superslug said:
The #1 of that VC [in which there is only one submission] would obviously equal the VC average. It would automatically fail to beat any #1 from a VC that has more than one submission.
Oh, now this I have to rabidly disagree with.
Among any gauntlet settings, there are Easy Wins and there are Hard Wins. Conquest and Diplomatic are among the harder wins, with Domination and the Space Race being the easist.
On very specific gauntlet settings, some victory conditions are
very, very hard to achieve, such as a Cultural or Domination victory with an OCC. They represent a supreme effort that, under this system, would be totally ignored as there is no one to measure it against. Bad idea, here.
Basically, this defines a system where attempting harder victories is actively discouraged -- more difficult conditions will attract fewer games, and fewer games means (generally speaking) a smaller finish-time-spread and thusly a closer average and a lower score.
It seems that the best way to win this gauntlet is to identify the victory type favored most by the lesser-skilled players (Montezuma OCC on a Small map? That'd be Conquest) and focus on that to exclusion of all else. This game type will have the most number of submissions, meaning the most sub-par games (on average). This maximizes the finish time spread, which in turn boosts your composite score.
Beating the tar out of players of lesser skill does not a good player make.
Of course, you could use the idea of dropping the lower 50% of the games... but that just adds another layer of complexity into a system that's already a bit awkward. I think a new scoring metric is needed here.
I'd favor a system where you just declare a multiplier to be applied to the ending turn number of each game for each victory type, then judge the winner by the result. You'd be just guessing to begin with, but you could refine the multipliers as time goes on. As it is, players are already very good at guessing the end dates of the best finishes.
Example*:
Domination Modifer = 10
Conquest Modifer = 7
Cultural Modifer = 1.5
Diplomatic Modifier = 1.3
Space Race Modifier = 1
Time = N/A
* very little thought put into these figures
And you'd judge the winner by picking the best time for each of the victory types, then applying the multipliers.
[ending turn number] * [modifier]
You could even play around with the modifiers based on singular map types. For instance, setting barbarians off reduces all modifiers by 20%. On archipelago, Domination is +10%. Special Bonus: Diplomatic vs Isabella, Alexander and Tokugawa, +40%. And so on. You can encourage any combination of settings to give each gauntlet its own flavor.
- Bill
Maybe I'll try a setting that nerfs the AI's, see if that works.
