Here's a thought that could very well put milkers away for good. Throw in your own bonus to the score added on after the GOTMs are submitted to take into account year you finish at as a larger factor. It could be based solely on years less than 2050, which gives a step-function (not quite exponential, but same basic idea) addition to the score. You could say you get 10 additional point above and beyond your original score for each year before 2050 you finish the game. So if you finish in 1450, you get 6000 points automatically added to your final score for GOTM ranking purposes, or something like that. I realize turns space closer and closer as time goes on, but that's just fine--it's a lot harder to win when the turns are 5 years apart than to win when they are 1 year apart, so that would balance out with this bonus. Of course, the bonus only applies if you win...if you lose in 50 AD you don't get 20000 bonus points--sorry ;)

This would also be VERY easy to calculate with an Excel spreadsheet or a simple computer program or something clever, which has to be done anyway before posting results. Just be sure to treat BC dates as negative numbers and it will all work out just fine :)

I don't feel 10 points per year is too hefty a bonus either, but if the GOTM elite do, how about a 5-points-per-year bonus, or even 1-point-per-year bonus?

How about it? We want to have the FIRST finishers rewarded extra-much. Under this suggestion, those who finished in 2050 wouldn't be penalized any either...but the results should counteract milking and encourage finishing ASAP.

Sam

This will only help fast conquerers!

People who like to win by spaceship :alien: or UN :king: will be forced to become warmongers.

So this is a :( NO :( from me.

Good point. The top score could then become a factor for each victory, and the peaceful victories could receive 10 points for finishing each year earlier, but the conquest and domination only 1 point for finishing each year earlier to help balance that out.

Sam

As it has been pointed out many times there is no easily implemented solution to this problem. But no matter how you look at it, the early bonus that the game awards is inadequate, to offset milking. For all intensive purposes though, if that early bonus award were tripled, the results would be a better reflection of achievement for all, under most circumstances. [Except the OCC players of course ;)]

I don't think there is a happy solution to the scoring problem. My suggestion would be to set up different categories and tables for the GOTM winners. There could be one for Conquest, one for fastest domination, one for OCC, one for highest score(milkers) and so on. This would help to offest the milking by giving people other targets to shoot for.

You probably would not see the same people at the top in the same categories every month. They would most likely be willing to try to be the best in another category for each month.

A scoring formula has been evolving for the tournament that would work well for the GOTM scores. It is based on game score and finish date and produces a normalized score similar to the normalized score produced by Matrix.

A good scoring formula should not dictate the best method of finishing the game. Each player should play the style they are best at to get their best score.

This formula comes close to meeting these goals as a well played game of any finish type will place well. Fast finishes seem to do the best, but milked games can also place well.

For example, SirPleb, Cartouche Bee and Lucky who are number 1, 2 and 3 in the global rankings repectively should place well regardless of the victory condition they choose. Using this formula, they placed as follows:
Player Game Victory Placing
SirPleb 5 Milk 7th
SirPleb 6 Milk 5th
SirPleb 7 Milk 1st
SirPleb 8 Space 6th
C.B. 5 Dom 2nd
C.B. 6 Milk 3rd
C.B. 7 Diplo 10th
C.B. 8 Milk 2nd
Lucky 5 Con 1st
Lucky 6 Milk 6th
Lucky 7 Space 7th
Lucky 8 Milk 7th

Note that when these players did not milk their games, they still placed well. For example, SirPleb's space victory in GOTM 8 gave him a 39th place finish using game score but a 6th place finish using this formula.

The attached spreadsheet contains GOTM 5 - 8 results with the normalized score computed.

Also note this is not the formula currently used in the tournament but a proposed revision to it. It does not contain any artificial weighting of finish date over score.

Edit: The formula has changed slightly and this spreadsheet has been removed. A spreadsheet using the changed formula and containing data from GOTM 1 - 9 is attached to this post. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=431249#post431249)

Sorry Beard, the formula used in the Tourney sucks!!!!

I stopped playing the tourney cause it was simply ridiculous and many good games submitted were waaaay under rated. They don't need a forumla for the tourney, the date is all that counts.

My only problem with the tournament formulae score is the weighting of the finish time. The fastest finish is what determines the top rankers, and this in not what the GOTM should be about. I believe that currently the finish time is weighted by a factor of ten over the total end score.

The tournament formulae might work out if the weighting were reduced from what it is, but I also believe that Matrix is against changing the scoreing.

Yes, they had to eventually had to go to the 10-1 ratio in the tourney because once the true results from actual play started coming in, the "score normalization" was skewing the results so much it took that much offset to create the results that they were looking for. If you build on a poor foundation, you end up with a poor result.

We know that fast finishers don't score enough against milkers, so give them more score bonus to narrow the gap. I know that no system will be perfect but working toward a slightly better end result should not be outlawed. :(

I also know everyone knows I'm just trying to turn the tide against milkers so I can play fast games again. ;)

Cartouche Bee & Creepster

Yes you are right. The currently used tournament formula weights finish date at 10:1 over game score making your game score essentially meaningless. The formula I'm suggesting is a revision to that one where the only weighting of finish over score is a natural one. It uses years left instead of turns left and an equal weighting between score and finish date.

The result is game score is important and milking a game is still a viable strategy. Cartouche Bee, note you would receive a 3rd place finish in GOTM 6 and 2nd place finishes in GOTM 8 and these were both milking games. Milking a game however is usually not the best strategy but it shouldn't be ignored.

Check out the spread sheet a few posts up, you will see that good games placed much higher and milked games placed lower. Higher scores often overcame slightly faster finishes yet milking to 2050 only got the best score in GOTM 7, the deity game.

For example:
Nathan Barclay placed 26th in GOTM 5. This was a very fast space ship victory that also had a good score for the finish date. He would place 7th using the proposed formula.
Beard Rinker placed 4th in GOTM 5 with a milked game. Beard would have placed 12th using the proposed formula.
[pnp]dredd placed 61st in GOTM 6 with the fastest finish cultural victory. [pnp]dredd would have placed 6th using the proposed formula.
Beard Rinker placed 91st in GOTM 6 with the fastest finish space victory. Beard would have placed 19th with the proposed formula.


With this formula, it appears that finishing with a fast domination or conquest victory yeilds the best score but not by a huge margin. My guess is that to achieve your best score, play the style you are most comfortable with. If fast conquests or domination victories are not your style of play, then you probably wouldn't get your best score with that victory type.

FYI, an analysis and the details of the formula are contained in
this post. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=375613)

I actually think it is a bad idea to give the fast finisher an extra bonus. It will turn out to be allout conquer games from 90% of the people who plays GOTM.. no spaceship, no cultural and no diplomaticvictory. It is allmost the same to make a rule that makes the only victory condition to be conquer.
You all have to remember that milking is not a bug. Its a way of playing and it should therefore not be punished by milking a game.
I think that the countless hours(often a bit boring) it takes to milk a game should be rewarded with a better score than the people who finish as fast as possible(unless they are really fast)

Right now it is very different how people end the games and there are no winning conditions noone uses. It should stay that way

I think that the people who dont like to milk should stop and play the way they like best... there are many different awards to win beside best score :king:

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
Yes, they had to eventually had to go to the 10-1 ratio in the tourney because once the true results from actual play started coming in, the "score normalization" was skewing the results so much it took that much offset to create the results that they were looking for. If you build on a poor foundation, you end up with a poor result.


Another difference of this formula compared to the tournament formula is it uses average score and finish date instead of highest score and fastest finish. This prevents the problem of freakishly high scores (your GOTM 8) or fast finishes skewing everyone else's results.

When I build on a poor foundation, I just keep adding duct tape and toothpicks until it works.

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
[B
I also know everyone knows I'm just trying to turn the tide against milkers so I can play fast games again. ;) [/B]

I know that you know that we knows that you know that we knows you want to play fast games again ;)

Originally posted by pagh80
I actually think it is a bad idea to give the fast finisher an extra bonus. It will turn out to be allout conquer games from 90% of the people who plays GOTM.. no spaceship, no cultural and no diplomaticvictory.

This formula does not give an extra bonus for fastest finish. It gives you a ratio for score and a ratio for finish date based on how you did compared to everyone else. These ratios are combined with equal weighting to give your normalized score. The only extra bonus for fast finish already exists and that is each turn is worth more than 1 year before 1850.

The way it stands now, to get the best score you must milk your game to 2050. There is no alternative strategy for this, other victory types do not even come close. This formula will make it so conquest and domination are probably the best way to get the top score, but not by a wide margin. A well played game that is milked to 2050 will still place very high, perhaps even 1st (GOTM VII). With milking as an option, that opens the door for a fast spaceship, cultural or diplomatic victory as a possible winning strategy also.

Beard, I have my share of posts in that thread, seemed like anarchy to me. ;)

The problem with these types of schemes, even if one could be agreed on, is that you can't mark the game until you have the results from all the participants. Too boring for everyone, you need to be able to know what your score is when you finish the game, regardless of anybody else's results.

I've read a number of posts recently suggesting/requesting more diversity in GOTM games. It seems to me, the easiest way to add diversity is to use a scoring system where you can place well regardless of the victory condition you choose. Instead of there only being one way to score well, there would then be 6.

The way it stands now you either a) milk your game to oblivion or b) ignore your score and just play it because there is a large pool of people playing the same game. Fastest finish by victory condition doesn't add a great deal of diversity. If you don't get the fastest finish then its simply a 79th place finish or something like that.

Another advantage of the scoring formula I suggested is the scores are then comparable from month to month. If you get a score of 65 one month then 70 the next, it is probably because you played the game better. This is not the case using the game score. A game score from a large emperor game does not compare to a game score from a standard size monarch game. The scoring formula compensates for this and makes the scores comparable.

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
The problem with these types of schemes, even if one could be agreed on, is that you can't mark the game until you have the results from all the participants. Too boring for everyone, you need to be able to know what your score is when you finish the game, regardless of anybody else's results.

There is little difference in this respect when you use the game score only. You may have your score when you finish your game, but the number is not very meaningfull until you can compare it to others.

A comprehensive scoring system would have to take more into consideration that just speed and score. Things like Net National Income after corruption could be used to show how well the civilization's infrastructure had been placed on the map that was played. A scoring system with more depth would allow for better parity between play styles and the different victory types achievable.

I'm a firm believer in duct tape, BTW. This allows for interactive modeling. An educated guess can predict the result of a milked game on any given map. Time trials can predict the speed and score that the other types of victories can achieve on these maps. Connecting the dots, reveals alot about the types of modifiers needed for a successful scoring system.

I agree a scoring system should include more than finish date and game score. Culture, technology, production and economy come to mind right away. More essoteric things like turns at peace, reputation and perhaps even average number of tiles per city would be a good addition too.

One big problem with using anything other than game score and finish date is someone has to retrieve this data. Until Firaxis includes these components in the game score or someone develops a utility that extracts them from your final .sav file I don't think using them in a scoring formula is practical.

The formula I've suggested is not perfect, but is a great deal better than using just game score or Matrix's normalized score. Both are simply measures of how well a game was milked.

Beard, the demographics screen gives quite alot of useful information that could be used for those calculations.

Then the advisors domestic, cultural and military give other info that could be rated further.

Add the infor that mapstat provides and you could do some fairly extensive analysis on the actual situation at end game.

Plug in all the factors and let the spreadsheet do the work.

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
Plug in all the factors and let the spreadsheet do the work.

How? Will Matrix be willing to check all these screens and run MapStat for every game? I doubt that. Having each player do this is not feasible either. For GOTM 9, there where 13 invalid submissions and a submission now only consists of 4 pieces of information and 1 file. I suspect there are probably allot more errors that Matrix corrects or doesn’t catch.

What is needed before using other statistics for a scoring formula is a utility like MapStat that will process all players .sav files and put the required stats in a text or spreadsheet file.

Once that is achieved the next problem is deciding what statistics should be included in a scoring formula and the weighting of each statistic. Some may be too easily exploited and not usable. There would have to be input from allot of civ players to determine which stats make the most sense to use.

I think the best solution now is to use the formula I suggested, as it is far better than the existing scoring system. It would be months, perhaps never before a utility is available and a more comprehensive formula can be devised.

Don't need the formula that was posted in another thread and I'm not sifting through 500 posts to find the one you are talking about.

We know that the early bonus points awarded are inadequate to offset milking so just increase the early bonus points awarded for the game and the gap diminishes.

Since I mentioned posting formulas:

Adjusted_Game_Score = Game_Score + (Game_Bonus_Points_Awarded *2)

We know that the bonus points awarded is calculated:
Years_Finished_Early*Difficulty

Simple and fairly effective.

Beard,

So I looked at your spreadsheet and find a number of peculiar things in your calculations. For instance, in GOTM7 there were 97 participants, only 19 finished in victory. Yet your table shows the average years left as 500+ years and used that to calculate the finish bonus (it should have been about 114). Why were the early finishers not able to have the data posted by people who had losses in the game toward the average years left in the game? Those same people had their results factored in to enhance the average score in favor of the winners to determine 'score ratio'.

In equations like those you will find that if you apply a win bonus in the years section of the equations you will have much better results (we discussed way to acheive this in that scoring thread.). If, two people that finish the game in 2050 with the same score but one won and one lost need to have a way to distinguish that fact in their final score.

And I still say that your adjusted base score premise is lame, lame, lame....

CB

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
Adjusted_Game_Score = Game_Score + (Game_Bonus_Points_Awarded *2)

We know that the bonus points awarded is calculated:
Years_Finished_Early*Difficulty

Simple and fairly effective. [/B]

I like simple. The simpler a scoring formula is the more likely players will understand and accept it. The simplest scoring formula is to just use the game score but there are problems with that as stated many times.

When I developed the scoring formula, I had five basic objectives. These are stated in a previous post of mine on this page (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20965&pagenumber=5) about the third post down. Take a second to read this and I think you'll agree with the objectives.

Although the formula you suggest is nice and simple, it has some problems:
Not comparable. Scores calculated with this formula would not be comparable from month to month. For example, a score from a large emperor game would not be comparable to a standard warlord game.
Not balanced. Map parameters will dictate the best way to score with this formula. On smaller maps, fast domination or conquest would be the best strategy. On large maps, milking would probably be the best strategy.


The formula I've suggested is a little more complex than the one you've suggested but I believe it meets all of the objective I’ve set out for a scoring formula. I've avoided using standard deviation or any other such witchcraft.

Scoring Formula

GOTMScore = 50 * (FinishBonus + ScoreRatio) / 2

FinishBonus = YearsLeft / AverageYearsLeft
ScoreRatio = PlayersScore / AverageScore

YearsLeft = 2050 - FinishYear
AverageYearsLeft = Average number of years left in all winning games.
PlayersScore = GameScore - (2050 - FinishYear) * DifficultyLevel
GameScore = Actual game score.
AverageScore = Average pre-bonus score of all winning games.
DificultyLevel = 1 for Chieftan through 6 for Diety.

FinishBonus is 0 when the player does not meet a victory condition

Some properties of this formula:
It is always better to finish a game than to milk a game for a few turns. The only exception is after an extensive period of milking.
Scores range from 0 to 100+ with the average of all games meeting a victory condition always around 50. Scores of 100+ are exceptional (2% of tournament and GOTM games).
Milking is a viable strategy and can give you one of the better scores. However, finishing faster is always the better option if your objective is score.

Although the formula you suggest is nice and simple, it has some problems:


Not comparable. Scores calculated with this formula would not be comparable from month to month. For example, a score from a large emperor game would not be comparable to a standard warlord game.

Not balanced. Map parameters will dictate the best way to score with this formula. On smaller maps, fast domination or conquest would be the best strategy. On large maps, milking would probably be the best strategy.



Well as for not comparable, we don't have that requirement in GOTM but Matrix does rate everyone's game based against the average result so I doubt your argument holds since you are rated against the average. Believe me most of us know when we did better or worse.

As for the 'Not balanced' of course the duct tape method allows you to add a fixed mapsize modifier with very little effort.

so:

Adjusted_Game_Score = Game_Score + (Game_Bonus_Points_Awarded * 2)

becomes:

Adjusted_Game_Score = Game_Score + (Game_Bonus_Points_Awarded * Mapsize_modifier)

Beard,

And if you hadn't noticed, in your proposed system your style of win is determined by the difficult that you play. On deity milk and chieftain finish quick. That's because on diety you have a high percentage of losses so averaging the year portion against only the winning games means that fast finishers lose out to milker's.

CB

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
So I looked at your spreadsheet and find a number of peculiar things in your calculations. For instance, in GOTM7 there were 97 participants, only 19 finished in victory. Yet your table shows the average years left as 500+ years and used that to calculate the finish bonus (it should have been about 114). Why were the early finishers not able to have the data posted by people who had losses in the game toward the average years left in the game? Those same people had their results factored in to enhance the average score in favor of the winners to determine 'score ratio'.



GOTM 7 was the deity game. If any game is going to break a scoring formula this will be it as the results are so unusual.

The reason the average score and average years left are computed from winning games only is to improve the comparability. In general, the results from a losing game are essentially random and tend to make the end results less comparable. This is particularly true of years left. A person knocked out very early would raise the average years left not lower it, in effect lowering everyone’s score. For example, in GOTM 7 Melinder got wiped out in 470 bc with over 2500 years left in his game. BTW, the average years left in GOTM 7 if you include losing games is 712.

I think GOTM 7 is an anomaly and no scoring formula could make the results of this game comparable to others. Only some of the best players and the cheater got comparable scores to other months.

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
In equations like those you will find that if you apply a win bonus in the years section of the equations you will have much better results (we discussed way to acheive this in that scoring thread.). If, two people that finish the game in 2050 with the same score but one won and one lost need to have a way to distinguish that fact in their final score.

I looked through the posts and I think I know what you’re talking about. This modification has more application on an early version of the scoring formula. The formula a few posts up does not favor milking and therefore does not need this modification. The only time where this may be a factor is with finishes around 2050.

When the finish is this late, the game is either a milked game or one of the lower scoring games. For milked games, finishing at 2050 with a win or a loss is just semantics, the game should have been won ages ago. Note that with this formula a milked game’s score is not limited to 33 or 50 as in previous versions of the formula. If the game is milked exceedingly well, your score can be over 100. Your worker dogpile game in GOTM 8 would receive a score of 162 with this scoring formula.

For a lower scoring game even the measly finish bonus awarded for a late victory will significantly effect the score.
Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
And I still say that your adjusted base score premise is lame, lame, lame....

And I repeat my lame premise for removing the game computed finish bonus:

The game score has an imbalance between your per turn score and finish bonus. On a tiny map the highest score is achieved by finishing fastest, on a large map the highest score is achieved by milking the game. It is kind of balanced for a standard map but that also depends on your skill level, play style and other factors. This is one of the reasons it is impossible to compare the scores between a large and small game on the same level.

Keeping the finish bonus in the game score would tip the balance of the formula to strongly favor fast finishes. This is not necessary as the formula already favors fast finishes. Leaving the finish bonus in also re-introduces an unbalancing component to it.

Originally posted by Beard Rinker



The reason the average score and average years left are computed from winning games only is to improve the comparability. In general, the results from a losing game are essentially random and tend to make the end results less comparable. This is particularly true of years left. A person knocked out very early would raise the average years left not lower it, in effect lowering everyone’s score. For example, in GOTM 7 Melinder got wiped out in 470 bc with over 2500 years left in his game. BTW, the average years left in GOTM 7 if you include losing games is 712.



If a player loses why would the years left not be zero? They did not win. I think years left is where you went wrong. It is really the number of years before 2050 the win occured.

As for the game bonus, you say it does not serve the purpose and skews your equation. Well I think you need to fix your equation then.

I say the game bonus is inadequate, so make it adequate.

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
Well as for not comparable, we don't have that requirement in GOTM but Matrix does rate everyone's game based against the average result so I doubt your argument holds since you are rated against the average. Believe me most of us know when we did better or worse.


Yes it is not as important to have the score comparable from month to month but it is desirable. My best score is 71 and it would be nice to know if this month’s game was better. I feel as though I played better but I would like some hard numbers.

The formula essentially incorporates Matrix’s normalized score as part of the formula. In fact, that’s where I got the idea.

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
As for the 'Not balanced' of course the duct tape method allows you to add a fixed mapsize modifier with very little effort.


You must have a magic roll of duct tape. What is this mapsize modifier?

Aeson’s original tournament scoring formula used this concept and built a modifier based on the map size, water level and I think even terrain type. The problem with this approach is it is much more complex and the results are not as good.

We have the benefit of basing our scoring system on the results of other players. A pretty reliable base and one that automatically compensates for map size, difficulty level, terrain type, starting position, etc.

Originally posted by Beard Rinker


You must have a magic roll of duct tape. What is this mapsize modifier?

Aeson’s original tournament scoring formula used this concept and built a modifier based on the map size, water level and I think even terrain type. The problem with this approach is it is much more complex and the results are not as good.

We have the benefit of basing our scoring system on the results of other players. A pretty reliable base and one that automatically compensates for map size, difficulty level, terrain type, starting position, etc.

You must be kidding, it could simply be the ratio between the mapsizes.

As for the averages, yes we do an average in GOTM. I think you score 10 if your game is average (but I'm not sure). I know it is not 71 or 50 but it still is a point of reference.

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
If a player loses why would the years left not be zero? They did not win. I think years left is where you went wrong. It is really the number of years before 2050 the win occured.


Good point.

I re-computed the results of GOTM 7 using this suggestion but got strange results. Essentially everyone who won the game had a score of 100+. Since a score of more than 100 should only occur 2% of the time, this does not seem like a good modification.

I stand by my assessment that using losing scores when computing the averages adds a randomizing element to the formula. Losing scores should not be used for the averages.

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
As for the game bonus, you say it does not serve the purpose and skews your equation. Well I think you need to fix your equation then.

I say the game bonus is inadequate, so make it adequate.

The game bonus is not inadequate, it is unbalanced. The best way to balance score vs. finish date is to separate them completely, rank them based on how others did and combine them with equal weighting.

Originally posted by Beard Rinker



The game bonus is not inadequate, it is unbalanced. The best way to balance score vs. finish date is to separate them completely, rank them based on how others did and combine them with equal weighting.

If you want to call it unbalanced fine, then I call it balancing it.

I don't think you know how to rank the finish date properly so I don't think you can combine score and finsih date equally.

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
You must be kidding, it could simply be the ratio between the mapsizes.

I don’t think so. Water level is a big factor, as well as if the map is an archipelago or pangea. The more you think about it the more factors are involved in this ratio.

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
As for the averages, yes we do an average in GOTM. I think you score 10 if your game is average (but I'm not sure). I know it is not 71 or 50 but it still is a point of reference.


But then we are back to the original problem. The normalized score produced by Matrix is based entirely on your game score, which is essentially a measurement of how well the game was milked.

I want a point of reference on how well I played the game.

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
And if you hadn't noticed, in your proposed system your style of win is determined by the difficult that you play. On deity milk and chieftain finish quick. That's because on diety you have a high percentage of losses so averaging the year portion against only the winning games means that fast finishers lose out to milker's.

The scoring formula favors fast finishes over milking games in all games, regardless of difficulty, map size or other parameters. It does not favor fast finishes by a large margin meaning a milking game, space, cultural or diplomatic victory may occasionally win.

I suspect had SirPleb finished GOTM 7 with a conquest or domination victory instead of milking the scoring formula would have given him a higher score.

Beard,

From your last couple of posts I see that you have trouble grasping how truly flawed your concept is.

I know you will protest but as a point of reference for you, go to your spreadsheet and turn to GOTM6.

Delete all the entries except Aeson and Lucky's.

Look at the result, even though Lucky lost his game he is rated with your formula as 112.1 and Aeson is rated at 50.

That is in spite of the fact that you claim the faster victory will always have a higher score. Sorry but it is your lame score adjustment and faulty date calculations that cause the problem. This sample just magnifies the problem of the poor foundation. that you based this concept on.

I also know it is hard to believe that a mapsize adjustment could be determined without much effort but I'll leave it at that.

CB

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
Beard,

From your last couple of posts I see that you have trouble grasping how truly flawed your concept is.

I know you will protest but as a point of reference for you, go to your spreadsheet and turn to GOTM6.

Delete all the entries except Aeson and Lucky's.

Look at the result, even though Lucky lost his game he is rated with your formula as 112.1 and Aeson is rated at 50.

That is in spite of the fact that you claim the faster victory will always have a higher score. Sorry but it is your lame score adjustment and faulty date calculations that cause the problem. This sample just magnifies the problem of the poor foundation. that you based this concept on.


This formula is intended for use with a bunch of scores not just two. The premise behind the formula is your score is based on the average of all games and that the average is a consistent benchmark from month to month. I also noticed that Aeson beat Lucky when all scores are included and by no small margin. 194 for Aeson and 92 for Lucky.

I do not claim that fast victory will always win, I said it would usually win. That is one of the strengths of the formula, you can win with any victory condition as long as it is a very well played game. I think most players would rather play to their strength instead of going for the victory condition that always wins. This is particularly true with the current scoring system as milking games are probably the least popular way to finish a game.

So, Aeson's game was more than twice as good as Lucky's using your scoring system.

My simplified score proposal would only have rated Aeson's game as being about 30% better.

Aeson's game was very good but Lucky is a very good player also and I doubt that it was more than twice as good as Lucky's game. I also doubt that it was twice as good as Sir Pleb's game.

I guess it's a matter of opinion but most milker's have the game under control pretty early and are very good player's. I think the results your system produces are not representative of a decent scoring replacement in any way.

After reading all of this and after spending time trying to come up with a formula a couple months ago in the tournament, I can see why Firaxis never bothered to address the flawed scoring system. My policy now is I'm not gonna touch the scoring system with a ten foot pole!!!

Bamspeedy,

:lol:

When you and I were working on that we made solutions for the problems that as they were identified. We just made the changes so quickly that they just couldn't comprehend the "dynamics" of it so they went back into the hole and used to 10 to 1 weighting to compensate for the mess they had finally discovered.

CB

As I see it, the aim is for a scoring system that gives score parity between early finishers and milkers.

Many players when milking post “estimated” scores based on the number of tiles to the domination limit, the current population etc etc. What may be a fair way of calculating a score for early finishers is to estimate a “milkers’ potential score”. Look at the number of tiles available to the domination limit, and the current population to generate a bonus score on what the final score could if it was milked properly. This bonus could be (say) 80% of the theoretical maximum to make up for the fact that the population may not grow, milking may not be completely efficient etc.

The main drawback to this is that someone who finishes early with (say) spaceship may not have been able to milk right through to 2050, due to the AI winning (culture, diplomacy etc). Therefore, to qualify for the bonus, you may have to show that you are in a position where you can do a milk-run. EG. You need to have the highest population, highest culture or be at 90% of the domination limit anyway etc. Not sure of the details, but this may be a reasonable framework for a better bonus system?


Edit: Implimentation would be quite simple too, as mapstat could be modified to calculate the bonus quite easily.

Cartouche Bee, Beard Rinker, though you both post on topic, you were answering each other on and on and that's very irritating!

Anyway, from experience of the Civ2GOTM, I can tell there's only one thing that can penalize milking: take the square root of the score, then give a bonus for early finish. :)

But as I've said many times before: I'm very reserved concerning a special scoring system for the GOTM. For Civ2 is was nescessary. This scoring system isn't that flawd.

But if someone of you can tell me how the in-game scoring system works, please do. All I'm interested is what the score is without the early finish bonus and how that early finish bonus works. Only then I will consider introducing a different scoring system.

IIRC, the internal score works by giving you one point for each tile in your control, plus one for every specialist / content person, and two for every happy person. No other factors are taken into account. You score for each turn is summed, and divided by the total amount of turns that you have had. I believe that the score-per-turn is multiplied by a factor depending on difficulty level.
I can’t remember the exact details of the bonus system, but I believe that it is a straight mulitplier based on turns left and difficulty level. There is a utility (Sir Plebs???) that explains this quite well.
I think that the real “problem” with the scoring system is that the final bonus for an early finish pales into comparison with what you can get from just playing out the turns, whether you “milk” for maximum points or not.
Hence my idea that the bonus should be a proportion of the theoretical maximum points you could accumulate by milking. ;)

IMHO the problem with the scoring system is that it tries to compare things that are incomparable.

Instead we could simply give a score of 100 to the fastest finish in each category of winning (including OCC) and rate others according to the turns left till 2050 divided by the turns the fastest player in the same category had left.

This way we would not have to find ways to compensate for different maps, civs, difficulty etc. and originality would be rewarded. Milking would, of course, disappear completely. :)

I would like to see the option of submitting a GOTM, but checking a flag to have the score be unranked in the weighted global rankings.

This would encourage people to play for the medals and submit the games even if they do not want to milk.

Special challenges like the OCC type game illustrate a great example where the unranked flag would increase submissions.

For the record, the scoring multiplier for early finish is not balanced properly. Even as we purge out the dogpiles and other past events that have driven uber high scores, we will find that balance between milking and the turn bonus is out of line.

There are a number of options for fixing the scoring problem.

In teh past I have proposed and described a feature called "tournament score" where firaxis could code in a page in teh histograph that would load a text equation form a simple text file and convert it into an equation similar to the power, points, and culture that currently display. This would simple add a fourth option to the drop down box on the histograph. The equation would use a short list of internal variable names that Firaxis could supply and support via a page of the civ3 website.

Techniacl the corps-de-hacquer (gramphos, et al) could provide this tournament score function externally using teh same coding base that supports the C3MT and/or mapstat.

How score is calculated has been posted before but I will summarize it here to save the trouble of finding it.

GameScore = FinishBonus + PerTurnScore

FinishBonus = YearsLeft * DifficulyLevel

PerTurnScore = Average of InternalScore for every turn * DifficultyLevel

InternalScore = Happy Citizens * 2 + Content Citizens + Specialists + ScoringTiles

Specialists = Entertainer, Tax Collector or Researcher citizen.

ScoringTiles = Number of tiles in your territory except sea tiles.

DifficultyLevel = 1 for chieften through 6 for deity


Some properties of the game's scoring formula:
Potential score increases with difficulty level. Using difficulty level as a score multiplier is probably intended to compensate for the added difficulty with each level. In reality most players can can win just as quickly on any level up to their level of compentence. The higher difficulties translate into higher scores.
Potential score increases with the number of scoring tiles. This has an unbalancing effect as the finish bonus remains constant regardless of map size. It may take a little longer to win on a larger map, but not significantly. What this means is for the average player, milking a game to 2050 is the best strategy for high score on large maps whereas quick conquest is the best strategy on small maps. For top players, milking is the best option on all but tiny maps.
Scores from different games are not comparable. The main factor is map size and difficulty level but other factors like world age, water level, land configuration and starting position to name a few.
Scoring is unbalanced. As stated above, the way the finish bonus is calculated has an unbalancing effect on how to achieve the best score. It is either fast conquest on a tiny or small map, or milk the game to 2050 on a standard size map and up. Space, cultural, and diplomatic are never the best option for achieving the best score.


As it stands now, the GOTM is a one dimensional milking contest. Most players like myself are not particularly concerned with their score and play simply because there is a large base of people playing the same game. It would be nice however if you could score well with a well played game in any victory condition.

Before considering changing the scoring system, we should state what we would like to achieve. If it is simply to discorage milking games, then a simple modification might be possible. However, I think most players would like a scoring system where a well played game with any victory condition could win.

I have listing these objectives of a scoring formula in this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20965&pagenumber=5), third post down but this was for the tournament and may not completely apply. One other objective that might be added is the score should be calculated from a minimum of game parameters and use existing tools available today. I'm sure Matrix does not want to retrieve dozens of values from each game and we cannot count on the players submitting more than the most basic information (i.e. name, score, finish date & condition, saved game).

Edit: Corrected scoring formula.

Ribannah

I like the concept of rating people only against others with the same finish type. Your suggestion is not quite complete though as it does not include score. A game that takes slightly longer but has a significantly higher score should be rated higher. Also if the top score is 100 and the top player always gets that, how do you compare the top scores between categories. Another problem is this may be too difficult to administer.

I'm not so sure the different victory types are not comparable. Score is made from your accumulated per turn score and your finish bonus. These tend to work against each other; the longer you play, the higher your score and the faster you finish the higher your finish bonus. If per turn score and finish bonus were equally weighted then theoretically you could make up for lost finish bonus with added per turn score. In other words any victory condition could get the highest score, it would depend on how well the game was played.

However, if this balance cannot be achieved then your approach would work better.


Cracker

Retrieving various scoring statistics in an automated fashion would be the ultimate scoring solution. These tools are not available today and if they were there would be allot of work in determining what statistics to use.

Beard,
FWIW, a content citizens also earns a point.

Matrix,
My suggestion was merely to compensate for the inadequate bonus awarded by the game (inadequate in that the milked games score more than the early finishes) and not a suggestion as the perfect scoring system. It is obvious to me that playing the game to 2050AD earns more points than early finishers in GOTM style games (unless of course we all of a sudden start playing tiny maps). It is also obvious to me that an early finisher needs some sort of early bonus to better reflect the accomplishment in the overall ratings. I know in my milked games, approximately when they could have been won early on (that fairly early win capability is part of a good milking, therefore a milking is a blend of early win and empire building), perhaps seeing both sides gives a different perspective that others. The current scoring system favors the builder and that may indeed be the best goal for GOTM style games anyway.

I like this discussion and some good points are being addressed but I miss debate on how we let the sort victory affect the score.

I feel that some victories are easier then others. In my last GOTM (number X) I have a score that will certainly not rock this friendly competition but achieved it for the first time with a cultural victory of which I am very pleased. It takes more effort so I think this should get a better award. So here goes.

Just an idea so dont nag me about the multipliers, the are just random choosen, because they only serve to illustrate how we can award some types of victory combined with an early finish bonus. Any suggestions are greatly accepted. If anyone feels like calculating what a good ratio is between these fine. I'm just suggesting the idea so maybe we can adjust the score outcome and keep diversity.

1,0 * (score + turns left) for DOM and Conquest victory as they can always be achieved by hacking through your opponents.
1,5 * (score + turns left) for space ship victory as this needs tech development so an really early finish is off.
2,0 * (score + turns left) for diplomatic victory as this needs good strategy (even early in the game) to achieve.
2,5 * (score + turns left) for cultural victory as this needs good strategy and big investment in culture in the game to achieve.

MPF

This formula I've proposed uses the average score and finish date as a benchmark for computing scores. It does not need a map size or any other type of modifier as the average will always compensate for that.

The game score and finish date tend to work against each other; the longer you play, the higher your score and the faster you finish the higher your finish bonus. If weighted equally there is no modifier required as they balance each other off.

The following are examples of games that would receive the same score using the formula I proposed.

Example 1:
Score and finish date in month a are exactly average. Score and finish date in month b are exactly average. The scoring formula would give these two games the same score even though month a's game might be an entirely different configuration from month b. The actual game score and finish date could be drastically different.

Example 2:
Score for player a is double the average and finish date is exactly average. Score for player b is average and the finish date has double the average number of years left. These two players would receive an identical score.

Example 3:
Player a's game is a milking game and is 4.5 times the average. His finish date is 2050 so he receives no finish bonus. Player b's game is a fast conquest and finished with 4 times the average number of years left. His score was 1/2 the average. These two players would receive an identical score.

MPF
The extra time it took to achieve your cultural victory is not wasted. The longer you play, the higher your game score. This should compensate for the lower finish bonus for taking longer.

Originally posted by Beard Rinker
This formula I've proposed uses the average score and finish date as a benchmark for computing scores. It does not need a map size or any other type of modifier as the average will always compensate for that.

The game score and finish date tend to work against each other; the longer you play, the higher your score and the faster you finish the higher your finish bonus. If weighted equally there is no modifier required as they balance each other off.

The following are examples of games that would receive the same score using the formula I proposed.

Example 1:
Score and finish date in month a are exactly average. Score and finish date in month b are exactly average. The scoring formula would give these two games the same score even though month a's game might be an entirely different configuration from month b. The actual game score and finish date could be drastically different.

Example 2:
Score for player a is double the average and finish date is exactly average. Score for player b is average and the finish date has double the average number of years left. These two players would receive an identical score.

Example 3:
Player a's game is a milking game and is 4.5 times the average. His finish date is 2050 so he receives no finish bonus. Player b's game is a fast conquest and finished with 4 times the average number of years left. His score was 1/2 the average. These two players would receive an identical score.

MPF
The extra time it took to achieve your cultural victory is not wasted. The longer you play, the higher your game score. This should compensate for the lower finish bonus for taking longer.

True but investing in culture means not investing in conquest (i.e. militairy units) and growth. Since the number of tiles and number of citizens really influence youre score aiming for culture tends to cut youre score especialy for not so advanced players like me. You're method seems to generate high score by early finish (not possible for diplo or cultural finish) and long played games. It does not address type of finish to stimulate diversity and type of gameplay.

MPF

Originally posted by MPF
True but investing in culture means not investing in conquest (i.e. militairy units) and growth. Since the number of tiles and number of citizens really influence youre score aiming for culture tends to cut youre score especialy for not so advanced players like me.


One of the ugly truths of this game when you use only game score and finish date is to score well you must get to the domination limit ASAP. This is regardless of the victory type you are trying to achieve and is even true of milking games.

I too am going for my first cultural victory this month. My game was a conquest game then I switched to cultural once I reached the domination limit. That was around 1250 ad and I expect to win around 1800. That gives me around 650 years to milk the game while waiting to win. Throughout the game I have tried to grab any extra points where I can find them even at the expense of each phase taking a little longer. i.e. Keeping citizens as happy as possible, expanding borders when possible. This is what I refer to as a balanced game. There were phases where expansion, conquest or building were the main focus, but never at the exclusion of all else.

That is about as balanced a game as you can get when you use game score and finish date as the only assesment of how well you've done. If my scoring formula was used, this game should do pretty well. If only the game score is used or the finish bonus was enhanced, this game would probably be mediocre. Using the game score exclusively, I should tediously milk it for the extra 250 years. If the finish bonus was enhanced, I should have skipped any non esential building and happyness improvements and won the game as soon as possible.

Originally posted by MPF
You're method seems to generate high score by early finish (not possible for diplo or cultural finish) and long played games. It does not address type of finish to stimulate diversity and type of gameplay.


If you are referring to the spreadsheet of actual GOTM data I posted, yes you are right. Keep in mind however that in these games, the way to get the best score was to milk the game to 2050. As a result, many players did just that. I would speculate that if the scoring formula I proposed was used, not nearly as many players would milk their games. The effect would be a lower average game score and higher average number of years left. This should benifit games like diplomatic, space and cultural which take a little longer.

It does appear however that early finishes are favored even after factoring this in. This formula was originally designed for the tournament and one of their requirements was a rabid obsession with early finishes. I modified it slightly so instead of using years left it uses turns left. This achieves a better balance between milking and fast finish but the other victory type still seem to be at a disadvantage. A good test would be if one of the top players played one of these victory conditions and finshed fast while milking the game as much as possible. For example, SirPleb won the fastest space finish in GOTM 8. I wonder what SirPleb's score would be using this formula if it were more balanced and had a milking component to it.

Using turns left instead of years left the results appear a little better to me. I added the remaining GOTM data to the spreadsheet so it now contains GOTM 1 - 8. The only score above 120 is Cartouche Bee's GOTM 8 worker dogpile game. Of the scores over 100 (there are 7) 4 are early finishes and 3 are milking games.

For reference, the formula now looks as follows:

Scoring Formula

GOTMScore = 50 * (FinishBonus + ScoreRatio) / 2

FinishBonus = TurnsLeft / AverageTurnsLeft (this is the change)
ScoreRatio = PlayersScore / AverageScore

TurnsLeft = 540 - turns taken
AverageYearsLeft = Average number of years left in all winning games.
PlayersScore = GameScore - (2050 - FinishYear) * DifficultyLevel
GameScore = Actual game score.
AverageScore = Average pre-bonus score of all winning games.
DificultyLevel = 1 for Chieftan through 6 for Diety.

FinishBonus is 0 when the player does not meet a victory condition



I have attached a spreadsheet containing GOTM 1 - 8 data. It computes a normalized score using the formula above.

Edit: I have added GOTM 9 to this spreadsheet and attached to the a post four below this one.

Not that I want to further confuse the issue, but there is another area of the score that needs to be added in/fixed. The points you receive for future techs. In the current GOTM I have 7 future techs and am hardly reciving anything for them. I will probably have 20 to 30 future techs by the end of the game, but they will only count for about 5 or 10 ponits by the look of things. I feel that this is extreemly under valued in the scoring system.

There are a host of variables that should have been included in the scoring formuale, and while I understand that you are trying to keep it simple, and to balance the game out between milkers and faster finishes if you are oing to try to fix it then it should be done right. What that is exactly I am not totally sure, but it should take into account all of the variables (GNP in terms of money per turn and production per turn, money in the treasury, total culture, population size, technological advancement, amount of territory, happy people, content people, specialists, Number of improvements in a city, and time to finish) There are probably a few more that should be added, but all of these should be weighed against the time that you completed the game in. This is no easy task and a program woul;d have to be written to export all of the numbers to determine a true score.
The reason all of these other varaiables are important is that someone who finishes early, but has no solidly built empire should not score higher than somone who finishes a few turns later, but has a much better empire. There has to be a balance between empire buiding and a fast finish. That is one of the reasons I may or may not continue with the tournament. The whole game is based upon a fast finish. I don't reall care for that style of game. I like to build up my cities and grow a bit as I am expanding.

Just to sum it up, if a new scoring system is going to happen it has to be a bit broader than what you are suggesting. I don't believe that a simple formulae based upon turns and game score will be adequate. Too many things are missed by doing that.

Creepster,

The scoring formula I proposed does a fairly good job of rewarding a balanced game. An indicator of this would be games played at the same skill level should score similarly regardless of what month they were played and what the finish type was. This should be particulary true of games played with a below average to above average skill level. The top games and bottom games have a more variability in their results.

My games are a good example of this. My finish condition is all over the map, consisting of balanced games, milked games and fast space finishes. I don't play allot of civ games other than the GOTM games so my skill level is still noticably better with each successive game. I would expect a good scoring formula to show a consistent yet better score for each successive game and it does. My scores using the scoring formula were as follows:
GOTM4 38 Rookie milking game
GOTM5 53 Milking game
GOTM6 59 Fastest space finish
Missed 7 & 8
GOTM9 62 Balanced game

Compare this to the normalized score currently used:
GOTM4 29
GOTM5 61
GOTM6 22
GOTM9 30

As you can see, my scores are all over the map. Also note that my rookie attempt at milking in game 4 is rated the same as a much better played but not milked game 9.


This is only one player's example but this is ultimately what I am trying to achieve with the scoring formula. Games are rewarded for the skill in which they are played and not simply a measure of how well you can milk a game.


The main problem with developing a scoring forumla that includes more than game score and finish date is time. It may be months before there is a utility that can export the appropriate game statistics. Once it is available, it will take a long time to decide what should or should not be included in a scoring formula and what the weighting of each component should be. The formula I've proposed is available now and is far better than simply using game score.

Ultimately, it would be preferrable to include a wide range of game statistics. Aside from rewarding balanced play, it should also be less suseptible to exploits. For example, if final treasury is part of the score and someone figures out how to exploit this, they would still not necessarily get a good score as it is one component of many.

I agree that your scoring system would be easier to implement, and that it would be a lot quicker. I also like the idea of being able to compare games from month to month. Both of those are very valuable.

I just don't agree with the formuale you are proposing. I would like to see a more detailed realistic formulae, but that would require some one to write the program and test it. It would also take a while to get agreement on just what the formulae should be as well, and based on what I have seen in this duiscussion and the tournament I am not sure an agreement could be reached.:lol: At least not in a good timeline.

There is a lot to be said for using the current scoring system despite its problems. It does allow for us to measure up against one another and it does allow us to generate a lot of discussion.;)

In fairness I have not spent enough time looking and analyzing your numbers. I will do that this weekend to try to get a better feel for what you are proposing.

Creepster,

The formula is four posts up.

The attached spreadsheet now contains data from game 1 through 9 and uses the scoring formla I proposed.

I noticed your scores were also pretty consistent and better each month you participated.

I still need to spend a little more time looking at the results, but it does seem to balance things out a bit more.

For example xarin had a cultural win early in the game 1655AD. He now moved up quite a bit to number 10 from 23, which was close to my somewhat milked game that I won in 1926.

Just looking at it quickly that does seem to help level the game a bit from a milked game to a quick win. Looking at CB and cracker helps to show it even more. A quick domination win vs a milked game have more parity now.

Thanks for the updated spreadsheet. This helps out in seeing the results of your formulae.

Some of you need to be able to express themselves a bit more compressed. :rolleyes: I can't read all this; I've got more things to do!

Originally posted by Beard Rinker
How score is calculated has been posted before but I will summarize it here to save the trouble of finding it.

GameScore = FinishBonus + PerTurnScore
FinishBonus = YearsLeft * DifficulyLevel
PerTurnScore = Average of InternalScore for every turn * DifficultyLevel
InternalScore = Happy Citizens * 2 + Content Citizens + Specialists + ScoringTiles
Specialists = Entertainer, Tax Collector or Researcher citizen.
ScoringTiles = Number of tiles in your territory except sea tiles.
DifficultyLevel = 1 for chieften through 6 for deity
Beard Rinker, thanks for this! No further elaboration was nescessary. I got a mind myself too. :rolleyes: Waste of your time.

Anyway, I've worked months on a good GOTM score for Civ2. If we decide to make our own GOTM scoring system, I'd like to learn from that.

Again, there's no way we can punish milking if we don't square root the score before an early finish bonus is given, since the score also grows exponentially (or quadratically) when milking. So that's what we will do then. It might be a good idea to leave it with square rooting the basic score. That's easily done with Excel.

What are your points of view about that?

Originally posted by Matrix
Some of you need to be able to express themselves a bit more compressed. :rolleyes: I can't read all this; I've got more things to do!


Beard Rinker, thanks for this! No further elaboration was nescessary. I got a mind myself too. :rolleyes: Waste of your time.

Anyway, I've worked months on a good GOTM score for Civ2. If we decide to make our own GOTM scoring system, I'd like to learn from that.

Again, there's no way we can punish milking if we don't square root the score before an early finish bonus is given, since the score also grows exponentially (or quadratically) when milking. So that's what we will do then. It might be a good idea to leave it with square rooting the basic score. That's easily done with Excel.

What are your points of view about that?

Actually the score grows the quickest mid game and slowest in the beginning and the end.

Ok, but that doesn't matter because the score still grows faster than the early finish bonus drops.

Matrix,

&(*(d.~/\sp

I tried compressing my post but that was the result.


CB is right, score does not increase exponentially in civ 3. The increase in score per turn increases up to the point where your internal score is maxed, at that point the increase in score per turn decreases to the end of the game.

In short, I don't think taking the square root of the score would give us the desired results.

As you know, the problem in the built in score stems from the imbalance between the finish bonus and per turn score. In a nutshell, what I have done with the proposed scoring formula is to separate the finish bonus and per turn component of your score, rank them in a similar fashion to your normalized score formula, and recombine them with equal weighting.

My premise is that if per turn score and finish bonus are weighted equally, you should be able to do just as well with any victory condition. The extra time it takes for a spaceship, cultural or diplomatic victory are compensated for by the extra per turn score you can accumulate.

From looking at the GOTM 1 - 9 data, this formula seems to accomplish this, particularly with the players who are not going for fastest finish or highest score. First place seems to go to either a fast finish or milking game but I suspect these players always either milk their games to 2050 or finish as quick as possible, even at the expense of some potential per turn score. To score well with a space, cultural or diplomatic victory you must finish fast and maximize score.

Yeah whatever you guys say, anyway, I ran some tests with my interum scores and using Beard's system I'd probably just play to 1880, give or take a couple other factors like map and difficulty. ;)

Originally posted by Matrix
Again, there's no way we can punish milking if we don't square root the score before an early finish bonus is given, since the score also grows exponentially (or quadratically) when milking. So that's what we will do then.

Matrix,

I'll try to keep it short! :lol:

The aim is not to punish milking!

I agree that the aim is not to punish milking but to get a better view on how your skills compare to other players. Obviously this comparison is hampered due to the fact that civ3's gamescoring formula heavily favours playing through to the end. Since not everyone has the drive or time to play an already won game to the end I would like to suggest to also add an average finishing date for the last five games played to the global ranking. This way it's easier for players to compare their skills with players that have the same playing style (e.g. milking, non-milking or early finishers).

I know it means lots of extra work to calculate all this but I would be happy to help calculate these dates. Furthermore, since this only affects the global ranking it should not have to be ready at the same time the gotm-result are published.

What do you think about this? Could this help to get to a better comparison of skills or is it a bad idea that only leads to extra work to implement it?

The civ3 tournament has a nice formula which rewards both early victories and milking.
Aeson knows more about it, consult him :)

The problem with the scoring formula for the tournament is that it has no way of comparing between victory conditions though EEK. It's designed to compare games played with the same required victory type. An early Conquest/Domination would almost always win in the GOTM setting.

Beard's formula (here) has some flaws I think. There is too much variation between similarly played games based on what other people did in their games. If a large majority goes for early victories, it devalues the date portion, and vice versa. Just look at comparable early finishes from game to game, some score drastically higher (both in score and relative to 'milked' games) because more people waited to finish their games.

Beard Rinker,

I did look at the results you have posted and initially they do look good. My problem with your formulae though is that you use the avg score. I have to agree with Aeson's comments above. The scoreing formuale needs to be a stand alone score; independent of what others do. If we were to have a GOTM where almost no one milks the game then the results will be skewed.

While I think the results from your formulae would work in the short term it is not a long term fix. I still think we need a formulae that takes into account more variables and provides a unique score, based solely on one persons game.

Aeson & Creepster,

I see what you are saying but I don't think it is a big problem.

Comparing data from GOTM V and GOTM VI shows this problem the best. Using the proposed scoring formula, the top 5 finishes in GOTM V were all domination/conquest finishes. In GOTM VI the top 4 finishes were milking games. Not only that, the top milked games in GOTM VI had significantly higher scores than milked games in GOTM V. Similarly, the top fast finish games in GOTM V scored much higher than in GOTM VI. The reason behind this is the average finish date is much earlier in GOTM VI, devaluing the finish bonus in that game. This appears to be exactly what Aeson pointed out.

However, if you look a little farther down the list there is much less variability. Nathan Barcley got 70 in game 5 and 67 in game 6 for fast space finishes. My scores were 53 and 59 for a milked game and the fastest space finish. Aleric 65 and 71 for early domination victories. Alexman got 68 and 67. Like any set of numbers, the top numbers and bottom numbers experience the largest degree of variability.

What this suggests to me is in games where you think the average finish date will be late, finish quickly and games where you expect the average finish date is early, milk the game to some degree. Keep in mind that all players concerned with score will be doing the same thing, thus nullifying this strategy to some degree.

These kind of strategic decisions are unfortunate and not what was intended when developing the formula. However, I think this does not apply to most players, only to the top players.

Originally posted by Aeson
There is too much variation between similarly played games based on what other people did in their games.


By making a guess at the average finish date, you can alter your strategy to achieve your best score. In GOTM V, there was a very difficult starting position suggesting a late average finish date whereas GOTM VI was a cakewalk and would likely have an early average finish. For GOTM V, finish fast for best score and GOTM VI milk the game to some degree to achieve your best score. Cartouche Bee's games are a good example. In GOTM V he finished fast and GOTM VI he milked the game. Using the proposed formula he would receive scores of 106 and 109.

The perfect solution? Hell no, but this seems better to me than the answer always being milk the game to 2050.

Unlike game score, the best way to achieve your best score using the scoring formula is not clear. I can speculate however that fewer players would milk their games to 2050, lowering the average score and finish date. Whether this will exacerbate the problem pointed out by Aeson or reduce it I'm not sure.


Originally posted by Creepster

The scoreing formuale needs to be a stand alone score; independent of what others do.


The problem with this is your scores from month to month would not be comparable. GOTM V is a good example why. It had a very difficult start position that resulted in the latest average finish date and one of the lowest average scores. I can't think of any way to mathematically compensate for a bad start position other than to use the results of others.



The average skewing problem probably could be resolved with a little more adherence to statistical formulas but my guess is the result would be a formula that is far to complex. One of the objectives with this formula is to keep it simple enough that any player could understand the dynamics behind it without too much difficulty

I just don't like the fact that 80 people have a say in what your score turns out to be, and that the difference between 'good' and 'great' has nothing to do with how well the game was played. It turns into guesswork as to how everyone else will play, and could make reading the spoilers (even after you know the map) very much a spoiler.

If there is going to be a scoring system change, I think it should be like Cartouche Bee was suggesting earlier in the thread. Certain desirable factors are kept track of, and a static scoring system can be formed from those numbers. It's a lot more involved, but a utility program could handle it no problem. The only difficulty is deciding on how to weight the factors.

For game to game comparison, the map could be analyzed to figure out 'best' scores and dates, and player's results adjusted accordingly. This could be done before the game was released. All that is needed is a utility to extract the basic information (behind the scenes so the administrator can still participate) and make the calculations. The results would be released with the game.

Score

Score would be determined by the efficiency the player showed in obtaining the 'max' milking score. A bonus for early victory would then be added to keep milking and early victories both as viable options.

Objectives

- To determine the max milking score possible for the map
- To use that figure to modify the players score

AverageFoodPerTile = Food / FoodTiles
ClaimableFood = DominationLimit * AverageFoodPerTile
WorkingCitizens = DominationLimit
SpecialistCitizens = ((AverageFoodPerTile - 2) * DominationLimit) / 2)
MaxTurnScore = ((WorkingCitizens * 2) + SpecialistCitizens + DominationLimit) * Difficulty
MaxMilkedScore = MaxTurnScore * Landform

PlayerScore = (GameScore - GameBonus / MaxMilkedScore) * ScoreAdjustment

GameBonus = (2050 - PlayersDate) * Difficulty

Landform

Archipelago = ?.45?
Continent = ?.55?
Pangaea = .65

ScoreAdjustment = 10000 (arbitrary number to set a score in score form instead of %, this would result in a 'max' score [theoretically possible to exceed] of 10,000 for example)

Depending on the Landform (archipelago, continent, pangaea), another % of that is max 'milked' score. I'm pretty sure on the pangaea number already (65%) because of HOF attempts, and the others could be deduced from the plethora of well milked games that have been played in the GOTM's so far (excluding the dogpile game of course). It would give us a pretty decent max score to judge the games by, and would be a score that is available to the player as soon as they finish the game.

I think removing the territory portion of the score could also help to bring building back towards parity with early conquest then build. This way a size 6 city would be worth as much as 6 size 1 cities, though eventually more cities will win out (as they should). Population is dependant on territory, and so territory is counted twice (once directly, once indirectly through population) in the current scoring system.

Date

Date is a bit more difficult, but we can still come up with good estimates of a well played victory condition from map settings and difficulty level. Again, this is information that is available to the player before the game is played, and they can play accordingly. Instead of having to guess at what the adjustments will be once all is said and done.

Objectives

- To balance scoring by finish date
- To give a date bonus which is comparable between victory conditions
- To allow for comparison between maps and difficulty levels

Each victory condition would get a 'best' date for each map setting/difficulty combination.

Base victory condition 'best' dates: (standard continents map, monarch)

Conquest : 10AD
Culture (100k) : 1500AD
Culture (20k) : 1700AD
Diplomatic : 1300AD
Domination : 500AD
Spaceship : 1600AD

Difficulty Chi War Reg Mon Emp Dei

Conquest : -300, -200, -100, 0, +300, +500
Culture (100k) : -100, -50, -25, 0, +100, +200
Culture (20k) : -50, -25, 0, 0, +75, +100
Diplomatic : +150, +100, +50, 0, -200, -300
Domination : -300, -200, -100, 0, +200, +400
Spaceship : +100, +50, +25, 0, -100, -300

Map Modifiers Tiny Small Stand Large Huge Arch Cont Pang

Conquest : -200, -100, 0, +200, +400 +200, 0, -200
Culture (100k) : +300, +200, 0, -100, -200 +100, 0, -100
Culture (20k) : 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 0, 0, 0
Diplomatic : 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 0, 0, 0
Domination : -200, -100, 0, +200, +400 +200, 0, -200
Spaceship : 0, 0, 0, -50, -100 +100, 0, -100

EXAMPLE: Conquest/Emperor/Small/Cont

ConditionBestDate = 10 + 400 - 100 + 0 = 310AD

Of course all these numbers could use some refinement! (suggestions welcome) Also, it might be best to convert entirely into turns. :)

After all the modification to the 'best' date for each victory conditions is done, a bonus (in score form, comparible to the ScoreAdjustment) is added based on how quickly the player was able to achieve the victory condition. With a decent balance in the modifiers, it should award a comparable bonus for a 'good' conquest as a 'good' spaceship victory, even on different maps or difficulty levels. Taking out the difficulty level comparison could be done if it was desired.

Bonus = ((2050 - PlayerDate) / (2050 - ConditionBestDate)) * ScoreAdjustment

ScoreAdjustment = same as in the scoring section, to equally weight score and date.

FinalScore = PlayerScore + Bonus

Conclusion

I know there is a lot of tweaking to do in a system like this, but even as it is, it should give a reasonable basis for comparison of different victory types within the same game, and even from game to game. There could always be more modifiers added (wonders, future tech, ect) as well. A utility to determine the score would definitely be needed. I could write one if necessary, though mapstat is already pretty much there if Chiefpaco would care to allow for it.

Each GOTM would be released with the following info: (example)

MaxMilkingScore = (would depend on the map generated)

Condition 'Best' Dates (Emperor/Small/Continents)

- Conquest = 310AD
- Culture (100k) = 1800AD
- Culture (20k) = 1825AD
- Diplomatic = 1400AD
- Domination = 500AD
- Spaceship = 1500AD

EDIT: changed some of the modifiers that aren't reflected in the examples posted below.

Problems with this suggestion as it is:

- The map/difficulty adjustments need refining.

- Later victory conditions (Culture, Diplomacy, Spaceship) should always score more in the score section (more population), and so should perhaps have a general modifier to the base ConditionBestDate to compensate.

- One city culture (20k) might not be something that should be included at all.

EDIT: Just going to do the examples in a spreadsheet, my math was off somewhere anyways.

Here is the formula at work in GOTM 6-9. It's an Excel file.

Aeson;

This is what I was getting at, although I didn't go as in-depth as you did. One addition that I would make is that you need some means of demonstrating that you hd worked yourself into a position where you can viably milk to the end and win - ie there is no chance of a spaceship or diplomacy loss for example. Perhaps you have to win by conquest, or alternatively reduce the world to three civs, and be at at least 90% of the domination limit.

The aim here is to give the early finisher the equivalent score that they could have got by milking, without having to go through the mechanics of the milking.

[QUOTE]The aim here is to give the early finisher the equivalent score that they could have got by milking, without having to go through the mechanics of the milking.

I don't believe that the player should be given the full value of potential milking at the earlier date. Most players out there cannot milk a game to its maximum potenntial. There are a lot of variables that go into a truely fine milked game and so far only a hand ful of people have achieved this. This may in fact be due to bordom, or attention to detail, but the fact remains. Look at the scores for the GOTM's there are several people who tried to milk the game but there scores vary by quite few points. A lot of this has to do with population management at the end of the game.

The early finisher should come out at some value less than an optimized milked game.

My initial "idea" was to give people 80% of the theoretical maximum that could be got by milking.

The formula I proposed doesn't do away with milking, it just puts early finishers on even ground in comparison. A well played spaceship launch should be comparable to a well played conquest or a well milked game.

I agree with Aeson. Since it is undoubtedly true that one needs skill to succesfully milk a game for a high score and that not everyone possesses these skills. Therefore,completing a succesfully milked game should definitely not be punished but rewarded in form of a high ending score.

However I do not see why early finishers should consequently recieve a lower score than a milker (as is the case with the current ingame scoring formula) since it does take (other) skills to obtain early finishes and it doesn't make sense why those skills should be rewarded so little compared to good "milking"skills.

So it should be possible for early finishers to get a score which could compare with "milking-style"games.

I agree that the scores should be comparable. A truly well played "conquest game" in some cases should or could beat a well played "milked game". My point is that one should not be favored over the other.

In the tournament for example it is set up to favor a fast finish and nothing else. I would not like to see that represented here.

In my opinion playing a great game doesn't necessarily mean having lots of war and conquest, cultural, space ship and diplomatic victories can be excellently played as well.

I just looked at Aeson's formula at work and I find the results obtained via this formula to be giving a much more balanced (and thus better) standing concerning milked and early finish games and definitely an improvement over the current formula.

The scoring formula proposed by Aeson is fundamentally different than the one I proposed. It has some advantages over the formula I proposed, but there are also some problems with this approach.

I will try to clarify the differences between the two approaches and identify the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. I will try and keep this analysis as unbiased as possible. :rolleyes:

First of all, the goals of these two formulas appear to be subtly different.
Originally posted by Aeson
Score would be determined by the efficiency the player showed in obtaining the 'max' milking score.


A similar statement about the scoring formula I proposed would be as follows:

Score is determined by how well a player did compared to the average score and average finish date.

Premise of Modifier Based Formula (Aeson's formula)

Score is determined by the efficiency the player showed in obtaining the 'max' milking score. A bonus for early victory is then be added to keep milking and early victories both as viable options.

Essentially your score is modified based on various game statistics such as number of game tiles, average food each tile can produce, land form etc. These modifiers are balanced so no victory condition has an advantage and your score can be compared from month to month.

Premise of Average Based Formula (Beard's formula)

Score is computed using the average per turn game score and average finish date. The premise behind this is averages provides a consistent benchmark to measure against that will automatically compensate for variations in each game such as map size, difficulty level and start position. This should make your score comparable from month to month.

The formula weights per turn score and finish bonus equally. The premise behind this is these two factors tend to work against each other. The faster you finish the lower your per turn score, the longer you take the higher your per turn score. By weighting them equally, no victory condition should be favored.

Strengths of Modifier Based Formula
Score is independent of other player’s results. You can compute your score as soon as finished and your results are not subject to what other players decided to do. This formula can also be used in non GOTM games.
Formula is open-ended. This approach allows for additional game statistics other than finish date, game score and victory condition to be added at some point.


Strengths of Average Based Formula
Scores are very comparable from month to month and between victory types. Using averages automatically compensates for all differences between games and victory conditions.


Weakness of Modifier Based Formula
Very complex. This is why I took a different approach. The complexity of this formula leads to a whole host of problems.
Scores not very comparable between different games. Many of the differences between games can be compensated for with modifiers but there are some that cannot. The most notable condition that cannot be compensated for is the starting position.
Scores not very comparable between victory types. Eventually this problem will diminish as the modifiers are improved but there will be an imbalance for some time.
Constantly Changing. There are many modifiers and these modifiers are largely determined by a best guess. These will likely change frequently as imbalances are detected.


Weakness of Average Based Formula
Higher variability in top and bottom scores. Like any set of statistics, the highest variability occurs in the top and bottom numbers.
Unusually difficult games such as the GOTM VII deity level game produce unusual results. This may also be the case if we played a chieften level game with an easy start position.
Scores are subject to an "average skewing" effect. In games where there is an early average finish date, the finish bonus portion of games with the fastest finishes are devalued. Likewise the finish bonus for the fastest finishes are overvalued in games where the average finish date is late. This seems to only effect the results of the top scores.


[An Exceptional Game

A description of an exceptional game from the perspective of each scoring formula also illustrates the differences between the two approaches.

Using Aeson’s modifier based formula and exceptional game is one where a player achieves a victory condition at or near the earliest theoretical finish date for that victory condition. Another exceptional game is where the games score is at or above the maximum theoretical score.

Using Beard’s average based formula an exceptional game is one that has double the per-turn score of the average game and is finished with double the average number of turns left. Another exceptional game might be one that has 4 times the average per turn score or one that is finished with 4 times the average number of turns left.

Conclusion

As pointed out, there are merits to both approaches. I think determining a best formula depends on what we would like to achieve here.

If a comparison between players scores and games from month to month is the objective, then an average based formula would work best. Using averages automatically compensates for differences between games and victory conditions by providing a solid benchmark for comparison.

If a measure of how efficient a game is compared to the theoretical perfect game is the objective then the modifier based formula proposed by Aeson is the best approach. This approach also allows for adding other game statistics at some point in the future.

I would also like to add that the complexity in the approach used by Aeson makes balancing the formula a difficult, if not impossible task. That Aeson has laid out the groundwork and determined many of the modifiers is an impressive feat. These modifiers will be subject to constant change and there will always be factors that cannot be compensated for such as start position.

If a comparison between players scores and games from month to month is the objective, then an average based formula would work best. Using averages automatically compensates for differences between games and victory conditions by providing a solid benchmark for comparison.

It wouldn't be too hard to incorporate a normalizing factor into the formula I posted. It could either be based off the max score posted, or the average of all scores. As it is, all the 'best' scores from the last 4 GOTM's are already in a pretty well defined 10k-12k area. This can be further refined through the map/difficulty modifications.

These modifiers will be subject to constant change and there will always be factors that cannot be compensated for such as start position.

This certainly is true. As the GOTM gives the same starting condition to everyone, it shouldn't cause problems except in game to game comparison. That comparison is done through the global rankings, which nullifies the problem by takes into account the averages already. There could be starts which favor one victory condition over another, but any formula would be affected by that. It's up to the player to assess the map and decide which condition to pursue.

Here is a slightly modified modifier list. Added the 60/80 categories, and updated some others:

- base conquest to 200AD from 10AD
- deity diplomatic to -300 from -100
- emperor diplomatic to -100 from -200
- emperor domination to +200 from +400
- deity domination to +300 from +400
- large conquest and domination to +200 from +300
- low difficulty domination factors increase
- some domination land form modifiers softened.
- all 'tech' modifiers for diplo and space removed for < Monarch

- Spaceship base date was lowered by 20 turns to make for a better comparison with Diplomatic (40 turn spread instead of 60)

Updated the GOTM6-9 examples with the new values.

Base victory condition 'best' dates: (standard continents map, monarch)

Conquest : 200AD
Culture (100k) : 1500AD
Culture (20k) : 1700AD
Diplomatic : 1300AD
Domination : 500AD
Spaceship : 1500AD

Difficulty Chi War Reg Mon Emp Dei

Conquest : -300, -200, -100, 0, +400, +600
Culture (100k) : -100, -50, -25, 0, +100, +200
Culture (20k) : -50, -25, 0, 0, +75, +100
Diplomatic : 0, 0, 0, 0, -100, -300
Domination : -400, -300, -150, 0, +200, +300
Spaceship : 0, 0, 0, 0, -100, -300

Map Modifiers Tiny Small Stand Large Huge Arch 60/80 Cont 60/80 Pang

Conquest : -200, -100, 0, +200, +400 +200, +100, 0, -100, -200
Culture (100k) : +300, +200, 0, -100, -200 +100, +50, 0, -50, -100
Culture (20k) : 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 0, 0, 0, 0, 0
Diplomatic : 0, 0, 0, -50, -100 0, 0, 0, 0, 0
Domination : -200, -100, 0, +200, +400 +100, +50, 0, -100, -200
Spaceship : 0, 0, 0, -50, -100 +100, +50, 0, -50, -100

Hi Aeson,

You have a 60 turn spread between diplomatic and spaceship. I think a 40 turn spread would be a bit closer. It looked to me that spaceship victories were rated a bit high overall. The map modifiers should be the same or similar cause you have to get to the modern age for either victory type. (I know you have alot of data in the tournament to base this on but..)

I definitely favor a system that is based on the map/difficulty that is played rather than just how well people played it. We have a good idea of the performance that can be achieved and that is a better scale for everyone to improve performance against.

CB

Is taking the base Spaceship number down by 20 turns (to 1500AD) what you are suggesting? It does make GOTM08 results look better. The Spaceship takes 9 extra techs, and at 4 per, that does make a 40 turn spread more reasonable. Good point! :)

Yep, that sounds pretty good to me. :)

I think the formula presented by Aeson could work. Good job Aeson. :goodjob:

It acheives a pretty good balance between victory types and with more tweeking, this could potentially be a very good balance. If Matrix still applies his normalizing formula then that gives us the month to month comparison also.

My main concern is the amount of tweeking that will be required. I see this as an on-going process that will likely result in a slightly different formula each month.

These results were achieved in part from some after the fact tweeking. While this is a good way to perfect the formula, this should not be done with an actual GOTM. Once the condition best years have been released, they must remain unchanged even if the results show they are not quite right. The modifiers can be changed for the next month, but changing them after the fact may cause considerable disagreement.

The result of this is the actual results will not be as good as Aeson's sample spreadsheet. However, it should be as good or better within a few months once these modifiers are more refined.

One observation I made about the results is it seems to reward games where the player went for a specific victory condition as fast as possible over a more balanced approach. As an example, im GOTM 6, I finished with a fast space victory and got 7986 points using this forumla. In my GOTM 9, I finished with a balanced domination victory receiving 5446 points. GOTM 9 was played with more skill yet scored substantially lower.

This is not as big a problem as it seems. Had this formula been used, I would have finished with a cultural victory instead. My guess is I would have finished around 1850 with a game score around 7500 giving me 7551 points. Still a bit lower than GOTM 6 but within the ball park. With this formula, you must choose the finish type that best matches your game. For example, finishing with a conquest victory after a period of milking would be a bad choice.

Thanks Beard. :)

I agree that any scoring system released needs to be set, even with it's flaws. That may mean that some victory conditions will be better than others, at least on some maps. It's complex enough that there probably won't ever be a 'sure' thing like milking currently is on the majority of maps, and balanced enough that the victory conditions which are favored aren't overwhelmingly so. In any case, the player will have the data to make base their choices before the game is played. Other factors like starting location can be assessed very early in the game by the player.

A few months of unofficially testing to finalize the modifiers would definitely be necessary.

The modifiers that need the most work are the low difficulty ones, as I have very little experience on Chieftain->Regent, and the conquest ones, as there isn't much data in the GOTM's since the inception of the early finish awards in that area. A lot of the 'tech rate' based modifiers are probably a bit off due to inexperience with 1.29f on my part.

The attached file is the regular division season 1 results from all 4 games. It does show the weakness of the scoring as far as comparing map to map. The Domination game stuck the player on a rather small island on a pangaea map. Domination/Conquest seems to be the harder victory conditions for lower difficulty players though, so that could be part of the discrepancy in the results.

EDIT: added a more in-depth set of modifiers for the MaxScore/MaxTurnScore equation. Also, the map/difficulty modifiers have been further modified. Mostly changes to the 'tech rate' type of modifiers, and keeping Spaceship and Diplomatic even, as they are affect almost exactly the same. :)

MaxScore/MaxTurnScore %

Water Level

Landform 80 70 60

Archipelago 0.500 0.517 0.533
Continents 0.550 0.566 0.583
Pangaea 0.600 0.617 0.633


Size

Difficulty Tiny Small Stand Large Huge

Chieftain 0.016 0.014 0.012 0.010 0.008
Warlord 0.014 0.012 0.010 0.008 0.006
Monarch 0.012 0.010 0.008 0.006 0.004
Emperor 0.010 0.008 0.006 0.004 0.002
Deity 0.008 0.006 0.004 0.002 0.000


Base victory condition 'best' dates:
(standard, continents, monarch)

Conquest : 300AD
Culture (100k) : 1500AD
Culture (20k) : 1700AD
Diplomatic : 1300AD
Domination : 500AD
Spaceship : 1500AD

Difficulty Chi War Reg Mon Emp Dei

Conquest : -300, -200, -100, 0, +400, +600
Culture (100k) : -100, -50, -25, 0, +100, +200
Culture (20k) : -50, -25, 0, 0, +75, +100
Diplomatic : -200, -100, -50, 0, -100, -300
Domination : -300, -200, -100, 0, +200, +300
Spaceship : -200, -100, -50, 0, -100, -300

Map Modifiers Tiny Small Stand Large Huge Arch 60/80 Cont 60/80 Pang

Conquest : -200, -100, 0, +200, +400 +200, +100, 0, -100, -200
Culture (100k) : +200, +100, 0, -100, -200 +100, +50, 0, -50, -100
Culture (20k) : 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 0, 0, 0, 0, 0
Diplomatic : -100, -50, 0, -50, -100 +50, +25, 0, -25, -50
Domination : -200, -100, 0, +200, +400 +200, +100, 0, -100, -200
Spaceship : -100, -50, 0, -50, -100 +50, +25, 0, -25, -50

Aeson,

Do you think we should include a "defeat bonus" of let's say 1/4 point per year played after 10AD?
It may be limited to 2000 AD to avoid its use by the ones milking the game.
I will do some statistics calculations on your sheets to check "best" finish year but not before Sunday.

I have read a few posts on this thread and realised that I probably need a Master in Statistics to participate in GOTM's. The scoring adjustments just seem too complicated.

In the Gotm10, my first, I'm busy milking. I'm by far not the best, but there is only so much you can really do to increase your score.

I think to keep it simple you need to modify the early win bonus.

A possible solution is to calculate the increment pre-domination turn score achieved by some of the best Milkers. (I think it is some kind of sigma-curve, for those with knowledge of population dynamics) Once you have calculated the average turn score, you can adjust the early win bonus to reflect the increased turns in the late game.

Something like:
Turns to end x average milking increment score x difficulty level

That should solve the milking issue.

Adjusting the score for type of wins is useless. I can win most of my games anyway I want to. It doesn't stop me from being the ultimate warmonger.

Originally posted by Yndy
Do you think we should include a "defeat bonus" of let's say 1/4 point per year played after 10AD?

So this would only be given to those who actually lose? I'm not sure what this is meant to accomplish. Players are rewarded with extra points the longer they can hold on through the game scoring already.

Originally posted by thefrenchzulu
[B]I have read a few posts on this thread and realised that I probably need a Master in Statistics to participate in GOTM's. The scoring adjustments just seem too complicated.

It really isn't that complicated. Basically each game is released with some guidelines as to when a 'good' victory will occur, or with what score. Any game approaching that date or score will be near 10k points.

Example Game:

Aztecs
Emperor
Standard
Continents 60%

MaxScore: 15963

Conquest: 600AD
Cultural: 1550AD
Diplomatic: 1175AD
Domination: 600AD
Spaceship: 1325AD

OK, I don't have the Masters in Statistics, but I think I know what you are trying to achieve.

1. See who is the best player
2. Safe us from milking to get a good score.

If you equate the early win bonus to the additional score you would achieve through milking, the best player will be the one with the earliest win!

(The problem I have with your approach, is that as player, I don't have the stats you have behind these figures. I can basically win anyway I want, but I cannot replay the game for every scenario to calculate the best probable score.)

Edit: I noticed after posting this that you are already aware of this problem.

Originally posted by Aeson
- Later victory conditions (Culture, Diplomacy, Spaceship) should always score more in the score section (more population), and so should perhaps have a general modifier to the base ConditionBestDate to compensate.


This post presents a slightly different approach to solving it.


Aeson,

I think I've found a small problem in your scoring formula.

You compute score from percentage of how close a player got to a perfectly milked game and from a percentage of how close a player got to finishing as close as possible to the earliest finish date for their victory condition.

For milked games the best you could hope for, assuming the computed max score is correct, is to acheive the maximum milked score. This would give you a score of 10000.

For other victory types, the best you could hope for is to finish the game by the earliest possible finish date. You would also receive a small bonus for your game score. This would give you a finish bonus of 10000 + a small game score component.

To me, this suggests that the best strategy is to go for the fastest finish of the victory condition with the latest 'best' date. You can get the full finish bonus and your game score component would be higher than other victory types. For example, in GOTM 9, the latest 'best' date is 1600 for the cultural victory. Compare that to the 'best' conquest or domination date of 1100. I would expect that a player winning a cultural victory in 1600 would have a higher per turn game score than a player winning a domination or conquest victory in 1100. The result is the cultural victory would get a higher score.


Stepping back for a moment, I think what you are trying to achieve is to compensate each victory condition for lost milking time. What you are doing is awarding them the equivalent of a fully milked game on top of the game score they have already achieved.

Another problem is the implied assumption that any game won by the condition best date could be milked for the maximum game score. This is not true especially with spaceship and diplomatic victories. If you can get to the point where you can win by the best date you could not at that point turn it into a milking game and acheive the maximum milked score.


This is compensated for to some degree using the modifiers you have presented but the problem lies in the underlying structure of the formula. Perhaps another set of modifiers to compensate for this might fix it.

With each victory type, your score should be at a certain percentage of the maximum milked score if you acheive the victory type by the earliest date. This percentage should be removed from your score to equalize this imbalance. For example, SirPleb achieved a space victory in GOTM 8 with 3939 points in 1545. Assuming the actual game results reflect the true 'best' space race victory and max score, I would put the 'best' space race at 1545 and max possible score at 10850. SirPleb's base score is 1919 or 17% of the max score giving him a bonus of 17% that is not possible to acheive through a purely milked game. Allot of assumptions, but I hope you get my point.

By modifying the game score by a condition score modifier, this imbalance can be removed. The effected portion of the formula would look as follows:

PlayerScore = (GameScore - GameBonus - ConditionScoreModifier) / MaxMilkedScore * ScoreAdjustment

Condition score modifier is the expected score that a player would have if they won on the condition best date.
Conquest : ?? * MaxMilkedScore
Culture (100k) : ?? * MaxMilkedScore
Culture (20k) : ?? * MaxMilkedScore
Diplomatic : ?? * MaxMilkedScore
Domination : ?? * MaxMilkedScore
Spaceship : 0.17 * MaxMilkedScore

I'm sure you have a better feel for what these values should be.


The effect of this modification would be lower scores than what you are getting. In theory, a score of 10000 would be a perfect game and it would be very unusual to beat that.

A benifit of this adjustment is it should be easier to adjust the modifiers. If the condition best dates and max milked score mean exactly that, then it should be readily apparent if these values are wrong. For example, if many players beat a condition best date or max milked score then it would suggest the best values are too low. Conversly, if some of the best players cannot achieve the condition best values then it suggests the best values are too high.

Originally posted by Aeson
Also, it might be best to convert entirely into turns.


I agree, using years adds a slight imbalance between victory types.

Continuing the thought about a condition score modifier...


When a game is released, it would also have a score with each condition best date. This would represent the score you could expect to have if you could finish by the condition best date. For example:

Aztecs
Emperor
Standard
Continents 60%

MaxScore: 15963

Conquest: 600AD 1863 pts
Cultural: 1550AD 3193 pts
Diplomatic: 1175AD 2469 pts
Domination: 600AD 1863 pts
Spaceship: 1325AD 2714 pts.

Points stated are the per-turn game score without the built in finish bonus. They could easily be stated either way.

This would give players some concrete numbers on what is considered a perfect game for each of the six victory conditions.



I think the condition score modifier is still not quite right. There probably should be different values for each difficulty level as well. A good approximation would be an adjustment up or down depending on the number of turns for the condition best date. For example:

Condition Score Modifier
Conquest : ??
Culture (100k) : ??
Culture (20k) : ??
Diplomatic : ??
Domination : ??
Spaceship : 0.17

ConditionScore = ConditionScoreModifier * MaxMilkedScore * ConditionBestTurns / ConditionBaseTurns

I've been thinking about the problem as well. I think your solution makes a lot of sense. It's more appropriate for the modification to come from the score side like you are saying, than from the turns side like I initially posted about.

ConditionScore = ConditionScoreModifier * MaxMilkedScore * ConditionBestTurns / ConditionBaseTurns

I'll have to try it on some examples, but it looks good. The only problem that might arise is that by including the turns figures in with the scoring, it could double the significance of any inbalances in the 'best' tables. The alternative is to add another set of tables though, which would probably just make everything harder to balance.

PlayerScore = (GameScore - GameBonus - ConditionScoreModifier) / MaxMilkedScore * ScoreAdjustment

This I'm not so sure about. If the ConditionScoreModifier is meant to be the 'best' score at the condition date, then wouldn't this always return a negative number? I just woke up, so I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around it. If a player beats the 'best' date they get over 10k, but it's offset by likely falling short of the condition score? Of course if the 'best' date is set right this shouldn't happen. Sorry for talking to myself here. ;)

I'll work on converting everything to turns. Starting on a calculator as well. I'll have it so you can manually input the terrain info from mapstat first, and then add the functionality to get the stats from the saves later.

Aeson,

I mixed some terms up in my previous posts as I was kind of developing the idea as I went. To clarify some terms:

ConditionScoreModifier - This is the percentage of the max milked score you should acheive if you acheive victory by the 'best' date. There is a value for each victory type.

ConditionScore - This is the expected score you should acheive if you acheive victory by the 'best' date. This value is subtracted from you final per-turn game score. It is calculated using the formula you quoted in your post.

That changes the variable names in the PlayerScore formula as follows:

PlayerScore = (GameScore - GameBonus - ConditionScore) / MaxMilkedScore * ScoreAdjustment



Yes it is possible to have a negative value for score portion. This is probably possible even if you finish after the 'best' date but not desirable. I think the condition score should be an expected score if you finish by the best date instead of being considered the best score you can acheive if you finish by the best date. In my limited experience with going for the fastest possible finish, there is little you can do to improve your score that doesn't detract from your goal of finishing as soon as possible. It would be a shame to hit one of the best dates and be penalized for score.

If balanced right, it leaves more ways of achieving the perfect game: finish by the best date for the victory condition, milk the game for the maximum possible score or finish slightly after the best date but with a substantially better score than the condition expected score.

Originally posted by Beard Rinker

If balanced right, it leaves more ways of achieving the perfect game: finish by the best date for the victory condition, milk the game for the maximum possible score or finish slightly after the best date but with a substantially better score than the condition expected score.

This is exactly what one would want but bear in mind that we do not want to discourage milking, but only to give other victories a chance against milked games.

I, for one, would agree that a game played 15 hours milked for 5 hours should have a score slightly higher than a fast win, even if it took 13 hours of which 3 planning.

What I mean is make the extra time spent by milking worth something.

The way I see it a perfect scoring system would have in the top 10 players, 6 early winners and 4 milkers.

What dou think?:confused:

Originally posted by Yndy

I, for one, would agree that a game played 15 hours milked for 5 hours should have a score slightly higher than a fast win, even if it took 13 hours of which 3 planning.


It depends on how well it was played. I could milk a game for 100 hours and probably not get the top score.

If the formula works as designed, a game that is finished fast and milked effectively along the way should score best. Next best would be a perfectly milked game or a game finished in the absolute minumum game turns but not milked at all.

These differences though are slight, and probably smaller than error in calculating the best finish date and maximum possible score. In other words, your best bet is to assess the map and play the game that fits it best.

Originally posted by Aeson
EDIT: added a more in-depth set of modifiers for the MaxScore/MaxTurnScore equation.


I think you are referring to the Landform/WaterLevel and Difficulty/Size modifiers in that post.:confused:

Anyway, I could not find any reference as to how you use them. I am assuming this applies to this formula:

MaxMilkedScore = MaxTurnScore * Landform

Is the formula now

MaxMilkedScore = MaxTurnScore * (Landform + SizeModifier)

The way I see it a perfect scoring system would have in the top 10 players, 6 early winners and 4 milkers.

Yndy,

If you look at the results from this formula, they are pretty much like what you are talking about. In GOTM 6-9 there were 16 milking games in the top 10, from 2-6 per game. The rest were early finishes, with a good representation of victory types that were actually played in each.

MaxMilkedScore = MaxTurnScore * (Landform + SizeModifier)

Beard,

Yes, this is correct. Originally it was just .65, .55, .45 for Pangaea, Continents, and Archipelago. I should have added the formula with the more indepth numbers, but forgot. The size/difficulty modifiers I toned down a bit as well.

MaxScore/MaxTurnScore %

Water Level

Landform 80 70 60

Archipelago 0.500 0.517 0.533
Continents 0.550 0.566 0.583
Pangaea 0.600 0.617 0.633


Size

Difficulty Tiny Small Stand Large Huge

Chieftain 0.0135 0.0120 0.0105 0.0090 0.0075
Warlord 0.0120 0.0105 0.0090 0.0075 0.0060
Regent 0.0105 0.0090 0.0075 0.0060 0.0045
Monarch 0.0090 0.0075 0.0060 0.0045 0.0030
Emperor 0.0075 0.0060 0.0045 0.0030 0.0015
Deity 0.0060 0.0045 0.0030 0.0015 0.0000

Here is an early version of the calculator (PC only) which handles most of the calculations. The suggestion about the condition scores hasn't been implemented yet though. I haven't figured out what the %'s should be.

The calculator shows all the modifiers implemented, and allows changing them to see the way each affects score. For now it requires that the terrain info be input by hand from MapStat. Haven't gotten around to working on the decompression or reading of save files yet.

Guys,

I wish I could contribute to your discussion but my hard disk totally crashed Saturaday morning. I couldn't even format it.

Luckily it's during warranty period but now I can't really do anything to help ( except lamenting here).

Cheers,

Keep up the good work
:goodjob:

...and all I could think about was how much my pc would have skyrocketted had I joined in this debate. Damn GOTM took all my posting time!;)

peace!:)

I haven't tried to read through this whole thread, but I have a couple thoughts on the issue of milking and scoring.

The reason I have no interest at all in milking games is that it requires absolutely insane nation management decisions. A well-run civilization would want as many improvements in each city as possible, but milkers have to deliberately limit their building of anything that produces culture if they want the game to last until 2050. Worse, since science improvements produce culture, milking strategies seem likely to seriously compromise a nation's science as well. Further, making cities productive rather than merely happy is almost completely irrelevant to the success of milking. Thus, milking is NOT about building up a great civilization, but rather is merely about manipulating the scoring rules.

If other people get their fun out of manipulating the scoring rules to the greatest possible advantage, that's fine. But for me, Civilization games are about building a great civilization, and that transcends the manipulations of a rules mechanic. I'll bend my play style a little to try to score a little higher, but I won't smash it to a million pieces.

I enjoy the GOTMs as a shared experience, and I do compete fairly seriously (and in one case so far, successfully) for "fastest finish" medals. Speeding up the finish as much as possible does require a little bit of "rules mechanic" manipulation, but it's mostly about building up a nation that is militarily and/or scientifically advanced as quickly as possible. I can live with that, and even when I don't win medals, coming close tells me I'm a good player whatever the score chart says.

Which brings me to the ultimate test of any scoring system: Can players who are simply trying to build great civilizations expect to score at least almost as well as players who deliberately manipulate the scoring system to their advantage? Unless a scoring system can achieve that kind of transparency, it will be at least as much a measure of players' willingness to go out of their way to manipulate the scoring system as it is of their true ability to build great civilizations. I hope those of you who are working on ideas for alternative scoring systems keep that in mind.

Another point: an analysis of any proposed scoring system must take into consideration how the scoring system itself will affect people's playing styles. Even if a scoring system makes 100% perfect sense for balancing past games, it might not make sense when players start adjusting their playing styles to the new scoring criteria. (And self-calibrating systems that look at relative statistics rather than absolute statistics are even more vulnerable to fluctuations in playing style.) That, too, is something that those who work on alternative scoring systems have to watch for.

I'd love to see a scoring system good enough that those of us who focus on the more abstract concept of building a successful civilization can get scores in the same ballpark as what rules mechanics get. But I'm not holding my breath.

One last thing: in my book, it should be next to impossible for a game that lasts until 2050 to be considered a true success. Any nation worth its salt should normally be able to achieve some sort of victory long before then, and choosing not to do so diminishes that nation. That's not to say that success should be measured solely or even primarily in terms of fastest finish, because a well-balanced nation will almost inevitably not reach any particular goal as quickly as it could if it compromised everything else in favor of that one goal. But rewarding nations for deliberately refusing to capture that last foreign city after all but conquering the world, or for refusing to claim the little bit of extra land needed for domination, or for deliberately destroying their own centers of culture in order to avoid cultural victory, represents a gross perversion of the game's underlying concept and a serious flaw in the scoring system. So my view, in a well-designed scoring system, winning fast should certainly not be the only consideration, but milking until 2050 should not be a viable option at all.

Nathan

I've said it before: the only fair scoring system is by year of victory, rated separately for each type of victory.

Originally posted by Ribannah
I've said it before: the only fair scoring system is by year of victory, rated separately for each type of victory.

I don't buy that. A civ that wins a domination victory a few turns faster by going into a mode that builds nothing but military units in its core and suspending scientific research to get gold to rush temples should not automatically be judged better than one that keeps improving its cities and advancing in science while pursuing its goal of domination. Similarly, a civ that wins the space race a few turns faster because it does not pursue optional tech advances and associated wonders and/or does not take the time to engage in some modern-era conquest to expand its size is not clearly superior overall. A scoring system that takes into account the merits of building a nation that's balanced instead of using every available trick to speed up a particular victory condition could be at least as fair. (Consider, for example, the simple adjustment of counting each modern tech not reuqired for the space race as being equivalent to winning the space race four turns earlier.)

On the other hand, I do suspect that having completely separate winners for each victory condition is probably necessary to avoid comparing apples and oranges. Some maps are conducive to fast space launches but poor for early domination or conquest, and others are the opposite. It would take an essentially impossible level of sophistication in map analysis to determine whether the player who did best while pursuing the primary goal of conquering the world did "better" than the one who did best while pursuing the primary goal of winning the space race. Any scoring system that attempts such a comparison will inevitably rely heavily on approximation and guesswork. But even so, it's hard to imagine a scoring system much less sophisticated than the one Firaxis came up with.

Nathan

Cracker's, "Improving Your Opening Play Sequences" measures performance against what you actually accomplish. It's really the first attempt by anyone to actually evaluate the good vs. poor decisions on a grander scale and form some guidelines to improve ones play.

Evaluating all the tangible accomplishments in the civ is the real key to a better scoring system that can reward a broader range of play styles.

CB

I tried the formula on the GOTM 10 results now that they are our. Here they are if anyone is interested. :)

I haven't done much of anything on the calculator or formula since last posting, didn't seem to be enough interest to warrant all the frustration of getting the decompression working right.

Hi Aeson,

Alain's game was finished in 370BC! So that is why the base score is so high because the sheet has it as 370AD, that cuts 2220 points off the base score. :)

However, none of the "GOTM Police" ever saw this game so we may all wait along time to see that game. ;)

CB

Thanks for clearing that up CB! 370BC is an even more impressive date of course, and the base score fits much better.

Aeson;

I like the intent of what you are trying to do. What would be useful is a comparison between the score your system would give someone at the point where they are starting to milk on a wholesale basis (eg. within around 90% of domination limit, and other civs suitably depleted), and what it gives them at the end of the milking process. Milking should be marginally higher, I would have thought - for a good milker.

I believe that your intent was to make them comparable - whilst recognising that milking in itself is a skill. Do you have any such comparisons available? :)

I don't have many games where the saves are there to compare different victory conditions.... If anyone else has some laying around where they felt their effort was pretty consistant up to the domination limit, as well as throughout milking, feel free to share the results (need the tile counts as well).

Looking at my HOF Deity game, I would have scored 12655 through the formula if I had taken Domination at it's earliest available time (23541 score, 1100AD). If I had been playing specifically towards domination, my score probably would have been much lower, and the date a couple hundred years earlier. The formula score wouldn't have been much different most likely though. My score for milking was 10104 (63545 score, 2050AD). The point where I could have first launched would have scored 11202 (27214 score, 1290AD).

It does show an imbalance still, but the scores are obviously much closer than they are through the normal scoring system. There is a bias against milking in the formula mechanics in general, probably because my base numbers for 'best' dates are more like 'very good' dates, as Alain showed with the early conquest in GOTM 10 very well (beating the conquest prediction by 270 years). The 'best' milking scores are more a 'perfect' milking score. I think that out of all the GOTM's, only CB's dogpile influenced games exceeded the max milking score. So scores get judged against perfect, while dates are just being compared to very good.

That said, my HOF game is probably close to the most extreme discrepancy that would be shown through this formula between domination and milking. The map was such that I could expand out to the domination limit almost unfettered (8 civs on a huge map), so my domination date is going to be very good, and my base score as well, because I could focus almost entirely on building up population and territory to that limit. Also, it being a Huge/Deity game, the remaining Civs after I had reached domination were still very strong, and I had to drain my economy (postpone Hospitals and Marketplaces) for a while taking care of them so I could milk in peace. Maybe it shows a need to add a number of civs modifier to the MaxScore/MaxTurnScore modifiers. Because the fewer civs around (relative to map size), the easier it is to build out to the domination limit, and the harder it will be to take care of the remaining civs after that time. Each remaining civ will be bigger and stronger than on a more crowded map.

I don't think we can ever perfectly balance all the victory conditions on all maps. Some maps will just be more condusive to one victory type over another, even with the same settings. Still, 12655 (dom), 11202 (space), and 10104 (milked) are more comparable than 23541 (dom), 27214 (space), and 63545 (milked) wouldn't you say?

1. Set the Victory condition each month, just like you set the Civilization.

2. Increase the Early Finish Bonus so the "Trophy Hunters" don't have to Milk the game.

END OF SUBSTANCE!!!!! ;)



"Jawboning" Begins:

WHO WANTS TO MILK, ANYWAY?
As far as I can see, a very small minority actually WANTS to milk a game.......top players, like Cartouche Bee, have admitted they only do it for the "Medal"............that's why I did it too!
BUT, I don't have time to play GOTM if it requires milking every month!

Matrix, I know you're Big on "Square Root + Bonus", although nobody else seems to support this idea.............BUT, since this is "YOUR dictatorship" :love:, any substantial increase in the end-of-game bonus would put an end to milking..............which nobody REALLY wants to do in the first place!:)

I think we should combine the Civ3 Tourney scoring system here, and the RBCiv scoring system.

Maybe have a "goal" victory, which could net you more points if you get it.

The problem is that milking takes advantage of Civ's scoring on population, and early conquerers take advantage of the year-of-victory bonus.

I think we should take the RBCiv method, you know, with the "1 point for this, 5 points for that, 20 points for that."

You may noticed that players such as Sullla and Sirian have left GOTM for RBCiv. Maybe that is a sign of something?:hmm:

CG

Originally posted by Aeson
I tried the formula on the GOTM 10 results now that they are our. Here they are if anyone is interested. :)

I haven't done much of anything on the calculator or formula since last posting, didn't seem to be enough interest to warrant all the frustration of getting the decompression working right.

Sorry if this is a repeat but the thread is a little too long to check :-)

At least for GOTM 10, where lots of us decide to have a cultural win (OCC for the lowest score challenge), I have the feeling that the 'scoring date' considered 'very good' or 'perfect' was completely unreacheable by far.

I probably have much less information than you about how a game can be won by culture, but 1500 in general seems very, very hard and 1375 on GOTM10 seems, let me think, not easy :-) .

I still like your works anyway.

Jabah

The culture date used is based off of 100k, because I just didn't want to go through all the games and check which was which (and the games weren't posted anyways). 100k isn't too difficult to reach, just requires a dedication to ICS and early temples inbetween settlers for the most part.

I was able to peacefully settle a good bit of land before cutting off my expansion in my game, with about room for 50 cities (if I had gone ICS) by the end of the BC's. That was while dedicating all my resources towards libraries and techs for a spaceship win. I don't think ~1400AD 100k culture would be that difficult on this map. Consider that the tournament game 1-3 (cultural) had less available land to peacefully settle, yet qitai won in 1295AD and JuicyCivNewbie hit in 1375AD. The domination limit on that game was 1477, while the domination limit on GOTM 10 was 1539. So in the room available, it certainly is possible.

The 20k single city culture victory takes until about 1800 to hit, and that date doesn't vary much according to game settings. There are only so many cultural improvements to build, and only so many 1000 year doublings available. I agree that anything much below 1800 is an unrealistic goal. The 20k cultural date for GOTM 10 would have been 1700AD, if you want to see how the OCC wins you know about did, just change the cultural date (in the 'Game' row) to that in the spreadsheet. Then just ignore the new scores for any culture games with a base score over a few hundred (which would be 100k games). Looks like Ribbannah (1740AD, 190 base score = 9053, 6th place) did very well in that regard. The rest of you were probably trying to wait until as late as possible to trigger culture, so as to lower your score, so naturally didn't do as well with the formula.

Yes, you are right, I was more thinking in term of 20k culture victory (OCC or not) which are more 1800/1900's.

I never thought of peaceful ICS early 100k victory, that looks weird but of course should work to trigger an early win (if there is room for such a strategy).

In accordance to this, the cultural victories should probably be separated in 20k and 100k victories... but that is more work :-)

Thanks for sharing all these feedbacks.

Jabah

I'm a little embarrased to show this update...the formula (namely the Emperor/Small/Conquest, and Emperor/Small/Domination modifiers) didn't do so well. I think this has to do with turn/date ratios, and the vast difference that shows up in those two victory conditions depending on if there are galley crossings or not. The modifiers obviously should be a bit lower in those categories, especially the Small (and Tiny) modifiers. The occurance of Galley crossings would be more likely the smaller the map.

I guessed from screenshots that it's a Continents/70%.

I excluded the one game which didn't have a listed date, and I'm just guessing that the 540AD Cultural victory was really a Domination, could have been a Conquest though. 540AD Cultural victory wouldn't have gotten past the GOTM police I think. ;)

There really isn't too much difference between the formula results and the actual GOTM results this month. Spaceship and Cultural games did a little better with the formula, but Domination and Conquest dominated (or rather completely conquered) the top 23. This is still slightly better than the top 39 as in the official results though.

The files in the .zip are an Excel file, and an .html version for those who don't have a .xls viewer.

Aeson,

there seems to be a problem showing the frenchzulu's game in the table. I presume he ended 5th with your formula but there is no game listed at 5th place.

I really like your formula, as once again I ranked higher with this calculation than on the actual result list ( although it's only a 1 place improvement this time). :D

It shows up for me. I think it has to do with the background color that I used (a dark grey) to signify the official silver medal game. If you are viewing the files with some sort of text color override (IE has one), then the white text I used for that listing will be replaced, and possibly not visible because of the background. To see the results, highlight the area, and the text should be visible then.

Here is the listing for #5 thefrenchzulu:

5 thefrenchzulu 10286 150 AD Conquest Victory 786 1451 12258 13709

There is also a problem with BillChin's game. A score of 1308 shouldn't be possible at a date of 1340AD on Emperor. The bonus for that date would be 3550, which makes his base score -2242. Anyone know the real score/date for BillChin's game?

Yes, you were right, thanks for making that clear (literally :) ).

I guess the score listed for billchin's game is the unmodified (before bonus calculations) score, perhaps Billchin or someone of the gotm staff can shed some light on this, and how this score ended up in the results list.

Sorry, can't help you, we don't see any form of list before the results are posted.

It even seems that a number of games that were submitted were never received by Matrix and not reviewed but I guess all those people will just think they cheated.

:(

:hmm: So that's why I got my highest ranking so far in this competition...

I guess there were some pretty good players that didn't have their game reviewed. I was already missing names like cracker and Aeson on the results list.

Any chance their games can somehow be put results later (maybe not counting for medals), if they resubmit their games (if they still have them)?
I think it's best for all of us if the results lists and thus the savegames in the archives are as complete as possible, so people can look at and learn from games played by others.

I didn't play GOTM11. Did you CB?

Originally posted by Aeson
I didn't play GOTM11. Did you CB?

The current theory is that any games that were submitted using the new unified submission form may have been lost. My write up of my game was in the spoiler thread.

That's harsh. Is the submission form working now?

Also, any input on why the early conquests and domination victories totally destroyed my formula? I didn't play the game so I can only guess by screenshots (which don't show a whole lot).

Originally posted by Aeson
That's harsh. Is the submission form working now?

Also, any input on why the early conquests and domination victories totally destroyed my formula? I didn't play the game so I can only guess by screenshots (which don't show a whole lot).

I don't know, I guess I'll see if my GOTM12 shows up. Since it was a small map, a 370AD domination does not score much and has no effect since it was probably my lowest ranked game for a while.

The map had three agressive and strong civs together on a fairly small continent. This pretty well nullified their participation in the game. In my game I think I only built 1 city on that continent and that was to trigger the domination, never really even had to fight them. So it was almost like a 2 Civ opponent game.

What do we need to do to get a better definition of what happened to the lost game submissions for GOTM11. It looks to me like 30 or more games may be missing.

I submitted a game prior early in September that seems to have been lost and would have shown up in the results with a fairly fast finish. I posted spoiler info and scoring comparisons in the spoiler thread early in the month.

Originally posted by cracker
What do we need to do to get a better definition of what happened to the lost game submissions for GOTM11. It looks to me like 30 or more games may be missing.

I submitted a game prior early in September that seems to have been lost and would have shown up in the results with a fairly fast finish. I posted spoiler info and scoring comparisons in the spoiler thread early in the month.

Matrix posted a notice on the main page of the site on instructions on what to do if your interested.

Good to see that everyone who's game was lost can still submit. :goodjob:
So much for my high ranking though... :cry:

I'll bounce back though, as I think I have a pretty decent chance of getting a good result on gotm12.

Your two spaceship launches have been very good from the formula's perspective though Kemal, both top 5! It's not the official ranking of course, but it means more IMO.

Thanks for the compliment, Aeson. :)

Don't get a wrong impression, I'm perfectly happy with the ranking I get each month for a game, and I know I won't get a high position on the results list because I'm more of a fast spaceship player. I rank these two games among the most succesfull civ games I've played so far and it's nice to see them end up high on the results generated by your formula.

Btw, too bad you didn't go for fastest spaceship award this time. Since you've beaten me pretty overwhelmingly in gotm 10, I would have liked to see whether I could have beaten you on the launch date this time around, since I've set a personal best for the spacehip launch date in gotm12. :)

Now that you're not competing for spaceship and SirPleb and Lawrence both seem to have retired, my hopes are pretty high this time. But maybe someone else will go away with the fastest spaceship award this time since the level of competition is very high in the GotM. If so they - IMO- definitely earned it.

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
I don't know, I guess I'll see if my GOTM12 shows up. Since it was a small map, a 370AD domination does not score much and has no effect since it was probably my lowest ranked game for a while.

Domination in 370AD is very, very good point. And by Aeson's formula you could be the first.
In 10AD I had 57% of the map. I don't know when I could got the Domination.

Here's the GOTM 12 results. Very nice launch date there Kemal!

Here are the GOTM13 results. I've changed all the modifiers over to by turn, which makes for a bit better 'best' dates.

Just thought I'd update on how all the modifiers are looking right now. They are all in turn form now. I've added a set of civ trait modifiers as well, which none of the results above have used so far. There have also been a few slight changes to various modifiers outside the basic date to turn conversion.


base modifiers

conquest 150
cultural 100k 290
cultural 20k 330
diplomatic 250
domination 170
spacerace 290

difficulty modifiers

chi war reg mon emp dei
conquest -15 -10 -5 0 20 50
cultural 100k -7 -5 -2 0 5 15
cultural 20k -10 -5 0 0 35 80
diplomatic -5 0 5 0 -10 -25
domination -7 -5 -2 0 10 25
spacerace -5 0 5 0 -10 -25

map size modifiers

tin sma sta lar hug
conquest -20 -10 0 20 40
cultural 100k 50 25 0 -25 -50
cultural 20k 0 0 0 0 0
diplomatic -30 -15 0 -15 -30
domination -15 -10 0 10 20
spacerace -30 -15 0 -15 -30

landform modifiers

a80 a70 a60 c80 c70 c60 p80 p70 p60
conquest 25 15 7 10 5 0 -5 -10 -20
cultural 100k 20 15 10 5 0 -5 -10 -15 -20
cultural 20k 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
diplomatic 6 3 0 -3 -6 -12 -15 -18 -21
domination 15 10 5 5 0 -5 -7 -10 -15
spacerace 6 3 0 -3 -6 -12 -15 -18 -21

trait modifiers
exp com mil sci rel ind
conquest 0 -5 -15 -5 -10 -10
cultural 100k 0 -5 -5 -20 -20 -10
cultural 20k 0 0 -5 0 -10 0
diplomatic 0 -10 -5 -15 -10 -10
domination 0 -10 -15 -10 -15 -15
spacerace 0 -10 -5 -15 -10 -10

Here are the results of GOTM10-13 based on these modifiers. Also they are now using numbers which more accurately represent the total amount of food on the map, and the date score calculation is done in turns instead of years. The new method of calculating the date score really makes a big change in the results. Now 'partially milked' games are on much more even footing with 'fully milked' and 'fast finish' games.

Aeson: If Kemal decides to fully milk his game, where do you think he will be on your list? Would he still be #1 by the year 2050AD?

Originally posted by Moonsinger
Aeson: If Kemal decides to fully milk his game, ...

That 'll never happen.. ;)

I guess it now comes down to fast finishing AND milking, since my score for gotm 12 is lower than my score for gotm 13, even though I personally think my effort for gotm 12 was better than the one for gotm 13 in terms of the result achieved. However, as I also stated in my spoilers for gotm 13, aside from trying to launch as fast as possible, I also micromanaged for score in that game ( and didn't like it a bit ;) ).


Great work with the score systems Aeson.

However, I'm not very happy with how some victory types are favoured with certain types of maps/civ traits, since that will encourage (even more than before) many finishes of the same type (like in the Tournament) instead of a mixed display of skills for a given map.
If I understand this correctly, with this score system, on higher difficulty, even though I have the game in the bag before AD it would be unwise to pursue an early spaceship launch since it would have a negative effect on my score. So instead I should go on and try to go for domination\conquest, something which I dislike to do.

Also, could you please explain why:

1. Pangea map setting disfavours Spaceship victories more than conquest victories
2. Why the cultural 100k modifier for deity is so much lower than the conquest and domination modifier? IMO, the 100k culture victory condition on deity is much more difficult than a domination or conquest victory.
3. Maybe I misunderstand, but won't the heavy modifier for the conquest victory over the domination victory lead to situations where people will try to come as close to the domination limit as possible, after which they will continue by razing the leftover AI cities to reach a conquest victory to make the modifier applicable to their score, even though they actually went the domination way in their game?

Kemal

Almost definitely not. Achieving a very fast space race victory requires a different approach than the 'conquer out to the domination limit as fast as possible' that milking (and of course early dominations) require. Normally it is best to grab only as much land as you can make productive... about 2x the number of optimal cities for the map. That allows the AI's to be strong themselves, and help a bit in the tech race. From an in-game scoring perspective, this isn't anywhere near the optimal approach.

An early domination or conquest milked out would hopefully score roughly the same either way. If you have the date and base score for when you reach the domination limit in any of your milked games, just plug those in to see how your 'domination' score would compare to your 'milked' one. There currently is still a discrepancy that favors early victories (especially the 'late' early victories), but the results should be within 1000 points in most cases.

The basic premise of this formula is to recognize that there are vastly different styles of gameplay required for each victory condition, and allow for skill in each style to be awarded on a more equal basis.

However, I'm not very happy with how some victory types are favoured with certain types of maps/civ traits, since that will encourage (even more than before) many finishes of the same type (like in the Tournament) instead of a mixed display of skills for a given map.

Currently this is mostly because the map generator doesn't do a very good job at giving consistant results on the same settings. I've had to base the modifiers off of the settings which don't always turn out the way they are expected to. I am working on a utility that will analyze the map directly and base the modifiers off what the map 'really' is, instead of what we would expect it to be based off of the settings.

1. Pangea map setting disfavours Spaceship victories more than conquest victories

The reason why GOTM 11 was such a conquest/domination fest is that it was 80% water. There are two vastly different 80% water Pangaea outcomes with regard to conquest/domination. One is a very small landmass (or group of landmasses connected by galley crossings) with everyone on it, which will very much favor early conquests and dominations. The other is two or more small landmasses with ocean crossings, which will keep conquests and dominations restricted to post-navigation/magnetism, basically making them irrelevant.

Until I get the utility working to analyze such discrepancies, map generator quirks like this are going to throw things off quite a bit.

2. Why the cultural 100k modifier for deity is so much lower than the conquest and domination modifier? IMO, the 100k culture victory condition on deity is much more difficult than a domination or conquest victory.

It's actually not more difficult (at least in most cases). Normally you can get enough land for the cultural victory by fighting just 1 or 2 AI's early on, conquering ~30% of the overall landmass. The rest is building cultural improvements and trimming back any competitors at your leisure. The AI's don't pursue 'extraordinary' culture, so while initially the AI's on deity will be in the lead (or often are), they tend to stagnate later on. Even if you run into a real culturally advanced AI, they never will resort to ICS like the player can. So even in roughly the same area the player will be able to generate 2x or more culture.

3. Maybe I misunderstand, but won't the heavy modifier for the conquest victory over the domination victory lead to situations where people will try to come as close to the domination limit as possible, after which they will continue by razing the leftover AI cities to reach a conquest victory to make the modifier applicable to their score, even though they actually went the domination way in their game?

I tried to account for the difficulty differences that show up between conquest and domination. On higher difficulty levels, the balance is opposite what it is on lower difficulty. Domination takes longer on the lower levels because you have to basically build all the cities to claim the land yourself, after conquering the AI's in the way. It's more difficult than just conquering the few scattered (and poorly defended) AI cities. At higher difficulties, all the land is going to be claimed early on, and so the difference between domination and conquest is going to be conquering 67% of the world, or all of it. In that case, conquest will take longer.

The map plays it's role here as well. Sometimes there is enough available landmass to trigger domination well before there is access to all the AI's. If 67%+ of the land is accessable by land/galley, but one or more AI are on a landmass accessable only by navigation/magnetism, then conquest will take much longer than domination.

Basically... the utility should fix most of these problems once it is finished. Until then, the results are based off guesses as to the form of the landmass.

Looking at the modifiers I think I see what you were talking about now Kemal. The changes to tech rate modifiers (in game) by difficulty haven't been accounted for yet in the modifiers. It used to be the AI's got bonuses in tech rate, but now it's the player's tech rate that is modified.

It used to be on Deity that the AI's would drive the tech rate to ungodly levels, but that isn't the case anymore. I'll probably trim back the spacerace and diplomatic modifiers for emperor and deity a bit, but will wait until the GOTM14 results are available to decide just how much.

Originally posted by Aeson
If you have the date and base score for when you reach the domination limit in any of your milked games, just plug those in to see how your 'domination' score would compare to your 'milked' one.

Could you please give me an example of how to plug those values in to come up with your adjusted score? Sorry, but those modifiers don't do me any good unless I know what to do with them. I'm sure you probably already post the formula before, but since I'm new here, I don't know where to find it. Thanks!

//edit:

I think I figure it out. Just load up your excell spreadsheet and plug in the new number, right? It's easier than I thought. So basically, I don't have to do anything with your list of modifiers.

Silly me!

//please delete this one

Thanks for the quick and elaborate reply, Aeson. :)

It is very well possible I have a too one-sided look at how games should be rewarded, since my own approach to civ3 games has always been not to get an as high score as I could in a game, but to reach a victory condition (most times spaceship, especially in civ3 since I play on a slow system) as fast as possible, thus always favouring finishing date over score.

Since this thread is about GOTM Suggestion, I do have a suggestion to add. It would be nice if there is a place where we can take a look at the savegames of the top 10 players for each GOTM. It would be nice if I can see what Kemal or CB did in their games; I like to learn some new tricks from them.:) We can learn alot just by looking at the playback of the game too.

That leads me to another question. Now that we have to submit the save after the victory dance (after the win, the playback option will appear, but after we get pass that screen, I don't know how to get back to it), is there anyway we can get to the playback screen again?

In the old GOTMs they would compile all the saves into a giant zip file. But I guess no one has had the time to do it for a while, or maybe some players don't want to share.

You could always start a thread for people to post their saves voluntarily. :)

To Moonsinger: I had the same thoughts and cracker has already informed me that the archive will be restored to its former glory. :yeah:

These (large) files can really be a help because it is amazing how many different approaches people have to their games.

Originally posted by DaveMcW
You could always start a thread for people to post their saves voluntarily. :)

I think that would be a violation to the current GOTM rule, since posting savegame could be viewed as posting a spoiler. Therefore, the following request is for Cracker:

Would we have a thread title "GOTM#?? Save Games" for each month (after the submission deadline, of course) so that we can share our saves with each other? I'm just throwing out idea; that's all (like DaveMcW said, it's possible that some players don't want to share). Maybe the GOTM staffs already have better plans for making the saves public. Thanks for answering in advance!:)

Originally posted by Kemal
To Moonsinger: I had the same thoughts and cracker has already informed me that the archive will be restored to its former glory. :yeah:

These (large) files can really be a help because it is amazing how many different approaches people have to their games.

Cool!:cool: Please ignore my last post! I was typing it while you were answering it.

DaveMcW et all,

Give us just a few more weeks to fully gain your confidence. We have been working feverishly in the background to fix a number of issues and these will all be revealed to you shortly.

Your wants, needs, and suggestions really help to validate many of the things we have been struggling to work on in the midst of the Christmas holidays and the transition to the new leadership

Starting with Gotm14 you will have direct access to every individual save game in an easy to use menu that ties in directly to the results page. Instead of having to download a huge zip file you can just pick and choose to get the save game you want. Creepster has been quietly working on these issues for you for over two weeks now.

For an example of sort of how this will work you can go to the Results thread and Results page for Qsc13.

There is sort of a line in the sand that we need to recognize and all of the new features are coming on line beginning with Gotm14-Babylon and Gotm15-Russia.

A number of tasks for Gotm13-Aztecs and Gotm12-Zulus have been left undone and we will try to go back and fix these discrepencies as soon as we have the current games and near term future well in hand.

I am going to go ahead and ask Aeson the summarize the previous 140+ messages in this thread in a concise message to start a new thread to be titled "New GOTM Scoring System Proposal" but I think he will probably due that sometime later in January after we get the Gotm14 results out and process through a discussion of the new Global Ranking system.

I am retitling this thread and will probably close it in the next several days just help provide a clean transition.

After discussion between myself and CB behind the scenes, the scoring formula has undergone some pretty extensive changes from last month. Finally the problem with 'late' early victory types scoring too much has been addressed, and of course the addition of the civ trait modifiers.

A scoring curve has been added. The 'date' portion of the score is based off that curve and the 'best' finish date. Basically, the 'date' portion of the score is now representative of how many points (if milked to 2050AD) are expected to be passed up by finishing at the given date. This, added to their 'base' score, gives a total which is then divided by the 'max' score for the map.

I will explain the changes more indepth later, but for now, here are the GOTM14 results. The 'modified' score is still included in the results, but has no bearing on the final score anymore.

I tried to follow all the discussions on scoring systems etc. but I got desperately lost.

I was about to post a request for a wrap-up of the topic, but I see I have been beaten to this by Cracker himself. I am delighted to read that Aeson will post a summary, and I'll be eagerly waiting to read it. :thumbsup:

I just read through this whole thread looking for info on the scoring curve calculations :(

Aeson, please tell us this summary document is written up somewhere....


Edit: Just found it here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=44177). Thx Aeson :)

Since we have summarized these issues on the GOTM website and Aeson has started a new discussion of the actual implementation, I am going to close this thread to help keep the discussion consolidated.

This thread will still be used as a reference for many of the development discussions that went into shaping the Jason Scoring System.

Cracker