Why aren't the points totals complete during the game?

[Seth0326]

BGA shows cumulative points as the game progresses, but these points aren't complete. What I mean is, you might think your score is one thing, but then when the game ends, the game tallies some other points that it hadn't been keeping track of until then. Why does it do this? All the scoring in Castles is visible to everyone -- there are no secret sources of points. So what's the purpose of withholding some of the points until the game ends?

[robinzig]

BGA shows cumulative points as the game progresses, but these points aren't complete. What I mean is, you might think your score is one thing, but then when the game ends, the game tallies some other points that it hadn't been keeping track of until then. Why does it do this? All the scoring in Castles is visible to everyone -- there are no secret sources of points. So what's the purpose of withholding some of the points until the game ends?

To match the physical game, I assume. While in theory you can certainly figure out what everyone's point-scoring yellow tiles are worth at each point, plus what their other more minor sources of endgame VP are worth (like workers/gold left), in the actual game you don't score these until the game is over. The score shown in the player panels on BGA is the VP that would be recorded on the physical score track in the "real" game. Most other Euro-style games on BGA work the same way, if they have both "in-game" and "endgame" scoring (which most do).

Note that while for most of the scoring yellow tiles it's possible to look at the player's board and know what it's currently worth, this isn't possible for the one which counts the number of different goods types shipped. Sure, it's trackable, but again in the real game you're not allowed to look at anyone's face-down shipped tiles, so strictly speaking it would be a variant if you made this knowledge fully public, as your proposal of fully open scoring would do.