Spoonwood's Hall of Fame Attempts

[Spoonwood]

490 AD - Electricity took a turn longer than indicated above, as we had to turn down research to maintain a solvent economy. On this turn, we've reached over 65% of the domination limit for the first time!

We have 334 cities, 78 settlers, 508 workers, 1 warrior, 1 spearmen, 3 knights, 58 cavalry, 2 galleys, 1 caravel, 18 galleons, 1 army, and 12 medieval infantry, paying 558 gpt in unit support. Unit support should start to get a little better once we get some aqueducts in via Replacable Parts, or after the wars. We just started war with Sumeria, no war with The Ottomans other than when they declared war on us a war back unexpectedly attacking one of scouting warriors, nor the Russians. Current battle front looks like this:

We've been pushing out roads, aggressively using multiple workers to go onto unroaded territory to extend our rail network every turn for a few turns now.

Score of 3767, an increase of 73 points over the previous turn.

The Monarch game had a score of 2953 on this turn, with an increase of 70 points over the previous turn.

 

[Spoonwood]

530 AD - Really can use hospitals to get control of these unit support costs. Unless founding cities that will keep now, the settlers get reserved to grow cities once they have hospitals or reach size 13:

 

[Spoonwood]

Even more in unit support paid a few turns later:

But, by 570 AD having conquered Russian territory (but razing/getting rid of their cities), except for one city, and the Ottomans we had dropped to 40 settlers and with cavalry just starting to get disbanded for shields, unit support down to 614 gpt. 620 native workers though! Temporary cities produce workers. It's not quite 2 workers per city, since we have 333 cities, but some cities on islands already have all squares chopped, railroaded, and irrigated. And there's a one tile island, as well as an island with a sole hill also:

Score at 570 AD - 4359

Score at 580 AD - 4435, an increase of 76 points over the previous turn's score.

 

[Spoonwood]

Here's a screenshot of the military advisor from 690 AD:

Only 4 fewer units than in the above screenshot from 580 AD. But only 2 instead of 722 gpt paid in unit support! Well, getting a bunch of aqueducts and to a much lesser extent hospitals has helped with that!

Score at 680 AD was 5209. At 690 AD 5294, for an increase of 85 points. Still a good amount of growth to go, but the forestry for shields project has started nearing it's end. Still have the other forestry project to go.

Edit: 700 AD - score up to 5380, an increase of 86 points. The Warlord game had a peak increase of about 63 points per turn. The Monarch game like 127 points per turn.

Supposing we maintain 85 points per turn until 1250 AD, that's ((55x85) + 5380) = 10,055 points on that turn. SirPleb's score calculator would predict a final score of 21,341 with those numbers. Strangely, we had 10,555 points this turn, and 9970 on the previous turn right now, it would predict a final score of 20,336! The final score on this turn estimates at 15,782. Um, I guess I wouldn't suggest trusting SirPleb's score calculator much before 1250 AD.

 

[Spoonwood]

Relevant screenshots.

 

[Spoonwood]

Anyways, after the discussion above, we come to 1000 AD. Thanks to the ease of posting pictures these days, here's a screenshot to see how the kind of cold and tundra core has transformed:

017 has the new palace. I had planned to put it south in an old Sumerian city, but since I had just joined workers into that coastal city and it had the greatest population, I just went with that city instead of waiting a bit for the Sumerian and mucking about changing citizens *there*, for that.

Score of 8099. Previous turn's score was 8007, for a score increase of 92 points. Since 800 AD, we've had either a score increase of 92 or 91 points, so the rate of score increase has reached it's peak apparently. SirPleb's score calculator now predicts a final score of 19,929, with an internal per-turn score estimate of 27,695. When I've checked that calculator this early, it seems kind of low compared to what the game ends up scoring. So, I feel confident that this game will break 20,000 points, unless we by accident trip over the domination limit. Have had two crashes so far, but I think both times when I had just saved the game and pushed 'F3'.

The Monarch game passed this game up in score in 930 AD. This Regent game had a score of 7457 that turn and 7365 on the previous turn, while the Monarch game had a score of 7461 on the 930 AD turn and 7345 on the previous turn for a score increase of 116 points.

We have just over 200 workers at this point. I stopped having workers join cities when we got down to just below 200 and some temporary cities have produced a few more. Temporary cities might be better for growth, but that takes capital, and we've been purchasing infrastructure in island cities. We will have workers join into the mostly coastal areas, so probably will end up with between 100 and 200 workers. I don't really know how many workers the empire could skimp on at the end. I might overestimate and don't get quite as many points as I could due to the lack of worker joins at the end. I don't join in slaves, in case I miss that they end up as slaves of any remaining AI.

I had thought I would gift Russia to the modern age. But now I'm thinking I'll just leave them alone instead of having a 120 / 5 = 24 turn produced ToW infantry, since we just have three, 3 cavalry unit armies, and I'm not sure I want to produce more military at this point. Thanks for reading! Hope your winter has gone alright, unless you're down below the equator and in summer!

 

[Spoonwood]

Bonus screenshot:

Well first we planted a gems colony somewhere else at some point. But, we have a source of gems in our cultural borders at this point. I don't recall what happened. We do have a necessary source of furs in a colony though!

Playing for histographic score consists of the only time I've found colonies useful.

 

[Spoonwood]

I decided to have Russia learn all the industrial age technologies. In 1170 AD we entered the modern age, and Russia got Fission. So, I guess they could spend 200 turns building the U. N., even though they can't hold elections with just two of us? We can't trade for Fission with all of the optionals that we have, but Russia does not. Maybe once we learn Ecology.

Score of 9684 in 1170 AD, a point increase of 93 points over the last turn. I was wrong about having maxxed out on point increases before. We've had a few turns of 94 point increases, including both 1050 AD and 1060 AD which had 94 point increases.

SirPleb's score calculator projects a finish score of 21,937 with an internal per-turn score of 31,167 which clearly ends up impossible, since the Monarch game has greater score increases and finished at 29,280 points. Still, we might break 22,000 points on this Large Regent map!

 

[Spoonwood]

Full tile coastal city without a commercial dock on Regent:

No war happiness and 70% luxury slider in use, but still no commercial dock needed here. I feel kind of surprised here. It might just be over some commerce threshold due to the incense.

Score at 1210 AD of 10,057 with a 93 point increase over the previous turn. We just learned Ecology this turn and changed builds to Mass Transit Centers. Even with 30% taxes, to my surprise, we had to use some tax collectors to maintain a positive economy.

 

[Spoonwood]

1305 AD - We learn Rocketry. No aluminum in our cultural borders! I thought we'd go with modern armor armies to block off Russia here. So, an aluminum colony will get made!

 

[Spoonwood]

The game crashed a few times on me. Maybe even 6 times total this game? One time I tried to look up artillery after looking up radar artillery to make sure artillery upgraded to radar artillery (just as a curiosity question, not that I used either). Came back and it crashed in the same way again.

We got an SGL somewhere along the way. I realized that if you have Longevity a small number of turns before the finish, it actually increases score, since there's not enough turns for a city with negative 3 food per turn to starve, because of the extra food from a granary. So, on the 2045 AD that SGL got used to complete Longevity in the new capital.

56 future techs learned for 34.8 points from them. This increased from 34.6 at 2049 AD, even though no extra future technology got learned (though there did exist another turn of research on the next future technology).

Uh... Ice Resort of the Last at size 1 ranks as the third best city ahead of all my cities which do not have wonders... sigh...

Final score of 23,113!

@EMan 's Huge Warlord just outscored this game with a final score of 23,189.

The base score for the Warlord game was (15,107 / 2) = 7553. For this Regent game, (23,113 / 3) = 7704. For the Monarch game, (29,240 / 4) = 7310. I had mentioned before that the Sid standard game I played in 2024 had a higher score than any large map game. That game scored 35,199 points. From the base score and the Monarch score, adding in another 7310, we get over 36,000 points. So, it seems like it could happen that an Emperor level Large game have a final score higher than the Sid standard game. EMan's Regent game scored 35,881 points and thus outscored that Sid standard game.

Also of note, Mad2rix's Large Chieftain game, which has the top histographic score for Large Chieftain maps, scored 6304 points.

 

[Spoonwood]

2 free settlers on Emperor (barracks is a prebuild on a settler)!

Kind of uncertain about us getting the Pyramids with no river though.

 

[Spoonwood]

Wow! What luck!

 

[Southern_Man]

2 free settlers on Emperor (barracks is a prebuild on a settler)!

View attachment 755743
Kind of uncertain about us getting the Pyramids with no river though.

Is this another histographic game?

 

[Spoonwood]

Is this another histographic game?

Yep, that's the plan.

 

[Spoonwood]

But I'm not sure I'll continue with this map. The start seemed kind of slow (not bonus grasslands on the river). And that volcano. I don't think I want a city next to it.

 

[Southern_Man]

I don't really know anything about playing for score, so I don't always reply, but I am following along