Finishing the game early = stupid?

[Cyrik]

i finished my game very early bécouse i was at war every round. the only thing that gave me a short stop was the amarican towns changing back to amarica all the time
so my question is: is it stupid to finish the game early in the GOTM? you could as well wait 500 years longer or something and get far more points, thus win the GOTM....

 

[Matrix]

I haven't really figured out yet how the scoring system works exactly. If your score just keeps on growing in time than it's not a good scoring system im my opinion. Anyone else figured out how it works?

 

[Cyrik]

the score you get is the landmass you have + the special units(workers, army and so on). that score is taken for every round the middel fo it(don´t know the word in english*G*) is the actual score you get. so the longer you play the biger your score is.
well atleast thats how i understand it...
theres also the possiblity that your final score is the "real" score and the the middel, couse in the end my score juped up like **** i think.. not sure

 

[noughmaster]

I've just got Civ3 and played my first game.
The score is the average over all turns so far of a number which is calculated using territory, population and future tech.
Being the average does not solve the problem of the Civ2 score, which was: the longer you play, the better your score.
This was why the GOTM for Civ2 modifies the score for time.

It will be even more of a problem in Civ3: just leave 1 city and make future tech for 50 turns and your score will grow a lot.
The GOTM score for Civ3 needs to do the same thing. Because the territory factor in the game score helps early conquerors, I think the original GOTM = score/200 * 50^pnp will be better than the new Civ2 GOTM formula of GOTM = sqrt(score) * 50^pnp.

Ironically, I think it's easier to win the GOTM on Civ3 by early conquest, then building for about 20 or 30 turns (if we use the time based formula). This strategy can get a decent score in Civ2 GOTM with the sqrt formula, but it won't ever win.

The farmers won't have it all their own way anymore.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

There are only two factors:

Time bonus, which is only a factor in very early wins, as the bonus drops dramatically when the ADs are entered. Thus, the time bonus effectively only applies to conquest victories.

Aside from time bonus, territory is about 85 - 90% of the scoring calculation. Thus, an OCC win will never score many points. The point system is biased so heavily in favor of territory that all other factors are negligible. If you have a small empire, but launch a spaceship in 1800, there is no way you will have a higher score than someone with a large empire who launches in 2049. The 1800 launch is much more impressive, but the larger empire will always have the higher score. This applies to the other victory conditions as well.