Metaverse scoring suggestion

"I don't believe it should be possible for *any* victory with low intelligent AIs be able to beat a score with superior opponents - if you want to beat the top Metaverse players, you'd better play by the same rules!"

Agreed. I'm hoping the devs are listening to those of us that want the metaverse scores tweaked to weight AI difficulty more than galaxy size and it's inherently greater pop/tech/culture/etc.

- Ash

~SDC~

Yeah, definitely. It's pretty frustrating to win a large game with all genius AIs and see higher scores from people playing on "simple" difficulty level. I don't want to be forced to "milk" the game, it kills all the fun.

I agree there should be a modifier for difficulty. In addition, there should be a bonus for some of the peaceful modes of winning. A cultural victory where you don't fight at all will get you a much lower score than one where you goes for conquest.

I'm pretty sure there is a difficulty modifier already. However, this will not make the milking problem go away, someone who's willing to baby sit their empire will have more points than someone who's not, if they're playing at the same difficulty level. But it would at least make milking way harder than it is now. Is it possible to get rid of milking altogether? I'm not so sure.
Agree about modes of victory - I assume if you win a political victory you get less points than if you conquer your allies. Is that true?

My first sentence doesn't make much sense: the difficulty modifier is there, I guess, but it needs to be increased, obviously.

I'd rather see a possible score generated with the initial map generation. Sort of like, 'this game setup is worth x points, due to size, difficulty, starting conditions, etc'. It is then up to you to play any way you like to win.

If you win by conquest, tech or cultural you still get the same score. If you maximise population or have a quick militrary conquest rush, you still get the same score.

Paul.

~SDC~

"instead of relying on munchkin "keeping a defeated AI alive until there's a trillion people on your planets" tactics to score Metaverse points."


Errr, I got to a trillion people on my planets (well, quite a bit over that, actually) without using "munchkin tactics". It's called "Abundant" habitable planets, crossed with the planet quality bonus.

~SDC~

"instead of relying on munchkin "keeping a defeated AI alive until there's a trillion people on your planets" tactics to score Metaverse points."


Errr, I got to a trillion people on my planets (well, quite a bit over that, actually) without using "munchkin tactics". It's called "Abundant" habitable planets, crossed with the planet quality bonus.

~SDC~

And always evil I see Selling Flesh Nectar to finance your expansion? LOL

Only a few times, honest!
I'm going to try being a goody two shoes next time..

~SDC~

I've got the angelic interface in my current game, took a while to get there and I had to pass up some juicy opportunities It's some contrast from the quick profits of evil and the red/black interface but hopefully I'll benefit in the long term

Just yesterday evening had the same problem as you LastWolf: Finally won game in large map with all AIs set to Genius (Crippling difficulty level) and got mere 622 points. And people playing with fool difficulty are getting >5000 points.

I like the idea of Solitair, where you would have certain base points based on the starting conditions. And then maybe the other factors could change it between +20% - -50% if you win it and losing would drop it to -50% - -100%. E.g. if you win by alliance victory and your empire is smaller than the other empire in your alliance, it would drop ~20% of maximum points. But if your empire is way bigger, then you could get the +20% extra to base score.

Periz

Actually after thinking a bit how the base point could be calculated I came to following very easy algorithm:

difficulty * (sqrt(number of stars >15)) * 20

IMO game length is mainly depended on how many stars you have in the map and not so much about the size of it. So this way dense large map would also equal rare gigantic, but dense tiny could not pass it in points.

Here are some exmple calculations how this would work (those star numbers are just out of my head, so they might be totally wrong):
Tiny with default habitability (~10 stars)
1 * (sqrt(10)) * 20 ~= 60
2 * (sqrt(10)) * 20 ~= 120
3 * (sqrt(10)) * 20 ~= 180
4 * (sqrt(10)) * 20 ~= 260
5 * (sqrt(10)) * 20 ~= 320
6 * (sqrt(10)) * 20 ~= 380
7 * (sqrt(10)) * 20 ~= 440

Medium with default habitability (~50 stars)
1 * (sqrt(50)) * 20 ~= 140
4 * (sqrt(50)) * 20 ~= 540
7 * (sqrt(50)) * 20 ~= 980

Huge with default habitability (~100 stars)
1 * (sqrt(100)) * 20 ~= 200
4 * (sqrt(100)) * 20 ~= 800
7 * (sqrt(100)) * 20 ~= 1400

Gigantic with default habitability (~500 stars)
1 * (sqrt(500)) * 20 ~= 440
2 * (sqrt(500)) * 20 ~= 900
3 * (sqrt(500)) * 20 ~= 1340
4 * (sqrt(500)) * 20 ~= 1760
5 * (sqrt(500)) * 20 ~= 2240
6 * (sqrt(500)) * 20 ~= 2680
7 * (sqrt(500)) * 20 ~= 3120

So by winning 7 games in maximum difficulty in tiny galaxy would give you similar points as winning 1 game with same difficulty in gigantic galaxy. And I assume that it takes close to same time to win 7 tiny games compared to 1 gigantic, as the luck factor is there much bigger than in gigantic.

Periz

IMHO the scores should be based on winning, that's the goal of the game. I like the solution Solitair offered, let's base the score _only_ on these factors:

-difficulty level
-galaxy size
-starting condition (a big modifier!)
-how many turns it took to win

This reduces milking and all such matters and concentrates on things that matter: do you win or lose. If you win, it doesn't matter whether you have zillion people or money - after winning, the galaxy is all yours to colonize (at least in the military conquest).

I'd like to see also a best-game-score metaverse list, and not only who-has-spent-most-time-with-computer list like it is now.

Yeah, this suggestion sounds good. It really shouldn't matter how many ships it took you to win by conquest etc. Also agree about the "who-has-spent-most-time-with-computer" thing - some of us have jobs, you know! Actually, I think it's most of us, not some, but still not everyone has time to play 3 gigantic games in one week...

Ahh, I was wondering how some people were creaming the designers' score by THOUSANDS.

/ds

I haven't read the _really_ long posts (like the suggestions thread), but has there been any hint from Stardock about "fixing" (if it truly is a problem) the metaverse scoring?

/ds

No replies that I'm aware of, but the devs are very good at reading posts and adding bugs / problems to their to do lists. They just can't take the time to reply to all threads / problems.

They are aware of this issue, but to date they haven't indicated that it's high on the importance list or that they intend to change it. They may be happy with it as it does protect against some forms of score spamming.

Paul.

~SDC~

And face it, the metaverse scoring is not that important...

"And face it, the metaverse scoring is not that important..."

As the Emperor of the 2nd place Empire, I respectfully disagree.

*Gives the GammaSquader in this thread a dirty look*

- Ash

~SDC~

It might be not THAT important, but since the metaverse is the only way for players to compete with each other, it would be good if it actually reflected the skill level of players, not how much time they're willing to devote to babysitting a gigantic galaxy with abundant planets. Why should the scoring system reward players for that?