by Citizen Sergey Pakhomov - 6/10/2003 3:43:40 PM :

"Let me explain why I not finished in 2210 as was promised. I play quite unusual strategy - pure diplomatic. I never being in war, slowly building cultural SB and planets join to my empire. Why slowly, because of if I try build SB in sector with planet owned by Majot, this major starting demand those base."

Hmm... It looks diplomatic strategies can be quite different. I'm in 2192 in my maso large diplomatic game and it looks that I have to either rush to tech victory or go to war, otherwise Altarians or Drengin (or both) will beat me to tech win. In any case it looks that the game will be over well before 2200.

AI cant win by tech yet, thats planned for the expansion

Staffa, I don't know that many people who enjoy losing, but I understand your point.

It may be that we will never see this issue through the same eyes, but rest assured, that I will NEVER confuse fun with skill.

My point about having fun was not meant to illustrate that as long as I have fun I should get the same amount of points as you. It was a specific rebuttle to Pontius' post about not worrying about taking over the galaxy until 2200. I thought it out of place since he plays almost entirely on "tough". My point was that his being able to beat tough with ease does not really translate well onto crippling.

The situation of you beating masochistic in half the time is different than his beating tough in half the time, and so requires a different response. I agree, and have stated that masochistic should score significantly higher than crippling.

As for speed, I don't fully agree with your logic. The analogy is not perfect, but here goes. Another game that I play online is chess. There are different ways to play chess: lightning games, blitz games, and standard games. Lightning games usually range from about 30 seconds to 2 minutes a side, Blitz is around 5 to 10 minutes, and standard is above that. At first glance it may seem that there's really no difference, all of the rules are the same, only the time is different. But playing them you see that they play vastly differently. The same people who are good at lightning are not necessarily good at standard, and vice-versa. Different strategies are used for the different kinds of games. You expect different things from your opponent, and you aren't given the luxury of using your full arsenal of strategies.

Now the analogy isn't perfect, but my point is this: Building up behind your borders until you achieve economic superiority, and then going for culture flip is very different game than attacking constantly with transports. Which is more difficult? You believe that the way you do it is more difficult, and I'm inclined to agree - to a point. The game was built with the intention that both are viable ways of going about it. One gets results faster, certainly, just as playing lightning games of chess finishes faster. But the intention of the creators of the game, as I have understood them, was to balance the game so that either method was equally good. So far they have not succeeded in creating a scoring algorithm that accomplishes that, and you are suggesting that they should not, but rather tilt the scales toward speed. I think that if balance cannot be achieved, then yours is the correct way to go, but I have not yet given up hope that Stardock can come through.

And though I thank you, I don't think of myself as a good player, since I am unable to beat the game at masochistic.

To use your analogy, I would measure speed in the
number of moves you need to make to beat the opponant
not in the time it took for you to beat the opponant.

In fact thats how it is done in Galciv too.

It might might take me 20 hours to finish my
masochistic tiny game by 2185(it doesnt, but
it makes a point :))

Your analogy is imperfect because its a perfect analogy
for my point


[Message Edited]

With all due respect Pontius, you aren't playing at the higher difficulties. You may find it more challenging to win quickly on crippling following the peaceful approach.


with all due respect redshift, I am playing at the higher difficulties. And i am finishing up at 2210 and before. I just am not getting through the tech tree, nor building enough wonders to score well. I'm ignoring the idiot wonders that do me no good as far as me winning the game. That ends up killing my score. To not ignore them risks a loss. And I don't lose to computer games. I've never lost to this one nor quit once I start. There are several games I've been playing 30 minutes at a time cuz I know they are going to take awhile, But I haven't quit any. Most of these I won't be able to submit because they are cross versions.


Also, while we are talking "Skill and taking thinly veiled pot shots at each other, with all due respect. You and others fail to mention the 6 games you quit early at those levels knowing you're gonna lose that you don't have to submit. Whereas I do mention my wins with low scores at those "higher" levels that I don't have to submit. But at least I am being honest about it.

Furthermore, I offset my alien iq's to give the dumb races a fighting chance. Sometimes that works out to tough, sometimes painful. I've got a painful Gigantic ready to go now. I've got a crippling Gigantic 3/4 done. It's a win. I probably will never be able to submit it due to the problems in scoring Gigantics this version. 3 of my alien ai's on the game I am playing right now that will list as tough on my are set to the painful level Only one or two remain down. And if you look at my scores you'll see I do have a painful game in.

But nice try. We have some parting gifts for you in the back.

hey let me be the first to say I often lose my games
and dont submit the losses!

Actually, number of moves is not really a good indicator of skill in chess. In chess, particularly if you're playing the black pieces, it's very important to set up a strong defense. Some defenses take 20 moves to set up. Some of what are considered to be the best games of chess ever played have gone 60+ moves, while other have gone 15. Often a game reaches a point of advantage where one side or the other is nearly destined to win. If the disadvantaged side does not resign, the games can still sometimes take another 40 moves to force the checkmate.

Number of moves is a much better indicator in galciv than it is in chess, which is the heart of the imperfection. The speed example was because the slow game and the fast game play out very differently, as it is in galciv. I agree with you that the ability to crush the AI quickly should be rewarded, I just don't agree that it's the only thing that matters.

Well, chess games that are awesome and take 60+
moves generally means that both sides were nearly
equal in skill

Im sure those same people playing me would crush me
in 15 moves

Pontius,
I don't recall hiding any facts about losing games. I have tried many games on masochistic, and failed, all but once (on 1.035). I've even failed a few on crippling, although not in a while. I've never tried to pass myself off as a great galciv player, and have stated that many others have much less difficulty on crippling than I do. I have not seen any evidence that you are one such person, but if you say you are, then fine.

I did take exception to your statement earlier in the thread about waiting around till 2200 before taking over the galaxy. It seemed to me that you were demeaning others play style and/or skill. Since I neither click turn hundreds of times, nor do I wait around to take over the galaxy while my population explodes It seemed very much that your intention was to be rude. Since you can crush the AI on crippling, and no doubt masochistic as well, long before 2210 you are clearly a much better player than I am. I have tried on these forums not to insult players that aren't as good as me, and was offended when it seemed you tried to offend both sergey and me.

If my assumption that you don't play on harder difficulties (based on your profile) offended you, I apologize. I honestly don't want to fight with you. I really think you should submit some higher difficulty scores (I know if I ever beat maso I'd submit it if it was a 43). I think based on your current score and number of games you don't have to have that high of a score for your overall to go up.

I am interested in the parting gifts though. Any G.R.O.S.S. baseball caps or frosted mugs?
[Message Edited]

#27 by Veteran Staffa - 6/10/2003 11:26:50 PM
"AI cant win by tech yet, thats planned for the expansion"

And I hope that then Stardock will rescore the previously submitted games to loss if AI researched Final Frontier before. (Evil grin).

Staffa,
Yeah they could crush me too. It was a poor analogy. My only point was that the games play different.

Although in chess they keep track of the blitz rating and standard rating seperately, so this problem doesn't occur.

Alexti,
That is evil.

I think their gift shop stuff is more along the lines of baseball bats... spiked ones, with instructions on how to disable a Dregnin in one shot. Stuff like that
[Message Edited]

hey let me be the first to say I often lose my games
and dont submit the losses!


Which you have said before. You're honest about it too.


But I resent the implication (not made by you Staffa) that "Well you don't play level x, so therefore you can't judge that someone that finishes by 2200 on level x ought to be rewarded vs someone that finishes by 2220 (ALMOST TWICE THE # OF TURNS!!!!) on that same level x.

The implication was illogical and quite frankly was made because the person that made it had no answer for the above proposition.

Furthermore, It assumed wrongly that since no crippling games or maso games are on my submission record, I've never played them.

I did take exception to your statement earlier in the thread about waiting around till 2200 before taking over the galaxy. It seemed to me that you were demeaning others play style and/or skill. Since I neither click turn hundreds of times, nor do I wait around to take over the galaxy while my population explodes It seemed very much that your intention was to be rude. Since you can crush the AI on crippling, and no doubt masochistic as well, long before 2210 you are clearly a much better player than I am. I



No. It doesn't make me a better player than you. It simply means I know how to create an unbalance the puter players cannot deal with to beat a computer player better than you. It also means I know the top metaverse players strategies and therefore obviously know what those puter players are likely to do. That's a huge advantage. I simply scorch the place once dreads come in. Amm's to knock out defenses, Dreads to cover. Then use the method that lowers pq to take over. Take all but one soldier off, Go do it to another one. let the puter take the first one back, lather rince repeat untill their outlying planets are uninhabitable. This is very simple on tiny and small as all planets are in range quickly. Then move on. Like I said. I can win every game. But what I have to do to win at those levels means I cannot score worth squat (and probably quite frankly shouldn't)

I can win well and score well usually at painful and tough. Crippling as well now. Maso I still have to scorch.

Staffa, on the other hand probably should score well. He can beat em up on those hard levels with a more balanced play style. And certainly, he should be outscoring someone (given the same size map) when he dominates the whole thing in half the time on a harder level.

Pontius,

I didn't think there was any kind of hiding that most people don't submit their losses.

Sergey explained his strategy, which is very different from Staffa's. You made a statement that seemed to imply that his strategy indicated a lack of skill. I disagreed, and felt that the way you presented your opinion was offensive. I made a poor assumption that you were inexperienced with that strategy at that difficulty level, and for that I apologize.

In my experience, the strategy that sergey outlined does take longer than the strategies that staffa uses. If sergey and I are doing something wrong, than maybe we can start another thread to discuss the finer points of playing a diplomatic/builder strategy on crippling/masochistic and winning by 2210. It is not, in my case, that I am sitting around twiddling my thumbs waiting for my population to get higher before conquering the galaxy. I am generally fighting wars to protect my colonies and resources during those years, and have difficulty mustering the forces needed for conquest.

If the decision is made by the developers that speed should be more important than trade goods, wonders, techs and economy, than I will either adjust or my score will suffer. Up until now though, a powerful economy and large empire was valued more than speed. It doesn't agree with your and staffa's opinion of how things should work, and that might not be how it works in the end, but I don't agree that wonders, trade goods, and techs are completely without merit.

It is my opinion that Staffa's score should be far and away the highest on the metaverse. In that respect, we completely agree.

It had never even occured to me to use a scorched earth method. Cool.

Oh and The Jibe about hitting turn was not a jibe against any one person. It's a jibe on a system where I have to make that choice. Lower my difficulty, Hit turn, delay a win and run it up vs get less points.

But then again there isn't a single tbs game that is played for game score where that isn't a problem. And it is less of a problem here than most. But every single "Pop nerf" seems to encourage more of precisely what it is intended to eliminate. You find the map size and difficulty where you can overcome the nerf, then run it up. Normal mediums are now scoring higher than Gigantic masos. All this last one did was eliminate the Gigantic map from scoring well (at any difficulty) And it hasn't eliminated the problem (in fact as we've seen it endcourages it) on the smaller and medium maps.

Sergey explained his strategy, which is very different from Staffa's. You made a statement that seemed to imply that his strategy indicated a lack of skill.

I indicated nothing of the sort. The idea that any scoring system measures actual skill (when indeed humans aren't playing each other) is illusory.

What I did indicate that given the same stats (ie won the game, dominated the galaxy, got through the tech tree, on a harder difficulty in half the turns on the same size map should be rewarded.

But I did wish to point out that merely submitting games at a harder difficulty is not an indication of higher skill, which you seemed to imply.
Why? For the reason I mentioned. Losses do not have to be submitted. My games which score low do not have to be submitted.
So there's no way in Dodge, that any system of voluntary submission, where humans do not play humans is going to measure skill.

I apologize if I implied otherwise. And will edit those posts .

It had never even occured to me to use a scorched earth method. Cool.


I suspect that it won't work on bigger maps and probably wont work once Avatars come on line.

Hmmm. It's not showing that I can edit posts. Wonder why?

Let me, rather inexperienced player, to step in. It was hard for me to win a game on challenging, now I think that painful is cakewalk but will play it till master different size/PQ settings. And I have not played games, which I was loosing, to the end.

I don't think that speed should be the most important indicator of the skill. During one game I had an event on Tiny map that increased PQ of all uncolonized planets in 2 sector radio by 15, followed by doubled pop growth. It almost quadripled my pop, tech research speed and economy in less than an year. Few turns later game was over. Another game start was 16PQ Earth, no resources around, but it took me less time to win. Granted, first score was 560 for alliance win (waste of time to kill 3 remaining friendly allien planets, isn't it?), second was 500 for every single allien dead, no economy to speak about, no TG/wonders built at all, rather desolated planets, high military upkeep.
[Message Edited]

To PontiusBruinPilot


Everyone else? Hm?



Yeah, that would be fun LOL

~SDC~

To Sergey Pakhomov

You can always be fair if you want to. Say, you could just move population to a clolony ships and disband it during the game 3-4 times.

~SDC~

Worst maso wins .

Norin:
4/4/2003 (1.012000)
Morality: Chaotic Good
Galaxy Size: Tiny
Difficulty: Masochistic
Win / Lost: Win: Military Conquest

36

Ack, I didn't know that I lost by such a wide margin (though it is a rather old version).

You're the man, Norin.