Okay, my scoring system would totally differ from what Frogboy suggests but i'll post it anyways...

But before I do, I have to say this one thing: The scoring system is by far not the most important issue of this game for me!

Score-calculation shall be much much simpler!

The main factors should be the difficulty and the number of turns you need to win. Of course bigger maps need to give more score because you can't win them so fast.

Alliance victory shall be the only victory-type that should score less than the others because it is faster and more easy to achieve (look at my profile... aliance-victories only besides that one cakewalk win). The others seem balanced fairly well (if the AI is able to achieve Tech-Victory aswell, what I am not sure about).

Do NOT include pop, prod, tech and # of tradegoods/wonders in the score! What if my strategy does not need it and still wins faster? Am I a worse player then?

Here's what I also feel to be in the patch (even if not asked for):

Fix the bug, that you pay tribute 1 turn less as shown, that makes 1 turn deals cheaper than 0 turn deals. AI shall also not be able to ask for money I don't have (or I shall be able to do so with em!)

Do something about +2 Speed, on Gigantic Maps that is way too powerful!

I don't get why you made exploiting the minors so easy in the latest patch... In my current game half my economy comes from the Alexians but they have 3 planets where I have ~50...

The other things that annoy me are less important...

I agree with almost all of this except i believe wonders/tradegoods, economies, population, and galactic
control SHOULD be a factor in the score, only much less
of a factor than it is now , but not NO factor as Staffa suggest...some but minor. I also think victories
should all be similar except for maybe an alliance victory in which you are not the strongest member..that
might score a bit less..and finally..an alliance victory while being evil maybe should score more than
an alliance victory while being good should. (since that is much harder to do).

A long post but here's my take.

Some of my thoughts:
1. We must Get it out of our heads that this metaverse is ever going to truly reflect skill. By definition, we aren't playing the same board, the same conditions, or even each other. We can control-n for over an hour to get the start we want and everyone knows it's the start and initial rush that determines the outcome. But I am against the starting position determining score. What is a good starting position and map vs a bad one is arbitrary. cntrl-n is part of the game. use it.
2. The metaverse should reflect a variety of ways to win and playing styles and shouldn't punish one relative to the other.
3. Larger galaxies take more time and more work (not necessarily turns and thus should be rewarded.
4. Higher difficulty levels should also be rewarded But not so much that a tiny maso should outscore a crippling or even painful Gigantic on average. This is simply because submitting higher difficulty is not an indication of skill under a scenario where YOU SIMPLY DO NOT HAVE TO SUBMIT A LOSS. Is 9 quits, 10 losses and 5 wins (only the 5 wins will be posted on maso really more skillful than 5 wins no losses, no quits on Crippling. Yes? No? There really is no answer to that and we really have no data to show what was NOT submitted.
2. Everything else equal, a person that finishes faster, should be rewarded. But this time bonus should not be so huge that it encourages a lower difficulty.
3. Any bonus for winning via this way or that way vs another should be eliminated. Why? You can get each and every one via the same method. Military (culture flip the galaxy. Simple matter once I already have 9/10. I simply turn off cultural victory. A culture win would naturally score less not because it was a culture win and thus got less bonus, but because you only controlled 9/10 of the galaxy vs all of it.
A tech win where you control all but one planet at the end should score almost the same as a military victory where you got all but one tech everything else being equal. A tech win where you control 1/4 should get you less (most everyone's complaint about tech scoring higher when it did). An alliance win where you control all but 2 planets should get you nearly what a military win would. An alliance win where you control 1/4 should get you considerably less.

4. Population should be rewarded. I have heard the proposals for pq. I disagree. It's not just a matter of grabbing and terraforming. It's also a matter of morale and happiness improvements. That is reflected in pop, not in pq.
Milking population should not be rewarded. To that end, The game should record your pop as of a certain date (the end of the game if you finish before hand) and that should be your pop score regardless of what it was later. That stops excessive milking yet rewards pop build up for a reasonable amount of time consistant with game play. And it also avoids the hastle of inventing a proper degrader that does not penalize galaxy size.
Short of that, a degrader that kicks in on a certain date and climbs for a time arithmetically, then exponentially is in order. And the percentage degradation should be the same across size so as not to handicap the Gigantic.


5. Wonders and trade goods should be rewarded. But I think for example, if you buy a trade good that someone else builds, there ought to be a partial reward in there for that too. But not to the extent that they dwarf other factors. Because some really are quite useless and the imfamous trade good exploit is back in the game (I liked the version everyone else hated)

6. For a true military win that should be worth more, A bloodlust option should be created. The only way to win would be military. Culture flipping would genuinely be turned off and no Alien planets could flip to the human player (But human planets could flip to the aliens.) All culture wonders and such would still have the same effect in keeping your planets yours, they just couldn't cause alien planets to become yours in the bloodlust option.
Allignment differences at a certain date are fine. I see no problem with that. But I also think Stock allignments ought to be rewarded.


It goes without saying all scores across versions should be normalized.

Here's my take:
Current scoring systems favours milking. Many people CANNOT compete because they are bored by milking, or their comps just won't stand the gigantic galaxies with long turns. I don't want to have low scores because I don't find it fun to milk. I want to have a high score because I rush to victory.
So:
Map size and number of planets should be taken in consideration (the more PQ15+ planets at the start the bigger score).
Difficulty is more important than anything else.
All victory conditions should score the same, otherwise you won't be able to play the game you like and have points.
Time taken to win.

Frogboy, please don't look only at the biggest scores. That's what gives other players negative scores. There are thousands of people posting scores on the metaverse, please think of those who aren't in the top 25. Look at their games. F.e. I tried to get an as early as possible tech victory on gigantic map and got rewarded with -1666 points! If I had milked the game, I could have earned much bigger (if I had lost, too btw). I could have almost anihilated one ai and culturally flipped my ally to grow my pop. That'd be boring since the game was won long ago. All work after winning is achieved should be worth 0, so pop, econ, should not factor in.
There is also one reason why techs shouldn't count: If you play neutral, you can't research as many techs as good or evils. There is no reason why neutral play should be penalized, it's already hard enough without the evil bonuses and the good +15%everything tech.

LDiCesare, good point, but I wonder how hard it would be for the AI to determine milking or not. Faster games should be rewarded larger points, but playing tactically and taking your time (which in many eyes is milking) should also get rewarded.

My last game of gigantic on tough scored 5400 pts. I didn't intend on getting 4 trillion pop. and take this long. My goal with this game was become as evil as can possibly get and see if the fundamentalists show up (cause i've never seen them). So it turns out that no fundamentalists show up through the whole game and I end it with a military victory, conquoring all ai systems. I have all wonders and high population.

Unfortunately I dont preserve my save games.

As for scoring system as described by Frogboy, I think that it is very good, except the multiplying by victory condition. The idea that tech victory can be easily achieved in the corner of galaxy seems wrong to me.

And again about Staffa and many others idea "the faster the better", I disagree because of this force aggressive military gaming not leaving room for peaceful diplomatic and scientific approach.

Hey Sergey, when were you promoted...congratulations Commodore

Brad,
will there be any change to the scoring summation in the Metaverse? Reducing this by a factor related to the number of games submitted weighs against smaller galaxy sizes and, if still present, needs to be considered in the score balancing.

I personally would like to see all scoring done in game and no modifications occur at the metaverse stage (due to # of games submitted). Penalise smaller games more in the scoring if required but keep things simple and easy to follow. Empires could then be a basic summation of scores of all players.

Paul.

~SDC~

Thanks J4

My vote is for the Staffa/Ralegh system.

Guess that makes me hardcore. How about making a seperate hardcore metaverse with rules as proposed. I still have no idea what the silent majority of players would like to see (if anything).

I like alexti's proposal of displaying the month/year of victory on the metaverse.

On starting positions: I used to be a supporter of weighing starting position into the score. Not anymore. Mostly because i fear it won't be implemented to my liking .

Good luck making decisions Brad

Amen. I may be in the top 25 but I think that listening to a lot of advice in this thread is going to have an extremely negative effect on Joe Average's experience (and probably mine as well ) with the metaverse. The metaverse is not just about how the top 20 players are winning are their game - if a 'fair and fun' scoring system lets them go ape in their scores, who cares? They were going to be in the top slots anyhow, but the guy who's down at 549 should also feel like he's progressing at this game if he uses the metaverse. While I'm on this subject, why can you only browse the top 250 players on the metaverse - given that it's all generated automatically, let's see the top 1000 players so more people can feel a sense of achievement.




I'm all for having neutral only techs (these might already be in the expansion so what do I know). I'm used to a RPG type environment where each alignment had its bonuses and penalties, not just the two extreme ends of the spectrum.




On a few other points I've seen people bring up:

I do not see any need, point, or benefit from trying to engineer a starting position modifier into the game. It would be as difficult to balance as the whole of the metaverse scoring itself to please the small amount of people who want to feel even more rewarded from trying to tackle maso-rare games. The more dense the planets, the less position itself matters and the more your luck/strat in colonising does - and you can't code that into the game.

A lesser evil is the possibility of modifying score by total number (or maybe PQ) of the >15 PQ planets on any given map. On the other hand, I'm not convinced that in a real world sense there is any real measurable effect from this. More habitable planets can equal a much greater challenge than less if the AIs get them and you don't. It seems to me the greater chance of getting screwed by few habitable planets is offset by the greater chance of a having small shifts in # planets or total PQ of held planets allowing you to easily dominate. Personal opinion is that this suggestion is motivated from a very small percentage of your player base and will only reward them while having next to no effect or punishing the rest of the players.

Just as a general point, I agree that the metaverse should show more information about games. In addition to difficulty and size, I'd like to see planet density and galaxy style. Year/month that the game ended would also be a great way for getting a feel how others are playing the game.

...

As Snuis says, good luck making the tough decisions here. I'm sure there have been a lot of good ideas presented from all parties and the trick is for you to find a system which will shut us up in the long term

I am a new player, but I am enjoying having the metaverse to compare by play to others. (I have a older laptop with no 3-D video card and this is by far my favorite game, so I'll probably be around for a while.) I am not really concerned about where I rank and I would like to submit any my scores win or lose.

My request would be no negative scores, the lowest score should be zero. I would find it discouraging to actually lose points in the metaverse and would be less inclined to submit poor games.

Stardock is not going to learn how to make the game tougher from me, but they may learn how to improve the lower difficultly levels.

Regards,
Michael

I believe that the main factors in scoring should be AI level and size of the universe. Size should be somehow mixed with the frequency of yellow stars too, since abundant games play like much larger galaxies then rares do.

How ever everything else is scored, I really don't have much opinion. I tend to play half my games very aggressive, and go for a brutal quick win. The other half, I tend to play much slower and go for a very developed economy and infrastructure. So however the scoring system is developed, half my games are not going to play into the scoring system well at all. Which is fine with me. The metaverse will always just be an amusing side part of the game.

I think the most important thing about the scoring system, is for it to remain as consistant as possible. That way, those who do care about scores, can know what they should be doing, and not have to worry so much that all their old games could turn against them at any time in the future.

It is great to see you are letting the players have a major say in whatever scoring system is final decided upon. In the end, it is this close to the community relationship that you have that makes Galciv great, not the scoring system.

~SDC~

I find myself largely in agreement with Staffa and was about to add, essentially, what Solitair posted so I'll just add my voice to his in this matter.

Frogboy et al,

This thread seems to be asking for long response - so here's mine

Personally, I think that the metaverse should be based on the basic premise that the one who wins the MOST and the BEST games should be on top (in that order).

After that, then the idea comes down to “what is a perfect game”? What one person considers a perfect game is not what another one considers. In fact, newbies are inherently at a disadvantage since they don’t know what a “perfect game” is. Cheese tactics like population can really wreck the game for people who play for fun. So it all comes down to what makes a perfect game.

Basically, there are only two things that show if one game is “more perfect” than another – difficulty. As such, there are two main factors to determine how hard a game is:

-AI Intelligence – smarter AI means harder games.
-Map size – Larger maps take longer to win than smaller maps.

As such, these should be the main factors of any win (50 to 66% of points or more).

Then there is the host of minor stuff that can differentiate games. These are the things that show that game A is “more perfect” than game B.

-PQ – the person with more planets fully developed is better than someone who has only a few planets.
-Technology – the number of techs traded or discovered can differentiate the games.
-Trade Goods/Wonders – building or trading for trade goods and wonders show that one game is better than another.
-Alignment - The alignment of the player versus the alignment of the AI shows harder versus easier games. Good players with good AI are easier to play that evil players with good AI.
-Starting conditions – (NOT starting locations). This is the number of good planets in the galaxy (abundant versus rare ideas).
-Ships/Soldiers – building more ships and killing more enemy ships and soldiers can show differences in skill between two players.

Quick Sidenote: notice that the tech and trade good/wonders also includes “trade for” clauses. This should allow an evening out for those players who aren’t fast enough to build stuff for themselves but can get it later by being diplomatic or militaristic.

All of the minor stuff should make the difference between a good game and a perfect game. BUT, it should not contribute more than 50% of the score (personally, I think it should contribute only 20-33%). Why? Because one of the main points is that the person who plays the MOST games is rewarded. It is only fair to reward the person who devotes his life to playing Galciv (because I can’t do it ). Plus by making the minor details less of a portion of the score, it allows the casual or newby player more latitude in HOW they win rather than winning (thus increasing the enjoyment of the casual player).

Finally, there is the stuff that I don’t believe really should affect the outcome (and reasons why):

-Time – I don’t think that time should be a factor. I hate games that have time limits – it limits my fun. If I want to play for three weeks, let me play until I no longer have fun – just don’t penalize me for it.
-Population – Population is a direct correlation of PQ and time (more time = more population until the PQ limit is reached). If time is not a factor, population should not be a factor – for example, people who choose “+80% population” will automatically get a better score.
-Economy - As you say yourself, economy is more of a “means-to-an-end” rather than an end in itself. Thus there is no “economy win”. A better economy just lets you do all of the other stuff easier.
-Win type - It shouldn’t matter how you won - military versus tech versus social. This lets people play how they want to play.
-Starting positions – Since control N is a feature, starting conditions can change. Plus how do you really measure what is a “better” starting condition than any other? Oh, my home planet is one parsec from the center, so I should get 100 more points to my score.
-Galaxy Type- (abundant versus rare AND cluster versus scattered). Although an abudant galaxy means more planets for more PQ score, it also means more planets for the AI and more chances for someone else to get that PQ 26 planet (thus a harder game). The same for clustering - more random chance that could benefit the AI is added in. This random chance should not be scored.

thanks for reading!
friendjosh

~SDC~
[Message Edited]

I'd suggest that the abundance of habitable planets should appear as a multiplier of the final score, with higher abundance giving lower multipliers.

In my experience you win a lot faster with a greater abundance, because (at least on the levels I've played on)

-- it's easier to out-expand the AIs in the first few years than out-manage them, but a lead in colonies is worth a lot more in the long run

-- with more planets you produce more research, and climb the tech tree faster (which gives access to the high-end culture weapons a lot earlier, for instance -- something the AI is not as quick to make use of)

Until recently I played a lot of uncommon/large games and was surprised when folks talked about finishing by 2200 -- it usually took me a few more years. Then I played an abundant/medium and finished easily in 2200 (and the game had been over long before that... I had been feeling vindictive .

Anyway, I think that it's both faster and easier to win at higher abundances, and there should be a factor in the scoring to offset this (at least to offset the bonus you get from finishing earlier).

Spinor

Tech victory in a corner of the galaxy can happen, but shouldn't be penalized IMO.
The problem with fast is that either you allow faster games to score points or you get milking. The alternative is not to consider anything but (map size + difficulty). I'd actually like it for a 'fair' ranking, but I don't think it'd be fun. The problem is teh game allows for many different fun options: You have various win options, alignments, can rush or not rush, play diplomat or warmonger, etc. and all should score equal. I agree that fast tech victory is out of the question because of the game mechanics, but fast diplomatic should be possible. In particular if you are ready to give off a lot of your worlds to get an alliance (which, with the current system, just lowers your score). Furthermore, the current scoring system has the opposite problem: Force milking, no quick military victory.
[Message Edited]

My idea may have been stated before, but here is my take.

I agree with a lot of posts that request a way to measure a starting position, but I want to add to this idea.

My theory is the David vs Goliath idea.

If Goliath had won, here is the after fight interview:

Reporter: So Goliath you defeated David, what lead to your victory today?

Goliath: (yawn...) This little scrawny guy wanted a fight so I gave it to him. He tried to sling a rock at me but missed. I crushed him like a bug, like the thousands before him. They say he was a genius but no real challenge.

or... as happened David won...

Reporter: So David you defeated Goliath, what lead to your victory today?

David: GEEZ!! did you see the size of that Son-of-a-gun... my legs are still shaking... he was HUGE... Rock... head... down he goes, but holy cow was he big...

To explain: Is it not a measure of the difficulty of the game how big your opponent gets before defeat? Sure a higher AI should be tougher, but if all five alien civs have less than desireable starting position compared to the human player, they will never really get to use their intelligence before they are out gunned. If I am the Goliath in the game, never lost the lead in any category, out expanded, out traded, and out infrastructured every civ, my victory is less meaningful than the guy that struggled, diplomacied, and survived his way through the beginning and middle to pull victory out in the end.

I am asking for measure of how tough the game was to be incorporated in the scoring. Some examples of how to do this:

1. Measuring the AI at their peaks of their civilizations in comparison to the humans.

2. Maybe a measure of how long the human was rated in the number one position, decreasing the score. (also helps in the milking factor)

3. Maybe "metaverse" score the AI civs and add that as a factor in the scoring. If an AI Aliies with you then that AI's score should be subtracted from the Goliath factoring.

Wow, some great great posts in here. Many good suggestions.
I think it is important to recognise where there is overlapping influence on scoring. For instance, production is good, allowing us to build a wonder, which increases morale, thus increasing population, which increases production.

Also, after reading some of the posts, I think it is important not to create a system where a mad rush to victory results in a markedly higher score than the player who takes their time and leisurely enjoys playing with less than ideal tactics. After all, if you mad rush to victory each time, you'll have time to play more games, thus increasing your metaverse score if that is the prime objective.

It seems clear (and maybe unanimous) that the largest factor in scoring should be difficulty level. It may be slightly more murky, but I also feel galaxy size should have a modest impact on score.

After this, things become more difficult to determine IMO. I think the most important thing with the metaverse is to encourage participation. We want people to play, submit games, participate in the community---

I'm not certain of the best way to do this.

There are alot of great ideas here. I just have a quick thought.

Time to victory should not be considered unless it is tied to the victory condition. I have only played 3 games so far, but in each I chose to win via the cultural method. Now I believe that I could have won the games faster had I chose to win militarily, but I wanted to win culturally so the game lasted longer for that to happen. Should my game have a lower score because I chose a victory condition that inherently took longer than another victory condition?

Now if you want to take time into consideration as it relates to the victory condition then fine. For example, a standard year of victory could be set for each victory condition. Then a time factor could be applied for when your victory occured in relation to that. That way you are not comparing a military victory in 2210 to a cultural victory in 2225.

Is the metaverse a measure of how much fun you have or
how good you are?

People seem to be confusing playing an enjoyable game
and playing a game well. I play games for fun too, but
I dont pretend to think that just because it was the
funnest game I played that it neccesarily means it
was an awesome demonstration of skill.

If you enter a marathon with the intent of being part of
a large group of people and leasiurely take your time
and enjoy the company and countryside as you jog
slowly towards the finish, great, but dont expect to
get the medal at the end of the run.

Galciv is what you make of it, play it how ever
you find enjoyable, but when you attempt to use
the metaverse to dictact how people should play,
then you are catering to a flaw in the game, if the
game is meant to have people make use of all areas of
the game, then doing so should be a neccesity of
winning galciv, not of 'winning' the metaverse.

Now with that said, yes tiny/small games will be quick
pure military domination. So what, thats great, its
variaty nothing wrong with those types of gaming
existing. Larger maps will still require very
potent economies and infrastructure and high technologies.

I play on masochistic, im not gonna beat a gigantic
game without getting to at least overlords no matter how
hard I try and most of the time excaliburs will be
present on the map before the game ends. This is
a great balance of a timely tech tree being evolved
over different map sizes.

Now with that said, alliance victories will become
an even more valid method to victory then they are
currently as they will inherinetly be faster then
military victories, in a speed is king scoring system
this makes them even better, of course they will have
less total control, so there is a balance.

Cultural victories(not flipping which will always be
very useful) may need some minor adjustment to put it
on an even keel with the prior two methods, but again
dont use the metaverse to mask flaws in the balance
of the game.

Tech victories as they currently exist would be screwed.

I have two suggestions for them, as the movie for a tech
victory implies total galatic domination through
the easy destruction of the enemies, then give the
player what ever represents compelete galatic domination.
Such that it becomes valid to sit in a little corner
and race as "FAST" as you can to a tech victory.

If your fast enough you will be on an even measure
with a military conquest for domination, but it should
NEVER make sense to go for complete military conquest
and THEN go for a tech victory(as in 1.035 and prior)

The time to research some of the techs might need
to be adjusted to give the tech victories method
a reasonable chance of competing, again, balance
the galciv.

Anyway, I understand that this would represent a
signifigant change to how the game is currently scored
and I thank those that support it and apperciate
the concerns of those that do not agree

In the end, have fun !

It's hard to admit that, but imho thr most important sentence of this thread was said by a GROSS-guy (Pontius):


That is the short version of what I have to say. You really can stop reading now, but I will say some more stuff anyway.

All the data the Metaverse-score is based on is just NUMBERS - PQ, Pop, year of victory etc.
What it doesn't get is data like "He used his scout to lure the spaceshark to the Arcean station, which was destroyed, resulting in a loss of influence for the Arceans in this sector, which resluted in the planet flipping to his Torian allies, wow, this was a nice idea" or stuff like that.
The scoring algorithm doesn't understand something like that. It doesn't understand skill. It is just a calculator. To make the scoring algorithm able to extract something about skill from the number would mean no less than programm another AI, and that shouldn't be the issue.

The scoring algorithm can only indirectly reflect skill, using indicators: "Large Pop, uhm, he must be good", "Fast win, uhm, must be good"

And here we get to the point where frogboy&co shoot their own foot.
Reading all the articles about galciv, you're obviously very proud (and you have every reason to be so) about creating a game that never has "the same galaxy twice", that is higly replayable, that always brings up something new, that allows you to win on different ways... ... and now you wanna find one scoring algorithm that is fair to every galaxy, every strategy? wew.
Well, basicly I think: Better keep it flat. The more complex it gets, the more loopholes will be there, the more difficult it will be to change something without screwing up everything.
Take the pop-milking vs. rush issue, for example.
If you give "fast win" a high importance, it will favour those who rush like hell, if you give "population" a high importance, it will favour those who play loooooong to get the largest pop possible. Try to limit both and balance it against each other... is a tricky thing because the limits you have to implement can easily backfire, and the situations and strategies in a game can differ a lot - so the limits won't be fair in every situation.
Instead, give not much attention to both. Nobody will be favoured or punished to much. So: Keep it flat, as I said before.
[Message Edited]

I remember reading an idea somewhere about having the metaverse pick up trends of the game, and eventually it might be able to simulate a certain person as an opponent in your game. To do this, they'd have to have some pretty sophisticated machine learning tools running on all our submitted games.

Say I conquer all but 1 planet in year 2200, but milk the game for 30 years, by which time I've got every wonder and tech but beyond human (think SimGalaxy: an occasional random bad event, but no hordes invading). The game can see my social/econ/mil/tech stats in 2200 and 2230, and figure out how much progress I made. If I take the early win, I should get a bonus similar to the bonus I would have got for playing for 30 years unopposed.

How does it know what I'd get in 30 years if I don't actually play that far? It could get that by picking up the trends from all the games submitted in similar situations, where some took the early win and some the late. In essence, it's like taking an average joe off
the street and having him play SimGalaxy for you.


Some people might complain that taking an average player's progress from that point on would bring down vet's scores, and inflate newbies. But it can be weighted to pay more attention to more similar games - so if only the vets can get to the "universe conquered in one ad break" scenario, the scorer will pay more attention to the games submitted that are milked from that point on - and it'll be most likely vets who submitted those games in the first place. (Someone picked at random from a boxing ring should be a better fighter than a man on the street, cause if he wasn't a good fighter he wouldn't have qualified for the ring).
The attention the scorer pays to different types of submitted games can be changed through weightings, though. There should still be a decent bonus for actually playing out the SimGalaxy endgame, to encourage people to do it and keep submitting those sort of games, and to reward the people that are brilliant at playing that style of game, but it shouldn't be as big as it was in previous versions (and definitely not triple the conquest score...)


This is all up in the air, and I have no idea how much they could actually do. But if they are using machine learning tools on the saves, they'll be able to pick up a LOT of obscure trends, and then everyone can argue over which of those trends defines a good player

Oh, and even if it was possible I'm not expecting it in the next patch or anything. It's much more of a long-term idea, depending on how they do that voodoo they do so well.
[Message Edited]

Hmmm. I do want to say a couple of things on this. CM had a post back on page 1 that I think is really powerful. If high score = most efficient victory, than the metaverse is useless for the general player.

If the only point to the metaverse is to serve as a chest beating platform (no disrespect intended) for those players who have the mad skillz (and the amazing amounts of time to get those skillz) than the scoring system Staffa et.al. proposed is simple, fairly bullet proof and effective.

However it then gets a big fat so friggin what from me. I will NEVER win a game of Gal Civ as quickly as anyof those guys...I have no desire to even try it wouldn't be fun for me to disect the game to the level required to become a true master. So, should I be doomed to inferior scores forever? That depends.


FROGBOY PLEASE READ THIS MOST IMPORTANT PART CAREFULLY.

IMO Star Dock FIRST must decide what the Metaverse is for. Only then can a good functional method of scoreing be decided on. I see three uses for the Metaverse.

1) Bragging rights for players who've taken the time to achieve a superior understanding of what it takes to master Gal Civ and beat the snot out of the AI on a regular basis even at the highest levels. If this is the goal...than Staffa et.al. scoring ideas are the way to go.

2) Serve as feedback to the designers through submitted games of how the game is being played and what areas need to be tweaked. For this purpose the scoreing system is completely irrelevant EXCEPT that it needs to be attractive enough to the players that they will submitt. FOR THIS: you have to decide which type of player's feedback are you interested in. Are you interested in how 80% of all Gal Civ players play...what they do, where they struggle. Or are you interested in how the upper 5% of Gal Civ players, what exploits they use, how to close them and make the AI tougher. Different scoring systems will attract different types of players, so be sure you use one that will attract the players whose games you're interested in seeing.

3) To build a sense of community. If this is a goal, than the metaverse has to be something more than just bragging rights for "he who can win quickly and crank out killer scores". The scoring system has to encourage and reward the style of play of that 80% who DON'T play at the level of the GC Grand Masters, or else large portions of the community will evaporate. Is community a priority? I don't know, not my call. But something Star Dock needs to consider before settling on a scoreing system.

Wow! Lot of great posts here, but also a lot more than I want to try to read in one sitting. But at the risk of repeating some of the things that have already been said, I do have a few comments...and I promise I will keep mine short and to the point.

1. I agree that the type of win should not drastically affect score...maybe a slight penalty for culture, a slight reward for military...but nothing drastic.

2. I agree that many, many things should factor into the final score. Trade goods, wonders, techs, population, economic strength, etc. But, on the other hand, they need to be balanced with one another...ie trade goods shouldn't be vastly more important than wonders.

3. Difficulty should be a major factor. A win on a masochistic game on same size should *always* be higher than a win on a challenging game of same size.

4. Galaxy size should be significant. Otherwise, players who submit 1 huge galaxy game a week (as example let's say) will never compete with a player who submits 3 medium galaxy games a week.

My rationale is simple: Diversity. If I love playing culture wins w/o ever firing a shot, I should be able to score well doing so. If I love wiping everybody out as quickly as possible, well that should score well too. I realize that this is probably very difficult to implement, but I see that as certainly the ideal!

Gosh, it's so easy to write so much! And I thought this would be short!