Scoring Based too much on Territory

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Moulton
One of President Reagan's (anybody remember him?) strong points was to maintain high strength to ensure peace.

Yes, I remember. This is a good lesson for Civ games. Reagan armed the "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. Even when the Soviets relented and sued for peace, the U.S., smelling victory, pumped more arms into Afghanistan. When the Soviets finally withdrew, the U.S. allowed Afghanistan to fall into political anarchy. Fundamentalists took over the government and setup "freedom fighter" er "terrorist" training camps.

In other words, if you set up one country to ward off another, be careful of the recoil. (And real life is more complicated than Civ.)

 

[Akka]

Originally posted by Gruntboy
Ah but Canada and Australia could (in Civ game terms) arguably be part of an English "civilization".

Where are vaunted Rome, Greece and Egypt now?

Indeed, they have large "cultural" scores but they don't exist anymore. Confined to History and only briefly dominating the worlds that they knew.

You prove my point : even 2000 years after they vanished, we still remember how great these civilizations were great.

Who consider that the, say, Polis civ was a great one in the world ? Though, it was several times the size of the Greece. Same for Austria, who was a big power, but a small civilization.
What make the greatness of a civilization is how this civ will still make people look at it in awe several millenia after it has disappeared.

 

[eyrei]

Originally posted by Akka


You prove my point : even 2000 years after they vanished, we still remember how great these civilizations were great.

Who consider that the, say, Polis civ was a great one in the world ? Though, it was several times the size of the Greece. Same for Austria, who was a big power, but a small civilization.
What make the greatness of a civilization is how this civ will still make people look at it in awe several millenia after it has disappeared.

If only the scoring reflected your sentiments.

 

[Moulton]

I would love to retire, and end this madness. I tried, and lost horribly, by at least 2 or 3 points. I am far ahead of the game now, but for centuries I trailed Egypt by 25 or 30 oints per turn, and it is the average that counts.
It flipped toward the end of the industrial era--when she found out she needed rubber. She sold her soul to get some. Unfurtunately, she sold it to The Americans in stead of me.

When I played back the histograph, I saw that I was a little behing her in power after the first few centuries. I had enough army for defense, but hers was larger, plus more territory, until I conquered France and took her land. So apparantly, the score is not just size, although when it adds your points at the end, it puts them there. So now, I have 5.5Mil people, and am second. 1st in area.. 1st in power. 110,000 in culture--but at war. Maybe you cant win culture while in war.
I have every time saving thing done that I can, and it still takes 1/2 hour per turn. I think I will look inside the database tonight, the saved game, and see how much space they alot for each city. It must be a really ineffecient database handler to take more than a minute just to add a city.
Maybe its memory. I have 512M, but maybe I need to increase my virtual memory. HMMM, I need to run the Task Manager and see what is living in my memory.
On another note: What makes a real civ? rather a good civ. Most western civs climb to power, and fall after a few generations. China and Japan have stood for centuries. What makes them different?

 

[Igmod]

I am playing a Huge Map with 16 Civs and things were going well as I am definitely in a superior position (Warlord Level). However, although I was ahead in Tech and Culture I could not decide which type of win I should go for. I decided to use my technical and production superiority to initiate war and although I am winning handily it is taking forever to advance over so much territory and the time between turns is a serious pain in the butt.

And to my point and question, if my goal is a high score then the land grab is the best choice but if my goal is merely to win should I just retire as soon as my score is higher than the other civs? Or should I wait until I am awarded some type of victory? A military victory is assured if 2050 doesn’t arrive before then.

I struggle with the score/win debate. I will crank up to Regent level my next game so I probably won’t have the luxury of making the decision anyway.

 

[eyrei]

In your situation, I would probably go for a diplomatic victory as soon as the modern age starts.

 

[Moulton]

It is not having the highest score that wins---it is the average of all scores. If your average is higher you win. If not, you lose.
I am currently 300 points ahead, but when I retired I lost. I saved the game before retiring, of course.
If you have stayed ahead, you could probably retire anytime.
Yes, huge worlds are a pain. I could take all of Australia, but it is 15 turns of sea travel away. My empire already stretches 15 turns, by sea, but 0 by rail. Now, if I could build a trestle to the ice cap, and rali along the ice cap....

 

[cutiestar]

AKKA please, australia and canada are part of the british empire.

In my opinion the two greatest civs of the not extremely ancient world were britain, and Roman, Romans took over europe, and britain used the sea to take over the rest, including america until they nicely allowed it independance.

These two civs proved by expansion at a great rate, their empires became great, they weren't responsible for incredible technology or anything, simply for their land control, and colonies.