Aaaarrgghhh!! Always "Dan Quayle"?!?!

[Belfran]

Please help, fellow dictators, queens, and prime ministers!!!

I'm new to the Civ series, and after reading and asking a lot on these forums I started to win my games (albeit on Warlord difficulty).

The plan was to play Warlord until I had a good grip on the mechanics and then "upgrade" to Noble. The plan was going well: I've won in almost every victory condition (Conquest, Time, Space Race and Diplomatic), but I noticed I've never won in anything over "Dan Quayle"!!! Ugh!! What, o what am I doing wrong?!? Being "Dan Quayle" I won't go to Noble, I'll get my arse handed back to me in shreds!

Oh I play either Terra or Continents map. Standard size, medium sea level and Warlord difficulty.

Help!

 

[Byrath]

I have no idea why you are getting that ranking at the end of your games, but if you are winning consistantly, go on and try the next difficulty level. The levels are graduated quite well, and you should be able to compete well at the Noble right now, if not win all your games there too!

 

[spiceant]

dont try to click the end turn button but work toward the moment where you'll have to, do everthing as good as possible, reconsidder a lot of things.
On the lower difficultys your score depends on how efficïently you win, dont slug around and leave that worker on sleep mode just because you'll win anyway.

 

[TheBB]

It's not Dan Quayle or not Dan Quayle which determines whether or not you should move up a difficulty. If you're winning, do it.

I like to play on the level just above the one where I can win comfortably. Actually, most of the time I lose.

 

[PekkaM]

The score depends heavily on the time it took to win. It seems that time/late spaceship victory on noble is guaranteed to give me the third leader from the bottom end.

Pre patched I played a noble level duel map game with romans and one competitor. I won it quite early by conquest and got some 60000 points and the highest leader comparision

 

[Aldor]

Hehe, the first game I actually finished (chieftain level) was also the one with the highest score: won a cultural victory and was ranked equal to Shaka Zulu

Since then, I'm playing on warlord, but the score and ranking have gone down

 

[Gufnork]

Well, since the patch the score is effected by difficulty. The score for Noble has probably not changed, but diffs lower than that probably gets a penalty and higher get a bonus.

 

[vinstafresh]

You'll have to have a big margin between you and the number 2. You'll get that margin by conquering, since landmass is still a big variable in the score. Since I'm getting into wars more often, I'm getting higher scores and better results (like a cultural win in 1950 on Noble, small pangaea).

 

[DaveMcW]

Score is mostly based on population. To maximize score, have lots of cities with lots of people (unhappy citizens count!).

 

[vmxa]

Domination is a great way to be Augustus. Also AW got me top ranking.

 

[eSnaffu]

I feel your pain.. I finally finished a game on a Huge map through Domination, on Noble difficulty. I was quite disappointed to be compared to Dan Quayle; even more disappointed when I noticed that my point total in the leadership board had been chopped by more than half of what it had been when I ended the game. *sigh* If pre-patch it was based on time spent, I can see why I scored so low. . . Let's just say I had a *lot* of future techs by the time I finally reached 65% of the world's land. (Especially considering that it was a map of lots of small islands... *really* a pain to get 'land' since most of my cultural boundries had a lot of ocean in them ...!!)
-eSnaffu

 

[jeremiahrounds]

darn it! Those bastards compared you to a former senator and vice-president. Thats just rude!

No i get you i was just making a chuckle.

 

[Duelingground]

Since I'm getting into wars more often, I'm getting higher scores and better results

Agreed.

I've won Cultural and Diplo games, and never finished better than Quayle, or the next one up.

Just finished my first pure warmonger game, for a Domination victory, and got the Augustus ranking.

 

[Grand Fromage]

The score rankings favor aggression early and often. The only time I've been anywhere beyond the bottom of the list was on a tiny game against three AIs, where I spent all of my time producing massive amounts of military units and pounding them relentlessly, trying to get a domination victory as fast as possible.

 

[anton_z1]

All the games i played on emperor (and won by domination) awarded me the best number 1 ranking (even throught i have around 20k socre).

Also population is the key.

 

[MyOtherName]

My first game was a diplomatic win on noble, and I got the Augustus Caesar ranking. It was a relatively peaceful one -- I took out the civ sharing my continent, and was peaceful the rest of the way through. (I might not have even built any military units after my initial conquest!) All my wins have been peaceful-like: cultural, diplomatic, and spaceship, and I've gotten several Augustus Caesar victores on noble, and one on monarch so far. (At least I think my spaceship win on monarch was Augustus Caesar-level: if not, it was close)

In fact, as a whole, I'm quite puzzled by how much military everybody suggests building in Civ 4, because I tend to build far less, tend to let it get out of date, and never have any problems with my neighbors.

P.S. once you've figured out how things work, playing a tougher game will probably help you improve better, even if you lose some. (Probably especially if you lose some)

 

[Chieftess]

The highest I've gotten was Hammurabi. Go attack a few civs, and early.

 

[Harry_P]

Having just finished a game on Noble where I got Augustus Caesar I can say pretty confidently that land mass and population isn't the biggest variable. It seems to me that the biggest variabe for end of game score is time. If you can finish the game off in the early 1800s you're almost guaranteed a good final score. I've picked up the top score with cultural victories with only a 9 city empire. I'm convinced the key indicator is time left in the game.

 

[cfcsvanberg]

But but but... then we get punished for a desire to keep playing the game. How silly.

 

[Harry_P]

Not exactly. You can always play the game after the victory if you like. You get punished scoewise for taking longer to win than someone else, doesn't seem silly to me.