GOTM 28 Spoiler 3 - Modern Age / End Game Submitted

[Justus II]

Originally posted by Sir Bugsy
That assumes that everyone is playing for score. Some folks go for some kind of challenge. Like Dave McW's OCC spaceship win in GotM 21.

My goal is just to have fun, learn and improve every time.

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I agree completely. Since the discussion seemed to be coming to the conclusion that the best score would always require an early domination victory, I wanted to point out what I think (I hope) is an alternative strategy that would also yield a good score. Lately, I have not been worried too much about score (well, until results are posted, score seems pretty irrelevant), but on how to improve my game by focusing on specific aspects of the game, and improving my finish times, and then hope that Jason takes care of the score.

I am still in awe of some of the variant games of DaveMcW, Qitai and others, but I still have a lot to learn in improving my handling of a "normal" game, especially in breaking my 'builder' habits and focusing on a specific objective.

@AlanH, I hope you are right, because I tend to play culture games that way anyway, emphasizing at least some culture in my core early. Skipping early libraries is too hard of a habit to break!

 

[Txurce]

Originally posted by mad-bax
So then are we reduced to rushing to the domination limit and then selecting the method by which we reduce our Jason score through selection of a victory type other than domination?

It often seems that way. Rushing to domination helps for just about every victory condition - including space and diplomacy, since rapid expansion is the quickest way to reach a four-turn research pace. And the highest scores each month tend to be from players who went for a military victory. That bottom line is hard to argue against.

 

[mad-bax]

Originally posted by AlanH

Don't forget that the Jason system tries to take this into account with different "ealiest dates" for the different victory conditions. In this game, for example, 100K is allowed nearly 600 years more than domination....

If a perfect domination victory can be won by date X and a perfect Space game can be won by date Y and we assume the best way to any type of win is via domination limit then it must be impossible to move from the domination limit to a space win in less than Y-X years (or the number of turns so represented).

As always... it is the inherent assumption that I am trying to question. If the assumption is wrong so is the entire argument.

Also I tend to agree with other posters. I don't believe the FASTEST way to a Space race or cultural win for that matter is ALWAYS via domination, but it appears as if the highest Jason score always will be.

 

[akots]

Originally posted by AlanH
... In this game, for example, 100K is allowed nearly 600 years more than domination. ...

Glad we know that now. The player during the game has no idea. For example, in GOTM 27, calculator domination date was 800 AD and cultural 100K was 1210 AD. In GOTM 26 it was 750AD and 1525AD, respectively. In GOTM 25 it was 570AD and 1495AD. Is there any way to approximate the numbers during the game? For space race it is more or less clear, just get there as fast as you can. But for 100K it is possible that certain setup might benefit domination without early culture (higher difficulty and map layout) whereas another start might be better for domination with early culture (lower difficulty). And in GOTM27 cultural 100K in 1210 is very early date indeed considering non-religious and non-scientific nature of American people. This was somewhat compensated by low corruption and map size. In GOTM28, Domination is set to 970AD so SirPleb beats it by 5 centuries. And space is set to 1330 which was probably possible to get but extremely difficult. I've read the calculator posts but still have little clue to what precise numbers can be.

 

[AlanH]

Glad we know that now. The player during the game has no idea.

Intentionally so, of course. The dates are based on difficulty, landform, map size and techs needed to reach the rest of the world. Knowing the set of dates during the game would be a spoiler, as you could look back at data sets for previous games to predict the mystery characteristics.

The religious or other characteristics of your civ are not included in the calculation, but you know those and can use your judgement as to whether the civ will be best suited to a particular victory. Even without a specified Medal Play victory condition I doubt whether many more people would have played the Mongols as a diplo or culture game for score.

The domination dates do seem more within the reach of mere mortals than some of the others. I wonder if that's because so much effort has gone into defining and streamlining the path to domination, but the techniques for other victories are less well formalised. Maybe if SirPleb played a 100K game he'd beat the dates by the same country mile?

Aeson might be able to explain the variations in dates, but as it's his birthday he's probably already drowning those brain cells as I type. SirPleb really needs a different set of Jason dates from the rest of us