Fair Play

from Stardock Forums
This game has been presented as a competition among players to create the most efficient winning algorithm, and thereby post the highest score. In order for this competition to be fair the playing field should be leveled by making the game mechanics available. Currently a small number of players who understand how certain values are calculated have a tremendous advantage over those of us who do not. I can already hear the cries of the "learn by experience" crowd who post to this site. Many of us have lives and families which preclude spending hundreds of hour learning the rules of a game.

If it were only a few details about ship range and maximum population I would not have posted this thread. What's worse than not knowing the rules of a game is not knowing how the game is scored. The rulebook says the game is scored by "If you won, how did you win?" (pp. 35) Are more points awarded for a military or diplomatic victory? Do you get penalized if allies share in the glory? Which is weighted more heavily, population or time?

If the game designers truly want to know the best a human can do against their AI, or want to present a fair competition, they should allow us to know the rules of the game and the details of scoring.
338 views 9 replies
Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Yup

I cannot get much higher than 500 points in any Large or Huge map game. I always have 200 pop + most of the tech tree done, 1000's of kills, a few 100 losses, the most inflence, 30k in the bank..and still i cannot get a decent score lol

~SDC~
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
I strongly disagree. Giving the details on scoring would encourage all kinds of tactics that don't reflect how the game was designed.

You get a bonus for winning. You get a bonus for playing on larger maps. You get a bonus for playing against harder levels. And you get a bonus for your various accomplishments in the game.

~SDC~
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
I dunno, I got 700 points on a small map. but i had 1.2 trillion people :D

~SDC~
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
It seems fair to me that players with the most time to spend on the game should garner the highest score.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
I play a fair bit :P. But im only wanting simple info really.

Which victory is considered hardest, and scores higher?
Is population a big influence?

etc etc

~SDC~
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
IIRC, the purpose of the metaverse is to find out the strategies the human uses to defeat the AI. Then to try to adapt those same strategies for the AI to use against us in a future update. If players begin to alter their game to achieve some artificial "score", then the goal of improving the AI will be thwarted. Isn't it enough to say that "I beat the game on genius level!" regardless of the "score"?
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Hear hear. Just play the game. Sheesh, if you learn it and get really good at it, like I'm not, then you'll eventually figure out how to get those scores anyway, and have way more fun in the process.

Cheers

~SDC~