Aspiring Quartermaster

[SpiffyKeen7744]

I have an update on my Huge Emperor Milk game. I am at 1485 AD with about 250 turns left. Currently I am gaining 120 points per turn, and it has been going up a point every other turn or so. My score right now is 10,738. At this rate I should get another 250*120=30,000 points before the end. I have Sanitation and have 3 techs before Mass Produciton. I have rushed aquaducts in most cities that need them, and once I get to Mass Production, I should be able to rush stuff faster with a higher tax rate.

Should I keep researching to the Modern Age, or should I stop at Mass Production? Will Longevity help me this late in the game? If I do research Genetics, it will take at minimum 40 turns (10 techs). With a prebuild I can build it right away, then I can destroy the city later. Building it up again by joining workers should take only 2-3 turns.

 

[Tone]

As I've said before, I'm no expert at this but surely Ecology is a must for Mass Transits. They reduce pollution in metros by a significant factor.

BTW Sir Pleb produced a utility for predicting the final score. It's here if you want to take a look.

 

[sanabas]

~27k using back of the envelope, because I'm too lazy to download a utility that can be duplicated with a few presses of calculator buttons. You might encounter a problem, because the huge emperor and huge monarch histo tables are two of the more competitive ones. Even if you pick your score up a bit, you'll likely finish 9th in the table, which means you could lose it as a histo score after two more entries from others.

 

[Bartleby]

Longevity has been discussed a couple of times in the HoF forum, IIRC the conclusion is that if your population is maxed, Longevity will be marginally detrimental to your score; but it's a very small effect.
Unless you love pollution, I'd say follow Tone's advice and research up to Mass Trans.

 

[SpiffyKeen7744]

Tone, thanks for the link. I tried SirPleb's tool, and I got just under 27k (like you said sanabas). However, I am not even close to my max population right now.

Thanks for the thoughts about Longevity. I agree, and I think I will stop at Mass Production, that is, unless Mass Transit systems are not enough to help with pollution. If I push science, I will not be able to rush as many hospitals. My guess is that I'll get more points if I can get cities over size 12 right away. To achieve the faster growth that Longevity would have given, I can join slaves in the 1600s or 1700s.

By the way, sanabas, are you suggesting that a game has to be in the histographic tables to be part of the Quartermaster's Challenge?

 

[Tone]

Sounds like 30K is quite possible then.

One of us is confused (and it may be me). Mass Transit Systems do help massively with pollution. IIRC they reduce the pollution to level 1, assuming that you have no pollution buildings such as factories.

It seems like a long time ago now but in my milk game, I think that I was getting around 12-15 polluted tiles/turn before Mass Transits. After they had been built, I was getting around 3 tiles/turn. This meant that I needed less workers, my score/turn was higher as more tiles were getting used and my sanity was much healthier. Even with CAII's ability to direct me to the pollution, it was a very tedious time in the game and I couldn't wait to get them built in every metro I had.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I think that for the QM, you just have to submit a histographic win.

 

[sanabas]

By the way, sanabas, are you suggesting that a game has to be in the histographic tables to be part of the Quartermaster's Challenge?

Sure am. The only games that qualify for any part of the QM challenge are those that are in the top 10 for their table. It's the reason a couple of people have dropped off the QM list.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I don't think that is true, sanabas, at least not for the Histographic.

In order to complete the full Quartermaster's Challenge a player must complete a Histographic win as well as the Machiavelli, Octathlon and Pentathlon events

These are the lists of games:

http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ3/histographic.php

At the bottom of the page, there is this line:

*Completing a Histographic 2050 AD win completes one Quartile of the Quartermaster's Challenge.*

Can someone from the Hall comment?

 

[sanabas]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=122764&highlight=histographic

 

[sanabas]

And more explicitly: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2646621&postcount=24

 

[AutomatedTeller]

thanks, sanabas. That pretty much directly contradicts my understanding of the rules - from the rules site, you just have to submit a histographic game. Glad to find out that I was wrong!

Interestingly, the only map sizes for histographic that are full are huge ones, at regent, monarch and emperor.

Most of the rest are not even 1/2 full.

 

[Tone]

I never knew this. That means with only a number 8 slot my meteoric rise up the QM table could be shortlived.

Oh well, maybe I need to do that Deity milkrun that I've been threatening.

 

[SpiffyKeen7744]

Thanks everyone for the information. Sorry for the confusion the other day. I though for sure that Mass Transit System was available with Mass Production.

Time for another update! I am up to 1685AD, one tile away from the domination limit. I just researched Ecology thanks to TOE. I have sold off all culture causing improvements. Research is down to 0%. I should be getting around 3,000 gpt for rushes.

My score is at 15,940, up 137 since last turn. My score increase has been going up, and I still have many more hospitals to build. Current projection suggests that I can get (540-327)*137=29,181 more points plus or minus a couple thousand... I guess... As soon as my population hits its max, it will be easier to predict my final score.

Most of my core has hospitals:

The rest of my empire doesn't yet:

Oh, and I thought you would like to see the Persians. I have had so much trouble against them in past games that I rejoyced when they fell far behind in research in this one. Only in the last few years did the Persians get into the Middle Ages.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

looking good!! tone - just do a run on a smaller map - most of those aren't full, at all.

 

[superslug]

Longevity has been discussed a couple of times in the HoF forum, IIRC the conclusion is that if your population is maxed, Longevity will be marginally detrimental to your score; but it's a very small effect.

It's more accurate to say that Longevity is good to grow your pop to the max. It's keeping it around at max pop that hurts....

 

[sanabas]

My score is at 15,940, up 137 since last turn. My score increase has been going up, and I still have many more hospitals to build. Current projection suggests that I can get (540-327)*137=29,181 more points plus or minus a couple thousand... I guess... As soon as my population hits its max, it will be easier to predict my final score.

213*137 isn't a good estimate at all. Your internal score for last turn is 60602. You still have more pop to add, so if you assume you'll average 65k per turn until the end, your final score will be ~35k.

 

[SpiffyKeen7744]

That is a much more accurate way to look at it, and "internal score" is a good term for that hidden value. So, there is "internal score," "total sum," "average score," "internal score increase per turn," "total sum increase per turn," and "average score increase per turn." The score used by the game is the "average score" on the last turn. Alright! Not too hard to visualize at all!

You said that my "internal score" last turn was 60,602. I calculate for next turn:
"average score increase per turn" = 137, just like last turn
"average score" = 15,940+137 = 16,077
"total sum" = 16,077*328 = 5,273,256
To achieve that increase of 137, my internal score needs to add the average score more to the total sum plus enough to add 137 points over 328 turns:
"internal score" = 15,940+137*328 = 60,876
after that
"internal score" = 16,077+137*329 = 61,150

That means my internal score is going up 274 points per turn. That is a lot of points per turn. Even if I rush marketplaces that increase in happiness, it cannot make that much of a difference. Oh, wait, Emperor has a x5 factor involved. That makes a little bit more sense. That means only 55 points worth of citizens.

Alright, so I am getting 274 points per turn added on to my internal score of around 61k. You assume that I might average 65k for the final 213 turns. What ever the highest internal score is, I can try to get a feel for how high I need to go in order to pass certain histographic rankings. But in the end, it is very hard to estimate how many more citizens I can get.

Thanks sanabas.

 

[zerksees]

Sure am. The only games that qualify for any part of the QM challenge are those that are in the top 10 for their table. It's the reason a couple of people have dropped off the QM list.

Looks like if I finish my huge emperor it will be 10th and in very large danger of dropping off.

 

[SpiffyKeen7744]

Well, my milk game is done. I am starting to hate pollution. It might be a while before I try one of these again.

My internal score at the end was right around 77k, and my final score was 39,144. I did not quite make it to 40k, but this should be enough for a few months (then I will try a Deity game).

Next on my list is... Large Demigod Spaceship. Maybe I'll try another Gauntlet game first.

@zerksees - Let's hope that our games are the only Huge Emperor Histograhpic ones for a while.