There's a big difference between 'playing' the metaverse and 'submitting' to the Metaverse.

Brad was not suggesting that people who were submitting were not playing Galciv. The scoring has changed to try to return some balance. As pointed out by many people, when you win a good game you at least want to look at the metaverse and think 'I got a good score'.

When players can get scores 5-10 times higher from the exact same starting conditions then something is wrong. People who do this are 'playing' the scoring system not trying to win a game. Some of them may be doing this completely unconsciously due to their playing style. There's nothing wrong with their style just with the scoring system. Similarly if someone could get a score 5-10 times higher by speed winning then again there would be a problem. That however does NOT happen and suggestions that the new scoring system is biased towards this are incorrect.

It's all a question of scale. If you give 10 people the same starting positions and they all win the game what is teh maximum spread their scores should have? factor of 2? factor of 10? I would argue for 2-3 max.

Paul.

~SDC~

"#26 by Diplomat Solitair - 5/2/2003 3:58:06 AM

There's a big difference between 'playing' the metaverse and 'submitting' to the Metaverse. "

I agree with Solitair.

I play Galciv as often as I can, which is not nearly as often as I want (:( , and win or lose I submit to the metaverse.

But if I do so is in the hope that at some point in the game development, the metaverse will be used as it was designed to do: make a better, smarter, more devious AI. As I understand it, the more raw material there is in there, the better the adjustments can be.

Very well said Solitair. You defenitely deserve the title of 'Diplomat'.

And I agree with Nastavnik. The most important aspect of the Metaverse for me too is to improve the AI, not to get the highest possible score.

"The most important aspect of the Metaverse for me too is to improve the AI, not to get the highest possible score.".

Yep, that IS what is was made for anyway.

It does seem that Brad and his team have already made use of the Metaverse data to adjust the game balance. So that is one thing positive out of the Metaverse already.

#1 by Citizen Crichton - 5/1/2003 2:02:17 PM

"I complained earlier, days ago in post about how it appears to make a huge score players,run the game on and on and on and on, artificially extending the game to achieve 20 and 30k scores and they have now nerfed that. Kudos!"

I sick I tired of comments like this. Here is news for this guy I like to explore the game. Why should I care if somebody has a higher score than me ?

I am almost at the point where I am going the abandon the Metaverse. As I is I only use the thing as a personal record of the number of games I played as far as I am concerned I could care less if I was last.

Then what would be your reason to abandon it Technician? Your personal records are still there right?

What several people seem to have forgotten is that the Metaverse IS NOT about the scores - at least from the developers standpoint! The scores are the carrots to get people to submit their games, which is why the developers do it. They want people to submit their games so they can use them to improve the AI. In this regards, they want to get rid of twinky scores, because that doesn't help them at all. The computers main strategy is not to back you into a corner, and then gather as much population as posible. The computer is designed to wipe you out (or be your whipping boy, depending on how the game is going!) I would happily be posting more scores, but to be honest I have only finished 3 games so far (I keep upgrading and starting over, and I'm playing a lot of EQ as well.) I have had trouble with submitting scores on 2 of my games, but I can't add anything that hasn't already been mentioned in the bug reports, so I try again every time I finish a game. Hopefully enough people remember the purpose of the Metaverse to submit ALL of their games - whether they win or lose. Realize that you can learn a lot even from a defeat, and Frogboy and company can learn a lot from them as well, and continue making the game something we all enjoy, with AI of every difficulty, so we can have a challenge, or just sit back and enjoy kicking some alien butt.

Oops, didn't notice the second page! Oh well, my comments aren't revolutionary, but I stand by them none the less!

I have to disagree, if the most important point to keeping a metaverse is to improve AI, then why keep score for all players to see. Anytime you broadcast a highscore list, you're going to have players competing to get to the top.

I personally probably won't ever see the top, but I love the idea that I'm fighting to get into the top 100, just to say "hey I'm reasonably decent at this game" I love being able to measure myself against the other players.

But so long as you're keeping score, you're inviting people to try to run up the score. The one mechanic that I know Civilization employees is the use of a time limit. Having this will only allow one to run up the score so high before time runs out. I know this is something that probably won't ever get put in place here because of its artificial nature.

Sean

If you don't submit a score, you really will lose track of you relative progress. I mean (not really knowing), is there any other way to know the history of your games. They are not kept on your computer are they? Your top ten games at beginner, middle, advanced, etc.? That may be a good idea as well to have incorporated. If it wasn't for work and a wife, I'd have more scores to submit!

Every game is different, and I don't see scores as an indication of progress.

I am just going to submit game after game of me exploiting the AI with trade goods until they fix it!

What's the point of submitting a losing game to the Metaverse? Except for yourself?

From the 'improving the AI' POV, that is pointless. Unless EVERYONE always plays out all their games, and submits them. Why? Because that would be the only way for Star Dock to judge when they have the AI tuned for that 'level' of play.

Remember those 2 +10 PQ techs you could get near the end of the tree on the way to Final Frontier? 'Remember' is the key word, they have been removed.

The upper end of the tech tree is turning into a joke for infrastructure improvements. Trade routes you can't use because you already have 10, 'empty' techs that cost huge amounts to research and give nothing in return (except the chance to research the next high cost tech that also gives nothing), and now the +10 PQs have been removed as well.

I'm getting a little disturbed by the trend lately in this game's updates. They seem a lot more oriented towards holding the player down instead of bringing the game up. :/