score graphs

[KroolDeath]

Guys,

Can someone tell what is that mod or whatever that changes the score graph to little banners? I've seen it in some AAR screenshots but for the life of me can't find this thing. Thanks.

Krool

[Kristoffer O]

Might be Dom I. Did you like it?

[Sindai]

yeah, sounds like you've been reading Dominions 1 AARs without noticing.

I've seen those screenies too, and like it. While it doesn't show history like line graphs, it shows the current relative quantity better. At least, I think so.

[KroolDeath]

I guess it was an AAR for Dom1, as I had never played that.

I like both I suppose. The icon-type graph seemed a bit more easier to get precise position, but the histogram provides some important facts about the past and the relative direction things are going.

At least that explains why I couldn't find it

Krool

[Gandalf Parker]

Dom2 has a switch called --scoredump which creates a score.html showing how everyone compares. It shows it in straight numbers, but only the one turn. No history data.

So for Online game scores we have two choices. A comparison of everyone for that one turn, or a screen shot of each score graph from inside the game.

I have a request in the "3rd Party Apps Request" thread for someone to write a program that collects those and builds chart data from it. There are many free apps which will create the scoreboard we see if we can feed it those numbers. Or even something else like bars or piecharts. I could ALMOST write something myself to do it if I put some time in it.

[Gandalf Parker]

I was asked for an example and realised I had both. http://www.dom2minions.com/~dominion/RyanzEye

Im thinking that something that just collects the numbers and puts them in a format that a program like GNUplot will accept could be created to put score graphs into a web dir on linux. It could be added to Mosehansons game webboard

[ July 23, 2004, 04:36: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[KroolDeath]

I wanted to revive this thread if only for a second now that I've got more experience (although not much).

I think perhaps that the current score graphs lend people to turn them off because they are too revealing on how powerful someone is in any particular area, often times likely leading to a "gang up on the big guy" mentality.

The old Dom I score graphs, while revealing general position in a certain area, is likely not as damning to a player doing well.

Quick edit: I guess what I am saying, in an abstract sense, is that the old score graphs are like a 1 to 10(?) scale on how someone is doing while the new graphs, comprised of a histogram approach, reveal much more closely the general well-being in a given Category, which poses risks during MP.

Thoughts on this?

Krool

[ August 05, 2004, 04:35: Message edited by: KroolDeath ]

[Cainehill]

Personally, I like being able to get some idea of how I'm doing, but do agree that the current graphs mess up MP games something awful.

IMO, the graphs could be improved by showing your relative ranking just as it is now, but with no way to identify the other nations.

Or - there could be spells for determining the relative strengths, one for each area of the graphs. "Scry Research", "Scry Dominion", etc : people could learn the information, but at the cost of a mage's time, and magic gems.

Or, somewhat a la the HoMM series, have a tavern / thieves guild / etc that you could build in your capital. Each one built would give you more information, thus making one decide whether or not to invest the money in it.

But the current mechanism could certainly do with some improvement - while it's good and useful to know that your magic research is by far the lowest in the game, it isn't so useful (in the MP sense) to know _who_ has the best magic gem income, provinces, etc.

[guybrush threepwood]

Something that would be very useful - and not hard to implement I would think - is the option that makes the graph color corresponding to every _other_ nation into the same grey (and removed the option to toggle graphs by clicking the flags).

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by guybrush threepwood:
Something that would be very useful - and not hard to implement I would think - is the option that makes the graph color corresponding to every _other_ nation into the same grey (and removed the option to toggle graphs by clicking the flags).

That would make it a mass of rather indifferentiable gray lines.

A more interesting feature would be a gray line matching the highest one, so you get a graph of what the maximum value was for the entire game, and where you stand relative to that, but the actual line does not represent any single player, but a composite of all players. Obviously, if the gray line is on top of your line, the player currently setting the line is you.