I've only had time to play one game, but one thing that ALWAYS bugged me in previous games was how the game was scored. By the time I found CivFanatics that had already been fixed so generally speaking the earlier one finished the higher the score for C3C via Jason scoring. I thought they might address this in the new game.

However, playing C4 I started check my 'score if you win this turn' and it kept going up! [pissed] :gripe: I've always thought it took far more skill to finish fast.

I was happy that one now gets points for population, land, technology and wonders. Kinda :cool: , makes everything worthwhile. I did a domination victory (boy can you get poor when you expand to fast) and got lots of points for population and technology (I finished with a few tanks on the board), but not nearly as much for land (even though I made the domination limit) or wonders (really didn't build too many).

1) Does anyone know the technical details of how score is calculated?
2) Is there going to be some way to address early on the 'high score gotten by playing to last turn' problem.


No worries. I just love this game. Thanks to all those such as Sullla who's write-ups made my first game more fun and even easy. Sidenote: I can finally really play multiplayer with my wife and kids since each player can be set to a different level! Haven't done it yet, but did a pre-game setup, so hope that function works well.

Have a look at this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=135163) in the Hall Of Fame forum - some of the details are posted there.

Basically I think we need a lot more playing experience to see how the current system performs, but initially we will be using the in-built system. When the SDK is released, we may modify it.

Personally I only care about fastest finishes per victory type. The scoring system is perfectly simple for those. Get the earliest victory date and you win.

I'm a little dispapointed by the CIV4 scoring system.
I'm not a warmonger, I prefer milking my games or the cultural aspect.


Here as the fact.
I've played 2 games at Noble.
1- the firs game, I played Germans and achieved a cultural victory around 1970AD. My score was around 11.000. I've played on a standard map with 7 civs.
2- I've played romas and achieve a conquest victory around 950AD. My score was around 29.000. I've played on a tiny map with only 1 another civilization!!!!!!

It's not fair for me. In my first game, I research a lot of the technologies. I founded all the religious except one!!! I construct almost all the wonders!!!!
In my second game, I even not discovered pottery!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What do you think?

LeSphinx

The fastest win per victory type is the only objective measure. But not everyone wants to play for that, at least not all the time.
Personally, I'm only interested in reading good game stories nowadays, and comparing strategies. Paying too much attention to scoring typically leads to monotonous repeats of exploits of design weaknesses, and I've seen too much of that in Civ2 and Civ3 competitions.

So, can there be an award for the best write-up? :)

How's this for an idea: Have seperate score tables for each victory type. Give Gold/Silver/Bronze in each for highest score, and a fastest finish award. Then you could also have a "Master" score table with Gold/Silver/Bronze for top 3 highest scores overall, and another award for fastest finish overall. Then one could have two goals in mind: Collect medals in each category and/or collect speed awards in each category. Global awards would just be "bonuses".

You could also have "major" awards for people collecting one of each gold medal or one of each fastest finish award, and a big one for collecting all of them. Note that it's possible to collect multiple awards at once - if someone has a fastest finish and the highest score globally, they'd end up with 4 awards - Victory Gold, Victory Speed, Global Gold, Global Speed. Anyone going for a "grand" award would have to find the balancing point between milking and fastest finish, although for the military victories this seems to be entirely on the fast finish side.

So, can there be an award for the best write-up?

Another idea here: Have "Great Person" awards in various categories. This probably wouldn't be implementable immediately, but maybe they could be related to a QSC in some way - a Great Scientist award would go to whomever has the most techs/invested beakers at the end of the period, and a Great Artist award to the person with the most Culture. Something subjective like "best write-up" would probably be more difficult as you'd either need to find someone to "Judge" the write-ups or have open voting on them, both of which can be problematic.

Voting would work (best write-up), and I think that'd be great fun. Just ask for nominations a couple of days after the close of the game, and stick all of the nominated posts in a poll a day after that. Winner is chosen by whoever gets the most votes by the time the game results are released.

Voting. Eek. That seems even worse than scoring. I never really care about score, just playing a fun game.

What I don't really want to do is politicize the whole thing. As soon as you go to voting you'll have people whining about why they should have been chosen.

At least with the numbers we can say. That's the scoring system, live with it.

I like the "Great People" award ideas. Great Engineer could be the one with the most world wonders?

"Great People" awards would be "milking" awards. The dominant strategy to win them is a fast almost-conquest followed by hundreds of turns improving the economy. The most dedicated milker would probably win them all.

I hate civ3-style milking.

I doubt there will be much milking in the MOTM. Too many of us are still experimenting with the setup.

Xerol's idea is the best so far - having separate tables for each victory type. it's clear those going for the military victories would be better competing against like minded people, while those going for culture, diplomatic or space ship should equally be categorised amongst themselves. Then, as he says, for inter-group comparisons you can have a Master table. The one with the most medals (gold if there's silver and bronze too) wins! Simple and fair.

As far as I can see, that's the only true fair way to do it.

Voting would work (best write-up), and I think that'd be great fun. Just ask for nominations a couple of days after the close of the game, and stick all of the nominated posts in a poll a day after that. Winner is chosen by whoever gets the most votes by the time the game results are released.
Voting. Eek. That seems even worse than scoring. I never really care about score, just playing a fun game.

What I don't really want to do is politicize the whole thing. As soon as you go to voting you'll have people whining about why they should have been chosen.

At least with the numbers we can say. That's the scoring system, live with it.
With a voting system, you run the risk that it will eventually erode into nothing more than a beauty contest of the nominees, rather than a true vote on the merits of the story. However, a write-up is something that is very subjective and not easy to score objectively. Personally, I think that if you are going to have a voting system, then the folks should be voting on a panel of judges. These judges would then vote amongst themselves for the best story.

The judges should also post the reasons they voted the way they did. A public voting record becomes a background for deciding if a person wants to vote for this judge in future panels.

The big problem with this idea, though, is that you lose consistency from panel to panel. What might be a first place story to panel A is only honorable mention to panel B.

Anyway, just my thoughts ...

The praise you receive in the thread (and in PMs) for writing a good story is reward enough for that, IMO. Voting is a popularity contest.

Score is kind of meaningless, doesn't really represent what happened in your game, just a measurement of some arbitrary figures and stats. I agree that the stories and writeups are where the action really is, but measuring that is of course just about impossible.

I hate the idea that you get higher scores by winning faster. That really is a disincentive to play longer...except the enjoyment of the game is supposed to be in playing it. So they've invented a scoring system that penalizes you from spending more time enjoying the game. Terrific, brilliant, genius!

--Julian

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. You're saying that people shouldn't try to be skilled at the game? That's what early victory is. If you assure yourself of victory in 1200AD, why would you keep playing until 2000AD? The game's already won. There's no challenge left. What is the fun in that? I'd rather start a new game than continue playing that one. But the scoring system should make me play longer just to get a higher score? Sorry, I think the scoring system is terribly flawed, but suggesting that you don't score higher with an earlier victory would be silly. That's the one biggest measure of skill, which is what score is supposed to indicate.

Ideally, we would have a scoring system that doesn't penalize longer games, and doesn't reward you for playing past a winning position.

Designing such a scoring system will be quite a challenge.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. You're saying that people shouldn't try to be skilled at the game?

No, just that the game shouldn't be designed in such a way that the ideal situation is to play for as short a time as possible. Civilization is a game that notoriously takes a long time to play, it is epic in scope, etc. And yet if you can conquer the world by 100AD, you're rewarded. Well it might take you a lot of playing time to do that maybe, but in a significant sense doing that cuts the game short.

I think what DaveMcW says is a good point. Don't penalize longer games, but don't play past an optimum point.

--Julian

No, just that the game shouldn't be designed in such a way that the ideal situation is to play for as short a time as possible. Civilization is a game that notoriously takes a long time to play, it is epic in scope, etc. And yet if you can conquer the world by 100AD, you're rewarded. Well it might take you a lot of playing time to do that maybe, but in a significant sense doing that cuts the game short.

I think what DaveMcW says is a good point. Don't penalize longer games, but don't play past an optimum point.

--Julian

It takes a lot of skill to launch a spaceship, achieve cultural victory, win by diplomatic victory early on. Even conquering the world fast is difficult. This should be rewarded greatly.

Launching your spaceship on 1950 should give more points than launching in 2045. Of course in 2045 you have more points through more population, tech, cities, etc. It would be silly if you had to wait with launching for 100 years to milk the game...unless you want to - you've won and now have to sit around turn after turn maxing score. You've shown great skill by getting the spaceship ready asap, and should be rewarded.

I do feel milked (long) games should be able to score similar amounts as fast (short) games. Will be a serious challenge to get this equal.

In the past it was done by determining the optimum date per victory condition. If you were sooner you get a bonus and if you were later you get a penalty.

I can't disagree more about "milked" games. I think milking is a disgrace. The person wins the game but decides to continue playing for hours and hours just to improve their score by a few points or to win a medal in a stupid category so they can complete their medal "set". It is not fun to play a game that has already been won. I would suggest people that enjoy that go play a simulation game instead of a strategy game, like simcity or the sims. I think milking should be absolutely discouraged by the scoring system.

You have now entered the Civilization IV era!

That's exactly right. One where milking isn't a "strategy" anymore.

The beauty and broad-based appeal of the CIV franchise is that there's something for everyone.

It's hard to say that my orange is "better" than your apple! :)

I think what I'm trying to get at is that it shouldn't be possible to win so early. It's really not a scoring issue, it's a play balance issue. The fun of the game is in playing through the history of your civilization. A game design that lets you actually complete all of that by, say 100AD, is unbalanced IMHO. It just shouldn't be possible (well, maybe on lower difficulty levels, but not if you're playing a difficulty level that is commensurate with your skill level).

The scoring is a symptom of the underlying issue. Reaping huge scoring benefits that way is almost like taking advantage of a flaw in the game, though again, this is of course largely dependant on the difficulty level -- it obviously can't be considered a flaw if a really good player cleans up on Chieftan by 100AD.

--Julian

...A game design that lets you actually complete all of that by, say 100AD, is unbalanced IMHO.....Are people winning ANY games at the highest Civ 4 level already?...........Let alone winning by 100AD! ;)

In Civ 3, to win by 100AD on Sid Level required a lot of luck with the start position (viz. MapFinder) and a lot of skill!.........close to impossible with a "random" map, "random" terrain and "random" opponents! :)

You want to make everybody go through the Tech Tree entirely before they win..........is that your point?.......or not be able to win before say 1700AD? :confused:

I think what I'm trying to get at is that it shouldn't be possible to win so early. It's really not a scoring issue, it's a play balance issue. The fun of the game is in playing through the history of your civilization. A game design that lets you actually complete all of that by, say 100AD, is unbalanced IMHO. It just shouldn't be possible (well, maybe on lower difficulty levels, but not if you're playing a difficulty level that is commensurate with your skill level).


A few comments:
-the point of the game is not to play through history, the point is to rewrite history. Each player will have it's own priorities. There is no one way to play this game, some people like short aggressive games and some like long builder games. A huge empire winning later should score similar to a small empire winning early.
-In civ IV you're lucky to have a couple of cities by 100 AD let alone win. If a player can take over the world, build a space ship, etc I will have the utmost respect for this player. Even on Settler ;-) I havent seen any signs of the inbalance you are talking about.


The scoring is a symptom of the underlying issue. Reaping huge scoring benefits that way is almost like taking advantage of a flaw in the game, though again, this is of course largely dependant on the difficulty level -- it obviously can't be considered a flaw if a really good player cleans up on Chieftan by 100AD.


I do feel difficulty level should be reflected in the scores. Lower levels should score less for the same accomplishments. I am sure the CFC gang will come up with a fair score system, if Firaxis doesnt fix it first.

GOTM is a competition. In order to run a competition we need a way to decide who played best, who was second best etc. That requires a scoring system.

The scoring system we use for the GOTM will drive the way competitors have to play the games in order to win awards. If competitors don't like the style of play that's enforced by the scoring system then they will vote with their feet and we'll have a less representative event.

One of our objectives has to be to maximise the number and quality of GOTM competitors, so an unpopular scoring system would be counter-productive. To be popular it has to be fair and objective, and it has to promote playing styles and standards that are enjoyable for a wide spectrum of players, so we shall obviously watch and learn as the Civ4 competition evolves.

As well as awarding the medals for highest scoring games, we currently give awards for fastest (and lowest scoring) finishes in each victory condition. And we give special Eptathlon awards to players who win fastest finish awards for all victory conditions over time. So if the scoring system doesn't feel right for you - and I guarantee one size won't fit everyone - then you have alternative targets.

We also aggregate score performance over time to provide a rolling table of player rankings. In order for this to make sense the scores for different games have to be comparable. So we have to take things like difficulty level, map structure and victory condition into account and normalise the scoring across games. If Firaxis don't do this already then we'll have to calculate a modified score that does. The Jason system attempts to do this for Civ3. It's possible that we'll have more control over the scoring algorithm in Civ4. It'll be interesting to see whether we are able to use these powers for good.

Visit our Civ3 awards tables (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/pantheon/index.php), and the global ranking table (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/rankings/global.php) if you are not familiar with the rewards and generous prizes we hand out currently, and please feel free to suggest additional or alternative ways to motivate players.

As well as awarding the medals for highest scoring games, we currently give awards for fastest (and slowest) finishes in each victory condition.
I thought the shields were just for lowest scoring victory, not for latest victory.

Yes, you're quite right. :( Corrected.

The key to a good scoring system is that it doesn't force competitors to play the game the same way over and over again. In IIIOTM one was forced to play to the domination limit no matter the victory condition in order to score high. We should do better this time.

What if there are scoring bonuses - special targets to achieve - that differ strongly from month to month?

The key to a good scroing system is that it doesn't force competitors to play the game the same way over and over again.

Yeah, I think that's what I'm getting at.

--Julian

GOTM is a competition.

It's important to remember that it's only secondarily a competition. It's primarily a social activity (an opportunity for players who play a game that normally doesn't involve any interaction with other people, to interact with others by posting about their games and reading what others write). And it's secondarily a test of skill, but that still doesn't imply competition: players can try to do as well as they can without caring very much about their relative standing with respect to others. The competitive aspect of whether one player does better or worse than another does exist, but it's far down the list of things that GOTM is about.

I don't agree with Ribannah about everything, but I do agree that Civ3 GOTM eventually became fairly boring because the "best" strategy in every game was really the same. It's not yet clear whether that will be true in Civ4: so far, it seems to me that the purely military approach to the game is a lot less effective than in Civ3, but, we have limited experience, and time may yet prove that judgment wrong.

And while I don't personally enjoy "milking", either, I can't agree with Shillen that it's somehow against the spirit of the game. Indeed it would make more sense to me to say that the whole point of a game called "Civilization" is to fully develop a civilization, and that the game shouldn't end just because the other civilizations have been conquered. Not to mention that I think most people would probably agree that it shouldn't really be possible to conquer the whole world in 100 AD---that just doesn't make sense thematically. So if Civ4 succeeds in preventing that, then great, and if it doesn't, then I think it makes perfect sense to have GOTM scoring methods that at least don't excessively reward it.

It's important to remember that it's only secondarily a competition. ...The competitive aspect of whether one player does better or worse than another does exist, but it's far down the list of things that GOTM is about.Agree 000.00%.....For me, GOTM is PRIMARILY a Competition.....and that's the best part! (I guess there's something for everyone in GOTM.) :mischief:

Tiger Woods doesn't play Majors golf 'cos he needs the money! ;)

Well, it *is* a competition. But a world-class marathon competition can provide stages for fun runners, sponsored charity workers, politicians trying to prove they can still cut the mustard ... Oh, and also for elite athletes who want to compare finish times and to break world records.

The bit of GOTM that involves working out a score is of zero interest to those who use it as a social event. But for those who do want to compare their performance, either to their own previous efforts or to others, the scoring system is important, and it does need to reflect the things that are generally considered effective measures of a well played game. Let's see if Firaxis have managed to create such a system.

FYI, and BTW, the version 1.09 patched scoring system does now take account of difficulty level.

The bit of GOTM that involves working out a score is of zero interest to those who use it as a social event.

That's not true. At the least, it's one more thing to discuss. And a game needs goals, even if players are not fanatical about maximizing their results, or about "competing" with others.

It seems pretty silly, to me, to compare GOTM to a "world-class marathon", but I guess everyone can have a different point of view.

Don't know about marathon or athletes, but I'd like to beat E-man, that's for sure. :lol:

The main question before actually starting to play the game is to understand how the scoring system works in the patch. There is some HOF discussion about it going on.

If may be somebody who is good at reading XML can make a post which lists the score components in a concise form and sticky it here in the GOTM forum ... please. Otherwise, many people are :confused: imho.

OK. You asked for it :eek:

The game calculates your score as follows:

1. A raw score is calculated for each component - land, population, wonders (culture) and technology.

Land scores 1 point per tile
Pop scores 1 point per head
Wonders score variable amounts per building
Techs score increasing points per era from 1 to 7

The raw score components are not accumulated/averaged over the turns as the score is in Civ3. They are a snapshot at any point in the game.

2. The score components have individual "Max" and "Initial" values, and weighting factors:

The Max values are defined for the game, but they are reduced when you win, according to the number of turns you have completed. The win modifier is linear for wonders and a power law for the other components.

The basic Max values are:

Land - the domination limit for the map
Pop - not sure, but might be to do with the amount of food on the map
Wonders - the total wonder points possible - 230 standard
Techs - the total tech points possible - 300 standard

The Initial values are related to the starting situation. If you start with one settler then you are assumed to have 21 land points and 1 pop point in the bag, so these are your normal Initial values. You also get a credit of 18 tech points for an Ancient era start. Later era starts use the tech point values of the prior eras as the Initial tech value.

The Weighting Factors are 5000 for pop, 2000 for techs and land, and 1000 for wonders.

Each score component is normalised to the weighting factor and adjusted to reflect how far up each curve between the Initial and Max values you have climbed.

3. The score components are finally multiplied by a difficulty factor and added together to give your final score. The difficulty factors start at 60% for Settler level and increase by 20% for each higher level.

The real masochists among you may want to look at getScoreComponent() in CvUtil.py for the real low-down on how the victory modifier works on the Max values.

You can see that population has the highest weighting at 5000. So it will come as no surprise that one key to a high score is probably to build your population.

Thanks a lot. :goodjob:

But, it IS complicated. The player has to win as rapidly as possible while accumulating as much population (and land) as possible all at the same time. Techs and wonders do contribute but apparently minimally.

Wonders score variable amounts per building
It appears to be 5 per wonder and national wonder, 0 for projects.

You also get a credit of 18 tech points for an Ancient era start
It is 6 for ancient starts, 18 for classical area starts.

Techs and wonders do contribute but apparently minimally.
techs will start to contribute a bigger share as you get later into game and each tech is worth more points (7 per future tech).. but at this time the victory bonus takes a hit due to being close to end of game, so if you want high scores you need to win early

GOTM is a competition. In order to run a competition we need a way to decide who played best, who was second best etc. That requires a scoring system.

The scoring system we use for the GOTM will drive the way competitors have to play the games in order to win awards. If competitors don't like the style of play that's enforced by the scoring system then they will vote with their feet and we'll have a less representative event.But that is elitist. :eek: Like post counts. :mischief:

There's no official competition on this site related to post counts as far as I know.

Please enlarge on how you suggest we run a competition that doesn't have a scoring system, and doesn't reward the better players.

The scoring system we use for the GOTM will drive the way competitors have to play the games in order to win awards. If competitors don't like the style of play that's enforced by the scoring system then they will vote with their feet and we'll have a less representative event.

This hasn't really happened in the past. In the Civ3 GOTMs, many of the best players tended to just play as they liked and not worry too much about the scoring, at least not in every month.

Please enlarge on how you suggest we run a competition that doesn't have a scoring system, and doesn't reward the better players.We don't keep scores - in fact, we mod it so there are no scores - and give everyone a medal for 'trying really hard'? :mischief:

This hasn't really happened in the past. In the Civ3 GOTMs, many of the best players tended to just play as they liked and not worry too much about the scoring, at least not in every month.
The best players know who they are and know they are the best. The rest of us want to know where we stand relative to them, and whether we are improving. I don't know how to do that except with numbers, but I guess that's my scientific education leaking out.

I think Alan's analogy to the boston marathon is perfect. Just because you personally don't care about the competition aspect of it doesn't mean other people don't.

For me, I'll be going for fastest finishes even if it hurts my score some. I like the dual system so you can go either way. When I started C3C I went for score and then switched to fasest finishes. I just hope the best players are keeping good logs so others can learn.

We don't keep scores - in fact, we mod it so there are no scores - and give everyone a medal for 'trying really hard'? :mischief:If I write you a few verses for the GOTM will you mod my score a little higher, just enough to get me out of the bottom third?

Caesar ruled in the ancient world,
All around his throne the bodies swirled;
The first to fall beneath his blade....

etc. etc. I don't want to spoil the ending for those still playing. :mischief:

As Birdjaguar spoke about log file of the best players in order we can learn a little from them, do we known someting about QSC for c-iv GOTM ?

LeSphinx

We'll try to get something going for a QSC, but not for this game.

What do people think? Compare scores and progress at 1000 BC? 1 AD? Suggestions welcome :)

Compare scores and progress at 1000 BC? 1 AD? Suggestions welcome.
I still think 1000bc is a good cut off. In some cases, less will have happened then CiVIII, but maybe not always! :eek:

1000bc on standard speed is still around the same number of turns (80ish) as CIVIII.

StanNP :cool:

I think Alan's analogy to the boston marathon is perfect.

It's not a perfect, or even good, analogy, because the GOTM is fundamentally incapable of measuring the "best" performance in the way that a marathon does. The marathon is conducted under controlled conditions, where one can be sure that the finisher actually did run the race as claimed, while there are plenty of ways for unscrupulous players to cheat in GOTM. The marathon has prizes and sponsorships for the winners, which enable marathon-running to be a viable career, so the top players can devote themselves to nothing but running the marathon, while Civ players mostly have other things to do in their lives and some people put much more time and effort into GOTM than others. The marathon has an unambiguous goal---cross the finish line in the least amount of time---while different people have different ideas for what constitutes a well-played game, and will often pursue different paths in the same game, each of them successfully on their own terms.

There are a whole lot of people who probably could be "the winner" of any particular GOTM if they really wanted to, and if they put in the time and energy to do nothing else that month but play the game as "perfectly" as possible. But no one takes it that seriously, and I think that's a good thing.

The best players know who they are and know they are the best. The rest of us want to know where we stand relative to them, and whether we are improving. I don't know how to do that except with numbers, but I guess that's my scientific education leaking out.

It's unlikely you have more education than I do (I have a PhD in mathematics), and I see plenty of ways to compare players without comparing numerical scores. In the Civ3 GOTM, it was always far more enlightening to read what other players wrote about their games, and see what they did, than it was to look at who stood where on a sorted list of scores. E.g., the QSC used a rather arbitrary weighting of different factors. Different people played in different ways and therefore ended up with different sorts of positions at 1000BC. Comparing those positions to one another by comparing the actual positions was, to me, far more informative than just by imposing a single arbitrary weighting and then adding up the components of the score for each player. It certainly wasn't always the case that the player with the highest QSC score was the one who seemed to be in the "best" position. Having numerical rankings is interesting and fun, but it's really unwise (in my view) to get obsessed with them.

It's not a perfect, or even good, analogy, because the GOTM is fundamentally incapable of measuring the "best" performance in the way that a marathon does.

Not true. If the scoring guidelines are put in place then it becomes extremely clear what you need to do to "win". Whoever maximizes their score definitely played the best based on that scoring system.

The marathon is conducted under controlled conditions, where one can be sure that the finisher actually did run the race as claimed, while there are plenty of ways for unscrupulous players to cheat in GOTM.

As far as I know there have been histories of cheating in marathons. But I'm not sure what the possibility of cheating has to do with having a scoring system.

The marathon has prizes and sponsorships for the winners, which enable marathon-running to be a viable career, so the top players can devote themselves to nothing but running the marathon, while Civ players mostly have other things to do in their lives and some people put much more time and effort into GOTM than others.

I don't get your point here, either. First of all I don't think many people have running marathons as their career. It's more something they do in their free time, just like civ. Some people spend more time practicing than others, just like civ. Second, many people who run the boston marathon are not doing it to win. There are so many people who run for the fun of it or for charity or a number of other reasons, once again just like civ.

The marathon has an unambiguous goal---cross the finish line in the least amount of time---while different people have different ideas for what constitutes a well-played game, and will often pursue different paths in the same game, each of them successfully on their own terms.

If there's a scoring system then the competetive players trying to win will play towards the scoring system. It's not an ambiguous goal whatsoever. Not to mention the fastest finish victories, which are almost the exact same thing as the marathon's victory objective.

There are a whole lot of people who probably could be "the winner" of any particular GOTM if they really wanted to, and if they put in the time and energy to do nothing else that month but play the game as "perfectly" as possible. But no one takes it that seriously, and I think that's a good thing.

I disagree. Many people played towards getting the best global ranking they could in civ3 GOTM.

It certainly wasn't always the case that the player with the highest QSC score was the one who seemed to be in the "best" position. Having numerical rankings is interesting and fun, but it's really unwise (in my view) to get obsessed with them.

Not always. But seeing how players scored definitely helped me figure out who were the better players. It wasn't the only factor I considered but it wasn't a baseless one, either. Also, no one is getting "obsessed" with scores. We're just coming up with a fair scoring system to be able to use. You're the one arguing for no scoring system at all. Just because we want a scoring system that most accurately represents good play doesn't mean that we're going to base all our judgements on a person's ability on how they scored.

edit: I realize you haven't really argued "against" a scoring system. But if you're not arguing against one then I don't see what your point is. Many people do view the GOTM as primarily a competition while others do not. That's a fact.

As far as I know there have been histories of cheating in marathons. But I'm not sure what the possibility of cheating has to do with having a scoring system.

It doesn't have anything to do with having a scoring system (which I entirely favor). It has to do with whether the GOTM is like the Boston Marathon. AlanH's original analogy was to compare the GOTM to a "world-class marathon". It's not like a world-class marathon, because it doesn't have the world-class, professional competitors that a world-class marathon does, because the possibility of cheating is much greater and this makes it hard to take comparisons too seriously, because the ultimate goal of the game is different for different players and no one scoring system can capture the differences, and for a variety of other reasons. Personally, I think that all of those differences are entirely for the good: I like the GOTM better than I would the "world-class marathon" type competition, which might be conducted under controlled (monitored) circumstances, with professional competitors, and only a single strictly defined goal. The more that GOTM is like that, the less fun it will be.

If there's a scoring system then the competetive players trying to win will play towards the scoring system.

That's right. But all of the rest of the competitive players, of whom there are, in my observation, more than of those trying to win, will play as they like. And I think that is a good thing and it would be a bad thing if all of the best players felt very strongly motivated to play for the highest GOTM score. Which never happened in Civ 3 GOTM (at least during the time I was playing), and I hope won't happen in Civ IV GOTM.

I realize you haven't really argued "against" a scoring system. But if you're not arguing against one then I don't see what your point is. Many people do view the GOTM as primarily a competition while others do not. That's a fact.

To put it as simply as possible, my point is that people, especially those new to the GOTM, should feel to enjoy the GOTM without being much concerned with the scoring system. The original post in this thread is all about the problems with the scoring. My reply to that poster, and anyone in a similar position, is to encourage them to enjoy GOTM, and play as well as they can by their own standards, and not care at all about the score. The scoring simply doesn't matter, unless you choose to let it matter to you.

That doesn't mean there can't be a scoring system for people who do care. It just means that I encourage people not to care. If, despite my advice, they do care, of course that's their decision.

Shillen has answered the points far more eloquently than I could, but I will pick up a point we can agree on. I totally agree that the QSC scoring system is not very useful, and that the QSC should be purely educational. It's all about the write-ups and the structural variations in players' approaches to the early game, and shouldn't be considered as a competitive sport.

It doesn't have anything to do with having a scoring system (which I entirely favor). It has to do with whether the GOTM is like the Boston Marathon.

Using that as my premise, I'm not talking about GOTM scoring but about the Boston Marathon analogy.

The marathon has an unambiguous goal---cross the finish line in the least amount of time---while different people have different ideas for what constitutes a well-played game, and will often pursue different paths in the same game, each of them successfully on their own terms.

To defend the marathon analogy... I went with a group of people in the Sydney marathon this year (one of the stages) but not everyone was aiming to finish as quickly as possible. In a sample of just my work colleagues:

- Some (like me) just wanted to go hard and try and do the best time we could - pain and everything - even though we knew we were no chance of coming anywhere near the top.
- Some were more interested in making sure they paced themselves properly; they could've gone faster, and probably finished quicker, but they chose precision and control instead.
- One lady actually went and walked the whole way because she wanted to talk to people on the track. (i.e. she wanted to hang out with strangers!)
- One girl knew she was injured and had no chance of making it to the finish line, but she started just so she had the experience of starting the race and crossing the harbour bridge.

None of my colleagues (myself included) cared about where we placed... we knew when we signed up that the rules of the race were 'first past the post wins' - but we had fun anyway. I can easily imagine GOTM players who would fit into all four of the categories i mentioned. The analogy holds because marathons, like GOTM, draw a whole group of people for a whole variety of reasons. Not all of those reasons have to do with the "official" winning condition.

One thing that neither the 'Firaxis" or the "Jason" scoring took into account: The 'Big Picture'. No matter what your victory type or date, these systems cared not a wit about all of the aspects that truly define your civilization as Great as compared to the rival civilizations (i.e. difficulty level).

What makes a Civilization great?
Number of tiles owned? No.
Number of citizens? No.
Military conquests? No.
Cultural achievements? No.
The first one to reach a particular 'defining limit'? (Spaceship, Domination, Conquest, Cultural) No.

None of these by itself define a truly great civ, it's ALL of them together. Sure, you can own a lot of land, but has it been improved? You can have a lot of citizens, but are they happy? You killed everyone else, but is your civ a band of un-educated, un-cultured slobs? You made it to space, but are there other civs with happier, healthier and larger empires with greater culture?

I guess what I'm trying to say is: If you made it to Space, Culture, Domination, Conquest, 2050AD, whatever, how were the other aspects of your 'score'? For instance, if you made it to Space first, how was your culture, happiness, land area, etc. compared with the other civs? If terrible, your Space Score would be high, but the other aspects that SHOULD be contributing factors would be/could be very low, resulting in a not-so-great score for a not-so-great civilization.

More thoughts on the subject:

I'd like to see some sort of 'Composite Scoring' system, that takes into account all of the defining aspects of a Great Civ: Culture, Technology, Happy Citizens, Healthy Citizens, Land Area, Military and pro-rates these against the Finish Date, Difficulty Level, Map Configuration, etc.

Possible?

Anything's possible technically. The problem is getting a consensus about
whether any particular mix is good or bad. Firaxis has made a different stab at it this time, with more factors taken into account. Why not see what that scoring system produces first, then decide if we want a different one?

Yep, I've got no problem with the 'wait-and-see' approach. The game is still new to most of us, the scoring is a mystery, etc, etc. No sense in trying to re-invent a wheel that we don't even understand yet.

I was just trying to convey what I thought should go into a determination of Final Composite Score, something I think the Jason system was sadly lacking.

I calculated a composite QSC scoring system for Civ3, but apparently it was too much work to implement.

You start by calculating the exchange rate of all resources, based on tradeoffs skilled players are willing to make. The numbers don't have to be perfect, but the closer they are to perfection the more accurate the scoring system will be.

Example:
1 hammer = 1 food
1 hammer = 2 beakers + 1 GPP
20 hammers = 1 hammer per turn
1 Combat II unit = 1.5 regular units

With a bit of calculation you can convert every resource in the game into shields (or gold, or points). This gives a very accuracte QSC score, though it breaks down after players start specializing towards one victory condition.