There are many questions about Galactic Civilizations that require answers. Hopefully, you will find what you seek here. If not, visit the Fellowship Empire's Conversation Thread and inquire.
To begin with, an overview of the game is necessary.
Galactic Civilizations is a Turn Based Strategy game which incorporates very good Artificial Intelligence with an outstanding storyline to produce an excellent product! The developers of Galactic Civilizations have been very attentive to the customer's needs and are frequently found at the Galactic Civilizations website to answer questions directly. For more information on Galactic Civilizations, it might be best to visit the official website.
Galactic Civilizations is known as a "mod-friendly" game. This means it is very simple to "mod"-ify the game to create different experiences. One of our overlords, Hawaii Five-0, has graciously submitted a quick "How-To" guide on modding. This will tell you all you need to know about installing the mods which can be found in the library of the Galactic Civilizations website.
1) Place any .pcx files (the images for an event) into the Galactic Civilizations\GFX directory.
2) For all mods other than UP Issues and Invasion Tactics, place the [.anomaly|.event|.imp|.party|.sbmodule|.ship|.tech] file into the Galactic Civilizations\Data directory.
3) For UP Issues, place the .upissue file into the Galactic Civilizations\Data\UP_Issues directory.
4) For Invasion Tactics, place the .invtactic file into the Galactic Civilizations\Data\InvasionTactics directory.
One of the most frequently requested items is "How in the heck is the scoring done in Galactic Civilizations?" Well, here is as close as we can come to an answer:
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 looked at.
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.
A question arose over why some Metaverse scores were higher than others. Ray the Wanderer explained how game scores are adjusted by the Metaverse. Here is his explanation:
The key reason behind this disparity in scores is the monthly block effect.
For you, all your games are still in one 30-day monthly block. So the basic formula of total number of points divided by sqrt total number of games is applied to give you a score of 49,562. You have 13 games in your denominator.
This player has games stretched over a period of time so he has three 30-day monthly blocks. The basic formula is applied to each of his blocks separately:
Current 30-day monthly block
8/16/2003 13,420
9/7/2003 10,860
9/9/2003 15,220
Total : 39,500
Divided by sqrt of 3 (3 games) = 22,805
Current block's scores are not aged so this block's contribution to his overall score is 22,805.
1-month old block
7/20/2003 14,640
7/26/2003 11,970
Total : 26,610
Divided by sqrt 2 (2 games) = 18,816
Multiply by 95% = 17,875
Ageing is 5% for every month for the Metaverse listing scores and 10% for player profile scores.
2 month old block
7/5/2003 9,640
7/5/2003 5,089
Total : 14,729
Divided by sqrt 2 (2 games) = 10,415
Multiply by 90% = 9,373
Overall score = 22,805 + 17,875 + 9,373 = 50,053.
Scores for all ranks
Thanks to arobertson for compiling this!
Note that scores are "Player Profile" scores that are (generally) a little lower than your metaverse score. You can view your player profile by clicking on your name on the metaverse player lists or on the forums. I've lifted the lower ranks from one of Ray's earlier posts. All of these are based on observation and deduction - Stardock haven't published the criteria officially - and may change at any time according to the whims of the Gods...
Fleet Admiral Currently unknown - guessing at 400,000 points, if implemented yet!!!
Admiral 200,000 points - game count unknown (50 or 60 ???)
Vice Admiral 100,000 points and 40 games
Rear Admiral 50,000 points and 30 games
Commodore 20,000 points and 20 games
Fleet Captain 10,000 points and 10 games
Captain 5,000 points and 10 games
Commander either 5 games or 2,500 points and 3 games
Lieutenant either 5 games or 2,000 points and 1 game
2nd Lieutenant 3 games
Ensign - at least one game and a positive score.
Look for more questions answered in the future!
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