Let's see some high scores

[Ecthy]

It's not Off-Topic, it's just a digression.

Off-Topic would be if we started debating the realism factor of the strategies described and compare them to Earth history, calling each other liberal wimps and conservative bigots

But semi-back to semi-topic (), as a scientific civ, our people have the big advantage of getting Monotheism, NAtionalism and Rocketry as the first civ in each time. And the enemy likes those techs, making us rich buggers most of the time

My highest score was still about 1200.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
I see. But then, as I said, rapid expansion is usually impossible when you are in a huge area of jungle and the like. But then I haven't done any island hopping so fr, as in colonising other islands / continents.

The key is to get at least 2 good cities with 3-4 food surplus and no or moderate corruption. They will make your settlers and workers. Let 2-3 other cities make spearmen (don't alter if not necessary). If you can't make it, you are screwed and your only chance is to get your "Lebensraum" elsewhere by military force.

Originally posted by Ecthelion
How do you deal with corruption on huge maps? How do I alter the corruption by using the editor?

The corruption is less at huge maps. Altering the corruption level in the editor is out of question for me, though there should be some settings (like favorite # of cities or something like that). I don't use the editor much, so I don't know the options there.

I think we should discuss this in another thread, as it's OT.

[TinCow]

My best two so far are a Domination victory on Monarch for 3433 and a Space Race victory on Monarch for 2955. However, I am currently just entering the modern age in a new game and I'm already just over 3000. Looks like I'll probably beat my high score.

[TheChief]

Followup

My best score was on Regent level and with a large pangaea map. It was very tedious during the end game. 8-10 minute turns. I could take a nap between turns. I finally went for the space ship just to end it all by 1996. It was actually the first game that I got robotics in and I did that just to see what kind of boost manufacturing gives (and it does good). I'm currently playing on a Duron 1Ghz system, but I'm waiting for my new XP 1800+ to arrive. Hopefully this will speed up some of those turns.

I probably had over 120 workers and had all animation turned off. Nearly my entire continent (which was huge) had been railroaded and most of the jungle had been cleared away. By this time (late 1900's) I had most of the workers doing the CTRL-A automation, but around 20% doing regular automation. All cities were being run by governors (usually do this in the early 1900's) and I just tweak governor production as needed. I did notice that even though I had set governors to not build workers, they would still do it even though I set it to all cities numerous times. (I guess that just couldn't stand the occasional pollution.

If the faster processor doesn't speed up things I'm going to try the smaller maps although I won't come close to my current high scores.

[Lord Silvi]

Sir Ralph:
My difficulty levels are:
Chieftain - Warlord - Prince - Monarch - Emperor - Deity

[Stryfe]

First of all, there's nothing inevitable at all about the end game--if you're human, that is. My highest scoring game, I was way behind at the dawn of the industrial age on a large map (or was it huge? I don't remember) as the Greeks, but I bought the tech for cavalry, fortified my border, and over a long (220 year) war managed to eliminate the 2nd most powerful civ in the game at the time, using the help of the weakest civ (I was second weakest) and the third weakest. Then, I took out the weakest, who'd been my ally, and then my other ally (aren't I cruel) and had my whole continent to myself. But meanwhile, the Iroquois were totally dominating the equivalent of the Asian contienent (really damn big). During their wars, however, they would often raze cities. I would send out settlers into those areas and soon had a bunch of mini-bases in their territory. I rush-built as many cultural improvements for those cities as possible. Then I allied with those self-same Iroquois to take out the last two civs, who were both nothing to sneeze at. At this point, I had about 52% of the map, the Iroqouis 48%. I obtained a Right of Passage agreement, sat outside of their cities with nukes, declared war on them, took out all their cities with nukes, and slowly--VERY slowly--managed to take their empire from them. Despite what you may think, their military was about 150% the size of mine, but the surprise attack made up for that. I won a world conquest victory from that, in the year 2009 I think. My score for that game was

Greek, 8522, Emperor, World Conquest, Large/Huge? map, 2009.

However, that game took a month to complete, and the final turns were agonizingly slow--just as you would expect from a world-wide war, though, and those wars could be really entertaining. What really kept my score down though was that until the year 1200 or so I was pathetically weak, and that accounts for about 40% of the game, which was averaged into that score.

Anyway, my other highest scores are:

Germans, 5256, Emperor, Space Race (won by one turn over the Egyptians), standard map, 1820
French, 3294, Monarch, Space Race (won easily), large map, 1900

[Qilue]

Games finished so far all played on huge map.

3382, Egypt, warlord, diplomatic
3547, France, warlord, space race
3118, England, warlord, cultural
4730, Zulu, regent, diplomatic
5330, Japan, regent, space race

[Arrian]

My best so far was just over 4500 - Monarch, Egyptian, Normal World Map (included w/the game, not player created). I won around 1800 by SS. That game became the basis for my story ("In Vino Veritas & The Ides of March" in case you care).

I have a feeling that my current game will be better (Monarch, Normal/8civs/Continents/Normal/Normal/4 billion/roaming barbs). I got off to a great start, and will probably win by domination really soon (it's the early 17th century and I've got a bunch of Cavalry). The score is somewhere in the vicinity of 2500 now.

*Rant mode on*
I personally think the scoring isn't done quite right. All it does is calculate your territory and number of happy citizens (x2, I think). So it's set up for warmongering. No points for wonders, total culture, etc.?? Seems to me that Firaxis went out of their way to implement various improvements for the "builders" but left scoring alone. More cities, more land, etc. What about making your empire a nice place to live? *Rant mode off*

-Arrian

[Stryfe]

Originally posted by Arrian
*Rant mode on*
I personally think the scoring isn't done quite right. All it does is calculate your territory and number of happy citizens (x2, I think). So it's set up for warmongering. No points for wonders, total culture, etc.?? Seems to me that Firaxis went out of their way to implement various improvements for the "builders" but left scoring alone. More cities, more land, etc. What about making your empire a nice place to live? *Rant mode off*

I can't help but disagree; the scoring mode is set up to favor those that do both. You see, territory counts, and that favors war mongering; but war mongering doesn't create happy citizens, it creates the opposite, especially if you wish to be effective as you ought to be, ie be a democracy. There is nothing in war mongering, per se, that will gain you more happy citizens, only more citizens, and the more you do it, the fewer happy citizens you will have, averaged out over the game.

So how is it that you obtain these happy citizens (content ones count too, but much less)? Through wonders and improvements, of course; and if you don't spend time improving your territory, you won't gain large populations of happy citizens which are necessary for a high score.

Obviously, the best way to maximize your score is to have a large empire with a large number of happy citizens, and in the end, all improvements and wonders aim towards this in some way or another (Hoover Dam allows you to build more improvements => happier citizens, more military units => more territory, etc). Future Tech also counts towards points, so just plain research is good--and guess what produces good research? That's right, building cities with improvements and wonders, especially the much loved Newton's Copernican Seti Program located in the Research Library of the University located on the coast of a Democracy.

I feel as though this rant is at least indirectly directed against my 8522 score, so let me say one thing: almost every city I had possessed the vast majority of the improvements. Out on the fringes of the empire--and there were a lot of fringes--I would simply wait one turn and buy them, so every city I'd had for 10 turns had a library and temple, and soon thereafter a cathedral and university. My culture score was 244,920, BTW. The only reason I didn't win a cultural victory was because the Iroquois were around 200,000, and you need at least 2x your nearest opponent to win a cultural victory...

In any case, if you ever attempt a world conquest victory--and not just domination--and especially on a large or huge world, you'll quickly see that only the perfect balance of expansion and improvement can hold such an empire together, especially since so much of your empire will lie so far from your capital, and will need strong culture to resist the other civs' cultures. I think that if you look at all the war mongerers' complaints, you'll see that not only is conquest incredibly difficult in civ3, it is only possible if you abandon the tactics of civ2 conquest. Anyone who just builds is bound to be far behind the player who builds and makes war, but will still be ahead of the player who only makes war.


On another subject, I'm sure that there are people out there with scores of at least 15,000 or 20,000--there've always been people much better at Civ than me...and I'd like to hear from those people how its done.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Lord Silvi
Sir Ralph:
My difficulty levels are:
Chieftain - Warlord - Prince - Monarch - Emperor - Deity

Are we talking about the same game? I, and with me all others I know here, have Regent instead of Prince. May be it has been changed by a Mod or so?

[Arrian]

Stryfe,

No, my little rant was not in any way directed at your score... it may have been directed at some of those 15000+ Deity/tiny/conquest scores I've seen posted on Civ Fanatics' hall of fame. You're talkin' despotic whip rushes there. Now, some of that is the deity scoring bonus, but I doubt that a hybrid builder/warmonger style will ever result in scores as high as the despotic rush conquest.

You're right, happy citizens are very important to your score. However, how you get them happy? Simple, go get the luxuries. Since the AI is highly unlikely to do a 1 for 1 luxury trade (or even 3 or 4 for 1, in my experience!), I find the best way to get happy citizens is to conquer. Go take the luxuries for yourself. War weariness doesn't hurt you very much, unless you fight for a really long time, if you have the happiness wonders and 6 or more luxuries w/marketplaces. If you set yourself up right pre-democracy, any further wars will be blitzkrieg Modern Armor/Bomber affairs...which don't last very long normally.

I may be wrong, or just in the minority, but it *seems to me* that the scoring favors conquest - and conquest gets more and more tedious as the game progresses, as has been discussed in other threads. Anyway, it's a minor gripe, really, and not something that is really hampering my gaming experience... by the way, I am impressed by your 8500+ score.

-Arrian

p.s. It seems we approach conquest in much the same way - once resistance ends, 1 turn wait, rushbuild temple, 1 turn wait, rush library... if it's a high-culture opponent, continue on with cathedral/university.... and even colleseum. This really helps prevent reversion.

[Ghengis-Sean]

Best scores, hmmm

Iriqouis, Monarch, Cultural victory in 1735, 4500 points
Japanese, Emperor, Domination in 1350, 8400 points.

I have yet to use a nuclear weapon in anger, and it's really bringing me down. I just want to nuke someone, hopefully several someones.

[Stryfe]

Originally posted by Arrian
Stryfe,

No, my little rant was not in any way directed at your score... it may have been directed at some of those 15000+ Deity/tiny/conquest scores I've seen posted on Civ Fanatics' hall of fame. You're talkin' despotic whip rushes there. Now, some of that is the deity scoring bonus, but I doubt that a hybrid builder/warmonger style will ever result in scores as high as the despotic rush conquest.

That doesn't even sound like a strategy---its simply taking advantage of a weakness of the game. Myself, when I play tiny maps, I put in 16 civs--otherwise the game is dull. At any rate, that's certainly a method whereby a conqueror gets a higher score than a builder.

[Captain]

I echo Arrian's sentiments.

Stryfe, you definitely earned that score. That was some shrewd playing. But you gotta agree that it's not fair that your score is lower than those small map despot rushbuild conquer like lightning ones. *

In fact, coming from so far behind like that to out and out conquer the world is brilliant. You shouldn't be penalized for how weak you were at some point, you should be congratulated on that remarkable turnaround.

(*well, haven't played that, so really I shouldn't comment, but Stryfe's game sounded a lot harder to me)