How do you get a High, High Game Score in Civ 3?

[EMan]

Looks like you get a healthy Bonus Score for winning the game. Anyone know how this Bonus is calculated? Looks like it diminishes as times goes on!?

However, I see the GOTM3 Winners "just happened" to finish their games (by Conquest or Space Race) at 2050 AD (Maximum possible date) and still gained the Highest Score!!!

 

[praestare]

I'm wondering too. Usually I can win a diplomacy victory as soon as I finished building UN. But the score is usually very low. If I keep on playing, I can win a Space victory or conquer victory, but the score is much higher.

 

[slothman]

Just for knowing; what are your scores? I only have about 1800 but I'm still in industrial ages.

 

[praestare]

don't remember exactly. around 4000 for diploma victory, and around 8500 for space victory. both are magnificant though. i'm playing marla's large map at deity level.

 

[Buecephalus]

As far as I can tell there are at least two major factors in high score:

1. Land area, the more land you control, the higher your score is.
There are several threads that talk about this.

2. Level of play, the higher the level, the higher the score. I know
this one's true because I played the exact same game on both
cheiftain and warlord, both were conquest victories, I finished
at approximately the same time in the game (early AD) and
conquered the same opponents. My chieftain level score was
700-800 ( I'm not @ home so I can't give you exact score) and
my warlord score was 3700+.

3. I think you also get a bonus for a quicker finish, but I don't
know the percentages on that, it's just a hunch.

 

[BillChin]

The best way to get a big score is to claim land early. Fastest way is usually through conquest and pop rushing military units. Build a big population (early aqueducts), and then have most of the land, and milk the game to 2050 without achieving Domination (66% of land and 66% of pop).

For the last turn you can choose whatever victory you like. Some like the spaceship because they can control it. Domination is tough to know how close you are and many players end their games by accident. They want to milk the game for a better score but cross over to a Domination victory.

>>
Originally posted by Grey Fox:

You get points only from:

- Territory (Often the most),

- Happy Citizens. Can come up to the score from Territory at the end.

- Content Citizens (Not as much as from Happy citizens). And Specialist Citizens, I think you get as much from these as you get from content citizens.

- And finally the Bonus points from finishing before 2050 AD.

 

[Allemand]

So playing a Huge map at Deity level, with no opponents, would be the way to score high.

 

[slothman]

When I was checking to see how score was calculated it was as follows:
Each turn the computer add 2 points for a happy citizen, 1 for a content, 1 for a specialist, and 1 for a tile in your cultural boundries.
It then seems to multiply this by 3, but that could depende on difficulty level. 3 was on prince BTW.
After that it sums the score found for each turn and divides by the number of turns.
Poof instant score.

 

[EMan]

Very interesting discussion.

But, does anyone know the formula(e) for "End-of-Game" bonus and the variance, if any, for the type of Victory?

For example, the top 2 players in GOTM3 "Milked" the game down to 2050 before they either "blasted off" in a Spaceship or "blasted off" their last remaining rival population center.
Their scores were 7883 and 6007!!
Ref:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3gotm/ (Then click on "Results")

Here's a "dumb" question that someone may have an instant answer to:
What's the "End-of-Game" bonus if you score your victory at precisely 2050AD?

 

[BillChin]

I believe I read that the ending bonus is
2051 - year of finish * difficulty level

But I could not find the reference when I went to look for it. I believe there is no variance for type of victory. I think you get 1 point for actually winning in 2050, vs. a Histograph win, so it is not much difference. On a standard map, milking the game is usually more effective than going for the fastest victory. The reason for this is that all those very early turns when a player has little land are averaged in. As a game goes on it lessens the impact of those early turn low scores. On tiny maps, scores above 27000 are common for a very early conquest (no respawning on tiny maps).