GOTM 16 Results & Congratulations

[ainwood]

Even after a year, I'm still coming to grips with what is a "good score" and what is a "close race" in terms of the Civ4 GOTM / WOTM leaderboard.

This month, the top of the leaderboard was fairly clear-but, with Doc TK getting back to the top. The highest base score (cow) and the silver medal went to EEO - another leaderboard regular. In third place, akots grabbed his first medal in the Civ4 GOTM competition (he has previously won 4 bronzes in the civ3 competitions)

Summary of Medal Winners:

Doc TK: 1320 AD Domination Victory, 163,255 points.

EEO: 1590 AD Domination Victory, 123,919 points.

akots: 1565 AD Domination Victory, 101,485 points.

 

[ainwood]

Other Award Winners:

RobertTheBruce: 225 AD Domination Victory, 70,651 points.

Lexad: 1520 AD Diplomatic Victory, 65,849 points.

Gnejs: 700 BC Conquest Victory, 63,635 points.

Grey Cardinal: 1680 AD Cultural Victory, 26,514 points.

Charge: 1966 AD Spaceship Victory, 15,382 points.

 

[ainwood]

TeHGhost: 1330 AD Conquest Victory, 17,998 points.

archphoenix: 2006 AD Spaceship Victory, 9,307 points.

Bindamel: 2000 AD Diplomatic Victory, 7,861 points.

UB40: 1972 AD Cultural Victory, 7,747 points.

petritis: 2048 AD Domination Victory, 6,321 points.

Pazarius: 1939 AD Domination Loss, 1,882 points.

mart777: 1565 AD Conquest Loss, 311 points.


>> See the full results here.
>> See the updated global rankings here.
>> See the latest Pantheon of Heroes here.
>> Award symbols are listed here.

 

[Lexad]

Sweet! Congrats to all winners, esp. Grey Cardinal and akots - who also had like 4-5 4th places in 4OTMs

So we arrive with GC 1 cow from Eptathlon... Let the hardiest score milker win! So far this guy always was GC

Edit: Первыйнах

 

[Vynd]

Congrats to all competitors, and thanks very much to the staff!

 

[Capt Buttkick]

Congrats to the winners.
Pity Lexad should choose Diplo
I should have gone Space since I had taken the bother to expand to domination limit.

 

[The Mad Swede]

So many scores between 40-80k !!!

I'm happy with my result this time. First conquest victory in a GOTM, fastest time and best score ever for me.

Congrats to the winners!

 

[Steve the Noble]

Nice. Looks like I spent the most time for a losing cause (9 hrs, 10 min; conquest loss). Ha!

Anyway, I think I tried to expand too quickly too far away in an attempt to block Alexander's expansion. Plus I had an early settler killed in a barbarian attack.

I did Quechua-rush and I was winning most battles in the jungles. But without catapults, I couldn't take enemy cities efficiently.

Well done to the winner: 163K in 3 hrs. Wow.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Praise to the winners. The quality of play continues to improve. Guess I'm going to have to adjust or be left behind.

Remarkable speed, Gnejs. Did you go after all the AI's simultaneously?

 

[mart777]

yeah, I knew my score was somewhat low...

 

[Blazinator]

Wow, well done RobertTheBruce, if it wasn't for you I would have had the fastest domination victory, and yet you were quicker than me by an enormous margin!

Great scores at the top! I'm still never quite sure whether to end quick or milk for a higher score...looks like a bit of milking worked in this one.

 

[Gnejs]

Yay! I got my first award!

Remarkable speed, Gnejs. Did you go after all the AI's simultaneously?

No, one at a time, except for the French that I took in parallell since they were in the other direction. Check my spoiler here.

How did your approach differ?

 

[TeHGhost]

TeHGhost: 1330 AD Conquest Victory, 17,998 points.

Eh... guess I should go back and practice a little more

 

[AgedOne]

Can I add my congratulations to those already here for some of the fabulous results recorded.

But look at the dates:
Four BC conquests! Cactus Pete and kaizer very impressive at 50BC. jesusin and Gnejs superlative at 525BC and 700BC!!
And in the domination victories, RobertTheBruce (so much quicker than the rest of the field with his 225AD finish) really stands out.

At the other end of the timescales, I really thought I was in with a chance of some kind of award with my 1750AD conquest victory

However, dwat2 managed to spin it out even longer with a 1804AD finish, while I was pipped to the lowest scoring conquest shield by TeHGhost - despite a 1330AD finish date (what's going on?)

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Yay, my first speed award in a GOTM. Congratulations to all the other winners.

 

[MarkM]

Hey, congrats to all, some very impressive wins!

At the other end of the timescales, I really thought I was in with a chance of some kind of award with my 1750AD conquest victory

However, dwat2 managed to spin it out even longer with a 1804AD finish, while I was pipped to the lowest scoring conquest shield by TeHGhost - despite a 1330AD finish date (what's going on?)

Hey - he edged me out by only 2 years (I won domination in 1802). But I ranked much higher due to a higher base score.

I've only played a few GOTM so far but I see a pretty clear pattern to my play emerging, relative to everyone else: I have higher base scores relative to most all but the best players, but not-so-high final scores. In this game I rank #42, but the only people with higher base scores than me in the top 50 are #1, #2, #3, and #20. Does that suggest I maybe move too slowly, press my advantages too little, wait until I'm ridiculously more advanced before I make my clinching moves? in most games when I do go for the kill I usually find I'm an unstoppable juggernaut (hardly even losing units). That's what's happening in GOTM17 too, I find. I don't know if this is what people mean by "milking," but I'm not doing this intentionally ... it's just he natural way that I play.

Am I interpreting this right? That this is telling me I need to be more aggressive, and push myself to move into endgame play earlier?

That would also let me finish games quicker, that would be nice

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Ouch! That's the second game (out of 5) this year that I've been beaten to a fastest-finish award by just one other person.

Maybe I should just try to sweep up 2nd place for all the other awards

Seriously, congrats to all the winners! And to Grey Cardinal, the guy who beat me

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I've only played a few GOTM so far but I see a pretty clear pattern to my play emerging, relative to everyone else: I have higher base scores relative to most all but the best players, but not-so-high final scores. In this game I rank #42, but the only people with higher base scores than me in the top 50 are #1, #2, #3, and #20. Does that suggest I maybe move too slowly, press my advantages too little, wait until I'm ridiculously more advanced before I make my clinching moves? in most games when I do go for the kill I usually find I'm an unstoppable juggernaut (hardly even losing units).

Depends what your goal is. In general though, you'll get a higher final score by finishing earlier because the formula used to calculate final score heavily disfavours later finishes. I would imagine that most of the people who finish fastest and who gain the highest final scores do quite a bit of warmongering when they just barely have enough units to win.

I don't know if this is what people mean by "milking," but I'm not doing this intentionally ... it's just he natural way that I play.

That's not what 'milking' means. Milking, roughly speaking, means that you are doing things that specifically increase your score, typically out of proportion to the 'quality' of your empire. So it means things like, eg. shortly before your victory, planting lots of economically unviable cities to get your population up, or farming over all your cottages, which has a similar effect (and also could crash your economy, if you had to continue playing beyond your victory date)

 

[Cactus Pete]

Concise, informative spoiler, Gnejs. Basic difference from my approach was that you were more agressive earlier, building nothing non-military and getting to all the AI's before they had a metal.

Did you raze any cities?

 

[TeHGhost]

However, dwat2 managed to spin it out even longer with a 1804AD finish, while I was pipped to the lowest scoring conquest shield by TeHGhost - despite a 1330AD finish date (what's going on?)

Probably it was because my silliness (and lack of expierence)... I razed too many cities, that might be the reason for my low score...