Milking your score

[JerichoHill]

Forgive me, but I participated in my first GOTM this time (Civ4, Elizabeth). It was also the first time I had ventured up to Prince level, as I had been enjoying the game on noble before, but a few things about this new game had me yearning to really learn the game. So I gave this a shot.

I did fine and won that GOTM (I won't say anything more for spoilerish reasons). However, as I read the spoilers, every high scorer talks about "milking".

We're supposed to milk our scores? I don't know. I dislike the thought of purposefully using some of the game nuances just to get a higher score. I'm not playing the GOTM to "win" but to learn to be a better player, so Im not complaining, just not understanding.

Thusly, I would like some people who milk their scores to answer the following questions.

1) How do you milk your score? Give me an example, a method, something (but not everything, as I'm learning).

2) Does milking your score impact your overall strategy (i.e. You go to war at a different time, which may not be the optimal time for your CIV to go to war, but is optimal for your SCORE.)?

3) What do you think of players who don't milk? Is milking one of those "more skilled" traits?

4) Do you learn things by milking that you can't pick up otherwise? If so, what kinds of things do you learn?

Thanks in advance. I look forward to reading everyone's strategy's (and hopefully winning my game again) in the next Civ4 GOTM.

 

[DaveMcW]

Basically, the early finish bonus is not big enough. So you can get a bigger score by delaying victory for a few turns (and doing a score-boosting action like conquering or farming). This delay is called milking.

When you notice the "score for winning this turn" start to drop, it's time to claim victory.

I think the whole concept of milking is silly, but if you force a scoring system on people there will always be ways to abuse it.

 

[Boppo]

I was wondering myself how many people play the GOTM to score as high as possible and how many play it to learn or try something different. I, like you apparently, played it to try/learn something new about the game. I had never played a financial leader before and had never played a lakes map. I had only played one game on Prince level.

It was not until after I was done that I saw all the talk about the really high scores and then the talk of milking the score. I must say it is not something I ever see myself doing. Getting the highest score possible has never been something I worried about.

 

[Shillen]

I think the fun in the GOTM is getting recognition through competition with other people. If I just want to play a fun game of civ I can do that any time without playing GOTM. So I will absolutely pick the victory condition that I feel I can do well at and try my best to play the most skilled game I can.

edit: Since I didn't answer your specific questions:

1) How do you milk your score? Give me an example, a method, something (but not everything, as I'm learning).

You start off by conquering the entire world except for the last city of the last civ. Meanwhile you tech as fast as you can to biology. Then you maximize the food in all cities and grow them as much as possible. That's as simple as I can get it. There are definitely lots of other strategies that go into it. (It's kind of like saying "in order to win by space victory you first research all required techs then build all the parts." I would say milking has an equal amount of skill to any other victory condition.) You can argue whether delaying a victory in order to increase score is a worthwhile or meaningful prospect though.

2) Does milking your score impact your overall strategy (i.e. You go to war at a different time, which may not be the optimal time for your CIV to go to war, but is optimal for your SCORE.)?

Absolutely. It will impact many things from what I build in cities, which cities I raze and keep, what civics I take, what tech path I take, pretty much every aspect of the game is affected when your goal is to milk. It is definitely most similar to a domination victory though, since you have to come close to the domination limit in a milked game.

3) What do you think of players who don't milk? Is milking one of those "more skilled" traits?

Nope a fast diplomatic victory or a fast culture victory or any other victory takes just as much skill. Therefore the scoring system most definitely does need to be altered.

4) Do you learn things by milking that you can't pick up otherwise? If so, what kinds of things do you learn?

I don't play the GOTM to learn new things, although it's definitely a bonus when I do pick up something. But most of my learning comes from SG's and games I play on my own outside the competition of the GOTM.

 

[AlanH]

I'm not playing the GOTM to "win" but to learn to be a better player, ....

I think you need to define your terms. Everyone has a different idea of what "a better player" looks like.

Some players can barely manage s single game each month, and it that means they only play GOTMs then their idea of "a better player" is one that gets more awards or medals, or a higher position in the Global Rankings. That means they will play to maximise their GOTM-defined performance - score or victory date or range of fast victory conditions achieved.

Some may just want to stop losing so often. If they do that in GOTMs they will rise up the Global Rankings table.

Some players may want to build the biggest, most beautiful empires. That probably will not win GOTM medals, because there are no points for artistic merit.

How will you know when you have become "a better player"?

 

[DaviddesJ]

I think the fun in the GOTM is getting recognition through competition with other people. If I just want to play a fun game of civ I can do that any time without playing GOTM.

This seems a false dichotomy. I enjoy comparing how I play to how other people play; that is the function of the GOTM. That doesn't mean I need to get "recognition" in order to enjoy myself! When I think about the things I would like to be recognized for, in life, playing a computer game well (and/or spending a lot of time at it in order to do well) don't rank very high.

Even in the Civ world, I'd much rather be recognized for contributing to other people's enjoyment, e.g., by how I write about the game, than for getting a high score.

 

[JerichoHill]

It's good to know that there are those of us who are using GOTM to get to be better players.

Thanks for the info though. Yes, playing GOTM has made me a better player (even this one game). I now understand the financial trait, and have been able to hold my own and win consistently now on Prince.

I can't wait for the nest one!

 

[Gato Loco]

I haven't ever tried milking, but as far as I can tell, the Civ4 scoring system makes it so that score is basically related to population/year. So, a player playing below his skill level can get a higher score by knocking out the AI early and farming a huge population for scoring purposes before declaring victory. This is simply another way to play the game, and calling it cheezy is no more sensible than calling a diplomatic or cultural victory cheezy because you don't conquer the world. Some players get jealous of the milkers topping the score rankings with >100k scores, but that's a misreading of the scoring system, since most players play for the fastest victory rather than the highest scoring one, and therefore play completely differently than the milkers.

 

[Ribannah]

I find milking quite boring, so I will not do it.
But that's me. There are a lot of players who take the final score as their goal and if scoring high requires milking, then we will see a whole lot of milked games ...

 

[Shillen]

Milking in civ4 is a completely different animal than milking in civ3. I found it extremely boring in civ3 also. Not only is milking more interesting in civ4 due to 1) lack of needing any micromanagement whatsoever and 2) increased strategic decisions required due to various factors such as the inability to completely control border expansions but you only have to do it for 20-40 turns after you've approached the domination limit before your score starts to drop. So I would suggest anyone who is still stuck on how horribly boring and time consuming milking in civ3 was to actually try it out in civ4. I was as against milking as anyone where civ3 was concerned.

This seems a false dichotomy.

How so? Your explanation made no sense. What is contradictory about my statement? I have a hard time believing you don't take pride in just about everything you do. I take pride in my education in real life, my friends, family, my job, but yes; I also take pride in my other abilities. You must have some hobby you take pride in doing well that isn't the most important thing in your life.

 

[DaviddesJ]

How so? Your explanation made no sense. What is contradictory about my statement? I have a hard time believing you don't take pride in just about everything you do. I take pride in my education in real life, my friends, family, my job, but yes; I also take pride in my other abilities. You must have some hobby you take pride in doing well that isn't the most important thing in your life.

I take pride in pretty much everything I do. That doesn't mean I seek recognition for it. I can take pride in playing a game of Civ4 well, regardless of whether it's the GOTM or not, whether I compare it to anyone else or not, whether I get a high score or not. I don't have to care about earning prizes in order to take pride in my own accomplishments. It's only if I want to draw attention or "recognition" to my accomplishments, that it becomes necessary to optimize for particular scoring criteria.

 

[solenoozerec]

Basically, the early finish bonus is not big enough. So you can get a bigger score by delaying victory for a few turns (and doing a score-boosting action like conquering or farming). This delay is called milking.

I have a slightly different prospective on this. I am not arguing with DaveMcW description of milking, but I don’t do this, as I value earlier victory higher, irrelevant of the score.
To me milking means the following. If there are several ways to achieve a certain goal, I might use that one which gives me a higher score.
For example you can build a unit working more hummers or you can build the same unit, by working food tiles, producing extra population and then getting the same unit at the same time (provided you gain nothing else from that extra pop in future). The second way will give a higher score. I consider this milking as well in addition to what DaveMcW described.

 

[whb]

In any game, there are people who get very serious about it and dedicate a lot of time and attention to getting a high score and improving their gameplay. But there are also a lot of us who find it an odd choice to turn a computer game into work or even sport, and are entirely happy to sit in the middle of the pack. (And some of us feel if we got near the top of the pack we'd feel very guilty for wasting too much time on it).

For us, things like "never automate workers" is a bizarre and wrong piece of advice leading to the tedium of manually improving every tile.

Personally I would like to see an award for fastest win in each category (in minutes, not turns) as a way of recognising the least-effort win. But I'm not overly fussed - I don't play for the competition, but for the fact that it rations me one Civ game per month, and since the mods put some thought into it it's likely to be an interesting game!

 

[Shillen]

I take pride in pretty much everything I do. That doesn't mean I seek recognition for it. I can take pride in playing a game of Civ4 well, regardless of whether it's the GOTM or not, whether I compare it to anyone else or not, whether I get a high score or not. I don't have to care about earning prizes in order to take pride in my own accomplishments. It's only if I want to draw attention or "recognition" to my accomplishments, that it becomes necessary to optimize for particular scoring criteria.

Please don't try to take the "moral high ground". If you want to tell me that you don't enjoy receiving recognition for something you do well then I'll call you a liar. Now you can argue that the recognition isn't the reason you play, while still enjoying it, and that's fine. But don't try to make it out like it's a horrible thing if you want to receive recognition for doing something well. Let's take AlanH's job on the GOTM staff as an example. I'm sure first and foremost he's doing it to help out the community. But that doesn't mean he doesn't enjoy the respect and gratitude that he's earned for his selfless hard work. And I'd even contend that he'd probably be much less willing to do it if he found no one appreciated his effort. So while it might not be the top priority of his sacrifice it doesn't mean it isn't a (probably major) contributing factor to doing it.

In any game, there are people who get very serious about it and dedicate a lot of time and attention to getting a high score and improving their gameplay. But there are also a lot of us who find it an odd choice to turn a computer game into work or even sport, and are entirely happy to sit in the middle of the pack. (And some of us feel if we got near the top of the pack we'd feel very guilty for wasting too much time on it).

Are you comparing work to a sport? A computer game is exactly like a sport. Unless you're talking about professional athletes, sports are just games that people play for enjoyment. For some people doing well at them is the primary source of enjoyment that they get out of a game. In fact, if they don't put effort into it and do poorly, they don't enjoy themselves at all. Don't think that people who are trying to compete in the GOTM competition are not enjoying themselves while doing so. If that were the case then why would they bother participating? It's not like they're earning money from winning or anything. The sole purpose of playing Civ4 and competing in the GOTM is entertainment.

 

[solenoozerec]

On work and sport: I am with Shillen as I do not see anything wrong in turning gotm into a sport. By its nature, games (computer or not, physical or intellectual) are sport. If you take a sport too seriously it will become not only your job, but even life. Just look on chess masters. I am sure that most of us play gotm as a recreational sport. However, even in recreational sport you pursue certain goals. When I play chess I want to win, while skiing I am looking for new slopes which I didn’t challenge before.

Competition is fun. It is not the reason why we play this game, but it is frequently a stimulant within the game itself. It is a component of the enjoyment and I do not see anything wrong with recognition of your success in this competition by awards or medals. It is so tiny recognition anyway, no money prizes, no headline news coverage (except on civfanatics) and it is given to your pseudoname. For these reasons they are purely fun prizes. Otherwise we would deal with cheating, misconduct, law suits and all that crap that spoils our RL.

Let’s engage in this competition and let the best win! Lets recognize h(im/er) and celebrate h(is/er) victory with smiles ! If you are not the best this time, next time you can become one if you really want it.

 

[Memphus]

This comment hs more relevance in this thread

Milking score - an exercise for the truly ... :shakehead

To which Shillen Responded:

Trolling - an exercise for the truly ... :shakehead

And I would like to defend his comment, from other posts which he made:

Absolutely. It will impact many things from what I build in cities, which cities I raze and keep, what civics I take, what tech path I take, pretty much every aspect of the game is affected when your goal is to milk. It is definitely most similar to a domination victory though, since you have to come close to the domination limit in a milked game.

And

Milking in civ4 is a completely different animal than milking in civ3. I found it extremely boring in civ3 also. Not only is milking more interesting in civ4 due to 1) lack of needing any micromanagement whatsoever and 2) increased strategic decisions required due to various factors such as the inability to completely control border expansions but you only have to do it for 20-40 turns after you've approached the domination limit before your score starts to drop. So I would suggest anyone who is still stuck on how horribly boring and time consuming milking in civ3 was to actually try it out in civ4. I was as against milking as anyone where civ3 was concerned.

So for my next game I am going to alter my strategy to see if I can 'Milk" one out.

To me milking would be 'weak' if you played your game the way you normally would, but then held off victory for X amount of turns to maximize.

But from what Shillen has said you need to plan way in advance to properly milk this become an interesting new strategy, which for me = fun

 

[Rain]

3) What do you think of players who don't milk? Is milking one of those "more skilled" traits?

There is no great skill involved in milking - its simply trying to max your score after you have acheived a winnable position. Sort of like prolonging a football game so you can run up the score on your opponent.

 

[Shillen]

I like how DaveMcW and Hendrikszoon both milked their games last month and were met with awe and congratulations. Meanwhile I'm met with scorn and derision for doing it this month.

 

[Memphus]

I like how DaveMcW and Hendrikszoon both milked their games last month and were met with awe and congratulations. Meanwhile I'm met with scorn and derision for doing it this month.

Not from everyone

Some of us see it as another strategy or tactic in an already immensly strategic game.

Shillen has stated that milking in the purest of sense in just holding off victory similar to as in CivIII requires little skill and therefore I am not all for it.

However what makes Civ 4 milking praisable is that you have to plan to milk before the victory condition is almost met.

Saving Hanging gardens till end of the game brilliant.

Knowing you are a good enough player to change your strategy to maxmime is something that should praised and not scorned

 

[Shillen]

Just a note, I borrowed the hanging gardens idea from hendrikszoon's game last month. Don't want to take credit for that.