Score calculation

The scoring works by averaging your per-turn scores throughout the game. For each turn a (hidden) per-turn score is calculated as:

(Territory + HappyCitizens*2 + ContentCitizens + Specialists) * Difficulty

The total of all your per-turn scores is divided by the number of turns played so far to get your actual game score. I.e. your actual score is the average of your per-turn scores.

"Territory" is the number of tiles which are within your sphere of influence.
"Difficulty" is 1 for Chieftain, 2 for Warlord, 3 for Regent, 4 for Monarch, 5 for Emperor, 6 for Deity.


Early win Score Bonus

If you win before 2050AD, you get a bonus which is added to your regular score. The bonus is calculated as:

(2050 - FinishYear) * Difficulty

If you finish before 10AD, use the year as a negative number in the calculation.

Example: Winning in 310BC in a Regent level game would get a bonus of (2050-(-310))*3 = 7080.


Other Factors in Score

Almost nothing else affects your score. Wonders, cultural value, military size, science learned, etc. - none of these affect the score. There is one tiny exception for learning "future tech" but it counts for so little in score that it is not worth devoting any energy to it.


Maximizing Score

There are basically two ways to maximize your score:
1) Win as early as possible to increase your bonus.
2) Play till 2050AD building up as much territory/population/happiness as possible.

On tiny maps and some small maps it is often possible to get a higher score with the first approach than the second. On some small maps, and almost all medium or larger maps, the score which can be had with the second approach will be highest.

It is of course possible to combine the two goals. When going for an early win bonus it helps to have a higher base score to add to the bonus. But generally I think it will work best to go flat-out for one of the two goals. If going for an early win, try to increase territory, population, and happiness along the way, but don't slow down for them.


Milking Tips

The remainder of this note is about getting more out of a "milked" game. Some people think that milking is tedious and don't like it. I find that it can be interesting. It includes some planning in the early and mid game stages to maximize the long-term result. It has an end game "builder" phase after I finish war-mongering. There are a number of trade-offs in it, in building sequences, in trading early gains of one type for later gains of another, etc. I think it is a bit of an art form, not just a simple formula. I won't address those types of trade-off issues here, the following are just general tips.

To maximize score you want to maximize territory, population, and happiness. And you want to maximize them as early as possible. The earlier you add each increase to your per-turn score, the more impact that increase will have on the averaged result which becomes your actual score.

To maximize the scoring factors of course requires lots of land. So to get the highest score possible one must begin with a conquest approach to the game. You need to have the majority of the world's land under your control, and as soon as possible, and you will need to boot someone else out to get it. :) After conquering everyone else (and leaving just some weak and controlled Civ or Civs to keep the game going) you can then of course work toward any of the game's victory conditions, timing your victory to happen in 2050AD.

You want your territory to be the largest possible without triggering a domination win. There is no easy way to tell where this limit is from the game's information windows. For HOF submissions it is legitimate to keep expanding till you hit domination accidentally, then reload to the prior turn and stay under the limit now that you know where it is. For GOTM submissions this kind of reloading is not allowed, so you have to guess where the limit would be and stay well under it.

Edit: description of sea tiles below corrected, 2002/6/3
There are 3 kinds of water tiles: coastal, sea, and ocean. Ocean does not matter here, it is not included in your territory nor in the domination limit. Sea can be important - citizens working on sea tiles count as happy citizens and produce food. But sea tiles do not count toward your territory score nor toward the domination limit. (They do count in your land area as shown on the F11 display, but not toward score.) Coastal tiles can be worked and count toward territory score and the domination limit.

When milking I build the following in every city: Aqueduct, Marketplace, Hospital, and Mass Transit. (Except cities with limited growth potential of course.) Many of them also need temples for a while, to expand the sphere of influence. While milking I run a Democracy and buy all these improvements.

I irrigate all previously mined tiles. Production is no longer important, increasing population is.

If you automate workers, it is important to use shift-A from the very start when you first automate them. Not the simple "A" command. Workers on "A" automation will run around re-mining some of the tiles you irrigate at the end. It is a major pain trying to find them all and stop them. Better to use shift-A from the start to avoid this.

I often disband factories during the milking phase. I'd rather have less pollution and don't need the production.

I minimize the military, keeping just enough to safely enclose the last captive rival Civ, plus some to "patrol" the wild lands to stop barbarian camps from popping up. No point paying more wages than that.

It is possible to speed production more (in addition to buying improvements) by transferring shields, e.g. building Modern Armor in core cities and disbanding them in developing regions. This is a nice boost for building but I find it tedious and generally don't do this, I just wait to generate cash and buy improvements.

After purchasing all improvements (or near the end of that phase) it is time to maximize happiness with the luxury slider.

If you want to really micro-manage, adjusting each town's specialists frequently can give quite a score boost. The silly city governor frequently changes your settings, making entertainers (which you want for maximum happiness) to scientists or tax collectors. Although resetting these guys frequently can have a significant impact on score I find it too tedious and usually just maximize the luxury slider and let the specialists be allocated badly.

It is important to avoid an accidental cultural win. You need to keep an eye on your total culture and ensure it will not pass 100,000. I usually find it necessary to sell off most temples fairly early. I almost never build Cathedrals or Colosseums - they just increase the cultural victory problem. Later in the game after researching everything I usually find that I also have to sell off most libraries and universities.

Two wonders which are especially nice for score are JS Bach's and Cure For Cancer because they boost happiness, without requiring any culture-producing city improvements. Smith's Trading is also especially nice on large maps because it makes the Marketplaces maintenance-free. Longevity is another nice one, dramatically increasing the rate of population growth during the expansion phase of milking.

Finally, something I like to do in milked games which has nothing to do with score, but seems right to me for this kind of game: Improve the landscape. After the last war I use my military to destroy all the so-called "improvements" in territory which I won't be settling. I then use workers to plant forests, create a simple rail system, and create lots of paths (roads) through the woods. It doesn't take much longer to do this and the end result seems more satisfying to me. :)


Links

See http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17439&highlight=chiefpaco+domination for a detailed discussion of the Domination victory condition and some useful analysis.

See http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17550 for a calculator which can estimate your current hidden "per-turn" score.

Edit: See http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18243for chiefpaco's MapStat utility which can be used to determine the domination threshold for a map.

SirPleb, this is really great. After following the links I can finally see why you consider successful milking an art. In particular, avoiding domination victory looks to be a black art. I still think it's too bad that the game scoring is balanced to encourage milking. However, since it is, your advice is very useful.

Cool stuff. It's good to see all the hard work you & everyone has done all centralized to help those new (& those who easily forget too). Good work & well presented!
:goodjob:

SirPleb, this is a great overview, my respect also for all the work that led to this knowledge! :goodjob: :goodjob:

There is one additional aspect I like to mention and that is the importance of luxuries and an early access to them as soon as possible. Combined with marketplaces this gives an enormous happiness boost that increases progressively with the different number under control. Max. output can be 20 happy faces.

Are you already working on a new game SirPleb?

really we can reload once we see the domination?!?!?!


IF i had knew that for my game, i would have been less afraid to continually expand!!!!!

Thanks Spork, IronKnight, Chiefpaco, and Beammeuppy! I'm glad I posted this. :)

Beameuppy: Yes indeed, I am playing a new HOF attempt with the 1.17 patch. I've just posted a description of the game so far at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=223612&t=9519#post223612 in case anyone wants to read about it.

Originally posted by Badluck
really we can reload once we see the domination?

Yes indeed, see this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11834&perpage=20&pagenumber=5

Duke of Marlbrough says in that thread, regarding checking the domination threshold the hard way (by running into it):

"Reloading is allowed to a degree. If you want to check things, reload, if you want to redo a combat, you shouldn't reload.
The rules aren't as strict as the GOTM because in tthe GOTM everyone is playing the same game so they have to be sure everyone is playing on a more fair level within the fixed time frame. In the HOF, if someone outscores you, you just have to eventually play better to beat them."

It is possible to speed production more (in addition to buying improvements) by transferring shields, e.g. building Modern Armor in core cities and disbanding them in developing regions. This is a nice boost for building but I find it tedious and generally don't do this, I just wait to generate cash and buy improvements.

It would be curious to see how much the tedious things would actually improve score. Since I could never be able to get to the conquest stage on Deity, I was wondering what score would be possible if SirPleb played Deity until he had the opponent knocked to one city, then gave me the game to do all the tedious things to milk it even more (of course this won't qualify for HoF because of teamwork).

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
I was wondering what score would be possible if SirPleb played Deity until he had the opponent knocked to one city, then gave me the game to do all the tedious things to milk it even moreOk Bamspeedy! I'll send you a PM when my current game reaches that stage. Probably a few days from now. You might not want to do this once you've seen it, there are an awful lot of cities in this one :)

Ok! Sounds great! Send me the saved game, then you finish it your way, and I'll finish it doing the minor tedious things and we'll see how much of a difference it makes.:)

that would be funny if sirpleb had a higher score....

that would be funny if sirpleb had a higher score....

Knowing my luck I'd probably screw something up, and somehow lose the game, or mis-time the completion of the spaceship so I end up with a histographic score.

Originally posted by SirPleb
There are basically two ways to maximize your score:
1) Win as early as possible to increase your bonus.


Yes, Sir Plebs - you're completely right !!

My maximal score until now was obtained yesterday on a tiny map, Iroquis, Deity level - something around 13300 points on a victory before 1 AD ( 70 BC I suppose, but I'm not sure ... :) ).

I never have enough patience to play on huge mup until 2500 - micromanagement really kill me - and also ( and even more important ) the duration between turns.

Regards,

Nice lesson, SirPleb. Only I'll never milk the game. Totally boring, but if you want - go ahead. :p ;)

Anyway, it's quite clarifying. Thanks for the info. You're da man! :cool:

One quick question, granted it may be a dumb one, but what is meant by "milking"?

Originally posted by sysyphus
One quick question, granted it may be a dumb one, but what is meant by "milking"?

Running the score as high as possible even though you know you'll win.

Well i'm not entirely sure what miliking means, but its like even though you totally dominate the world and with a few nukes can anlihate the remaining civs, or have built the UN and are waiting till 2050 to vote or having your spaceship ready and launching it at 2050.
Just trying to have your cities max out and build all the wonders and improvements even though they don't make much difference.

Is there supposed to be a bonus if you win via culture or spaceship before 2050?

Originally posted by King Of America Is there supposed to be a bonus if you win via culture or spaceship before 2050?Yes there is. The bonus is the same regardless of how you win, it is based just on the date and the difficulty level, using the formula in the note at the start of this thread.

Originally posted by sysyphus One quick question, granted it may be a dumb one, but what is meant by "milking"?It is as Special_O and God described :)

The easiest way to milk a game is to leave just one town belonging to one opponent, surrounded by a square of Mech. Infantry. (If it is coastal, block the water access with naval units.) Eliminate all other opponents. Get a Right Of Passage agreement with the remaining opponent as part of the peace deal when you've finished hammering them, so that you don't need a larger number of Mech. Infantry further away from their town. I try to give them a town in a desert or tundra somewhere so that it will never grow. Once you've done that you can take your time improving the rest of the world :)

A harder way to milk a game is to take as much land as you safely can (without triggering a domination win), then improve your land without taking out the Civs inhabiting the other parts of the world. This is harder because you have to ensure they won't build a spaceship, or the UN, or get a cultural win, or mess up your finish by starting a war!

excellent post SirPleb. I will now ceratinly think twice before trying to win a game as early as possible to increase the bonus instead of milking my score. Did you figure out all that score calculation stuff??

It is possible to speed production more (in addition to buying improvements) by transferring shields, e.g. building Modern Armor in core cities and disbanding them in developing regions. This is a nice boost for building but I find it tedious and generally don't do this, I just wait to generate cash and buy improvements.

Some calculations (temple for example, democracy, standard rules):

Building and disbanding units (1 turn)
Production in City A - 120 shields/turn (modern armor)
Production in City B - 120 shields/turn (modern armor)
City C - build temple (disband 2 armor - 240 /4 = 60 shields)
Additional : - 2 gold for maintaince armors

Buy improvements: (4 turn)
Production in City A - 120 shields/turn = 30 gold (wealth)
Production in City B - 120 shields/turn = 30 gold (wealth)
City C - buy temple - 60 shields*4 = 240 gold
Additional economy: + 4 shields in city (during 4 turns) = +16 gold

Originally posted by Black Fluffy Lion
excellent post SirPleb. I will now ceratinly think twice before trying to win a game as early as possible to increase the bonus instead of milking my score. Did you figure out all that score calculation stuff??Yes, I worked out the score calculation with a bit of trial and error. Chiefpaco worked it out independantly on this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17439&highlight=chiefpaco+score. The score calculation I describe is only theory - I don't think anyone who has access to the source code is talking about it. :) But it is a very solid theory, well supported by evidence and safe enough to use as a fact I'd say.

I got the bonus calculation info from other people's posts. I'm not sure who worked it out first but I do remember that a post by Aeson was the first time I saw it documented.

:goodjob:
Indeed a very good job you have done there, Sir Pleb. I'm amazed that you have figured out the way ones score is calculated.
That's what made me curious. I wondered, how old are you, and for how long have you been playing Civilization, ever since the first one came? Please write back to me, with the answer.

I'm a 49 year old software developer / consultant / hired gun.

I didn't play CivI, missed it. :sad: I played CivII avidly for quite some time. But I hadn't played it for some years when CivIII came out, then I got hooked again! :)

Nicolai posted some very interesting questions

SIRPLEB
How old are you ?, what is your IQ ?, for how long have you been playing this game ? and how much time do you devote each day to play Civ 3 ?

Those questions are being made because of your revolutionary MILKING THEORY. This theory is so helpful that now the CIVILIZATION 3 community is curious .


reply writen by Marshal Zhukov, who was clearly the best general of WW II

Marshal, it looks like our posts crossed over, see my post just before yours. I don't think IQ numbers mean all that much so I'll dodge that question :) And all I want to say about how long I spend playing CivIII is "an embarrassing amount". I'm fortunate to be self-employed and to be able to do that. But I really must start cutting down my play time soon. :lol:

Interesting investigation on the score calculations. However, what is the relation or factor between territory and happy faces, i.e. how many tiles equals one happy face?).

In the F11 screen shot it mentions square miles, how many square miles is a tile?

What is normally your average score per turn at e.g. 10 AD? (Don't tell me you kill them all by that time on a large or huge map...;) )

// Kip

In the F11 screen shot it mentions square miles, how many square miles is a tile?

Divide that number by 100 and you'll get the number of tiles


Interesting investigation on the score calculations. However, what is the relation or factor between territory and happy faces, i.e. how many tiles equals one happy face?).

I believe this is how it works:
1 point per tile of territory X difficulty level
2 points per happy person X difficulty level
1 point per content person or specialist X difficulty level

Edit:typo

Difficulty levels:
Chieftain X1 factor
Warlord X2
Regent X3
Monarch X4
Emperor X5
Diety X6

So, when you plop the capital down on the first turn on a luxury you start out with 11 points on Chieftain (9 tiles +2 for the happy person), and 66 points on Diety (9X6=54 6X2= 12 54+12=66). It's usually easier to add another city (9 more points on chieftain, 54 points on Diety) than to try and get 9 people happy (that had been content, or from unhappy to content) to match that. Or, to get a city's border expanded (12 pts. on chieftain, 72 pts. on Diety). But if you have hundreds of cities, then getting one more luxury could mean hundreds or thousands of points.

It was my impression that Firaxis said at some point that having pollution at any point in the game (not just at the end, as in Civ2) had a negative effect on the score. Has anyone confirmed that pollution affects the score?

Originally posted by Kipner
what is the relation or factor between territory and happy faces, i.e. how many tiles equals one happy face?).
See Bamspeedy's note. On the line where he says "1 point per content or happy person X difficulty level " I think he meant to write "1 point per content person or specialist".

Originally posted by Kipner What is normally your average score per turn at e.g. 10 AD?I don't know. I'm sure it varies quite a lot depending on the map settings, difficulty, etc. In general I think it is very hard to evaluate a game based on its score at that early a date. In successful huge Deity games my score at that date is only a very small percentage (perhaps between 2 and 5 percent) of what I reach at the end. Especially with the 1.17 patch, at 10AD it is still just a matter of survival in such games. On the other hand, on a large Monarch map with few rivals, I'd hope to be visibly on the way to world domination at that date with a higher score.

Originally posted by kundor It was my impression that Firaxis said at some point that having pollution at any point in the game (not just at the end, as in Civ2) had a negative effect on the score. Has anyone confirmed that pollution affects the score?I'm not sure whether pollution has any direct effect on score but I think it does not. If it does then it is a small effect. (Unless there is a huge amount of pollution perhaps - I haven't played a game with a huge amount so I don't know.)

As far as I can tell the only effect pollution has on score is indirect. While there are polluted tiles they can't be worked so there is some starvation for a short time in a max'd city. And the total amount of pollution affects the frequency of global warming. Global warming causes tiles to become less food productive. (Usually. Occasionally it is harmless this way, just causes jungle to become grassland for example.) Less food production means less citizens can be supported, means a slightly lower score. The overall final effect of this on score is I think quite small in games I've played.

See Bamspeedy's note. On the line where he says "1 point per content or happy person X difficulty level " I think he meant to write "1 point per content person or specialist".
Right, I should have paid more attention to your original post and tried a few turns myself. Ususally, I'm on a 2 points per turn increase after 30 or so turns, so I was confused by the calculation of every tile being 1 point - since I did not account for the averaging method.
I don't know. I'm sure it varies quite a lot depending on the map settings, difficulty, etc. In general I think it is very hard to evaluate a game based on its score at that early a date. In successful huge Deity games my score at that date is only a very small percentage (perhaps between 2 and 5 percent) of what I reach at the end. Especially with the 1.17 patch, at 10AD it is still just a matter of survival in such games. On the other hand, on a large Monarch map with few rivals, I'd hope to be visibly on the way to world domination at that date with a higher score.

OK, Deity is still some miles away for me, I'm trying to get hold of Regent at the moment (only on large or huge) and I have trouble keeping up with the buildout pace. I have great theories, but I need to convert them into reality.... :) The 1.17 patch does not really help me here...
Divide that number by 100 and you'll get the number of tiles
Right, thanks for the lesson, I should be paying more attention myself to the screen shots.
So, when you plop the capital down on the first turn on a luxury you start out with 11 points on Chieftain (9 tiles +2 for the happy person), and 66 points on Diety (9X6=54 6X2= 12 54+12=66). It's usually easier to add another city (9 more points on chieftain, 54 points on Diety) than to try and get 9 people happy (that had been content, or from unhappy to content) to match that. Or, to get a city's border expanded (12 pts. on chieftain, 72 pts. on Diety). But if you have hundreds of cities, then getting one more luxury could mean hundreds or thousands of points.
OK, that's a strategy I have not explored - to settle ON the luxury. For some strange reason I thought that the luxury sort of "disappeared", but of course - you'll have instant access to the luxury by settling on the luxury. The same goes for strategic resources? And how about bonus resources? If I settle on Wheat for instance - do I get the extra food in the city center?

Thanks everyone for the advice, I know I should worry more about the strategy of the game than on the scoring, but I'm a competitive person...

OK, that's a strategy I have not explored - to settle ON the luxury. For some strange reason I thought that the luxury sort of "disappeared", but of course - you'll have instant access to the luxury by settling on the luxury. The same goes for strategic resources? And how about bonus resources? If I settle on Wheat for instance - do I get the extra food in the city center?

Yes, the same applies for strategic resources, you'll get instant access to it. Bonus resources I believe would be the same IF you are in any government other than Despositism. In despositism any tile that produces 3 or more of something produces one less. So if a tile should produce 4 food, when in despot you would only get 3 food. This is why when you first start a game you don't want to settle directly on a cow, because you can mine it and get another shield.

Billchin did a study on placing cities directly on resources, you might want to read through it (read all the responses because some like the cow ended up being wrong in his first post).

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16602&highlight=resources

If your not worried about production at all, and just want points then if there is a hill in the middle of grassland, settle on the hill. You automatically get at least 2 food, regardless of terrain and a hill would only produce 1 food normally, so your adding more food to the city.

If your thinking of placing cities directly on resources and luxuries, keep in mind the surrounding terrain. Settling on a luxury prevents you having to connect it by road and instant happiness, and the AI can't pillage to deny access to it, he must capture the city. However, if a river is only one tile away, that may be better (free aqueduct).

Right, I should have paid more attention to your original post and tried a few turns myself. Ususally, I'm on a 2 points per turn increase after 30 or so turns, so I was confused by the calculation of every tile being 1 point - since I did not account for the averaging method.

Yes, the points per turn varies by several things. It will greatly increase shortly after you get railroads and hospitals (more citizens), or start acquiring more territory (like doubling or tripling your territory).

Thanks for the input, I've started to learn all the small (but important) details for the initial game. In the beginning I was so eager to start playing that the first 50 turns were done more or less without thinking.

You know it just killed all my games - hopelessly behind, only chance were then to conquer/dominate or go for space race.

Also, building all city improvements is obviously not the way to go - follow one path and disregard some improvements.

//

Improvements like colleseum and cathredral are useless unless you are going for cultural win. Temple, libary, marketplace, bank, barracks, hospital, some factory, and anti-pollution improvements are the ones to build. Aqueduct if needed.

Improvements like colleseum and cathredral are useless unless you are going for cultural win. Temple, libary, marketplace, bank, barracks, hospital, some factory, and anti-pollution improvements are the ones to build. Aqueduct if needed. I don't know why you dismiss Cathedral and Colosseum but still are keeping Temple as a "must build" ? Cathedral turns three citizens content whereas Temple only one. Cathedral has a higher Culture per turn as well (4 to 2). Are you putting the time perspective into account as well (Temple being built before Cathedral)? Anyway, with a high culture you reduce the risk of city-flipping, and will probably have a better position at the negotiation table.

Eventually, I'm building most improvements in a city anyway, unless I have a specific target when I must churn out a huge army etc.

Still, I would say, no improvement is really worthless, it just depend on your target for the city, the surrounding civs and the environment in question. Police Station and Courthouse in my mind is important for distant cities to minimise corruption, just as an example.

//

Still, I would say, no improvement is really worthless, it just depend on your target for the city, the surrounding civs and the environment in question. Police Station and Courthouse in my mind is important for distant cities to minimise corruption, just as an example.

Coastal Fortresses and SAM missle Batteries are worthless. There has been rare reports of a coastal fortress actually working. I haven't really seen a SAM work at all.

I don't know why you dismiss Cathedral and Colosseum but still are keeping Temple as a "must build" ? Cathedral turns three citizens content whereas Temple only one. Cathedral has a higher Culture per turn as well (4 to 2). Are you putting the time perspective into account as well (Temple being built before Cathedral)? Anyway, with a high culture you reduce the risk of city-flipping, and will probably have a better position at the negotiation table.

Cathedral and colluseums may be needed in some games especially if you are in a republic or democracy, but when I play under a monarchy, having the military police, I don't need the cathedrals and colluseums. Temples are necessary, they are cheap and to ensure the cities borders expand, and you can't build cathedrals until you have a temple anyways. And this thread is about maximizing score, so usually if you have a large empire (300+ cities) like Sirpleb, then having cathedrals and colluseums in several cities will trigger a cultural victory way too early. Temples he puts in the cities so it expands the cities limits. And even then will sometimes sell off the temple after the first city expansion.

OK,

I shouldn't go into a debate on this with the icons of the site ;)
You're right, it is about maximising the score. So far down the thread, you sometimes loose the original issue.

I agree on the Cathedral/Temple issue. I have yet to come up to 300+ empires. I usually like to build Cathedral, Library, University to increase my chance of cultural flips ( I enjoy when other cities want to join my empire) - but although I have a few flips every game, I should probably manage the empire a little bit better.

Normally I skip Monarchy and go directly into Republic - is that worse than going Monarchy and then into Democracy?

On Coastal Fortress I agree, I have never had a CF take free shot at anyone - or they are never close enough during wartime anyway.

Also my Bombers seem to fail quite often on their runs.

//

Normally I skip Monarchy and go directly into Republic - is that worse than going Monarchy and then into Democracy?

Depends on your playing style. If you really want a tech lead (or you are playing on the lower levels), Republic is definitely the best. Republic makes more money than a monarchy, so you have more money to invest in science, but you will probably need to build the cathedrals and colleseums. In monarchy, you don't need the cathedrals and colleseums because of the military police, so you can start building more military units instead of buildings. And a monarchy is more ideal for someone who wants to wage a continous, non-stop war. You can literally be at war with someone the entire game, with no war-weariness. To get a gigantic score you want to control as much territory as early as possible, so in a monarchy, you can continue to keep grabbing more and more territory by taking over your neighbor's cities.

Monarchy is much better IMHO on the more difficult levels, where it is nearly impossible to gain more than a 1 or 2 tech lead, so people put their science rate at 0% and just buy techs off the AI. With no spending going to science you can make a ton of cash or support hundreds of units.

Democracy is a little better than republic in corruption, but because of intense war-weariness Republic is far better. If you are totally safe from wars go to Democracy so you get the bonus worker speed.

If you really are striving to be in a democracy, then choosing the government prior to it depends on the situation. Republic is so similar to democracy that the transition will be much smoother. If you go from Monarchy to Democracy you loose the contentness from the military police so you might not be able to handle the new unhappiness in your cities. Make sure you have access to several luxuries and marketplaces in most of your cities before switching over to republic or democracy.

A question for those with more experience on maximizing score...

When milking the game for score, clearly the most important goal is to utilize every tile possible without triggering a domination victory (and of coure all happy citizens :D ). My question: is it more effective to have:

1) many cities of size 12, each using roughly 3-5 tiles or

2) fewer cities of 25+ size, each taking close to the full 21

My guess is that the size 12 cities would produce higher scores, since when city population is more than 21 all extra citizens become specialists and thus cannot become "happy", which produces a higher score. Is there someone out there who has tested this and can confirm my suspicions?

I would go with choice 1. More cities are the big difference. Means more terrain is under your control which also means more score.

Terrain isn't the issue; I already have all the land I can get without triggering domination. I'm pretty sure that more cities is the way to go, just trying to get some confirmation from one of the players with experience on it here.

It is a difficult comparison, because with smaller cities, the maximum population may be smaller, and the "working" (happy/content/unhappy) population is always smaller. I've been trying to work out a comparison and the results are interesting. A bit of a long read, skip to the end if you just want my conclusions.

First, let's consider a case where all the land is grassland. Suppose that we have an area which is all grassland, irrigated and railroaded. So each "worked" tile will produce 4 food and can support two citizens. Each tile which is used for a city will produce 2 food and will support only one citizen.

If there are 18 such grassland tiles on the map and we compare using them as one city vs. using them as three cities then:

One city: 18 tiles total. 1 tile for the city supports 1 citizen, 17 worked tiles support 34 citizens. Best possible result with maximum happiness is 17 happy citizens plus 18 specialists.

Three cities: 6 tiles per city. 1 tile in each for the city supports 1 citizen. 5 worked tiles support 10 citizens. Best possible result with maximum happiness is in each city 5 happy citizens plus 6 specialists, for a total of 15 happy citizens plus 18 specialists.

Using the smaller cities we ended up with 2 less happy citizens in the final result. We lost 2 citizens because of less food produced by the extra city tiles. The 2 we lost were happy citizens because there are two less tiles which can be worked.

For this simple grassland case the scoring potential is as follows. Using the formula:
NumberOfCities * ( HappyCitizens * 2 + Specialists + TileCount )
One city: 1 * ( 17 * 2 + 18 + 18) = 70
Three cities: 3 * ( 5 * 2 + 6 + 6 ) = 66

Although the above shows that a single large city can score better in theory, the small cities might still score better in practice for a number of reasons:

1) They may grow to their maximum much sooner in the game. They don't need to wait for hospitals, and each one benefits from a smaller independent granary. Total cost of building may be smaller, depending on the need for Aqueducts. (Large city needs Hospital + MassTransit = 360 shields. Two additional small cities in worst case need MarketPlace + Aqueduct each = 400 shields.)
(Edit: I just realized that for cities this small, with just 5 working citizens, there is no need for the Marketplace given enough happiness improvements, e.g. 8 luxuries and JS Bach's. So at this size there's definitely less building with small cities. When the city's terrain is poorer a size 12 city may or may not need a Marketplace, depends on the number of working citizens.)

2) In outlying corrupt regions it may not be possible (certainly not easy) to keep all working citizens happy. In this very large single city that's probably not an issue since it can have 18 specialist entertainers. But on less ideal land (including some hills, tundra, etc.) there often are not enough entertainers to do the trick. If the single city has 15 happy + 2 unhappy citizens instead of 17 happy, then its scoring potential is the same as the three city approach. More unhappy citizens than 2 means it actually performs worse.

Then there's the question of what happens if the terrain is worse?

If we use the same case as above with all irrigitated+railroaded desert the result is I think:
One city: 1 * ( 17 * 2 + 1 + 18) = 53
Three cities: 3 * ( 5 * 2 + 1 + 6 ) = 51

It is interesting to note that desert can reach 75% of the scoring potential of grassland!

Now what if we place the cities themselves on poor land?

Suppose that the 18 tile region we're looking at contains 15 grassland tiles and 3 hill tiles (or tundra would be the same), and that our cities are always placed on the "bad" tiles:
One city: 1 * ( 17 * 2 + 15 + 18) = 67 (Edited, original post said 68)
Three cities: 3 * ( 5 * 2 + 6 + 6 ) = 66

A final note on a related subject: What is the scoring potential of hills/mountains/tundra? These tiles cannot fully support the citizen that works them. But these tiles are worth 3 points each when worked - 1 for being in our sphere of influence, 2 for the happy citizen working on them. I think that when there are hills/tundra/mountains already within your sphere of influence, it pays to arrange cities so that there are cities at the edge of these regions with food-rich tiles. Those cities can then support the happy citizens working the food-poor tiles, increasing the scoring potential. In large hill/tundra areas where there is no nearby food source, I try to place one town per four tiles, so that 2 out of 4 of the tiles in the area get happy citizens working on them.

Conclusions

1) Larger cities have a theoretically higher scoring potential.

2) The difference in scoring potential is small when comparing maximum size cities to size 12 cities. It would become a bigger difference if we considered even smaller cities again in the comparison - small cities should probably not be carried to an extreme, around size 12 is likely to be optimum I think.

3) The difference in scoring potential becomes smaller again when the cities themselves are built on food-poor terrain.

4) The difference disappears (or even favors the smaller cities instead) in cases where large cities are not large enough or rich enough to have all of their citizens happy. In large empires most cities are likely to fall into this category - outlying high corruption cities are likely to always have some unhappiness.

5) Desert (and plains of course) have surprisingly high score potential. Less than grasslands, but not by as large a factor as one might think.

So it seems to me that careful building of size 12 cities is likely to score best in most games, being careful to put the cities on poor food terrain where possible. And making sure to place cities which include hills, tundra, and mountains in their area so that there is a citizen working each of the food poor tiles.

Wow - thanks a lot! :goodjob:

I think the general idea is pretty clear, that it doesn't make all that big of a difference between the two. Obviously the terrain makes the biggest difference. I think the lesson here is that it's not that important how many cities there are, just that every tile is worked by a happy citizen and everything is irrigated/railroaded. Much thanks to SirPleb for all of the number crunching done to maximize score! :cool:

You're welcome Sullla! I have fun exploring this stuff :)

I continued a bit after posting prior note. One more interesting case to work out a limit:

What would be the scoring penalty for the most tightly packed cities possible?

The tightest build possible is one city per 4 files. In a case with 20 irrigated+railed grassland tiles:

One city: 1 * ( 19 * 2 + 20 + 20) = 78
Five cities: 5 * ( 3 * 2 + 4 + 4 ) = 70

The difference still isn't large, a 10% loss in score. And that gets smaller as the terrain gets worse. The scoring penalty for a very tight build, although noticeable, sure isn't as large as one might guess.

So your conclusion is the right one I think, "it's not that important how many cities there are, just that every tile is worked by a happy citizen and everything is irrigated/railroaded". Those are clearly more important factors than the city density.

Also excluded from the calculation is the speed of border expansion through the increase in culture. Given that the small cities/large city are located in unclaimed territory, the smaller cities should be able to "push" the borders further out than one large city within the same number of original tiles.

In already claimed territory the calculation stands though, although the difference seems to be small.

Or am I totally up the wrong alley?

//

Originally posted by Kipner
Given that the small cities/large city are located in unclaimed territory, the smaller cities should be able to "push" the borders further out than one large city within the same number of original tiles.
In a way I guess that is true, but, if you are going for territory then using the same number of settlers for completely non-overlapping cities would of course be better again than having small cities. I'm not sure what the best trade-off is early in the game, between getting more territory early on vs. setting up for other factors which will improve score later (and contribute to winning :lol: )

In the milking stage of a game this factor won't matter at all of course - at some point you are just barely under the domination threshold and then you don't want your borders expanding further.

It is interesting to note that desert can reach 75% of the scoring potential of grassland!

What would you say about coastal squares then? They produce the same food as a railraoded/irrigated desert (if you have a harbor in the coastal city of course). But also, you usually get 'free' sea squares. In most cases, there is a strip of coastal tiles, then a strip or two of seas, then the ocean. The first strip of sea squares would be worked (happy people), and those are tiles that helps in score, but doesn't add to the domination threshold. Plus if the culture borders push far enough you can grab more free sea tiles (but won't be worked on, so not as much free points).

So theoretically, if you had 1 sea tile for each coastal tile, is that the same, or better, than claiming a grassland square? Because 1 coast + 1 sea = 4 food (for 2 happy people) + 2 tiles, but only counts as 1 for domination. You would have the added expense of harbors, though, but no loss to pollution.

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
What would you say about coastal squares then?
Edit 2002/6/3: Originally when I wrote this note I thought that sea tiles counted toward one's territory score. They don't. I've now reworked the note to allow for this.
I really like the coastal and sea regions, and try to include as much of them as possible in the sphere of influence. I also like to grab islands to include the surrounding sea, and large bay areas. I've been doing this because it intuitively seemed right. Time to try analyzing it a bit :)

Suppose that a coastline is completely straight. The coastal water region is usually one tile wide. So a city placed on the coast will have one sea tile in its workable region for each coastal tile.

For each coastal tile the resulting scoring potential is 5. (Before the difficulty multiplier.) 1 for the coastal tile plus 4 for the two happy citizens. (There isn't another point for the sea tile - it doesn't count toward territory score. Before the 2002/6/3 edit of this note I thought that it did.)

If we build inland instead, the best we can normally do is a grassland tile. Just one grassland, since we are only using one coastal tile in the comparison. (One grassland eats up the same amount toward the domination threshold.) A bonus tile (cattle, wheat, etc.) can do a bit better but they aren't common enough to include here I think. One irrigated+railroaded grassland has a scoring potential of 4. 1 for the tile, plus 2 for the happy citizen working it, plus 1 for the specialist supported by the extra food.

So coastal tiles with sea beyond seem to have a 25% higher scoring potential than grassland. (5 vs 4) And higher again when compared with plains (5 vs 3.5), desert (5 vs 3), or hills (5 vs 2.5? hard to be sure how to count hills - I'm counting it as subtracting from a specialist to feed its worker.)

Expanding the sphere of influence to sea tiles which are further out and cannot be worked by citizens does nothing for score. (I used to do this, thinking it increased score, know better now :) )

Irregular coastlines seem to reduce overall the coastal/sea tile ratio, and that will work in the other direction, reducing scoring potential. On running mapstat against my final GOTM5 map I have 471 coastal tiles and 321 sea tiles. I haven't counted them individually but I'm fairly sure that over 80% of the sea tiles are worked by citizens. Multiplying it out this works out to 3.8 points per coastal tile. Not quite as good as grassland, but better than plains. On that particular map there wasn't much grassland so it seems to have been a good move.

Islands: Looking at my final GOTM5 map, there's a small island near the south edge of the map, west of the middle. That island has 9 poor land tiles and 20 coastal tiles around it. I had 3 towns there with a sphere of influence including 33 sea tiles, 19 of which were worked by citizens. Total points: 29 (territory) + 2*38 (happy citizens) + 1 (content citizen) = 106. The same amount of territory as prime grassland would I think be 2 cities on 29 tiles: 29 (territory) + 2*27 (happy citizens) + 29 (specialists) = 112. So the island with poor land is scoring just a bit worse than the best of land. (And on the GOTM5 map there was very little prime land.) Smaller islands should do better I think. And islands with a bit of workable land will also do better of course - this island was nearly the worst case in that regard.

In summary:
After editing this note to allow for sea tiles not counting toward territory score, it seems that grabbing a lot of sea area may or may not be a good thing for score, depending on the map. My previous thinking that grabbing coastal+sea areas is always good does not seem to be justified.
If a map has lots of prime real estate (grassland) it makes sense to grab that before taking coastal areas. Coastal areas will usually be at least as good as plains.
If you do take coastal areas, try to take them in such a way that the row of sea tiles beyond the coastal tiles can be worked by citizens. If you do this then the net result should be a score for each coastal tile which is about as good as a grassland tile. In the best cases, where the coastline is regular and has just one row of coastal tiles, these tiles can increase score even more than grassland.

I just checked in again... there has been some action here SirPleb. I gotta start reading this again...

Nice job Sir Pleb with the score calculator. I love it. Right now its prediciting my score to be in low 6000's. That means i can knck of Beameuppy in the Regent HOF for 3rd place. :goodjob:

Originally posted by SirPleb
Finally, something I like to do in milked games which has nothing to do with score, but seems right to me for this kind of game: Improve the landscape. After the last war I use my military to destroy all the so-called "improvements" in territory which I won't be settling. I then use workers to plant forests, create a simple rail system, and create lots of paths (roads) through the woods. It doesn't take much longer to do this and the end result seems more satisfying to me. :)
I like that!:goodjob: Thanks for the milking tips.:)

Originally posted by SirPleb
I continued a bit after posting prior note. One more interesting case to work out a limit:

What would be the scoring penalty for the most tightly packed cities possible?

The tightest build possible is one city per 4 files. In a case with 20 irrigated+railed grassland tiles:

One city: 1 * ( 19 * 2 + 20 + 20) = 78
Five cities: 5 * ( 3 * 2 + 4 + 4 ) = 70

The difference still isn't large, a 10% loss in score. And that gets smaller as the terrain gets worse. The scoring penalty for a very tight build, although noticeable, sure isn't as large as one might guess.It might even be less then 10% in practice.

I'm gonna do some practical tests on this matter, I will start on a map, alone, NO Rival's and try this out. Both ways, and see what the difference in score can be.

EDIT: This map will be a "Clean Map" with only Grassland Bonus tiles.

As there will not be any Rivals, all research will be done on my own, but I will make the map a Tiny map so the Test will go quick.

EDIT: Turn off "Conquest" and you can play alone on any map.

I will try and keep as many detailed notes from the two games as I can.


EDIT: I'm gonna do this test with the Egyptians.

Btw, I just started the test... and I think I will have to restart.

The difference will be to big when it comes to research speed so I think I will have to lower the Tech costs first.


EDIT: I lowered the tech speed, and gave Egypt 2 more techs; Alphabet and Bronze Working for starters.

Great thread.

I was discussing "milking" with Aeson and others over at Apolyton, and I got to thinking about culture. I just can't help myself. I build all those improvements. It's in my nature. So I was thinking... how can I do that and yet still drag the game out as long as I can?

The answer: mobilization. Once you are done building city improvements and the like, mobilize. It cuts culture production per turn in half. It's not going to save you if you have 90k culture already, but it will buy you some more turns.

----

As we all know, score is not adjusted for map size. But we do know how many tiles are on each size map, right? Roughly speaking, anyway. Population is harder to figure, but I wonder if someone with Civ on the brain and far too much time on their hands could devise a basic conversion factor so that we could compare a game played on a huge map to one played on a standard (my preferred setting).

Sir Pleb,

The one time so far that I really tried to "milk" a game, I found that although I played well past the time I could have won, and built hospitals and irrigated my land and all of that, my score was barely higher. I originally won via domination by mistake, score 5950. I reloaded, avoided that, and played on for centuries, and then again won via domination (I broke an AI city and my borders expanded... I forgot they were holding me in check), score 5970. It made me question whether or not it was worth it.

-Arrian

If you weren't playing on a huge map, then maybe you need a huge map to get a noticeable difference between milking and fast finishes.

The one time so far that I really tried to "milk" a game, I found that although I played well past the time I could have won, and built hospitals and irrigated my land and all of that, my score was barely higher. I originally won via domination by mistake, score 5950. I reloaded, avoided that, and played on for centuries, and then again won via domination (I broke an AI city and my borders expanded... I forgot they were holding me in check), score 5970. It made me question whether or not it was worth it.

Yeah, what size map was that? Tiny, small, and some standard maps, there aren't enough tiles to milk to compensate for the early win bonus. And earlier in the game, the early win bonus keeps up pretty well with the points/turn you're earning by milking. When you get to the the 1700's and later, is where the early win bonus is so small, that's when the milking really kicks in. For example, on Regent if you win in the 700 A.D.'s the bonus is 30 pts/turn, after 1950 A.D. the bonus is 3 pts/turn, so if you gain say 15-20 pts/turn from milking you will really notice the difference in the last couple hundred turns.

Originally posted by Arrian
The one time so far that I really tried to "milk" a game, I found that although I played well past the time I could have won, and built hospitals and irrigated my land and all of that, my score was barely higher. I originally won via domination by mistake, score 5950. I reloaded, avoided that, and played on for centuries, and then again won via domination (I broke an AI city and my borders expanded... I forgot they were holding me in check), score 5970. It made me question whether or not it was worth it.

Could it have been a fairly early date when you did this? There are odd curves involved between the early-finish bonus and what can be gained on a turn by turn basis through milking. In games where an early enough win is possible, the curves have a cross-over point - you might have been around that point.

I think this is an unfortunate effect of the game's score calculation. It leads to some rather undesirable results.

For instance, at 500AD the early finish bonus is going down by 10 * Difficulty for each additional turn played. Let's say we're using Emperor level, so that would be 50/turn. The gain per turn from milking depends on the map size, and whether we have control of the bulk of the map yet of course. Let's say we're gaining about 50/turn at that date by milking. In this case milking would appear to not be doing any good.

But in the long run the milking will increase score a lot in this case. By the time we reach 1250AD, the milking increase might be slowing down a bit due to approaching maximum territory and happy citizens. (Or it might still be rising, but let's suppose it is slowing down.) Say it has dropped to a gain of 45/turn. But at 1250AD the early finish bonus drops to 5 * Difficulty, i.e. 25/turn. So now milking starts gaining noticeably each turn. At 1750AD the gain per turn from milking increases again. And at 1950AD when the early finish bonus drops to 5/turn, the ongoing milking will far exceed the lost bonus in each turn.

To make this example worse, suppose we were gaining at 40/turn in 500AD. At that point, for every turn we continue milking up to 1250AD our score for finishing at that date goes down. But if we milk to 2050AD the score will be much higher than if we'd stopped at 500AD. So there's a point in some games where milking just a bit makes the score worse but milking a lot more makes the score better. To me this seems a very undesirable scoring algorithm.

IMO the scoring algorithm would be better overall if the early finish bonus were based on number of turns instead of number of years. E.g. the bonus could be (540 - TurnsPlayed) * 10 * Difficulty. So an Emperor level win in 1500AD would get 250 * 10 * 5 = 12500 as the early finish bonus. A bonus like this would largely eliminate the non-linear benefit of milking. It would still be possible on large maps to gain more by milking than by finishing early, but at least the gain or loss from milking would be clear from turn to turn, instead of the current situation where the largest benefit from milking is at the back-end. I guess a turn-based finish bonus might introduce other problems I haven't thought of. But it seems to me they'd at least be less severe. :)

Thanks for the replies, guys.

Sorry, I should have been more specific, but I'm going off of memory. I believe the first win was in the 15th century and the second was in the 18th. Let's put it this way - the first win was while I was still using Cavalry... and I think I was just building hospitals = early industrial. By the second I had recently discovered Tanks.

Normal map, continents, Monarch.

In the end I just didn't have the patience to milk it properly, I guess. I fully intended to take it as far as I could, but the second accidental win pissed me off because I had spent a long time to gain only 20 points.

I have a newer one that's milkable (although culture is gonna be an issue again)... perhaps I could post it. It's 1490AD, I believe. Same setup, though this time I know I'm comfortably shy of domination because I tried to quickly dominate just to check what the score would be (thanks for posting the info on the score bonus, I can figure it out now without actually winning and then reloading). For some reason, the domination limit on this particular normal map is higher than on any other I've seen (usually around 130k sq. miles, this appears to be well over 150k).

-Arrian

Sir Pleb,
A few of us were discussing sea tiles and points in the CivIII Hall of Fame thread and discovered something. JFL_Dragon found out that:

Sea Tiles Do Not help in score!

Carthouche Bee confirmed this and I ran some tests and found this to be true. It is included as part of your territory in the demographics screen, but not territory score. I don't know if this had been changed in the last patch, or nobody noticed this, but this fact can change alot of strategies!

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
Sea Tiles Do Not help in score!Ouch! Thanks Bamspeedy. It looks like I fouled up on that. I've edited two posts in this thread which were incorrect in that regard. Grabbing sea tiles isn't always a good thing after all. Not a bad thing I think, just not advantageous unless a map is low on grassland areas. Oh well :)

Two wonders which are especially nice for score are JS Bach's and Cure For Cancer because they boost happiness, without requiring any culture-producing city improvements. Smith's Trading is also especially nice on large maps because it makes the Marketplaces maintenance-free. Longevity is another nice one, dramatically increasing the rate of population growth during the expansion phase of milking.

I'm having second thoughts on the greatness of Longevity. Sure it is great if you are not close to maximum population, and if you get it real early (because of the fast tech rate of Deity). But if you already are at max. pop then Longevity will really hurt you.

Example: In my HoF game right now, every city is at max. pop. I have a bunch of cities that are producing or losing 1 food (hills, whales on sea, plains, etc.) that I can not move this excess food to another city to stabalize the food production. I was thinking that longevity will give a small boost in that these cities when they do grow because they will get 2 citizens instead of 1 for a short time. But now that I think about it will hurt me in score.

Let's take a metropolis for example. It would take 60 turns for a metropolis to add that extra citizen, then 30? (only half of the food is stored in the granary, I believe) turns for it to lose that citizen, because now it is losing 1 food/turn as opposed to gaining 1 food. If I got Longevity, I would be losing 3 food/turn, so after taking 60 turns to gain 2 citizens, I lose both in 11 turns.

Without Longevity +30 pts (1 'free' citizen for 30 turns). With Longevity +21 pts (2 'free' citizens for 10 turns, then only 1 for 1 more turn, because you only lose 1 citizen/turn from starvation). This is adding the internal per-turn score of all the turns from when the city added the citizen to when it loses them. Granted, this is a very small effect on score, but still could be a factor in a few points.

I think the best way to deal with this 'excess' food is to try and get a size 12 (or 6) city to grab that 1 extra food. A size 12 city will take 40 turns to gain a citizen (smaller granary), but need 30 turns to lose it (bigger granary now that it is considered a metropolis). Of course, then you need a hospital in that city, but you should only bother with this if all other (more important, like marketplaces)scoring potentials are already taken care of.

Some calculations (temple for example, democracy, standard rules):

Building and disbanding units (1 turn)
Production in City A - 120 shields/turn (modern armor)
Production in City B - 120 shields/turn (modern armor)
City C - build temple (disband 2 armor - 240 /4 = 60 shields)
Additional : - 2 gold for maintaince armors

Buy improvements: (4 turn)
Production in City A - 120 shields/turn = 30 gold (wealth)
Production in City B - 120 shields/turn = 30 gold (wealth)
City C - buy temple - 60 shields*4 = 240 gold
Additional economy: + 4 shields in city (during 4 turns) = +16 gold

I'm figuring that it is almost always better to be building something to disband in another city. The only time it would be better to build wealth is if the city is only producing 1 uncorrupted shield. For example, if a 1 shield city is building a swordsman, after 30 turns the swordsman is worth 7 shields, but lost out on 30 gold since it wasn't producing wealth. 30 gold = 7.5 shields. Plus, you might have some maintance costs if you don't disband that unit immediately. But then, if that city will ever in the future need to build something (hospital, mass transit, etc.), then it would be smarter to be hoarding the shields by having it build a bank or something so you can start saving up the shields to make it cheaper when the building becomes available to be built.

Banks aren't that bad, even if you did accidently complete it, because even in the most corrupt city, with v1.21f, having a marketplace + bank, and building wealth a city will still be making a minimum of +3 gold, without a courthouse. Without the bank if you build wealth, you have +2 gold. This is if you have Smith's trading company, so the marketplace and bank is maintanence free, of course.

In other words, if a city is producing more than 1 shield, it better be building something!

I also think that if you already have aqueducts in most cities, you could have a massive draft and really speed up completion of buildings. This of course depends on how tightly you build your cities, so as to not lose much happiness. This is great when alot of cities are at size 7, so that they regain the population really quickly. I could draft over 200 infantry in one turn for (22*200= 4400 shields!) Just make sure you don't draft too much!!

Good information. This will be helpful in future gotm; I only had the intention of winning the game otherwise. Now I have a few points that I have to remember.

Originally posted by el_kalkylus
Good information. This will be helpful in future gotm; I only had the intention of winning the game otherwise. Now I have a few points that I have to remember.

I don't think milking will help your score much in the GOTM, 'cause the've implemented the Jason score there now, which really evens up the field between milkers and non-milkers.

Well, you can still use this information for doing a 'well-milked' game, because that is still an option. It's just not as easy for the milker to win, like in the past.

One part of this article will still help any victory condition. Get to domination ASAP. Maximizing your score while you are trying to get your quick victory will greatly improve your Jason score.

That's true, of course....

I just did my first bit of milking (barring any stray cows). I ended the game first time over with a score of 1870, dissatisfied with that I reloaded and milked (even though it wasnt quite a clear cut victory) and ended up with the same victory condition but 2170 points (my best score).

I'm a beginning player so its not that high but it highlights the benefits of milking.

oops. i thought the big explaining posts above were current..i saw the may date and thought 'oh these are recent' but then i realised this was 2002...

Originally posted by QwertySoft
oops. i thought the big explaining posts above were current
Not to worry, nothing has changed in this area - the information in this thread remains correct for the current versions of CivIII.

Originally posted by SirPleb

Not to worry, nothing has changed in this area - the information in this thread remains correct for the current versions of CivIII.

Is it relevant for Gotm? In my present game I noticed before starting to milk that in 10 years the score went up by 52. Since the game is a monarch level game the potential loss would be 40 so the net gain would be +12 before the Jason score correction.

I tried this in Gotm 19 last month and actually lost Jason score even though the raw score went up by about 400. It wasn't a very successful effort since I got an unintential culture win about 40 turns later than the potential space race win.

I just started with Gotm 20 so the Gotm 19 wasn't official, I need the practice. After I finish Gotm 21 I will practice on Gotm 18. I get to play two a month.

Well, some of the principles here will help your Jason score, but not all of them.

You still want to get to the domination limit as fast as possible. You still want to try and keep people happy while you do that (or after reaching the domination limit and you are working towards whatever other victory condition you want).

But you don't want to 'milk' to 2050 A.D. You can, but that won't always result in the best Jason score.

This article is based primarily on how to maximize the Firaxis score, not the Jason score. Knowing how the Firaxis score works though, can help your Jason score (just drop off the part about 'milk as long as possible').