Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

hey folks...well, i've just finished my entry to the Twin Galaxies World Championship and i must admit that i'm curious how i rank in the grand scheme of things yet too impatient to wait the several weeks for the official results! perhaps we can all share our scores....

i finished with 129.7 million points

my friend and fellow poster, terrik_blackend, kicked my butt with a score of 207.4 million points!

how'd everyone else do?

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"It makes no difference what men think of War. War endures. War was always here. Before man was, War waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting the ultimate practitioner."

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

278.7 million for me. Glad to see some more reasonable scores. Things have been pretty quiet over at TG lately.

I'm not seeing either of the scores you mentioned in the unofficial list. Have you two not submitted your scores yet? Right now there's another score of 141.6M showing, but nothing else competitive.

[This message has been edited by Drake (edited 05 March 2001).]

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

Well, I hadn't noticed before, but the contest was cancelled. From the wording of the annoucement, I'm guessing geo will win top honors.

Major disappointment. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

Drake, where did you hear that?

It would explain the lack of info coming from Nyx lately.

I don't think you could declare me the winner. I know there were at least three scores submitted that were higher than my current score.

I am working on another entry but I don't think I am going to have it done by wed. I am pretty sure it will be less than 278 mil anyway so it won't matter either way. It might be good for second or third place.

Geo

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

It's right off their main web site - I don't know when it went up, I don't usually pay attention to all that stuff, and click on the SEIV section right away. They just say the prize will go to the winners as it stands.....

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

Oh, I found it.
http://www.twingalaxies.com/cgi-perl/cancellations.pl

That kind of sucks. I guess it's expected considering the lack of response they have been getting.

I wonder if it's just a misprint but it says Space Empires 2.

I hope Nyx didn't get canned. Maybe thats why he hasn't verified any more scores lately.

Geo

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

Yeah, but it's not just the SEIV, but everything evidently. I must say I'm extremely bummed. I had my score in 3 weeks ago. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

Oh well, what can you do....

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

Well, if they do end up sending me the prize, I'll have to buy you a beer Drake.

Kind of feels like I won a golf tourney because I'm the only one able to finish 18 before the rain started. Not exactly how I wanted to win it.

I think I'll try to finish my Last game anyway. At least then I won't feel so bad...

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

Just curious... I haven't participated in the Twin Galaxies competition since I have the beta Version and not the wide-release Version...

And in my current game, on turn 85, I have 4.5 million as my score, and all of you are saying you have scores of hundreds of millions? I got 192 planets, including all my original homeworlds, at least one homeworld of 6 other races, producing 1.3M resources/turn and 302.5K intel points. Total population is 292.8B, I have 3768 units, 301 ships, and 19 bases...

I got all that, which in my experience with the game, is a whole lot, and I'm left wondering...

How did everyone get scores that high? http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

I would attach my *.gam file, but it's well over 1/2 a megabyte and in the latest beta Version, so nobody could load it anyway http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

The players with the scores in the hundreds of millions have 500 planets full of Monolith III facilities that bring in all three resources. In addition, they have improved their planets so that many planets are maxed out at 250% for all three resources. There are facilities which improve the resource output at a planet by 30% and a system by 30%. You also get a nice production bonus if your populations is maxed out. On ringworlds, the pop. bonus is 100% at a certain population level. The top players will have converted all asteroids to planets and put a ringworld around every start. They'll get 50 million points alone from having 2000 starbases.

Also, when playing for score, they are eliminating all 10-15 computer opponents using the AI surrender domino effect which lets you assimilate all of them in about 20-25 turns.

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

will....
to give you a comparison, here's some stats from my game:

final score: 129.7M; resources: 16.4M; research: 450K (down from a high of 1.3M); tech levels: 315 (research tree completed on turn 104); systems: 30; planets: 329; population: 400.5B; units: 214069; ships: 7012 (90% or so are the largest hull size); bases: 1230

from what i was able to garner from the score table is that ships have the largest effect on your score. i built about 6000 ships in the final 34 turns of the game and it effectively doubled my score. my question to everyone is: has anyone figured out exactly how scoring is calculated? and what about experience points?

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"It makes no difference what men think of War. War endures. War was always here. Before man was, War waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting the ultimate practitioner."

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

I believe your minerals, research points and intel points are added straight to your score. You get 1 point for every 100 tons of ships. So, for example, in the TG tournament, you are limited to 2000 ships/bases. In order to maximize your score, your best bet is to build 2000 2500KT starbases to give you 2000 * 25,000 = 50 million points.

I'm not sure what you get for tech. I think someone said it is 300 pts per level?

Planets, systems and population contribute to production and don't seem to be part of the score? Units are not part of the score at all.

[This message has been edited by raynor (edited 06 March 2001).]

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by WarChild:
i built about 6000 ships in the final 34 turns of the game and it effectively doubled my score.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, I have good news and bad news.

The bad news is that there was a stated 2000 max for ships and bases combined. That the game let you build more was a bug, so either you'd have lost all the extra points from the ships over 2k, or you'd have been disqualified.

The good news is that it doesn't matter, because the contest was cancelled. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

Seriously though, with the 2000 base limit, resources were king.

My final stats were:
278.7M points; 228.7M resources; 246 tech levels; 39 systems; 492 planets; 2.7 trillion population; 2000 starbases; zero research, intel, ships, units, etc.

It's really too bad they cancelled. I'm surprised they couldn't just end it on the 7th and verify the scores and be done with it. After all, if they're going to still publish their book, they need to verify the SEIV scores anyway, don't they? Ah well, it just seems so anticlimactic to have it end this way. C'est la vie!

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

I didn't enter myself, there just seemed to be too many ways in which to take advantage of the way the scores are calculated. And that's not even counting if people actually wanted to cheat by using 'gamehack' programs.

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Drake:
It's really too bad they cancelled. I'm surprised they couldn't just end it on the 7th and verify the scores and be done with it. After all, if they're going to still publish their book, they need to verify the SEIV scores anyway, don't they? Ah well, it just seems so anticlimactic to have it end this way. C'est la vie!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Drake, I'm confused by this post on TG's board:
http://www.twingalaxies.com/cgi-bin/...0@.ee6c055/136

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

I just received the following from Walter Day:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Space Empires IV was not cancelled. We did go through a major reorganization in addition to moving, lay-offs, etc. But the contest is on, the prize monies secure and life is easier. Actually, replacement contests will be conducted over the course of the summer to make up for the cancellations.

Regards,

Walter Day
Chief Scorekeeper
Twin Galaxies
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm not sure what they were referring to when they mentioned SE 2 being cancelled, but apparently the contest will be finished. Even given that it isn't cancelled, their website doesn't give the impression that there were going to be any more TG contests in the future, unless I completely missed something.

Maybe someone could clue ME in, I still don't understand exactly what's going on over there. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...s/confused.gif

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

This really stinks. I guess I get to stay up all night tonight trying to finish my Last game not knowing whether or not it's going to be a waste of time. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif

Geo

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

Well, since Walter's specifically said the contest will continue, I'd definitely finish your game. I'm just confused over what the heck they meant on their cancellation page.

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

Ok, now this is getting ridiculous. I had sent a message to Walter Day as well, and it just came back that that user was unknown.

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

Geo, you used the walter@twingalaxies.com email address? They said they've had some email problems related to a recent move...

WarChild, you should probably scrap the extra ships and bases over 2000 and resubmit your Last turn in case they'll DQ you for going over the limit. I would also read the board over at TG to make sure there isn't anything else you need to worry about.

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

Yeah Drake, I was using the link on that page which had walterday@twingalaxies.com, I sent it to another address there and apparently they forwarded it to walter@twingalaxies.com cause he eventually responded. Didn't give me any new info over what he told you though. In fact he is a little frustrating cause he acted like he didn't really know for sure what was going on.

I have no idea how long it's going to take them to verify the scores that have been submitted. They are still accepting submissions till tomorrow. I asked him specifically what time was the deadline tommorrow and his answer was "tommorrow". Big help.

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

drake:
thanks for the suggestion, but i already mailed my game saves in (because they were too large to send as an e-mail attachment)...i was sooo careful about playing by the exact rules that i don't know how i allowed myself to make that mistake! looks like my buddy's game is garbage also, considering he built nearly 12000 ships in his...ugh! i can't believe i wasted literally weeks of my life to no avail! you are to be congratulated for playing an excellent game--what an impressive score! care to share how you generated those phenomenal resources??

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"It makes no difference what men think of War. War endures. War was always here. Before man was, War waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting the ultimate practitioner."

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

Take a look at the following URL. There is some good information. In particular, Drake posted his Turn 150 savegame:

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/For...ML/001421.html

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

Thanks Warchild. I picked up a lot from reading this board & discussion strategy with people here.

The thread raynor posted a link to should answer most questions you might have, but feel free to fire away with specifics. Pretty much the key is to do everything in your power to maximize resources.

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

Ah, all that explains it. See, I wasn't using loopholes to get an ultra-high score and all that, I was attempting to get the AI to challenge me (sent in a nice sized uni-paragraph about it to MM http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif. I used finite resources, I had max AIs, both neutral and normal, with highest difficulty and highest bonus. So, building all planets with Monolith Facility IIIs was not a possibility, especially since it seems that resources max out at 3mT per planet... And I never liked BaseShips/StarBases except for a few things... like warp duty on a very busy hub system, or put over a big planet if I don't feel like building my WeaponPlatform suite... or when I capture them http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

I'll have to try for the ultra-high score game sometime.

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

I don't know that I'd call it using loopholes. It is a contest after all, with clearly defined settings you had to play under. Aside from using exploits or cheats, not doing everything you could to maximize your score would be kinda pointless.

On a separate note, (mini-rant on) using finite resources is really a totally different game - of course the scores are different! It's not a very well designed option either, imho. Look at Stars! for how finite resources should be handled. If your source is infinite, I can see why they'd want to limit excess to what you could store, but in a finite game? If you can't just keep the resources laying on the planet, you should at least be able to turn off some of your facilities for a turn or two without scrapping them. Value Improvements act odd as well, IMHO. Oh well, mini-rant off.

It doesn't make sense to compare the contest games to those of other types though, as I'm sure you quickly realized. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

Drake,

What was the most important tech you researched fairly early? The Replicant Center III?

When you built your first RW, I'm assuming you already had enough population to fully populate it?

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

And, for my 1000th post, I shamelessly practice the art of thread necromancy to bring up my first (non-beta forum) post from the dead.

And you can all blame El_phil for that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Interestingly, it appears that this post was made a day before I registered...

Re: Twin Galaxies Championship Scores
 

That post was made at 9:32 PM PST. The server is in EST, so to the server, your post was made at 12:32 AM EST...on the next day.