I have to disagree with Peter Harris' comment about the penalty to changing alignment, but not for the obvious reason. I think that what needs to be fixed is the repeated events for repetitive colonization of one planet by the same player. That has other quirks rather than just this one, and by fixing that, you take out all the other quirks, not just the one.

Yellow Sign, thanks for the reminder about what Pontius said. I think he's right and meant to mention that point before. Valamir is also right IMO. We're discussing how the scoring should work without having agreed upon (or understanding what Stardock wishes) the function of the metaverse.

Brad, I'm also wondering if any consideration has been given to scoring games by comparing submissions to previously submitted games using similar criteria. That is, if you achieve a military victory on gigantic/maso, having a base score for that difficulty and map, and modifying the score based on comparing the success (in terms of econ, pop, tech, time to completion or whatever is deemed appropriate) from other military wins on that map size and difficulty.

For instance, this combination of factors could be normalized to a Z score creating a bell curve for each combination of victory type/size/difficulty with a predetermined mean and standard deviation.

The point of this would be that because new games are submitted all of the time, the scoring criteria would be constantly updated without constant human intervention. The metaverse would become something of a living entity...in the same way top games have influenced the AI, all submissions would slowly influence metaverse scoring. Not just the best submissions, but all of them.

Just a thought from a guy with too much statistical background...I'm not sure there will ever be a single satisfactory formula.
[Message Edited]

Popup, Carlelf said she had that on her list, btw
on larger maps its fairly easy to change ones alignment
without abusing such a flaw.

For the recrod, I have never abused that flaw in any
game I submitted, though I do have a game I didnt submit
where I had a 62 pq world at turn 4 I also stopped
playing at turn 4 cause there ant no way in hell
im submitting a game like that, heh

To Frogboy

I just submitted the medium painful game with score 6323.
Finished 2214 Jan Pop 3900, All techs.

I can send the zipped save game, but dont know where.

Hm, I think alot of this scoring difference might be
due to researching final frontier with tech victory
turned off. Alot of it is still pop though

Got tech victory turned off in my current large game, lets
see how it goes(will be several hours yet)

[Message Edited]

For me tuned off tech victory does not work, two times I got tech victory with being turn off just after researching final frontier. So, be careful to achieve military victory at the same turn.

About pop, yes it certainly rewarded to much. My two last games are very similar (I believe that difference between crippling and painful scorewise is very small because I made notes about in game scores at different moments). In my second game I managed to build more TG/wonders and research more tech (118 out 149), I managed to research evil and good techs because I was evil in the beginning and good to the end (without repeted colonizing planets, I never use this trick), and the score in this game is less. The explanation is the pop difference.

Hmmm. I do want to say a couple of things on this. CM had a post back on page 1 that I think is really powerful. If high score = most efficient victory, than the metaverse is useless for the general player.

If the only point to the metaverse is to serve as a chest beating platform (no disrespect intended) for those players who have the mad skillz (and the amazing amounts of time to get those skillz) than the scoring system Staffa et.al. proposed is simple, fairly bullet proof and effective.

However it then gets a big fat so friggin what from me. I will NEVER win a game of Gal Civ as quickly as anyof those guys...I have no desire to even try it wouldn't be fun for me to disect the game to the level required to become a true master. So, should I be doomed to inferior scores forever? That depends.



Point well taken. Now my contention (which is a bit different from Staffa's) is that Speed should be taken into account and rewarded. Ie. A person that owns the Galaxy in half the amout of turns ought to score a bit higher than someone else. Not a ton higher, but a bit. That's why I proposed the pop degrader only kick in after a certain date and gradually get worse for awhile, then after another date, get exponentially worse. BUT THE POP DEGRADER SHOULD NEVER RESULT IN A SUBTRACTION FROM THE SCORE IN OTHER AREAS. And Pop should be returned to its 1.035 importance. A proper degrader should take care of the run up WITHOUT NERFING pop's importance. After all, pop is your main way to score at the more difficult levels. And the percentage should be the same accross all map sizes I would rather see the pop taken at a date and scored on that basis alone but Frogboy seems to favor the degrader, so we'll take it and run with it. That would allow empire builders a reasonable amout of time to score with pop but not an unlimited amout of time. I think that's fair. And I leave it up to the devs through analysis of data to pick a fair date.

However, I don't think speed of victory or difficulty level should be the end all be all. After all. If all you get is difficulty *size*speeed. It's going to make for boredom as I will find that speed combo and do the same thing every time.

I fall more toward the Staffa - Ralegh plan than toward anyone else's, but I wanted to emphasize that to me, by far the most important score factor should be the difficulty. The greatest challenging win should not touch the worst maso win, however worst and greatest are defined.

I personally object to the idea that abundant galaxies should be inherently more score worthy than rare galaxies. They may take longer in real time (not game time), but that doesn't make them harder. Personally, I've never lost a common or abundent game below maso. I have lost multiple rare games. I know that this is in part because I play even my bad starts, and bad rare starts are generally worse than bad abundant starts. I play about half and half. I certainly would not object to some starting condition check that compares the distance from my homeworld to PQ15+ stars to the distance from the AI's, but I don't find that to be an essential feature.

I certainly encourage wonders, tradegoods, and techs to be counted, but not enough to overwhelm the extra time to build them. That is, if two people play the same galaxy size, same difficulty and win in the same amount of time, then by all means, give the more advanced player more points.

Finally, reconsider the decision of having hard multipliers for the different victory conditions. It will always feel artificial when someone can win in multiple ways on the same turn, yet get grossly different scores. Besides, different conditions are more difficult on different maps. I.e., military victory is surely the easiest on most tiny, rare, good-start maps.

However, I don't think speed of victory or difficulty level should be the end all be all. After all. If all you get is difficulty *size*speeed. It's going to make for boredom as I will find that speed combo and do the same thing every time.


Also to that end, that is why one victory condition shouldn't get more bonus points than another.

The scoring system should be sophisticated enough in other areas, that a hide in the corner tech win, scores far less than a tech win where you owned all but one planet and didn't quite get to it when you got the tech win.
The same would be true of an alliance win. One where you owned all but two planets should score almost the same as a military where you owned em all. One where you control 1/4 and it happened early and your ally did all the work should score less. The system should be sophisticated enough to detect that and score that appropriately WITHOUT having to resort to a different bonus for different type of win. After all, Just look what happenned when you changed the bonuses. All those beyond humans suddenly switched to Military. In effect, that tells you we who controlled the galaxy merely chose our win condition. I don't think that's what you are looking for.

I personally object to the idea that abundant galaxies should be inherently more score worthy than rare galaxies. They may take longer in real time (not game time), but that doesn't make them harder. Personally, I've never lost a common or abundent game below maso. I have lost multiple rare games. I know that this is in part because I play even my bad starts, and bad rare starts are generally worse than bad abundant starts. I play about half and half. I certainly would not object to some starting condition check that compares the distance from my homeworld to PQ15+ stars to the distance from the AI's, but I don't find that to be an essential feature.


I would object to any difference in scoring rare vs abundant or quality of starting position. What is a "Good starting position" is subjective. And nearest distance to the first "Good" Star. Ok what if it's 2 sectors (24 parsecs) to the nearest good one but there are 5 there within 5 parsecs of each other vs having one good one only 2 parsecs away but then after that the nearest one is 4 whole sectors away? What about those times when all your enemies are right near you and you're cornered with your 4 great stars really close vs only 1 great really close but all 5 enemies start near the opposite end of the map and you thus have killer access. How does one devise a system to Take into account all the variables withoug quickly becoming unworkable? And to be fair you'd have to post a "Map rating" at start. Because how is one to know what a "Good scoring map" is?


I would like to propose one thing though that hasn't been mentioned. An option to up your score by not selecting some or all of your 10 points worth of power ups at the beginning (locking out selecting them later)

I don't agree with a lot of your ideas on this subject, but this is one point that I do. I really, really dislike the idea that I routinely find myself choosing to pass up the most logical win because I know it's simply not worth it score wise. My society isn't changing, my achievements in the game aren't changing, but which particular victory I go for alters my score several fold for no conceivable good reason.

Simpler is better.

Two fixed numbers and a fudge factor:

1) # of PQ15+ at start
2) # of months until the first of 75% of total galactic pop or victory or loss
3) difficulty (If cakewalk = 1, and tough is 10, should maso be 20, 40 or 100) - total fudge

Formula: 2/1*3

I don't have the data to know if this would work, but it strikes me as capturing the relevant pieces.

I agree with that - but your formula would favour abundant and punish rare.

How do you value rare large vs. abundant medium? By removing "tiny abundant" vs. "small rare", I thought the total PQ15+ approach would help (completely ignoring the scattered vs. clustered issue). With larger rare, range matters more, but it also can take longer to contact other races. If we want to account for size a different way, how about starting the "month clock" the month the last PQ 15+ is colonized and ignoring the size of the universe or the rare vs. abundant?

Another alternative would be to take a snapshot at the moment of the colonization of the final PQ15+ and look at the ratio of PQ15+ colonized by human to total PQ15+, but this would penalize those who expand well or those who expand poorly, depending on how you use the ratio in the formula.

Slight modification to #64, we would have to use the date of colonization of the last system with a PQ15+ planet, not the date of the colonization of the last PQ15+ planet, because the rush is for systems, not necessarily planets in systems you already control.

Hm, I think the best solution is to drop the whole idea of a scoring algorithm. Instead, frogboy has to look at every submitted game and rate it. He can judge much better than any algorithm if the player did good or bad or if he used cheesy tactics, and the amount of time he would waste wouldn't be much higher than it is already anyway. LOL :notsure:

I Haven't been able to read all of this thread, but as I see it, the score should break down based on the following, from most important to least important. With each rank being worth significantly more points than the next.

1. Difficulty - the single largest factor in scoring and skill
2. Speed of Victory - How fast can you take down the computer.
3. Type of Victory - Order mentioned by Frogboy seems about right.
4. Wonders/Trade Goods - How good were you at beating the AI to the big prizes
5. Economic Power/Population - Did you terror star everyone, or actually functionally integrate conquered lands into your empire.
6. Technologies

Possibly some modification to difficulty based on alignment of alien races.

Somethink like:
Whatever base you like:
score = X for maso,
.6X for crippling,
.5X for painful,
.4X for tough,
.2X for normal,
.1X ....

Then add up to half or 3/4 of X for speed, with a formula like:
if (turns < 60) {
score += .75 X;
} else {
score += (.75X / sqrt((turns - 60) /12))
}

Then have a multiplier for type of victory,
like 1.1 for military, 1.0 for alliance, .9 for culture or tech
so
score *= TYPE_OF_VICTORY;

Then add in smallish bonuses for the other things,
like
up to .25X for Wonders/Trade goods (if you get them all)
up to .2X for economic power (not sure how to scale it)
and up to .15X for techs (if you get them all, maybe weighted toward the higher techs)

Tweek as necessary.

I think the key is just that the most important factor should be difficulty, followed by speed, followed by Other factors.

I don't agree with people that don't think economy/trade goods/wonders/population should mean nothing, but I do agree that it shouldn't be the primary scoring indicator.

Well I printed out the thread and looked through it and worked on 1.05 today (I'm on vacation but really wanted to get this out the door).

Here is how the system generally works now:

Difficulty Level:
The base score is based on the intelligence of the various computer players. This makes up the vast majority of the score. There is a slight bonus for playing as the opposite alignment as most of the players for most of the game. It looks at each turn and then looks at how much you are different each turn. But it's a relatively small adustment.

Galaxy Size:
There is a moderate adjustment based on galaxy size. But not much. Gigantic galaxy vs. tiny will be about a 3 to 1 difference in scores if all variables are the same.

Population:
Population is looked at but its value decreases as the game progresses. It is Population P / Turns N ^2. You're actually better off having a pretty good population earlier than having a huge population later and sitting on it. You're not penalized for having long games though, you simply don't get additional points at a certain point. That said, population is a relatively minor part of the scoring. It also takes into account what percentage of the total galactic population you have that turn. That is, your score is then modified by 100% - your percent of the population. So if you have 90% of the galactic population, you're only going to get 10% of the population score that turn.

Technology:
What percentage of the technology tree you have acheived and how fast you get it are added in. A fairly modest bonus but it's still lookeda t.

Economics, Trade Goods, Wonders, etc.
These other things are looked at and a few points added. They won't make that big of a difference (on a 15,000 point score they may add a few hundred points total).

Victory Condition:
Then the victory condition is looked at. The score is multiplied by it. Conquest = 10. Alliance =9. Culture = 8. Technology Victory = 7 (bear in mind that this is partially made up for by having a higher percent of the tech tree completed bonus).

Notes:
You're best scoring scenario is to win but not win too quickly. The system is designed to appeal to the mass majority of players, not the top 10 players. As a result, we want to create a system that rewards people for playing the game as it was designed to be played. That means your best bang for the buck will be games that are medium in length.  You get serious diminishing returns. Sitting on 90% of the galaxy for turn after turn is not going to net you more points. You're not penalized either but you're not rewarded for having a huge population if you've got the game wrapped up.  On the other hand, win the game in say year 3 due to some specific strategy won't net very good scores because you haven't had time to build up other parts to get multiplied by.

Obviously, no system will appeal to everyone. But having read the posts here, I think this is a pretty good mixture of what people are looking for.  It's intuitive (difficulty level is the vast majority of the score) but rewards players for playing the game as a strategy game and not as a progress quest type scenario where you're just optimizing for high scores.

Hope you like it.

Actually I think type of victory should be lower than on my previous post.

Hooray to frogboy!

That sounds good, let's see how it works.
*just stopped working and started downloading 1.05*

I think your system sounds very good, but I would like to see some sort of bonus for speed (that would obviously counteract the fact that fast wins will not get most techs/TGs/wonders, so it could balance).

I don't play fast so the scoring system you outline favors me (and other who play that way) but I think winning fast is a skill also that should be acknowledged. I'm glad that you didn't make speed the only thing that matters, and agree with you that that approach would reward only the hard core. I do think there should be some reward for speed, but overall it seems like a good system (if it's tweaked right).

Have a good vacation.

Yep. I like Frogboy's planned scoring system.

My alternative scoring system on any map would have been:
3 points for a good, quick win
2 points for an average, long win
1 point for a bad, very bad win

Not a good idea to work on vacation, Frogboy. We need you fresh and perky for the expansion pack!

Thanks for listening to all our feedback and for getting the 1.05 out so quickly to us.

Enjoy what's left of your vacation.

Oh I almost forgot an important thing about scoring:

Scores will be higher than before not so much because of a bias for newbies but becaue the game is harder at higher levels.

In 1.0, Masochitic AIs were set to only 100. In 1.05 they're set to 150 and difficulty increases exponentially, not linearly. So someone who wins 1.05 at crippling or masochistic deserves more points.

 

Hui... just started my first 1.05 game (huge/crippling) and it's pretty tough indeed!

I choose random alignments and by coincidence everybody except the Yor is demonic - that will be a bloody game.

~SDC~