Well, they are a tun of fun to play. I only scored 100K, but it was a riot! I have not enjoyed a game this much in quite a while. I have some ideas that I believe will up the score dramatically.

Ahhh...the good 'ol Influence Bomb.  I still stand firm that the Korath aren't OP due to their spore ships, it's due to their Dark Influence buildings.  +200% Influence one per planet building...WTF was someone smoking!

Yeah, I can win on suicidal w/ never shooting a weapon, just influence bombing the map.  zzzzz

i don't feel the same about the dark influence building as being over powered, by the same logic that SS used regarding the atlas components. the influence bomb is dropped easily enough with 3 or so influence mining resources, and the planets that won't flip with that usually need a few SBs to turn. my last MV game was won via culture flipping, and i played as the korath: i didn't feel having dark influence in my arsenal really gave me much i didn't have before. actually, it was much more useful in culturally fortifying those random planets deep in enemy territory, than it was for offensive flipping.

@KP, I think we basically tied. I just finished my latest game and got the same score you did...900k. For the same reason too. I couldn't get the econ event for love or money.

I know some people have the patience to just keeping looping back, over and over again, looking for the econ event but I just don't seem to have that much discipline or patience.  I tried a few loops but got frustrated and bored so I just played it out sans econ event. I also got reamed on the planets...only 508 again. I'm beginning to feel fairly certain that SD has intentionally nerfed the planet count in TA so that the more games you play the fewer planets you get. It's hard to explain a decreasing planet count 8 games in a row otherwise. I'm sure SS could tell us the statistical likelihood of that happening but for my money it just feels like SD artificially capping performance. I might have a crack at DA next like the rest of you are playing. The thought of 700 planets is compelling; I've just had too much fun with the different tech trees up to now.

@Snark - I'm really enjoying hearing about the fun you had with the Korath. I might actually try that myself next. Like you, I think I've wrung all the fun I can out of the Drath. Time for something different!

I actually did some testing on this and my results indicate it is not the case; you just had a run of bad luck.

I recently had a run of even worse luck-a mere 497 planets on a gigantic in TA, which was right after a 512 (after a 535 after a 546-seeing a pattern here?)-but the very next game I was up to 576 again.

I very much doubt there's any MV-specific coding going on there, either.

Thanks SS. I was having a Hunter S. Thompson fear and loathing moment imagining the team back at SD as large malovent lizards, with strings of drool hanging from their sneering snouts as they grouped together, chortling with glee, thinking of new ways to torment me.........whoa. They kind of looked like really big Krynn actually.....thanks for bringing me back to this nice, safe and ...... real .... world.

Congratulations, CL!!! No 1 with a bullet!!!!

@ above:

Where was I? The "chortling with glee" distracted me. Oh, yes. Other tech trees. I am giving the Korx a shot in the new game. I made a little discovery (quite by accident) that suddenly makes them a rather attractive candidate for an MCC Mumbler, or McMumbler as I like to call it now. I am certain that the score will be considerably higher, and should be just as fun!

For those Kzinti who have not heard yet, because of recent interest by a number of members, we set up a Kzinti Empire Forum over at the Galactic Core.  Once you've registered there, PM me so I can grant you acccess to the private areas. 

Ok, we'll call it a draw for now.   I did a little bit of the replaying a few truns, hoping for the econ event, but got bored with that and the cheese factor, so moved on and completed the game.  I've got another game at the end of Year 1, which I should finish this weekend, and I hope/plan to break 1 million, regardless of an econ event.

Congrats on the #1 character spot! 

Sentient species taste better...

   I have a question, How does a post become a hot post with the flame icon?

   Will I am back to palying, some day I will be in the top 10

A certain # of posts I'm sure is what triggers it.  What is the number, no clue.

You just need to add napalm.

Sentient species taste better...

Unfortunately, a quick search of the threads doesn't show any consistent pattern to what gets "Hot Post".  That they all have high number of replies is a certainity, but for example there are some Off Topic threads that are considered Hot Post, while others with more replies are not. 

I believe that its a combo of a threshold of certain replies, and then number of replies in a given time frame, but I can't say this definitively.

btw, if anyone wants to know the real reason I came back to the forums, I'm mad that I no longer am one of the leaders in Karma, and I plan on rectifying that grave injustice. 

I would guess thread views may have something to do with it, actually.

It is an injustice indeed.  Let's see what we can do about that.

Actually, I believe it is given the "flame" when there have been 50+ replies to the thread. I'm sure that goes away eventually if people stop posting, but that seems to be the initial threshold. That's what has happened with my threads, and quite a few others that I've noticed. It does go away after a period of disuse, but it takes some time.

    Wow, when I submit a score of 90,000, my empire moves up around 20,000 points, at that rate I will take second place when I have played around 1,170 games.

The depreciation for score is dependent upon the # of games previously submitted with that character.  It gets pretty harsh once you have a lot of games!

I'm halfway through Year 2 of my latest swindle, and again no beneficial random events yet.  I seem to be having bad luck with that on my gigantic maps.

Sentient species taste better...

still on DA?

I spoke too soon.  Just got an econ boom in August of Year 2!  One million points, here I come...  Yep, I'm playing DA, and I think I'll do one more DA game after this then start messing around with TA.

Sentient species taste better...

Here's a screenshot of my economy in my current game.  1.5 million net bcs/turn!

Sentient species taste better...

Nice! A Million Point Game certainly seems to be on the horizon!

I estimate right around 1.1 million. 

Sentient species taste better...

Looks like a nice game in the works, KP.  Here's hoping for that megascore. 

I just can't even comprehend that income.

So does the loss of income due to having over 20000 BC in your treasury effect score? I nver noticed if the loss was considered a new kind of expense or if your income was actually lowered.

Oh BTW i FINALLY got my 20 game medal.

Congratulations!

We've had this discussion a couple of times, in several different threads, and I think even including this one.

I believe a number of players have come out in support of the idea of it being an added expense, since score only cares about gross, but unfortunately that's not how it works.

It's a racial malus, factored in alongside the racial bonuses, so when you already have a +300% bonus, it simply lowers it to a +280% bonus.  x4 vs. x3.8 is about a 5.3% relative difference, and the score from it isn't linear (I should check on this, but there's no reason for me to question it at present); it has diminishing returns.  Therefore, 5% more income does not result in 5% more score, even from income, let alone overall.

It's more important to spend your excess income (i.e. do things with it) than it is to spend down below 20k.  The guy who only spends down to 30k is going to have a higher score than the guy who just lets the money pile up, because he's actually doing things, and hopefully he's doing things that contribute to score.

So if we did an analysis of someone who spent down to 19,999 every turn and someone who spent down to 20,000 every turn, the scores would be within about 0.8% to 1.0% of each other-assuming all other factors were equal (which they never are).  But since we're talking million-point games, another 1% is another 10,000.