GOTM 31 Results and Congratulations

[AlanH]

It's tough to play any optimal game. If it weren't we'd all be getting max Jason scores. You have to prebuild the UN for diplo, or you have to prebuild spaceship parts, if you want the fastest dates. For diplo you have to manipulate the right attitudes, and for space you have to achieve the right research conditions. I think you may be right - many space victories were not played with that in mind from the start. Also, the longer the game goes on the more opportunities arise to make a pig's ear of it or for the AI to thwart you

 

[alamo]

Ok, I see that stuff now. The results don't seem to agree for my score, though. Edit: Did I mention I played conquest?

France/Standard/Continents /Emperor gives baseline dates/max score:

Diplomatic 950AD (210)
Domination 1000AD (215)
Conquest 1150AD (230)
Space Race 1300AD (250)
Cultural 100k 1575AD (305)
Cultural 20k 1800AD (365)

Max Score 14044

 

[smackster]

It's tough to play any optimal game. If it weren't we'd all be getting max Jason scores.

Right, but in this case your space score should only match your UN score if you do play an optimal game in the MA (assuming you got to the dom limit a before UN, and didn't radically change your milking style).

So for the average player, it is better to just take the earlier UN win (if you can get it) as you will be sure to get a lower score if you wait until space.

 

[Offa]

I think it is fairly well established that the way to get a good Jason score is to get to the domination limit quickly. Maximizing population and happiness both before and after this are also helpful, although the differences are not huge (I think). I am beginning to wonder if I should try to maximize happiness more. Beyond this the victory method doesn't make much odds, although I guess that small differnces could matter. Dave McW could have won his game at any point he choose after 600ad and the difference is jason score would have been fairly slight (1st place in all cases).

Going for some victories, at least if trying to be quick, can slow down the initial domination and thus reduce the score. I think if someone beats the target date by a big margin they can buck this trend, but that isn't easy to do.

 

[Bisque]

ok flame the multi-year lurker if you want, but I have to de-lurk and ask how does someone manage a spaceship victory in 250 turns, let alone score 11000 points? It just doesn't seem like enough time... please, teach me oh wise ones.

 

[alamo]

Here is a graph with a Jason score feature. The suprising thing for me is the diplo victory is expected first.

DateBonus = ((540 - PlayerTurn) / (540 - BestTurn)) * Curve
Curve = (MaxScore - (((PlayerTurn / 593)^2 + (PlayerTurn / 3200))* MaxScore))

 

[alamo]

That was Kunningas with the first SS victory, which actually beat the Bonus deadline by 1 turn! You might check the spoiler thread for comments from the shaman.

 

[AlanH]

The results don't seem to agree for my score, though.

Not sure what's happening there I'll check it out.

UPDATE: The calculator says the full Jason score is 5309 for a diplo win at that date and Firaxis score (new curve is the only one that counts). I don't know where you found the score you showed. The record shows you played Conquest class. That attracts an 85% score factor, and 85% of 5309 is 4513, which is your recorded resutl.

 

[ainwood]

ok flame the multi-year lurker if you want, but I have to de-lurk and ask how does someone manage a spaceship victory in 250 turns, let alone score 11000 points? It just doesn't seem like enough time... please, teach me oh wise ones.

We won't let them flame anyone!

The fast spaceship victory was probably due to 'manipulating' the AI to help with the tech research (gifting techs, only researching the techs that the AI isn't etc).

The high score is because we don't use the firaxis in-game scoring system to calculate the end-game early-finish bonuses. We use the 'Jason' system, which is designed to reward players relative to the date they finish and the victory condition that they achieve. Look in the GOTM reference thread for a link to the discussions on it, and page three of this thread provides a bit of insight.

 

[civ_steve]

Alamo: very interesting set of charts! Thanks for putting them together!

Jason scoring is set up so that milked games don't always dominate the scoring tables. The key is to reach Domination limit rapidly; from that point on, milking might gain you a bit, but isn't overpowering. The issue is that most players don't milk, and many don't reach Domination limit. For these players, the longer the game lasts, the more this 'milking reduction factor' impacts their final score. For this large group of players, it's no surprise that Spaceship submittals score lower as a group than Diplomatic submittals; they haven't had a comparable increase in score to compensate for their longer game.

Happiness does impact the milking score. In my one Histographic attempt, turning on the Governor (to handle Pollution) gave me an immediate 10% reduction in Firaxis score gained per turn. Many of my Entertainers were turned into Taxmen or Scientists, converting some Happy citizens to Unhappy. Stupid Governor!

It would be interesting to hold a Histographic target victory condition game, get lots of Histographic results, and correlate final Jason score with date that Domination lmit was reached and approach to milking. (Or we could read posts from certain players, and know how to milk correctly, in theory.)