The scoring system for QSC games will continue to evolve as time goes on and we get more participants with a broader perspective. All changes will be evaluated in terms of the greater objectives of QSC scoring and that will be to reflect the power of the opening play sequence without causing players to do things that might just gratutiouly alter their play away from stratgies that help to score well and win in the bigger game as a whole.

With these objectives in mind and based on what we are learning from QSC games in about three different fora, several scoring changes were implemented for the Qsc13 results and will be applied to all future QSC games.

Wonders
Early wonders can radically alter the balance of power in the game if they fit with the key strategy elements and map conditions that the current game includes. Towards this end, the equivalent shield cost of the wonder may have nothing to do with its actual impact on the game.

Wonders may also produce effects in the game that raise the QSC score in other ways. An good example of this would be the Pyramids that instantly confer a granary into every town on the continent. The granaries individually allow each town to retain 10 food units to apply towards growing the next pop point In an empire of 6 towns, the Pyramid power effect is instantly somewhere between 360 and 420 power points even if the direct score for the pyramids is zero.

Other early wonders have similar effects that impact other elements of empirical power.

Towards this end, the score for just having an early wonder of any kind has been set to 100 points plus any tangible benefits that the empire may accrue in the form of other structures, food, or commercial benefits. Some wonders will be worth less than others in the QSC.

We will probably add a special judge's recognition award to recognize the worst possible wonder decision in a QSC game just to make sure we can provide some good natured ribbing to any "QSC point mongers" who we feel are just gratuitously building wonders (like the AI often does).

Great Leaders
These units show up in the scoring list of all units currently in your empire. If you have a GL that has been freshly produced in the last 4 turns of the QSC this will add 100 points to your score to reproduce the same power effect as if the Leader were used to rush a wonder or build an Army.

Armies
These units show up in the scoring list of all units currently in your empire. Armies will be worth 100 points in the ancient age if they meet some tests that will depend on each game event. Filling an ancient age army full of three unit with 1 value movement rates will probably not result in the army still being scored at 100 points. Having a victorious army of any kind, that has enabled the ability to build the Heroic Epic, is valuable in many strategies but this has not been addressed in the scoring system.

Technology Progression
The scoring system for QSCs takes any tech and determines its point value by adding the cost for the human to research that tech in the current game to a percentage of the cost of all the immediate prerequisites of that tech. This scoring accumulation is designed to reward deeper penetrations of the right hand side of the tech tree versus broad tech progress across all the branches when all other things are equal. Some of the logic here is to recognize that the potential trading value of the right hand techs is greater than the trading value of similarly priced but lower echelon techs.

The initial QSC scoring system used a 100% prerequisite accumulation but this has been shown by testing to place too much emphasis on techs relative to units/people and infrastructure issues.

The tech accumulation bonus for Qsc13 was dropped to 30% to provide better balance in the game. This change has little or no impact on most player postions but does make the scoring a more balanced representation of the some of the strategic choices that develop in each game.

An example of the impact of this tech change would be to look at a sequence of three fictitious techs that would all individually cost 100 beakers to research. As first implemented, these techs would have beens scored as 100, 200, and 300 power points. In the revised 30% accumulation the point values for these same three techs that still cost 100 beakers to research would be 100, 130, and 139 power points respectively.

We will continue to evaluate and responsively update the scoring systems for all games offered under the aegis of the Civfanatics Games of the Month and will update you when changes are implemented.

We have identified an individual staff role who will function as the "Scoring Steward" to review scoring systems for all game events and this person will be identified to you shortly.

wasn't there an excel sheet around somewhere that you could use to calculate your score?! I can't find it ...

Last month I downloaded it from the results page for QSC 13.

I have a scoring question for the QSC, since I am new to it this month. I read in one of the threads last night that the Pyramids counts for it's own shields, plus the extra shields for a granary in each city. Is this correct? The scoring table lists wonders as being worth just their shield cost. This would seem to be pretty unbalancing, as it could make it worth triple it's actual production cost (i.e. 10 cities = 600 extra shields?). Certainly it has the benefit of a granary in each city, but you didn't build them all, I don't see why it should be counted in the QSC total. If so, how do you account for the other wonders? Would the oracle give bonus shields of 60 for each city with a temple (since they are doubled)? I'm sorry if this was already discussed somewhere, I haven't seen it. Also, I already submitted my QSC for this month, so it doesn't affect my strategy (but might in the future!). Thanks.

We will get the scoring webpages updated just as soon as we move them to the new file server.

This issue of the value and scoring effect of wonders does continue to be an ongoing discussion so you are not alone in thinking about this issue.

This seems closest to on topic for discussing general QSC scoring.

On the other thread, Cracker writes:
>>
REMEMEBER: The QSC is designed to measure who built the most powerful civilization in the shortest period of time. Adapting the QSC score to recognize play styles that may exploit weaknesses in the AI behavior to gain an upperhand without real externally valid power is not really in the QSC mission statement.
>>

Unfortunately, I believe the current QSC scoring system does reward a certain style of play that exploits AI behavior. It involves tech. Techs are valued at full gold for one civ, even when contact is made with other civs. Techs have pyramid valuations, adding all prerequisites to their point value. Techs have additional pyramid value, in that they can be traded for other techs. I vote for taking out the pyramid value of adding in the prerequisites. Techs already have pyramid value in that they can be traded for other techs. I believe this additional pyramid value from the prerequisistes skews the scoring system too much.

On higher levels of play, the QSC scoring system rewards players (in my opinion extraordinarily) for researching techs with trade in mind and then finding and trading with as many civs as possible. Now in most circumstances these are good things, but I believe this is clearly exploiting AI behavior, and does reward a certain style of play (builder-techer-trader). If this is the goal, that is fine, but I am putting my objections in. The only open discussion I could find on this forum for QSC scoring was for embassies.

A second point, Cracker adds:
>>
The score does not measure relative power compared to your neighbors in the current game and many conquest and domination game strategies only focus on these issues. In a certain game, you might cripple three nearby neighbors and end up with only 3 three cities and 6 Swordsmen, but if all your neighbors have only 1 city and one warrior left then you are the big dog on the block in that game. In a big picture view you would still be less powerful compared to the same civilization with 10 cities and wonders and technology even if your nearby neighbors may be still in the game with you.
>>

I agree with this for the most part. However, there is an objection in my mind. Take the example of a multiplayer game, with two human players, no computer players to keep things simple. One player has ten cities, ten warriors, a bunch of techs, but little gold. Player two has five cities, ten swordsmen, ten warriors and few techs, and no wonders. I'm putting my money on Player Two if they are of equal ability. Again, this is an artificial example because there are only two players, but it does illustrate my point in a simplistic manner.
+ Bill

I have one concern with the wonders. If I read correctly, all wonders are worth 100 points (plus 60 pts for each city having a granary if you built the pyramids).

But what about wonders that aren't fully completed? If someone is in the process of building the Oracle (for example). If they finish it the turn before 1000 BC., they would only get 100 points. If someone else doesn't finish it until the turn after 1000 B.C., they would have 290 or so points for all the shields that they had built up. So, sometimes (with pyramids being the exception), it would seem to make sense to NOT finish the wonders until after 1000 B.C., because the built up shields counts more than the 100 pts you get for getting it completed.

Bamspeedy has a good point about the wonders that delaying completion actually increasing QSC score. If this is accurate, this is a gaping hole in the current scoring system. Another point is that the Pyramids are currently worth more than all the other Ancient wonders put together for a ten city empire (600 for granaries in each city plus 100 for the wonder)!

A player must make a judgement whether the Pyramids can be completed by 1000 B. C. with reasonable sacrifices. The Pyramids and trading techs can give a player a scoring boost higher than most average players can achieve playing a normal game. In my opinion, this does not encourage good sound game play, and strategic thinking, it teaches players how to build the Pyramids.

I know that with any scoring system there are compromises, but with such large bonuses for high level techs and one particular wonder, I believe it can be improved upon.

My suggestions:
1) go back to shield cost for all wonders to bring back the Pyramids to reasonable value in comparison. Maybe have a value of 300 for each army and each leader. These are often the result of a lucky die roll, but an early great leader does have a huge impact on a game. As I get into it, I can see how none of these is going to be 100% fair and consistent, but what is out there now seems out of line.
2) Double the value for units and towns so that wonders are not so valuable in comparison if step one is implemented. I believe units and towns are the heart of any empire at the start of a game (if playing a normal type game not One City Culture). I want to add, increase the value for completed buildings as well, but the Pyramids thing hangs over me.
3) I vote to get rid of prerequisite bonus for techs all together. Advanced techs already get pyramid value from their tradeability. If a tech is not tradeable, that means other civs already have it, and it did not cost full gold to research in the first place. One decent tech often yields the equivalent of two other techs of equal value in trades so there is an almost 200% bonus built in if a player can trade. And if it is not tradeable, it often means it was paid for at full gold value. Another idea is to leave the pyramid value as is, or put it back to the old 100% pyramid value, but cut all tech values in half or more, perhaps a sliding scale depending on map size and number of opponents.
+ Bill

BillChin, your suggestions make sense to me, I second them. I think that tech is the most over-valued single thing in QSC (wonders after that.) I think it would make sense to devalue tech at least as much as you suggest, perhaps even further. My thinking is that:
1) Ancient Times techs are often easy (even free) to pick up later in the game than the 1000BC cutoff. I don't think there's necessarily any value in having many of them at that time.
2) Sometimes I would rather NOT have a tech, I'm stronger without it. E.g. Horseback Riding, or if I want to slow the overall tech pace.
3) The tech part of the score has a luck element. Learning Map Making just before 1000BC and trading it for two or three other techs is not necessarily a game which is the least bit stronger than one where it is learned a few turns later.

One exception: if going for a science race (early space or diplo) then tech known at 1000BC could be a significant measure of performance. But even then the other measurements will probably also cover the situation by themselves.

Bill, our records show that you only have played one QSC game and that may be insufficient experience to let you make informed recommendations about the QSC scoring system yet.

There are clearly some tradeoffs in the wonder building process and these are addressed in the scoring exception rules. In general if yoy build a wonder, then the benefits of the wonder plus the 100 shields bonus will more than outweigh the shield costto build the wonder. If you carefully examine the benefit that can be obtained from each and every wonder you will see that, perhaps with the exception of the great wall, the game impact value of the wonder will exceed the raw sheild cost if the wonder is properly used.

A good example would be the Oracle: if you have temples in your cities and can get the benefit of extra happiness and population carrying capacity then the oracle has value. If not then the 100pt value is a gift and in reality your just wasted lots of shields.

The wonder point value was revised downward based on careful review of the first 100 to 150 qsc games. This will probably not be increased and your assessment that the pyramids may be currently underscored is 180 degrees out of line with the actual current observations.

It is false and misleading to say that delaying wonder completion will increase your Qsc score because this ignores any functional assessment of what the wonder may do if properly incorporated into your strategy. Give me any exampel of building a wonder (except the GW) at a reaonable number of turns before the end of the QSC an I can provide you with a strategic situation where the power of the wonder plus 100 points will be greater than the shield cost of the ancient age wonder.


------------------------------

The value of towns is carefully matched to the value of territory, citizens, workers, and settlers. Examine this relationship carefully before you let your perception of the system deprive you or the benefit of understanding how all these elements add up to be a reflection of power.

It is highly unlikely that the value of military units will be increased in the scoring formula because having units for the gratuitous sake of having units might encourage novice players to ignore play fundamentals like worker tasking and productive city management.

----------------------

The tech scoring is specifically designed to encourage players to penetrate deeply up the tech tree to get to the capstone techs instead of just randomly filling in across the bottom of the tech tree. At this point I am extremely pleased that the scoring system rewards the playerst hat do this agreessively instead of those players who invest littler no resources in technology managment. The wild cards these tech processes are the random freebie techs from goodie huts that cannot be programmed in a tournament control fashion, but that is a set of random game events we just have to live with.

We continue to review tech scoring but at present it seems to be working as designed.

I encourage you a gain to look at what the QSC score is designed to reflect and that is the total power of the advancing civilization that you are building. An aggressive warmonger will usually appear to be less adanced than a layer that follows a balanced approach but that is by design. Military power is only of value when it is converted into some form of assets in terms of increased happiness, added territory/population, pointy stick research etc.

The scoring system clearly includes a provision to give scoring bonuses to any players who may request them for military upgrades within 4 to 5 turns of the QSC cut off point at 1000BC.

Some detailed testing of the QSC scoring formaula has shown that aggressive war monger strategies may destroy their world quickly but that in terms of building a civilization they almost always lag behind other more balanced game approaches that include warfare as a tool but not an objective in itself.

We may have to discuss this topic more after you have Qsc17-Cartahge under your belt because it will be interesting to see how the scoring factors add up to let that game compare back across Qsc15 and Qsc16 which all reflect radically different game circumstances.

If anything I am more confused.

Point One: are the shields valued at one QSC point per shield or not? This is what is on the webpage but so is 100% pyramiding for tech values. If it is one point per unused shield in the hopper, a player close to finishing a wonder by the deadline will in many cases get a higher QSC score by sabotaging their production to finish after 1000 BC. I am asking for clarification, not debating the merits here. In any case, it is BamSpeedy (a much more experienced and polished player than I) who brought up that point, not me. Answer the question, and adjust the rules if it seems to be broken. I have no personal investment in the issue. One simple fix is to limit any shield in hopper bonus to 100 points for any single city, so that it is always better to finish ahead of the deadline.

Point Two: Are Pyramids worth 100 QSC points plus 60 points for every town (free granary)? If this is true, then the Pyramids are potentially more valuable in terms of QSC points than all the other Ancient Age wonders put together with the possible exception of the Great Library in a high difficulty game. If the Pyramid wonder valuation is this far ahead of everything else, a player who gets a great leader, risks many QSC points by using a leader for a Forbidden Palace or an army, both reasonable strategies in normal games (free of QSC scoring). Because the Pyramids are a food wonder, the actual leverage may be greater than the points.

Point Three: several players (most better than I) echo my comments that tech remains overvalued in QSC despite some cuts since the first formula came out. The committee seems to be taking a hard line on this and I can live with that. They do the work, they make the decisions. However, I am voicing my opinion and it has encouraged several others to do the same. Public input (outside of the committee) on this part of QSC scoring has not been asked for and I have not seen it discussed openly on this forum.

Again, I realize that there is no perfect solution that is 100% fair. I do appreciate all the hard work and thought that has gone into the project. My comments are in the camp of constructive criticism.

Thanks.
+ Bill

Originally posted by BillChin
Point Two: Are Pyramids worth 100 QSC points plus 60 points for every town (free granary)? If this is true, then the Pyramids are potentially more valuable in terms of QSC points than all the other Ancient Age wonders put together with the possible exception of the Great Library in a high difficulty game. If the Pyramid wonder valuation is this far ahead of everything else, a player who gets a great leader, risks many QSC points by using a leader for a Forbidden Palace or an army, both reasonable strategies in normal games (free of QSC scoring). Because the Pyramids are a food wonder, the actual leverage may be greater than the points.


Even after the first few QSC-equivalents and actual organized games in the GOTM, top players still disagree about the Pyramids and how they should be scored. I like them, but others would have an early FP with that leader. Some go so far as to build them from scratch very, very early to make sure they have them, as Ribannah did in the Rome game, IIRC. In an archipelago map, where the Great Lighthouse is usually desireable, building them and the GL might trigger an early golden age (not always desireable). The current valuation of Pyramids, adding granaries to the score, is probably the best way to figure it out, and players that deliberately skip or postpone them usualy have some other advantage (units, other wonders, lots of cities) to compensate if they've planned well.

I know that I haven't played a lot of QSC, but here's a little thought I had for the scoring of the Wonders. Wouldn't it also be nice to give certain wonders extra points if they fit the characteristics of your civilization?

For example when you're religious and you built the Oracle, instead of 100 points, you'd get more.

It's just a thought, but I always try to play my civ games to use the strenghts of the civilization I'm playing.

Greets Jurimax

If you get a GA there, that adds shield production and I think that adds to your score. I am not sure though because I haven't read into the scoring throughly enough. But if it only fits one, you wouldn't get a GA...

I agree with the others about tech value.

But the QSC is missing a major factor: income! It discourages your workers from keeping up with terrain improvements because many don't pay off by 1000 BC. And wonders/luxuries are scored incorrecty because their effect on income is not taken into account.

I propose that income be counted as part of the QSC score, weighted by a factor of, say, 10. The exact factor can be determined if anyone wants to calculate average rate of return.

Counting income leads to a number of scoring changes:
-The Pyramids would count for 400 and double your food income score
-Happiness from temples/luxuries/police would count as enterainment income
-Territory score could be reduced or eliminated because worked tiles are being counted already

It is false and misleading to say that delaying wonder completion will increase your Qsc score because this ignores any functional assessment of what the wonder may do if properly incorporated into your strategy. Give me any exampel of building a wonder (except the GW) at a reaonable number of turns before the end of the QSC an I can provide you with a strategic situation where the power of the wonder plus 100 points will be greater than the shield cost of the ancient age wonder.

If the wonder is rushed with a leader very early (1500-2000 B.C.), I can see you point, as the benefits of getting the wonder will help out in other areas (more happy people to get more shields/commerce, bonus commerce from tiles, etc.). But for manually built wonders, they wouldn't be completed until much closer to 1000 B.C.. If the Colossus is built in a river city, and the player is still in despotism, he would get hardly any bonus at all, but once he switches governments, of course it will help out a great deal, but that usually won't happen before 1000 B.C. With the Oracle, you would need not only the temples, but also have cities large enough to actually need the extra contentness. If luxuries are in abundance, and the player has military police in all cities, the extra content person helps very little. Great Lighthouse and Great Library would depend very much on map conditions (on some maps they may help, others they would be useless).

Why not give every wonder the value of their cost in shields and NOT give the player the Pyramids bonus of a free granary in every city. This will still favor the Pyramids, since it is one of the most expensive wonders and it will give you other benefits (faster growth), but it won't be as unbalancing as it is now.

Pyramiding value of techs: This favors the gifting away of techs to speed up the tech rate (this is great for a fast spaceship victory, though). This would be map-dependent and favors one play style over another. Continents and maybe island maps I can see what you are trying to do here, as you want your side of the world more advanced than the currently 'unknown' world. This helps ensure that wonders are built either in your civ, or your neighbors (for you to take it from them), and that you are not hopelessly behind when you meet the other side of the world.

But for pangea maps, and for players who can easily trade their way back to tech parity if they find themselves behind, then the player can forego fast science and let the AI set the tech speed (and the player just buys or beats the techs out of the AI).

I think I often get bogged down looking at the numbers only. It takes X number of sheilds to build Y. If something happens near the end of the QSC to make me think I would have rather had the sheilds instead of what I built, or I would have rather had the gold than what I upgraded I start thinking, hey the QSC scoring is robbing me.

BUT

In trying to contruct a post to constructively criticize this "problem" I started realizing what Cracker is trying to say. In Civ, power is not what you have but what you do with it.

In the case of upgrades, you have wasted your gold paying for swords just because you like the graphics. But if you use the swords to take territory/cities or tech, you can actually make a "profit" on your investment.

Same for the wonders. If you build the pyramids because you're told it's the best thing to build for QSC but you don't realize that it doesn't help your one city island then you've also not improved your power at all with those 400 sheilds.

So now comes the arguement that the pyramids will be productive, just not in the remaining 2 turns of the QSC so why not delay building. Or you won't have the time to take any cities, so why bother upgrading?

The answer lies in the purpose of the QSC. It was designed to allow two players to compare their performance in the initial setup. If you finish the Colosus 2 turns before the QSC, you lose the sheild count without the gain of the gold, thats true. But compared to another player who completed it 20 turns before you and has capitalized on the economic gains for 20 turns, his/her score will be better than yours regardless of whether or not you build or delay your completion.

In an ideal world, players would ignore what effects the score and play the game the way they would normally. At the ARBITRARY date of 1000BC, we take an assesment of how you did. This assessment can be compared to everyone else and indicate which strategies work and which don't.

Since this is of course not an ideal world, and everyone want to have a better score, these "loopholes" that allow a 200 point swing on the last turn seem to need correcting. But, after thinking about it a bit, I think I can live with it. I will build the colosus on the turn before the QSC is over and take the point loss. That way, I can see how far behind the player that built it ages earlier I really am.

Sorry for the long winded post. It was the result of an even longer winding contemplation of the topic.

Originally posted by ControlFreak
Since this is of course not an ideal world, and everyone want to have a better score, these "loopholes" that allow a 200 point swing on the last turn seem to need correcting. But, after thinking about it a bit, I think I can live with it. I will build the colosus on the turn before the QSC is over and take the point loss. That way, I can see how far behind the player that built it ages earlier I really am.


I already suggested a simple fix, limit any shield-in-hopper bonus to 100 shield points for any single city. I have yet to see any rational argument against this proposal. It is simple (!!!) and always yields a higher or equal score for players completing a wonder before the deadline.
+ Bill

Wouldn't that just convince someone to rushbuild everything on the next to last turn so they would have the full benefit of the sheilds? Especially in despotism, 1pop=20pts=20sheilds. And happiness isn't going to effect your QSC score in 1 turn. But it would affect your game over the next 20 or so turns.

Originally posted by ControlFreak
Wouldn't that just convince someone to rushbuild everything on the next to last turn so they would have the full benefit of the sheilds? Especially in despotism, 1pop=20pts=20sheilds. And happiness isn't going to effect your QSC score in 1 turn. But it would affect your game over the next 20 or so turns.

Um, no. The only 100+ shield projects projects in the ancient age are wonders, and wonders can not be pop rushed. In any case each pop point is valued at 20 QSC points, so there is no advantage in score to rushing any projects, only possible disadvantages. This one area seems okay. Some of the other things such as discounting the value of units vs. gold (and the kludge put in to try and moderate it), and overvaluing techs over gold and units, remain out of line (in my opinion).

I did think about discounting the value of shields and food in the hoppers, and believe that this is a good idea because things that are complete ARE worth more than potential. However, this is separate argument from the simple, easy and non-controversial fix of limiting any wonder pre-build bonus to 100 shields. Again, it is not perfect, but it is 90% better than the current system of 1 QSC point per shield.
+ Bill

Oh, you meant just limit 1 cities stored shields, not the total. I thought you meant a maximum of 100 sheilds stored total for the civ. I guess that would be a good fix to convince the player to build a wonder as soon as possible. I was afraid you meant to limit the total shield storage which would kill a player using ics or the like that had 50 cities with 20shields in each = 1000pts->100pts.

What about a player who is intentionally not building the wonder (like switching from palace prebuild to wonder) because he/she is trying to grab two wonders at the same time to kill the cascade? This could be a ton of stored sheilds that would bet wiped out in the max of 100.

I think I like devaluing the points for stored sheilds. That seems to make more sense because you're right, a built thing is worth more than a building thing. Especially when I got beat to the pyramids and I didn't have anything to switch too. (Yes, that happened in my GOTM16 and it happened 3 turns after the end of the QSC so it didn't hurt my score.) What are the arguments against devalued sheilds?

The focus should not be on just the score. One could argue that having 4 settlers at 70 points has a higher score than building 4 cities at size 1 or 2 with a citizen value of only 20 points. I think we all agree that the "potential" of the cities higher than that of a settler sitting idle waiting for 1000BC to roll around. The same can be said for wonders. Yes the shields are work 1 pt and yes if you are 2 turns from completing the Oracle then you will get a 200 pt bonus vs. actually finishing it. Is that 200 points worth fighting over?? I don't think so. Why are you building the oracle anyway? Aren't 15 spears more valueable?

Why stop at devalueing shields why not units or settlers or food? I understand you are focusing in on areas of concern that there may be various interpertations but let not get too excited. What does that extra 200 shields get you? Does it change your "power" rating, move you up a few pegs? I don't think so.

Regardless of the scoring involved poor play will give you a poor QSC and a poor GOTM.

I would like to see a QSC game played out just for score regardless of wether or not the player intends to win. Go for max QSC score and see how well you do in the game overall. I don't think your game will be much fun at all.

The QSC tries to give a balance to power. It is a tool not a be all end all. Weaker players can compare and see where they need work. In my case lack of workers, other poor worker usage, others poor balance of units, buildings and settler builds. All these things are pointed out in the QSC and have nothing to do with the absolute score. You can look at a players relative power and know quickly how their game went.

I have first hand knowledge of how that is: QSC16 was weak for me and my game was an uphill battle from the get go. The QSC pointed that out. If I had a bunch of shield built up and had a touch higher score that wouldn't have made my game any better. Higher score just for the sake of higher score is not the answer. Better focus on what needed to be done as far as worker actions, unit builds, tech choice thats how you improve. Look at the big picture compare your game to the others in your group. Compare with other outside your group. It is a learning experience and anyone who doesn't treat it that why and treats it as a competion just for higher score is missing the point.

Okay my rant is over back to work ;)

Hotrod

Originally posted by hotrod0823
The focus should not be on just the score
...
Regardless of the scoring involved poor play will give you a poor QSC and a poor GOTM.
...
I would like to see a QSC game played out just for score regardless of wether or not the player intends to win. Go for max QSC score and see how well you do in the game overall. I don't think your game will be much fun at all.
...

Okay my rant is over back to work ;)

Hotrod

Hotrod, I did that for my first QSC. I thought I played an average game with an excellent strategic plan. I only glanced at the QSC scoring and used a plan I have used often "Swordsmen Conquest." I hate to say it, but I was disappointed by my 50th place finish. Many players without a plan, without much thought to their games, scored much higher than me in the QSC.

When I read the scoring details I realized why. Swordsmen Conquest involves building a few cities, many warriors, then upgrading the warriors to attack. The attack window on Emperor level is exactly before the QSC ends. It is an accident that this turns out to be just about out the worst idea for QSC points.

QSC scoring devalues unit upgrades over gold. QSC overvalues techs over gold. I would have gotten a much higher QSC score trading all my gold for basically useless techs (useless to my strategic game plan). A player with gold that has a choice of unit upgrades, keeping the gold, or trading the gold for techs, will maximize score by trading for techs in 95% of cases. Now that I know the rules, it unfortunately will have an effect on my game play.
+ Bill

Originally posted by BillChin
QSC scoring devalues unit upgrades over gold. QSC overvalues techs over gold.
Bill, I am not 100% sure that this true (:diplomatic smilie face: ). The QSC scoring has always included a specific provision that recognizes the transition value of unit upgrades in the final turns of the QSC and allows you to claim points that equalize the upgrade value of your warriors to swords example.

All you have to do is claim the point equaliztion when you submit your QSC to help us make sure we do not miss it in the scoring process.

The key point is that there is a point penalty for upgrading units because the units shields of the cheaper unit plus the gold cost of the upgrade exceeds the cost of the more expensive unit if you do not have Leo's Workshop. This is a designed in feature of the game. It costs more to buy a swordsman than it does to build a swordsman. Admittedly the two sources of power come from different emphasis directions.

If you are upgrading warriors to swords with the near term purpose of using those swordsman to gain power in terms of territory or techs then you will come out a head. A specific example using your swordsmen woudl be that each warrior costs 40 gold to upgrade to a swordsman but the point gain effectively means you lose 20 points each time you do this. If you swordsman just stands around and watches daisies grow or wanders in the hinterlands, then you have lost power. If that same swordsman goes forth and smites thine enemies then you will game power.

Capturing a city is worth at least 67 points {20(town) + 9*3(territory) + 20 (at least one citizen) } which means you could afford to lose one or two swordsmen per captured town and come out ahead on the power curve even if you do not gain in other ways through captured slave, extorted techs/gold etc.

This upgrade cost equalization has always been designed into the QSC scoring but only a few players have needed it or taken advantage of it so far.

The real key is to have a proximate use for the upgrades instead of just gratuitously upgrading units. We frequently see examples where players have upgraded units defensively even when these units could not possibly be used for any offensive or defensive purpose. Upgrade and strike.

Part of this system is to realize that doing harm to your neighbors may put you closer to winning the game by conquest of domination but it does so be reducing the power of your enemies and not necessarily increasing the power of your civilization.

Originally posted by cracker

The real key is to have a proximate use for the upgrades instead of just gratuitously upgrading units. We frequently see examples where players have upgraded units defensively even when these units could not possibly be used for any offensive or defensive purpose. Upgrade and strike.


What about deterrence? I can't remember if the AI calculates your strength with total A/D points or total shield cost of your units, but say you upgrade five warriors to swordsmen. If it's calculated the first way, you've quintupled the value of those units in the eyes of the AI. If the latter, you've tripled them. In either case, a few judicious upgrades can surely lessen your chances of getting overrun, reduce tribute demands, etc, which can only improve your overall power in the long run.

Renata

Originally posted by cracker


Edit: I had second thoughts about my post a few minutes after posting. I have deleted its contents as it was in poor taste and nasty in tone.
+ Bill

Originally posted by BillChin
... key point in my mind is that the committee has a clumsy kludge to mask inherent unfairness in their scoring system. ...
That was unkind. :cry: and may be clouding your judgement a bit. We may need to give you several more months to more thoroughly balance your initial assessment against the list of goals set for the QSC scoring system.

Change in the system will be evolutionary and may seem to be too slow for you if you arrive at the dance with the opinion that all the girls will be ugly and stupid. ;)

I just encourage you to play the big games well for now and to help us actively look at ways we can integrate meeting your needs into the system without compromising the major objectives of helping players determine how to build and expand the power of their civilization more quickly.

Fundamentally, a truly aggressive warmonger can be disadvantaged in these processes because becoming the relative winner by reducing or impeding the power of your rivals is not the same thing as becoming a more powerful civilization in absolute terms that can be compared across many different games. You have to begin looking at many different games across many different situations to get a better perception of why the objectives of the scoring system may need to be more clearly understood.

Originally posted by cracker

Fundamentally, a truly aggressive warmonger can be disadvantaged in these processes because becoming the relative winner by reducing or impeding the power of your rivals is not the same thing as becoming a more powerful civilization in absolute terms that can be compared across many different games.

Is this along the lines of the milker vs non-milker debate? What I mean is milkers are going for a big score and to get that they must have a lot of happy people in a lot of productive towns. If the only goal of a player is to crush the enemy without using the gains of war to further his own civilization then he is not as powerful as someone who selectively acquires territory that is meaningful to his or her populace.

The QSC scoring is designed to emphasize the strength of civilization. Swords in themselves are not powerful. When used properly, they add power points interms of cities/territory/growth. When used improperly, they die and thus loose power points. Cracker repeatedly is saying that you need to use them.

If you are constantly frustrated by the fact that you are ready to upgrade right before 1000BC and "lose" the gold points, maybe you can study the players that were able to upgrade early enough to use their swords. Your lower QSC score, as it is for the rest of us, should be an indication of what you can improve about your play rather than the other way around. Think not of the QSC score as a predictor of whether on not you'll win the game. Think of it as a measuring stick to which all strategies can be compared and their advantages or disadvantages can be illuminated.

At quick glance, you might say that tech being over emphasized and upgrades under emphasized favors the builders over the warmongers but four of the top 10 players had followed the war path and had upgraded warriors to legions in time to convert their attack strength to QSC points.

I think I agree with HotRods rant that however the score is now, its not the +/- values but rather the relative numbers that help to point toward my opportunity areas.

Originally posted by hotrod0823
The focus should not be on just the score. One could argue that having 4 settlers at 70 points has a higher score than building 4 cities at size 1 or 2 with a citizen value of only 20 points.

Hotrod,

Remember to look at the value of ALL the things that a settler turns into to get your comparison here. A settler is worth 70 points because he/she costs 30 shields plus two population points for 40 total grain bundles. That's fairly easy to see.

When you use a settler to found a new town, you get 1 town worth 20 points even if it has no people and territory. The town also always starts with one citizen that is worth 20 points. Then the town may add territory and each territory square adds three points to your total. If you plop down an isolated town it will have 9 territory squares for 27 points, which makes the settler conversion a 70 versus 67 comparison. The average city also produces a net yield of at least 4 to 5 power points per turn, so within just a turn or two any city location will be worth more than any settler.

If you look at most QSC games, the territory/per city ratio gives you a better feel for the average territory value of a settler. ICS style players who strive for "Cramus" benefirts end up taking a hit in the territory score but this is often offset by more turns impacted by each city.

Again we want to look at the big picture objective here of the QSC and that is to encourage you to build the settlers that you need at the right imes and then to get those settlers on the ground and converted into twons, territory, citizens and production potential as quickly as possible.

Cracker, will there be a file available with the info inside it so we can add up our own QSC scores? It's just that I'm always curious to see how much points I've gathered. This is mainly to compare my start to the starting moves of the other QSC's.

In case such a file already exists, could someone please post a link to it here?

Thanx in advance.

That is the problem when I get off on a tanget like the settler. Forgot the other points, territory, city etc as cracker pointed out.


The settler was poor example I agree :(. Anyway, my point overall was what does it matter if you get shorted a couple hundred points because your Oracle completed and mine didn't until 980 BC.

@ Jurimax,

I think Cracker has removed links to the scoring sheet because it is evolving and may be different each GOTM. You run the risk of having an outdated algorithm. If you know excel, you can download the scoring.xls file from last GOTM results, delete all players data and use that as an estimator for any games you want to evaluate. There is some data that I couldn't be bothered to try to figure out, like the partial credit portion of tech so I never track my own progress. Don't let that stop you.

The link to the GOTM16 scoresheet with all the results in it is here (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/qsc/qsc16/downloads/scoring.zip)

Okay a clean slate. I'll start with the premise that any near deadline linear moves should not have a large effect on QSC score. Perhaps the committee encourages quicky bonuses towards the deadline, but it seems 100% against what they claim.

1) The non-controversial proposal: limit any shields-in-hopper bonus to 100 shields for any specific city. This always yields a higher score for a player completing a wonder before the deadline and avoid results where a player that completes the wonder two turns after the deadline gets a huge bonus over a player that completes the same exact wonder two turns before the deadline.

2) Okay now to more controversial stuff. Take any hypothetical game where a player has gold, units and tech (like all games). A player can use the gold to upgrade units. A conversion near the deadline should have little impact on score as gold is not inherently an indication of power or a great civ than units. I believe this needs to be in the formulas, not any special adjustment kluge.

2a) In my mind the same goes for tech. Trading gold for techs does not make a civ any more powerful, does not require any more thought or planning than keeping the gold. There should be very similar scores for each. Now if a player can buy a tech and trade it for more techs or more gold, there should be a bonus for doing that as it requires more than a straight trade gold for tech.

3) GNP: I have not gone over the formula with a fine-tooth comb, so while GNP is probably already in there, I believe it needs a double weighting relative to where it is now. Gold per turn (after corruption), and shields per turn for the entire empire are a perhaps the best measure of the power of a civ. Any research boosts from libraries can be added into the formula. Gold produced by the empire is more valuable in comparison to any temporary boosts from tax men or trades.

---
I believe the committee needs to think in terms of these three points. I believe that rewarding players for simple tech trades is a clear bias that needs correcting. I believe that tech is not inherently any indication of greatness or good game play or strategic thinking. The same arguments used for military units applies to tech. Tech in of itself is of no value unless it is used to increase production or gold, or used to get other things of value (in the case of tech by trading, in the case of units by using).

I believe all players can agree that GNP in terms of gold and shields are a good measure of a civ. I believe all players want to discourage near deadline shenanigans that have a large impact on score. The only exceptions may be for moves that require a good deal of planning and thought
+ Bill

In all competitive games (including GOTM and QSC) the best players use the rules and scoring system to “milk” the system to the best of their ability. The better a player understands the details of the rules and how to score points, the better they will do, if they any aptitude for the processes involved. The best players use the 2050 AD and 1000 BC deadlines as ways to increase their scores and not as end points. They are part of their strategies not boundaries or static lines. Its like using the edge of the map in board game to keep opponents from going around you.

The way to reduce the use of artificial boundaries as strategic elements is to randomize them. For QSC how about having the end be a random year somewhere between 900 and 1100 BC for any given game. The end point would be determined once the game has closed. The question of trying to decide about finishing a wonder goes away. The same would work for the GOTM. The game could end anytime after say 2000 AD. This would encourage players to end the game sooner rather than later or they would be stuck with the histograph victory at a random time.

I think this would add a great "uncertainty" element to a game.

Originally posted by Birdjaguar
In all competitive games (including GOTM and QSC) the best players use the rules and scoring system to “milk” the system to the best of their ability.

How do you define 'the best players'?

Personally I don't care about my score, I find playing for the fastest time in any category (including OCC) much more interesting.

"Best players" are those that do well in the competition: the consistent top scorers. Right now, the measure we (cracker) use to determine who is at the top of the list at the end, are points that are tabulated a certain way. Moonsinger, for example, knows she has to keep from tripping the domination victory until 2050 and her milking strategy uses that endpoint right from the start.

In your case, trying for a fastest win is just that get there quickly. It is a race against the clock and does not use the time factor to enhace victory points. If the scoring system gave enough bonus points for the quickest victory so that finishing very early would move you to the top of the winners list, and if those points were more than could be gotten by milking to 2050, we would see new strategies develop. The scoring system will shape game play. Right now milking pays off in the winner's circle.

I've only played OCC once, so I guessing here, but when you play OCC for the fastest time, it's all about calculating. You build the culture producing items and wait for the counter to trip 20,000. The risk is that the AI will build a wonder before you and then you have to change your plan and at that point the victory date will change. The more wars you fight (perhaps tough with one city) the more GLs you could have and the more wonders you can build. Quite a challenge.

But back to scoring. When I play by myself I don't watch the score or care much about it. My slow builder style is all about having a cool empire. GOTM is not about personal of play. It is a competition by which players are ranked on how well they did compared to the other players under the same circumstances. Cracker and the civfanatics site uses the competition to teach better play, but it is still very competitive.

A good scoring system will allow players to compare themselves to one another and permit a variety of playing styles. If a clear pattern develops that says this is how to win the QSC, then players will migrate to that style. Random factors in the rules and game play (like goody huts and combat seeds and human opponents) make play more interesting and varied.

If the GOTM were played as multi player, with brackets for advancing etc. I don't think you would see any milking. The risk of "strange " human behavior" would necessitate a more aggressive go for the early win style of play.

Originally posted by Birdjaguar
But back to scoring. When I play by myself I don't watch the score or care much about it. My slow builder style is all about having a cool empire.

That pretty much sums up how I play all my games, GOTM or not.

Yes, but it is a competitive world and many people play to to be the best. With a complex game like Civ 3 it's tough to create a balanced scoring system across versions, victory conditons, styles of play and 6 continents. Cracker's approach is similar to open source programming with lots of input from all over. I'm sure it will continue to evolve.

I came up with another reason to dislike the current weighting of techs. In my QSC17, I could have gone for Republic, but chose not to and I picked up Polytheism and was 3 turns shy of Monarchy. I wanted Monarchy because I felt in that game I needed the military police more due to lack of luxuries.

At 1475 BC (19 turns until 1000 B.C.) , it said I would have taken 20 turns to get Republic. This meant I would have missed Republic by 1 turn before the deadline. However, the turns required to get the tech would have gone down as I continued to expand and grow, so I know I would have got Republic at or before 1000 B.C.

Republic would be worth more than getting polytheism and almost getting monarchy researched, just for the fact that Republic is farther to the right on the tech tree.

Cracker, I know you want us to emphasize progressing as far to the right as possible to open up trading opportunities, but sometimes doing that does not create any trade opportunities (in fact I traded for Republic later on). All your doing here is making people bee-line down one part of the tech tree instead of using more creative ways of accessing techs for trade opportunities. People will figure out on their own that just randomly picking any tech won't get them very far along the tech tree, and they will eventually figure out that you need to either 1.) bee-line down one particular part of the tech tree, like you want people to do, and/or 2.) Learn what techs the AI avoids.

Just getting mathematics isn't worth very many points, but it does allow you to trade for other techs, because the AI avoids mathematics most of the time. But how many techs you can get from mathematics depends solely on what the AI researches. Same problem with polytheism. Instead of avoiding Republic (because the AI loves to research that anyways), I'm forced to get it myself. And since all the AI would be researching that anyways (if they are caught up in techs), I have no opportunities to trade that tech for other techs when I do get Republic, because they've all been researching that same tech.

Techs should be valued strictly on how much gold was required to research them. The players that use the knowlege of how to progress down the tech tree quickly and what techs the AI avoids will still score at the top of the charts for technology points, because they can use those techs to trade for the techs the AI always researches. So they would still end up with more techs when all is said and done.

In the QSC17 results, (note, I did have horseback riding so my real score should be much closer to Yndy's score), Yndy did get Republic, but he lacked Polytheism and only had a very small amount dedicated towards a tech (probably had 1-2 turns worth of research). So had I also chose to go for Republic, I would have tied Yndy (or it would have been extremely close).

Bamspeedy, I understand that your tactic was to get Philosophy and Code of Laws, gift them to the AI (Egypt) and research Polytheism, Monarchy and by the time you get Monarchy the AI would have researched Republic. That is very ingenious and shows perfect control of the techs the AI researches most.
But I did not outscore you because I went for the higher prized tech. My tactic was to get Repblic asap and switch to it. I researched it around 1050BC and went into anarchy. I could have waited a couple of turns to maximize my QSC score and research towards some other tech.
Like I have said before, if the formula used to calculate score represents the real performance with 90% accuracy I would not be bothered by a small error margin.

Until now I thought that the Pyramids has the largest single influence towards QSC score and anyone building it would rank so much higher. Now I believe that tech contribution to score is overrated. But overall QSC does reflect the impact of the initial moves between an experienced player and a novice one.

According to the editor, the cost values are Polytheism (12) and Monarchy (24) and Republic (28). Now, I don't know the formula well enough to figure out how much gold that equates to in this map, but here is how I'm looking at it:

Polytheism + Monarchy is a cost factor of 36, so that is 28.5% more than just getting Republic. According to Cracker's values of techs, Polytheism + Monarchy is worth only 19.3% more. That's nearly a 10% difference, and after you add the horseback riding points onto my score, you'll see that there was less than 10% difference between our scores (actually about a 2% difference).

I don't mean to sound like I think I got cheated out of an award or anything, I'm not worried about the 'techmonger's award, I'm happy enough with the 'cramus maximus' award. And you deserve the award, Yndy, and the scoring of techs was clearly stated beforehand, and you worked that to your advantage (or your strategy worked nicely with it).

I'm just saying it doesn't seem right that you are being penalized for making a move that has good, solid reasoning behind it, and your gold is being de-valued because you choose to pick a different tech.

Originally posted by Yndy
Until now I thought that the Pyramids has the largest single influence towards QSC score and anyone building it would rank so much higher.
It has, if you are so lucky that you can create it with the use of a Great Leader.

Building the Pyramids 'by hand' is rather a huge investment for the rest of the game, as it will typically be completed only shortly before (or even after) 1000 BC.
Instead, you could have a lot more cities early on.
The investment often pays off in the end, but in most situations it is likely to somewhat reduce the QSC score.

Regarding how the techs are valued, I agree with Bamspeedy that they, too, should reflect the cost involved in researching them. That would not stop me from researching The Republic asap anyway though (and then gift it to the AI so they can research something else AND generate some cash for me, if I'm going for fast research).

I figured some interesting things out here. If you use Grey Fox's Tech Calculator:
Tech Calculator (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=38631&pagenumber=1)

For Regent Level, Large map

Polytheism: 384
Monarchy: 768
Republic: 896

I had polytheism and 624 gold invested in Monarchy.
Yndy had Republic and 37 gold invested in some other tech.

I invested: 384+624=1008 gold
Yndy invested: 896+37=933 gold

So instead of me scoring 75 more points, I lost by 95 points (when the horseback riding gets added back onto my score).

I am going to go ahead an close this thread as obsolete and direct all discussion forward to the Scoring System Changes discussion dated April 22, 2003:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=51230