Restricting number of players per empire?

I think its a good idea.. anyone else have any thoughts about this?

Not sure about this.

I don't like limiting players from joining a huge empire, but likewise empires should have high scores because they work for them and not because there are thousands of players. Rather than limiting the number of players how about any of the following suggestions.

- only the top 20 players of an empire have their scores added to the empire total
- empire scores are in some way balanced against the number of players
- top 10 players have full score added, next 10 have 50% added, next 10 have 25% added ...
- divide score by sqrt(number of members) - don't like as it penalises against members
- seperate league tables
- best average score
- best score on X sized galaxies
- best score with Y AI intelligence

The third option is simplest in that it makes no changes but would allow individual empires to try to dominate a particular leagure table (eg all players play tiny)

Paul.
Perhaps a simpler suggestion is to only add the top 20 player scores to an empire score

~SDC~

I think a more weighted system, with the top 25% of players in an empire contribuating 50%-75% of the final score.

A physical limit on the number of people may not be useful, due to the nature of only high scorers teaming up and poor scorers getting the boot. (a poor scorer may not be the same as a poor player). This could mean that in the long run, players playing games with a high "fun" score as opposed to a physical score could get kicked out.

The one good thing about our Empire, is that even the poor scorers can contribute. High volume of lower games, as people are not afraid to submit crappy scores.

~SDC~

>>- empire scores are in some way balanced against the number of players

I like this idea. I know for a certainty that an individuals metaverse score is calculated by taking into account the number of games you have submitted not just individual game score. This is so a person does not submit 1000 low scoring game and beat a person who played a good long game.

I too like this idea myself. My website is creating an Empire shortly (once I finally finish my current game using mods with 1.02 :p) we will only have 6 players or so in the beginning. The way we see we have no chance at all too catch any of the top 10-20 empires at all. With 20 players per Empire it would mean that the top spots would change quite often allowing more competitions to take place. The main reason for the metaverse that excites me is how the AI will be able to download info on the best players to improve their gaming abilities and be more human like in playing styles. Apolyton has what 60 players now? I have nothing against Apolyton or any other website. I would like a chance to compete for top Empire spot though. Currently as I said this will not be possible at all any time. Apolyton and Imperium will remain in the top 10 spot forever the way it works now. Not exactly a fair approach to the world high score Hall of Fame theme. IMHO. :notsure:

~SDC~

I don't see the point. This, in spite of the ladder, isn't really a competition since there's not even a $0.25 ribbon for the winners. It's just a "bragging rights" thing for people who play this game, and I can definitely tell the difference between an open empire with 50+ members and a smaller one with 6 in terms of relative score. It's just a "funsy" thing to do with this game beside play it.

Further, I don't see how limiting members encourages a sense of community. To use your example, Apolyton is a long established 4X TBS focused website with thousands of members, the Gonegolders are a similar empire, why should these empires, which are the outgrowth of large online communities, have their membership squelched so it can fit your idea of community?

As for scaling the scores by number of members, or only taking the top 20, again, don't see how it helps the community. Right now, even if someone sucks, they can join any empire and their score will *help* that empire. If you limit the contributions to the top players in an empire, that makes the guy who only has a Metaverse score of 450 not see any point to taking part in a large empire, his score won't count anyhow.

Basically, although we are seeing a handful of larger empires dominating the top slots due to "mathematical inevibility", trying to scale the empire system around these outlier groups will wind up being unfair to the underdogs. Heck, as it stands now, someone could form an underdog empire where no one with a score above 5K was allowed but with enough members could still beat Apolyton and IG.

Code monkey:

"as for scaling the scores by number of members, or only taking the top 20, again, don't see how it helps the community."

The reason for this is that even small empires with few members will have a chance to climb high on metaverse, and not only the few empires with 100+ members that post crap scores.

Sorry, Nidaros, but that's just political correctness rearing its ugly head.

An Empire with 100+ members should by all rights mop the floor with a small empire.

"There is no sense of a "community"."
Go on apolyton.net/forums and see that it's false (of course I can't go there now for hardware and other reasons but...).
There is little point in having big scores anyway. You'll get less points for a tiny/crippling win than for a huge/normal, but it will be harder to win the former. So people who like smaller maps like me are not encouraged to post on the metaverse (I'd lower my score because I like small maps...).
So you see, I have a team spirit, I don't post my games so as not to lower my score...
A "solution" if you need one (which I don't think) would be the same as the one used for scores themselves:
Make an empire score the sum of all scores divided by square root of number of submissions. Be it per player or per game.