Shouldn't Difficulty Level affect Score?

[Melboz99]

Hey all,

Just finished my first victory on Warlord. I won Culture Victory in 1989 after 4 hours of gameplay (one sitting).


I was a bit bummed to learn that my score was about 3,000 points lower than one of my Chieftan victories.

It seems that it was 3,000 points lower (30%) because I acheived victory in 1989 on Warlord instead of 1963 on Cheiftan.


That just doesn't make any sense IMO.


BTW, is the big factor how many turns are left in the game? IE, a Victory with 98 turns remaining is worth Double the base score..


Dan O.

[Melboz99]

Bump,

53 views and no responses??


Anyway, I'd like to know if this is the same as previous Civ games, or if it has changed.

If it has changed, was it meant to be this way?


Edit: Thought I would add a visual aid.




Thanks,
Dan O.

[ghen]

I guess it could be given a bonus but I would only want it to be small so that a huge chieftian victory still outscores a barely eeked out space race win at warlord.

[Melboz99]

Originally posted by ghen
I guess it could be given a bonus but I would only want it to be small so that a huge chieftian victory still outscores a barely eeked out space race win at warlord.

I was thinking of somewhere along the lines of +50% per difficultiy level.

I mean, right now if you beat the game with 100 turns remaining you get 100% more score than with 1 turn remaining.

In this way, you could equate winning a game in the year 2000 on Warlord to winning the game in 1950 on Chieftan.


Dan O.

[Azuarc]

This is something I was just about to post on myself. My high scores - and I've been working up the difficulties, so I've only won on noble thus far - include the following as the top 5:

5. 6754 - Warlord, diplomatic, 2005
4. 7771 - Noble, cultural, 1979
3. 7841 - Noble, space race, 1996
2. 16271 - Chieftain, diplomatic, 1892
1. 19490 - Settler, cultural, 1775


Now, I'll grant you, the settler and chieftain wins came earlier in the game...but that's because it was easier to get techs, easier to deal with the other civs, just plain easier. In the #3 game, I was challenged a bit, and in another turn or two I probably would have lost. My first two games I simply dominated because of the innate advantage I had. Why should my chieftain win be worth over twice my well-fought game that I had to show some actual skill to win? Why should the settler game be worth 2.5x a win on noble at all?

For that matter, how exactly DOES the game determine final score? I'm a little confused by the mid-game score to begin with, but at least I can *sorta* get some feedback from the mouseover on my point total. The final score seems like it's just your game score times some multiplier based on turns remaining.

Score tabulation in Civ 4:

[Mao]

So it lists the scores for you, and it's also listed in the Hall of Fame, right? The HoF also mentions what difficulty you played on, doesn't it?

[Melboz99]

Originally posted by Mao
So it lists the scores for you, and it's also listed in the Hall of Fame, right? The HoF also mentions what difficulty you played on, doesn't it?

It's all right there in my screenie.


My point is that we should have some standard to measure ourselves against, and that standard should be the Total Score.

The problem is that If you win Via Space Race on Diety you will probably end up with a lower score than someone who won the Space Race on Settler.

It just doesn't make sense.

Dan O.

[Melboz99]

For that matter, how exactly DOES the game determine final score? I'm a little confused by the mid-game score to begin with, but at least I can *sorta* get some feedback from the mouseover on my point total. The final score seems like it's just your game score times some multiplier based on turns remaining.

Score tabulation in Civ 4:

I agree with everything Azuarc,


My "educated guess" on how Final Score is determined is the following formula:

Game Score * (1 +(Turns Remaining / 100))

So, for in my case, the first game I played had a Game Score of 4106. I had 25 Turns Remaining.

So the formula is as follows:

4106 * (1 + (25 / 100))

Which boils down to:

4106 * 1.25

Which equals: 5132.2

Something must add a few hundred points to the final score, perhaps just the completion of the Space Ship was enough to add in a few points, but then I'm not sure why that isn't listed in Game Score.

The difference is 194. Not much, but it's there.



Dan O.

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by Melboz99
My point is that we should have some standard to measure ourselves against, and that standard should be the Total Score.

The problem is that If you win Via Space Race on Diety you will probably end up with a lower score than someone who won the Space Race on Settler.

It just doesn't make sense.

Dan O.

I know what you mean, but there may not be an easy way to compare across difficulty levels. It looks to me like they might have made the scoring independent of difficulty levels, but that's not the way Civ 3 was IIRC.

I think you are right about the multiplier, though it may be a nonlinear function of time before 2050, or have some other additive bonus, i.e., are all victory conditions weighted the same. In any case, it's something more complicated than (1+delta_years/100) * base score. Maybe domination counts more? My three games.

17865 1917 AD 6352 Domination Prince Standard Ancient Epic
8675 1989 AD 5447 Space Race Prince Standard Ancient Epic
4432 2050 AD 4424 Time Noble Standard Ancient Norm

[RGBVideo]

Great -- and I thought it made sense to fight my way towards a ~7500 point victory on monarch.

To who were your leadership abilities compared to? I got Shaka Zulu IIRC.

[Azuarc]

somebody in the middle, I forget...see, that's the kicker. In addition to the low score, you get Dan Quayled for playing on higher difficulty. The game effectively gives you no recognition whatsoever for playing on higher difficulty, it seems like. I suppose winning on a higher difficulty is its own reward, but at least on old games there was the score and then the percentage meter that separated between quality of your civ and quality of your gameplay.

[Peets]

This suck major!
First bad thing I found in Civ 4
The scoring system, seems like they just made it very quick and didn't care for the rest.

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by VJ
Great -- and I thought it made sense to fight my way towards a ~7500 point victory on monarch.

To who were your leadership abilities compared to? I got Shaka Zulu IIRC.

Julius Caesar. You should have seen the proud look on Kublai Khan's face as he awarded me that title.

First game was Warren Harding, Ghengis Khan had a look like "what a disappointment". Second game I achieved Simon Bolivar.

I would be quite pleased to be Shaka Zulu on Monarch, especially with my user name. My next game (today) which be Monarch.

I think it made sense to do it that way as it's hard to compare across difficulty levels. But also, as you play, you learn more strategies, and many from Apolyton, so moving up in difficulty is the way to keep it exciting.

It wouldn't be fun to always be Caesar, but it's good for the ego at least once.

I guess we need someone who really knows how the scoring works.

[Becephalus]

Yeah IMO finsih date effects end score WAY WAY too much. My games are invariably sorted by finish date not difficulty level or strength of victory...