GOTM X results

[Matrix]

Well, the results are done. You can see them here.

Chofritz, your savegame is simply added to the zip file. I didn't think you'd lie about your result, so... But ofcourse it still hasn't been confirmed. Well, perhaps someone could take a look... Shadowdale could read it, but I just can't. Don't know why. You don't need a Mac for it, cos you can just rename it to something.sav.

Anyway, Smash has still played every GOTM there was; he's the only one.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

I renamed Chofritz's file to a .sav when he e-mailed it over to me. The game says it is not a saved game file.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Lucky sure had Lucky game.

He seems to have greatly improved his playing from previous GOTM's. He's jumped from 14th to 6th to 1st. This game is even on the level of Shadowdale's efforts.

What was the difficulty level for this GOTM? It isn't in the spreadsheet showing the results.

 

[Smash]

Its good to see those early finishes higher up the board.

Yes Lucky has done well with over 5k by 1500.Chofritz' game is very impressive.

I think it was prince level.I don't really remember.It wasn't too hard and lots of good land iirc.I spent half the game preparing for a SS.ooops....then I thought I'd build some pop and bribe the last city at my leisure.I guess I fell asleep cuz I was mighty annoyed when my dip told me I was nuts,we can't bribe a capitol.And the darn city had a musket in it.Where'd they get GP?..and when did they build a palace?

 

[Matrix]

That's a shame, Smash. If you took that city early, you might have gotten the gold medal. It would've brought you to the second place in the HOF.

Originally posted by Duke of Marlbrough
What was the difficulty level for this GOTM? It isn't in the spreadsheet showing the results.

That's because I forgot.

 

[Lucky]

Wow!!!

Well I knew I had a good game this time but 1st place, :crazyeyes: UNBELIEVABLE!!!
WOW...

It´s not easy to calm down after looking at these results.

Duke is right, I have vastly improved my skills with Civ2. I considered myself a pretty good player but after I found CivFanatics in September I realized I could still learn alot.
I played my first GOTM without any changes to my old style of playing but I think 14th place of 65 was pretty good. Then after utilizing some of the strategies I read about, especially increased trading, I tried a conquest game in GOTM9 and finished even better as one of the earliest with a decent score.

 

[Lucky]

...this great game![dance]
After starting my game, popping the first huts and exploring part of the map I thought WOW again, what a great map !
I saw so much green I just kept pumping out settlers in the BC years. I had never started with so many cities before, but opposed to Civ3 it is such a great advantage. I got 3 or 4 free settlers/cities from huts, a small NONE army which I used to wipe out all the AI Civs except the Sioux, pretty useful early technology and of course the occasional barbs. I was truly lucky with the huts on the mainland as Duke stated and I didn´t have too many problems with seaborne barbs either, at least on the mainland.
But the most important part probably was finding such a great SSC site south of Thebes which enabled me a 1 per turn discovery rate shortly after switching to Democracy in the early AD years.
This and of course utilizing all different strategies I read about :enlighten: made this game so great!
I noticed that most of you destroyed the Sioux early on, but if I´m not mistaken Starlifter mentioned the purple civ as a key civ. Whenever my science rate dropped below 1 turn I gifted the Sioux every tech I had.
And I had the time to direct my armada of 200++ settlers/engineers, which I had already built pretty early, because here in Germany Civ3 was available only in the middle of the month.
So I had the time to play right to the end. I could have finished earlier but with constant WLTP growth and further settlement of the small islands my civ and GOTM score just kept growing.
Then after overrunning the Sioux in 1500AD :slay: I was astonished what I had achieved and pretty confident to finish even better than last month, but WOW again 1st place, still UNBELIEVABLE .

 

[Lucky]

The difficulty level was KING.
But with such a map and so many huts still pretty easy.
I also would like to congratulate everybody else and thank people like Starlifter for their great strategies. This was probably an almost ideal game, as you can see when viewing other playes. If i.e. NOL had built more cities in the beginning he could have reached his highscore much earlier and maybe even earlier than me.
But the most interesting thing though was that most of you didn´t put too much emphasis on science, I tried to reach to 1 turn rate as soon as possible. :grad:
Anyway an almost perfect game for me, will be difficult to improve, especially on deity.

Now I´m eagerly waiting for the Civ3 GOTM results, I have a good feeling with my early finish there, too. Pleasy hurry Matrix.
And thanks for all the work you put into both GOTMs.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Lucky,

Maybe you could help others out by posting a couple more saved games (especially the early years) for others to evaluate to see what elements they may want to focus on to help their games out a bit.

Starlifter and I have always been advocates of sharing how we play to help out others.... It looks like it has had a great effect on your game play as well, so maybe you can start sharing for others as well.

 

[Lucky]

Well, here is what I´ve got.
I have written about my game in the spoiler thread but just a week after I finished my game. Seems I couldn´t find the time earlier. And I don´t think it´s a good idea to post there while still playing.

As I said before, here and in the spoiler, I utilized the different strategies I found on the CivFanatics site, i.e. gifting the purple player, cranking out caravans like mad, SSC and some others.
The most important thing in this GOTM for me was building settlers w/o stopping in the BC years. I think you call this the Infinite City Sprawl (ICS) strategy. This way I had a base to pump out caravans later. And of course I had a great SSC site with a river and 2 wine. This was the only city I improved in the beginning and I built many wonders in it, especially the science wonders.
And I did use the airbase trick.

Unfortunately I didn´t save any BC years, seems I played right through to AD one night. But I have a 500 and 700AD save along with the usual ones. In 500AD you can see that I was already down to 1 turn discoveries, as I put much emphasis on science. When looking at Smash´s saves for example I see that he has a much higher tax and luxury rate. I went into WLTP growth later.
Another thing I find important is to wipe out the AI as early as you can. Unlike Civ3 he doesn´t settle the continent as efficently as you do and at least on King isn´t much of a help in science. But he can be a big nuisance in military, especially when you are already in Democracy. So I alway try to take his capital first and then buy and capture the remaining cities. This was how I quickly defeated the Persians in this game.

Well, I´m not sure what more I could contribute for helping other players. One thing though, read the strategies on CivFanatics webpages and here in the forum. You don´t have to use every one of them, you just have to know when to use the appropriate one.:enlighten

Hope that helps some of you.
Duke, tell me if I should go into details or anything else.

Here are all 5 saves I´ve got (75kB):

 

[Lucky]

I just those .

 

[ferenginar]

Gotm 8 - 53rd
gotm 9 - 47th
gotm 10 - 6th
I knew it was a good game, that army of nons taking out the opposition early, but this is amazing.

Maybe next time I'll get lucky.
(next time is already here, and at deity, which I have never played previously, I strongly suspect that my performance so far will see me drop form the dizzy heights)

ferenginar

 

[donsig]

WOW!!! I made it in the top 25!

Now if only nine other people submit in GOTM 11 I can make the top ten.

 

[LeSphinx]

Hello Matrix,

I check it out yesterday.

My save game in 1490 AD was just before the conquest of the last city. I had a score of 320 (as the one you took for the calculation of my GOTM score). I've made the save game just before the last conquest as requested in the GOTM home page.

But after the conquest, my civ score is 1640 which is around 398 GOTM score. As it is not the same I would like you check it out you too.

Here is the same game after the last city is conquered. (You can have the same with the file I gave you when submitting my game but you have to attack the last city!).



Please tell me. Thanks.



LeSphinx

 

[Bachus]

Well, it was a nice game, even though it could have been better.

Smash, I think you could have easily taken the silver if you had known from the beginning what was all about. Anyway, no problem for me here:crazyeyes

As Lucky said, I ignored science and followed it only for Sanitation and wonders which I built mainly for points. I discovered Explosives only in the last turns, so you can see I don't manage too well here, I must improve somehow.

My first wonder built was, you'll never guess, Marco Polo's, because I wanted to trade maps (and maybe techs). Actually I was very curious about the location of other civs, as I was in the middle of the map and land everywhere. If I were only patient...

Another mistake was maybe switching governments. Maybe I should have changed to Republic earlier.

And the list could go on...

Anyway, I am quite pleased with the results and I hope to improve my game in later Gotms. I can't play Civ3 so I'll have to find some time.

Since Gotm11 is going to be an early landing, I would like to know what matters, number of turns or year, as launching before 1750 could be a great advantage.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Originally posted by LeSphinx
My save game in 1490 AD was just before the conquest of the last city. I had a score of 320 (as the one you took for the calculation of my GOTM score). I've made the save game just before the last conquest as requested in the GOTM home page.

But after the conquest, my civ score is 1640 which is around 398 GOTM score.

You are looking at your score using the games built in early conquest bonus.

The GOTM counts an early conquest on its own, so you need to add up the parts individually. Your saved file has scores of: Population (231), Wonders (60), and Barbs (25), which add up to 316. So your GOTM score should have been ~170.

I'm guessing that in the actual GOTM save Matrix bought the last city, rather than conquer it, which would give you another population point and retain your peace bonus (3). That gives you 320 points or a GOTM score of ~171.

 

[LeSphinx]

Thanks Duke of Marlbrough for the details.

I do not remenber that (about the manual count of the GOTM score).

thanks
LeSphinx

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

From the Rules & Download Page under the scoring section.

"Because we have our own (much more effective) way of rewarding an early finish, the bonus score of the game itself will be ignored and the score will be calculated manually by pressing F9 and counting all the separate scores (from population, achievements, etc.) together."

Don't worry, most people don't remember much from that page past the download section.

 

[Lucky]

IMPORTANT - error in results
Matrix, NOL, please read

There seems to be an error in the results of GOTM10 concerning the GOTM score of NOL.
I´ve noticed the unusual difference between my score and NOL as soon as saw the results, although NOL finished merely 70 years, 14 turns, after me with a slightly higher score. But I forgot to check it and just remembered yesterday.
NOL finished with 5695 points in 1570, that is turn 214 at KING level. With the Excel file GOTM calculator that equals to a GOTM score of 636 instead of 419 in the results. That would put him into 2nd place, the silver medal.
Matrix used a turn number of 264 which would be Warlord level. Even he makes mistakes , he is human after all, although he does godlike work. With all the new work for the Civ3 GOTM it is a wonder that this seems to be the only error and a sign for the great effort Matrix is putting into the GOTM!
I have double checked with NOL´s saves but I think I´m right. I´m surprised that nobody noticed this error before, not even NOL himself.
I have contacted Matrix to check the results again, but I´m not able to reach NOL.

And I´m really sorry Bachus and Smash, please don´t and please, please don´t be at me. I´m just trying to be fair and NOL deserves to have his score corrected for his efforts. I hope you agree, it is a game after all.


P.S.: Matrix, if I´m mistaken in this matter, just delete this post and let me know.
P.P.S.: When you update the results you could also put the difficulty level in.
GOTM10 was KING level on a NORMAL map with bloodlust on.
And GOTM9 was EMPEROR level on a SMALL map.

 

[Lucky]

Matrix has acknowledged my mail and will correct the error as soon as possible.
But is anybody else reading this forum, seems not too many are interested any more in Civ2.
What a shame!
Or is there some holiday or other event in the USA?

Anyway, the corrected results should be available soon, so maybe NOL should return to this forum to be congratulated and to thank ME!
Just kidding!