How are people getting 11,000 point (or more) game scores ?

Mysteries of scoring revealed:Here is how the system generally works now:

Difficulty Level:
The base score is based on the intelligence of the various computer players. This makes up the vast majority of the score. There is a slight bonus for playing as the opposite alignment as most of the players for most of the game. It looks at each turn and then looks at how much you are different each turn. But it's a relatively small adustment.

Galaxy Size:
There is a moderate adjustment based on galaxy size. But not much. Gigantic galaxy vs. tiny will be about a 3 to 1 difference in scores if all variables are the same.

Population:
Population is looked at but its value decreases as the game progresses. It is Population P / Turns N ^2. You're actually better off having a pretty good population earlier than having a huge population later and sitting on it. You're not penalized for having long games though, you simply don't get additional points at a certain point. That said, population is a relatively minor part of the scoring. It also takes into account what percentage of the total galactic population you have that turn. That is, your score is then modified by 100% - your percent of the population. So if you have 90% of the galactic population, you're only going to get 10% of the population score that turn.

Technology:
What percentage of the technology tree you have acheived and how fast you get it are added in. A fairly modest bonus but it's still lookeda t.

Economics, Trade Goods, Wonders, etc.
These other things are looked at and a few points added. They won't make that big of a difference (on a 15,000 point score they may add a few hundred points total).

Victory Condition:
Then the victory condition is looked at. The score is multiplied by it. Conquest = 10. Alliance =9. Culture = 8. Technology Victory = 7 (bear in mind that this is partially made up for by having a higher percent of the tech tree completed bonus).

Notes:
You're best scoring scenario is to win but not win too quickly. The system is designed to appeal to the mass majority of players, not the top 10 players. As a result, we want to create a system that rewards people for playing the game as it was designed to be played. That means your best bang for the buck will be games that are medium in length. You get serious diminishing returns. Sitting on 90% of the galaxy for turn after turn is not going to net you more points. You're not penalized either but you're not rewarded for having a huge population if you've got the game wrapped up. On the other hand, win the game in say year 3 due to some specific strategy won't net very good scores because you haven't had time to build up other parts to get multiplied by.
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So try playing on a bigger map size for starters, Bradley.

Yike! Looking at the above scoring chart it would look like having a large Pop Growth bonus would be a bad thing. I usually go for +70% at start & have much more pop than any AI race & always though that it was a good thing. Looking at the above though, I get much fewer points for my pop as I have a higher % of the Galactic total. Looks like my next game will be played with different racial picks ...

Thanks for your help, I am limited to medium size maps because my computer is a P3-600. Any size larger the game bogs down too much. I will be upgrading soon, but Galciv runs just fine on it now.

I have a P3-667 that works great on everything but late game gigantics. I do have a good graphics card and 704M ram.

Anyway, despite what the stated intention was in the copy of Frogboy's repost above, I think population still has a fairly strong bearing on score.

Why isn't there a score difference for Painful vs. Crippling? (or much of one)

I normally play Medium size galaxies... and my last crippling game scored lower than my regular Painfuls....

I'm sticking with painfuls for awhile, there's more small ship combat.

I agree about "Sitting on 90% of the galaxy for turn after turn is not going to net you more points" but what else can I do?

In my current huge game, I am trying for an Alliance or cultural victory and I cant get it:

It just me, Torians and Altarians. The 3 evil majors and all minors are gone. My morality is 100. The other 2 are Intelligent Good/chaotic good. The Torians and Alterians are allied and I am allied with the Torians. For some reason, I cant get the Altarians past warm or friendly. I tried giving gold or a tech every few turns. Its been 24 months! I am ranked 1 in galaxy. Why wont the Altarians ally?

A cultrual victory is 85% completed and an Alliance is 1 treaty away.

A pure good decision on a random event would probably bring the Altarians around but I guess the random events are scarce in the late game. You can also BN them at the council meetings.

You will doubtless win a cultural victory but it is tedious doing it.

~SDC~

"A pure good decision on a random event" wont get my morality past 100, I tried. Its seen morality cant go below zero or above 100. (I've been at both extremes)

I ignored the Altarians for 6 months and they are netural to me

It look like its gonna be a long boring game for a culture/tech win as I am now a Saint and should not war with the good guys.

Okay If you go for a culture or diplomatic victory one way to get more points at end is to trade for all the starbases you can and also ships. AS the scoring is also based of your military if you get a huge military with lots of starbases then you get a lot more points.

~SDC~

Actually, I still haven't figured out the Military score. It doesn't seem to be based on actual combat because you could get a decent score by playing a peaceful game.

Eldin, are you rather certain that it is based on military standing strength?

I know that Metaverse isn't the first priority for the Devs, but the scores seems screwy.

I can play a Medium size game at Painful without too much trouble. I'd say medium difficulty.
I get 8-11k.

A Crippling game on a medium map is VERY HARD for me.
Eventually I come back and win.

My crippling scores are usually LOWER than my Painful scores. I believe it's cause the AI beats me to trade goods and wonders all the time...

(Do you get points if you buy a trade good)???

I think the crippling games should score alot better, regardless of wonders.

It is all a matter of perspective, Miguel.

Inherently, most of us associate a competition with the perspective that the most skilful player gets to be on top. However, this may not necessarily be the case for the Metaverse. The Metaverse scoring system was designed by Stardock to reward Galcivers for playing the game as it was designed to be played.

So empire building (pop, econ, tech) contributes to the score and is unfortunately disproportionately large in the 1.05.071, thus frequently negating the score bonuses from playing at a harder difficulty level.

As has been pointed out, it is much easier to build a great empire by playing the easier levels.

I don't think that was the intention by Stardock as Brad had described to us a scoring end state where harder difficulty levels would get a distinctly higher score (ie huge difficulty weightage) but the implementated scoring just didn't turn out as planned.

Well I'm glad I don't care that much about the Metaverse scores (hey, I was happy when I broke 25)...

I played some games on painful just 'cause I knew they would score better than crippling.

Crippling is more fun, that's where I stay.

I can't even imagine how you guys play Maso.

I know how the late-blooming Minor Civs feel, when they enter a world completely dominated by others and their doom is just months away - that's me on Maso.

Yeah, Maso is more chore than fun for me most of the time. So I alternating between between Crippling and Maso but not really enjoying either. Like I posted before, I would love an intermediate level.

Agree, Ray. Crippling is too easy late game; Maso is a chore. Would be nice if there was a set of AI advantages which were better than Genius, but less than Incredible (which appears to have been set specifically to counter certain strategies).

~SDC~

I've also experimented with Metaverse scores.

Played a game (Challenging, Huge) till I was 3 turns from a Tech Victory. Saved. Also positioned fleet around Planet of a LAST major civ for a Military Victory. Disable Cultural victory (as would have achieved this long ago).

Attempted Mil victory first - gave 15,000+ scores.

Reload same game and advance 3 turns for Tech victory. In that 3 turns, nothing much change except pop growth, eg. no starbase gain, etc.

Tech Victory score was a paltry 5000+. The difference is way too large, IMHO.

Notice that top players in Metaverse usually win by Mil - I now know why.....

As you can see in earlier post, the official multiplier is techx7, culturalx8, alliancex9 and militaryx10.

But like your experiment showed, the difference seems a whole lot more.

Back to the problem someone was having earlier getting an alliance victory (can someone tell me how to quote previous posts?) the solution is to give them about 6 to 8 star systems in one gift. Sometimes it needs it needs more, but coming from neutral that is pretty much guarenteed to get anyone to close relations (unless they're *way* bigger than you, then it'll take more like 15). Doing it in multiple gifts won't cut it, I've found, because the AI will typically only accept one gift every couple turns (if they say "Ah. More presents. Thank you." then they haven't actually accepted).

You should be able to see a 'Q' icon at the bottom left of each post. Highlight the text then click the button. You should see it appearing in the message area with (quote) and (/quote).
[Message Edited]

So you're saying one LARGE gift is better than several small ones?

In my experience, yes. I've found that giving 2 or 3 star systems sometimes has no effect on relations (although usually it'll bump you up a notch or two), whereas giving 6 - 10 can frequently take you straight to close relations (from neutral). A gift of 15 star systems and about 4 star bases successfully brought me to close relations (from wary) with an AI that was about double my military strength.

I tried techno victory (I whined about this in the EXpack bug thread already). It gave something like 5500+ points. I reloaded, and went for alliance victory. That gave 11000+ points (I noted the score was almost exactly twice the techno score). Based on this I'd say it is x techno, 2x alliance, 3x military, with cultural victory somewhere between techno and alliance.

//sjl


~SDC~

I only win by military conquest-the scores are much higher.

I typically get 10k scores for medium crippling-my favorite map to play. I did a large crip and got 12000.

maso ive won on huge before but it was a nightmare and i did not enjoy it. Will never do maso again i dont think.

Before reading how the game is scored I tried a tech victory on a medium challaging game. I got a score of ~4800+. I then thought I would try a military victory, so I restored to a save at the point I decided to go for the tech victory. I won a relatively fast slopply military campaign (terror stars) against the 2 majors that were left ( I hadn't been planning a military campaign). I got a score of 10650. It took a long time to get the tech victory and it was a pain holding off those 2 majors, so I thought the score should have been higher. I was really supprised at the big difference in the score.

Tech victory has been killed for the metaverse because it used to reap huge points through milking after letting a major spend their miserable life on a class 1 planet you had settled for them. Many of us said there shouldn't be modifiers for type of victory.

About getting allied: Quit trading with your current ally and redirect all trade routes to the remaining civ, wait a bit and make big gifts.