What is considered to be the "balanced" turn-per-round limit?

[Mick]

Is it 30 or 40 per round that is considered to be what score gating is "balanced around"?

I had always assumed 40, but I noticed when I re-installed the game today that the default appears to be 30. I wasn't aware that 30 was the default turn length.

EDIT: I didn't even know the round limit was set at 30. I was caught completely off guard when the round switched over.

[x4000]

Originally it was 40 that was the default, but then the default changed to 30 earlier this week sometime.  Prior to the score gating.  I did the gating based on 30, but again those were rough stabs when it comes to the upper end.  Surprisingly accurate rough stabs it really seems, but still.

[Mick]

Would you consider a score adjustment based on round length? It seems fitting to give a bonus to a short length (or a penalty to longer).

[PokerChen]

Would you consider a score adjustment based on round length? It seems fitting to give a bonus to a short length (or a penalty to longer).

It'll be useful, or a modifier to the actual gate itself.

[x4000]

I think a final score adjustment makes the most sense.  It's easier to play with more rounds, so the final score should be higher if you play on lower turns.  But changing the actual ease of hitting score gates seems okay to me.  That same thing happens when you make woes easy, for instance; it's easier to concentrate and thus hit the score gates.  So interactions of the difficulties affecting the difficulties I'd like to avoid.  But final score multipliers make sense.  I saw that in mantis, but haven't had a chance to really deal with it yet, heh.

[zespri]

Guys, I'm sure that has been discussed elsewhere but I have not been following. Could you please kindly tell me where the idea to base the score on the lowest score of the two factions was abandoned and why?

I understand that tutorial is an easy mode and not indicative because of this. I was taken by surprise non the less, when around turn 45 I got required 12000 score I started just pressing "End turn, end turn, end" in succession just to see how it ends if I don't interfere. Sure enough one faction was almost completely wiped out. The had just 1 town and a handful of units. Still it was a victory and the final score was around 90000, because another 20000 were scored while one faction was getting obliterated.

I clearly remember that at early stages the game was meant to maintain balance and score by the weakest faction in the end. It sounded sane. What happened to that?

[Cinth]

I don't recall the exact patch (you can look it up if you really need to know) but that model of score was canned fairly early.  It didn't feel like it "fit" so to say.  We went a good while without a scoring system and then the score gating system you see now is what was brought in.   

[PokerChen]

 The lowest faction score is actually quite a good idea, and I'm still in support of it on principle. The whole scoring system, however, was too  imbalanced and exploitable in the early builds IMO - so we canned it for most of alpha.

 The implementation of woes and banditry is what's principally blocking its return, IMO. The player can easily have difficult time getting high scores against these influences anyway, and we don't really know whether it is too much burden to saddle another criteria on top.

[Misery]

Guys, I'm sure that has been discussed elsewhere but I have not been following. Could you please kindly tell me where the idea to base the score on the lowest score of the two factions was abandoned and why?

I understand that tutorial is an easy mode and not indicative because of this. I was taken by surprise non the less, when around turn 45 I got required 12000 score I started just pressing "End turn, end turn, end" in succession just to see how it ends if I don't interfere. Sure enough one faction was almost completely wiped out. The had just 1 town and a handful of units. Still it was a victory and the final score was around 90000, because another 20000 were scored while one faction was getting obliterated.

I clearly remember that at early stages the game was meant to maintain balance and score by the weakest faction in the end. It sounded sane. What happened to that?

It's worth keeping in mind that the score system as it is now was one of the last things to be added;  it's definitely got some balance issues currently, but the core mechanics are quite sound.   I personally never liked the "go by the lowest faction score" idea, as it always sounded kind of confusing and unnecessarily complicated.

The score on some things is still a bit off, and the actual score gate numbers probably need further tweaking and testing before they'll be quite right. 

The whole thing will get better balanced over time.