This is even worse in archipelago games. Whoever makes contact before 1000 BC will have a considerably higher score due to tech trading, even though making contact in 1100 BC as opposed to 900 BC only gives you a slight advantage in the overall game.
Qsc16-Rome Results and Strategy Discussion
- Thread starter cracker
- Start date
This is even worse in archipelago games. Whoever makes contact before 1000 BC will have a considerably higher score due to tech trading, even though making contact in 1100 BC as opposed to 900 BC only gives you a slight advantage in the overall game.
Ronald
Emperor
Originally posted by Moonsinger
I agree. In all of my previous QSC (GOTM14, GOTM15, GOTM16) so far, I was among many players who had the lowest score in tech. I prefer the Crouching Tiger - Hidden Dragon style.I usually just stock up the gold and wait for the right moment to make my move. The longer I wait, the cheaper the tech will get. Unless it's something important, I'm in no hurry to get them.
Looking at your tech score, I realized, that your Crouching Tiger - Hidden Dragon style was even more conservative than my approach.
Reading your posts, your final score was much higher than my attempt. Some of it is due to your superior milking skills, but I believe some of it is due to keeping the the tech race at a pace favourable to your overall goal: get the most territory with happy people as soon as possible.
Maybe cracker could revise his qsc formula according to this ideas.
Ronald
TedJackson
Cunning old Celt
Congrats to all,
as this was my first QSC AND the first game I've played above regent I'm pleased that I managed to rank 40th. I'm even more pleased to have discovered ways to improve my gameplay
Thanks to all the staffers for a very enjoyable game.
Ted
as this was my first QSC AND the first game I've played above regent I'm pleased that I managed to rank 40th. I'm even more pleased to have discovered ways to improve my gameplay
Thanks to all the staffers for a very enjoyable game.
Ted
zagnut
Monarch
Strategy?? What Strategy? I have no overall strategy at the beginning of the game. I can't see that far ahead. So what if I decide to be a warmonger. I have no idea what the world is like and who my neighbors are. By the time I discover them my "strategy" will have to be modified anyway.
I just try to analyze the surrounding area and follow a few golden rules. Or at least I tell myself I am following them. In retrospect you might wonder if I played this game with my eyes closed. I got my worst score in months.
Kudos to all of you who knew enough to irrigate the deer. Now tell me why I made the stupid decision to irrigate the grassland?? What was I thinking? Probably nothing.
BUT for all of you that joined me in the bottom of the rankings - don't give up hope. We may do okay in the long haul. The GOTM rankings will be out soon and who knows - I may even beat Moonsinger !
I just try to analyze the surrounding area and follow a few golden rules. Or at least I tell myself I am following them. In retrospect you might wonder if I played this game with my eyes closed. I got my worst score in months.
Kudos to all of you who knew enough to irrigate the deer. Now tell me why I made the stupid decision to irrigate the grassland?? What was I thinking? Probably nothing.
BUT for all of you that joined me in the bottom of the rankings - don't give up hope. We may do okay in the long haul. The GOTM rankings will be out soon and who knows - I may even beat Moonsinger !
cracker
Gil Favor's Sidekick
Your inputs are always appreciated, but a general discussion of the QSC scoring system is not the purpose of this thread.
You have to look at the purpose of the QSC scoring system and not try to distort that view to be a pure reflection of who may be going to win the game by other means. The QSC scores are a reflection of total power of the civilization that you have built and can be used to compare issues across many games and many different situations.
The score does not measure relative power compared to your neighbors in the current game and many conquest and domination game strategies only focus on these issues. In a certain game, you might cripple three nearby neighbors and end up with only 3 three cities and 6 Swordsmen, but if all your neighbors have only 1 city and one warrior left then you are the big dog on the block in that game. In a big picture view you would still be less powerful compared to the same civilization with 10 cities and wonders and technology even if your nearby neighbors may be still in the game with you.
REMEMEBER: The QSC is designed to measure who built the most powerful civilization in the shortest period of time. Adapting the QSC score to recognize play styles that may exploit weaknesses in the AI behavior to gain an upperhand without real externally valid power is not really in the QSC mission statement.
For most players in the lower 2/3rds of the QSC scoring pool, this issues that deemphasize the need to build power in the game may not be serving the best interests of helping those players find multiple ways to command, control, and enjoy the game.
hotrod0823
Deity
A glaring weakness in my particular game and one I have already begun to work on is lack of workers. NOT building workers. I only had 2 thats just poor planing. NOT enough workers is just as bad as using the ones you have uneffectively.
Looking at the QSC scores it was painfully obvious why I had such a terrible game. From the get go I was behind the eightball, yeah got a few cities but deviated too much from what I know needs to be done to start effectively. I think cracker is right on when he says that I jumped right in too much too fast. It is apparent that I need to have more time to develop my strategies in my single player games to be closer to how I play in the SG's.
I am tempted to force myself to play in 10-20 turn increments rather than marathon sessions that I blow through too quickly. I forgot the basics in this game
.
Hotrod
Looking at the QSC scores it was painfully obvious why I had such a terrible game. From the get go I was behind the eightball, yeah got a few cities but deviated too much from what I know needs to be done to start effectively. I think cracker is right on when he says that I jumped right in too much too fast. It is apparent that I need to have more time to develop my strategies in my single player games to be closer to how I play in the SG's.
I am tempted to force myself to play in 10-20 turn increments rather than marathon sessions that I blow through too quickly. I forgot the basics in this game
. Hotrod
hbdragon88
haunted by blackness
I got the "golden bandaid" award and I looked on the "QSC Scoring and Awards" page, but I didn't find what it mean. Could someone tell me?
I have to say that you were dead-on when you placed me into the QSC group five - warmongers. I didn't have fun much if at all the whole QSC (and game) - techs were costing me big and I couldn't get my hands on republic/monarchy.
That first image looks very like my QSC...I can make out Veii built four squares from Rome, Cumae to the east, and a spearman in a city to the west - exactly five squares. Although I had more than just an irrigated square.
I can see that I'm really behind in terms of technology, improvements, and other catagories - I must spend more time studying the QSC.
I have to say that you were dead-on when you placed me into the QSC group five - warmongers. I didn't have fun much if at all the whole QSC (and game) - techs were costing me big and I couldn't get my hands on republic/monarchy.
That first image looks very like my QSC...I can make out Veii built four squares from Rome, Cumae to the east, and a spearman in a city to the west - exactly five squares. Although I had more than just an irrigated square.
I can see that I'm really behind in terms of technology, improvements, and other catagories - I must spend more time studying the QSC.
Justus II
General Staff
Originally posted by hotrod0823
I am tempted to force myself to play in 10-20 turn increments rather than marathon sessions that I blow through too quickly. I forgot the basics in this game
Hotrod
I think that is a very valid point. I have noticed that my play has improved as I have been logging for the QSCs and expecially in the QSC-2e game, where I basically had to stop every 10 turns and assess where I was at and what I was doing. Perhaps more importantly, because of the timeline, I found myself asking WHY I was doing things, and if I didn't like the answer, I would do something about it. I have found that the longer I play in a session, generally the more I get bogged down into habits and focusing on combat/movement/doing 'stuff', and not on setting goals and analyzing. When I have to stop and think (especially for a longer time, like over a weekend if I am out of town), I usually take that opportunity to really visualize where I am at and where I want to be, and when I get back into the game, I am very productive. It also usually means switching a lot of production and moving workers around!!
BTW as to the worker note, I started to analyze that also, which had been a weakness of mine. Overall, the top 20% scorers had an average of 4.9 workers, while the other 80% averaged 3.4. (I included captured workers in the totals at .5 worker each). So it would seem the better players get more workers out early. However, the top 20% also averaged 9.5 towns each, while the other 80% averaged 6.5, so the numbers of workers/town was almost identical (.69 vs. .70). So just building more workers is not the easy answer (although, if you are below the average in this category, I would build more workers!). It is the combination of more workers AND using them effectively that counts.
zagnut
Monarch
Justus II:
Thanks for your analysis in this thread. It is just what we need to see and do to get the real value from QSC. I hope to have the time this weekend to do some comparisons.
Thanks for your analysis in this thread. It is just what we need to see and do to get the real value from QSC. I hope to have the time this weekend to do some comparisons.
anarres
anarchist revolutionary
It's good to see the results out.
I'm gonna need some time to go through it, there really is a lot of info to digest.
JustusII, you said I was listed as 'late', was this in relation to irrigating the deer? If so it really highlights the need to irrigate it straight away, as I spent time improving a few other tiles first (maybe it was even with my second worker, I can't remember).
I'm gonna need some time to go through it, there really is a lot of info to digest.
JustusII, you said I was listed as 'late', was this in relation to irrigating the deer? If so it really highlights the need to irrigate it straight away, as I spent time improving a few other tiles first (maybe it was even with my second worker, I can't remember).
cracker
Gil Favor's Sidekick
Anarres I wanted to particularly acknowledge your game because having you participate helps to add perspective to the process. Your game was one where clearly you had just irrigated the deer in the turn before 1000BC. I made a note in the results table to make sure we did not miss you but at the same time would look at your game results as having received no benefit from the elk farm strategy.
Hopefully I did not miss noting anyone else as we reviewed the 65 games and all the timelines.
Hopefully I did not miss noting anyone else as we reviewed the 65 games and all the timelines.
anarres
anarchist revolutionary
Wow, I didn't think it was irrigated that late in the day, although memory was never my strong point.
Is there some in-game way to check when things like that happened? Unfortunately I lost all my data a couple of weeks ago, including a very nearly completed GOTM, my QSC saves, and a QSC website including a very detailed timeline. As a result I can check nothing myself.
Does this also mean that if I irrigated earlier I would have scored much better?
Is there some in-game way to check when things like that happened? Unfortunately I lost all my data a couple of weeks ago, including a very nearly completed GOTM, my QSC saves, and a QSC website including a very detailed timeline. As a result I can check nothing myself.
Does this also mean that if I irrigated earlier I would have scored much better?
hbdragon88
haunted by blackness
I explained my strategy pretty well in my QSC timeline - having put a fake and real outlook on my game. I tried Moonsinger's startup strategy and focused on getting out of any conflict. Unfortunanely for me I didn't set them specific enough, so I had a lot of glaring mistakes through my QSC.
The first was skipping over irrigating that deer. Another was the failure to go straight at Republic - why the hell did I buy Myscticsm?? I wouldn't have built the Oracle at all - I should have gone to code of laws and philosphy. Probably the worst mistake was to go for it peacefully - the Germans became immensely powerful with the demolition of the Americans and Japanese later.
I'll have to see what I need to do to keep from falling way behind in tech - though in regent, hopefully it's not that hard. Emperor was horrendous.
P.S. What is the "golden banaid" awards? I was awarded that...asked it in my other post...but didn't get a response.
The first was skipping over irrigating that deer. Another was the failure to go straight at Republic - why the hell did I buy Myscticsm?? I wouldn't have built the Oracle at all - I should have gone to code of laws and philosphy. Probably the worst mistake was to go for it peacefully - the Germans became immensely powerful with the demolition of the Americans and Japanese later.
I'll have to see what I need to do to keep from falling way behind in tech - though in regent, hopefully it's not that hard. Emperor was horrendous.
P.S. What is the "golden banaid" awards? I was awarded that...asked it in my other post...but didn't get a response.
cracker
Gil Favor's Sidekick
"Golden Bandaid"
Sorry I missed that hbdragon. The "Golden Bandaid" is awarded to the player who basically gets farthest into a position where he/or she needs a bandaid. This can either be by loosing lots of cities to the AI or having lots of your units killed or by being on the most strategic course to having you neighbor waltz into your territory and do nasty things to you.
In this game, amazingly, very few people had lost cities yet. This is the first time that the bandaid has been awarded truly Prehumosly.
Sorry I missed that hbdragon. The "Golden Bandaid" is awarded to the player who basically gets farthest into a position where he/or she needs a bandaid. This can either be by loosing lots of cities to the AI or having lots of your units killed or by being on the most strategic course to having you neighbor waltz into your territory and do nasty things to you.
In this game, amazingly, very few people had lost cities yet. This is the first time that the bandaid has been awarded truly Prehumosly.
Once again, outstanding job! 
The QSC results are definitely the best way for new, or inexperienced players to improve their game technique.
JustusII's analysis is great. I really appreciate that additional layer of review and analysis. I wanted to add the following: if you've done the wood-chopping and the irrigating, and timed the 10 shields to add to a granary, and built the granary and now have a 3 turns per citizen growth rate, you now have to advance to the next stage: micro-management!! Those of you who do, know you do (Hi, my name is civ_steve. Hi civ_steve.), and those who don't, SHOULD. That +4 food with granary means 2 wasted food every 3 turns. If you can take advantage of it, you should move the worker off the irrigated game tile to a shield producing time (one of the wine/hills tiles, for example) every 3 turns, and then move the worker back after population growth. Assuming you've completed your granary by turn 30, that would be 50 more turns during the QSC period, and another 32 to 34 shields generated from Rome.
Being a dufus myself, I didn't realize that the wine/hills tiles generated 2 food until further into the game. This shows me that it pays to check terrain info for any tile who's production you're unsure of. Even then, you can't be sure if a 2 of something producer is really a reduced 3 of something producer due to despotism, so check the Civalopedia.
And finally, the QSC process does produce a bias in game play that may not play into your thoughts for the game. For example, the QSC rewards fast growth, but if you're playing a OCC, growth is not an option. I think once you've understood what the QSC can teach you about early game development, don't worry about losing some QSC points to play the game you wish to play.
The QSC results are definitely the best way for new, or inexperienced players to improve their game technique.JustusII's analysis is great. I really appreciate that additional layer of review and analysis. I wanted to add the following: if you've done the wood-chopping and the irrigating, and timed the 10 shields to add to a granary, and built the granary and now have a 3 turns per citizen growth rate, you now have to advance to the next stage: micro-management!! Those of you who do, know you do (Hi, my name is civ_steve. Hi civ_steve.), and those who don't, SHOULD. That +4 food with granary means 2 wasted food every 3 turns. If you can take advantage of it, you should move the worker off the irrigated game tile to a shield producing time (one of the wine/hills tiles, for example) every 3 turns, and then move the worker back after population growth. Assuming you've completed your granary by turn 30, that would be 50 more turns during the QSC period, and another 32 to 34 shields generated from Rome.
Being a dufus myself, I didn't realize that the wine/hills tiles generated 2 food until further into the game. This shows me that it pays to check terrain info for any tile who's production you're unsure of. Even then, you can't be sure if a 2 of something producer is really a reduced 3 of something producer due to despotism, so check the Civalopedia.
And finally, the QSC process does produce a bias in game play that may not play into your thoughts for the game. For example, the QSC rewards fast growth, but if you're playing a OCC, growth is not an option. I think once you've understood what the QSC can teach you about early game development, don't worry about losing some QSC points to play the game you wish to play.
Justus II
General Staff
Good point Civ_Steve, I used this micromanagement (most of the time, sometimes I forgot which turn was the 3rd turn). Actually, I had placed my second city to the southwest, near the cattle, but it could use this tile also, so every 3rd turn, Rome would switch to a shield producer, and Veii would use the deer for a boost of food. It was my worker factory, and later a second settler producer. Timing the timber with the granary was critical also, if I remember I was able to complete the granary on turn 22 that way, meaning my first settler was done on turn 27, only 7 turns later than it would have been normally anyway.
hbdragon88
haunted by blackness
Originally posted by cracker
"Golden Bandaid"
Sorry I missed that hbdragon. The "Golden Bandaid" is awarded to the player who basically gets farthest into a position where he/or she needs a bandaid. This can either be by loosing lots of cities to the AI or having lots of your units killed or by being on the most strategic course to having you neighbor waltz into your territory and do nasty things to you.
In this game, amazingly, very few people had lost cities yet. This is the first time that the bandaid has been awarded truly Prehumosly.
What, did you look at my gotm submission when deciding the awards? I was in a really bad position with the city arrangment and in terms of tech (an age behind). Or my qsc timeline? I had a lot of things in there...
In the top groups, many of them had quite a few military units - I wonder if that was at the sacrifice of infastructure. Better check that out - it may turn the my game in a different direction.
jeffelammar
Space for rent
Wow- what a humbling experience. I can't believe how horrible I did. I also wanted to appologize for the verbosity of my timeline. It was my first and I went a bit overboard.
I am trying to remember what I was doing, but it definately looks like I was seriously not paying attention. When I loaded my save game, I was astounded at how little I had done.
Part of it was that once I realized that there was nobody to the southeast, I decided to expand all north and west. That way I could squeeze out the nations in that direction, and then back fill at my liesure. This strategy was successful in the long term. (Past QSC times) In my game Japan never really was much threat, and I was able to expand through them fairly well. In hindsight, it may be that I would have been better off with a more powerful base civ.
If I have taken one lesson here it is the "food" = "expansion" lesson. Strange how you can still recover from these slow starts to have pretty good games. (IIRC- I scored about 4500 or so in the game)
I'm very curious about the QSC 17 results. I came out of that disappointed with my performance, guess I have to wait till next month.
I know that many out ther would not consider 4500 a good score, but I definately do.
Congrats to all of you and thanks to all who put in time to gather the results. (Is it just Cracker, or do I owe thanks to others)
I am trying to remember what I was doing, but it definately looks like I was seriously not paying attention. When I loaded my save game, I was astounded at how little I had done.
Part of it was that once I realized that there was nobody to the southeast, I decided to expand all north and west. That way I could squeeze out the nations in that direction, and then back fill at my liesure. This strategy was successful in the long term. (Past QSC times) In my game Japan never really was much threat, and I was able to expand through them fairly well. In hindsight, it may be that I would have been better off with a more powerful base civ.
If I have taken one lesson here it is the "food" = "expansion" lesson. Strange how you can still recover from these slow starts to have pretty good games. (IIRC- I scored about 4500 or so in the game)
I'm very curious about the QSC 17 results. I came out of that disappointed with my performance, guess I have to wait till next month.
I know that many out ther would not consider 4500 a good score, but I definately do.
Congrats to all of you and thanks to all who put in time to gather the results. (Is it just Cracker, or do I owe thanks to others)
BillChin
Prince
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2002
- Messages
- 494
Okay, I replayed the start of the February game with QSC scoring in mind (though I have not tried for Pyramids).
Some ideas in general that work well for this particular map and difficulty level: There are other food bonuses available close to the start (cows to the west, wheat to the east) so an early settler seems generally preferable to an immediate granary build. By cutting the forest immediately, the first settler can be built by turn 17 (or is it 18?). That is a big jump over waiting until after a granary because the second city gets a cow (if built to the west). Irrigating the deer helps a lot, as does irrigating the cow for the second city. Spacing the early cities close together helps boost early production and pop, helping the QSC score.
Pottery at full research, then writing at minimal research seems to work well for Rome, though I am not sure if it is optimal. With writing, I can trade for almost all the other early techs. At 40 turns, I still get writing before any of the other civs, in part because Rome gets Alphabet to start.
Buying foreign workers with some of the gold from getting writing at 1 gpt, is a big bonus. However, this window is closed, now that the PTW values for workers are in (more like 80 gold per worker instead of 30 gold).
Someone mentioned that it is useful to giveaway techs, or sell them at nominal cost, to the enemy civs to speed the overall research rate on the continent. I have not tried this or gone through all the timelines, but it seems like a good idea since the QSC places very high values on advanced techs.
+ Bill
Some ideas in general that work well for this particular map and difficulty level: There are other food bonuses available close to the start (cows to the west, wheat to the east) so an early settler seems generally preferable to an immediate granary build. By cutting the forest immediately, the first settler can be built by turn 17 (or is it 18?). That is a big jump over waiting until after a granary because the second city gets a cow (if built to the west). Irrigating the deer helps a lot, as does irrigating the cow for the second city. Spacing the early cities close together helps boost early production and pop, helping the QSC score.
Pottery at full research, then writing at minimal research seems to work well for Rome, though I am not sure if it is optimal. With writing, I can trade for almost all the other early techs. At 40 turns, I still get writing before any of the other civs, in part because Rome gets Alphabet to start.
Buying foreign workers with some of the gold from getting writing at 1 gpt, is a big bonus. However, this window is closed, now that the PTW values for workers are in (more like 80 gold per worker instead of 30 gold).
Someone mentioned that it is useful to giveaway techs, or sell them at nominal cost, to the enemy civs to speed the overall research rate on the continent. I have not tried this or gone through all the timelines, but it seems like a good idea since the QSC places very high values on advanced techs.
+ Bill
anarres
anarchist revolutionary
IMO, with 80 turns the best tech choice is 40 turn Writing / Literature (on emperor). Both techs can be traded, and gold collected as well.
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