If real life were Civ3, who'd have the highest end score?

[Arrian]

AJ,

Ok, so you've got some issues with the USA. Fine - at least 1/2 the world agrees with you. But the thread is supposedly about which Civ, if Civ III rules applied to the real world, would have the highest score (a silly topic, but it IS the topic). The political decisions of the US government (boneheaded as they may be) are not relevant to the USA's current "score." Ralph was just throwing out an idea - that Voyager or Pioneer 10 (which is a loooooonnnnnggg way out there now, I believe farther than any other craft) could count as a SS victory. I disagree, given that the CivIII victory condition requires a SS capable of colonizing A.C. We're not even close.

Oh, and as to "I'm not a U.S. hater - really." LOLOLOLOLOL - ad infinitum.

Captain,

Wow, that must've taken a while to work out. Good effort.

The reality is that CivIII's scoring system is totally dominated by population. A large population is the best way to get a high score. Therefore, China wins. The creative arguments on behalf of other civs have been fun to read, but seriously, it's gotta be China.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

Re: America a potential civ leader? LOL! LOL!

Originally posted by AJ Corp. The FAIR
I couldn't disagree more to the first paragraph. As a matter of fact the Russians were the first to succesfully launch in space (Sputnik IIRC?).

I know and you are right about the name, but it did not leave our planetary system (and not even the gravitation of the Earth) and could not reach AC. Pioneer 10 and Voyager could reach AC in a few 10000 years, although they are directed otherwise, and they are probes and not space ships, which I stated in my initial post ("If consider...").

But in CIV3 the space race is about sending settlers to AC to COLONIZE other planets.

It was Civ2, where the ships had to arrive and to do something. In Civ3 the launch suffices.

By the way, this all does not matter, since this thread is about score, not other victory conditions.

[Captain]

Thank you

Thank you for all the wonderful compliments,
but honestly, I just took what some astute people saw as the most significant type of "win" (histographic), and along with Aeson's great post on the scoring system, I did some research and worked it out.

Unfortunately, it seems I made a few blunders and there are some other things to consider.

Let me rectify those now, qualitatively (I just don't think I could handle calculating all those individual city pops or for that matter even figuring out what to consider a "city" in civ 3 terms... it could be an entire province or country depending on the size of the world map - for example, on a normal map, the Netherlands might only be one city!)

So, number one, the rural versus city population. That's a toughie. It skews the distribution. Let's keep that in mind, and I'll come back to it, but just to address NYE's response, let's put Western Rome in with Byzantium. WR was even more short-lived, and according to my sources, was 22M at peak (please correct me if you have better data). It lasted 73 turns. According to my old way of scoring that would be 22*73=1606 pts. Then if we add this to Byzantium's 6460 makes 8066. Still not enough. Sorry.
Akka le Vil, I know I gave GB/UK a huge scoring bonus and the pop was as you say, much lower. But I did that because I couldn't find exact numbers for its colonies (other than the British Empire of India) so I assumed a generous number for them (and every civ besides China and India got these generous assumptions because I didn't want to be biased towards China and India, so the other scores should be top limits. I wanted to show how they couldn't be matched.)

But back to the main problem... the urban versus rural pop.

One of the things we have to consider is, what is a "city" in civ terms. The people who work the 21 tile radius, are they all residents in that single centre tile? Or spread over that radius?
In game terms, it's easy to count citizens and the above question is irrelevant. But in comparing IRL to the game, we would ask whether a civ's IRL rural population would count as citizens in the city who worked tiles (so all pop<21) or before town reaches city or metropolis size (pop<7 or pop<12). In that case, we would have some way of counting a civ's rural pop (b/c if they're outside of cities, we can't count them in Civ 3 and that would discount the vast majority of pre-industrial civs because they're mostly agricultural). So to avoid that, we'd have to view rural pop as being counted as citizens in the "town/city".

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The primary question is, how many cities does that civ have, and how are "citizens" distributed across those cities (so that the pops match IRL).

Perhaps a better way of determining this would be figuring out how many cities each civ had, and how much pop those cities had. Then convert to citizens for analysis.

I lent out my Civ game just two days ago and haven't got it back yet, so if someone could count # of cities for each of the top Civs in both MArla's huge world map, and maybe a standard sized map too, then we could approximate by distributing the population throughout those cities, and get some concrete numbers.

What you'd have to do, is just roughly see how many cities would normally fit within the tiles historically considered, and their approximate populations - then translate those pops to # of citizens for scoring purposes.

As cities are acquired through history, you may have to break down the empires into stages. For example, for most of the UK's history, it was very small, and would have say 4 or 5 cities. Then imperial age, it would have much more.

With estimating # of cities, here's my analysis.
---
a bit of math:

If, Current Pop = LastPop + (10,000 * CurrentCitizens) holds true past size 12, we can rearrange this formula to give:

Current citizens = (CurrentPop - Lastpop) / 10 000

What we don't know, is what lastpop is. So we have an unknown. Solutions would be to iterate, or determine a regressive formula, but the easiest way is probably to make a chart. So that's what I've done.
Here we go:
1 - 10k
2 - 30k
3 - 60k
4 - 100k
5 - 150k
6 - 210k
7 - 280k
8 - 360k
9 - 450k
10 - 550k
11 - 660k
12 - 780k
13 - 910k
14 - 1050k, 1.05M
15 - 1200k,
16 - 1360k
17 - 1530k
18 - 1710k
19 - 1900k
20 - 2100k, 2.1M
21 - 2.31 M
22 - 2.50 M
23 - 2.76 M
24 - 3 M
25 - 3.25 M
26 - 3.51 M
27 - 3.78 M
28 - 4.06 M
29 - 4.35 M
30 - 4.65 M

35 - 6.3 M

40 - 8.2 M

45 - 10.35 M

50 - 12.75 M

55 - 15.4 M

60 - 18.3 M

65 - 21.45 M

70 - 24.85 M

--analysis--

I'm sure I'll have a few invalid assumptions that you can point out, but offhand, let's say China has thirty cities. In the modern era, we have on average 800M. We assume ten on the coast are huge, and account for 600M people. That leaves 200M for the inland. That gives 10M each inland city. This gives 10M * 20 cities plus 10 cities * 60M in the modern era. That's 20 cities with 45 citizens, and 10 cities with 110 citizens. A total of 20*45+10*110 = 2000 points. This gives 51 turns at 2000 points.

In the medieval industrial era, China's pop was between 140 M (1368) and 400M (1910), largely rural. Thus the base pop would be 4.6 M per city if we use the first number (bias against China). The number of cities did not really change. That's 30 cities * 30 citizens. 900 points.

For all 156 turns before modern era, we count the average as 900 points. For 20 turns between 1910 and 1950, we use 400M/30 cities = 13M. That's 51 citizens. This gives 30*51=1530 points. (bias against China again for using 1st numbers only).

Averaging over time: (156*900 + 1530*20 + 2000*51 turns)/ 227 gives an average yearly score of 1202 points.

Let's compare to Russia. Give it say, a hundred cities in mdern era (I think this is overly generous but whatever), well spread out. Assume twenty major cities with 5M each. That's 100 million. The other eighty towns would have 50 M split btween them. That's 625 000 each. This gives 20*31 citizens + 80*11 citizens = 1500 points. Let's toss in another 15 cities at 3 M each to represent all the satellite states (actual total is 24M). That gives 15*24 = 360. points. So we have 1860 points for 40 turns, and 1500 points for 11 turns.

By 1275, the population was 10 M. This population rose to perhaps 15M by the time Russia began south&westward expansion, starting in the 1667 with half of the Ukraine. Explorers reached China in 1689 but settlement didn't occur until Catherine's reign, about 1750. There was a big population boon when it acquired the highly populated Baltic states of Latvia and Lithuania as well as parts of Poland and the Crimea. But prior to 1750, Russia was smaller than China. for sake of argument, let us say they were equal and give them thirty cities and 15M). That's 500k per city. This converts to citizens as 10 citizens*30 cities= 300 points. This counts for 139 turns.

In the imperial expansion age, between 1750 and 1914 (WW1), Russia's pop was around 50M. Given 80 cities, we go to 625 000 each. That's 80*11 citizens, 880 points. That's 80 turns.

Between WW1 and WW2 is a period of 20 turns. Between 50M and 150M, let's average 100M over 100 cities (bias FOR Russia, counting linear average). That's 1M per city, or 14 citizens*100. That gives 1400 points for 20 turns.

Averaging over time we get (139 * 300 + 880*80 + 1400 *20 + 1860*40 + 1500*10) / 290 turns, which gives an average of 791 points.

NOTE: Since we are averaging scores over time, the younger highly populated Civs may actually fare better! Let's try the USA (it's youngest).

According to the US Census, pop and land size:

1790, 4M. 2.2M sq km
1825, 10M. 4.5 M sq km
1840, 17M. 4.5 M sq km
1860, 30M. 7.6 M sq km
1870, 38M. 9M sq km
1880 50M. 9M
1900, 75M. 9M
1920, 106M.same
1940, 132M. same
1960, 180M. same
1970, 203M.same
1980, 228M. same
1990, 250M. same
2000, 280M.same

Instead of averaging in old era, I'll just use the larger pop (so the pro-USA fans won't have anything to complain about, so this is biased FOR the USA).

Since 1870, area is slightly larger than China, let's give them 35 cities. More generously, how about 40 cities?

From 1776-1810, maybe 10 cities. Pop = 10M. 1M/city. 14 ctz*10 = 140 points. 18 turns.
From 1810-1870, 20 cities. Pop = 38M. 1.9M/city. 19 ctz*20 = 380 points. 30 turns.
1870- 1950, 40 cities. Avg Pop = 75M. 1.9M/city. 19*40 = 760 points.40 turns.
1950-1975, 40 cities, avg pop = 180M. 4.5 M/city. 30 ctz *40 = 1200 points. 25 turns.
1975- present, 40 cities, avg pop = 240M. 6M/city. 34 ctz * 40 = 1360 points. 26 turns.

Averaging over turns, (140*18+ 380*30 + 760*40 + 1200*25 + 1360*26) /139 turns gives 789 points.

So, with a skewed bias AGAINST CHINA, and a bias FOR RUSSIA and bias FOR USA, the histographic scores end up as:

China 1202 points.
Russia 791 points.
USA 789 points.

Someone else can figure out how the other Civs stack up. I'm interested in GB/UK but it's really hard to find data for them. The USA has the most easily accessible records so that should be pretty accurate.
----
NOTE:
Still, I don't have hard data to back this one because I didn't actually do the tile mapping and figuring # of cities. I was just estimating.
---

My assumption is that the results will close the gaps but that China will remain the winner. below is my qualitative analysis.

Some reasons are that China still has a huge rural base. It has very large cities on the coast, but there are still 100's of millions living inland in tightly packed towns. While most live on the coast, it would be wrong to ignore the many many "citizens" living inland that fill China's space. Sure they seem empty but only comparison to the huge coastal metropolises. The pop there is substantial and should be counted. Also, for the majority of its history China has been rural, with a few mega-cities on the coast. It's base score for pre-modern era would be unchanged, but its late game bonus for huge pop would be much less. Still, it would clearly have more cities than GB, as well as more citizens. So GB/UK would not overtake it.

India, is also very rural. It has many large cities but also huge numbers of towns. Like China, it's late game bonus for pop would be much less. But because of the way in which they begin as rural civs and move towards urbanization (with the rural pop scarcely diminishing in absolute numbers), their base # of citizens would remain fairly high.

Russia, would likely increase its score because its population was distributed across a larger area and thus their citizens would count for more. Russia also has some mega-cities and its satellite states were fairly compact, it's population is concentrated mostly in European Russia (78%). But still, let's say we sprinkle the rest of Russia with towns til it is filled to IRL. This has a big effect on score, as seen above.

The USA was colonial. It's pop was fairly concentrated on the East coast for most of its history (and still is, though Calif is way up there now too), but it spread across with towns that are now.
The USA is not substantially large than China, it's pop is proportionally more urban than China's. So, I don't think it wins, even with more cities.

The ancient era empires would proportionally have higher scores, but you just can't compete with sheer numbers.

So,... any takers? C'mon, I know some people out there want to prove me wrong. Here's your chance to show how invalid my assumptions are by providing some hard numbers. Or not. I'm still enjoying this thread a lot reading what others are thinking.



Lastly, yes, I know how sad it must seem for someone to have actually calculated all this out. But, I did learn a lot of history while doing it, getting a good sense of how populations grow and how empires expand thorugh territory and population, plus learned a lot about urbanization. I also think it might help some others who are thinking of doing scenarios. You now have a better idea of how the empires stacked up aginst each other in the pre-modern era.

Cheers!

P.S. Let me add that I do think there should be other ways to calculate the score that aren't so heavily population based. I would love to see a score based on how well you play (as in, how well did you handle that war, did you win, and if you won, were casualites evem, 2:1 in your favour, a pyrrhic victory? how much genocide did you commit? did you burn any cities? did you use slave labour lots or did you try to incorporate them into your communities? wonders should count for more. points for living at peace would be nice. points for infrastructure is good. points for productivity, pollutions, and finances. points for techs, first to research and such., and many other ways to score besides this "simplistic" way.)

anyways, I notice China is slipping a bit (33% down to 32%) as more USA fans are submitting their votes. But you've seen the analysis! China has to win. Or India or GB/UK (since I haven't calculated those one and they're the only remaining serious contenders. but maybe rome might get some points since their average score might be pretty good. I'll let Ninot or NYE or someone else do the math for that though. Remember to keep it on the same scale as for the civs I've already done or you'll have to redo those too.)

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Originally posted by Arrian
AJ,

Ok, so you've got some issues with the USA. Fine - at least 1/2 the world agrees with you. ...
Oh, and as to "I'm not a U.S. hater - really." LOLOLOLOLOL - ad infinitum.-Arrian

Arrian,

I repeat, I am NOT a US-hater. I always feel very empathic and supporting when a disaster hit the USA citizens.

Some European thinking however has an important characteristic: be critic(al?) about many things. Think for yourselves, read stories and facts from different parts of view, try to be as objective as possible, try to find the nearest path to truth, pursue progress for all peoples.

If, as you state, at least 1/2 the world agrees with me, some 'issues with the USA' must have quite solid grounds/reasons, don't they?
They do, believe some of the things stated by 1/2 the world. (smiley! sic)

Reflecting some of those issues as I did ('LOLOLOLOL ad infinium', I admit, was maybe slightly over top to be 'political correct') DOESN'T mean I am a US hater. Be objective about this one as well.

Kind regards,

AJ

[Arrian]

Captain,

Good point about the degree of urbanization of society. The more cities, the more pop points (ICS may not work the same way as in CivII, but it's still the best route to a high score).

AJ,

I value objectivity above most other things, and I am fully aware that the "issues" people have with my country do not exist in a vacuum. I made no claim, none whatsoever, that the "1/2 of the world" of which I spoke was wrong. I took issue with your post because it annoyed me. It annoyed me because you (like many others before you) decided use this forum to vent your frustrations about the US of A for no apparent reason. Like I said, it's fine that you disagree with U.S. policy. You have every right to do so, and as a matter of fact I'd be willing to bet that we agree on many of the issues. But understand that if you go off on a rant about how terrible my country is, not to mention your assumption that "a unified Europe would produce better culture and ideas than the US," you ARE going to offend people (hey, I thought we Americans had a monopoly on arrogance... I guess not). It is one thing to say that refusing to sign the Kyoto Protocol was wrong - I agree. It is another to make snide, mocking comments about a country's overall worth. That's the part that is insulting.

Anyway, I don't want to hijack this thread any more than we have already, so I'll leave it at that.

-Arrian

[SultanofATL]

AJ,

Name 10 countries that have ratified Kyoto? Ah didn't think so. As a matter of fact most civilized modern nations are rethinking the whole thing. Look if we actually played pansy to all the Nations and didn't look towards our own benefit we would be idiots. Do you really think we could have counted on the U.N. coming to our aid on 9/11 had we not the economic and military where with all to say we will deal with it ourselves if need be. And by the way weren't some of Belgiums top people behind Bush and his campaign. Every one is always trying to tell Americans about our government. When you become a citizen deal with racism, pay taxes, and still find away to be a productive citizen criticize all you want. Outside of that I really give to sh*ts for your opinion on my country and its policies.

[ZigZac]

I agree. The Chinese should be 1st. They've been around for what, 6000 years? And they have a huge country, not to mention biggest population. The have the largest air force. It's a clean victory when it comes to score.

In my opinion, 2nd place should be the US because for only being around 200 years, they've done a whole lot of stuff. They've lept into having the most advanced army, navy and airforce. They get my second place, 1 for beating the world's super-power to become a nation, and 2nd for becoming a world power so fast.

[spicytimothy]

I am pleased....

I have to say ppl: This is the most open-minded threat, no, the most open-minded conversation i have ever heard since my 18 years of existence.

I agree with a lot of you. China would have the highest end score. Someone here mentioned that they were conquered by the Mongols etc. and that the Mongolians didn't adapt to the Chinese culture. That's not true. Yueng and Qing are the only 2 dynasties that is established by a minor tribe, but as soon as they come in, they are completely assiminated and maybe even overwhelmed by the Chinese culture. You don't c a lot of Mongolian-language-decorated commenoratives in China... and for Qing, by about the 3rd gen. of emperor, the blood is already back to the Chinese.

In my ranking, right after China would be America. The fact we Americans hv been here for only a bit over 200 years is the sole reason why we are so great and admirable. The wonder of democracy and the flood of inventions... sure the British started the Industrial Revolution and colonized a lot of lands, but they don't stand the test of time. They crumbled after 2 wars. On the other hand, the Americans invents, fights, upholds, and change the war into an opportunity of them to rise to prominence!

Sorry for the babbling...
Here's my list:

China
America
Germany / Japan
England
Rome / Greece / Egypt
.
.
Russia / France
.
.
Iroquois / Zulu / India / Persia / Babylon / Aztecs

[nato]

The British didn't crumble! They just handed off! I really love Britain.

I'd like to hear why you have Germany and Japan so high, if you care to type it. The Germans were real impressive, holding off almost the whole world ... and the Japanese are impressive for the incredible modernization ...

But neither was ever hegemon and neither "lasted" for long in contention.

They're very impressive, but I'd have a hard time putting them above Britain and Rome.

[ZigZac]

I would rank the nations like this:


1. Chinese

2. Americans

3. British(after all they did rule{at one time} more than half the world)

4. Romans-these guys were so cool. i mean, they even had plumming.

5. Egyptians-can we say, "built a lot"? and they are just really cool

Well, that's it for the top 5 at least.

[spicytimothy]

of course

Originally posted by nato
I'd like to hear why you have Germany and Japan so high, if you care to type it.

of course! Well, as I was talking about the Americans, the Germans and Japanese are two very very evil peoples, who set out to destroy humanity and kill people, but becomes nowadays the most repected manufacturer and one of the most prosperous economies in the world EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE BOTH DEFEATED. That's pretty impressive...

ok that was a lie. I just put them up so high so someone will ask me about it and I get the chance to witch about how evil they r...
I'd put them to the bottom of the bottom of the list. (That's right: bottom of the bottom)

[nato]

Ooohhh and I stumbled right into the trap!

Well at least I'm not completely useless

[spicytimothy]

opposite

o u r the exact opposite! I don't wanna sound like using u... but u r in fact very useful! haha.

Those evils... they made so much money after WWII and they hv to pay NOTHING for their crimes and all the lives they perished and all the women they soiled!

Esp. the Japanese... evil evil evil

[nato]

Well I'm sure you're not being serious but ...

Blame the governments! Its always the dumb governments, not the normal people!

Ok thats all I'm gonna say ... umm ... thread topic ... uh

1. China ... wait I already did that

[molly bloom]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by nato
'My feelings on some of the US topics ...

The US is supposedly much more religious than say Europe. However we are not religious at all compared to say some Muslim nations.'

Except of course, you have that awful televangelism pervading television and the airwaves and on billboards. And those eerie Colgate ad smiling Mormons....

'For instance, in the US religion is a once a week affair. '

Not necessarily- attendance at Church may be mandated at once a week for some denominations, but for many people prayer and attendance at church are daily affairs. Also, a Muslim does not have to attend a mosque five times a day, simply pray five times a day.

'Anyway the US does have a high culture. Culture = culture generating buildings. We have plenty of temples/cathedrals, lots of libraries, and the best universities in the world (lousy schools, but the best universities). We also have a couple of Wonders. So culture is high.'

Again, best universities in the world? That's an opinion, not a fact.

'The wonder of democracy and the flood of inventions... sure the British started the Industrial Revolution and colonized a lot of lands, but they don't stand the test of time. They crumbled after 2 wars. On the other hand, the Americans invents, fights, upholds, and change the war into an opportunity of them to rise to prominence! -spicytimothy'

The British don't stand the test of time? Strange, given that, for instance, Canada, Australia and New Zealand inherited political systems, culture and language from the British Empire- and still have the British monarch as head of state (a situation which should be rectified sometime soon).
Culturally, Britain still has a strong influence- the King James Bible (from the 17th Century) and Shakespeare (from the 16th Century), two notable exports to the world, have helped shape the English language and common parlance, and are read as far apart as Belize and Burma.

As for crumbling after two wars- well, the Empire was at its greatest extent after World War I, with the acquisition of the former German colonies in Papua New Guinea and Africa, and former Ottoman provinces in the Middle East. If you take that as the high point for calculating a final civ score, you might find a different total.

In 1914, Britain possessed the largest overseas empire, occupying 11 million square miles of territory on every continent and ruling over 400 million people, and had a network of defensive alliances and protectorates over Egypt, the Sudan, southern Persia, the Persian Gulf, and substantial financial interests and influence in China and South America.

Before anyone accuses me of being a propagandist for Empire, or some British jingoist- I'm not (I'm of Irish descent). I'm simply interested in a more accurate perspective.

Also- the calculation for happiness for the United States seems remarkably rose-tinted; has there never been social/political/ethnic unrest in the United States? You know, during the Great Depression, in the industrialisation of the country (the IWW, strike breaking, unionisation), the Oklahoma Dust Bowl, opposition to the Viet Nam war, the America Firsters, let alone the racial divide that continued after the Civil War was supposed to put an end to slavery- culminating in the Civil Rights movement. Surely any calculation of unhappiness/happiness/war weariness should attempt to reflect this- especially with such a short-lived civilization....