Gerakken Gerakken

Difficulty Levels Revealed

▼

Difficulty Levels Revealed

from Stardock Forums
What difficulty levels do players, and their empires, really prefer? The Spymaster's latest report reveals the truth about a large sample of the current Metaverse spanning 520 players in the 13 top empires.

Gerakken's toughness scale is not meant to measure maximum difficulty level played, but the current preferred levels of play based on recent games. The last 3 entries on a player's record are checked against a scale, averaged, and rounded back to the nearest category. Losses, anomolous scores, and scores from old version games that did not report difficulty are ignored. The preferred sample is 3 games, but if a player has only one or two valid scores, the record is still processed.

The scoring scale is based upon game difficulty:

1 Cakewalk
2 Easy
3 Simple
4 Beginner
5 Normal
6 Challenging
7 Tough
8 Painful
9 Crippling
10 Masochistic

To use a fictitious player record as an example, say the last three games were normal (rated 5), painful (rated 8), and crippling (rated 9). Those add up to 22 points. The average would be 22/3=7.33 rounded down to 7. The player rating is tough (7) on the scale.

422 player records out of 520 contained eligible scores. The scores are listed as a composite of all players combined and are also broken down by empires. Empires are rated on a similar toughness skill to players. The overall rating of each valid player record in the empire is averaged together. Empires with less than 10 usable player records are not listed in the empire breakdowns because the sample is too small to get a real empire toughness, but their players still appear in the composite.

Here are the empire breakdowns, in ascending order of empire toughness:

CDG Creations League
Cakewalk : 0
Easy : 0
Simple : 5
Beginner : 2
Normal : 2
Challenging: 1
Tough : 0
Painful : 0
Crippling : 0
Masochistic: 0
Toughness rating: 3.90

Canadian Star Federation
Cakewalk : 5
Easy : 3
Simple : 9
Beginner :12
Normal :15
Challenging: 7
Tough : 1
Painful : 3
Crippling : 0
Masochistic: 1
Toughness rating: 4.36

Jedi Republic
Cakewalk : 1
Easy : 1
Simple : 3
Beginner : 7
Normal : 3
Challenging: 0
Tough : 1
Painful : 4
Crippling : 0
Masochistic: 0
Toughness rating: 4.70

Apolyton
Cakewalk : 2
Easy : 4
Simple :10
Beginner :18
Normal :15
Challenging: 6
Tough : 4
Painful : 8
Crippling : 3
Masochistic: 2
Toughness rating: 5.03

ANZAC
Cakewalk : 4
Easy : 0
Simple : 2
Beginner : 5
Normal : 8
Challenging: 3
Tough : 1
Painful : 1
Crippling : 4
Masochistic: 1
Toughness rating: 5.14

European Alliance
Cakewalk : 3
Easy : 5
Simple : 8
Beginner :11
Normal :16
Challenging: 9
Tough : 5
Painful :10
Crippling : 4
Masochistic: 1
Toughness rating: 5.22

GROSS
Cakewalk : 2
Easy : 1
Simple : 6
Beginner : 2
Normal : 7
Challenging: 8
Tough : 4
Painful : 7
Crippling : 4
Masochistic: 1
Toughness rating: 5.79

Gamma Squad
Cakewalk : 0
Easy : 2
Simple : 1
Beginner : 3
Normal : 5
Challenging: 2
Tough : 0
Painful : 5
Crippling : 3
Masochistic: 0
Toughness rating: 5.86

MWC
Cakewalk : 0
Easy : 1
Simple : 4
Beginner : 3
Normal :14
Challenging: 6
Tough : 5
Painful : 6
Crippling : 6
Masochistic: 0
Toughness rating: 5.97

The Fellowship
Cakewalk : 0
Easy : 0
Simple : 1
Beginner : 3
Normal : 7
Challenging: 7
Tough : 4
Painful : 7
Crippling : 9
Masochistic: 0
Toughness rating: 6.76

The composite rating of all 422 eligible players in all 13 top empires:
Cakewalk :17
Easy :17
Simple :50
Beginner :70
Normal :92
Challenging:52
Tough :29
Painful :54
Crippling :35
Masochistic: 6
Toughness rating: 5.36

Anything less than 4.5 on the empire toughness scale represent empires whose players are laid back about difficulty level. A 4.5 to 5.5 represent empires who take a middle of the road approach to difficulty. Anything above 5.5 represents an empire that is leaning toward harder games.

In my research, I have found 4 general types of player records:
1. The traditional climb of starting low and levelling off at some point higher on the scale.
2. The peak and drop, where a player starts low, climbs to a certain height, and then drops back down to a comfortable difficulty level.
3. A straight line: the player starts at a certain difficulty and rarely deviates from it.
4. A lab rat/wild record scenario where difficulty changes very often.

I feel this is a fair scale no matter what the pattern of the record. It does not exclude newer players with few scores on the board, but the three game sample also does not discriminate against older players with long records.

I may make empire difficulty breakdown a standard feature in my Major Empires thread to better help players pin down whether any of those empires are right for them. For the moment, though, I just present my work here for evaluation and commentary. May these numbers prove useful.

Edit: Attempted chart formatting.
[Message Edited]
24,130 views 134 replies
Reply #26 from Stardock Forums Top
The fact that there are 3 beginner levels in the top ten looks awful to me. Nice stats anyway.
Reply #27 from Stardock Forums Top
Some new quick stats only taking the top 10 and 25 on the Meta right now into account:

Top 10
Cakewalk : 0
Easy : 0
Simple : 0
Beginner : 3
Normal : 0
Challenging: 0
Tough : 4
Painful : 0
Crippling : 2
Masochistic: 1
Toughness : 6.80

Top 25
Cakewalk : 0
Easy : 0
Simple : 1
Beginner : 4
Normal : 3
Challenging: 1
Tough : 5
Painful : 3
Crippling : 7
Masochistic: 1
Toughness : 6.88

Still a pretty rough crowd overall in the top 25.
Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #28 from Stardock Forums Top
The spymaster better look out... it won't be long until the MWC codemonkeys finish banging on their keyboards and we complete our own data-mining, stat-crunching SQL automaton!
Reply #29 from Stardock Forums Top
Gerakken Spymaster

This is very interesting. Of the highest metaverse ranking about a third play maso/crippling; about a third play painful/tough/challenging; and the other third play normal or below.

Throughout the discussions about low difficult level cranking and anomalous games, the question remains, "What makes for the best metaverse"?

I joined meta after I read that the developers might use the metaverse to make the game better. After that, the competition seemed like fun and I finally joined the empire in second place to make a run on first place. In the process, I have played all the galaxy sizes & shapes, different moralities, most of the levels, and have had a lot of fun.

Where does the metaverse fit? It is another aspect of the game. If the developers were trying to find a balance to reward the best but encourage newbies, they certainly did well. This recent scoring adjustment to reward the really good players and encourage people to play at higher levels should be an nice improvement too. Thanks. It's time to go play. :)

Rick
Reply #30 from Stardock Forums Top
The spymaster better look out... it won't be long until the MWC codemonkeys finish banging on their keyboards and we complete our own data-mining, stat-crunching SQL automaton!
End of quote

Great! Right now, players have no options but to crunch the numbers themselves, or rely on the simple means I have available to me. An automated process would be very nice. So show us what your cruncher's got when it is done. :)
Where does the metaverse fit? It is another aspect of the game. If the developers were trying to find a balance to reward the best but encourage newbies, they certainly did well. This recent scoring adjustment to reward the really good players and encourage people to play at higher levels should be an nice improvement too.
End of quote


The current Metaverse is a means to an end, obviously a small step toward a greater goal. What is that goal exactly? I do not know. Ask Frogboy.

In the current Meta, the goal has been to make a more inclusive setting to not intimidare newbies. One premise is that if they are scored too low, then it would take them so many games to crack the top 50 or 100 that they would get discouraged. The other premise is that determination is rewarded. Lots of small, fast scores add up to compete with the slower bombers who play hard on big maps.

(Gerakken goes into editorial mode:)From my point of view, part of the problem has always been that the powers-that-be were slow to impose a solid set of standards. While our input as players is always being considered, the defining core principles of the Meta are going to be set by Brad and company. This has not been the case in the past. The lengthier Meta dwellers have lived through a score devaluation (v1.02) followed by three rounds of score inflation (v1.03, 1.04, 1.05), and now an announced difficulty tweak for the latest v1.09. But the Meta as a work in progress thing aside, the people in charge have basically come to a point where they have to stick to their guns, so to speak, and Frogboy laid down in a recent post what his goals were in regard to how the Meta should be scoring.

There can be a Meta where everyone is right and everyone feels good and has great self-esteem, but that Meta could only be a roster of names with no stats. Any stat would be used to establish a ranking. Even if only the number of games played was the only stat, people would be ranking by it. So standards have to be set and maintained. (End of editorial mode.)
Reply #31 from Stardock Forums Top
Gerakken,

Can we get an Difficulty update? :)
Reply #34 from Stardock Forums Top
Here is a new set covering the top 100 players:

Top 10 Players
Cakewalk : 0
Easy : 0
Simple : 0
Beginner : 2
Normal : 0
Challenging: 1
Tough : 2
Painful : 2
Crippling : 0
Masochistic: 3
Toughness : 7.40

Top 25 Players
Cakewalk : 0
Easy : 0
Simple : 1
Beginner : 2
Normal : 3
Challenging: 3
Tough : 4
Painful : 4
Crippling : 5
Masochistic: 3
Toughness : 7.16

Top 50 Players
Cakewalk : 0
Easy : 1
Simple : 1
Beginner : 5
Normal : 6
Challenging: 7
Tough : 7
Painful : 8
Crippling :10
Masochistic: 5
Toughness : 7.00

Top 100 Players
Cakewalk : 2
Easy : 2
Simple : 1
Beginner : 7
Normal :16
Challenging:13
Tough :11
Painful :13
Crippling :26
Masochistic: 8
Toughness : 6.90

Maso Player Honor Roll:
Jeff Desilva
Killa Koala
Lothmorg the Red
Matthew Downie
Qui-Gon Jinn
Ray the Wanderer
Solitair
Staffa

Orphans (empireless people): 35 up for grabs!

Wow. This a major shift in the Meta. Preferred difficulty has definitely jumped upward. And check out all these maso players coming out of the woodwork.
Reply #35 from Stardock Forums Top
Preferred difficulty has definitely jumped upward.
End of quote


Intersting...I wonder if his has anything to do with the GCCG trouble?

Yes, the Masos are definitely growing. I think it's a good thing!

I'm surprised there are only 35 orphans...it seems like a lot more when you flip through the Metaverse.
Reply #36 from Stardock Forums Top
Gerakken,

How about a rating of difficulty vs map size. IE what percentage of people playing maso are playing at tiny(which i've heard is the easiest) vs other map sizes.

B
Reply #37 from Stardock Forums Top
Gerraken

Thanks. This is interesting. It makes me feel like less of a dork mostly playing at a tough level (level 7). Of the 9 maso players not all are active (like Staffa) so maso players are not common. In my opinion, they deserve the metaverse point bump in 1.09.

Preferred difficulty has definitely jumped upward
End of quote


Intersting...I wonder if his has anything to do with the GCCG trouble?
End of quote


Theoden, I think it has partially. No one likes an anomalous metaverse score. I think EBZeroMatrix has retired but he is still top 10 and Wild Wombat is playing at normal and challenging difficulty now. Those two can really play a lot of games very fast and lead the metaverse in games played. Jaws is still playing beginner (but can play painful) and has no anomalous scores so it hasn't bothered Jaws. Some of the top players have amazing speed even at large games (e.g. Cotal). Ray is well . . . in another category. LOL.

I played the EBZ GCCG for about six or seven games as a "trainer". It gave me some new insights particularly about slider management and priority shifting (military to tech to social back to tech, etc.). After I played beginner for a while I rose again to the level where I have the most fun, which right now is tough - level 7.

If someone is going to radically change their gameplan and wants to try a totally new approach, it is not a bad idea to drop down a level or more. For example, if I ever learn how to rush, I may need to back down some levels and work out the kinks before I play the AI on tough or painful. Then when you get the new strategy down, it makes sense to go back up for the amount of challenge one prefers.

Hey all you orphans. I was an ophan for a long time but then joined an empire to add another dimension to the game. It's fun to compete against the empire in front of you so go 4 it. :)

Rick
Reply #38 from Stardock Forums Top
what percentage of people playing maso are playing at tiny(which i've heard is the easiest) vs other map sizes.
End of quote


The MWC only collects data for the top 25 empires and their members so this isn't all inclusive, but the best I can do at the moment ;)

http://idle.thehueys.com/midwest/masosize.php

idle

~SDC~
Reply #39 from Stardock Forums Top
what percentage of people playing maso are playing at tiny(which i've heard is the easiest) vs other map sizes.
End of quote


Maso players tend to take the extreme map sizes. Tiny for a quick military rush so the aliens have no time to build up, or gigantic for that drawn-out siege where sheer number of colonies will decide the game in any which way the player eventually chooses. I have no figures at hand, though, but the MWC figures I just looked at seem to confirm my suspicions a bit.

OK, Gerakken's editorial corner again: cranking has had some interesting effects on the Meta as of late, that is true. First, there was a great experiment phase among players in several empires to see how well it would benefit scores, but it seems to have been just an experiment overall for now.

Cranking has a certain priority in mind, and that is to exploit the Meta in the least amount of overall time, difficulty, and map size as is possible. The likely probability of anomolous games helps in countering that purpose. The reluctance of Stardock personnel to fix crank anomolies and the new score adjustment dinging the difficulty crankers prefer have helped deter the practice.

There is a marked difference in approach of cranking compared to the old Staffa guide on how to exploit the Meta on maso. Staffa published his strategy to purposely point out a glaring set of Metaverse scoring inconsistencies to the whole forum in the hopes that the holes would be fixed. Sure, players took advantage of the Staffa method while it worked, but he wanted the situation to be addressed and changes were made. There is no intent in the cranking method (or the older school it descended from) to fix the problem. It is a loophole meant to be exploited.

Now, I am sorry if any feathers were ruffled here. I just call them as I see them in my perception and experiences.
Reply #40 from Stardock Forums Top
The reluctance of Stardock personnel to fix crank anomolies and the new score adjustment dinging the difficulty crankers prefer have helped deter the practice.
End of quote


Just wanted to clarify. From what I have read there is really no "dinging the difficulty crankers prefer". So far little change has been reported in the scoring of 1.05 compared to 1.092 other than a 10 to 15% bump in crippling with 1.092 and a much higher bump of metaverse scores in masochistic 1.092. I haven't read about any significant decrease in scores for lower levels but there may be. Someone will probably do some recalcs next week.

In addition one can still use the GCCG to crank at normal difficulty if one wants to. In spite of reading all the threads and EBZ's webpage, the anomalous games are still a mystery to me. What I heard was "don't crank at beginner or you may get anomalous scores". When I ran into rare exploits like the Draginol minor, I dumped cash at the end of the game so I wouldn't have over 1 million bc. In other threads one is warned not to mod the game to get high PQ or you may trigger the anomalous score. In the new Gal Civ version, one is warned not to try to submit games when using the cheat codes -doh!!! LOL

So, it is still unclear to me all the things that cause anomalous scores but maybe that's the way it is supposed to be? Clarifications are appreciated. Thanks.

Rick
[Message Edited]
Reply #41 from Stardock Forums Top
According to a post by Ray, there is a bump of crippling in 1.092 compared to 1.091 but he is unaware of significant scoring changes between 1.092 and 1.05 other than maso. Anyway, we should know in a week and a few days. Didn't want to divert your thread Gerraken but your editorials are so fun to read. :)

Rick
Reply #42 from Stardock Forums Top
Anyway, we should know in a week and a few days. Didn't want to divert your thread Gerraken but your editorials are so fun to read.
End of quote


Thanks for commenting, and I am always satisfied if my ramblings provoke any stray thoughts out there.

Ah, X-pack madness will come upon me soon. I am going to make time if I have to conjure it out of thin air to see all the neat things I have been hearing about. Does this mean the return of Gerakken in the top 100? Probably not. I don't think I could game that much these days. But it does mean that this old Galciv soldier will be glad to grab his gun and show these youngin's a thing or three about how it was done back in the day! (The day being April. Not too long ago in calendar time, but it is a lot in Galciv time.)
Reply #43 from Stardock Forums Top
Here is a top 250 breakdown on the eve of the X-pack going public:

Top 10 Players
Cakewalk : 0
Easy : 0
Simple : 0
Beginner : 1
Normal : 0
Challenging: 1
Tough : 1
Painful : 3
Crippling : 1
Masochistic: 3
Toughness : 8.00

Top 25 Players
Cakewalk : 0
Easy : 0
Simple : 0
Beginner : 2
Normal : 4
Challenging: 1
Tough : 2
Painful : 6
Crippling : 4
Masochistic: 6
Toughness : 7.68

Top 50 Players
Cakewalk : 0
Easy : 0
Simple : 1
Beginner : 3
Normal : 6
Challenging: 5
Tough : 5
Painful :11
Crippling :11
Masochistic: 7
Toughness : 7.30

Top 100 Players
Cakewalk : 2
Easy : 3
Simple : 2
Beginner : 9
Normal :12
Challenging: 8
Tough : 8
Painful :18
Crippling :27
Masochistic:11
Toughness : 7.11

Top 250 Players
Cakewalk : 3
Easy : 4
Simple : 6
Beginner :26
Normal :42
Challenging:31
Tough :30
Painful :46
Crippling :50
Masochistic:12
Toughness : 6.71

Maso Player Honor Roll:
Arkdoz
Jaws the Wayfarer
Jeff Desilva
Jimmy Chung
Killa Koala
latino holiday
LDiCesare
Lothmorg the Red
Qui-Gon Jinn
Ray the Wanderer
Solitair
Staffa

Orphans: 111. That is sure a lot of people to recruit from.

Only a small nudge up in difficulty among the whole 250, but notice the top 10, top 25, and top 50 are getting pretty brutal compared to the last time.
Reply #45 from Stardock Forums Top
Gerrakken

It will be interesting to see the post-GCX follow-up. It appears that a lot more folks are playing maso now. As you say, it is getting more brutal. Top 10 players who don't play maso are uncommon and will become less common. Stay tuned. :)

Rick
Reply #46 from Stardock Forums Top
Sure, I'll do a follow up. It hasn't been quite a week since the public release of the X-pack, so I will put some time aside to run at least another top 100 player update when I come by again on Wednesday.
Reply #47 from Stardock Forums Top
I am new to GalCiv as i have only just got the game from a mate and have not yet bought my own copy but i have played a few games on various map sizes and varying difficulties and i have only just got onto this site for more info and tips on playing, also i have just read this whole thread from start to finish. and i just have to say although highly interesting and highly informative(sortof) what does it all mean?, and how much time do you have on you hands Gerakken ? anyway very cool all the same and i hope to soon be able to be ranked among those in your extensive lists.
Reply #48 from Stardock Forums Top
Update on game crashing at startup:

SF_Intro and Intro do not play, just show a flicker of black screen as display resolution is changed {can tell as the desktop gets shown between flickers, and what is diplayed of the desktop is much smaller (looks like 640x480) then the normal desktop resulting in items running off screen or entirely offscreen}. Game "Setup" screen bounces focus back to desktop, minimizes, and locks up.

Have deinstalled and then reinstalled (to a seperate directory) GalCiv. No joy in Mudville.
Reply #49 from Stardock Forums Top
and i just have to say although highly interesting and highly informative(sortof) what does it all mean?, and how much time do you have on you hands Gerakken ?
End of quote


What does it all mean? Hmmm. Can one place meaning on the motives of the Spymaster of Galciv? :) This thread is an extension of my previous empire spying activities where first I analyzed the alignments of the top 10 empires. I was then asked what difficulty levels people were really playing, so this thread was born. I originally started doing this by empire, then switched to player ranking because empire difficulties could easily be incorporated into my Major Empires thread. So now I run down the top x players once in a while.

How much time do I have on my hands? Used to be quite a bit for both gaming and forum lurking. Summer was kind to me on the work front. Then September came and so did the workload. Now I game fairly little and wander in here about 3 times a week for an hour or two.

Update on game crashing at startup:
End of quote


Ahhh! Who let bugs loose in my thread!? Call the exterminators at 1-800-CARIELF! :) Be back in a couple of minutes with the report I promised earlier.
Reply #50 from Stardock Forums Top
Here is the damage report for the first full week of X-pack madness.

Top 10 Players
Cakewalk : 0
Easy : 0
Simple : 0
Beginner : 0
Normal : 0
Challenging: 0
Tough : 2
Painful : 1
Crippling : 2
Masochistic: 5
Toughness : 9.00

Top 25 Players
Cakewalk : 0
Easy : 0
Simple : 0
Beginner : 2
Normal : 2
Challenging: 1
Tough : 4
Painful : 2
Crippling : 4
Masochistic:10
Toughness : 8.16

Top 50 Players
Cakewalk : 0
Easy : 0
Simple : 0
Beginner : 2
Normal : 4
Challenging: 2
Tough : 8
Painful : 8
Crippling :14
Masochistic:12
Toughness : 8.12

Top 100 Players
Cakewalk : 1
Easy : 2
Simple : 1
Beginner : 7
Normal : 7
Challenging: 9
Tough :10
Painful :17
Crippling :28
Masochistic:18
Toughness : 7.63

Maso Player Honor Roll:
Arkdoz
Cotal
established
Jaws the Wayfarer
Jeff Desilva
Jimmy Chung
Killa Koala
latino holiday
LDiCesare
Lord Orpon
Lothmorg the Red
Periz
PontiusBruinPilot
Qui-Gon Jinn
Ray the Wanderer
Solitair
Stydracos
vincible

Orphans: 27 out of the hundred. Hmmm, there's more than enough fish in the lake. It all depends upon the bait, I guess.

It does seem that maso madness is running pretty rampant; the whole scale is tilted towards the upper levels.