EA Staff (Retired)I think the game has been hacked, which is why china town was won by the same person as festival.
i think the star rating works as how many votes you got compared to the top score. Suppose top won 10 votes and you got 6, top gets 5 stars, you get 3. Fair, to a point, assuming both of you get the same number of voting opportunities.
now suppose the winner hacked the system and submitted 100 votes for their city. Your 6 is now barely half a star.
assuming this is the way voting works (and it neatly explains someone winning twice with 2 poor cities and the rest getting a low rating), there is an easy fix:
1) keep tack of how many times a design is put out for vote.
2) keep track of how many votes each design won and how many it lost
3) if lost + win is not the same as chances to vote, the designer is a cheat. They should be banned from the game.
i believe their cheating has cost me a free land expansion ... doubt I would have got much further but still ...
all us cheat victims should be given some compensation ... say a boost in blueprints ... or a free land expansion?
