What the heck?! Scored 30,000 in my game and Metaverse reports it as -2421

Because scores for 1.044 are broken, busted, kaputt. Don't play for score on .044 until it is fixed for sure.

Sheesh, that stinks. That was a loooong game, and I BARELY won... The Aritreans were taking over eveything culturally every single turn. My people were 100% happy and yet defecting to them at a rate I've never seen before. YIKES!

Not to worry, Jeffrey.

Your game's root data is safely over at Stardock. They would do a recalc for you and give you a positive (maybe not a good score but definitely a positive) score.

Yike! Are you the winner of the most negative game contest? I got only -1666.

LDiCesare,

If you thought you are the worst among the accursed, I refer you to the sad story of fogman444. After a most succesful recruitment exercise which boosted his new empire to 7 members, he had the misfortune to be afflicted by the negative curse. Now he actually has an negative total score http://www.galciv.com/info.asp?accountID=654120, effectively bringing his empire score down.

I believe he is in greater need of rescue from Stardock.

Negative overall score

Nice, thats an honor you wont see repeated often.

[Message Edited]

Metaverse ranking: 0. Grats fogman444 .

Ack thats higher then me!

We're going to go ahead do a 1.05. it's going to have one of the Expansion pack features enabled (new enhanced governors) but it'll have the better scoring system in place.

 

Now that's good news.
Will 1.044 scores be racalculated? And when wil 1.05 be available? And could I have it strawberry-flavoured, please?

Good to hear, Brad. Will we be seeing a total recalc of the scores on the metaverse to bring everyone to the same page?

*g*
Seem like we've been posting the recalc-questiong at the same time.. beware, the Space Arachnids begin to develop telepathic powers!

1.044 scores are already being re-calculated on the fly (hence why this post got started in the first place).

1.05 scores will be generally higher.

In the BETAS, a typical score was like 100,000 points btw.

What I'm asking is are we going to see *all* scores recalculated? This whole different score per version thing sort of makes total scores on the metaverse a mess. When a significant change to the scoring algorithm is introduced it makes sense to me that all scores should be redone so everyone is on relatively equal footing.

We're going to go ahead do a 1.05. it's going to have one of the Expansion pack features enabled (new enhanced governors) but it'll have the better scoring system in place.


Thank you Frogboy.

This is total speculation admittedly but it is based on what I have read from you and others.

Here's what I think has happened. I've noticed that the negative scores are coming from mainly the Gigantic and Huge and they are mainly coming from the beyond human victory condition.
Previously, you said you were introducing a pop degrader that would be size of galaxy times pop times (I forget the exponent)
Did you do that? If so what has happened is you are punishing the Larger Galaxies exponentially and expecially Gigantic. It's killing the scores. And the Beyond human victory condition isn't providing enough points to offset it. (especially if its a hide in the corner type) Even my military conquest with everything taken over, most wonders and all techs but oen researched only scored 1600 someodd on near painful (raise just one more alien ai and it's painful)

Now I fully believe fairness requires that pop degrader to hit more on Gigantic (but not a greater percentage and definitely not exponentially more like it is)

If that is indeed what happened.

Secondly, nerfing pop totally makes other things (like wonders very important. Problem is, it's far easier to build them all on easy levels. Thus the pop changes have artificially deflated the higher difficulty levels too (an effect we didn't think of here out on the board)


Thank you very much for the 1.05 release. I will get it as soon as it's available. and I hope you incorporate my suggestion in the score formula. I'd hate for Gigantic to be totally punished like it is.

Here's how I would handle pop.
Premise 1. Pop is a measure of how well you play to an extent and should be rewarded.
Premise 2. Pop is easily exploitable by delaying victory, hitting the turn button, and running it up. This exploitation doesn't change percentage wise with the size galaxy.
Premise 3. A good measure would be one that rewards pop build up during normal gameplay finished in a reasonable time frame but clanks those that run it up either by slow play or deliberite milking.

Conclusion. Why don't we, instead of nerfing pop, in the final score, Pick a reasonable year for each map size, have the game measure pop at that year, and that's your pop score regardless of the year you finish. Of course if you finish before that year, your pop score would be your pop score. Now the rest of the scoring would remain exactly the same as it is. Only the pop score would be time limited. That would satisfy, I believe, to a large extent all 3 premises. At bear minimum, the formula should be the same percentage degradation at all map sizes. This punishes run up equally. Using a higher rate at larger sizes exponetially punishes the larger sizes all the while encouraging an even bigger run up to counter the degrader. Because the degrader as it is, punishes those that don't run up pop even worse than those who do.

Now I haven't programed in 15 years and no one uses the languages I know any more, So I don't know about the difficulty of coding in today's languages, But I wouldn't think my suggestion extremely hard to code. You just have it save a pop file at the end if before the year, or save a file with the pop during the year, and access it when you score.

Example. Gigantic (It's the size I know best) Put the year at about 2205 It's a reasonable year. I can certainly build a good solid pop base, but I cannot milk it. 2210 I could most certainly milk. And like I said, all other aspects of scoring could stay like they are.

Hm, Pontius, this suggestion is a good idea as such... but what is "a reasonable year"? Players will disacree about that... it will be especially unfair for new players who need more time, or for those who go after tech victory.

I think we just wait how 1.05 works and then we'll see.

Hm, Pontius, this suggestion is a good idea as such... but what is "a reasonable year"? Players will disacree about that... it will be especially unfair for new players who need more time, or for those who go after tech victory.



What is a reasonable year is problematic. But certainly one can look at the metaverse data for each size and determine a decent year as well as take imput from the forum. If it's wacking scores so as to not be consistant with the average wanted across size and difficulty, then adjust the year. I play the tough/Painful difficulty. I have considered myself a slow player. But turn wise, have now seen people taking twice as many turns to win so maybe I'm not a slow player. I'd have to see a large file of # of completion dates to be scientifically sure. On all my games (Gigantic) I've gotten completely through the tech tree save 1 at times owned the vast majority of the galaxy, and had well enough time to win soundly by 2205. On my medium game. I wasn't all the way through the tech tree, but won in 2195 or somewhere in there. But 2205 would only allow me a very short time to milk it. I don't think I've gone beyond that. I may have once by a bit. My thinking is pick a turn beyond which the speedies cannot milk but yet get a small reward for being fast. And remember, the rest of the scoring conditions would remain as they are. Only the pop would be time limited. It's not truly punishing slow play, because the pop they have at the time limit is scored. It doesn't take away any points from anyone. It just doesn't add them beyond the time limit for pop. The rest of the things that score, would remain the same.
The newbies wouldn't be punished per say I don't believe. Because it's easier to finish faster on easy, than it is the harder. And the difficulty adjustment should take care of that. So allowing a teeny bit more milk time (which you would get by using the same cut off date) on easy wouldn't bother me in the least. newbies need a lil leg up to start with. Fine with me. But 500 extra turns of it....that's another story as is punishing running up a reasonable pop on big maps.

But I am awaiting the 1.05. Hope it comes out today.

Oh and I have played and won alot on crippling and Maso. I just don't score well at those levels. I'm a "This puter isn't going to beat me even if I have to trash the whole universe" kind of guy so on those levels, I do that. That doesn't score worth beans.

I looked for negative total scores, but couldn't find any. Poor soul.
Thanks to Brad anyway for the reactivity.

I hope that with 1.05, the score you see before submitting will be the score you get on the metaverse (aka 'WYSIWYG').

I realize things have 'slightly' gone out of hand with 1.044, but after winning my first maso game yesterday, a 5,000 score turned out to be 500 on the metaverse. No fun... :notsure: