Let's see. If a kid plays one of these 15k games everyday for 30 days, his total score would be 82,158!
That would be No 7 on the Metaverse if everything remains unchanged a month from now. Probably still be in Top25 even if everyone continues playing. 
         
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| Wasn't the original score multiplier target for v1.05 (and presumably for the Xpack betas as well) between cakewalk and maso around 3? |
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Don't think a score multiplier target between Calkwalk and Maso was mentioned explicitly. You probably recalled the 3x multiplier for the difference between Tiny and Gigantic. The size multiplier is working properly.
| Seriously, though, my impression is the score imbalance seems more like a lack of will to make a firm stand on difficulty rather than only a flawed model or bugs. |
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I doubt it. If lack of will was the issue, there wouldn't be any need for Frogboy to tweak the difficulty scoring in Beta3. There wasn't any pressing reason for him to do that. Nobody was trying to wreck the Metaverse by submitting a stream of Calkwalk Gigantics. 
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| It sounds like you could do a Cakewalk tiny/rare in however much time it takes to research Impulse Drive and get those transports out, along with maybe a token star fighter or two. A couple minutes at most. |
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When I played my first two Galciv games (simple and beginner), I was rather shocked to find the AI planets defenseless when my invading fleets arrived. I think I was too used to Civ and Moo games where the cities/planets get defended quickly even at lower difficulties (IIRC).
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| But, at a skill level like Ray has, then maybe crippling or maso would be more fun. |
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Actually Rick, I don't find either levels to be very fun. Crippling is too easy and Maso is too hard. That's the reason why I requested for an intermediate level some time back.
I oscillate between Crippling and Maso nowadays, switching levels when I get sick of one. I think once I finish my next Maso game, I will switch back to Crippling and maybe try to play it differently.
BTW, anyone like to share their favourite starting picks? I'm very boring in terms of picks and would like recommendations from you.
I usually take speed, diplomacy, morale and PQ.
Tried research recently but it doesn't seem to be worthwhile.
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Dug out this old post.
#21 by Avatar Frogboy - 6/6/2003 10:38:43 PM
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. |
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Frogboy's first point does seem to indicate that he wanted a bigger difference in scoring between difficulties.
He indicated a desire for a 5x difference between Maso and Normal. I would guess that the difference between Maso and Calkwalk should be around 25x if difference between Normal and Calkwalk is about 5x as well. So Calkwalk Gigantic should score ~ 600 points if Maso Gigantic is ~ 15,000.
If I get 25k for Maso Gigantic now, I should get 1k for Calkwalk Gigantic just like I thought it should be.
I'm not certain if we will ever see this scoring nirvana but I'm still hoping. 
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Actually the multiplier is fine. The problem with scoring is in the multiplicand. You cannot do certain things in maso that you can at other levels resulting in a smaller multiplicand and thus, smaller scores at those levels than expected.
How did this come about?
1. The original pop nerf
2. The secondary pop nerf
3. The rearrangement of victory conditions.
All 3 things lobied for hard by the maso players, Be careful what you wish for.
  
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There was only one Maso player who lobbied hard for scoring changes and that was Staffa. KseAli also spoke out strongly for better scoring but he played Crippling predominately.
Both of them made valuable contributions to scoring IMO. With the pop nerfs, players are no longer able to get big increases in score just by pressing the enter key for more pop. I thought that was a great change which did not merely benefit Maso players.
The rearrangement of victory conditions was not a result of lobbying. Frogboy himself felt that tech victories scored too well relative to the ease in achieving that victory. Personally, I feel there shouldn't be any discrimination between conditions (except that the cultural victory trigger should be increased) as once critical mass is achieved in the mid-game, the way to victory is simply the player's choice.
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We welcome Spuzmax to the Fellowship.
Do drop by and say hi.
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Just thought you'd all like to hear this sad tale:
Theoden was leading the Fellowship of the Ring Empire (formerly the Terran Alliance) and had become the most powerful empire in the galaxy. But the Altarians had gained the artifact which made them more and more powerful, which caused alarm in the Fellowship halls. Quick as a whistle, Theoden summoned the leaders of the other empires to his keep. After a bit of diplomacy, every empire declared war on the treacherous Altarians! Theoden then sat back to watch the AI empires slug it out. As he hit the "Turn" button and chuckled an evil little laugh, the horror of horrors happened. The electricity went out!! Theoden cried "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" but it was too late. Theoden's wife laughed evilly as she knew the tragedy that hit him. 
Theoden vowed that tonight, the Altarians would burn...
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Seems like the monsoon is doing some real damage over there, Theoden. 
I have a sad tale to report too. Gave up on my Maso/Gigantic/Abundant game. My speedy frigates could overfly the Torian Dreads but each of their super strong battle axes defending their planets could take out 2-3 of my precious frigates! 
Well too bad for me. I'll be starting up another game.
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Sorry to hear about the game, Ray. That's gotta be a lot of work down the drain!
Yes, the weather pattern above Western Virginia seems to be straight out of the Amazon! We've gotten unbelievable amounts of rainfall in the past several days and there have been some flash flooding problems. My driveway has almost completely washed away!
Never fear, though...the Altarians won't get away that easily!
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Yeah, spent quite a bit of time on that but it's a good experience for me. Wouldn't be playing that setting again in a hurry.
The Europeans under their heatwave might appreciate some of that rain. Seems like crazy weather all round.
Well, Cotal seems to be charging up the ladder. Tremendous workrate. Have you given up on Maso, Cotal?
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Does it make me a bad person that I like keeping around the "Challenging" level? I tried playing a Painful and got my arse handed to me. It just isn't fun when you watch every battleship you build get reduced to subatomic particles before it even gets a couple of parsecs away from base.
I've also found a new found fondness for dismantling the Yor and rebuilding them as Coke machines. Those hateful...$%&!*@...censored for mature content...#&^@#!**@! Sorry...I just find it disturbing that every three turns they demanded 5000bc tribute and then went to war with me.
It's unreal how warlike the AI is at Painful...I can't even imagine how Maso is...it must be a constant war! 
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Don't worry about it, Theoden. Most players on the Metaverse play between Normal and Crippling. There are a couple who enjoy playing at levels below Normal and there are a handful demented ones like myself who tortue ourselves at Maso.
Find a level where you have the most fun and play that.
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| Not what you might expect |
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I got the same sort of result on a couple of smalls - about 30 points difference between levels...
Alex
    
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Thanks, guys...I was starting to feel like the weakling around here because of my difficulty level! I just want to have fun playing the game, but if I get creamed every time I play, I think it would get old fast. I'm pretty satisfied with Challenging now, but I can see moving up to Tough soon. Don't think I'll be doing any Cakewalk or Beginner games anymore, though. That's just mass genocide for the other empires.
I think if they don't make a scoring change they should at least implement another medal to give to players with 5 or more Maso wins (and maybe one for Crippling as well). I mean there needs to be some recognition for the guys who are completely insane!
Still, my hatred for the Yor will continue on. I don't know if that's normal or not, but they were just complete asses in that Painful game...
Maybe I'll make them into bowling lanes...that way I can roll bowling balls at their faces all day long! Or maybe mechanized toilets so I can crap on the all the time. Perhaps I could even transform them into Rotor Rooter trucks (the septic tank vacuums). 
Oh, well...enough of the Yor. Gonna go home and put several large holes in a couple of Yor planets tonight. 
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