Lets say that I'm struggling to get a space race victory, and only have one component left to build.
Though, I realize that this won't happen since I will have achieved a culture victory a few turns
before I can send my shuttle into space. Will I recieve any score for building these parts?

I would also like to know if there are any difference between the victory conditions. (in score).
I haven't seen an early Political victory that scored high. It seems farily easy though to score
high with a domination victory on the other hand.

I'd be happy for any info concerning the matter...


Cheers!

I notice that there is a little difference in Jason score according to the victory type!
You can abandon a city in order to win by space ship!
LeSphinx

The answer to the initial question is "no" - you don't get points for completed spaceship parts. Points are for land area and citizens, the happier the better. :)


I notice that there is a little difference in Jason score according to the victory type!
You can abandon a city in order to win by space ship!
LeSphinxEasier than that - Just sell-off culture buildings if you want to avoid a cultural victory. :)

If you can have a cultural victory on turn #N or a spaceship victory on turn #N+1, do you get a higher Jason score for the spaceship victory? I.e., is is a good idea to sell off those cultural improvements if your main goal is to maximize your Jason score?

Thanks for the input....

I guess I will have to feed the best AI civ a bit, it's not my style to destroy what I have built.

If you can have a cultural victory on turn #N or a spaceship victory on turn #N+1, do you get a higher Jason score for the spaceship victory? I.e., is is a good idea to sell off those cultural improvements if your main goal is to maximize your Jason score?
Educated guess: Choose the cultural type. Above all, try to get a feel for which type is the better achievement. If you then compare yourself with others you will probably find that you are right. And the fastest victory awards are quite prestigious.

If you want a medal try to travel in time and win by military means 1000 years ago. Other ways to get a medal have occured, though, and if you pull THAT off everyone will respect you eternally.

Almost all the high scores are reached by a player hitting the domination limit very early, but not crossing it, then going on to their chosen victory condition. Those wins could easily have been early domination/conquests, the players just chose not to press on that little bit more than was needed.

Neil. :cool:

I dislike 'milking'... players shouldn't have to milk the game to get high points. I would find it
very boring to play a game just to get points. I love games that are intense or progressing
from the beginning to the end. That's one of the reasons I play GOTM, because the maps
are so well thought out. You never know if Ainwood is good enough to give you a few
extra resources or none at all.

Oops, I was about to convert this thread to 'All hail, Ainwood'... sorry :p

As Eldar said, the scoring system is weighted towards those who get to the domination limit ASAP and then speed ASAP to their desired win condition. For us plodders & builders, it means that medals are either a fluke or pipe dream.

In general terms - how are the Jason dates determined (target dates for the various win types) Is it via playtesting some formula or a combination of both?

It's a formula, its spiritual father is Aeson. :)

As Space says, it's a formula established by Aeson based on general game principles. The dates depend on map size, topography (pangeia/continents/archipelago), tech required to reach all civ start locations, difficulty, and civ traits (player only). No other game-specific details are used, so we should recognise that specific games may pose individual challenges that could push the dates around a bit. Any given game probably has an optimum victory condition by a few turns, but your guess is certainly better than mine as to how you might determine that.

I don't know the derivation of a lot of the date offsets in the formula, though I can recognise that some are related by simple game logic. So for instance the spaceship best date should always be N turns after the diplo best date where N equals the turns required to research the extra required techs at maximum rate.

I was responsible for recoding Aeson's formula in PHP it to work on line, so any errors or omissions in the current implementation are probably mine.

If people are dissatisfied that the Jason Score doesn't take into account map-specific details, one possible tweak would be to normalize the Jason Scores based on the top-performing players. In other words, rather than try to figure out, in the abstract, "What is the earliest you could get a Diplomatic victory," you figure out who had the earliest Diplomatic victory. That player's Jason Score becomes the base Jason Score for all players who get a Diplomatic Victory. Everyone else gets a modifier to their Jason Score based on how much longer it took them to reach the Diplomatic victory as compared to the earliest Diplomatic victory.

The disadvatages to a system like this are 1) It's more work for AlanH (I suppose a lot of the work could be automated, but it would still take him time to set up the code for the automation), and 2) You wouldn't know your Jason Score until the results are published, since it would be impossible to calculate before submissions were closed.

The disadvatages to a system like this are 1) It's more work for AlanH (I suppose a lot of the work could be automated, but it would still take him time to set up the code for the automation), and 2) You wouldn't know your Jason Score until the results are published, since it would be impossible to calculate before submissions were closed.

Disadvantage #1 is not an issue. It *would* be automated. :D

Disadvantage #2 is not really a problem, as you don't know what your Jason score means relative to the rest of the players anyway.

Disadvantage #3 is missing: The best-scoring players for all victory conditions would all get a normalised score of 10K. We'd have six gold medals every game, and some of them may be for games undistingushed other than by being the only entry for a particular condition.

There may be some scope though for reviewing this. My impression is that conquest and domination are usually 2 of the top 3, and usually the top 2, but I suspect that this is at least as much due to most people playing for those victory types, as those being favoured in some way by the scoring mechanism.

I think there is a lot of misunderstanding about Jason score around.

The Jason score is not a complete replacement for the Firaxis score.
It still values the base Firaxis high.
By that it still has some of the flaws of the Firaxis score.
You still need to grow your empire as fast as possible to the domination limit and have as much (happy) population as possible to score high.
The Jason early victory bonus is only a small addition to that and cannot compensate for a suboptimal growth.
This is by design, because Aeson knew that the estimated best dates would not be very exact.
So putting more emphasisis on the early victory bonus would always be wrong for some of the victory conditions.

Domination and Conquest are highest scoring, because nearly nobody goes through the tedium to milk the Firaxis score optimally all the way to the later victory conditions.
There are also much more good dominators around than top-notch dairy farmers.

Good summary, Klarius. :thumbsup: The Jason victory bonus is not intended to compensate for suboptimal growth, of course. Its goal is to compensate for not milking an optimally grown civilzation. There's a big difference.

The longer you run a sub-optimal empire the worse your shortfall will be. So high scoring late victories need just as much attention to optimising territory and pop as high scoring fast victories, plus continued vigilance and attention to detail after the domination limit is reached.

BTW I also have some thoughts about the optimum scoring system. :D

Either:
Clone SirPleb several times in the secret labs under the CivFanatics tower. Then let them play out all victory conditions to have a valid reference.

Or:
AlanH writes a SirPleb simulation program in PHP, which plays the game. Shouldn't take him more than a few hours, as we know him. :lol:

How did Klarius find that out? Did someone talk? Alan? :hmm: Do they know about the Drazek and kuningas programs? The Ronald experiment?


In games where the relative Jason scores have seemed a bit off for different victory conditions, I have at time taken a bit of a qualitative look, and found that it was generally caused by time taken getting to the domination limit. With the different focus on infrastructure vs military expansion, this is to be expected, however in a lot of cases the differences are huge.

It wasn't me, honest. There must be a staff mole :eek:

In games where the relative Jason scores have seemed a bit off for different victory conditions, I have at time taken a bit of a qualitative look, and found that it was generally caused by time taken getting to the domination limit. With the different focus on infrastructure vs military expansion, this is to be expected, however in a lot of cases the differences are huge.

I think thats right, for Domination and conquest your chosen victory condition and optimal growth are essentially the same goal. The difference is probably most marked on a 20K culture win (e.g. temple given higher priority over early granery or settler, and this small initial change will compound over the rest of the game)

Even for domination and conquest the optimum is not always the fastest.
Playing for score is generally different than playing for awards.
Look on the GOTM 34 results. Drazek had an extremely good conquest date, but still lost on the gold because he had a too low Firaxis score.
Or as another example:
I was extremely happy to get my first result better than the Jason best date. Still my score was worse than that of several people with, relative to best date, worse domination/conquest.

With respect to the Jason score, would the bonus be greater for a conquest victory or for a domination victory achieved by the same date, or would they be the same (assuming the civilizations are otherwise identical with respect to land, happy people, etc.)?

The conquest best date is normally later than the domination one - see the online Jason score calculator (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/calculator/index.php). So if the Firaxis scores are equal a conquest victory will score higher than a domination victory on the same date.

The conquest best date is normally later than the domination one - see the online Jason score calculator (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/calculator/index.php). So if the Firaxis scores are equal a conquest victory will score higher than a domination victory on the same date.
Question: Is knowing the best for a current game a spoiler? I have never seen an active game in the drop down. It would be useful to know what the best date for a given victory type when we start a game if that is possible.

Since the formula takes into account the map, the best dates are considered a spoiler. You could conceivably reverse engineer various aspects of the map before playing from the best dates. Like if you would be able to make a Lighthouse crossing or need to wait for Magnetism/Navigation.

Since the formula takes into account the map, the best dates are considered a spoiler. You could conceivably reverse engineer various aspects of the map before playing from the best dates. Like if you would be able to make a Lighthouse crossing or need to wait for Magnetism/Navigation.

... and that's why the Jason dates are now calculated and installed without any intervention by me. Only Ainwood knows the map characteristics until the game is played out. He inputs that information and uploads the save to my online save analysis software - closely related to the code that checks your submissions - and the Jason dates and score are calculated and put directly into the database. That way I can play the games without being spoilt by seeing the factors that calculate our Jason scores.

The conquest best date is normally later than the domination one - see the online Jason score calculator (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/calculator/index.php). So if the Firaxis scores are equal a conquest victory will score higher than a domination victory on the same date.
I was wondering whether I should go for domination or conquest in GOTM35. I think there would be 5-10 turn difference between the two, so I tried the above mentioned calculator with GOTM34. Domination at X is lower score than Conquest at X+5, but Conquest at X+5 is also lower than Conquest at X+10!

This is an interesting anomaly, I think. Is there an intuitive explanation for it?

I used the same Firaxis score (8000), which of course would not be the case, but I did do some calculations and I don't think the Firaxis score will be much different in the three cases.

The calculator first deducts the Firaxis win bonus from your Firaxis score to get your base score. That bonus is equal to (2050 - victory year) x difficulty. So if you give the calculator the same score at turn X and at turn X+5 it will subtract a larger bonus from the X score than from the X+5 score, giving a lower base score. It then adds the turn- and victory-dependent Jason bonuses to these base scores.

To compare like with like you should at least add the Firaxis bonus difference to the X+5 score that you enter. For example, an extra 200 (5 turns x 10 years per turn x 4) would compensate 5 turns in a Monarch game won between 250 AD and 1250 AD. In practice you may be accumulating base score at more or less than 40 per turn so your actual score difference at the two dates would be different again.

HTH

Since the formula takes into account the map, the best dates are considered a spoiler. You could conceivably reverse engineer various aspects of the map before playing from the best dates. Like if you would be able to make a Lighthouse crossing or need to wait for Magnetism/Navigation.
Okay, that makes sense. Thanks.

Is it possible to beat the best dates say using the latest tactic of using chains of suicide galley shuttle units or something else like that?

It's always possible to beat the best dates. That's one of the ways the scores above 10K are achieved. Compare the fastest dates for any of the recent games with the Jason "best date" to see examples. Chained suicide galleys are just a more extreme way of doing it, but by no means the only way.

There are also much more good dominators around than top-notch dairy farmers.Out of curiosity, what does this mean? :confused:

Out of curiosity, what does this mean? :confused:

That means that among those who participates in GOTM, there are more people who can get to domination faster than estimated date than those people who manage to beat the best score out of their game.
This actually means a lot of sense to me, because conquering another rival is more interesting than trying to adjust moods of citizens in all your cities.
Or in other words I guess you can win before estimated date, but still didn't get 10K jason score.
Did I make a proper translation, klarius?

Ahhhh, I see your point solenoozerec!

I think it might be more correct to say that players CHOOSE to finish the game earlier than Milk it to the end! ;)

For example, I'm a "Milker".......However, I've recently returned to GOTM after a 17-month "layoff" at HOF. Because of time constraints, etc, I fast-finished both GOTM34 & COTM4 with an average Jason score of about 11000.

I think my point is that top-notch milkers such as SirPleb & Drazek (See HOF) can also Fast-finish on GOTM! ;)

In other words, top players can win ANY way they want to! :lol:

With GOTM34, I believe I triggered a Domination victory without knowing I would. In COTM04, I carefully monitored the numbers and continually disbanded recently captured, unstrategic cities to remain under the domination limit. I did this for almost 200 years! which got a little boring after a while, lotta micromanaging, but I thought waiting until the very last turn, I would have a high score. I have several questions about what I should have done and how to maximize scores in the future:

1. Firstly, what are the different medals available, can we see the list somewhere? I don't understand all the little icons. :blush: (besides the vic conditions of course)

2. I read above about hitting Dom limits and then proceeding quickly as possible to the victory condidtion. Does that mean Domination should be avoided? I held off to build more happiness improvements in newly captured or newly founded cities. That seems the best to do right? But I eventually won by domination (see below)

3. Losing diplomatically would not yield a high score would it? Not as much as winning I figured, so I did not hold elections figuring I did not want to risk it. However, after myself, the Celts and the Sumerians owned the world, we had peace for around 100 or more years. At that point should I have tried for diplomatic victory by buttering them up and catching them up in techs? (Any ways to get them to like you after being furious the whole game? I maybe didn't always play nice :mischief: ) Would 1944 have given a better score than 1958 or whatever? The earlier the better or should I milk the citizens for happiness and try later? :confused:

4. Culturally speaking, the limits on the F8 screen I surpassed without the game ending. I remember reading about how this would be adjusted. I eventually lapped Ur and was the leading cultural city, not quite at 20K (or whatever it is). The F8 screen said that Civ culture needed to be 100,000, but I remember reading it would actually be 130,000 based on the map size. I went over 130,000 for the Civ, but nothing happened. Then all of a sudden, with the Celts gutting the Sumerians cultural centre and leaving them with the "Tundra Isles", I had a cultural victory without me being prepared. I assume this is because I was now much greater in culture than the other civs, thanks to the Celts. Is that what happened?

I decided that I wanted the domination and reloaded the previous turn (figured with improper limits and not being able to otherwise control when I crossed the threshold and determine my mode of victory) and from there took out most of the Celts cities (save 2) and acheived the domination instead. As, I asking before should I have gone for the domination earlier after all this?

5. Finally, I sat for near 100 years milking and most cities producing Wealth (building up the gold and FT for score). I had over 200 Modern Armour which proved to be just a little shy for eliminating the Celts from the larger continent because it would have taken another turn to enter due to their culture. Should I have anticipated this and instead of Wealth, build more Marines, Bombers, Naval Units, etc.? Should I have placed enough troops around the world to achieve the Conquest in one fell swoop? If so, should I have done this much earlier, and not waited near 100 years? If not, because it was 2005 should I have gone for another victory by this point? I keep in mind that after eliminating a civ that there is no more resistance after the wars are over....everyone would be happy, with the lux increase too. However, I believe a conquest victory is triggered after taking the last city....in that case, there is no next turn is there?

What I am saying, is that I could have had Conquest Victory much earlier......spaceship too!! By like 100 odd years. If I figure enough happy citizens are there, should I have launched either my assault or my ship much earlier?


Thanks in advance to everyone giving whatever advice they can. :goodjob:

1. Firstly, what are the different medals available, can we see the list somewhere? I don't understand all the little icons. :blush: (besides the vic conditions of course)

What a lot of questions!

The medal conditions should show up as tooltips if you move your mouse over them in the results listing. Basically, the medals are for the highest scoring victories - 1st, 2nd, 3rd. The other special icons are for fastest victories. The shields are for lowest scoring wins for different victory conditions. The cow is for the highest base score - usually won by a milked histographic game. The ambulances record highest and lowest scoring defeats.

2. I read above about hitting Dom limits and then proceeding quickly as possible to the victory condidtion. Does that mean Domination should be avoided? I held off to build more happiness improvements in newly captured or newly founded cities. That seems the best to do right? But I eventually won by domination (see below) If you want to win by Domination, don't avoid domination :hmm:. Otherwise, get close to domination as fast as possible to maximise score and then stay just under the limit and go for your chiosen victory condition as fast as possible.

3. Losing diplomatically would not yield a high score would it? Not as much as winning I figured, so I did not hold elections figuring I did not want to risk it. However, after myself, the Celts and the Sumerians owned the world, we had peace for around 100 or more years. At that point should I have tried for diplomatic victory by buttering them up and catching them up in techs? (Any ways to get them to like you after being furious the whole game? I maybe didn't always play nice :mischief: ) Would 1944 have given a better score than 1958 or whatever? The earlier the better or should I milk the citizens for happiness and try later? :confused:
Winning gives you a victory bonus if you do it before 2050 AD. Losing gives no bonus. Losing will score less than winning at a given date. Usually an early win will score higher than a later win for the same victory condition, unless you have reached a very high scoring rate in your game, and are beating the "jason curve".

4. Culturally speaking, the limits on the F8 screen I surpassed without the game ending. I remember reading about how this would be adjusted. I eventually lapped Ur and was the leading cultural city, not quite at 20K (or whatever it is). The F8 screen said that Civ culture needed to be 100,000, but I remember reading it would actually be 130,000 based on the map size. I went over 130,000 for the Civ, but nothing happened. Then all of a sudden, with the Celts gutting the Sumerians cultural centre and leaving them with the "Tundra Isles", I had a cultural victory without me being prepared. I assume this is because I was now much greater in culture than the other civs, thanks to the Celts. Is that what happened? My guess is you achieved more than twice your nearest opponent's culture, which is a second requirement for "100K" culture victory.

I decided that I wanted the domination and reloaded the previous turn (figured with improper limits and not being able to otherwise control when I crossed the threshold and determine my mode of victory) and from there took out most of the Celts cities (save 2) and acheived the domination instead. As, I asking before should I have gone for the domination earlier after all this?Don't reload to change outcomes. And please don't submit two saves for GOTM/COTM.

5. Finally, I sat for near 100 years milking and most cities producing Wealth (building up the gold and FT for score). I had over 200 Modern Armour which proved to be just a little shy for eliminating the Celts from the larger continent because it would have taken another turn to enter due to their culture. Should I have anticipated this and instead of Wealth, build more Marines, Bombers, Naval Units, etc.? Should I have placed enough troops around the world to achieve the Conquest in one fell swoop? If so, should I have done this much earlier, and not waited near 100 years? If not, because it was 2005 should I have gone for another victory by this point? I keep in mind that after eliminating a civ that there is no more resistance after the wars are over....everyone would be happy, with the lux increase too. However, I believe a conquest victory is triggered after taking the last city....in that case, there is no next turn is there? I doubt if a late conquest would score well, but it all depends on how fast your score was increasing. Yes, there is a next turn after a conquest victory. You can play on as sole occupant of a rather boring world.

What I am saying, is that I could have had Conquest Victory much earlier......spaceship too!! By like 100 odd years. If I figure enough happy citizens are there, should I have launched either my assault or my ship much earlier?Then go for the earlier victory. Jason is designed to make milking for score a waste of time in most cases.

Thanks a lot, AlanH

So if I could have had Domination victory back in the 1700s I guess I should have done that then :sad:

Forgot about the doubling of culture requirement, wasn't sure, thanks

Someone else had asked about whether they should have gone for one victory condition at turn N or wait until N+4 for another victory conidition. So basically form you have stated, the better score I want, the early I should finish. Only worry about other victory conditions if that's the one I really want. Yes?

Someone else had asked about whether they should have gone for one victory condition at turn N or wait until N+4 for another victory conidition. So basically form you have stated, the better score I want, the early I should finish. Only worry about other victory conditions if that's the one I really want. Yes? Not necessarily. The victory bonus varies for different victories. Look at the Jason score calculator to see teh "best dates" that are used to calculate the bonuses.

I said you should get to your chosen victory as fast as possible and take it. I didn't say how you choose that victory option. A Conquest victory can be a few turns later than a Domination victory in the same game and still score higher. Space and Diplo victories can be considerably later without penalty, as long as the extra turns are played well. But that last clause is the killer for most players. The later the victory condition you go for, the more turns you have to play at optimum score level. For a middle-rank player it's generally easier to get a high score by finishing as early as possible, and a fast high scoring game is normally won by domination. Hence the skew in the victory conditions you see in the top half of the table.

I was wondering whether it is possible to know the maximum per turn score used to determine the Jason score (just to compare it with my own score and see how well I was doing in milking). In GOTM I had 1272 territory with 1249 happy, 2 content, 3 sad citizens and 545 specialists, which I guess is pretty good (what with 87 cities and the claim that you could only have 1 happy citizen per territory minus the number of cities :confused: ). In fact I did better at the end than the highest scoring milker Ronald, since he only had 1130 happy and 647 specialists (then again he got there much earlier than I did).

Welcome to CFC Celebithil :band:

Have you seen the following calculator on the GOTM site?

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/calculator/index.php

This only gets updated once the current GOTM is completed, so you'll have to be patient and wait a bit if you're talking about GOTM35 or C3C COTM5.

But, how would this be useful, as the current games or not in there? I am assuming there is a way, what is it?

I'm only suggesting that this is useful after you have finished (and everyone else too) to get an idea of how well you scored in your milking. The calculator is deliberately not updated for games that are currently in progress as it is considered a "spoiler".

Well, the number I would like to know is the MaxTurnScore (as in the description to the Jason scores), however this number is not published, and I am unable to see how to calculate it. (it is MaxScore (which is given) / MapModifier (which I don't know)).

Do you know a way to reconstruct this number?

If it's important to you, have a look at how the calculator dates work for older games. Look at the pattern, and it will probably give you a rough ideal of how they'll operate in your current game. If you have played enough of your game to know what kind of map you're on you may be able to find a similar enough previous game to get a good feel for what the dates will be, at least relative to one another.

MaxTurnScore is equal to (4 * total_workable_tiles + total_food)/3.

Where total_food is the food per turn available on the whole map, and total_workable_tiles is the total land and coast tiles on the map.

As indicated in the description, this is derived from:

domination_limit = total_workable_tiles * 2/3
happy_citizens = domination_limit
specialists = (total_food * 2/3 - happy_citizens * 2) / 2

MaxTurnScore = 2 * happy_citizens + domination_limit + 1 * specialists

Do the algebra and you should get to the formula at the top.

For an agricultural civ this value is incremented by (total_workable_tiles * 2/3)/21 to account for the extra food in the city centers.

Welcome to CFC Celebithil :band:

Have you seen the following calculator on the GOTM site?

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/calculator/index.php

This only gets updated once the current GOTM is completed, so you'll have to be patient and wait a bit if you're talking about GOTM35 or C3C COTM5.

Then how are people posting Jason scores in the spoiler threads?

Renata <-- just finished, and curious how her sloppy-but-fun game stacks up

Then how are people posting Jason scores in the spoiler threads?

Renata <-- just finished, and curious how her sloppy-but-fun game stacks up


Apparently you never submited a game before.
Welcome to GOTM/COTM :beer:
Submit it and you will know your score :) Its automatic.
We do not know all these parameters, but Ainwood and server know.

Then how are people posting Jason scores in the spoiler threads?

Renata <-- just finished, and curious how her sloppy-but-fun game stacks up
AlanH's new submission process should send you an email giving you that information. That's how I know, anyway! Did you not get the email?



Apparently you never submited a game before.
Welcome to GOTM/COTM :beer:

She has, but it's been a while, GOTM20!

Ahhhhh, I gettit. Thanks! You're right, Dianthus, we did things differently back in the old days. *cough*

I haven't submitted yet -- finished last night just before bedtime with no energy to figure out the submissions process (not that I'm guessing it's all that hard), and now have to trot off to work. So it'll have to wait until tonight.

And thanks for the welcome (back), Solen. :)

Renata

Hi Renata,

You were here for a while when I first showed up, then you left mysteriously after GOTM 20 :scan: I always wondered if it was something I said :hmm: You're actually still registered as GOTM Staff, I believe, but you haven't shown up there yet :hint:

Yes, I think you'll find the submission process is pretty straightforward. Please tell it you're an existing player - it should remember you :D

Yup, it was the way you said hello. Just freaked me out, I had to get out of there. :)

No, for real, something about installing my cable modem messed up my video card. Or maybe it had nothing to do with the modem and just happened to occur at the same time. At any rate, any game I tried to play after that crashed my computer. I couldn't fix it myself, and without Civ-capability I was useless to the GOTM staff, so I just sort of slunk off in shame. Stupid and obnoxious of me.

But anyway ... yes, I still have forum access! Terrible oversight of Ainwood's really .... ;)

Renata

At any rate, any game I tried to play after that crashed my computer. I couldn't fix it myself,You should have said! We might even have been able to help you to sort it out.

And thanks for the welcome (back), Solen. :)


Oooops :blush:

Don't feel bad about it, solenoozerec. You joined the forums in January, about the same time Renata's computer decided she should leave.

Don't feel bad about it, solenoozerec. You joined the forums in January, about the same time Renata's computer decided she should leave.

Actually, I REGISTERED in January. I JOINED this forum and GOTM only with COTM2.
My guess that she is new for GOTM (though, not new for the forum, 1215 post say about something :) ) was based not on the fact that I haven't seen her before. I have not seen many people who are much longer here.
My wrong assumption was about the current game submission system and Jason score. I thought they existed much longer, so that if someone played once he/she should know about them.





Nothing is happening in this forum. When GOTM36 pre-game discussion will start? Or when COTM5 results will be published? Or, at least, when SirPleb will post his spoiler?

My wrong assumption was about the current game submission system and Jason score. I thought they existed much longerYou weren't in a position to know, but I only unleashed the current submission system in April/May this year. It was one of the things that made it possible to run two games a month. Before that we were running a backlog processing just one game a month.

Nothing is happening in this forum. When GOTM36 pre-game discussion will start? Or when COTM5 results will be published? Or, at least, when SirPleb will post his spoiler?
The GOTM36 pre-game thread will be released around the 10th. COTM 5 results are delayed a day or two by Ainwood's foreign travels. SirPleb decides when he'll publish his spoiler.

SirPleb decides when he'll publish his spoiler.

And this is why it is bothering me :scan::

Haven't written my spoiler yet, probably won't get it finished till at least tomorrow.

It was > 24 hours ago. I hope he is writing. After I read it I will be able to relax for a weekend :beer: and not to think about it.

Nice Avatar, btv. :goodjob: Mistfit.

I have waited until the weekend to take a thorough look at the Jason score formula and explanation, as given on this website. AlanH, the formula you gave is pretty much what is described in the explanation, but it does not take into account the fact that on the city square one cannot have a happy citizen. Furthermore I checked in my savefile, and quite a few sea squares are at unreachable places in the sea, so you cannot have a happy citizen there, and furthermore it makes it hard to get 2/3 of the sea squares in your territory (I didn't by a large margin, but that could be my non-optimal play), so I think your formula comes out a bit large. Is this the real formula used in calculations?

I have also tried to reconstruct my calculations, but my scores just don't seem to add up. If someone could give a sample calculation with actual numbers (such that the result plugged into the calculator returns the same value) I would be much obliged. Right now I can only calculate Jason scores correctly for histographic victories.

The formula I gave is the one that's been used since GOTM 19 ,and is approximate with respect to the city squares, as you say. I guess happy_citizens could be equal to domination_limit * 20/21, but it isn't.

Sea tiles are not included in the total_workable_tiles. It's land plus coast.

Concerning your attempt to reproduce the Jason score for non-histographic victories, I think the page you are looking at, which hasn't been reviewed during my time on the staff, is still giving the old pre-GOTM 19 version. if you view the source of the online calculator page you can see how the calculator does it. Look at the Javascript Recalc() function, which implements both the old and new versions of the Jason formula.

PS. Disclaimer: I'm only reporting the way the Jason calculation works. I didn't invent it and don't profess to understand the "curve". I simply adapted the code to calculate Jason scores on demand in various places - for online submissions, the online calculator and so on. Aeson's your man if you need to know *why* it's the way it is.

AlanH, thanks a lot for your advise to look at te Recalc() function; I don't know that much about computers and did not realise I could do that. Now I can at least calculate the Jasonscore correctly, and I can hence analyse it better.

As for the MaxTurnScore, I think that if you do not take into account the sea-squares, one can beat the MaxTurnScore, by obtaining enough territory in the sea, and working it. This offsets any diminishing of score due to having no happy faces in city-squares easily. One final technical question though, total_food is calculated as all the food on the map, but I guess this is without ocean squares, and perhaps also without sea-squares?

All these technical details have led me at least to an idea to score higher Jason-scores for mediocre players (such as me). The goal is milk the game. For it is much easier to play optimally after you reach the domination limit than before. Since the loss in Basescore you have is averaged over all turns, the longer you play, the bigger the denominator and the lower the actual loss in Jason score. More concretely, in GOTM 34 I should have abandoned my 20k-culture city and sold all my culture buildings and milked to 2050. If I had kept my PerTurn score equal I would have scored 700 Jason points more. On the other hand, if you do well it is probably better to stop quickly and keep the relative high gain. Ronald (the mastermilker in GOTM34) would have scored more points by scoring a conquest victory in 700 AD (which he probably easily could have, since the AI had been down to 1 city for more than 10 turns at that date) and actually have scored a gold!

You are right that sea and ocean squares can contribute food. Whether this makes a big difference depends on the map.

Beating the MaxTurnScore is no problem, if only because of the averaging of food across the map. If you ensure that your territory emphasises the plumpest, juiciest tiles with minimum mountains, tundra, desert or ocean, you can beat the average. And the best milkers do exactly that.

MaxTurnScore only shows up as a normalisation multiplier in the score calculation, and is applied to all players' scores. So it really only provides a + or - 20% method for making comparisons between different games, and has no effect on position within a game. Look for other posts around here where the Jason scoring system has been discussed. I think you'll find that Aeson has said very much the same as you about milking to reduce the effect of a sub-optimal early game. I'm a mediocre player, but I'm also too busy or lazy to play 300 turns of MM to try to improve my score. My score would almost certainly deteriorate if I tried to milk.

Good luck in your quest to beat the curve. ;)