Code Monkey

Reply to High scorers: how do they do that? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I would almost agree with Staffa except to say that I think the benefits of rewarding pop, tech, etc. is not going to affect the little guy like he claims. Unfortunately for the top ranked, we are in a position of milking or being happy with wherever we are. I'm happy to just be in the top 25 and would get bored silly the way Sergey plays. So, he can have the top spot. But, for those 50-3000 players, these factors are what lets them look at a score and think, "hey, not too bad :)"

Reply to Is it me or we are getting much less random events starting 1.4 (or may be 1.3) ? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

It does seem that way. I'm about 80% done with a large map and I think I could count every random event in the game on my 2 hands.

Reply to Expansion will fix... in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Re: your F-16 analogy, what part of: it's already in the game and instantaneous didn't you get? If you build a Starship Foundry on a ship's home planet, it instantly, no matter how many sectors away it is, has it's Att/Def boosted. If you research exotic alloys, everybody in your entire fleet gets the 10% boost to HPs (but do have to "heal" up to full strength). Like I said, you're just hurling criticisms without even understanding the game your criticizing to begin with.

Reply to 1.04.59 or later bug reports in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Two instances of the undead Altarians, I think I see a trend :)

Reply to Expansion will fix... in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

At the end of the day, the question is, are you playing a game with some space civ/sim flavor, or are you trying to play a space sim with some game aspects. This is first and foremost a game, not a sim. Second, in your rebuttal above, you demonstrate that you don't know much about the existing system. * We are getting bombardment, it's been announced and even discussed and debated, so, point is moot. * You can already repair ships in just a few turns (put it i

Reply to Devaluation of old scores in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Staffa, it doesn't. Because you have just as many non-decayed games which offset the older decayed games. The big difference between a weighted system and a decayed system is the weighted system achieves a higher peak before levelling off. The question is: is this what we want when the whole point of the decay is to give the newer player a chance to catch up? I personally have run the simulations, I've taken plenty of statistical classes in my day, and while I can plug data set

Reply to Expansion will fix... in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Evolution where it improves game play is one thing, evolution for the sake of realism is almost never a good idea. In fact, the only time change for the sake of realism is a good idea is where it happens to coincide with better gameplay As an example, how about his very angry critique of attacker having the advantage; there is a reason why the attacker is given the advantage: do you want to need to strip 4 systems of their population just to take one enemy system? Didn't think so.

Reply to Expansion will fix... in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Funny thing is: I:10 is instantaneous and already in the game (unless by "same model" he means "ships of completley different models"); I:5 we already know is in the expansion pack; IV:1 we already know is in the expansion pack. I:6 is debatable - with espionage (or even just a peak at the domestic screen) you know your relative tech to the defender, and you can always compare relative numbers, you should already know your relative chances in an invasion so if you find yourself in a bad

Reply to Devaluation of old scores in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

You know, I don't think I'm going to waste any more time running simulations since too many people seem dense beyond my help. I have posted ad nauseam that there's next to no significant difference between an explicitly weighted formula and the sort of decay system we have when it comes to your actual score (which is what should matter since that's where your rank comes from). As best I can tell, the only real issue is whether the metaverse displays your original score or the decayed on

Reply to Poll question regarding AI intelligence in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The rough explanation (it's been covered in detail elsewhere): Below Intelligent, the AIs are penalized economically relative to you (i.e. if a given planet would yield 30 BC for you, they would get, say, 24B BC from that same planet on Normal). At Intelligent, you & the AI are equal economically. Above Intelligent, the situation is reversed and the AIs make more than you. Additionally, as you increase the AI, they use more sophisticated AI routines for diplomacy, noticing ships in

Reply to Expansion will fix... in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I think somebody needs to go get a nice stiff drink. Almost everything that I bothered to read up there is whining about stuff that we know is not going got be changed (e.g. defender gaining the advantage, more than one research goal with multiple sliders, recessions affecting you, etc.). You seem to want Galactic Simulations, not Galactic Civilizations . Go try some other Space 4X game because this one is never going to suit you desires.

Reply to Devaluation of old scores in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

No, didn't miss it. That was just a quick example of why your system doens't work. So fine, 9 20K games = 60K, in 10 years, it's still worth 60K, and that is why your idea won't work given what Stardock wants from the metaverse. I know I've wasted more than enough of my own time trying to improve the scoring system, but I'm doing it in the spirit of what Stardock has done (and therefore somewhat likely to implement). I'm reasonably certain that they're not going to adopt any system that

Was something changed in regards to stealing techs when conquering? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

1.05071, I'm at war with the Torians, they have one tech that I don't have: Dreadnought. I have now conquered, I believe, 8 systems so far and have failed to steal it. Now, either I'm being exceptionally unlucky, or something was tweaked to either make stealing tech in general less likely or some techs just not stealable at all.

Reply to Devaluation of old scores in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Actually, Sergey, your method has the very flaw that the current method avoids: there should be no 'perfect set' of scores and your system allows that in spades. Any system that doesn't "punish" you for older scores allows you to submit 4 20K games and then sit on your butt forever. To be open to new gamers you *must* "punish" people for old scores. Whether you do it through time based decay of the value or the weighted value, it still needs to be done.

Reply to 1.04.59 or later bug reports in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The undead are back: 1.05071, the Altarians, who surrendered their planets to the Torians several turns back, just declared war on me for going to war against their allies, the Torians. Now that's loyalty, returning from the dead to (not) fight for your friends ;)

Reply to 1.04.59 or later bug reports in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

[quote]Oh, a new one. In 1.05.69 I stacked 'terror star' with bunch of rangers with speed 8. For some time the fleet showed correctly movement speed of 1/8, as the terror star slowed the fleet down. However, after 10 or 20 turns this reversed to 8/1 and i was able to move the full 8 units with terror star even after disbanding the fleet. Now, thats a bad ass ship . [/quote] Not so new, this one has been around at least since the game came out. No one knows what's causing it, though,

Reply to 1.05.71 available in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Reported the failure for the planet list to refresh properly in the bug report thread yesterday evening. It's really bad because it will go turns without updating now unless you do something that forces it to refresh.

Reply to 1.04.59 or later bug reports in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I've got a new one (and easy to reproduce) in 1.05071: In the report screen you get for the AIs, there's a new button 'total routes', presumably something that will be in the upcoming expansion. Well, don't click it because it will CTD instantly. If it helps, from Smart Exception: Stardock SmartException Logging Information ------------------------------------------- OS Version : Windows XP Video Card : Mobility M6 Application Exception code:

Reply to Minor Forum bug in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Although, if you're right in that it's merely an error in their error checking, a one line exclusion added to the code responsible for parsing text into HTML will eliminate the problem, quiet Staffa down, and eliminate the need for you to re-writing the whole thing ;)

Reply to Devaluation of old scores in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

[quote]Why don't you guys ask Stardock to release the raw Metaverse data, and you can compute your own rankings?[/quote] Our own rankings aren't the focus. I discovered a flaw in their current decay schedule that, as Bearcave put it above, put you in a position of treading water (in fact, it pretty much guaranteed you would drown). Then, as is likely to happen, me and Staffa wound up on opposite sides of how to fix this glitch ;p

Reply to 1.05.71 available in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

@Brad and co.: not sure what it means, but after doing a complete reinstall of both GalCiv and SDC, updating to 1.05.071 actually does give me a 1.05 game in the option and the scoring - something isn't being properly replaced. @Yellow Sign: yep, took my screen shots this morning as I don't expect it to last unless others want to fight on the side of the inverts LOL

Reply to Devaluation of old scores in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

[quote]You guys have too much time on your hands[/quote] You think? :LOL:

Reply to Devaluation of old scores in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I implemented the 5% step weight decay to 0 as per your request (and it's waaay to lenient unless you happen to believe that people will be playing this game for 3 years each). I will try the break because I have a sneaky suspicion that your method is much harsher because while it lets you play without the "dead weight", you're starting from ground 0. For somebody coming back to a game after a year, having to fight as hard as they did as a newbie just to show up on the metaverse doesn'

Reply to Devaluation of old scores in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

There's no dip in the decay method I'm using by virtue of it's method, that's simply an effect of the data set, that's why I posted the constant data input graphs as well. Although you can't tell what significant effect (if any) a change will have in everyday type situations, you can't compare the methods without a fixed reference point, either. Yours, fwiw, experiences that same dip, but it's masked by the leveling out of the overal score as well. The decay method actually does start t

Reply to Devaluation of old scores in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Staffa, the weighted average going to 0 is the red line. It is 10% per month as, like I said, 5% is too slow. You won't have the first score drop off until month 20 of playing. When I get home, I'll run it just to show you, but it's going to look more like the no decay at all graph than any of the others.