Guide to 500k+ scores through Huge map domination on Immortal difficulty

[VirusMonster]

Hmm. 17 AI gives you a few more free cities, and workers than only 10 AI, but isn't that much larger drain on your focus? I suppose it adds more resources to the map. More food might look good, but I think it raises the bar on population. A low food map scores better for the same population. But then the corporations are stronger with more food.

If you read MrCynical's Power of Sushie article, he discusses a +20 Sushi Cooperation from one of his games. KillerCane had 50 sushi resources in his game, 50*0.25=roughly +12 . He was using low sea levels compared to my high sea level submission. I believe the random shore line could also play a factor. (I was using a solid shoreline).

In my Huge Immortal submission, Sushi would give 21*0.25=+5 . In my large Immortal submission for HOF, I had 13*0.37=+5 from Sushi. Again, for my standard Immortal submisson, I would gain 9*0.5=+5 from Sushi. These last 3 figures are all from Pangea map type. I assume MrCynical's example is a water-rich map, possible archipelago, with definitely more sushi resources and can push for +15-20 extra range.

As you can see from my examples, more or less all map sizes will yield the same number of sushi extra food. Map type, sea level setting, and shore setting seem to affect the number of sushi resources however.

The number of AIs have little effect on the number of Sushi resources, but since the capital start location generator usually puts food resources around, I assume maps with more AIs would yield slightly higher number of Sushi resources. The extra food resource will increase the maximum possible population score, but this effect is rather negligible compared to the +1-2 effect through Sushi in all cities.

I'd think you'd want to beat them all down and then kill em all on the last turn. Would that give you a conquest? or Dom? Doesn't matter if you're going for score I guess.

I used this tactic you described in my game. As the end approached, I captured as many cities as I could without crossing the domination limit. I doubt you can conquer all, but you could definitely increase your final score significantly by 50-100k.

couple quick questions: How much score penalty does immortal get compared to diety?

Final score gets multiplied by 1.8 for Immortal and 2.0 for Deity.

Is there a penalty for playing large instead of huge? or is huge just the best way to get a massive population?

There is no penalty for map sizes. Larger map sizes increase the maximum population limit and consequently allow higher base scores, since each population unit adds +1 to the base score. Each land square also adds +1 to the final base score.

Low sea setting on Killercane's game compared to my high sea setting also increased the maximum possible population score from 1600sh to 1900sh. This %20 increase translates to a higher final population that could make up at least +50k in final score.

So, I believe best way to increase your score through Sushi would be on a water-rich huge map But you would have to build ships there and tech for Astronomy, slightly deviating from the Sushi tech path. Immortals and Praetorians would be less effective as well.

Terra, huge, low sea levels sounds best, but you won't be able to hook up those rare health/luxury resources until Astronomy.

 

[killercane]

Only land tiles count for domination, right? So what about archipelago and the "free" population sea tiles give as compared to milking in civ 3? Can a massive archi map of 1 tile islands give a great score despite the tedium?

I began a new game and it progresses well. Built Oracle and took CoL and as such should reach CS at 1000 BC with about 17 cities. Another thing about lots of AI is there is more gold to fuel research, it seems there is always someone to sell Wheel or Meditation to for a few hundred gold. I skipped construction this time around due to cat costs and just have been avoiding hill cities and capitals. I also think I will avoid having vassals outside of Mansa as you have much more control over pop growth.

Sushi is strange, it seems to round up your food, so if you have 49 resources you get +13 food rather than the expected 12.

 

[VirusMonster]

Only land tiles count for domination, right? So what about archipelago and the "free" population sea tiles give as compared to milking in civ 3? Can a massive archi map of 1 tile islands give a great score despite the tedium?

I opened a tiny pangea map and counted the land tiles and compared to the maximum possible land score. They match, so coast, ocean, and fresh water lakes don't count toward the land score.

An archi map could give a higher score, but there are too few archi entries in the HOF with high scores. So I assume something is more difficult about archi maps, possibly the transportation of the army and the extra hammers spent on ship contruction. Maybe it is just a mental barrier.

I began a new game and it progresses well. Built Oracle and took CoL and as such should reach CS at 1000 BC with about 17 cities. Another thing about lots of AI is there is more gold to fuel research, it seems there is always someone to sell Wheel or Meditation to for a few hundred gold. I skipped construction this time around due to cat costs and just have been avoiding hill cities and capitals. I also think I will avoid having vassals outside of Mansa as you have much more control over pop growth.

I agree that the higher number AIs are better for research. More AI = more gold after Currency Your start looks excellent again.

Sushi is strange, it seems to round up your food, so if you have 49 resources you get +13 food rather than the expected 12.

Yea, contrary to almost all math in CivIV, Cooperations round up, instead of down

 

[VirusMonster]

omg I entered maximum population (3181) and land (2711) values from a Huge Archipelago map (tiny islands, low sea levels with roughly 200 :crazy: sushi resources on the map) into the earlier Matlab Civ4 scoring script I wrote. Yea, you did not read it wrong: 200 sushi resources equal to +50 per turn on a huge map. If you don't believe me, go give yourself satellite tech in the world builder and count yourself

Next, I assumed an as successful game where same precentage of land and population as this 500k game would be achieved on that map as well. This game ended on turn 546, but I assumed a more successful game, like the one KillerCane had that ended at turn 500. 1 000 000+ score is possible

Then, I plugged in maximum population (2690) and land (3810) values from a Huge Terra, low sea levels map into the equation. I assumed an as successful game where same precentage of land and population as this 500k game would be achieved on that map as well. This game ended on turn 546, but I assumed a more successful game, like the one from KillerCane had that ended at turn 500. Again, 1 million scores appeared

I think Archipelago is better than Terra at this point for highest Civ4 scores. Terra might get an earlier finish date, but the Sushi bonus is just too large to pass. Say you control half of the earth toward the end game and achieve additional sushi resources through trading. At least +30 per turn through sushi Population growth every 2-4 turns. That is imba. Question becomes which leader to use Darius, Caesar, Joao, or Williem. You need the Immortals to expand as quickly as KillerCane, so I would stick with Darius. Sailing must be researched early however for Galley transports. Workerstealing is also problematic.

 

[WastinTime]

I don't think arch will work. You're forgetting the lack of forest chops, few hills (you'd have to rely on slavery), no early conquest (free cities/workers), and very slow tech with water squares. You probably can't get to sushi in time. Maybe aim for 600 turn finish instead.

 

[oyzar]

Would non-huge maps sometimes be better? As you can get more food more easy from sushi on such maps?

 

[WastinTime]

Would non-huge maps sometimes be better? As you can get more food more easy from sushi on such maps?

I was thinking the same thing when I asked if there is a score penalty for less-than-huge. I don't think there is. Smaller map means less beakers/tech. It also means you can hold a larger % of land before domination and get a larger % of the land in the end.

Best of all, it means you wouldn't have to play on Huge! Not sure how small you can go before the lack of space/food catches up to you. I'll guess standard size is the way to go.

 

[MrCynical]

If you read MrCynical's Power of Sushie article, he discusses a +20 Sushi Cooperation from one of his games. KillerCane had 50 sushi resources in his game, 50*0.25=roughly +12 . He was using low sea levels compared to my high sea level submission. I believe the random shore line could also play a factor. (I was using a solid shoreline).

In my Huge Immortal submission, Sushi would give 21*0.25=+5 . In my large Immortal submission for HOF, I had 13*0.37=+5 from Sushi. Again, for my standard Immortal submisson, I would gain 9*0.5=+5 from Sushi. These last 3 figures are all from Pangea map type. I assume MrCynical's example is a water-rich map, possible archipelago, with definitely more sushi resources and can push for +15-20 extra range.

That particular example was from a large Big/Small map with a high sea level. I've found +20 is usually achievable without too much trouble on archipelago's of any type, fractals, hemispheres and Big/Small. Medium/Small would probably give a high number of seafood resources as well. More AIs do have a noticeable boost to the seafood quantities due to the tendency of the map generator to beautify starting locations with it.

My record for Sushi is +35 food per turn, though that was near the end of a Big/Small game with Domination deactivated, and I had most of the world's land area.

 

[VirusMonster]

edit: I deleted my last message, because I run some test on my Matlab CivIVscoring simulator.

For a huge archipelago map with tiny islands and low sea setting, max pop was 3181 and max land was 2711.

For a standard archipelago map with tiny islands and low sea setting, max pop was 1556 and max land was 1104.

I assumed both maps had similar raw score to max score ratio for population and land scoring. (824 pop rawscore / 458 land rawscore) for standard, and (1684 pop rawscore / 1124 land rawscore) for huge.

When I plugged those numbers into the formula, the huge map gave 1 000 000 + score, while the standard map gave 700k + score. I think the formula does take into account map sizes through the higher value of rawscores. Although the ratio of rawscore to max score remains the same, since rawscore grows linearly, whereas maxscore value in the formula, ((floor(maxscore/initialscore))^(turnselapsed/maxturns)), has an exponential growth, the final score seems to be higher for larger map sizes.

Then, I remembered that technology costs are less in standard sized maps than huge. 1.3/1.5=0.86 cheaper tech costs could mean reaching Sushi 14% faster. For the calculations above, I had assumed game would finish at turn 500. Including a faster tech speed by 14%, game would end at the 500*0.86=433rd turn.

When I plugged 433rd turn into the above formula, I received a 900k score for a standard sized map, still lower than a 1.0-1.1 million huge map score, but close enough.

In conclusion, huge maps are still the way to go to achieve highest scores. The HOF also does not allow more than 10 AI opponents for standard maps, ie less number of beautiful starting positions, less Sushi resources.

 

[Methos]

I hate to burst your bubble, but in our March 25^th update Killercane had a 704,552 score game. I'm curios what the cap is.

 

[r_rolo1]

There should be one, but I doubt that it is inferior to 1 million....

P.S and now a mod has to change the title...

 

[VirusMonster]

I would like to rename this article to "Guide to 500k+ scores through Huge map domination on Immortal difficulty", but could not, because I got stuck with the inital naming Perhaps Methos can change this thread's name?

Also methos, can you create one more post on this thread after the last page of my article? Cabert's quick post prevented me from posting a summary&mistakes&how to score higher kind of last page. Character limit is 30000, and most of my pages are almost full. I don't want to rearrange pages, since the hierarchy of the article would be lost. I didn't originally plan this article to be this long, but there is still some details I would like to add

I want to keep my sig the way it is or I could add a small scripted 2nd at front

If there will be ever a 1 million score, it requires a fantastic starting position just like Killercane's 700k game, with 4 gold mines, 1 cow and 4 foodplains. Map type also requires continuous land for Persian Immortals to harass successfully. A lucky Terra huge low sea levels could cross 1M+, but none of my regenerated Terra starts had 3 or 3+ gold or gems in the BFS. Perhaps Pangea is the only generous map script

 

[VirusMonster]

Reserved for OP

 

[Methos]

I would like to rename this article to "Guide to 500k+ scores through Huge map domination on Immortal difficulty",

Also methos, can you create one more post on this thread after the last page of my article?

Moderator Action: Done and Done

 

[r_rolo1]

Why don't you use Mapfinder?.... Just Type " 4 gold" and go dinner ( I suppose that it will take a while )

 

[VirusMonster]

Moderator Action: Done and Done

omg, done so quickly. I love you

I should probably change my sig as well, but I won't change the first paragraph of the article, just so I can remember I had the highest score once

Why don't you use Mapfinder?.... Just Type " 4 gold" and go dinner ( I suppose that it will take a while )

Yea, I should probably learn how to use Mapfinder properly. Regenerating a single Huge Terra map takes at least 15-20 sec on my PC

edit: changed first paragraph to include between which dates this game remained as highest score.

 

[WastinTime]

Why not play on Diety level. You get a 10% score boost, right?

And you can play less AI (for larger dom limit).

And you get more free cities/workers.

I still think your conclusion that Huge maps are best uses some faulty assumptions (like rawscore:maxscore ratios are the same). And misses a few other factors (like a higher dom limit on standard.)

Unfortunately, I don't have the patience for marathon, so I'm content to watch this thread and see if someone gets the million. There's also the Vanilla record high score (which was on Cheiftain?) to think about.

 

[VirusMonster]

Why not play on Diety level. You get a 10% score boost, right?

And you can play less AI (for larger dom limit).

And you get more free cities/workers.

I still think your conclusion that Huge maps are best uses some faulty assumptions (like rawscore:maxscore ratios are the same). And misses a few other factors (like a higher dom limit on standard.)

Unfortunately, I don't have the patience for marathon, so I'm content to watch this thread and see if someone gets the million. There's also the Vanilla record high score (which was on Cheiftain?) to think about.

You might be right. A standard map with maximum number of HOF allowed 10 AI opponents gives 56% domination limit, 5% more limit than Huge map size. Reducing the number of opponents to the minimum allowed 6 increases domination limit to %64. This extra land could give higher population and a higher rawscore/maxscore ratio in the final score. On the other hand, worker stealing and Immortal harass would be much more difficult, because the AI will have much space to expand to find a Copper or Iron resource. I guess 1M+ scorer would have to figure out which mapsize&type is better for himself

I think Deity might be too hard :-/ But yea, if you succeed, you will get a 2.0/1.8=11% higher end score. Worth the try. This %11 could make the difference between 900k and 1M.

 

[killercane]

I would like to rename this article to "Guide to 500k+ scores through Huge map domination on Immortal difficulty", but could not, because I got stuck with the inital naming Perhaps Methos can change this thread's name?

Also methos, can you create one more post on this thread after the last page of my article? Cabert's quick post prevented me from posting a summary&mistakes&how to score higher kind of last page. Character limit is 30000, and most of my pages are almost full. I don't want to rearrange pages, since the hierarchy of the article would be lost. I didn't originally plan this article to be this long, but there is still some details I would like to add

I want to keep my sig the way it is or I could add a small scripted 2nd at front

If there will be ever a 1 million score, it requires a fantastic starting position just like Killercane's 700k game, with 4 gold mines, 1 cow and 4 foodplains. Map type also requires continuous land for Persian Immortals to harass successfully. A lucky Terra huge low sea levels could cross 1M+, but none of my regenerated Terra starts had 3 or 3+ gold or gems in the BFS. Perhaps Pangea is the only generous map script

I think you should play some more and Im sure you will get a larger score. I just finished my second game unfortunately, hitting the domination limit too early at 589k and just having got biology (turn 440ish). So back to the drawing board.

The second game was mapfindered and got another 4 gold start. The first game was randomly generated . Gems would certainly be better. I think I will try some Deity maps on terra and see what mapfinder comes up with. From a patience standpoint, these games are much easier than doing a huge civ 3 game.

I read where more want a writeup. I will try to do that this weekend. Really the techniques are simple and nothing is revolutionary. An outline:

1) find a nice commercial start with at least 2 commerce resources
2) build 2-3 warriors, 2 asap working high shield tiles. Go wander about until you can find some workers unprotected on the outside of the BFC and steal them without an archer killing you.
3) crank out a settler for horses at about size 3, especially if you can work 2 golds and a floodplain/foodbonus tile with no starvation.
4) initial research is mining->animal husbandry->wheel->bronze working->oracle path
5) send immortals out to all the neighbors. If you have one close with only 2 archers in, send 3 to take the city. Once you have amassed enough immortals, begin taking the non capital cities and farming the AI for workers and towns. Guard/pillage any and all bronze/iron/horses. If you need to make peace, do so, and return to them shortly. There are many AI to harass. Avoid hill cities as much as possible.
6) Research writing, build a library, and kill your gold hills in favor of 2 scientists. Continue building immortals.
7) Build Oracle pre 1500 BC for CoL. Metal casting you dont need, and you have to build it quick to assure you obtain it so CS slingshot is a risky endeavor.
8) Currency is the most important tech, it allows you to run high research at deficit. I must go through 50K gold doing research in the early-midgame. Add catapults (construction) and proceed to nationalism/education and then liberalism for mil tradition slingshot to build currassiers. Always sell tech for gold to continue your research at a high rate. Keep taking cities for gold. You should never go broke really with Darius.
9) You should reach mil tradition about 1 AD. Upgrade Immos/horse archers and roll through everyone as best you can until cavalry arrive.
10) Obtain cavalry, and then proceed to biology and watch your domination limit.
11) Milk it for all its worth. Give away some low food cities in favor of higher food locations.

 

[WastinTime]

so no corporations?