I understand what the concept is - making the score as high as possible once you are in control of the game, but how do you do it? Is it just a case of plonking settlers down, and if so, does Domination need to be off? I just won a nice Domination victory but I had 8 luxuries so I reckon I could have had more smiley faces if Id built a few more cities up; any help?
Score Milking
- Thread starter AdHHH
- Start date
LordKestrel
King
I don't milk, so I'm sure others can answer this better, but from what I understand from reading transcripts of some of Moonsinger's games, you basically keep your civ within a few tiles of the domination limit, and then build as many cities with as high a population as you can. The earlier you get started on this, the higher your score.
The best map settings are probably huge/8 civs/arch/60%/wet/warm/5 billion. A 60% arch actually gives a few more tiles than a pangea, which lets you cram a few more cities in there.
Use Democracy for late in the game, as the cash rush is vital to build Aqueducts and Marketplaces in every one of your towns. The Pyramids are very useful for a pangea, and Longevity doesn't hurt either. (you don't have to control the Pyramids from the start, but it'll just about cut in half the amount of time required to grow, so in the milking stage you want it).
Read over some of Moonsinger's games, and you'll get a pretty decent overview of the milking techniques.
The best map settings are probably huge/8 civs/arch/60%/wet/warm/5 billion. A 60% arch actually gives a few more tiles than a pangea, which lets you cram a few more cities in there.
Use Democracy for late in the game, as the cash rush is vital to build Aqueducts and Marketplaces in every one of your towns. The Pyramids are very useful for a pangea, and Longevity doesn't hurt either. (you don't have to control the Pyramids from the start, but it'll just about cut in half the amount of time required to grow, so in the milking stage you want it).
Read over some of Moonsinger's games, and you'll get a pretty decent overview of the milking techniques.
Gengis Khan
Deity
You forgot THE most important step: Drink lots of caffine before hand & pop a couple uppers to keep you awake.
jimmyd covered the basics, you can check out the HoF forum for some advanced(read: more coma inducing) methods.
[No offense to any milkers out there.]
jimmyd covered the basics, you can check out the HoF forum for some advanced(read: more coma inducing) methods.
[No offense to any milkers out there.]
None Taken Gengis 
I think your average milker appreciates that most players will find the style of game tedious, but I think its wrong to describe methods as coma inducing - its the 'doing it' thats coma inducing, not the methods
..But dont forget - those 'methods' are probably the best methods there is when it comes to learning how to absolutely dominate a game from start to finish
You cant get a great score just by milking - you have to play a great game to put yourself in a position to milk.
Lord Parkin
aka emperor
I've had a few games where I turned off Domination and Cultural victories to see how high the score can go. But once I'd got a megascore three or four times, I realised that it's actually more fun to do something different (like playing the peacenik) than to use the same old strategy to get the same old score. I'm still usually at the top of the list anyway in most games, just not tens of thousands of points ahead.
All victory conditions must be enabled when going for a high score, otherwise, you may as well not bother. Imposing control over the AI and preventing them from winning by any victory condition is part of the game.
Lord Parkin
aka emperor
I don't think that's cheating though. I turned the victory conditions off so that I don't win too quickly, not so that they wouldn't beat me (hah! Like that would ever happen). The AI never come close to a cultural or domination victory against me anyway.
Besides, as it's just me having fun on my own computer I don't see why you should mind so much. It's not like I'm going to post those high scores here (now that WOULD be cheating).
Besides, as it's just me having fun on my own computer I don't see why you should mind so much. It's not like I'm going to post those high scores here (now that WOULD be cheating).
Darkness
Shadow creature
As an amateur milker I'd like to suggest the following:
Read our bible :
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18729
This is the "maximising your score" article by SirPleb, and this contains everything you ever wanted to know about milking.
Read our bible
:http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18729
This is the "maximising your score" article by SirPleb, and this contains everything you ever wanted to know about milking.
Lord Parkin
aka emperor
Thanks dude.
Although, as I said, I don't really milk much any more, because it's not as fun as experimenting around with different strategies etc.
Although, as I said, I don't really milk much any more, because it's not as fun as experimenting around with different strategies etc.
I think there was a thread regarding getting high score. Milking is one way (which, IMO, is bored), but somebody just build a lot of cities with size 12 and all with cheaper hapy faces (just luxes + marketplace) could get as high as milking.
Kubannus
Roma victor!
I hate milking. It makes me sick! IMHO. 
Thanks chaps. I was just wondering as my game was a rather unusual situation; I had 8 luxuries and Sistine Chapel, about 65% of land and 75% of world pop. Also, I had a city at a chokepoint between myself and the 2 remaining Civs and thought it would be worth giving the milking a go.
8 luxuries is good, 65% of land is good (but the eventual score potential will largely depend on how quickly you reached that level)
Your population should be higher than that, ie 99.9% of world population.
Sistine chapel is nice ,but I feel if you have put the effort into building temples and cathedrals it would have slowed your expansion in other areas. JS Bach's is the ultimate Milkers Wonder (along with the Pyramids).
If you are going to go for the milk then you should not leave them, even though they are at a choke point, they should be destroyed and you should just leave them with 1 city and stop them fro mexpanding - this will make your milking easier & quicker and also elimate the possibility of the AI winning by whatever condition.
