Ryan Clifton Ryan Clifton

The Gal Civ formula (and why it needs to be addressed)

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The Gal Civ formula (and why it needs to be addressed)

from Stardock Forums
Preface: I play on intelligent and I've played about 10 - 15 games at this level on huge maps.

I've read a number of threads and talked to some other people who play the game and it appears that a lot of people are coming to the same conclusion: There is a tightly defined formula for winning Gal Civ.

This formula is esentially,
1) expand like crazy
2) research straight to dreadnaught
3) build up military to at least par with the next strongest civ
4) sit back and wait for tech or culture victory

Now of course there's trading, starbases, and economy management in there, but that's basically how everyone seems to be playing. To me, this seems one dimensional. The problem is that even though the game has multiple ways to win (tech, culture, etc), having the strongest military is a pre-requisite to all of the victory conditions.

Additionally, if I can get to dreadnaught without suffering too many losses, my winning is a foregone conclusion. This obviously takes much of the excitement out of the game for me.

There are a few things that I think should be done to fix this:

The computer should request less money, perhaps for longer periods of time, when it's trying to be a bully. Asking me for 1100 bc when I only have 100 is stupid. Doing this would keep all civs (not just humans) out of war more often since they are actually able to pay for peace. This way, if I wanted to play as a peaceful economic power, I could just be paying 100 - 200 bc per turn indefinitely to the dregnin to keep them off my back (obviously they would eventually need to detect that I'm becoming a threat and attack.. but just not as quickly as they currently do).

My second item I believe is being addressed, but it's so bad right now I think it deserves more attention. The computer (all of them) is horrible at starbase management. Computer starbases built off of resources are invariably never upgraded and those built on resources often are only 1/3 to 1/2 upgraded. If the computer was better at managing starbases, perhaps the period after acquiring dreadnaught tech wouldn't be quite so easy (the premise is that while I'm building up SBs all over the galaxy and extending my power, the computer is not).

This last one seems trivial, but it does make a big difference. I ALWAYS have at least one survey ship cruising the universe picking up anomalies. I have never seen a computer do this past the first year or two. Presumably they commit their survey ships to battle at their first opportunity. After a few hundred turns, all of those +1% bonuses add up.
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Reply #51 from Stardock Forums Top
I do tend to have tech. or cultural wins lately, but I rarely stay up with the AI in military. Infact I have had successful games without much of a military at all. Trade and negotiating are also strong elements in this game which add to the formula.
Reply #52 from Stardock Forums Top
surther, did you get these wins without a big military while having early contact with the ai? Particularly bullies like Drengins or Arceans? I'm interested if this can be done. I haven't seen a lot of this behavior reported.
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #53 from Stardock Forums Top
For anyone who states that the games of galciv start playing out the same: If you were playing against 5 human opponents (rather than A.I.) do you think you could eliminate the emphasis on military? Do you think skilled human opponents would opt out of building a strong miliary, knowing in advance that all the other players ultimate goal was to win the game? Sure one or two of them may choose a peaceful strategy, but someone would most certainly opt to build a strong military in hopes of conquest, thereby forcing others to build a military force for deterrence.

IMO, playing against the A.I. actually allows for greater variety, in that you can turn on/off victory conditions, set the alignment and skill of opponents and so forth.
Reply #54 from Stardock Forums Top
I disagree in the respect that the AI tactics despite what you do to alignments or difficulty, still follows the same general tac with respect to research strategy, military strategy, extortion, etc. The one area that gets affected is the economic bonuses/penalties and military agressiveness.

As I've stated, the AI is far too easy to read in my opinion. If you want to give an AI fits, blockade a resource or planet they're targeting and watch the AI just cluster around that resource, literally throwing everything have there in that one spot. I disagree with the idea that you can no longer blockade things. Blockades can be set up in real life. You have two choices: run the blockade and trigger a war, or find another area to go to.

You can also exploit the Alliance/War scenario to your advantage. Say you're militarily superior to both the Altarians and Torians and further that they're allied. Further, lets say that I declare war on the Torians. While i'm busy pounding them into the ground, the Altarians declare war. Since they are inferior military wise, I can sue for peace and extort technologies, trade goods, etc over and over and over again. This seems a little wrong in my opinion.

AI predictability number 2, say both the AI and I are racing for the same resource and I get their first. I harvest the resource while the AI constructor is 3 sectors away. For some inexplicable reason, the AI will keep the constructor on course until it finally dawns on it that hey, I have the resource.

AIs dont culture bomb with starbases, nor do they react to culture bombing so long as you do so just outside of sectors where they have planets.

It's well known that they almost never part with weapons techs in trades that are initiated by the player.

These behaviors apply to all 5 empires even though I noticed that the Yor Collective is usually the most in-ept empire out of the bunch (they are always getting their circuits handed to them)

So no...there is no AI variety, and I certainly cannot perceive a difference in how they play other than the alignments seem to define who allies with who and what "alignment specific" techs they can research.
Reply #56 from Stardock Forums Top
Frogboy: "Just how many more do you want assigned to stuff to deal with the metaverse scoring stuff?"

1 minute to throw the entire no-good formula out, 2-3 hours to create a *REALLY SIMPLE, TRANSPARENT* replacement for those who want the scoring both fair and competitive. ;)
Reply #57 from Stardock Forums Top
Hmmmm... Takes a strong military to be successful and win? Seems like the real world to me.

Remove the military power aspect of this game and I won't play it (I know this has Frogboy shakin' in his boots! ha-ha! )

Someone one earlier said this is a 4x game...ditto!

As far as the Metaverse and/or scoring: whatever is changed will become an advantage or disadvantage to someone. You will not be able to please everbody. (:(

I'd rather listen to how everone is telling me they are racking up all those medals.

'Nuff said.
Reply #58 from Stardock Forums Top
I agree that playing against strong humans would also require a strong military, but this is a limitation of the game. Take a look at the real world; there are alot (say 150 out of 190 UN nations) of little countries who exist in peace despite having a military that would rate as about 3 compared to the US, and not much higher compared to their neighbors. Alot of these countries are a stones throw from a much larger more powerful country but don't seem to be paying a huge tribute to keep their neighbor from invading (cough*Canada/US*cough), and even defy them on matters important to the more powerful country.

No one is saying remove the military option, but give some other options as well. Galciv's strength is supposed to be its wealth of options; the algorithm to win militarily is easy to find and duplicate add naseum...



Reply #59 from Stardock Forums Top
For me, the military option in this game leads usually to a cultural victory. I've won a game or two militarily just to see what it feels like. Gal Civ is great that if you don't want a military victory, just turn the option off at the beginning of the game. However, this is a very ignorant statement on my part because since I've not done it, I'm not sure how the AI responds in these situations. If anyone's done it, maybe they could respond. Maybe no one turns off the military option....a vote for my viewpoint.

Canada and the US are not a good example but how about Kuwait/US v. Iraq, Taiwan/US v. China, Afghan v. USSR, Japan v. China (WWII) and a whole sh*tload of history?

Peace. :)
Reply #60 from Stardock Forums Top
Just how many more do you want assigned to stuff to deal with the metaverse scoring stuff?

Like Coffeedragon, I want this current assinine, decaying, normalized to gigantic sized maps formula(s) tossed out the window. I want to see it replaced with a butt simple, anybody can look at any given game and understand what sort of score it should get type system. Then I want you to actually recalculate all the scores like you said you were going to do and then never touch the formula again unless it's to introduce some of them hard coded caps you hate so much.

I don't fixate on the metaverse, but I do like it, and more importantly, I want it to make sense. Right now, it does not make sense at all.
Reply #61 from Stardock Forums Top
I don't care one lick about the Metaverse, but if the future of GalCiv's AI is based on the highest scoring games submitted to the metaverse, it is reasonable to say that the nature of that future AI will be directly dependent on the scoring algorithm of the current Metaverse.

Spend your time analyzing the submissions (not just the top scores), not working on the Metaverse scoring.

And think about how to make the tech tree as different each game as the map is now. That will prevent the rush to Dreads and increase the sense of discovery in each game.
Reply #62 from Stardock Forums Top
Quote "Alot of these countries are a stones throw from a much larger more powerful country but don't seem to be paying a huge tribute to keep their neighbor from invading (cough*Canada/US*cough), and even defy them on matters important to the more powerful country."

This is not a fair comparison because it is not the stated objective of the powerful countries to "win the world" as it is in GalCiv. If a country like North Korea decides to close itself off economically and culturally, no one is going to interfere with them as long as they obey international law don't pose a threat. If they do (see Iraq) then the situation may vary somewhat . :SURPRISED:

However, in GalCiv, to win the game you will eventually have to deal with every empire either militarily, economically, or culturally to bring them into your fold, no matter how peaceful and loving they are. I guess a tech win is the only exception, but I've never done that.

A "real world" example of how to win the game would be to reach a sort of stable "Galactic Utopia" at which point all empires have near perfect relations, are all high in moral, making plenty of money, etc. at which point all remaining players would basically have won. If this were a possible victory condition, it would change play dramatically since now we could attempt a kind of "Nash's Equilibrium".
Reply #64 from Stardock Forums Top
I agree for the most part LifeWish, but I like the idea of going for a Game Theory victory in a game ;). This is a standalone game, so I'd say an option that "would change play dramatically" is a good thing, in that it is an addition that allows a wider range of strategies, giving more depth to the game. The military option would still be there; those who like to play it solely that way would not be affected.
Reply #65 from Stardock Forums Top
Love the calls for a 'simple but fair' scoring system. Please, by all means, post your version of that. I can guarantee you that you can't do any such thing. Any scoring system has to give weight to certain aspects of the game over others, whoever likes those aspects will be pleased, whoever doesn't won't be and will feel the system is unfair.

The only 'fair' scoring system is one that gives exactly the same score to anyone who wins the game regardless of how they win it or in what state they are when they win. And such a system, while totally fair, is also completely pointless.

Once you move away from a flat scoring system mentioned above you are going to have inequities: certain social picks will be better, certain map sizes will be better, and certain styles of play will be better. Which means that once you have any kind of non-flat scoring system in GalCiv you'll have exactly what we have now: certain picks and certain galaxy sizes when played a certain way lead to the best scores. The only thing you can change are the details.
Reply #66 from Stardock Forums Top
The scoring formula should *only* measure player efficiency at winning. Irrelevant in-game statistics should have no part in it all. That´s the basic mistake made.

Perhaps it is not entirely clear what I am driving at. So I will devise a scoring formula of my own, as my personal contribution to Galciv, though the chance of Stardock adopting it probably = snowball in hell. ;p
Reply #67 from Stardock Forums Top
You've chosen to give weight to 'efficiency', and to give no weight to other aspects, that's not fair it's just what -you- prefer. Players who prefer those other aspects and don't care about 'efficiency' (I keep putting that in quotes because I'm not positive of your definition) will do horrible in your system and will consider it unfair.
Reply #68 from Stardock Forums Top
I know that efficiency needs to be defined. (And I told you already I would do that.)

And, no, it´s *not* subjective. Score should measure if you are good at winning, not more, not less. What could be more fair?

Anyways, my alternative scoring system is here:
http://www.galciv.com/forum.asp?BID=GF&id=62206#62206
Reply #69 from Stardock Forums Top
Any time you choose to value one thing over another that's subjective, by definition. You think your system is fair because everyone always thinks anything that emphasizes what they value is fair. ;)
Reply #71 from Stardock Forums Top
Still think an in game Hall of Fame systewm would be nice. I love all you guys but I dont really give a rats ass what your scores are, or how much better they are than mine, or Joe Blow's. For those that like to see how they stack up against others, thats great. Fix the system so the scoring is fair. (not that I know anything about it as I dont use it; just my 2 cents based on posts I've read.) However, let us guys (and gals?) who just want to beat OUR OWN best scores have a Hall of Fame. A few other games (gee, can anyone think of em offhand) had this system.
And before I go to feed Bobo...how aboout color coded ships. Terran Blue, Dregs all red etc etc.
Cheers.
Reply #72 from Stardock Forums Top
"Nash's Equilibrium"??????????Can you elaborate?
End of quote


Here goes...
Nash's equilibrium is named for the Nobel prize winning mathematician John Nash who came up with it. (perhaps you saw the movie "A Beautiful Mind" which is all about him).

The Nash Equilibrium shows how selfish competitors should act in relation to those whom they compete against. It deals with individual needs and desires in a group context and must take into account likely human behavior.

Example: Four starving people are in the forest where they might catch a rabbit or a deer. A deer is the better catch but one may be caught only if the four work together. If three go out and catch rabbits, the chance for a deer to be caught is lost. The fourth must forget venison and content himself with rabbit. This is a Nash Equilibrium because each person does his selfish best given what the others do and because no one has an incentive to switch hunting strategies. Thus, order arises from competitive struggle.

In a slightly altered scenario, three of the group want to catch a deer. The fourth must decide if he wants to just catch his rabbit and spoil the dreams of venison for the others or join them in the hunt for the deer and participate in the feast that will follow. It's in the fourth's selfish interest, then to join the others in the hunt for the deer. This is also a Nash Equilibrium because each person pursues his own interest and does the best he can.

In other words, some kind of ordered balance is reached, but not through a spirit of cooperation, but because it just works out that way based on each persons selfish motives, and their understanding of the other competitors selfish motives.
Reply #73 from Stardock Forums Top
As I've stated, the AI is far too easy to read in my opinion. If you want to give an AI fits, blockade a resource or planet they're targeting and watch the AI just cluster around that resource, literally throwing everything have there in that one spot. I disagree with the idea that you can no longer blockade things. Blockades can be set up in real life. You have two choices: run the blockade and trigger a war, or find another area to go to.
End of quote


On the surface of a planet, where you're working primarily in two dimentions, yes, you can blockade things, but even real world examples usually aren't too effective.

In space, where you have to run in three dimentions, you can't blockade an area much larger than a single planet with anything short of your enitre navy, and even in that situation, given what was noted above in two dimensions, I'd wager that it wouldn't be too difficult to run the blockade, and do it unnoticably.

~SDC~
Reply #74 from Stardock Forums Top
I want to change slightly what I said earlier: I think the problem exists mostly with smaller maps.
By this I mean, I managed to get a peaceful victory on Gigantic masochistic on fourth try, using trade as a deterrant instead of ships. On tiny map, I can't do it (I managed to win only twice in maybe 20+ starts, which is less than one in ten vs. 1 in 4). I think the winning strats are more limited on tiny maps, and more tactical decisions need be made, but I may just not be skilled enough to find them out.
Reply #75 from Stardock Forums Top
I just had a little comment...
PAR with 2nd strongest's military? Nahhh... I can make it with lot less military, as long as they are occupied somewhere ;)