I am very disapointed with scoring problem

Give them a chance. They'll probably rescore the old games so they use the same scale, then all will be right again.

Sergey - I would be very interested in seeing you post your strategy for large maps, especially painful, crippling or masochistic. Also, what star density, galaxy size, and habitable planet frequency do you typically choose? What type of victory does your strategy aim for? Thanks ...

Something does seem a bit off, I finished up a large maso
game and just got 9800 for it, nothing much different
from the game that scored 6800 under 1.04.59

Only 3 things I can see.

1. Crippling is messed up scoring wise.
2. You have to start the game under the latest version
to get the points for it(I upgraded when the metaverse
didnt accept the submission some hours ago), in which
case the new scoring system is, as you fear
making all the old scores irrelevent.

3. I forgot, probably something about a one time
fluke, i dunno.

The guy with 65 tiny gamese has submitted a crippling
score under 1.044 with a result that is less then his
1.040 results. Of course he won via cultural on a tiny

So im still stumped as to what is going on.

1. May be or may maso messed and got lower score
2. Also may be, I have started my last game under 1.04.60, then upgraded to 1.04a.62 during playing.
3. Who knows ?

See my 2nd post in this thread if you missed it.

Sergey, no worries about getting first like this, you
were gonna get it regardless

After this little bit of confusion is cleared up, lets
see if you can keep it

Yes, your second post apeears when I wrote my post.
If you interested there are some detials about my last game:
military win in 2230 year with 13000 pop and with all tech researched. I found in my last games that researching all tech is important.

Another stupid guess: may be they take into account alignment ?

Well, even if the immediate problem is fixed, it looks like score inflation continues for yet another version. Here are some of my ramblings from the GROSS thread on the subject:

"First it was fun enough when all the 1.02 games basically got chopped in half (and culture was nearly worthless there), then it became so that even a minor leaguer like myself could get a 2K game. I am not disturbed by it or anything, in fact I take things quite lightly. But it is a bit disorienting to go from 51 point culture victories to 1650 point culture victories, and now who knows how much with the latest version. It really throws the averages off trying to compare raisins to grapefruit.

Call it a pipe dream, but I sometimes wish there was a universal score adapter for the Metaverse. Something where any game from any version can be submitted and, in real time, be scaled to what the latest standards are. Of course, all pre-existing games would already be run through such a device as the first order of business. But, alas, it is but a dream."

But, if there is more score inflation and it is deliberate, then the net effect is to make the older games worth a lot less. The problem then becomes that some will complain that their averages get dragged down by these old games that were never properly adjusted in line with any set standard. Those complaints lead to even puffier versions in the future, so that those watered down averages get a kick, which restarts the cycle. So the only real fix is to find a real set standard, and then readjust everything to fit it.

As for me, I am cool about it. I am proud of my scores, even the lowly 50 pointers. So I am not upset over it, but I am confused by the lack of standard. It makes no since that a 1.035A huge challenging cultural conquest nets me 244 points and then a 1.04.059 medium challenging cultural conquest lands me 1657 points.

My game was 2204 with 5.5 trillion.

I tested it just now and extorted pop to 7 trillion
and that would have raised my score to 11k

Extrapolating the change out though, even if I raised
it to 13 trillion my score would still only be 17k,
and thats assuming a non existent time penality.

So perhaps you broke their formula as well
I had everything but final frontier in both cases.

13trillion on a large? thats a bit excessive
Sergey, ive only broken 10trillion on a _gigantic_
once and that my 23k(make a point game) that was thrown out.
Well actually I think another
gigantic may have barely broken 10trillion.

Anyway, in 1.04, pop exploiting was rewarded, but
not very heavily(which im ok with), it appears we
are back to the 1.035, where pop exploiting is heavily
rewarded.

[Message Edited]

Gerakken, I do not think its intended that games
score this high. This does seem more like an
abberation then the way its intended to be.

Staffa pop was well rewarded in 1.04, there are some notes for 1.04 (not the last game) game

Year Pop score
2201 3913 5129 not all tech researched
2221 10028 6279
2241 13153 7099

This means that time penalty if exists starting later.

Why such population ? I eventually colonize all 14 and sometimes 13 planets which is very easy (but little bit boring) with The terraformer and +5 PQ bonus. To the end of game I have 70 - 80 % of my planets with maxed population.

Should I download the new version? Or stick with what I have?

Other than the scoring problem, what's new on the new?

Oh and congrats Commodore Staffa.

Sergey, going from 5k to 7k for 40 years of work is
a rewarding pop exploiting to some extent.

Going from 5k to 22k for the same amount of exploiting
is rewarding it as heavily as it was rewarded in 1.035
which I was not fine with.

Btw, I end all my games prior to 2210, and most of them prior to 2105.
[Message Edited]

After reading your post I have checked progress of my last game 1.04a.62
there are the figures:

Year Pop In game score Corected with ^0.75

2197 2622 80368 4773
2207 5529 230868 10532
2220 9664 469729 17942
2230 12298 641270 22661

Really rewarding of pop is very heavy in this version. I also not fine with this but at least this explains what happens. In 1.04 I did some pop exploiting to compete with my crippling against your maso. But I dont't like what happens with latest version - this really "milking" scores.

For me fast win should be rewarded much better and time penalty should be very heavy at least starting from 2205-2215 (for large maps, I can't say about others).

To PontiusBruinPilot

I like in new version new leasing system which is more realistic and make much harder to rush goods and wonders in early game

I'm still not sure why scoring is client side at all. The game should just ask you if you want to submit it and the server calculates score from whatever the data points is that it uses.

And, if they're going to keep "tweaking" the scoring algorithm, they should run all the games through the current algoritm at least once a week.

Wow, even at the same pop, with me being faster
your crippling score would still have been higher
then my maso. Sigh

For me fast win should be rewarded much better and time penalty should be very heavy at least starting from 2205-2215 (for large maps, I can't say about others).


Since I have never taken beyond 2200 to finish a game, I'm all for that. HEHE

And, if they're going to keep "tweaking" the scoring algorithm, they should run all the games through the current algoritm at least once a week.

I think they should have given the current one some time first before they rush tweaked it again. And now those earlier games I played are weighting me down under the new system. Uggh.

Keep in mind the scores can be adjusted later on. So don't sweat the scores too much.

Thanks Frogboy. I think we're all happy to hear that you're listening to our concerns.

Just out of curiosity, what was wrong with the first 1.04 scoring algorithm?

Well here's where things went very very wrong...

In 1.04, the scoring worked nicely except for a couple minor issues we wanted to tweak:

1) There wasn't quite enough difference between someone playing at say masochistic and someone playing at normal.

2) The difference between a tiny galaxy and a gigantic galaxy was turning out to be only around 2 to 1. We were trying to make it be more like 5 to 1. So we made population count a bit more. The problem is that there was a typo in there.

We did test the scoring system over a couple of days. But the problem really only shows up in long games played on very very large galaxies which we hadn't tested.

The goal was to have something like this:

Win: Gigantic / Masochistic: ~15,000

Win: Tiny / Masochistic: ~4,000

Win: Gigantic / Normal AI: ~3,000

WIn: Tiny / Normal: ~800

The good news is that the scores on the metaverse contain the root data that was used to calculate them. So we can re-adjust them later on.

I was trying to get a new build out tonight that fixes this entirely but there's a bug with the governors. For some reason, the governors aren't working properly and it's too late to get ahold of anyone here to work on it (I didn't work on that part so I don't know how to fix it).

The good news is that this build is really quite nice other than the scoring thing.

Heck, call me a fanboy. But I think I speak for many of us to say how deeply appreciative we are that you are spending such a whole lot of effort in making the entire Galciv Experience (game and metaverse) the best that it can be.

Kudos to Stardock and Brad!

Heck, call me a fanboy

Fanboy.


Heck, call me a fanboy

Fanboy

Heck, call me a fanboy

Fanboy

The good news is that this build is really quite nice other than the scoring thing.



Thanks Brad. Now lets let this one sit awhile so we can all get used to it. I barely get 2 games in and poof another rebuild. HEHE.

Kudos from me as well. What you've said kind of matches my latest score. It was a tiny/painful/alliance, and it initially scored 6600, but when I just checked it dropped to 617. That seems to jive quite a bit with Frogboy's post above. It is about 1/3 to 1/4 the scores I was getting with the same settings on 1.04. I assume those scores will be adjusted at some point.