News: BOTM 83 Results and Congratulations

[DynamicSpirit]

Ahh, you don't know what can be done by hacking into a laptop and commandeering its webcam I'm glad we got the appearance so spot on.

 

[georgjorge]

Congrats to everyone - especially to Solyaris for beating the other space victories (like mine) by an impressive margin. Sadly, I already played through the next BOTM and now have to wait another month for one...

 

[whb]

Well, since very few people who participated can load your Mac-versioned saved game, if you take the time to provide the numbers that Jastrow mentioned from your game, I'm sure that someone will kindly be able to go to the trouble to do so for UB40's game, on your behalf.

Pardon the delay -- upgraded to Yosemite in the meantime, which meant I had a separate issue to deal with.

According to the mouse-over (from "turn after my victory" save) my final score is different to that shown in the results table.

3858 from Population (480/622)
1348 from Land (549/814)
1089 from Technology (182/334)
145 from Wonders (45/310)
--------------------------------
Total Score = 6440
Score by winning this turn = 81809


Screenshot on Flickr (should link to full resolution):
Screen Shot 2014-11-22 at 3.00.10 pm by Will Billingsley, on Flickr

 

[AlanH]

Something odd: My base score is higher and my finish date earlier than UB40, but my final score is lower. (for the same victory condition). How's that work? Is there some quirk to the scoring I don't know about yet?

Interesting.

Your save does not include the winning details - finish turn and finish score. UB40's save does. I tried loading your save, playing another turn and re-saving it, and it still has no winning details. I therefore believe the winning details are saved by BUFFY's modified DLL, which MacBUFFY does not possess.

If these details are not included, the file parser we use to read the save calculates them. The parser also uses the same formula to calculate a base score which can be compared with the in-game base score. Your in-game base score is 6440, but the calculated value is 4466. So the parser's score calculator is producing the wrong base score, and is no doubt also producing the wrong final score.

An hypothetical explanation goes like this:

- The standard Civ4 code doesn't save the final score, so the parser was designed to calculate it. I do recall that it was tested originally, and produced correct results.

- The HoF Mods then came along, and were adapted to include the final score in the save.

- Changes occurred in the in-game score calculation, perhaps with the introduction of BtS.

- The parser's calculator was not updated when changes occurred in the in-game score calculation, so it is now wrong.

This would only affect Mac players, as Windows players would always be seeing the in-game final score as saved by the HoF Mod.

I need to investigate further, by checking the Civ4 code that calculates the in-game final score to see if it still matches the formula used in the parser.

 

[AlanH]

Ha! It looks as if the problem is vassals. The parser is only taking the civ's own pop and territory into account, but since Warlords, vassal pop and territory also contribute. I believe it's at 50%. If this is so, then the Mac game scores are understated whenever you have vassals.

 

[AlanH]

I've done a quick check, and there appear to be 38 Mac saves for WOTM and BOTM games that have these scoring errors.

 

[whb]

Crikey that's a lot of quick work AlanH. I hadn't meant to trigger someone to have to do so much.

I'll be able to switch to Windows for Civ soon if that'll help lessen support burdens etc for the game as I'm often the only Mac player in the BOTMs (and will shortly have both options)

 

[AlanH]

Thanks, but since we claim to support both platforms, I'd like to get to the bottom of it if possible. Problem is, I'm not sure how easy it will be to get the parser to work out the full pop and land scores including vassals. I'll look at it some more later.

 

[Ronnie1]

Well done nocho!

Another close but no cigar for me! Not quite lean enough to clip the The Hawk for fastest and not heavy enough to compete for a medal.

On the bright side, I actually completed a game for the first time in a few months.

Thanks to the staff for the continuing effort!