Scoring Cap!!!

[Matrix]

I actually think it is more important that everyone can play their own game, but within the boundaries of the game itself (so bloodlust or other options the only things that may limit our ways of playing).

Furthermore, about what Smash said what's in the manual: hasn't it been made more than clear that some of us have become so good that the way the score is calculated is just not good enough for us?

I'm also in for option #3.

B.t.w.: I'm making the decision at the end of the month.

 

[Smash]

I mentioned the 1000 point thing only cuz I find it amusing.I think the writers were being nice.

 

[Kev]

I know it's not one of the options, but in reading everything (or at least some of the posts) over again I'm actually liking the idea of scrapping the scoring. I think perhaps more of an emphasis can be made, then, on the discussion and interaction. Perhaps with the extra time afforded the moderator, there can be some extra questions posed:

1. Probably one of my favorite GOTMs was the 2nd one where Thunderfall started the game and one had to begin with making a decision right away (to attack the English or make peace). This was a lively discussion, and very enjoyable. I would like to see more of this.

2. With the ability to upload images and save games, I would think it would be fun to post a player's game in the middle portion for all who would like to download. Those people who downloaded it could play some turns from that point and start a discussion thread on that. It could be a weaker game or a very strong game - mix it up.

3. In the first succession game, Thunderfall posted some images of cities and posed the question of "which would make the best Super Science City"? That sort of discussion was also a great and would be fun to apply to GOTM as well, I would think.

I won't post any more for the risk of going over my alotted post size, but I'm sure you all get the idea. Right now, the only thread each month seems to be the "spoilers" thread. I hope that we can make more.

As far as choosing one of the options Matrix is posing, I'll actually refrain. I can see now that I will likely stay with what has now become my style of play outside of GOTM: play until I have to world under my thumb and quit when I get bored. I think I'll put more energy to the discussions and timeline In those games I feel like going for a medal or star, I'll just conform to the decisions made.

 

[donsig]

Looks like 2 votes for option 3 so far. Of course if the compromise wins we are still left scratching our heads as to what the compromise should be...

I'm not a mathematician and do not fully understand the current GOTM scoring function but it does seem to encourage pummeling the AI down to one city then concentrating all your efforts into producing happy citizens. Those who have the skill to quickly subdue the AI, have the time to devote to building their civ's population AND can stand the tedium of doing so are rewarded with high GOTM scores. This is THE strategy for a high GOTM score. Any playing style that does not involve populating 99% of the map with your own large cities will get a lower GOTM score than those who use THE strategy.

I apologize for not having any concrete suggestions for the compromise. It is a difficult problem. Since there are two different ways to win the game it is vexing to come up with one scoring system to accomodate both. The current emphasis on population penalizes those who make an early conquest while emphasising the time factor even more (rewarding quicker wins) runs the risk of penalizing those who want to land a SS.

 

[Matrix]

I've looked at the results what a square root would do and it looks like it works out nice. Those who ended very fast are also far above the other players. It's actually more mixed. A square root might reach the effect what a simple increase of the factor 50 might not.

Hang on; when I get home, I'll show you the effect of a square root... I don't have the resources now.

 

[Matrix]

Here is an Excel file where you can see the differences in the results of GOTM VI and VII between the GOTM scores with square root used (under GOTM score) and the current GOTM (under Old GOTM). Note that in GOTM VI especially Smash, willemvanoranje and Cactus Pete raise a lot: resp. 4th, 8th and 10th now. I also think that they deserve that if you just look at their prestations. But I've thought before that "this is it". And the ones with the very high scores are still the first ones. But perhaps that's for the best: the reward for a lot of work.

I definitely think this square root improves the scoring rules! How about it?

 

[Smash]

well I can't look at the xl file cuz my mac equivalent doenst go tho excel 5

But I will say Pete's #4 conquest in 980 seems to deserve alot more than 11.Going by that it looks as if he did almost nothing..but in reality he has mastered the world.

 

[CornMaster]

I like that method!! It plays better to my style.

I went from 30th to 24th!!!

 

[CornMaster]

Oh...for the program defecent, here is a SS of the GOTM 7 .xls.

 

[noughmaster]

1: Leave it as it is.
2: Make a scoring cap.
3: Compromise: make an even higher score less effective (like using a square root)

Whatever scoring system we use, most good players will always alter their game play to get a high score, so Starlifter, your argument that a cap will limit playing styles is true, but not as relevant as you think because any scoring system does. You admitted in another thread that your game play has changed toward early growth due to the GOTM scoring formula. If you're saying you don't like the WAY it limits playing styles, well OK.

Some analysis on suggestion 3:
Let the GOTM score at time t be g(t).
Let the ordinary Civ score at time t be x(t).
Let T be the total number of game turns.

An increasing GOTM score means g(t) > g(t-1) which is equivalent to the ratio
x(t) / x(t-1) > 50^(1/T).
The right hand side is largest when T = 420 and = 1.00936, so the criterion for continuing farming instead of launching is that growth in your normal score is at least about 1% per turn.

Changing the formula to use sqrt(x(t)) means that the GOTM score will increase if
x(t) / x(t-1) > 50^(2/T).
This makes the criterion change so that normal score growth should be at least 2% per turn. This is harder to do later in the game as more cities max out, so will make people launch earlier if they can. The change in strategy will be to found a lot of cities all at once and grow them at the same time. Game play will be more "phase" based. If the top scoring players (who are the only ones greatly affected by these changes) don't mind this strategy change, then vote for it.

If you want the best GOTM score under system 2 or 3, game play won't be quite as different as many people seem to think. The advantage to system 3 is that we keep the high score medal, so I think it's a bit better, also because it allows more flexibility in game play than system 2.

In an earlier post in the thread "GOTM scoring formula", I said that we will always have problems and arguments unless a scoring formula is DERIVED from a set of principles on which we try to agree first. Suggestion 3 still won't help the early conquerors or SS landers who don't use WLTPD much.

Matrix, I know you said to keep it short, but I think the analysis here is valuable.

 

[shadowdale]

noughtmaster - I have said this to Starlifter and now I'll say it to you - if you want all those formula to mean something to the majority of the players do what MAtrix did - use them on last moths results so that we can see what the changes are - I know I can't see them from just looking at your writing and I don't want to sit down and start to think more deeply about what changes they will bring.
All of us that don't use math in our everyday work don't understand it withour examples.


To AMatrix - that looks good it does put less weight on high scores and more on early finish and that is probabky a good thing for the GotM since some of us will probably play more for the early finish and less for the perfect world, and early finish players will get the recognition they deserve.

 

[noughmaster]

noughtmaster - I have said this to Starlifter and now I'll say it to you - if you want all those formula to mean something to the majority of the players do what MAtrix did - use them on last moths results so that we can see what the changes are - I know I can't see them from just looking at your writing and I don't want to sit down and start to think more deeply about what changes they will bring.

I don't want or expect the formulae to be understood by most people: they are proofs of my analysis for anyone who is interested or feels proof is required. A few examples are useless for this purpose; they will show what happens in a particular situation, but it doesn't follow that what they show will be true in other situations.

The post had two parts: proof and conclusions. They were aimed at different groups of people. Are you pretending there is something wrong with this?

What I do want the non-mathematically minded readers to understand are my conclusions:
The current scoring system means keep going as long as your normal civ score is increasing by at least 1% per go.
The new proposed scoring system in alternative 3 means keep going as long as your normal civ score is increasing by at least 2% per go. I clearly discussed the implications of this for strategy, with no mathematics.
My purpose was to explain the implications for playing strategy of the new scoring formula, which is something Matrix asked for.
Any fool (even those given to wilfully misunderstanding people) should be able to read that from my post.

 

[Matrix]

Thanks for the analysis, noughmaster! Only I'm at a loss to what "WLTPD" means...

There's one more thing: the number 50 is quite arbitrary. For the ones who can use Excel: change that number to e.g. 100, or 75, or 25. If it's 100, than Smash 2nd and willemvanoranje or Cactus Pete 4th. I can't remember, cos I tried it yesterday evening (when the forum was down again).

 

[Belisarius]

Originally posted by noughmaster


The current scoring system means keep going as long as your normal civ score is increasing by at least 1% per go.
The new proposed scoring system in alternative 3 means keep going as long as your normal civ score is increasing by at least 2% per go. I clearly discussed the implications of this for strategy, with no mathematics.
My purpose was to explain the implications for playing strategy of the new scoring formula, which is something Matrix asked for.
Any fool (even those given to wilfully misunderstanding people) should be able to read that from my post.

Thanks for posting the formulae. I am trying to remember my old school maths I agree that everyone who wins the game by conquest or spaceship before the deadline in 2020 AD could have kept a pet city and easily expanded via we love days and engineers transforming terrain. I am not sure if 2% is the correct compound interest rate but it sounds reasonable.

To recap the GOTM score would be the Civ2 finish score compounded by the number of unfinished turns to 2020 AD. I think most people who have had to deal with money will understand that. We could try some tests to establish if 2% or higher or lower was the best interest rate.

 

[noughmaster]

Only I'm at a loss to what "WLTPD" means...

We Love The President Day.

There's one more thing: the number 50 is quite arbitrary. For the ones who can use Excel: change that number to e.g. 100, or 75, or 25. If it's 100, than Smash 2nd and willemvanoranje or Cactus Pete 4th. I can't remember, cos I tried it yesterday evening (when the forum was down again).

I think you're talking about using 100^pnp together with sqrt(score).
Yes, 50 looks a bit arbitrary, but it's actually quite a good choice. I remember looking at this when I first joined the forum.
You can actually change the 50 and have pretty much the same effect as taking the square root of the score.
If the formula is score * num^pnp, here is a table of % growth in normal score required to keep going (the numbers are = num^(1/T)):

25^pnp -> 0.77%
50^pnp -> 0.94%
75^pnp -> 1.04%
100^pnp -> 1.11%

As you can see, the influence is subtle. Combine 100^pnp with sqrt(score) and you get 2.21% required increase.
Use the sqrt(score) if you really want to change the value of an early finish over farming. Its effects are a lot greater. I think the 50 is OK.

 

[noughmaster]

A couple of extra thoughts:
Try to think of a reasonable time period for a player to double their score late in the game eg. after space flight. This means doing all the farming and building the aqueducts etc. as well, not just growing with them already done.
What would you say is average or expected of a good player? 40 turns? 60 turns? 100 turns? A player should only bother to farm if they can double their score faster than this number of turns.
If we can agree on the number of turns, we can work out the number in number^pnp.

Here's a table of the number for various turns to double if you use the existing formula score * number^pnp (I'm working with 420 game turns here):

40 turns -> number = 1450
60 turns -> number = 128
80 turns -> number = 38
100 turns -> number = 18

Using 50^pnp in the current formula therefore assumes 74 turns to double. This has been shown to be a little too long by all the recent farming. 100^pnp assumes 63 turns.
200^pnp assumes 55 turns. If you use this, the formula could be simplified to
GOTM = score / 200^(part played).
I think this is quite reasonable.

Here's a table of the number for various turns to double if you use the new formula sqrt(score) * number^pnp (I'm working with 420 game turns here also):

40 turns -> number = 38
60 turns -> number = 11.3
80 turns -> number = 6.2
100 turns -> number = 4.3

Using 50^pnp in this formula therefore assumes 37 turns to double. Is this too low?
20^pnp assumes 49 turns. 15^pnp assumes 54 turns. Both seem OK to me.

Summary: How many turns do you think it should take a good player to double their score late in the game?

 

[Cactus Pete]

Wow! I've been out of town and come late to this intense discussion.

Matix, if you're going to change things for next month, my entreaty to you is:

Regardless of how you revise the scoring system, please try to make it possible for a participant to win a GOTM without putting in an unreasonable amount of time. To run up winning scores under the present system requires putting in more hours than most of us have available in a month (unless on vacation). It is usually appropriate to reward hard work, but the GOTM will only survive and prosper if you set up the scoring system to reward the quality of play not the quantity.

 

[starlifter]

But if you’re up for doing the work Starlifter then this is fine with me. BTW Starlifter when will you finish your game I look forward to see your log, . It helps me great sometimes.

Personally, I encourage everyone to make logs. They are interesting to read, no matter how high or low one scores. I found them very helpful when learning the concept of OCCs, so I make them for use by GOTM-ers. You can use my logs as a "baseline" for a better performance, too.

I still think we need a thread with strategy questions. The good players need to speak out here, . Right now Starlifter and sometimes Smash are generally the only people I can learn something from when reading their posts.

I think it's important to say again that we can all learn from each other, too. It's not just one or two players that "know" everything or have good ideas. Hopefully, more people will post about their games in the "Spoiler" threads!!

BTW, you have had some very good input and ideas, Chofritz! I especially liked your analysis and suggestions.

(In reply to Matrix' post):
Well, in my suggestion, I was not saying that everyone had to FINISH their game.

I agree with you on that, Kev. Since June, I've been suggesting that there needs to be an "out" so people can retire without grinding an entire game to the end. Like retire in 1500 AD, or 1000 AD. These probably won't score high enough to win, but a Star winner could be found from the highest "Early Retirement" player in each GOTM.

It seems a difficult mix to make in trying to make the game fun, interesting (being rid of end-game tedium), quick (to finish in a month for some), allows for all playing styles, and fair to score where everyone feels that they have a chance for something.

True, there is no panacea. Scoring is the big equalizer. But with so many different skill levels, playing styles, tactics, etc.... there simply needs to be more categories of recognition. That is so obvious, yet it is astounding people whine about Caps and playing time instead of addressing more fundamental issues that would solve the more narrow issues of play time, scoring disparity, etc.

Note From Starlifter: Several messages have been altered, deleted, and combined by the moderator. My original posts are no longer in this thread, LOL



Last edited by Matrix on 09-27-2001 at 02:05 AM

 

[Matrix]

Originally posted by noughmaster
Using 50^pnp in this formula therefore assumes 37 turns to double. Is this too low?
20^pnp assumes 49 turns. 15^pnp assumes 54 turns. Both seem OK to me.

Looking at the results (attached of mine a few threads earlier) I'd say it's fine. Note that it does make a difference if it takes an x number of turns to double your score with or without the square root!

I do think 50 is the best. I just thought I should mention it because it's arbitrary. And that resulted in your fine analysis, noughmaster.

Only starlifter opposes this, but for the rest I believe that everyone would support the square root-thing. So I'll use that for the next GOTM!!

A thing to remember: the higher your normal score, the less important it will be to get even more.

 

[Chofritz]

Keep in mind that the SS bug is removed so you have to count with that too. I'm completly lost when it comes to the maths, I need them in swedish, don't understand anything,