closer you are to each victory condition will help give you a higher score.

~SDC~

Well, then. In the tech victory, I had far more population than I could reasonably use and was extremely close to cultural and conquest victories.

~SDC~

Bah, 400 points for my first painful victory. I had to work my arse off for that win and all I got was a lousy 400 points (:(

Still, who cares - I'm the 400th best Gal Civ player in the world

~SDC~

Ok I really don't get it.

This last game I turned off cultural victory (since I usually trip that too early). I had insane culture and military. And I had a lot of pop.

I don't get it!

I'm no expert in scoring but I think Brad did mention that the speed in which the game is completed also influences the score so there could be a point whereby more pop and tech cannot offset a game that is taking too long to complete.

~SDC~

Your pop is a BIG modifier in my experience. You need 1500+ for the bigger scores.

..and the map size..seems that your potential score doubles or triples for each map size you go up.

RayChua,

my 1500 point game was the longest I've played.

~SDC~

'I'm no expert in scoring but I think Brad did mention that the speed in which the game is completed also influences the score so there could be a point whereby more pop and tech cannot offset a game that is taking too long to complete.'

Unless you run the game out long enough that every planet is at max population, the time penalty isn't enough to offset the tech, population, and economy gain over that time.

~SDC~

'Zactly, hence my inflated 1500 point score.

~SDC~

Map size, pop and the closeness to victory conditions do seem do be the scoring heavyweights over other factors such as completion time and AI level. Weren't too concerned about my scoring initially but I certainly wouldn't mind getting one 3000+ game for that nice little medal


~SDC~

I'm working on my fifth game now, normal difficulty, huge galaxy. I'm about to wipe out the Drengin, and probably the Yor as well.

Not sure if I want a conquest or tech victory. I'm not really digging the alliance, even if I am cultivating friends.

~SDC~

Er, the point of my last post was in reference to how the scoring will work out - I expect a long game, with lots of population and tech research and cultural influence by the time it's over.

Well, that and I want the five victories medal.

~SDC~

It seems to me that maybe population is playing to much of a role in determining scores. Why accept one victory condition now, when a few hundred turns later I can win and get a much higher score on the metaverse. If perhaps time would become more of a factor or population less, it'd be possible to finish the game earlier and get roughly the same score you would have gotten by keeping the game going for another hour after your victory was already assured.

~SDC~

Why not? Because if you're playing on higher difficulty levels, that would likely be suicide. The game is good at lulling you into a false sense of security before the Drengin send a fleet of ships-one-tech-larger-than-your-best to knock at your door.

~SDC~

Lets say your playing a gigantic map on all intelligent AIs. Eventually you manage to conquer all but 1 or 2 races which have been pretty much reduced to insignficance compared to your empire.

Now you have the option of placing a few starbases to get enough culture to win, finish conquering their remaining planets, or allying with them. Or you could just simply letting them live while you build your population and tech up, which in turn could give you a much higher score then you would have gotten by simply finishing the game at this point.

There isn't any challenge left in this game, but by simply just hitting end turn many times and cleaning up the remaining aliens at your leisure your end result will be a higher metaverse score.

~SDC~

I think that the difficulty level should be the most determining factor in score. If you look at my scores, my lowest scores was a gigantic galaxy against all Genius AIs. There should be NO combination of factors that EVER let a game with all AIs on normal award more points that all AIs on Genius! If the strength of this game is the AI, then the measure of the elite players should be their ability to beat it at its best.

I reiterate what I have said in MANY threads: THE SCORING NEEDS TO BE CHANGED SIGNIFICANTLY!!!

-Dave

~SDC~

I've just given up submitting games. It's depressing when they just don't reflect how hard the game was to win.

I won my fastest ever gigantic galaxy on genius last night and would only have gained 600 points! It would actually have caused my score to drop. Why? Because I won so fast I only had a population around 200B and had a fairly low tech. If I had dragged this game out I would have had a score nearly 10 times higher!

Paul.

~SDC~

Exactly, when I beat the AI on all incredible, I only got 2300 points because I didn't bother waiting for population to grow and tech to be researched.

Why should I have been able to get thousands of more points for just setting up a condition where I just hit end turn a few hundred times to max out population and tech?

~SDC~

Solitair,
"I've just given up submitting games. It's depressing when they just don't reflect how hard the game was to win."

Nooo ! You can't do this Captain ! If not for you, do it for the Empire !



~SDC~

I have also basically given up on submitting games. If they change the scoring, I'd be happy to start submitting again. Until then I'm not going to bother.

-Dave

~SDC~

Well, there's no way to get a truly balanced scoring system when you have multiple win conditions (one winning condition will almost certainly turn out to be superior for generating high scores), but the current method definitely is in need of improvement. I think two factors should be changed first: the metaverse should be split with each galaxy size have a seperate list, and the primary factor in scoring for each of these lists should be based on difficulty combined with turns needed to win. This would make military conquest the best 'high score technique', but it would (IMO) still be a lot more indicative of the better players than the current system.

As just another indication of how broken the current system is, I could submit 10 games of around 1000 score using gigantic galaxies with Fool for the AI settings, never break a sweat, and have a 3162 score on the Metaverse. Someone submitting 10 wins at the highest AI difficulty on a tiny galaxy would have maybe 850 or so and yet would have had to play at a far higher level to get that.

It'll never be fair, but it can be better than grossly unfair.

Raychua: You're closer than you think. It doesn't mean that you've had 10 wins at 3000 points or better, it means that you've won 10 games and your Metaverse score is 3000.

So, you're at 5819 points so far, and you'll need a total of 9487 points in 10 games to hit 3000, so you'll need 1223 points per game for the next 4 games to make it. Judging by your history, I think you can make it