@Zyx - I didn't respond to your original post, or successive ones, both because I wasn't sure I understood them and you, unwittingly or not, seemed to be making assumptions about my style of gameplay (and intelligence) in achieving the score. I think I have a better handle on what you are trying to say at this point.
Let me see if I can bring some of these sentiments into focus. IMO there are four elements here: rules, effective strategies, exploits, and cheats.
Rules are both the actions which are, and which are not, permitted by the game.
Effective strategies are those styles of learned gameplay that produce better results than others.
Exploits are actions unique to electronic gaming wherein players can take advantage of the fact they are interacting with non-sentient electronic code not with other living players. You don't find exploits in poker or monopoly.
Cheats are where you break both the rules and the spirit of fairplay, and an action wherein you create an uneven playing field. Cheats are corrosive and abusive and ultimately ruin the enjoyment of games for all players, including the cheater.
You seem to be saying that reloading the game to a prior turn to avoid a negative event is an exploit that bothers you and that you wish there was a way to differentiate games wherein players did reloads and games where they did not. I'm pretty sure you aren't truly objecting to saving a game every round. When games take weeks or longer to play, and when CTD, power failures, and game freezes are all a real risk, saving periodically is just prudent.
I believe even my feline enemies would agree that I am a staunch proponent of a level playing ground, and as such, I think I do understand your sentiments about reloading. You believe reloading is an exploit that distorts measurement of skill. I don't believe your sentiment on the reloads is correct however. Let me explain.
There are many different types of games. GC2 is a strategy game. The fun of playing GC2 is learning those behaviors which make the most effective strategies within the rules provided by SD. There is also a scoring system provided by SD to enable players to evaluate their performance, both individually and collectively, under those rules. In essence scores indicate which players have developed the best adaptive behaviors in-game to create a certain end result. SD measures these results and gives us scores. If we are not happy with our scores we adapt some more. Essentially what is being measured is the players effectiveness of strategy within the rule system created by SD.
There are random and Mega events in the game that are detrimental to score. When such an event happens, many players will reload to a prior save to avoid the consequences of that adverse event. You seem to believe that it would be a more valid measure of skill if all MV games were required to endure those events. In fact, it would not be. All you are measuring that way is luck. If one player receives the econ event in year zero and another gets the depopulation event, regardless of their respective skill levels, the first player is going to achieve a higher score. You haven't measured the effectiveness of their skills at all. So why have these events? They add complexity and enjoyment to the game, especially in sandbox mode. In the MV though, because most players will reload to avoid negative events, odd as it may seem at first, you actually have a more level playing field. There are still huge elements of luck involved in any individual game though. Starting map, location of resources, number of planets, etc. are all still random elements so no one game is an indicator that one player is better than another. The only way to test the skill of one player against another accurately would be if both players started with exactly the same map and conditions. Therefore the scores on the MV are not a true measurement of skill. They're a truer measurement than if you forced players to endure random, game-distorting events, but no, the MV scores are not a final arbiter of skill nor can they be. Since that is the case, why not just relax and play the game for fun, share effective strategies with your friends (you can find some of mine here), and enjoy some witty banter with your colleagues on these forums?
