Zero Score - Now What?

Were you playing with any mods? PQ bonuses can trigger 0 scores. Additionally too much cash too quickly can also cause problems. Carielf has been known to look at anomolous games - you'd need to send her the endgamesave file and folder. Incidentally, it sucked more in the past when the first thing you knew was a 0 score AFTER you'd submitted it!

Alex

~SDC~
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My zero mpts anomalous score was on a large crippling. Cari looked at it and said it appeared I got too rich too fast. My guess is my cash for tech strategy got me too rich too fast. That game was not recoverable so I have no crippling games in my profile but like Alex says, at least we find out about it now before submitting.

I wonder since you were getting cash for tech with both Alexians and Carinoids (unusual in maso) that you tripped the "too much money too fast" flag. Looks like those who get lucky enough to get Alexians AND Carinoids trading cash for tech at maso should take notice and save lots of games and maybe even "retire" now and then to check for non-zero mpts.

No mods installed. No extras of any kind.

The irony is that I finished with almost all the cash sitting in the bank, unused. So because I made too much money, the game believes I cheated? I'll have to take that as a backhanded compliment.

Diplo picks are already "too good". I almost never play with them. They should probably be toned down to 10/20/30 instead of the current 10/20/50/60. Too much of the easy settings, you won't be able to walk any more without the crutches.

Would be nice if the Metaverse could offer more stats, like which political parties people choose, and what the bonus abilities were, and even the alignments and intelligence of the AI's. I'd have a nice, well-rounded profile. And it would be interesting to see who succeeds in many situations, vs who plays their same favorite or easy situation over and over again.

I wanted to try what I've heard several others talking about: a tiny/rare with diplo picks. I honestly did not believe it would be THAT easy. I also took war party, +20 hps, +10 morale and +10 trade. I built five freighters very early, traded techs to the Yor for two more, and I researched like about five techs total in the early game, trading for everything else, and selling the accumulations to Alex and Cari over 9 or 19 turns, for hundreds per turn, over and over again, a new sale as soon as the previous one expired and they got back above zero treasury. (Make more by stretching it out than getting a lump sum).

I can understand the combination of factors bringing in way more than "expected" cash, tipping the scales and setting off the alert meters. Maybe they should remove the ability of minors to buy at all. Otherwise, this is going to happen again at some point, and where the deuce is the "fun" in retiring over and over to "make sure you don't earn too much too soon"? Or in reaching game's end and finding you succeeded TOO WELL and won't get credited? Either way, it's a vampiric situation sucking fun out of my GalCiv gaming. I don't want to play the system. I just want to play the game.

Cari, if you're reading, I can send the files to you if you like. If these guys are right, though, then we already know what the problem is. The question then becomes, should anything be done about it? Seems kind of ironic that I beat a Maso map so hard GalCiv refused to believe I could pull that off without cheating. LOL


- Sirian

sounds like the same thing that happened to me, sirian - tiny maso, though i didn't rake in as much cash as you, but i remember there was a time when i was raking it in from tech sales....as the game was unmodded and just 'the usual thing' from me, i was wondering whether it was a 1.12 'bug'. i emailed her holiness, but have heard nothing back so far

(:(

It's a holiday weekend in the States. Don't expect to hear back for at least another day. We take our Thanksgiving seriously. It's the most travelled time of the year, exceeding even Christmas and Spring Break. Cari's probably spending time with family. I have most of my family nearby, so I didn't have to travel and can still sneak in some late night GalCiv. But who wants to work on a big holiday? Not the first stringers, that's for sure.

- Sirian

thanx sirian

Gets my goat up still hearing people are getting annomylous scores for no obvious reason . . . mmm.

I believe the money flag is the key reason for most of the trips.

The exact trigger conditions are not made known explicitly probably to make it harder for those who are looking to cheat.

For the rest of us, just remember not to accumulate large amounts of cash in your treasury for the first few years of the game.

I sell techs alot for cash too but I never seem to accumulate much cash in the early game running at 100%. Probably because I build fusion power plants/manufacturing centres and antimatter plants for all of my systems. I use one governor so I leave them all in.

~SDC~

In my experience - which i admit is limited - i rarely sell techs (except to the Alexians, they seem to be the only ones that are willing to pay) and usually keep all my techs to myself until the AI decides to trade me for them. e.g. Altarians offer dreadnaught tech for drones.

if thats not what u call profitable i don't know what is, i only research as far as Battle Hammers for my ships, the AI does the rest for me. and you never really need all that much cash anyway, i think it might have something to do with those extra bonuses on Diplomacy, i used it for a few games but went back to my old style which in my oppinion works better - faster building for less costs what else could you need.

~SDC~

Let me give a few more details. This being a tiny map, I started in the upper right corner. Earth was PQ18 and Sol IV was PQ16 -- a good start, as only the Arceans and Alexians also had two planets -- Alex in his home star, Arceans by grabbing the only extra yellow star in the whole galaxy. Yor and Arceans were adjacent sectors, with Cari in the same sector as the Yor, directly below me on the right. Drengin were in upper left side, Torians bottom right corner, Altarians lower left side, two diagonal sectors away from me.

With no colony ships to build, I started on tech right away. With +60 diplomacy, I could trade at a slight advantage even vs Maso AI's. I shied away from meeting the majors immediately, instead sending my surveyor to the left. I had the (mis)fortune of overlooking the Carinoids entirely, as a star in the bottom corner of the Yor sector below me. I also missed finding Alex by one turn, two sectors to my left, by hitting a wormhole on his doorstep. That wormhole was my first contact, shooting my surveyor down to the Altarian Sector. Met the Drengin and Torians down there next. With these early contacts, I traded Comm, Translators, and Diplomacy to the Drengin for Impulse and some other early techs, and traded those to the Altarians for their tech, and then to Toria, and then, and then, and then I was the tech leader and stayed that way. I researched Deflectors and got it before any of the AI's, which got me all the rest of their techs and a tech lead for the early game. Not much research for me from there: Interstellar Refining over about eight turns, while putting 25 bc per turn into military or social (one or the other) at Earth, and 17 going into Sol IV. Built trade ships quickly that way, and improvements too. I met the Yor and Arceans with my first trade ships. STILL had not met the minors! Even though both were close to me. Odd luck, that, perhaps. Instead of trading techs to the minors to climb the tech tree, I had traded off with only the majors, locking the minors out of any trading. They were both hugely in the tech hole, with big wads of cash on hand, when I did find them.

I didn't research much, too busy building. I went for Tri-Strontium at Sol IV while Earth did Translators and Grav Accelerators. I was almost zero research the whole way, frankly. Just kept checking the majors every single turn, and since I played in one chunk, no load-induced AI trading rounds to catch them up with one another. I know which techs cost extra, too: Deflectors, Corvettes, Int Tactics, Disruptors, B-ships are the early techs that are way overpriced in trade with the AI's -- overpriced both ways, in fact, making it possible to make a killing in trade by getting to some of these juicy ones first. All you need is like one of them an AI doesn't have, and blam, you can pick up a sixpack or more of other techs. Heck, I was even able to trade the other way at times, six or eight techs for an overpriced one, then turn it around and pick up several more from a different AI, netting my return "for free" by having caught up a lagging major in exchange for a pricey new tech.

When I did my own research, it was after the AI's got locked into Battleship research. I went for stuff they don't go after quickly, which frankly, I almost always do. At one point, I kind of ran out of techs to swap. The Torians had everything I had traded for from others, and were the only ones who had learned Sensors and Defensive Phasors. Around about that time, I paused to conquer the Yor. After the Yor were gone, I had three planets. I killed the Yor so fast, they hadn't even built an economic capital yet, so I got no freebies in that regard.

My build order was soil-habitat-banking-entertainment-fusionPP-ManuCenter at both planets. At earth, I also did ManuCapital and HyperionManu before I even did translators. And I did AntiMatterPP (at both worlds) right after I had done those. I had as much Manufacturing as possible on just two planets, and I STILL had a surplus at 100% spending without even counting the minor cash, because I had five long (well, for a tiny map they were long) trade routes established before any of the AI's so much as built a star fighter.

The hopscotch trading made possible by the +60 diplo is the culprit. Diplo is just too strong. I believe they should tone that pick down to 10/20/30 and set the costs to 1/2/3 picks. 60 for five picks is insane. I'd also suggest toning back the Populist party to 15 Morale and 15 Diplomacy. I didn't even use them this game, but I choose them more often than any other single party because they are, frankly, the strongest by far.

I was shocked when I pulled Cari's screen up and the default 100bc amount stayed green. But with both minors having not been part of the trading thus far, I sold them all I had for hundreds per turn over long spans, during which they wouldn't do any cash deals with me or anybody else, ("significant debt"), leaving them ripe for another round when that payment expired. With Translators, I had +100 total diplomacy advantage and I boosted that even more by researching to Extravaganza and withholding diplomatic techs whenever possible. What Alex was willing to pay for Battleship tech alone would make a grown man cry.

I realize now what made this tiny map so easy. It was the lack of need to explore and build colony ships, the lack of delay in getting trade going, and the lack of delay in making contact. By starting on tech right away and meeting all the majors early, I was right in with them in the trading cycle and stayed with them. The medium/large/huge maps I mostly play, I often purposely delay contact because it only means wars I can't win or demands I can't afford to pay if contact is made too far in advance of trade establishment. That plus I spend so much in grabbing my share of the planets, I fall behind in research and economy and have to catch up. Tiny... wow. Would have been five times as challenging without the diplo picks, though.


- Sirian

Rampant tech whoring leads to the Dark Side. That's all we need to know in my opinion. They really can't tell us where the lines are because cheesers would whore down to the wire. It serves as a common sense deterrent: do you need to go all out whoring soon and often to make the money and risk the flag, or do you go conservatively, just trying to keep up or make a moderate profit over a larger number of lesser deals all during the game? I was late coming into this tech whoring thing (yeah, old school grind the alien down style instead of bankrupt the aliens early as the path to victory), but I just play it by ear: whore just enough to catch up in techs in the early game and show a modest tribute profit (no more than a few hundred a turn), make deal or two later to get some ships and bases and to renew the small revenue stream that is drying up from the last run, and then go it alone for the rest of the game without whoring unless I run into a real fiscal crisis. If that late game bust scenario happens, make one more small deal around the table that lasts many years to get out of the crunch. The goal is not to go monty haul. Go small change for a long time frame, not big money coming in forever.

I checked your profile. You're up to Crippling now. Good going.

There is no tech whoring on Maso, at least not as of v1.10. The majors won't ever buy. Most of the minors don't buy, either, although Alex always will.

I'm not sure whether you are misunderstanding, or are not talking to me but to others in general. I am playing all Maso at this point. I have had more than +20 diplomacy in only about three games out of thirty-five, including this one. Without the diplomacy bonus, player can't actually profit from trading, thus cannot sit there whoring techs back and forth between the majors. Trading is always important, but when the return is to get one for giving two, player can't stay even in tech without needing to do his own research to come up with techs to trade away. The high diplo bonus turns that into getting two while giving one, which becomes a neverending fountain of free goodies.

Yet where are the warnings in the game? You sound as if I've been whoring nonstop as a way of winning, when the truth is the opposite. I didn't even know about an "income cap", and I'm on the front page of the metaverse. I didn't even know why my score was zeroed until others who've been through this explained it. How many others besides me don't know the risks? The game doesn't give any explanation at all for a zero score.

I see part of the problem as the all-or-nothing approach. Minors either buy without limit, or don't buy at all. Why must it be that way? If the buying was capped, the game would be improved. Instead of a dice roll as to whether or not a minor will buy, and if they do you've hit the lottery, have the minors consistently buying in all games, but limit the amounts they will spend! Let player count on a small ability to bring in a few surplus funds, and stop it there. (Talking Maso only, since all lower levels, there are no limits anyway).

As Siddartha once said, "The middle way leads to enlightenment."

Nerf the diplo picks a little in the setup phase, and modify the all-or-nothing Johns (they either whore without end, or stay home) to become regular customers on a tight budget. Do those two things, there'll never be another "too rich" anomalous game on Maso for anybody.

Up to Cari and Brad as to whether to fix it, though.


- Sirian

Sirian,

As you and others have shown, it is possible to accumulate large amounts of cash in your treasury through tech sales and/or trade, especially on smaller maps where there are less planets consuming the cash and with income from the above not relative to map size.

Agree that Stardock should perhaps up their money flag quantum considering that people are legitimately tripping this.

Since Diplomacy was buffed up several versions back, it has indeed become the power pick, comparable to the removed PQ+15 pick we had in the early days. Corresponding, Populists with Dip+20 and Mor+20 is also the party of choice. In fact, I'm sure many would take Populists for the Dip bonus alone. Morale comes as a nice bonus.

~SDC~

I was talking to everyone in general. I have been through several periods of ever-changing popular strategy in Galciv as a lot of folks kept following the road to Meta greatness. I understand that you are a maso player and the rules are a bit different up there, but most of us are (by choice or by skill) living in that other world of lower difficulties where things like tech whoring can really, really be exploited. My goal is not to target the people at the top making their Metaverse points off of maso. I assume they know what they got into by playing maso and being among the best.

The aim is to catch the less experienced player from falling into certain traps that the "exploit of the month" club leads to. Someone looking to gain an edge could spiral into a trap of wanting to rake in the most points for the least gain and then getting frustrated when the game goes a little crazy due to an anti-exploit device (which may be set too sensitively in some cases) goes off. New people come along, read the neatness that can be gained from the exploit of the month tactic (without fully understanding what they are getting into) and then fall victim to the traps.

Should the traps be there in the first place? I assume if Stardock could reprogram around the exploits or did away with the Metaverse entirely there would be no need for traps. (And I would be out of a Galciv job with no Meta! Can't have that now, can I?) The nature of the Galciv beast suggests it will be a never ending problem. Should the "cheese traps" be like speed limit signs, obviously posted warnings about lines not to cross? I think not. If you post the speed limit at 55, the point chasers would go exactly 55, if they are following the posted limit at all. The goal should be to encourage exploration of the game without encouraging a cult of exploitation. Sometimes a casual explorer can fall into an anti-exploit trap by seeing how far he can go in any one direction, but the powers-that-be are more concerned with patterns of exploitation where people start playing the Meta more than the game. This is what the traps have been trying to prevent in various ways for several months through a series of popular exploits before the latest tech whore craze.

There is a lot of complexity to the issues I have touched upon and my rambling is not exactly elequent debating. I just make my points however I can when I can. Hopefully I have made some sense somewhere in here.

The fact is that on submission, an explanation for the 0 score is lacking. The panel should tell 'Score of XXX reset to 0 because of (insane +PQ/too rich/whatever)'.

You won't find someone with more disdain for min/maxing exploits than me. Tech whoring is not feasible on Maso. Therefore anybody building their strategy on it would be unable to move up that final notch. Now that may not bother most, but factor in that those stat-hungry enough to whore WOULD BE in the portion of players wanting to move up. After all, what's the value of whoring except to take a shortcut on pursuit of raw stats? So the "trap" already in place would take care of that.

There's only one problem, and its the overblown power of diplomacy. At least, there seem to be a number of top Maso players indicating they take the easiest route (max diplomacy) most of the time. Now that I've seen just how insanely easy that can get, I've concluded it's a little too good. Heh, the game itself seems to agree! Your mileage may vary.



True as stated, but leads to false conclusions. The key is "first do no harm". If a fix harms more than it repairs, that's a bum deal, just live with the initial problem. (IMHO, one instance of cure worse than the disease is the overnerfing given to tech victory). Yet some issues CAN BE addressed without breaking others. Sorting that out takes time, takes help from players, commitment to the patching process, and elbow grease. But if they fix what they can, that makes the job for players to police our own community and behavior on the things they CAN'T FIX a lot easier.

Realms Beyond is proof that it's possible to build an entire community on the concept of self-restraint. To date, wre have been only a niche in a larger community: for Diablo and Civ3, our two biggest games. We're a fringe. GalCiv seems to attract players, on average, that are a cut above. Stardock's forum is strikingly absent of the low-toned low-class sort of postings common on most gaming boards. If ever there was a shot at raising the bar for an entire gaming audience, this would be it.

It's all about culture, values. Where are the accolades? What does the community worship? If the senior players and best performers set a certain standard, the whole community will follow. Are the players sophisticated enough to read past appearances and sort out the real deal from those projecting smoke and mirrors? Stardock has aimed higher than the lowest common denominator, and that's rare. But the best result in diminishing exploits comes from a combination of community and programmers. Let the programmers close the loopholes they can, first, then the players can paper over the rest somehow. But if the holes are too large or too numerous, no papering over will cover them. So let the programmers plaster up some of those holes, too.

Stardock made the bold move to take whoring out of the game on Maso. The logic of that is sound. The price of admission to the top strata, which is now rewarded with a massive point bonus vs the lower settings, is to play without the cash sale option, at least with the majors. That change has improved the competition. More improvement is available if they keep working, and since they will patch at least through and past the expansion for a decent while, why not provide feedback? They will make the final decision, not me.

I don't have to have warning signs on the anomalous flags and thresholds. But if a legit game sets them off, then either the limits need to be reset or some of the least well balanced gaming elements need a little more nerfing. Anti-cheat is all well and good, but it's best done with a sniper rifle, not a sawed off shotgun, if you get my meaning. Make sure to hit what is being aimed at AND NOTHING MORE, if possible.



The current PQ bonus balance is kind of odd. For three picks, you get a bonus that will add one PQ value to any planet PQ12+ (after soil/habitat), and for an additional five picks you get... pretty much nothing extra. They might as well just do away with the +7% version. What does it affect that isn't covered by the 5% version? Only PQ15 and 16 as far as I can tell. Is that worth five picks? No way. I'm sure glad I missed the +15% days, though. Thanks to all who contributed to fixing that before I even showed up.

Oh, and trading for freighters... that should come off the table, too. I avoided it for dozens of games, but now that I've tried it, it's addicting. When you can't trade for cash to the majors, there is often a situation where you can trade one good tech for one cheap tech, or trade your one good tech for one cheap tech AND get a free freighter tossed in. Now how is a bargain hunter like me supposed to pass that up? I'd take the "remainder" in cash, but the AI won't do that, so it's grab a ship or lose out. Law of unintended consequences in action.

On the larger maps especially, picking up freighters deep in rival space, sometimes even out of your range entirely, is beyond insane.



Sure, why not. If they don't make some serious effort at prevention and enforcement, the hackers will carve their game to bits. That serves none of our interests. But if legit games trigger cheat alerts, you've got to admit, there are issues with aspects of the design. Some further tweaks may be in order.


- Sirian

*Gerakken raises his glass in a silent toast to that.*

i've been is awed communication with her ladyship, the carielf, and i think they're having a look at the $ trigger. in my case it was definitely $ early on - and in my thinking my maso/tiny - with the ability to trade with alexians/caranoids/drengin(genius)/torian(genius) - simply provided the opportunity to get researching quite quickly (after the 'tiny' planet rush) and get money pouring in quite quickly. i think the early $ trigger might just be perculiar to that kind of setup, but, as always, could be wrong.


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I had all Incredibles. I triggered the thing trading just with the two minors. Nothing further to add, I've already said it. Waiting to see what happens next.

- Sirian

I've triggered it on large maso maps.

While we have Stardock's attention, I'd like to say that I'd really like them to reconsider their policy of having the minors give cash in maso. With minors giving cash, the early game becomes a game of "find the Alexians." With the fast tech pace of maso, the minors are extremely bankruptable, sometimes on the first trade you have after encountering them.



You could trade for influence points, which are good as currency--you can sell them to other AIs later on.

Influence points vanish with each vote. That's not "as good as currency". The AI also does not value them when I need them the most, trying to supplement a weak tech to buy a stronger one. No amount seems to matter.

There used to be a straight 10 to 1 IP to cash ratio, but that is gone as of the latest patch. I used to use IPs as part of my bargaining, but that no longer works and now I just ignore them, mostly.

The freighters are at least worth something. Worst case, they take no upkeep and could act as scouts. Sometimes they are maddeningly valuable. Perhaps the IPs will be again once the UP vote is unstuck, but that would be for the actual impact on the voting.


- Sirian

Why can't they fix the AI instead of flicking the on/off switch? There's nothing wrong with the AI paying cash for small deals. The problem is that it's all or nothing: unlimited deals that can bankrupt them in the worst cases, or no dealing at all. I reject the concept that those should be the only two options. A balanced, restricted third option of limiting buying, universally available to all minors (so it's not an Alexians hunt) would be better, I think.


- Sirian

Really? An undocumented change in 1.12 I guess. Certainly in 1.11 I used them this way all the time.

Here's how I avoid zero scores: I save every hour or two, and I "retire" without submitting the score. If I get a zero score, I know I triggered the "cheater" flag. If I do trigger it, I lost at most an hour of playing time.

I also try to avoid having my cash reserve go over 25k. I buy resource starbases from the AIs, or rush-build social projects on my recently acquired planets.

Because it takes more work, and they have limited resources. A small request is much more likely to be listened to than a general request to "fix AI diplomacy."

I did a couple tests today. You can definitely use influence to top off a deal. However, the value of the influence seems to be not proportional to the amount--it's a step function as far as I can tell.

In one sample deal, 1000 IP was worth nothing, but 1001 IP was worth 41 BC, as was 3000 IP (all my IPs at that point.) Not sure yet what the next threshold might be. That ratio (1000 IP to 41 BC) is probably affected by the relative diplomacy of the races--I've never tested that yet.
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