GOTM-1: Closing Spoiler

[Roland Ehnström]

I just won a 63000 points domination victory in the 1750s.

Congratulations on a great score!

What I find interesting is that your game scored 63000 points for a Domination victory in 1750 AD, when my game scored 62000 points for a Domination victory in 1510 AD! I thought it was common knowledge that the victory bonus was so big in Civ4 that an early victory would ALWAYS score more points than a later one (as long as it's not just a couple of turns later). I thought the "milking" we saw in Civ3, where a 2050 AD win could (and often would) score higher than a 1000 AD win, was gone. Your game suggests that it's possible to milk the game for score in Civ4 too, and that is very important knowledge for GOTM players. Would love to hear a word from a more experienced civ fanatic about this.

-- Roland

 

[Shillen]

Yeah there is still milking, but not until 2050AD. You'll notice if you wage a war and capture a ton of land that your score will continue to rise afterwards as you grow those cities out. But eventually it will start dropping once the cities start growing more slowly.

 

[AlanH]

It depends what you mean by milking. There's no cumulative scoring in Civ4, your score is based purely on what you have at the end date. A high score depends critically on your base score, where it came from (pop, land, techs, wonders), and how soon you achieved it.

Victory bonus is complicated. The game defines a set of "max scores" for each score component - pop, land, techs and wonders, and defines a curve up which it expects a player to move during the game to reach that score. Your victory bonuses are related to the ratio by which you exceed the expected score curve at the victory date.

The curves are exponential for all components except culture/wonders, so if you can get above the curve and win early in the game your victory bonus can be very high. The way the four components are weighted, population is the most important value to focus on.

 

[Roland Ehnström]

Yes, it definately seems that population is more important in Civ4 than in Civ3. Definately a mistake by me not to focus on population.

Land area should of course be equal between my game and autopsy-turvey's, since we both won by domination. Wonders doesn't seem to be that important, but it doesn't hurt building them in cities that can't build anything more useful at the time (rather than switching over these cities to wealth). Tech is interesting - I am wondering how fast you would need to research in order for the increasing tech bonus to offset the decreasing time bonus (so to speak)... I also wonder if it's perhaps NOT adviseable to ever turn off research in Civ4, even if it would slow down the conquest by a few turns?

I would guess a sound strategy for a high score would be a variant of the Civ3 milking. Like in Civ3 you should first focus on taking enough land to get close to the domination limit, but not over the limit. Then you should switch focus completely, and do everything to grow your population in the captured cities, while also researching as many techs as possible. Finally, as soon as the city-growth starts to stagnate, you should finish the game by taking the remaining land needed for the domination victory. I think doing this could perhaps have increased my 62K points for a 1510 AD domination into 70K+ for a 16xx AD domination, because when I finished the game I had a lot of cities with a BIG potential to grow rapidly. I also had quite a lot of gold, so I would have been able to research at close to 100% rate for several turns. What do you think?

-- Roland

 

[Shillen]

I think doing this could perhaps have increased my 62K points for a 1510 AD domination into 70K+ for a 16xx AD domination, because when I finished the game I had a lot of cities with a BIG potential to grow rapidly. I also had quite a lot of gold, so I would have been able to research at close to 100% rate for several turns. What do you think?

I think it would have increased your score for sure. But it would not have been an indication of skilled play, IMO. I value early finishes 100x more than exploiting the built-in scoring system.

 

[Roland Ehnström]

I guess that would depend on what your goal for the game is. I wouldn't say it always takes more skill to finish early than to get a maximum score. I mean, if your goal for the game is maximum points, then it's obvious that more points = more skill. Points is the very definition of skill in this case. But if your goal is an early win, then this does not necessarily hold true.

In the case of my game, my goal was early win, but this was because I thought that this would ALSO maximize my score. The result was a pretty early win, but far from a perfect score. If this was a result of a lack of skill is an open question.

-- Roland

 

[Dynamic]

Yes, it definately seems that population is more important in Civ4 than in Civ3. Definately a mistake by me not to focus on population.

Yes, It must be so. In 1565AD (next turn after victory) I have:
2824 from population (387/685)
1306 from land (573/877)
1006 from technology (151/300)
413 from wonders (95/230)
Total Score = 5549

I expect to get a little bit more points by founding new city but forget about 2 tiles limit from othe city.

I discovered Biology several turns before finish and got additional food on the farms so some of my cities have time to grow. So even with low amount of wonders I got more points (81K+) with later victory.

But other way to increase the score is fast capturing many big cities while they are in resistance and have small borders. By this way we can greatly increase our population within the domination limit.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

But other way to increase the score is fast capturing many big cities while they are in resistance and have small borders. By this way we can greatly increase our population within the domination limit.

I suspect that this one is going to be a huge factor in future games unless we change the scoring system. Taking a ton of large cities in the last few turns of the game could send the score through the roof.

 

[hendrikszoon]

I just noted that Dynamic and hendrikszoon have submitted their games. I wonder if we will see a summary of a pre-1000ad victory soon...

I was also not able to beat your date. I finished by mistake winning a Domination Victory in 1450AD with 130k. My plan was to go for a Conquest Victory which I estimated for 1500AD. But I couldn't stop the expansion initiated by two Arabian Academies.

 

[Soul oWar]

Not in subject to the closing spoiler but about the 40ish turn after astronomy.

I just played a game on prince continent, epic, me random (egypt) and 6 random ai. Ended up 3ai on each continent and me on one of the overpopulated continent.

Perse Russian and roman (hehe) got wiped in that order (was running 10research... but was still ahead when I met the othe peaceful continent(english french and american... haha)

Well all this to say that even badly prepared it took me exactly 40turn to get domination.

But my guess is that it's map depedent... I mean you start on a cotinent and have no contact before caravel and you have only 25%land.. good luck in 40turn...

 

[dr_strangelove]

well, this was may first gotm, first game on noble (and i'm playing since civ1 ).
i played just fine along, but did not focus on wonders (built only few), gp (only 5 or 6, and 2 of them through first-tech), no stone/marble .
finished alexander ~1100AD, then focused on tech-lead, which was pretty easy. after playing until middle of 18 century i decided that i will go for ss, mao in my back. in 1920 i declarad war on mao, because i felt he was to strong, took beijing and bombed him into stoneage, razed a few of his cities, made peace and went for the ss, which i finished in 1976.
a few rounds before my ss, isabella declared war on salladin (i waited so long for a war on this continent) - so i gave salladin some techs (demo, steel, edu), isa too, gave bismarck same techs expt steel to declare war on isa and monty same techs to declare war on bismarck , so i had noting to fear and so i won

the game went well, was pretty easy for me, but i didnt get a nice score, only 8458.

and a big thank you for the gotm-feature!

 

[bradleyfeanor]

I was also not able to beat your date. I finished by mistake winning a Domination Victory in 1450AD with 130k. My plan was to go for a Conquest Victory which I estimated for 1500AD. But I couldn't stop the expansion initiated by two Arabian Academies.

Only barely after me, and it sounds like you could have finished significantly earlier if you had been going for domination! And I'll just bet, like Dynamic, this was your first complete game. Even so, your score absolutely demolished mine. Great game as usual hendrikszoon!

 

[RoddyVR]

took out alex early. started too early actualy, he took back one of his cities before more reinforcement praets kicked him back.
then realized that i was on a continent of my own. (hadnt seen "behind" alex, was hoping there was more to the continent).
went for heavy tech, took a couple barb cities (both before and after alexes death).
got all 3 late religeons: taoism (researched), christianity (from oracle) and islam. had all 3 in every one of my 15 cities, and was able to spread christianity to china and germany. they were my friends after that. the others didnt like me much, but i didnt care.
tried a quick war against spain to try to take the jewish holy city, but didnt get anywhere, she beat me back, i lost all my experienced praets there.
after that i just spent the time building my cities up and getting ahead in tech.
after my second great prophet, i dont think i ever went below 90% tech research.
by the time i got to scientific method (grated i took it realy late to keep the monastaries working longer) i was at 100% sci and making over 100 gold a turn.

i should have beelined for the UN thing, but took my time, started a needless war against the aztec (artilery and tanks attacking longbowmen and a few of the first gun units), built the UN and won it on the first vote by a wide margin (i had 350+ of the required 500 votes myself, and china and germany both voted for me).
got diplomatic victory in 1884 with a score of 27077. (in game score was high 5k i think)

 

[Harok]

Well after lurking here for the past year and a half I finally registered so I could play this GOTM.

Victory: Culture 1920
Game Score: 3623
Final Score: 14145

My initial plan was for an early domination victory. Once I realized this would require a lot of overseas warfare which is something I feel I am weak at I changed direction and decided to go for a cultural victory. I still wanted the entire island for myself so I declared war on Alex in 600 BC a little before I was ready but his worker was trying to finish hooking up horses right where I could attack him. I hate AI pillaging with horses so I attacked the worker before he could finish. I took Sparta in 375 BC and went on to finish off all of Alex's cities by 325 AD with only the loss of a few Praets.

Alex had founded Buddhism while Isa founded Judaism and Hinduism. I founded all the others and worked hard to spread them around to as many cities as I could for the Cathedrals. After meeting everyone else I pushed hard to get Bismark and China converted to Buddhism so I would have a couple of friends that would sign defensive pacts with me to deter the others from attacking me once I started falling behind in military techs pushing for the culture win.

I did a poor job of selecting my city to push for GP and ended up with only 4 artists to use at the end. I think I had one early also that I joined to a city. Everything went smooth until 1898 when one of my buddies Mao declared war on my other buddy Bismark, which resulted in me declaring war on Mao. He sent a few ships my way with troops but they were easily dispatched.

In 1920 I used my Great Artists 3 to 1 city and 1 to another to move them both over 50k culture. Rome had hit the 50K mark several turns earlier.

I felt I could have finished many turns sooner if I had gone for a cultural victory from the start instead of switching and also if I had done a better job of selecting my GP city but overall things went pretty well.

 

[Kuranes]

Victory: Domination 1860
Game Score: 5328
Final Score: 34295
Time: 14hrs, 15 mins

Seeing that my unique units were the uber-Praetorians, I went aggressive. I found the iron quickly enough to outmilitarize the Greeks. Had a bit of trouble holding one city but just went around it for the capital and conquered the civ entirely in 225BC. My leftover troops were great for keeping barbarians at bay.

I somehow "saw" China without actually ever seeing them or getting religion. No idea what happened there, but I found the main other continent around 1100AD. The Aztecs were kind enough to let me scout their territory which was full of German cities, but no Germans to be seen. I figured the Aztecs must be weak after conquering the Germans, so I rushed to Astronomy to get a bunch of troops over. The brief Roman-Aztec war lasted from 1450AD-1595AD. I still have a taste for corn and beans.

It took awhile to digest two more civs worth of cities, and by then I had so much land a Domination victory was clearly in the works. Spain was next on the chopping block with the war starting at 1685AD. The game ground down at this point to inevitability, but it took quite awhile to get the Spanish under control until I finally took enough land to win in 1860.

The Praetorians 0wn. I was taking cities with them as late as 1800. Cannons rule, too. I also learned the joys of Drama. Assimilating captured cities is so much easier with your culture rate at 20%. No need to build anything, just wait for the money to buy their hearts and minds.

 

[nikopol]

SS-victory in 1967 (i think, from memory), Score: 14600.

This was the first C-IV i finished and the 2nd I started, so I experimented quite a bit. Waged war on the Greeks too late, from 1000 AD until 13-something. Didn't expand after that, intended Diplomatic Victory, but failed miserably to get the votes together. In the tech-race, I went for the entertainment-wonders Broadway, Hollywood and Rock'n Roll to find out how they worked, developed Biology too late.

Lessons: There's no business like religion, beats even show-business, but you have to roll out early, because of the time-limit on monasteries, the limit on missionaries and AI-civs at war picking the Theology-civic. (Got Christianity first, missionarised Mao, Bismark and Montezuma.)

I am still confused about the happiness and health-system, it's not easy to keep track of those, will have to try the log-mod which signals city-growth at the least.

 

[Dynamic]

I was also not able to beat your date. I finished by mistake winning a Domination Victory in 1450AD with 130k. My plan was to go for a Conquest Victory which I estimated for 1500AD. But I couldn't stop the expansion initiated by two Arabian Academies.

Congratulations!
Can you post details of your score like I did?
It's very interesting for me what is the main part of your great score!?
I think I could easily reach 100K if I replay the game but 130K is beyond my understanding for now.

 

[Nichelle]

Well....I've never been a good warmongerer ....
so I thought I would try to do a domination victory .....
when I realized it was 1300AD and I had just killed Greece ....
well...I decided to just kill everyone since they just weren't following my plan .....
then the opportunity came up for the UN....I wasn't gonna let them get a diplo vict on me before I could kill them all
let's see....waaaay ahead in tech,no chance of any of them getting a space victory,it's now middle 1800's (I think)......

Here is the new plan....go for time victory and conquest on the last turn and kick off domination in the last turn , unfortunately the timing on UN voting (am I correct that it seemed to be every 4 turns?) didn't allow for a diplo vic too.

In the end, time victory-did kill everyone-missed domination by (I think) 0.4%-was the secretary general but no appropriate vote....score 6952 (again I think, I can never remember which number it is).

At least I was able to adapt and get a rather creative victory.....

It shows what I already know....make sure and have a victory condition and stick with it no matter what.

(or get as many conditions as one can )


Thanks guys for a great game and getting the game out as quick as you did after the game was released and patched!!!!

 

[hendrikszoon]

Congratulations!
Can you post details of your score like I did?
It's very interesting for me what is the main part of your great score!?
I think I could easily reach 100K if I replay the game but 130K is beyond my understanding for now.

Here are the details of my score (turn after victory):

3649 from Population (500/685)
1441 from Land (632/877)
1053 from Technology (158/300)
413 from Wonders (95/230)
-----------------------
Total Score = 6556
Score by winning this turn = 128612

My real Final Score is not 128612, it is 130454. The difference is easy to explain: 128612 would be the result if I had won the game 1460AD, but I won 1450AD. To list the dates of 1450AD makes no sense, because for the calculation of the Final Score also all increases of the interturn from 1450AD to 1460AD are added. In my case it is a lot.

Using the detailed Event Log I am writing an extensive spoiler. It seems that this spoiler will comprise more text than the sum of all my COTM spoilers.

 

[Dynamic]

Using the detailed Event Log I am writing an extensive spoiler. It seems that this spoiler will comprise more text than the sum of all my COTM spoilers.

Very good!

P.S.
Now I can see your leading in population 500/685 (I have 387) - great growth speed!
and Borders Expansion trick - 632/877 (I have 573).