Now that we've got the off-topic cricket discussion out of the way, I'm going to bump my last suggestion for people to pick apart. My aim was to reward harder games, encourage variety and table-filling, cut down on duel spam and/or domination/score spam as the best path to a high VVV placing. But still be pretty easy to understand, to know how to improve your score, and to encourage people to aim for the best finish they can/play a game out, even if it won't be enough for a 1st place finish and/or medal.
Every entry on a table would generate a fastest finish score, and a score score. A time VC would generate both, it'd just be identical.
That score would be:
(scaling modifier) x (difficulty modifier) x (mapsize modifier) x (speed modifier) x (number of entries modifier) x (result modifier), done the same way for every single game.
Scaling modifier: purely for aesthetics about what numbers you prefer to see, if you use 100, games will mostly score between 40-500, if you use 1, mostly from 0.4-5. Won't change results at all.
Difficulty modifier:
Settler: 1.0
Chief: 1.2
Warlord: 1.4
Prince: 1.7
King: 2.0
Emp: 2.5
Immortal: 3.0
Deity: 4.0
Mapsize modifier:
Duel: 0.4
Tiny: 0.6
Small: 0.8
Std: 1.0
Lge: 1.1
Huge: 1.2
Speed modifier:
Quick: 0.8
Normal, Epic, Marathon: 1.0
Number of entries modifier, where number of entries = n:
For all duel/tiny/small or settler/chief/warlord/prince/king: log (n)
For all standard+, emperor+: log (n+1)
The way I'd do this if making a database/spreadsheet myself is to make all games be log [n + (diff x size)], where diff = 0 for king and below, 1 for emperor+, size = 0 for small and below, 1 for std+, which gives the desired formulae. Dunno if it's easier to pull variables straight from individual settings like that, or to look at which of the 48 size/diff combinations a game belongs to. I think it'd also make it easier to tweak, to scale the rewards for an empty table rather than a straight yes/no.
Results modifier:
Finish time:
Quick:
15/(15 + your turns - winning turns)
Std:
20/(20 + your turns - winning turns)
Epic:
25/(25 + your turns - winning turns)
Marathon:
30/(30 + your turns - winning turns)
In-game score (and finish time score on a time VC):
(your score/winning score)
Multiply those together, get a score for each game. Using a scaling of 100, having the best time on a std/std deity with 9 entries would give 400 points. Filling an otherwise empty std/std deity table would give 120.4 points. Having the best time on a quick/duel settler with 2 entries would give 9.6 points.
How to get the total:
Option a: Simply add all the time scores together, or the best x scores, to generate the time total. Do the same for all the score scores, to get the score total. Add them together for overall. The 6 different categories would be irrelevant, as they'd all be identical, same as now. You'd just have VVV finish time, VVV ingame score, VVV overall. For me, this is the least preferred option, by far. It means you can simply play one type of game to generate all of your score, if you prefer single landmass dom games, or you prefer high level Babylon/Spain science/diplogames, there's no reason to play anything else, beyond a handful to actually meet the VVV requirements.
Option b:
League of nations: Your best 2 (or 3, or whatever) games for each nation qualify, sum those to get your total points.
Map quest: Best 3 (or 4, or whatever) games for each map, sum those for total.
Tempi: Best 15 for each speed, sum for total.
Go the distance: Best 10 for each size, sum for total.
Machiavelli: Best 12 for each VC, sum for total.
Inferno: Best 8 for each difficulty, sum for total.
Sum all 6 totals to get overall VVV fastest time points, likewise to get overall VVV ingame score points. Sum the two to get overall VVV points.
Pros: Simple to understand, easy to see where you can imporve your overall score the quickest. Makes the individual categories relevant & different, so LoN you can do purely with pangea/gp/terra/inland sea domination if you want to, map quest you can use all Babylon science games if you want to, but a high overall total will require a variety.
Cons: It's possible to reach a point where it's no longer practical to improve your score. That will take a very large number of games, though. More likely that you reach a point where more domination games won't help, or more Attilla games won't help, or more duel score games won't help, etc. Which may upset those who prefer to play a certain type of game most of the time.
Option C:
Work out the average score for each nation in LoN, and cap the points for each nation to that average. Likewise for mapquest, machiavelli, etc. Slightly more complex for tempi/inferno/go the distance, work out the average of game total/diff modifier for inferno, cap the points to average x diff modifier. Same for the other two using mapsize & speed modifiers. So it'd be:
LoN: Total points/34 = a, any nations with more than a points only contribute a, any with less contribute full points. Sum them to get LoN total.
Map Quest: Total points/20 = b, any maps with more than b points only contribute b, any with less contribute full points. Sum them to get Map total.
Machiavelli: Total points/5 = c. All VCs capped at c, sum to get total.
Tempi: (quick points/0.8 + std points + epic points + mara points)/4 = d. Quick is capped at 0.8d, the others are capped at d.
Inferno: (settler + chief/1.2 + warlord/1.4 + ... + deity/4)/8 = e. Settler is capped at e, chief at 1.2e, deity at 4e, etc.
Go the distance: (duel/0.4 + tiny/0.6 + small/0.8 + std + large/1.1 + huge/1.2)/6 = f. Duel is capped at 0.4f, std at f, huge at 1.2f, etc.
Again, sum all 6 totals to get overall VVV fastest time points, likewise to get overall VVV ingame score points. Sum the two to get overall VVV points.
Pros: You can always improve your score by playing more games, even if you've already submitted 1000 of them. Like option b, makes each of the 6 VVV categories different, encourages a wide variety of games. For those who prefer a certain gamestyle, they don't reach a point where they can't improve their score without playing other types, they only reach a point where the other styles would be more helpful, but their preferred style still gets them rewarded, just not as much.
Cons: A little more complicated to quickly see where your score can improve, or to see how much improvement you've made between updates. Offers a bit more incentive than option B to duel-spam.
I think B or C would both be good, I'd probably prefer C, though it requires more effort to work out how to improve your score. I'm not a fan of A, both for making the categories irrelevant, and for encouraging spam/single game types.