Top metaverse scores plz note

Instant follow up

Why a hard turn rather then just asking people to
end uncontested games when they end. Several reasons.

This will actually punish faster players with lower
scores as their pop will have less time to grow.

I dont want to steal from people who actually enjoy
colonizing every planet they can.

And how else can we define a simple method by which
to avoid this problem? Its not that simple.

I'd agree but I never even look at the calendar year unless I'm collecting some sort of data for something I'm complaining about here My patience level just isn't high enough to milk anything. I have a hard enough time "milking" score by going for a military victory when an alliance is possible.

If I'm pumping my pop it's only because I need them to annihilate some remaining alien scum.

I would agree to that even though I'm not a top scorer per say. Also, take the win when it's presented, no milking.

Well looks like hardly anyone agreed. Too many milking normal games for 8000 point whoppers. Oh well. We all know what's going on.

I have no problem adhering to this honour system while the scoring is sorted out by SD.

IIRC, I have only have a single game where I actually exceeded 2210.

I have no problem adhering to this honour system while the scoring is sorted out by SD.

IIRC, I have only have a single game where I actually exceeded 2210.


Cool Ray: We can always count on you for fair play.

I have one game with 10 trill pop, the rest are below 7 and most are below 3. All were achieved during normal game play. I try for balance rather than milking one item.

Although on Gigantic, I've noticed my finishing on or prior to 2200 whereas others stretch out to 2220 (a doubling of my finishing # of turns are scoring higher given the same size map and difficulty. You know they are milking. this really should not be. It's like I'm punished for being more
skillful. Now I can see no penalty till 2205 or so but penalties for slower play should definitely kick in after that because I'm not playing even as aggressively as I could.

You don't need to adhere to an honor system. By Monday, the scores will be fixed.

 

I apologize to those others in the higher ranks, but I think I only finished a game before 2210 once. I'm really not sure what I'm doing wrong, but it take me a lot longer than that to take down the AI. 2210 is about the time that it becomes clear that I will win in most games, but it usually takes another decade or so for me to take down the remaining civs.

I think I don't start as well as most of the other good players so I have to fight really nasty defensive wars against powerful civs for large parts of the game. I'm also usually trailing the leading civs in technology by a great margin. If people don't believe me, I can dig up several save games I still have where it's after 2210 and the game is by no means over. I guess according to staffa's definition I'm not a seasoned player.

Maybe I just suck at the game, but I'm playing many games into the 2220's (and one into the 30's) and I'm not milking at all. Some of you might use this as an example of why the scoring system isn't right - if someone who can't even beat crippling by 2210 is on the leaderboard, something must be wrong. You might be right, but I've played some tough games that I was pleased to have pulled out a win so I don't apologize.

I agree with Staffa that the scoring system should give less points for huge population, and thought the 1.04 scoring algorithm seemed better balanced in that regard.

If I get better and am able to beat the AI as quickly as the rest of you seem able to, I'll stop at 2210.

Thanks,
Redshift

Redshift,

Don't worry about it. Staffa is referring to players who have already won (maybe leaving the last enemy planet) and are just milking the game by hitting the turn key to get a higher pop.

For those who are still "playing" at 2210, just end the game as soon as you can.

However, as Frogboy pointed out, all this is unnecessary once the new scoring algo is out on Monday.

I'll go with this rule too. I don't think I've ever gone to 2210. Usually it's all over by 2201 at the latest.

What i see? Now you don't like milking?

Because i sent only non-milked scores for now, i feel free to milk as some of you did before.

~SDC~

Madfizzics: I see you are empireless. I would like to invite you to join us in G.R.O.S.S. (Get Rid of Slimy alienS. Everyone is welcome. You don't have to live in a certain place to join, and there's no politics or junk like that. We just play, have fun, and contribute to the forum and the game as best we can. Usually humorously.

Um, I note that Frogboy has spoken, so the issue may be moot. Just between you and me, I only milked 2 games when I was trying out the 15% PQ thing (pretty cool it was too). But whilst I am in the Top 25, I am actually a sheep in wolves clothing because half the time I just win by the skin of my teeth. So by Monday, up-and-down we go again. What happens to the Empires then I wonder?

I hope that by Monday problem will be fixed.

But I think that if you want to compete as in real life you should accept the existing rules (scoring system in our case) and learning those changing rules well and fast, finding the holes and exploits is the part of competition.

Your suggestion is unrealistic from my point of view. Personally me, I can accept and follow it, but you will never know does everybody follow the honor system. New players may appear who are free of those obligations. Another expoits may be found and we should reconsider The System.

Again why you, me and most top score players play with planet set to abundant, may be we include to the System playing with rare (for me playing with rare is more strategic). Why you switch from tiny to large ?

Frogboy, even 1.04 had problems with 12 trillion pop
crippling scores being equal to 5 trillion masochistic
scores. You yourself said quite admirable that this
issue isnt really enough of a concern for you to
spend countless coding hours on it. The current
problem is just highlighting a more fundemental issue
if you manage to fix the more fundemental issue, great
but if not, then this can help keep the game more
enjoyable for the freaks at the top.

Sergey, I too hope that the problem will be fixed
But, like in real life, the rules are often created by
those playing, in other words, you me and the rest
of the community. Rules are just compromises to make
it more fair and enjoyable for all, here as in real
life.

You are right, currently there is no way to know, hence
the honor system, though it does occur to me that it
would be a fairly simple matter to show the time
of completion as well as the pop with the results
on the metaverse. This would also actually be very interesting
to see, perhaps even military kills/losses and some other
interesting stats!

In fact, I think frogboy has mentioned that this might be coming
before. In which case it would be easy to see who is
exploiting their pop, and even to what extent. I am not
entirely innocent of this myself, as I hate getting lower
scores as I get better and finish quicker(I tend to finish
about 2190-2198, depending on map size), I do grow my
pop up to about year 2200-2205.

We play with abundant cause it scores more, but thats
a level playing field, we all do this equally. I too
would perfer seeing lower abundancies being worth
more points, but thats a difficult balancing act and
I wlil not ask frogboy to worry about such a fundementally
trivial issue.

Perhaps on monday this will all become irrelevent, but
I am skeptical of that and would ask that people
still consider this option.

And yea Red, like Ray said, if your not finishing by
then normally, no worries In the end this is all
about having fun.

[Message Edited]

You are right, currently there is no way to know, hence
the honor system, though it does occur to me that it
would be a fairly simple matter to show the time
of completion as well as the pop with the results
on the metaverse. This would also actually be very interesting
to see, perhaps even military kills/losses and some other
interesting stats!


That gives me an idea. The G.R.O.S.S. top gunner award for kill ratio. HEHE.

[Message Edited]

The thing is, you really can't easily "milk" you scores. You can presently in 1.04.60 series but that's moot because the scores will be re-adjusted.

But even then, milking becomes worthless after awhile because your population based calculation is divided by the game turn squared. So the longer you play, the less your population counts until eventually it'll not count for anything.

The problem with the current scoring system is that a typo got through that only shows up on the really large maps. But it's easily correctable on the metaverse itself.

We include the "stats" we use to calculate the scores. So any new scoring system can be retroactively applied. SO there's no need for an honor system because it'll come out reasonably fair anyway.

And it's a totally trivial fix. It's already fixed in code. Just have to run an SQL query to readjust the scores.

I posted in another thread the formula that will be used to adjust the scores.

BTW, winning FAST isn't always a good thing either. Because the game takes into accoutn how many wonders, trade goods, technologies, etc. you got. There's a balance.  Winning effectively while buidling a powerful, rich civilization will get you the best score. 

Hmm. That might be why I tend to get pretty good scores. By nature I'm a methodical builder type, so I really build up each of my colonies before expanding, which I do relatively slowly. I've pretty much been that type of player in every TBS i've played (Civ 1,2,3, Moo 1,2,3, Alpha Centauri). In most of those other games the scoring system, and indeed the game, tended to reward agressive play more than the builder type. This game seems to give the builder a fairly decent chance of competing. Maybe that's why I like it so much.

Like redshift, I tend to play it slow and build up all of my planets... my games generally last till 2215-2230 on huge-gigantic, but I don't milk it even though I play a long game. I think the highest pop I've ever gotten is around 4.7t... the 8116 pointer I posted last night surprised me as much as anybody (and can be chalked up to the pop modifier not being subtracted in the new patch) since I didn't play it very differently from my previous games. But anyhow, since I play on normal I'll be gone from the top 25 on Monday and my place will go to some masochistic player who deserves it anyhow :/

Agree 100% redshift. That's one of the things that sets GalCiv apart from most of these games. A game shouldn't reward you for twiddling your thumbs, but it shouldn't reward you for ignoring 90% of the game to go for the fastest win possible, either. GalCiv seems to be hitting a nice sweet spot.

Alright, in my next game, I'm going to make sure that I build all wonders/TGs and research Beyond Human before I crush the last insignificant race. No more quickies for me.

You can build all the wonders/TG on the current maso?

I cant even come close

Negative. I meant all those available to me once I am the superpower. I ended the small maso at around battleship tech so there are a number of wonders/TGs that have not been revealed. Surely with every other planet other than the Yors single, I must be able to build all the rest before the Yor.

For earlier TGs/Wonders - Eyes, Galactic Stock Exchange & Restaurant of Eternity were all built by the AI. Surprisingly, I manage to build from scratch Diplo Trans, Grav Acc and Aphro. That was a very smooth game in my book where I basically steamrolled everyone. Could have won with frigates but decided to crank out 2 Battleships just to be safe.

Ok, yea that matches my experience, I lose quite a few
early wonders and was wondering if you had some way
of actually getting them