Now I will continue my first my
first spoiler, which ended 1AD two turns before Optics was discovered.
Circumnavigating the World
After discovering Optics (50AD) a Caravel was built in Athens. This Caravel sailed East to find the other continent(s), to contact the other civilizations and last but not least to circumnavigate the Globe to get the movement bonus. While my Caravel was circumnavigating the Globe (finished 720AD) it contacted Bismarck, Montezuma, Isabella and Saladin. It was possible to get Animal Husbandry and Hunting from Bismarck. From other Civs (I don't remember from whom and it is not part of the log file) I could get Archery and Horseback Riding. The last contact (Mao Zedong) was established around 900AD when my Caravel was on its second circumnavigation, this time in the Norther hemisphere and from East to West .
Nevertheless it was possible to research now directly Astronomy, the next researched Technology was Civil Service (175AD). To increase again the output of my "science generating monster" I adopted Bureaucracy two turns (was a mistake) later. To get some Gold by trading I discovered Currency in 275AD. 175AD my third Great Scientist was born in Rome. To start my first Golden Age I needed another Great Person. I got this Great Person, a Great Artist, from Music (325AD) and started my first Golden Age 350AD. With Music the intermezzo ended and I went back to the Astronomy research path. After the discovery of Astronomy (500AD) the first Galleons were built.
Preparing the Great War
The next step was to train the cargo of the Galleons. But what should be the cargo? I decided to try the invasion of the other continents with Cavalry. Cavalry is fast (very important for my strategy) and so strong that I could be sure to have only a few losses. In all the later wars only nine of them were killed. Nationalism (640AD), Paper (680AD), Education (780AD), Gunpowder (840AD) and Military Tradition (960AD) were the next discovered Technologies. To speed-up the training of my Cavalry I started my second Golden Age using three Great People. While this Golden Age was running The Taj Mahal was finished in Neapolis. So I got a 16 turns Golden Age.
In expectation of War Weariness I planned to increase Happiness by different measures. At first I discovered Monarchy (980AD) and improved a Wine tile with a Winery. Then I discovered Drama (1020AD) and built some Theaters. Between Monarchy and Drama I increased the movement on Roads by getting Engineering (1010AD). Later (1120AD) also Notre Dame was built. Also in most of the cities Forges were built. Additional to the 25% production bonus, the Forges gave me two Happy Faces. Now you will say: "Two Happy Faces? How is this possible? There are Gems on the continent, but no Gold and no Silver." You are right and I have to explain it.
Polycrates
In 720AD (it was the only event I protocolled) I got the message that there was Gold discovered somewhere in my empire. Gold can only appear on Hills which have a Mine. So I inspected all my mined Hills until I found the Gold. It was unbelievable: the Gold was on the Gras Hill of the starting position, North of Rome making my monster again stronger.
In this moment I remembered a ballad written by Friedrich Schiller called "The Ring of Polycrates" (you can find an English translation
here). This ballad is about the tyran of Samos, Polycrates, who had so much fortune that the gods became jealous of him. And this had bad consequences for Polycrates. I hope the same will not happen to me.
The Scoring System
Now it's time for a little excursion concerning the scoring system. Most what I write here is well known from other threads, but maybe there are one or two 4otM players who had not read every scoring post. Maybe my summary will help a little bit these players to understand some of my decisions.
There are two different scores: the Game Score and the (Final) Score. For the ranking in the Hall of Fame and also for the ranking of this 4otM - I am sure this will change in the near future - the Final Score counts. Game and Final Score are the sum of differently weighted Population, Land, Technology and Wonders Raw Scores.
The main component of the Final Score - a special thanks goes to Dianthus for his evaluation of the scoring formulas - is coming from Population. In my game 85.2% of the Final Score came from Population, 7.8% from Land, 6.3% from Technology and 0.7% from Wonders. For the Game Score it looks a little bit different (55.6%, 22.0%, 16.1%, 6.3%), but the Game Score counts only for lost or retired games. And I hope that I will never have to submit a lost game.
So you have to focus on the growth of your cities to get a really high Final Score. Land, Technology and Wonders are nice to have, but more or less negligible. For example, in this game at my final turn (205) two cities in resistance (2 Land tiles) with together 20 citizens (contribution to the Final Score: 4477 points) were more worth than 120 Land tiles (1945) + 6 Industrial Technologies (1858) + 10 Wonders (455). I am sure, it is not necessary to say more concerning the scoring dominance of Population.
Another important point is that only the Population, Land, Technology and Wonders at the end of the
last turn count. This is completely different to the Civilization III scoring. In Civilization III counts the
average of the sum of territory, specialists, content and happy (double weighted) citizens at the end of every turn complemeted by a Date Bonus.
Also very important is to know that the Final Score is calculated in the interturn between your winning and the following turn. After clicking the "End Turn" button or pressing <SHIFT-ENTER> all Beakers, Breads, Notes and Hammers are added. If these additions lead to a new Technology, additional Citizen(s), an cultural expansion (additional Land) or the completion of a Wonder then all these additional Population, Land, Technolgy and Wonder(s) are added to the Final Score.
So the value you see at your winning turn behind "Score by winning this turn = " is in nearly all cases not your real Final Score (normally you will have a better result) when you are really winning this turn. In my game there was a significant difference of 11827 points.
Last Point: How you win your game (Histographic, Conquest, Domination, Cultural, Space Race or Diplomatic) is like in Civilization III not relevant for your score. The scoring formulas are always the same and there is no bonus depending on the victory type added.
Consequences from Scoring Dominance of Population
What are the consequences from all this knowledge? Improvements increasing the food output of a tile like Farms and Windmills have the highest priority. Especially in the late game I built them always. In the whole game I built only one Workshop and never a Cottage. And at 1130AD I started to replace most of the Plantations and Mines by Farms and Windmills (at least one of every resource type was not farmed or windmilled to get the Health or Happiness bonus). Also most (as many as possible) of the Cottages, Hamlets, Villages and Towns built by the AIs were replaced by Farms.
1130AD was not a random date, it was the date I discovered Biology. Biology is the Population (and so also the score) booster of the game especially together with Granaries. Some of you will say: "Biology adds only one Bread to every Farm tile. I can not believe that this makes a big difference." But it is. I will explain it with the following example. You have a city with a Population of fourteen and a Granary. The city growed the turn before and there was no overflow. So 24 Breads are needed to get the next citizen. There are irrigated Farms on at least fourteen city squares. These fourteen tiles produce 32 Breads (e.g. four Gras tiles and ten Plain tiles). Together with two "City Breads" the city is producing 34 Breads and consuming 28 Breads. Without Biology the city needs 4 turns to grow. With Biology the city is producing 48 Breads. Because the consumption is the same, now the surplus is 20. So in this case only 1.2 turns are needed. In result the city will grow more than three times faster with Biology than without.
But this is only one side of the medal. More important is the other side. With Biology it is possible to support significantly more Citizens. In the best case (20 irrigated Farm tiles) it is possible to support ten additional Citizens. These ten Citizens are more worth than 60 Land tiles + 3 Industrial Technologies + 5 Wonders (see above). And this is only the contribution of one city.
Boosting Population
But now back to the game: Everyone should understand that Biology was my next research target. I needed Printing Press, Chemistry and Scientific Method to reach this target. So the next technology to research was Printing Press (discovered 1040AD). Because Chemistry obsoletes The Parthenon, I researched this technology only until one turn was necessary to get it, switched then to Liberalism and did the same. Then I researched Scientific Method until it was possible to finish it with a Great Scientist, went back to Chemistry, discovered it in 1110AD. In the same turn I used the Great Scientist to get Scientific Method. The next step was Liberalism (discovered in 1120AD). My choice of Free Technology was - what a surprise - Biology (1130AD).
Final Wars
In 1110AD the invasion of the 4 civilizations continent started with a war against the Germans. I fought only against Warriors, Archers and Axemen. Eight turns later the German civilization had been destroyed. To destroy also the Aztecs I needed only five turns (1200AD - 1240AD). The Spanish war started in 1250AD and the Arabian one in 1300AD while the Spanish war was still running. Spain was destroyed in 1330AD and Arabia in 1380AD. While this wars I destroyed a lot - but not enough - of small AI cities without a big growing potential to prevent an early Domination Victory. The attack on China came too late (1440AD) to result in a significant improvement of the score.
While war was going on, I discovered Feudalism (1130AD), Guilds (1150AD), Banking (1160AD), Economics (1190AD) Communism (1230AD), Replaceable Parts (1280AD), Physics (1340AD), Divine Right (1350AD), Electricity (1370AD) and Rifling (1450AD). Most of these Technologies were only discovered to get some more points for the Final Score. Only Communism gave additional profit: In 1240AD I adopted State Property to reduce the amount of Distance Maintenance to zero.
End of the Game
To take the most possible advantage of the Population increase initiated by The Hanging Gardens, it is necessary to finish this Wonder in the last turn. In my test game the AI finished The Hanging Gardens in 1540AD. Because at 1380AD only one opponent - China - was alive, I believe it was a calculated risk to wait. So I build The Hanging Gardens in Athens until only one turn was necessary to complete it. Then I started to build something else (don't remember what). The Hanging Gardens trick works only on lower levels (Settler . . . Noble). Also in a future scoring system, when maybe the average will count, the trick will make no sense anymore.
In 1450AD when it was clear that the game will end with this turn, I finished The Hanging Gardens and set Culture to 100%. The high Culture value lead to an expansion of the borders of 12 cities. So in the last interturn the population increased from 454 to 500 and the number of Land tiles from 549 to 632. With the new patch v1.52 the "culture trick" will not work anymore.
Game Analysis
In the retrospective view it was a mistake to use Cavalry for the invasion of the two other continents. I lost too much time until they were available. Knights would have done the job in the same manner and later it is possible to upgrade them to Cavalry. The better strategy seems to be to occupy around 50% of the world (more can end in an unexpected Domination Victory) before Biology is discovered. Then after around 20 peaceful turns (used to boost your Population) you have to get the last AI cities as fast as possible. Please notice that this is only a strategy to get a high score, it is not a strategy to win an award. Also this strategy fits only with the actual scoring system.
Another mistake in my game was the conquest succession. To start with Germany was o.k. But then Spain, Arabia and Aztecs had to follow. With this succession I would have had my troops very close to the last enemy. With the chosen strategy there was a peaceful break of six turns. This time was needed to transfer my Cavalry from the former Arabia to China. So when I started the Chinese war, the resistance in the Arabian cities was ending, the borders were expanding and catapulted me over the Domination limit.
Next time I will do it better.
Result: Domination Victory in 1450AD with a Game Score of 6556 and a Final Score of 130454.