The scoring makes no sense

hanoi · December 5, 2001, 22:57

The patch sounds great -- just the after-unit-build pop-up and show-moves pref will remove 90% of my annoyance with Civ3.

But I still think the scoring is hooped. There needs to be some connection between your total score, and whether or not you actually won the game.

I've had cultural, space and diplomatic victories, playing at Warlord and Regent levels, and never seen any type of bonus for victory (a la the space bonus in Civ2, and I thought that was too small compared with the huge score you could rack up via conquest).

I saw someone post that they got a large bonus playing at Deity or something. May have been BS, but if not, I could understand the bonus being higher at tougher levels, but not non-existent at lower ones.

The thing is I like to shoot for my high score each game. And with the multiple victory modes in Civ3, I like to try each one out with different Civs, playing styles etc. But my last game I got the 20,000-pt. culture city, ran a small civ, and ended up with a score at Regent level that was lower than a game I lost at Warlord level.

Being able to set this spec in the Editor would be real handy.

Dis · December 5, 2001, 23:27

bonus points for wins would clear that up

we need to suggest that in a patch. space race maybe 1000. 1000 for culture. 750 for domination and/or conquest, and 500 extra points for diplomatic.

wapamingo · December 5, 2001, 23:38

From what I have read here in the forum, conquest is the hardest victory to achieve with an increase in number of civs, difficulty level and map size. Thus I have to disagree with the lowering of conquest victory points, or at least these should heavily depend on map size/civ number/difficulty level. But in short:

Culture + Conquest should be highest (and equal?)

Space Race second.

Diplomatic last.

Xentropy · December 5, 2001, 23:38

Well, I don't know about the others, but you DO get a bonus from space race. It seems that when you win via space race, every citizen becomes happy for the win. So you get a big happy citizen score. I noticed my score jumped 250 points, all in happy citizens, in one turn when I launched my ship. Figured it had to be from the launch.

volcanohead · December 5, 2001, 23:39

Nice idea. Needs to be scaled to reflect difficulty level too...

V

Dis · December 5, 2001, 23:51

true

we could make it really complicated, but it is not likely to be implemented

but you would think a space race on diety would be worth more than a space race on chieftan. 500 chieftan/warlord. 750 regent/monarch. 1000 diety/emporer

conquest/domination should be about the same- maybe a little higher on emporer/diety due to productions bonus' for ai. But diff level doesn't affect combat. 500 chieftan/warlord. 750 regent/monarch. 900 diety/emporer

Culture is very difficult on the higher levels I would imagine. That should really increas on emporer/diety. 500 chieftan/warlord. 750 regent monarch. 1250 emporer/diety

And diplomatic would be the same for all levels. 500 points.

hanoi · December 6, 2001, 00:05

I agree that making it too complicated would be a problem. I was actually thinking just base it on the difficulty level, whatever type of victory -- 500 at chieftain, 1,000 at warlord up to 3,000 at deity. Something simple like that.

That's interesting, the post about the sudden boost of happy citizens due to the space launch. I never would have noticed because I don't check my score during the game much. But even so, 250 pts. is pretty weak compared with what you can pile up with citizens and territory. I thought Firaxis was trying to reward strategies other than infinite city sprawl.

In any case, I figure they could save us a lot of debates about points systems etc. by just putting a scoring system tab in the editor. If they're willing to let you toy with the actual game-play rules, then why not this.

Xentropy · December 6, 2001, 00:47

Well, in my game's case that 250 points was about a 20% bonus on my existing score... went from 1400 to 1650 or thereabouts.. On prince level... not sure what different difficulty levels would do... I wasn't particularly large in cities because I started on island chains where all the AI's were on one big continent the other side of the world... was actually an interesting game hehe... I should reload my save from right before and confirm this and all, though, I may even be way off...

Anyway, 20% isn't bad at all IMHO... though yes, conquest has a much greater potential for scoring...

Dis · December 6, 2001, 00:48

also the score I got for my 1 defeat is interesting.

I think it was 321 points. Considering my defeat involved the capture of every one of my cities and citizens that is interesting.

and yes I do know they average the score. But I died fairly early, I'm not sure how I could have accumulated 321 points. Still not sure about that. Maybe that's normal score for a civ in early A.D. years- I'm not sure.

Rust · December 6, 2001, 02:16

The Romans took me over after about 25 turns. They had a score of 14000 everyone else had a score of 75. Mabye you can get a massive score by taking civs out before they build another city.

Xentropy · December 6, 2001, 02:40

doh, well, confirming it, I WAS way off... I got no happy citizen bonus for winning via space race, but I DID get 230.6 points that weren't accounted for in the four individual score "headings", and weren't there the turn before, so there ARE bonus points for winning certain ways. Maybe it's also based on how early you do so. It was the 1970's when I won, so perhaps I got 3 points per turn left until 2050? And it was Regent level, so maybe it's 1 point per turn in chieftan and so on up the line... So they MAY already be doing exactly what you're requesting, though maybe not to the extent you'd like... This was my first space race victory so I have no other saves to load and test...

*IF* my hypothesis is correct, then a deity level space race win in 1950 would be worth 600 points. 100 turns * 6 points = 600. Does anyone have a save game from the turn before they won a space race (or won other way for that matter) to take a look at the last win chart and lend more data to this hypothesis? Just take the total listed at the top for your civ, subtract the total of the 4 #'s at the bottom you get using normal calculations, and that should be the bonus you got for your win. Post that bonus, the difficulty level you were playing, your method of winning, and the year of your win, and we can get enough data to be scientific here :> (Now if only the civilopedia had this info, or Firaxis would post it......hint hint!)

Edit:
Did a little more digging with that one save I had and... Yeah, my win was in 1973, on Regent level, the total of my 4 individual scores was 1403.4, and my total score was 1634. 77 turns left until mandatory retirement times 3 points per year would be 231. Assuming that 1634.4 total rounds to the nearest, it makes sense.

To somewhat confirm for myself, I then postponed the building of my last ship part by 3 turns and, lo and behold, individual totals = 1415.9, overall total = 1638. 222 points, and 1637.9 rounds up to 1638. So yes, a space victory on Regent level gives you 3 points per turn left until mandatory retirement. Somewhat sucky, considering the points you accrue for territory, people, and probably future techs will net you more than the 3 points per turn you'd get not waiting. Even in my game, you can see by postponing 3 turns, even not paying attention to doing anything those 3 turns other than hitting next turn immediately for this test, I got 4 more points. Didn't get any future techs, either, which would be another 20 points per 4 turns if I'd bothered.

The lesson? At least on Regent level, postpone building that last ship part until you MUST to make sure they don't finish their ship first. Rack up future techs. Turn up luxuries to get lots of happy people points. The bonus for the space win is there, but not significant.

I don't take back my request to everyone to post their data too, though, since I'm curious what the bonus is for other types of wins, as well as how the bonus scales to difficulty.

Frito · December 6, 2001, 02:56

Quote:

Originally posted by Dissident
And diplomatic would be the same for all levels. 500 points.

Why not have that scaled also?

gnomos · December 8, 2001, 04:02

It should be noted that your scoring is averaged over the turns, so a quick upturn in happiness at the end has a limted effect, unlike in civ2 where on the last turn you can set all your specialists to entertainers and set luxuries to the max. In civ3 if you want to max your population score you need to consider keeping everyone as happy as you can throughout the entire game.