Does anyone know the formula SEIV uses to calculate score?

[Drake]

I don't think it's really a bug, but probably more of an oversight that occured when they changed the effect of maintenance in race creation. I'm guessing they didn't intend for maintenance to fall below 5%, but forgot the merchant maintenance reduction.

I think the maintenance issue, coupled with the AI surrendering so easily, totally unbalances things with regard to the contest. I'd much rather see it be the player vs all other AIs, who have a huge bonus, and the player isn't allowed to communicate with the AIs at all. Either that, or base victory on something other than the score. Oh well, it's probably a bit late to change things that drastically.

Also, another tip - if you set your construction to 128% and pick hardy industrialists, on your standard HW with 2000M pop, you can build the shell of a colony ship each turn without having to go into emergency mode. Then just retrofit to include engines and a cargo module. It'll actually cost you less than building the full ship from scratch, due to the way retrofitting works. You'll only be delayed one turn, but after that you won't have a slowdown period. I wouldn't recommend doing that with your starting HW, because you'll probably need the quicker start to get your points up faster, but it works great with the homeworlds you'll acquire from getting the AI to surrender.

-Drake

[This message has been edited by Drake (edited 24 January 2001).]

[Nyx]

Warning, this one's really long.

Totally overriding the maintenance I'd call cheating.

Now this:

quote:

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I also have done some work on what combination of ship size to component arangement gives you the most bang for the buck in score to maint ratio.

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Is the sign of a good player.

Your trick about building colony ships faster is also a great idea. Exploiting the ability to retrofit a ship an infinite number of times in one turn, that's cheating.

AI and resource manipulation for your own benefit based on study, practice, and an understanging of the mechanics: Good gameplay.

Finding ways to avoid following the rules and circumventing the mechanics: cheating.

It is a moderately thin line, but you should all be able to recognize it. We expect anyone who considers themselves a champion at a game to be able to make that call.

quote:

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I think the maintenance issue, coupled with the AI surrendering so easily, totally unbalances things with regard to the contest. I'd much rather see it be the player vs all other AIs, who have a huge bonus, and the player isn't allowed to communicate with the AIs at all.

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Well, let's say we hold a player vs player contest. We can't rightly say that the winner is the top player can we? S/he's only the best who showed up to that tournament. High score is the best tool, but it's not a perfect tool--even in arcade and pinball (though it's close to perfect in some of those cases).

Simply defeating the AI? Please, even all AIs vs the human with all AIs getting high bonuses, isn't much of a challenge. Even if it was, you know we'd have more than one person win. What criteria do we use to determine the victor then? It's like calling someone who finished Mario Brothers a world champion just for completing the game. Overcoming the game is nothing, you need to ovecome the other players. We could combine it with fewest turns, then highest score Last, but even then it's iffy. So someone's fast and aggressive, are they the best just for that? Is crushing several AIs faster than they can act truly the sign of a better player than one who can build up and control the greatest portion of the galaxy and get the maximum value out of his holdings? I don't necessarily think it is.

I actually like the way this contest is turning out. The top players are finding fascinating techniques and we're into the empire building side of the game as much as the enemy crushing side. The winner will be the person who crushes the AIs fastest, and then develops the most in what time remains. S/He's got to excell at both aspects of the game, not just one or the other.

quote:

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Oh well, it's probably a bit late to change things that drastically.

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Technically, not. Our rules and terms & conditions clearly state we can alter anything at any time in the interests of fairness and avoiding cheating. However, this has to be weighed against the severity of the disturbance to the players.

This is where the PC platform is a problem compared to our origins in the arcade world. Arcade ROMs rarely changed and basically had only a couple of settings. We declare the original factory settings to be the official and only accept scores on those settings played on actual arcade machines. Simple. Even easier than consoles. PCs... Boy they're a mess.

Not to mention how with new games the bugs and cheats are being found continually. There's really not much left for people to discover about Pac Man. Three people can score "perfect games" meaning get every dot on every level, eat every bonus fruit, and eat all four ghosts off each power pellet all on their first man. It takes about 4 hours (nearly 6 the first time, but they've perfected the technique since then). These guys know EVERYTHING about the game. I've seen a tape where Billy Mitchell just walks away from the machine for over 15 minutes to take a break and the ghosts don't get him. He knows the patterns well enough to know where and when such things are possible. No rules changes will be made in that game, I assure you.

Unlike the arcade games, we can't hold a PC world championship a year or two after release since no one is still playing the game. We have to aim at the first couple of months. But that means the game is in flux with regard to bugs and cheating. It's an ugly situation for the rules. especially here in SE4, where we usually play Last-man standing but this contest is high score. Bugs we never saw before because we were never looking are turning up.

I have no problem with the AI surrendering, because in a high-score contest, you're not competing against the AI, you're competing against the other humans in the contest. If you can get them to surrender faster than me, then you're a better economist player than I am. If I can enslave them faster than you can force surrenders, then I've got the advantage. This is all acceptable and even desireable. You should see what some of the people can do in the top tier of gaming. Using the computer as a resource is a key strategy to achieving the best scores in any game.

quote:

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Either that, or base victory on something other than the score.

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We thought about first person to a set score (we were thinking 5 million or so), and we may yet introduce that contest at a later date. I've almost got our founder to agree to a SE4 team ladder and/or contest. We could really do just about anything you guys ask for. It all depends on how much of a success this one turns out to be.

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Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

[This message has been edited by Nyx (edited 24 January 2001).]

[Drake]

I understand where you're coming from, and mostly agree with your points, Nyx. However...(another long post, sorry)

I think the issue with maintenance is still a little murky. I'd agree that 0% maintenance was probably not intended and is somewhat exploitive. What's a fair amount then, the 5% you can get not counting culture modifications? If so, can you then take 115% on maintenance to get 10% and reduce that by another 5% by picking merchants to net yourself 1000 points in race creation?

quote:

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I have no problem with the AI surrendering, because in a high-score contest, you're not competing against the AI, you're competing against the other humans in the contest.

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I guess the problem I have with the AI surrendering is that is does so based on the difference in score. If there aren't any rules against it, I'll find myself building more ships than I need in a certain turn, simply because I know it'll inflate my score, and the AI will capitulate. This can give me an unfair advantage when comparing results against players who aren't aware of the quirk in the AI. I mean, I found myself not wanting to colonize a planet I would normally colonize right away because if I did, I'd lose the 3k pts from the ship and that would drop my score below the 10x threshold! I'm not really concerned about making it fair for the AI, it's going to lose anyway.

In the buildup stages, there's no point for me to build anything that isn't as effective as possible in getting a higher score. I feel like it's a little exploitive being able to just dump tons of organic armor and organic weapons on hulls and not having them cost any more in minerals than one with just a master computer. I don't actually need these ships/bases I'm building, they're purely for score.

quote:

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It is a moderately thin line, but you should all be able to recognize it. We expect anyone who considers themselves a champion at a game to be able to make that call.

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I guess what I'm getting at is I find this to be a little... well, arrogant. The tone implies that there's a line that should be clearly drawn, and if you don't see it, you're a 'cheater' not a 'champion'. No hard feelings here, but while most would agree on the infinite retrofit being a cheat, I think you'd see a lot of different opinions on things like maintenance, taking advantage of AI, and the like. That's mainly why I brought up the issues in the first place, to see what people thought and hopefully generate some discussion on the matter. Thanks for taking the time to weigh in.

-Drake

[raynor]

I understand that the Twin Galaxies tournament requires every ship to be filled full of components. This was done to prevent the scoring loophole whereby a starbase with just a computer affected the score more than a fully loaded ship which took much longer to build.

But is that rule enough of a restriction to obtain an honest score?

I'm guessing that if an empty Star Base contributes more to your score than a fully loaded cruiser, then this also means that a fully loaded cruiser which took 20 turns to build contributes the same score as one which took only 2 turns to build.

I should think the score should be based on the total resources required to build the ship. Until it does so, a much more honest score would be the one obtained if the player scrapped all ships and units before submitting the save game.

(Granted, the retrofit loophole is still present in this score...)

[raynor]

In a prevous post, Nyx quoted another person who said:

--- <Begin manual quote> ---
I also have done some work on what combination of ship size to component arrangement gives you the most bang for the
buck in score to maint ratio.

Then, Nyx said that he thought this was the sign of a good player.
--- <End manual quote> ---

I would agree that he is a skillful competitor in the Twin Galaxies tournament, but I might not agree that he is a good SE IV player. Here is why:

I think he is saying that he has figured out which components take the most space but cost the least amount of minerals. In other words, he is meeting the requirements of the Twin Galaxies Tournament by filling up his ships. But he is still exploiting a fundamental problem in how the game calculates the score.

For example, let's say that I spend 20 turns building a ship with a stellar manipulation component. My total ship cost is 60,000 minerals, and my maintenance each turn is 15,000 minerals. But this ship is just a 300 KT destroyer class ship which contributes *exactly* the same to the score as a destroyer loaded up with cheap cargo bay components which might only cost 4000 minerals to build with a maintenance of 1000 minerals per turn.

I'm impressed that he found this loophole in how SE IV calculates the score and hope he uses it to skillfully win the Twin Galaxies Tournament. But I wouldn't call him a good SE IV player.

My definition of a good player is someone who designs a 15KT ship which he uses to destroy a much more expensive enemy ship.

Just my two cents worth...

[geoschmo]

Well I can't speak for Nyx, but I am the one he was quoting.

I would agree with you 110% that it doesn't make me a better SEIV player. I would no doubt get my behind spanked by many of you in a multi-player game.

However, in a multi-player game I would never dream of using some of the strategies that would make one be succesful in a tournament such as the one twingalaxies is hosting.

The fact is though that if you are going to have a competition open to all, you have to come up with some way of figuring out who was the winner. They have just decided that score is the way they are going to do that. So it makes sense for us to discuss various strategies to accoplish that goal. It doesn't mean your way of rating players is any less valid.

IDIC right?

I think this is just because twingalaxies has been around for a long time and this is what they are used to doing. It makes sense in pinball or other video games to use score.(Really it wouldn't make sense to use anything else in those games. Maybe how many beers you drink while playing?)

My favorite thing about Space Empires is the flexibiltiy it gives you. It has something for everybody. Ability to mod, different victory conditions, and so on.

[This message has been edited by geoschmo (edited 25 January 2001).]

[This message has been edited by geoschmo (edited 25 January 2001).]

[Drake]

I guess it doesn't matter all that much what method you use to determine the winner. Whatever you choose, the better players will just adapt their strategy to suit the situation.

Even by adding the latest restriction to the rules concerning outfitting ships, people are still going to build ships which maximize their score/cost ratio as opposed to ships which would be most useful in battle. I wasn't the one who sent in the score obtained by 2000 empty battle stations, but that's just because I hadn't gotten to turn 150 yet.

Now we have to pretend that what we're building has some use. It seems a bit contrived, but if they say I just have to fill the hull, I'll be creating an empire-wide shortage on organic armor. (now there's a balance idea - make components more expensive the more you use them, heh)

-Drake

[Nyx]

quote:

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I understand that the Twin Galaxies tournament requires every ship to be filled full of components

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Not true, a destroyer needs 210, more than would fit on a frigate. Not completely full, just enough to require the hull chosen. There's a big difference. Thanks for the post though, this one's going in the FAQ.

quote:

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I guess what I'm getting at is I find this to be a little... well, arrogant. The tone implies that there's a line that should be clearly drawn, and if you don't see it, you're a 'cheater' not a 'champion'. No hard feelings here, but while most would agree on the infinite retrofit being a cheat, I think you'd see a lot of different opinions on things like maintenance, taking advantage of AI, and the like.

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Well, arrogant wasn't intended, elitist was. A champion at anything is a rolemodel. In an ideal world they'd be both skilled and morally upstanding. This isn't always the case, but it is what we, as an officiating body, are obligated to aim at. A number of our best players, Billy Mitchell, Ron Corcoran, "Captain Canada," and Ben Addair, to name a small number off the top of my head, are really great guys who help out a lot in ensuring things are don fairly, making sure that the person who really is the best player gets the credit, not just someone who knows all the best rules exploits. Not all our world record holders are that kind of person, but that's what we aim for. And I definitely appreciate bringing the subject up (hopefully you could tell I was inspired by the length of my response) and I'm really enjoying people's thoughts.

The more I deal with this contest the more I'm becomming aware of the difference between you guys and the people playing our other World Championship (Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2) We've got people in that group cussing out our refs for catching them cheating and telling us that we're not running a fair contest because they can't avoid using the bug we caught them using so we should have made it legal in the contest. All the rules changes we've made for SE4 came when people e-mailed me about bugs they discovered with the scoring system. Not once have they come up because we caught someone "cheating."

quote:

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I'm guessing that if an empty Star Base contributes more to your score than a fully loaded cruiser, then this also means that a fully loaded cruiser which took 20 turns to build contributes the same score as one which took only 2 turns to build.

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As well it should. Score is *supposed* to represent your power in the game. How long that cruiser took to build shouldn't impact that, IMO (though I think total shipyard capacity would be an interesting value to add to score). By your premise, anything built at a shipyard 2 should only provide 2/3 the score points of the exact same ship built at the lower tech shipyard. And anyone with temporal tech and their 4xs speed shipyards would be realy screwed.

quote:

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I would agree that he is a skillful competitor in the Twin Galaxies tournament, but I might not agree that he is a good SE IV player.

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A good strategist knows how to alter his strategies to fit the required victory conditions. Those strats that will give you a fast military victory aren't as valuable in a game where the only victory condition is first one to reach a specific % of the tech tree. The better players recognize what is required to win, and find the strategy that will achieve that victory fastest and most securely. When victory is defined purely by tactical combat, your definition holds true, but what good does it do if he uses his knowledge of score manipulation to get such a high score so swiftly that three AI players surrender to him and your "perfect" destroyer, able to kill cruisers one on one, gets attacked by huge fleets of cruisers, more than it can handle? He beat you with economics. Tactics is battlefield only, Space Empires is a strategy game, economy and diplomacy and many other variables are important. mastery of only one is not the same as mastery of all. So your fleets are indestructable, fine, do you have enough of an economy to defeat me in a war of attrition? Can you withstand my intelligence onslaught? Can you protect your stars from my stellar weapons? Do you control the pace of the game or do you only react to your opponent's actions? IMO, limiting skill to one strategy alone is not a good idea.

And I said that Geo's behavior was *a* sign of a good player, not the only one. And I didn't mean score tweaking itself. Taking the time to figure out what exactly are the best methods to achieve the required victory condition, that's what I was complimenting. In this application it meant learning the ins and outs of the scoring system, but that same behavior would also apply to learning which weapons provide the best range, reload, damage, tonnage, and research costs. I've seen a lot of info on range and damage, bt very little on research costs. In a Last-man standing game is the wave motion gun really all that good? I'll top out on the psychic weapon tree about the same time you've just gotten access to ripper beams. It gets back to the question of is a dreagnaught really better than a cruiser, the cruiser may well obliterate the shipyard before it finishes the dreadnaught. In a purely tactical situation, the dreadnaught is always superior, but this isn't a tactical game, its strategic.

quote:

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Really it wouldn't make sense to use anything else in those games. Maybe how many beers you drink while playing?

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What a great idea! Sadly we had to ban marathon games, but I think a contest to see who could drink the most beers while playing pinball might enable a comeback of the marathon-style contest! JK

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Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

[raynor]

I said:

I'm guessing that if an empty Star Base contributes more to your score than a fully loaded cruiser, then this also means that a fully loaded cruiser which took 20 turns to build contributes the same score as one which took only 2 turns to build.

Then, Nyx said:

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As well it should. Score is *supposed* to represent your power in the game. How long that cruiser took to build shouldn't impact that, IMO (though I think total shipyard capacity would be an interesting value to add to score). By your premise, anything built at a shipyard 2 should only provide 2/3 the score points of the exact same ship built at the lower tech shipyard. And anyone with temporal tech and their 4xs speed shipyards would be realy screwed.
---

What I meant was that a ship that takes ten times as long to build costs ten times as many minerals. Sorry for not being more clear!

I think the cost of a ship in minerals should significantly impact the score. For example:

Empire 1 has maxed out his tech and is pulling in an impressive 2,000,000 minerals each turn. Let's say that they build a cruiser loaded up with the latest high tech gadgets so that their ships are KT for KT the baddest thing in space. Let's say that a single 300KT ship costs a ridiculous 50,000 minerals to build.

Now, Empire 2 is stuck in the stone age. They're still building 150KT ships which cost 5,000 minerals to build.

So, Empire 1 has 20 300KT ships patrolling its borders. These ships cost an even million minerals to build *and* 250,000 minerals per turn in maintenance.

Empire 2 also has 20 300KT ships patrolling its borders. These ships cost a total of 100,000 minerals to build and 25,000 minerals per turn for maintenance.

Clearly, Empire 1 is going to have the larger score because they will have more systems, planets, population, tech level, resource production, intel production, etcetera.

But both empires are going to have IDENTICAL scores for their ships.

Does the number and type of ships from contribute equally to each empire's power?

If you can convince me they do, I'm going to consider you one heck of a salesman. :-)

[This message has been edited by raynor (edited 25 January 2001).]

[Nyx]

One problem complicating that scenario is that many advanced Versions of technologies cost exactly the same as the simpler ones, sometimes they cost less. For example, angine III costs less than engine I, shouldn't it give you a higher score representing your higher tech ship? Same with the guns, a wavemotion III costs the same as wavemotion I, shouldn't you get a higher score for the more advanced gun? If you go by the resource cost (and I assume that you were only using minerals as an example, not claiming that only minerals should be counted) then the advanced ships will often cost the same as a basic ship.

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Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.