To me, their are a few core problems with playing metaverse games. Those being :
1) you need lots of planets to get higher scores.
2) number of AI players isn't a factor in score.
3) higher tech speed enhances score
4) dragging a game out enhances score
5) playing good ethically is detrimental to score
6) conquest victory is key for score
7) anomolies are rediculously important.
This drives anyone interested in meta scores to play a limited variation of universes, and overall a less fun game. (at least it gets old after a few games)
The simple fact is, larger games are not as fun. The AIs play better on smaller maps, and fast tech just seems dumb to me.
What I'm suggesting is some sort of alternate metaverse mode, that changes monthly. Essentially when you start a game in this mode, the universe settings and which AIs are fixed. You can tweak your race, and thats it. (maybe even force which race you play)
On top of that, scoring would be different. Rather than accumilate points, simply do score based off turns to win along with the victory condition. To avoid a given round being an easy scoring round, limit submissions to 3-4 for a given round.
Lastly the score would only count if you had stayed within the games constraints. (be good for example, or win an alliance victory with the humans)
The alternate meta helps, the team meta helps, but something like this that's actually baked into the game would go very far in keeping me playing. Thoughts?
