[BERT] Win Fast or Run Up the Score?

[vorlon_mi]

As I finish a game, I like to see where this game ranks alongside the others I have played, either with this sponsor or compared with other sponsors. An easy way to compare is the score.

According to the Wiki, the score in Civ V is a combination of number of tiles controlled, number of cities, population, gold, and a few other factors. I assume that BERT uses a similar algorithm.
https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Victory_(Civ5)#Score

Absent from the calculation is turn number, or a bonus for winning quickly -- say, XX * (500-turn).

If I want to run up the score, then I have an incentive to conquer or settle lots of cities, emphasize food and growth, and delay the end of game until turns 325-350. If I don't care about the score, I have an incentive to move quickly and efficiently, winning by turn 200 or earlier.

What do you usually do? What do you find fun?

 

[legalizefreedom]

I usually don't care about either of those things. My enjoyment comes from experiencing the journey. The ending is just the final payoff.
My playstyle generally looks like your "if I want to run up the score" description, but I don't pay any attention to the score. I did start recording my victory turn number, but mainly just for reference. I'm not trying to win earlier next time. Each game plays out differently, so it's tough to compare them anyway.

 

[Darsnan]

What do you usually do? What do you find fun?

I play Supremacy exclusively and Domination-only, and I've got a tech and social engineering beeline that I generally follow (for both BE and BERT) that allows me to explore the planets I play on while getting some good carnage in via wars with the AIs. Once I see that I've got the upper hand in the games then I'll usually start up a new game. To say that I've gotten hours of enjoyment out of the game is probably a bit of an understatement:

 

[Sclb]

Pretty much I just try to conquer as many capitals and good cities as possible in my game with only ships. If all capitals are easy to reach without hovering units then I will do domination, otherwise it’ll be contact or the other affinity victories depending on resources. On Apollo difficulties basically impossible to play peaceful anyways. Scores just naturally runs high if I conquer too many useless cities so I ignore these things. War score plays a much higher role on Apollo anyways as it’s more reliable than stealing AI tech since they tech fast there. There’s of course also an incentive to finish the game quickly since it’s much more difficult to deal with any AI that reached max affinity or even built end game wonder. So in the end it’s actually a balancing act if one wants to build up the score, at least on Apollo, but below that I can see there’s no real obstacle to huge scores.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Adding a second question / postscript to the original end-of-game question --

What tasks do you assign to the "extra" cities? As in many games in the franchise, some cities in the core of your empire are more productive than others. As the game winds down, with (say) 15 or 25 turns to go before your Beacon makes contact / settle the Earthlings / capture the last 2 capitals, what do you typically direct the less productive cities to build? Building units that have received affinity buffs might take many turns, especially if the fringe cities have low production. Energy production? Something else?

I tend to acquire immature cities from the AI as spoils of war. Depending on my health at the time, I may puppet them so that I can focus my attention on the other war that's usually going on (or that I'm preparing to start). As the game winds down, and my health goes up, I consider annexing them. But they may not come out of martial law with many turns left in the game, so what should I do with them? Every city gets the 3 health buildings (clinic, cytonursery, pharmalab), usually purchased with energy for the later-self-founded cities.

In my game last night, I was fighting wars with 3 AI at the same time, so my trade convoys were pillaged extensively. If I were going for Domination, using the extra cities to build Trade Convoys could be risky, unless they're internal routes or crossing territory that I've already conquered.

 

[legalizefreedom]

I continue to set them up to be successful even after I leave the game, which is admittedly nonsensical, but I'm forever the builder. I generally continue to settle and grow cities up until the victory screen, depending on how distracted I am with events in that particular game.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Last night's game ... neighborhood bullies. "Those are some cute workers you have. Would be shame if something happened to them."

 

[Sclb]

I generally raze the bad AI cities with no production if I don’t need them for aircraft bases. I also keep planting new cities late game and they shouldn’t have production problems after buying buildings. If going for transcendence victory (harmony) obviously need to build or buy the building that speeds up the mind flower turns, otherwise it really doesn’t matter what I build. Most of the time I just pretend the game lasts forever anyways and just build usual stuff.

 

[vorlon_mi]

In my most recent game, Hutama was actually aggressive militarily. Polystralia conquered 4 original capitals, with a war that nearly got them a 5th. Soyuz difficulty, standard size planet.

Two aspects I found weird:

1. When I started construction of the Warp Gate, only one faction objected (North Sea Alliance). They were the smallest of the remaining 4 tribes at that point. None of the bigger 3 (Polystralia, INTEGR, Chungsu) objected. I wonder if PAC would have objected, had she survived?
2. I was playing pretty wide this game, settling about 15 cities myself on an Atlantean map; nobody really close by. I built buildings to increase my orbital coverage, enough to put Station Sentinels over 3 stations. Yet, for some reason, both PAC and Polystralia kept talking smack about how *small* my orbital coverage was. Granted, ol' Hutama had conquered cities all over the map, so his orbital coverage was probably bigger than mine. But PAC -- even when she was down to one city -- kept talking trash. What value(s) is the AI comparing against when it makes those comments?

I haven't noticed any pattern between my chosen affinity and when the AI object. That is, I haven't observed that the AI are more likely to object to my game-winning wonder if they have a different affinity from mine. When 3 Supremacy AI all kept quiet when I started my Supremacy victory, that felt more like a coincidence than a correlation.