News: GOTM52 Results and congratulations

[Erkon]

Congratulations to Fluroscent, The-Hawk, and Jovan Kukic, who all grabbed the medals this month. Congrats to Dhoomstriker and Conquistador 63 who won the awards.

There were mixed feelings for this game. Too restricted game play? Fun challenge? Feel free to comment.

Summary of Medal Winners:

Fluroscent: 1600 AD Diplomatic Victory, 72,753 points.

The-Hawk: 1680 AD Diplomatic Victory, 54,245 points.

Jovan Kukic: 1500 AD Diplomatic Victory, 48,960 points.


Fastest Finish Award Winners:

Dhoomstriker: 1420 AD Diplomatic Victory, 45,905 points.

Conquistador 63: 2024 AD Diplomatic Victory, 13,686 points.


Other Award Winners:

pacpaw: 2050 AD Diplomatic Loss, 11,843 points.

Arnold_T: 2050 AD Diplomatic Victory, 3,452 points.

bdmauk24: 2050 AD Time Loss, 3,375 points.


>> See the full results here.
>> See the updated global rankings here.
>> See the latest Pantheon of Heroes here.
>> Award symbols are listed here.

 

[Erkon]

Here's where you all settled:

Please note that the cows have escaped from C63's pastures.

 

[shyuhe]

I failed on this game. Built the UN around 1500 AD but I couldn't get the AI to vote for me and stupidly passed the free religion resolution thinking it would improve the diplo situation. Threw in the towel after that since I realized I wouldn't be able to win. Congrats to all the finishers!

 

[Silu]

XoTM should have a "Fastest win by time played" award IMO

^ I was opposite to shyuhe... Terrified no one'd vote for me (because of no espionage and hidden WEs), I wasted tons of time shipping missionaries overseas and bribing people to change religions... And what do you know, when I finally decided to get the damn UN built, I got 537/610 votes right away.

Congraz to the winners Optimal sandboxing can be deceptively hard. I'm really surprised the plains hill was the most popular settling spot. Abandoning the starting FPs feels like a huge gamble.

 

[Deckhand]

Fun challenge?

Fun challenge and educational as well.

Spoiler :

We learned Erkon's initials.

I like these different games. Like the ice walls game.
But they should be only occasional

 

[Mitchum]

Congrats to all medal winners and to Dhoomstriker for the very fast diplo win.

 

[Conquistador 63]

Well done, Dhoomstriker and medal winners!

Thanks for the game, EL! You can count with my vote for creating more of those wacky/weird/wicked scenarios.

I'm really surprised the plains hill was the most popular settling spot. Abandoning the starting FPs feels like a huge gamble.

IMHO that happened because we thought we would be sharing the old world with all the AI and wouldn't be able to grab their lands by force (always peace), so moving inland made sense at that time.

 

[adrianj]

I didn't submit this game. I made a start, but abandoned due to 1) a poor start and 2) lack of interest. Mostly 1)...

I liked the always peace variant - it definitely required more thought about how to expand in the early game. But being forced to pursue a diplo win I found a bit restrictive for a GOTM.

Spoiler :

Call me cheesy, but part of the fun for me is aiming for a VC that I'm hoping noone else is going for

 

[Ronnie1]

Well played everyone!

 

[Aldor]

There were mixed feelings for this game. Too restricted game play? Fun challenge? Feel free to comment.

It was a great learning experience. Just being stuck at the end with no way to really change the outcome made it a bit frustrating.

 

[kcd_swede]

Congrats everyone; nice game Fluroscent.

I also want to congratulate pacpaw on a pretty amazing base score from this set-up... in only 6hrs play time, too.

It was a fun and interesting challenge, but the gameplay was a bit too restricted for my preferences. I think the frequency of this type of "experimental" game in the XoTM's is lagom. Not too often, but often enough that we'll never trust a mapmaker.

 

[magicgunnar]

I'm really surprised the plains hill was the most popular settling spot. Abandoning the starting FPs feels like a huge gamble.

Abandoning 2 floodplains for a hill to settle on, and maybe some other good tiles, seems like a reasonable gamble to me. Especially since the hill give you full view of the area the city can use, and you can go back if it is crappy.


Personally I like unusual maps, the weirder the better, but thats just me

 

[Arnold_T]

Thanks Erkon, I'm new to CivIV and this game taught me a lot about the Diplomatic aspect of the game. I wouldn't normally go for the Diplomatic Victory by choice, so it was nice of you to force it on me!
Quick question about the scoring. is there a place on the website here that explains the Civ4 scoring? i.e. what's the difference between base score, in-game score, final score etc.?
Also, any tips on how to increase score? I certainly had tons of times to work on increasing my score! ... except I was too busy trying to figure out how to get those guys to vote for me!

 

[Erkon]

...Quick question about the scoring. is there a place on the website here that explains the Civ4 scoring? i.e. what's the difference between base score, in-game score, final score etc.?
Also, any tips on how to increase score? I certainly had tons of times to work on increasing my score! ... except I was too busy trying to figure out how to get those guys to vote for me!

There is surely a place for that, although I can't find it... The base score is split between land, population, wonders and tech. This score is then modified by the end date. Quicker victory => higher score.

The base score is the score you find when you hover the mouse above your score. There you can also see the final score if you win that turn. If you try to maximise score, then you play on until the final score indicator starts to drop.

Increasing the score is typically done by growing your cities in the end game, since pop is the easiest way to gain score. Buildings are not counted, neither are units. Try to maximise population while winning quickly.

Base score is increased with population and technology. It is not unusual for people who win the cow award to learn around 100 future techs...

 

[da_Vinci]

Here's where you all settled:

Hmm ... a lot of cows on that map ... is that being used to represent time victory?

dV

 

[Conquistador 63]

^

Please note that the cows have escaped from C63's pastures.

All of them indeed, I wasn't able to keep a single one for myself!

 

[da_Vinci]

Here's where you all settled:

Please note that the cows have escaped from C63's pastures.

Hmm, after thinking I had gone mad, I now see the cow comment as text in the quote, but am I the only one whose computer does not display it in the original post?

Edit: oh wait, it is there, but at a certain screen angle, it is quite invisible!

(Now you know why someone prefers to use the light grey for whispering ...

dV

 

[da_Vinci]

Quick question about the scoring. is there a place on the website here that explains the Civ4 scoring? i.e. what's the difference between base score, in-game score, final score etc.?
Also, any tips on how to increase score? I certainly had tons of times to work on increasing my score! ... except I was too busy trying to figure out how to get those guys to vote for me!

There is surely a place for that, although I can't find it... The base score is split between land, population, wonders and tech. This score is then modified by the end date. Quicker victory => higher score.

The base score is the score you find when you hover the mouse above your score. There you can also see the final score if you win that turn. If you try to maximise score, then you play on until the final score indicator starts to drop.

Increasing the score is typically done by growing your cities in the end game, since pop is the easiest way to gain score. Buildings are not counted, neither are units. Try to maximise population while winning quickly.

Base score is increased with population and technology. It is not unusual for people who win the cow award to learn around 100 future techs...

Some clarifications and extensions to Erkon's answers to Arnold_T's questions (someone correct me if I am wrong):

There are only the two distinct scores, base and final. Base is not modified by time, while final score is modified by some decay function over time.

The term "Firaxis score" is used in some places, (maybe even in the game, IIRC) to refer to the time-adjusted, or final score. My guess is that when folks use the term "in-game score", they are referring to the base score, since base score is what is displayed on the list of civs in the lower right corner.

Quicker victory = higher final score, for the same amount of land, population, wonders and tech. Since you can add land, population, wonders and tech over time, you face the tradeoff of adding scoring elements to you civ, while taking time decay penalties as you play more turns before you win. Key is to find the sweet spot, the max of the scoring function.

The time penalty per turn gets more severe the later to get into the game (or at least it always looks like that to me). In early game stages (the early BC's), I think I have seen charts of the decay function where it is actually rising and not falling, but memory is fuzzy here ... and I am so far from winning that early that it doesn't matter.

Erkon said that base score is increased by population and technology. In theory, it is also increased by land and wonders, but I assume Erkon is referring to the end of game "milking" where all wonders are gone and you can't increase land without triggering a dom victory too early. I think that pop has a greater contribution to score than the other factors (a higher weighting), so locking land below the dom limit and growing pop is the ususal milking route.

And then milking the base score, for a cow award, is different from "milking" (if that term even applies) the final score for a gold medal.

dV

 

[Silu]

While we're on the subject of score, can someone explain this, which has been bugging me for a long time:

Later victory with less base score -> higher final score. Same # of Civs. Same map script. BtS 3.17 I believe (whatever the latest was in the end of 2008). Are tech/pop/land/wonders emphasized differently when making the transformation from base score to final score? Or maybe vassals?

Perhaps not the best place for this inquiry, but seeing as the GoTM people (well, BUFFY people anyhow ) probably know most about score, it feels like a good as any place to ask, especially since in sandbox games score mechanics are emphasized if aiming for a strong finish.

 

[babybluepants]

Pop is weighed much higher in final score. Don't know the exact formula... Something like factor of 5 instead of 2 in-game?