Ok, I see people talking about having cavalry by 1200AD and scoring over 100k points and I absolutely cannot figure out how. For reference, I usually win the game between 2000 and 2025 for a score of 3000 (culture victory) to 8000 (domination victory).

My typical set up:

Katherine of the Russians
Difficulty: Noble
Size: standard
Length: Normal
Climate: Temperate
Sea Level: Normal

I usually fast expand by chopping until I can't expand anymore (usually I get about 7 or 8 cities before I fill my continent or run into some friggin aggressive neighbor). I try to keep my initial wave of cities within 8 squares of my capital city to keep costs down.

I typically research bronze first to chop, then I go for Judaism -- sometimes I pick up Hinduism en route but Monotheism is my usual "gaurantee" for a state religion.

I run the science slider as high as possible with 0 culture.

I typically just put a single archer in each town unless I am near an aggressive civ, then I'll bolster that a bit (but usually no more than 2 pieces per city).

I pretty much build every single building you can build in every single city. If I get a building backlog I focus on having the cash and science generating improvements. I build health and happiness improvements as required to keep the happy guys outnumbering the sad guys.

I try to specialize cities based upon wonders. Usually I'll have one military city where I don't build many buildings at all and just pump out units. I also try to keep wonders that help cutlture in my top 3 cities, and then have a couple cities dedicated to science/cash wonders.

I mine all hills, put road/rr on all tiles, I farm where I can initially; however, most of my workers are building cottages early in game.

I rarely trade techs unless I can get an "even" deal. Since the comp. usually tries to trade a tech of low value for a high value tech I don't bite. When I am militarily superior I demand tribute from all civs and occasionally get it.

What typically happens is the game stays very even until the 1800s or so when I get a slight tech edge. From there it depends on what kind of victory I want. Once I get tanks I begin a military conquest, for a space race I just keep the tech slider at 100%, for a culture I stop researching once I've got the hollywood and broadway wonders then go full culture.

Only problem is all this typically culminates around 2000 AD which gives me a dogpoop score.

As I look over my post, I think my basic question is how do I move the entire game to the left, ie, how do I push my victory forward 600 years or so?

I'd appreciate any other tips or point-outs of glaring errors.

its too late to start war :)

main pts is... if u domination at 1500 AD or so u can get around 50000 pts , 2000 AD or so = ~10000. (8000 in your case)

if u play Cottages, just go all cottages, and use them once u built (it's meaningless if u built them and dont use)

dont aim to build every building...such as - when u go 100% or so Research slider, it's meaningless to go build Market (u got 0 commerce on Gold, 0 +25% commerce is still 0, get it?)

now, u will feel not much to build if u skip those...u can go for Military (ya, go get more land from those frigging neighbor) , then u can research faster after recover from war.

make civ friends - try to make them war with your enemies (give them tech is fine...do whatever u can to bring more friends) it's helpful for u to have less resistance to conquer...then u can conquer Faster, :P

more to learn... but after u finish Monarch ;)

There are quite a few points that I think you can improve.

First of all, you are playing the game very "safe and slow" where an initial attack might give you a better edge. Don't be afraid to grab land - it will pay back in the future - and remember that with alphabet and currency you can survive even from a very low science rate. If at Monarch you are almost even with AI at 1800 AD, that means you let AI have a very easy time (for comparison, I tell you that it can be done to have Tanks or even Modern Armor vs Riflemen even in Immortal).

You are paying too much attention to the early religion (all warmongers will testify that it is better to take it from your first conquest).

Don't look too much at the science slider - better to check the Demographics, that shows you Gpt income. 100% says nothing at all (or, alternatively, it could say that you haven't expanded enough).

But you major mistake, IMO, is your policy of "even deal" in tech trading. You are just losing time and (MUCH) money that way - i trade every tech with a loss, but since i trade it to 5-6 civs at the same time i get much more than you. Don't see each trade separately, but consider them as a whole - only in this way you will be able to achieve better scores, or survive in higher levels.

@pylit:

I just made that transition today. Most of my games (on Noble) gave similar results as yours. Then, I played the last 2 GOTMs and somehow survived to win by diplomacy and culture, but still that was only 12-14k, although it was now in 1860s. A few hours ago I finished my first domination on Prince - 1595, ~60k. So it seems like a big jump. What did I play different? Of course it depended on circumstance, but briefly:

Attack early. You can't win in the 15th century if your first war is in the 18th.
In this game I rushed a neighbour at the point where each of us had only 2 cities. So somewhere around 500BC I had 6 cities and one opponent less. Around 1AD I attacked another who was a founder of a religion and had a shrine built. After conquering, my science rate fell to 30%, but I quickly regained my position and started dealing with the next one while my troops were still technologicaly superior and experienced. Probably, the conclusion would be:

Use your momentary advantage, because it could quickly evaporate if an AI discovers a new tech or connects a resource for example. As I wiped him out I had about 40% of the world to myself (somewhere shortly after 1000AD) and could choose any victory. I am sure I played this game with many mistakes, simply didn't bother to micromanage everything. An experienced warmonger could have easily gotten those 100k or more and finished a few centuries earlier.

Another note: don't bother with wonders unless that is a specific part of your strategy, I didn't build a single one myself in this game. Same for religion. I took over 3 religions, one of which became dominant on the continent and apart for money (I could sustain about 70% science in the later game, but don't forget it is 70% of the commerce of a big empire) also gave very valuable information on my future targets.

That's it. I know it kind of sucks, I also like peaceful expansion in the beginning, but I think the most important lesson I learned was - if you see an opportunity, grasp it and just stay on the edge from then on. This is like a very complicated (and much more fun) game of chess. I am not too good at chess, but I have won against people who are in theory better by simply taking the risk to lead the game once I see a minute advantage.

to get high score:

lotsa people
lotsa of land
EARLY ENDGAME

to get high score:

lotsa people
lotsa of land
EARLY ENDGAME

Sorry for correcting you, but:

to get high score:

settler difficulty
duel map
lotsa axemen
WIN IN 2000 BC IN A QUICK RUSH WAR

@oagersnap, settler difficulty will kill your score.

Instead, duel/diety/marathon with Incans. This will give a killer score and will be nowhere near as difficult as even a regular monarch game.

Guys, go for broke. Don't be afraid of extremely early risks. In GOTM2, I popped a warrior from a hut near the Americans and then proceeded to sack DC in 3400BC with that pair of warriors. That's probably an extreme example of early aggression but it can work quite well.

Be ready to war early and war often. You shall get a higher score. Since you already chop, you already beeline to Bronze. That's a good habit. Now instead of chopping a lot of settlers, chop a lot of axes if you have copper nearby or go for ironworking and then chopping a pile of swords.

Go lay the smackdown on a couple of AI cities and go for CoL in the meanwhile to not go broke. You don't need catapults to go for extremely early war either. Catapults actually take a while to tech to and can make you miss windows of opportunity.

Thus, Carpe Diem (Seize the day/moment) and crush your enemies through ample risk taking. Don't worry if it occasionally doesn't work out. You'll learn from it and it's a game after all.

What does GOTM2 stand for?

Game of the Month 2. Look at the Game of the Month forum here in civfanatics.

GOTM 2 was on Prince, Epic with Elizabeth on Lakes.

What does GOTM2 stand for?

Well worth your time to read the Game of the Month threads... that's probably the single best thing you can do to improve your score. You will learn a ton from the spoilers the really good players post.

I personaly like to poach my nearest neighbor's first worker as a rule of thumb.

Do NOT neglect pottery and currency when expanding like mad. The extra trade-route is massive and will generally help you pay for a sprawling empire far better than religion ever could.

As far as politics go, remember that war slows down the science rate, so if you've got a window of advantage you want to extend, try to sign the world into war.

Note that there *is* such a thing as winning too early when milking a score. People and land-area are very important to the base score, and 1k base x100 isn't nearly as good as 2k base x80.

Ok, I see people talking about having cavalry by 1200AD and scoring over 100k points and I absolutely cannot figure out how. For reference, I usually win the game between 2000 and 2025 for a score of 3000 (culture victory) to 8000 (domination victory).



hi Pylit I've started playing on noble with your same problem, then i took a look at the games in the HoF tried to learn from there and after i couple of test game
tah- dah ... i make 120k score on a standard map on Noble !!

As some i've already stated map settings are crucial to get an high score and in the HoF 90% of the games have these settings:

Map type: Pangea or Balanced
Sea level: low
Game speed: Marathon
Victory condition: Conquest or Domination
Ai opponents: not aggressive civs

also i agree for the start you must use tree chopping for an ealy rush against your neighbour civ