The VGAP4 scoring system / strategy consequences

Up to October 2000, the basic idea of the game was: Colonise the galaxy. Gather contraband / exploit colonists and natives for maximum cash. Mine planets for minerals for your ships. Build up technology levels so that when you meet enemy empires, you have better weapons etc. Since only about one in two to three planets has significant numbers of much-needed natives, contraband etc, there are plenty of reasons to squabble over territory. Destroy other players' empires. Have fun.

But! Tim has introduced a scoring system (see below) which introduces more options for winning than straightforward military ones.

Scoring System details: Default score needed to win is 1000 points, though this is configurable.

Beta users had been trying various winning conditions including the traditional "fight until there is a clear winner" method, but Tim felt this could be improved and introduced a mostly non-military victory system. He had noticed that: oddly many, non-military victory points encourge fighting. . . . and military victory points discourage fighting. Points are currently scored as follows. The points accumulate over time. If you score a point you keep it:

• -1 If you are at war with anyone after turn 25
• +1 For every active empire that you are not at war with after turn 25
• +1 For each planet with a population of more than 1 million
• +1 For each planet with a population of more than 5 million
• +1 For each planet with a population of more than 10 million
• +1 For each native that votes for you (Only one vote per native race, not per planet. There are 10 native races so if they ALL like you you will get a maximum vote of 10 votes. Only natives with happiness above 69 count in the voting, their voting weight is happiness times population. The votes from all bases are summed up and the empire with the most votes gets just one victory point per native race.)
• +? For special race based bonus points (None active at this time)
• +7 For being the "King Of The Hill" You must have the only ship at a special planet after turn 25
• Any of the above can be turned off by the Host using Hconfig.exe. The King of the Hill planet is any planet the host names. The number of King of Hill victory points can be changed in hconfig.

The overall philosophy is that there is more than one way to win: the score system tells you an empire is doing well, but you have no way of knowing exactly what they are doing. Do the natives love them? Do they have 20 allies? Are they king of the hill? Are they hiding the the corner growing colonists like crazy with a very weak war machine, building just farms and not cities? If you want to know you must scout them out.

I was worried that these criteria could conceivably lead to stagnation and fence sitting. I like a bit of a punch-up every now and then. But on reflection, this could work well. Although the system will undoubtedly be tweaked in future, e.g. by introducing optional AND / OR conditions, it already encourages you to go out and clobber people doing better than you.

Another side effect of this system is that it may reduce dropouts among players who are "losing". In VGAP3, games are plagued by players who lose interest when they cannot win [militarily] and just don't send in turns. But now, the winner has reasons to be merciful:

• He could bully his weaker neighbors into paying a VP "tribute". "Ally with me so I get an extra VP per turn or I will destroy you." This will, of course, give the weaker people a breathing space to rebuild...

Comments from Jon Nunn:

• I think each side only gets the 1 VP if both declare each other to be friends.
• He could force them to provide them free hull plans or ships, cash, provide free fighters, join them against their enemies, or whatever else the victor wants.
• It should also give the defeated person some leaverage back, if you don't give me back some breeding planets I'm going to drop out and you won't get any more 1 VP's per turn from me.
• Also, with alliance ship commands, a player that's tired of managing his huge fleet can let the defeated person who has little to do help manage portions of his fleet for him knowing he can take control back.