Why are militery victories worth more points?

I think if the new medals get approved, more people will submit other types of wins. I know I would start going for tech wins if I could get a medal for it! LOL

It's all in the reward, and right now, military victory gives the most reward (i.e. more points).

Perhaps they should have a top player categary for each and every type of victory as well like they already have for good neutral and evil. That would give people more options to get fame and power other than by pure warlikeness, backstabbing and exploiting the war party 50% hp bonus as much as possible. Maybe in a future patch they could modify the game scoring system to make it more fair.

I play the Populist Party and the only Hit Point bonus I get is from Tech or Anomalies.

Goblin - there has been a LOT of debate about this very issue over the last six months; searching the forum would bring many threads to cover. A numerical modifier is applied to the final score: military=1.0, all the way down to tech=0.5. Yes, many (if not most) of us would have it differently, and I share Theoden's views on the matter. I'd also agree with your point about many roads to fame!

GoblinCookie - Stardock downgraded the Tech Victory option because hiding in a corner and researching was too easy back in the Dark Ages (v1.0, 1.1? Before my time!). Meanwhile, a Military victory, being a fight to the finish, was seen as more time-consuming and thus worth more points.

Fine so far. But the game setup screen allows victory conditions to be disabled. Many of the "military" wins posted are really cultural wins, with the cultural victory condition turned off. A common technique is to push for alliances with everyone (as the game will continue), and then unleash massive culture attacks. Allied AIs don't mind these as much, and a "military" win can be won without firing a shot...

If the medals generate more interest in the other types of wins, we may yet see a "level playing field" in future game updates. A lot of players have requested it.

So you're telling me that they made researching the late game tech harder or possibly all tech harder?
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As long as the first page of the Metaverse shows one player on top of one list, the most heated competition will be for that single spot (or a place on that first page). Sure there are a bunch of filters, but no one can deny how 'special' that first page is. Thus conflicting opinions about how the game should be scored will always be a large part of this forum. The addition of medals and other rewards will certainly increase the variety of play, but I doubt there will be any significant changes to our competition in the Metaverse. I take solace in the responsiveness of Stardock. They're better than most!

Actually, I think the latest patches have made researching faster and easier...but that's compensated for by the reduced scores for a Tech win.

Personally, I think I've played ONE game to the end of the tech tree. By the time Dreadnoughts hit everybody's assembly lines, "the big war" is usually on anyway.

For no good reason.

Apparently, the programmers are still under the impression that it is "harder" to achieve a military victory, therefore the condition warrants more points. Why they believe this, I have no idea.

The good news is, alliance and cultural victory score decently. Only tech wins are severely underscored.


- Sirian

What is Stardocks current feeling about this ?

There must be someone here who have actually discussed this with one or more of the Stardockians.

It would sure be nice to see this change

I think Stardock went by the biggest vocal majority wins algo for the scoring system. The players cranking out miltary win after win seemed to want this type of scoring system.

The most competitive Metaverse players will always crank out whatever works. Right now it's big masochistic military victories. I too would like to see the playing field leveled off a bit. It's hard, but not impossible, to figure out a system that encourages a variety of ways to compete. Eventually, however, players will figure out weaknesses to exploit. That’s how humans win! Exploiting weaknesses isn’t evil, it’s a human strength! I’m digressing...

(edit: darn typos!)
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Yes, but with cultural victories so easy, it's very easy to turn a cultural victory into any victory type you want. For example, absorb all the planets but one with culture, and then with 99% of the galaxies resources behind you, do you think that planet will hold against you long no matter how you choose to win it?

I should know, I am terrible at comabt and look at my record, almost all military victories. Looks impressive doesn't it!? Wrong, hardly any of those are true military victories. I just do it for the points.

Well i cant speak for anyone else obviously, but GalCiv was designed to have four (shoot me if im wrong) seperate roads to victory and if the scoring is geared towards military i never really noticed, honestly.
I play for the military victory because i find it the most enjoyable road for me, before i started submitting scores i tried all the other ways to victory and just found that as i tweaked the difficulity levels i enjoyed the military side of things more. I dont play with the War Party either, nor do i stick to a set plan each game, it depends on how the stars lay out on the map, even with using control-n, i try to play with setup skills that allows me a varied strategy, i play as the Technologists Party (research +20 and sensors +1), with the abilities pop growth+10, military production +50, diplomacy +50 and creativity +25. With all the things they are putting into the Metaverse i think the idea of four seperate tables and one overall is a good idea, im sure they could implement the seperate tables like they have at present for only showing the scores of very evil / very good etc, adding medals for different things is a great idea.



Sirian: It is harder to achieve a 'pure' military victory, i never, honestly, build any of the culture modules on any of my starbases, nor do my colonies have those bits either, if im in a tight spot i might build embassies and thats it, i thought it was cheating to have other systems just 'give' themselves to you so i avoid it like the plague
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If they'd make the scoring equal then people wouldn't carry out the cheesy cultural militery victory exploit and would be happy to submit victories according to however they won giving more accurate picture overall.

Agreed with Goblin

I agree completely. However, you are missing the point, not arguing head on with the complaint's best argument.

To be replayable, to retain value over a long haul, a game must have tight rules. If a game is well balanced, there will be many paths, many options from which to choose, to pursue success. If some options are too strong, too rewarding -- if some aspects of the game are too weak and open to exploitation -- the successful gameplay will all channel to those options.

Gameplay is like water and gravity, it naturally flows downhill to fill all the cracks and crevices. Too many cracks, and a lot of the water drains away, leaving you a shallow pool in which to play. To have a deep pool in which to play, enough of those cracks must be sealed.

While it is not "evil" to figure out ways to beat a game into total submission, it DOES bring the gameplay to conclusion. It shortens the life and value of the game. Most players will tire of doing the same things over and over, and especially if, when they try to vary their approach, the game does not give them a fair shake.

GalCiv advertised itself as versatile. To a significant extent, it is, but there is still plenty of room for improvement. Having the scoring lean toward military victory would be FINE if "military" comprised only games won via conventional military means: fleets, invasions. Winning predominantly by starbase is a lot less work: terror stars, party palaces with cultural victory turned off. Winning by setting all the AI's to the same starting alignment and keeping relations close while you pick them off one at a time is also not the same. These ways to "conquer" are all treated and measured the same, when in fact they represent VERY different paths. The game is simply not sophisticated enough in its evaluations to tell the difference.

And yet, if it could be made to gauge results more accurately, more intricately, some of those cracks could be sealed and we'd ALL be playing in a deeper pool.

Thus while it is not evil for players to exploit the game to death, it may run counter to the long term interests of the community and the game makers. The best, and sometimes only solution is to seal the cracks within the game.

Short of that, players can form niche communities where they add their own rules to the gameplay to try to tape over the leaks themselves. That is how Realms Beyond usually approaches gaming. We plan to start a tournament for GalCiv once the expansion comes out, with saved games in a single file, map and scenario and even campaign editors, etc. There will quite likely be additional rules and restrictions, both overall for every tourney game, and individually per scenario.

Still, if they can improve the game balance within the game, that would benefit everybody except the few glory hounds who would rather see the game remain exploitable than see it shored up and improved.


- Sirian

Hmm, lots of interesting discussion as always.

However, the other comment I would make is that any games victory conditions, allowable strategies, etc is a direct reflection of the key designer(s)/developer(s) own personal political & cultural preferences, whether expressed consciously or not.

Galciv isn't alone here by any stretch of the imagination!! Even the choice of particular scoring systems and features in games such as Baldur's Gate reflect such tendencies, even at times biases. Early versions of Civilization had particular foci and overally succesful strategies that rewarded playing in a certain manner congruent with the overall ethos of the game designer(s)/developer(s).

I would also suggest of any group that develops its own styles/rules etc to address deiciencies etc they see in the game. Those mechanisms for addressing must reflect the tendencies/biases/preferences of the group(s) developing them also.

My A$0.02 worth, (at current exchange rates approximately US$0.015)
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Which, along with everything else in the post clearly is driven by my own biases, preferences, etc etc. (:(

I hate Military victories most of the time people win with Military victories are just after a higher score.

There is a certain point in every game where I know I won. I could keep exploiting Alien weakness and go for the Military Win and get more MASOverse points but I go for an Alliance. The point is I know the win is in bank grabbing more systems at this point is not skill.

Nail players for milking out a Technology Win they should also reduce the score of players conquering systems just to get a higher score.

I don't think we have any of those "hounds" around, Sirian.

I don't think anyone pointed out the real reason advocated at the time for military victories vs. tech victory. Giving equal ratin to every type of victory ment that Tech victory brang most points. This was because your score depended heavily on the population (thus if you conquer the whole world the better, and the longer the game lasted, the better), and on the number of techs researched (which can only be maxed by a tech victory).
This led to false tech victories the way we have false military victories: You kill all majors but one, to whom you gift a PQ12 planet, and let him live only on this. Then you boost your population and your tech: The military victory was seen as a tech one and gave more points because of the tech factor. To dumb down the tech factor, Stardock issued this multiplier. They also dumbed down the population to avoid big points for long games.
And here we are: Turn off all victory conditions if you want to score points.
The dumbing down of alliance victory in itself is another story. People look at this victory as being not worth as much as others, and thus it should be penalized. I think it is totally silly, as it means -turn me off, ally with everyone else and win that way-.

There's probably no system that wouldn't bias the game towards a style of play, but assigning a set number of points for a victory, whatever the type, based solely on the starting conditions would be the best, as you could play the game the way you want. It wouldn't make any difference between a game won easily and a game won the hard way, but these are subjective anyway. In sports, either you win or you lose. The score does not matter, ever. (When it does, the 'game' being played is not the match itself but the series of match - the score during a final needn't be great, either you win or you lose, how and by how much does not matter).

Thus we have points awarded for difficulty and galaxy size, morality of opponents, which are all OK (though morality is hard to check because you can change it in game after it had an effect on determining your alliances). All other factors (population, time, tech, victory type) should be scrapped if you want to really let the game be played the way it is, with its richness and its flaws.
I even wonder whether map size should be factored in, because I think huge games, longer though they may be, are easier than medium games, and may be more efficient time-wise than mediums for submitting wins.

I will admit I try to score higher so my empire can be competitive in the Metaverse. There's nothing wrong with that. But I also don't get Military victories solely on cheese. I love invasion. I'm addicted to it. It may be much easier to build culture starbases and patiently watch them all flip, but that's soooo boring. Give me a Combat Transport and a couple of Avatars to clear system defenses and I'll show you a happy Theoden.

Lumping everyone who achieves a military victory may be more correct than I would like to think, but there are still several of us who are legitimately earning those Military victories.

Not criticizing here, just letting you know there are people like me out there...

Great of you to admit at least some people are purely after points.




Very true I am sure there are lots of cases where the only way to win was military.