Which saved game is better?

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Given two games, played different ways, which one woud you prefer for a HOF game?

That stats are from two different games, but at the same turn within the game. Both games are Deity, Raging Hordes, Large Map, same map settings, both Civs in Democracy.

Game 1:
25,990,000 people
113 cities
54 Techs @1 per turn
5 AI Civs Remaining, at peace with all of them
2793 gold production @100%, 2122 science production @100%
10 Wonders Built


Game 2:
40,950,000 people
74 cities
57 Techs @1 per turn
6 AI Civs Remaining, at peace with all of them
4033 gold production @100%, 2609 science production @100%
11 Wonders Built

One has great production now, while the other has great potential once the cities grow.

I guess the underlying question may be are more cities better, or are bigger cities better?

Also, anyone care to guess what year the game is in?

 

[la fayette]

Originally posted by Duke of Marlbrough
which one woud you prefer for a HOF game?

Also, anyone care to guess what year the game is in?

1) None: HOF games are so boring

2) Almost certainly not before 1600 (very probably 17xx if the game was played by DoM )

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

True they are rather boring, but I try to use them to perfect ideas I have. Plus, I would like to actually finsih one some day.

The turn is 1x40.

 

[ElephantU]

For HOF, more cities should give you a higher score, unless you are unable to grow them as large as the game with fewer. Curious that you have higher gold output than science output at 100% - did your SSC miss something? Or are you working without one?

As to the year, I have heard of ~50 cities by 1AD, so "x" could equal 0...

Agree with LF: highest-score play is tedious...

 

[Ace]

The more cities the better. Fewer but bigger cities have more people now, but after several turns of WLTP...the smaller but more numerous cities will be as big and your population will mushroom up. AND all cities eventually "max" out their food supply at about the same level, then the only way to grow the city is to use the FCT. So, before starting the food freight routine, you want to get as many cities as possible maxed out. It is also much easier to grow a new city to about 35-37 citizens, than it is to grow a size 35 city to 70+ using the FCT.

Keep in mind that after about citizen number 35 (?) all additional citizens are Elvii only. So bigger cities only add to your score at that point, whereas, more cities add citizens producing "stuff". The "perfect" HOF game would have 254 cities at size 127!! Unfortunately, that is a physical impossibility, but the highest score goes to the game that gets the closest to that theoretical limit.

Game one will be the highest scoring game.

 

[funxus]

I like the second game better, but for HOF, probably the first one.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

So far, I'm liking the second one better for a HOF game.

The established cities are able to produce much more than the smaller ones and so I can easily pump out engineers to establish new cities. So, I think I can eventually catch up the number of cities between the two games, while having more production earlier. All my 'done' cities (which have Temple, Marketplace, Bank, Stock Exchange, Aqueduct, Sewer, Harbor, Courthouse) are alternating between Freight and Engineers. So, Wonders will be built and new cities founded.

In game 2, I am able to RB almost all of the cities production while maintaining 1 tech per turn (from deliveries). Not the case in Game 1.

My SSC never got Newtons (yet). It didn't seem worth it. I was able to slam through the techs I wanted and now there doesn't seem a reason to try and push on techs again. I'm almost at the flight/automobile juncture. In game 1 I stressed Techs quite bit more and, after forcasting it out, found that I would have to shut off techs in the late 1800's/early 1900's, so there didn't seem to be a reason to push for them early.

As for city size, I'm only caring about the cities getting to size 20 for the most part. If they can grow bigger than that, all the better, but I'm not investing in farmland/supermarkets yet. I'd rather irrigate other cities and help them grow rather then farm cities to make them bigger.

 

[la fayette]

Originally posted by Duke of Marlbrough
The turn is 1x40.

If x is smaller than 6, it shows that I am pessimistic about that kind of builder games that I never play (and also that you were a great builder IMO ).

 

[Archer 007]

Option two looks better to me. More scoring potential and since it is a HOF game.............

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Yes, it is less than 6 (actually a little less than that).

 

[la fayette]

very well done then IMO

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

It's AD 1240. And that's why it's a possible HOF game.

 

[geofelt]

I understand that no more HOF submissions are being accepted, or does this mean that don't submit unless you can beat the bottom of the list? In any case, you have done very well by 1240. Is game 1 an ics approach, where the cities can't grow?

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

No, no ICS, just more of a build and wait for them to develop on their own, where as game 2 was build and help them develop.

It currently says no more submissions are being accepted, but we were working on an update to them almost 6 months ago. Since then, I have had problems getting the files forwarded to me to get the pages updated. From then forward, I'll be willing to do updates for the HOF page. But, yes, it will most likely be the case of having to beat the lowest score to submit a new one.

 

[Athospd]

what is HOF?

i'm new here

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

HOF = Hall Of Fame

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ2hof.shtml

 

[Old n Slow]

Good work so far Duke.

I'm assuming that you have a somewhat perfectionist approach -- maxing the use of sea spaces etc. I would normally lean towards option #1 since I seem to have a problem planting cities (I want everything perfect the first time), thus having placed 113 leaves fewer decisions later.

On the other hand, it looks like game #2 is "farther" along. Everything else equal, it looks like #2 might be the stronger candidate (multiple cities could spawn engineers & jump start new cities each turn -- game #1 might be weaker in that regard.)

The other variables might be amount of open territory available -- i.e. what are the total number of squares available for base population (and effective # cities?) If game X is 3% "smaller" than game Y with usable land area, it might make a difference.

Both games look to be very strong candidates, so the discriminator might be simply be total land (and sea) area.

 

[dogma]

How many hours (days? weeks??) do you need for a single turn ? How do you manage not to forget at the end what you had planned at the beginning of the turn ?

I guess game 2 is preferable. If you really want to you can always turn it into something like game 1 by creating 74 settlers (well, probably engineers by now) and let them found cities where needed. And then you can go on and create 74 more engineers to quickly grow the cities to size 3->8 and have them built their own engineers to improve the surrounding land.

Of course, that will lead to longer turns. My impression is, that the real challenge of a maximum-score-game is to keep the playing length in reasonable bounds, and since an optimal score means 255 cities I have no clue how to achieve this.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Originally posted by dogma
How many hours (days? weeks??) do you need for a single turn ? How do you manage not to forget at the end what you had planned at the beginning of the turn ?

That's actually one of the major problems I had in Game 1. Since it was spread out so much I forgot some of my previous thoughts. The biggest problem initially was keeping track of freight deliveries. I had to make a spreadsheet in Excel to track where each one was going or else I would have to waste an hours each time trying to re-decide where they were going. Other major things I would make notes and leave it next to my computer (hoping to remember to read the note the next time I played).

The first game I tried to deliver to demanded cities, the second game I delivered to my Super Trade City. Early on the payouts to the STC were higher than running around trying to get to demanded cities. Now that my cities are all up in size, I have a good ship network, and Colossus has expired I am delivering to demanded cities.