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Lightning Alpha Strike formula
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Matthew Downie --
thanks for the feedback. It is a little funny to skip all the *good stuff*, and I agree about being surprised at how little was necessary. Then I remembered the creators saying starbases and/or resources were an afterthought. About the overkill on morale, perhaps it it's a holdover from earlier styles where the economy had to be strong, so the morale had to be high. Further trimming is certainly possible -- I wonder how far you can go? If you don't build the morale improvements you can't keep your taxes as high, which slows research. don't know where the optimal point is exactly.
shaffer -- 500bc trade revenue should be more than sufficient. Like Matthew Downie was saying, economy strength isn't really that important. Getting through the basic research and social build queue, keeping out of war, and building up a strike force of constructor stacks is all that matters.
        
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Trading techs for morale boosting starbases can make those entertainment centres go a bit further.
shaffer - I got a lot of my money from other people trading with me. Look on the treaties screen and if you see two alien races trading with each other, that's when you need to start a war between them. With any luck, they'll start trading with you instead. You can also sell large batches of techs to generous minors. In my last game, I could have set my taxes at 0% and still made enough to get by.
Maybe I'll try researching straight to terror star in a Large galaxy next time - see how much that scores.
    
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Nice job Maxtipherous. I said good-bye to the remaining majors with a 43 terror star salute to get my most recent 60k. It is hard to break some of my earlier habits so I researched extra trade routes for extra bc and the "be my pal" factor. 
On the other hand, if one can wait until the end to unleash terror stars, there is no penalty having a bank account in the red.
I think this "works" because of the 60k cap, right? When I was playing maso huge, I played around with things to affect score (AI all evil, maximize tg/wonders/tech, big pop, etc.) and found I could get a 50k game to around 54 with not reproducable (by me) max of 56k.
My guess is that a military gigantic maso all incredible AI is going to cap out at 60k minimum. Anything "extra" that might get 61k to 70k is capped at 60k. Interestingly, I did see a gigantic maso alliance at 50k so the military victory is probably still necessary to reach the 60k cap. Thanks again for introducing one more way to play.
  
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How long did yours take, Rick?
I just tried to do my own version of this technique on a Large map, skipping all the morale boosting research. Unhappiness didn't become too much of a problem. I was held back a bit by my inability to research Large Scale Building - I'll have to check for that patch - but I managed to trade for that in the end. The game took about an hour and a half, a bit more because of me colonising various planets (this time sinking as low as class 1) in an attempt to get my alignment up. Maybe I should give up on getting that happy Very Good face on my profile, and just use these instead:
The bad news is, it scored barely over 20K - half what I'd get for doing it 'properly'. I bet if you used the absoulte minimum tech tree and terror-starred the galaxy in the least possible number of turns, you could get a gigmaso with less than 60K.
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Max: I may have missed it above, but what are your preferences for planet frequency? I'm assuming that "rare" is the easiest, both because fewer TS are required and because the AI doesn't cope well with scarcity. Of course if there are more planets then *I* have more planets, and thus more sources of constructors.
Meanwhile, I have a couple of these games in progress.
-- Admiral Glacier
  
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absolutely -- sorry I missed it. Rare is essential for speed games. Takes a little getting used to starting with 5-8 planets. haven't been successful with 2 or 3 yet.
(actually, I have speen too much of my free time posting on the greenie thread in the other forum *wink*)
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I just completed this technique on a small map, rare planets...oh boy. The easiest whoopass I ever handed out; just short of 30k for about 45 mins work. Unbelievable. Like ric, old habits die hard and I did build up some insurance in terms of influence wonders, trade routes etc but sheesh...this technique means you hardly have to turn up at the keyboard  . Hats off to ya, Maxti!
 
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Odd that you got 30K for a small galaxy and I got 20K for a large. I wonder if the population level plays a big part in score? I didn't bother keeping morale at 100, never researched stadium, so my growth rate would have been low.
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Matthew, you asked how long it took me but I don't play straight through. Usually I play an hour or two and do something else. In my one effort to use the Maxti strategy, it took 3 days of 1 or 2 hours each day. I have another game on my hard drive but haven't played since last week but maybe can play tomorrow or Wednesday. Sorry I don't keep track but when my wrists hurt (from too much keyboard time) I go read or watch some recorded TV or a movie. On the other hand, this is a heck of a lot faster than my previous gigantic games. 
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Matthew - I always find it hard to tell what exactly is being rewarded in the "society" score component - I cant seem to repeat results consistently. In that game I built/traded for morale and pop boost wonders, trade goods etc and had the largest population prior to alpha striking. I have developed the opinion that massive pop and SPEED of victory are the keys, so I orient research and TG/wonder building that way. I do agree 20k seems poor reward for a large map, though!
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Um, there is no society score component. The metaverse score is kinda esoteric, bit is definitely not based on a sum of the scores displayed at the end of the game. I really wish they would clarify this, because it causes people to chase their tails.
Basically it is galaxy size, with modifiers for things like opponent AI, tech tree completion, percentage population, and victory condition. Turn off everything except military victory for max points.
They tweak these factors every release, but I think the order of significance is:
Galaxy Size
Victory condition (military is highest)
AI alignment (difference from yours)
Tech tree (insignificant)
Population Percentage (less than insignificant)
Cheers!
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| Perhaps that same holds true for Society, which would explain the reason it doesn't seem to effect score at Maso. |
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Current thinking among leading players is that the Society, Economy, Research and Military scores you get at the end of the game are just there for your own amusement and are entirely irrelevant to metaverse points, which are calculated by a separate system, using the factors Maxtipherous mentions above (plus a penalty for taking too long).
Although that still doesn't explain my 20K - tech tree and population levels must be fairly significant.
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Maxti:
You mentioned that your original list omitted Organic Piecing as a pre-req for Genetic Mapping, but I think you also omitted three pre-reqs for Large Scale Building: High Density Metals, Tri-Strontium Alloy and Advanced Engineering. Usually I get to trade for a couple of those.
Settings: I was wondering what you use during a speed run. I assume that you turn off following autopilot and alien ships and showing AI ship battles, and likely you turn off anomaly popups, but how about "special imp done popup"? I also assume that you use auto turn and auto survey (and that USS Hero gets eaten by monsters due to that allergy to eggs).
[Man, I *hate* not knowing what is going on when I can't see my ships moving, and I hate hitting research anomalies when I have 1 turn left on a tech, but if speed is the thing, I suppose I have to. Yak. It's like pulling teeth to give up those things!]
I don't quite understand your description of your search pattern, but I love the inscription on the One Drone. -- HtL
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Interesting...I did realise that the game score is of course NOT the Metaverse score, but I did think they had SOME numerical relationship (ie the higher the game score, the higher the Meta score, at least) but I guess I'll have to revise even that view. Does anyone have any firm data on speed of victory at maso level as a scoring factor as opposed to total population (just keen on following up Cypher's point)?
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| Large Scale Building: High Density Metals, Tri-Strontium Alloy and Advanced Engineering. |
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yup -- I stopped posting corrections to my corrections hehe
I virtually always trade for large scale building.
well, I send the drones along one side. they each see a swath a given width. the first one is 8 squares from the side, or fifth from the first sector line. Then second from the nest line, then second on the other side of the next line, etc. You can do it really quick when you get the hang of it.
For what it's worth, here is the old formula on metaverse scoring:
Difficulty Level:
The base score is based on the intelligence of the various computer players. This makes up the vast majority of the score. There is a slight bonus for playing as the opposite alignment as most of the players for most of the game. It looks at each turn and then looks at how much you are different each turn. But it's a relatively small adustment.
Galaxy Size:
There is a moderate adjustment based on galaxy size. But not much. Gigantic galaxy vs. tiny will be about a 3 to 1 difference in scores if all variables are the same.
Population:
Population is looked at but its value decreases as the game progresses. It is Population P / Turns N ^2. You're actually better off having a pretty good population earlier than having a huge population later and sitting on it. You're not penalized for having long games though, you simply don't get additional points at a certain point. That said, population is a relatively minor part of the scoring. It also takes into account what percentage of the total galactic population you have that turn. That is, your score is then modified by 100% - your percent of the population. So if you have 90% of the galactic population, you're only going to get 10% of the population score that turn.
Technology:
What percentage of the technology tree you have acheived and how fast you get it are added in. A fairly modest bonus but it's still lookeda t.
Economics, Trade Goods, Wonders, etc.
These other things are looked at and a few points added. They won't make that big of a difference (on a 15,000 point score they may add a few hundred points total).
Victory Condition:
Then the victory condition is looked at. The score is multiplied by it. Conquest = 10. Alliance =9. Culture = 8. Technology Victory = 7 (bear in mind that this is partially made up for by having a higher percent of the tech tree completed bonus).
Notes:
You're best scoring scenario is to win but not win too quickly. The system is designed to appeal to the mass majority of players, not the top 10 players. As a result, we want to create a system that rewards people for playing the game as it was designed to be played. That means your best bang for the buck will be games that are medium in length. You get serious diminishing returns. Sitting on 90% of the galaxy for turn after turn is not going to net you more points. You're not penalized either but you're not rewarded for having a huge population if you've got the game wrapped up. On the other hand, win the game in say year 3 due to some specific strategy won't net very good scores because you haven't had time to build up other parts to get multiplied by.
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| I did think they had SOME numerical relationship |
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As far as I can tell, your (non-metaverse-point) Military and Research scores can be deduced from the graphs - if the area under your line on the research graph is higher than that of an AI, then you will have a higher research score than that AI. So if you build a big military early and hold on to it for a long time, then you will get a better military score. Research score is purely based on the amount of research done on your planets - trading for techs and Unknown Anomaly research boosts will not give you anything. Using this knowledge, I played a few games keeping these scores high, before concluding that it wasn't doing my metaverse score any good at all.
My current variation on the Lightning Alpha Strike technique is to ignore it during the interesting early game and just play however I feel is appropriate for the map; colonising what I can, building key trade goods, getting into debt early on and paying it off when freighters arrive at my planets. When I get into a secure position, I research to Terror Stars and go for a quick finish before I get bored.
Incidentally, it seems a little quicker on the big maps to have two or more Rally Points for your constructors, spread out so they can get to the furthest stars quicker.
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| My current variation on the Lightning Alpha Strike technique is to ignore it during the interesting early game and just play however I feel is appropriate for the map; colonising what I can, building key trade goods, getting into debt early on and paying it off when freighters arrive at my planets. When I get into a secure position, I research to Terror Stars and go for a quick finish before I get bored. |
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M.D.: That makes perfect sense. The opening is often the most interesting part (and most critical for micro-managing). Even at maso, by mid-game the issue is often no longer in doubt (sometimes disaster, but no longer in doubt!) -- HtL
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| I played a few games keeping these scores high, before concluding that it wasn't doing my metaverse score any good at all. |
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hehe I did exactly the same thing
| I know for a fact that maintaining a decent military is worth 5-10% of your score on maso |
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I doubt it. There may be a correlation between the military buildup and your percentage of the overall population, which has a noticeable effect on smaller maps and quicker games.
I tried testing the military points concept by saving a game and finishing it, then replaying it building dozens of excaliburs before the end. It changed my military score quite a bit, but made no difference in Metaverse scores. Not a good test, granted.
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just reporting in . . .
got a 60k game in 5 hours of computer time but I take breaks every 1 or 2 hours so this was cumulative time over 2 days. It took about 1 hour to complete coloniziation (game year 2181). After 3 and a half hours, I completed social and tech and shifted to constructors (about 2193 game year). Around 5 hours we have the big boom and a military victory (2201 game year).
I have had 4 planets, 5 planets, & 6 planets over 3 games and they all work fine. All the games end around 2201. I probably goof off a little because I really like early and numerous trade routes for financial security. This is especially true if the Alexians are not available to trade with. I also trade a lot and maybe that could be trimmed back. Old habbits change slowly. .
This is fun new way to play the game so thank you Maxtipherous.
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Hmm...hit a snag. I decided to try one of these on small maso, expecting that to go quickly (compared to gigantic and by my standards, of course!) The problem I'm having is that I have to spend a lot of time in the diplo screens trying to keep the aliens from declaring war on me. I was stumbling happily along when all of a sudden the Torians said (to paraphrase): "You're evil; prepare to die." Yikes! (And by the way, my morality shows as Neutral/47, which sure isn't EVIL.) At that point I had *no* warships and a military rating of SEVEN and had about the chance of a Fiat in front of a runaway Abrams Tank. So I reloaded from the Previous Auto-Save where the Torians were merely "cool" and tried to avert disaster. They rarely respond to gifts of tech or of 500+bc, and when they do they move up from Wary to Cool, and occasionally to neutral. I have to give gifts about every three turns. Meanwhile, I built a flock of battle cruisers and battle axes to bring my military rating into the middle of the pack, and that seems to help a little (while delaying my progress).
And no, I didn't make the mistake of putting a warship on "guard" on one of my starbases, thus triggering a war. At the time they declared I didn't have ANY warships at all, just Hero and a scout.
Maxti: are you finding you can do this without military? -- HtL
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sub 50 is evil, my dastardly friend hehe
100% without military. This is my theory about AI's declaring war.
An AI will declare war on you if 1) it doesn't really like you and 2) it's current military/economic complex is substantially greater than the sum of your military/economic complex and the military/economic complexes of all the races it is currently at war with. A further corollary is that relations tend not to deteriorate if the opposite is true.
So I bribe constantly to keep the AI's at war with relative equals, or keep the top dog at war with everybody. a 20-30BC bribe over 100 years works out better the 500c every 3 or 4 turns.
as a side note I tried playing this style choosing research and production bonuses rather than my standard morale and economy, and the bribes required increased by something like 50%.
Interesting study of game mechanics, isn't it. Fascinating simulation.
Cheers!
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