A Lousy Score

Steve Clark · December 15, 1999, 14:48

In my first AC game I got playing a few days ago (emperor, 7 civs, normal map), I was shocked to receive such a lousy score. I had 12 cities, 5,350,000 population, 14 wonders, launched in 1910 and landed in 1931. I know the population was very low, but I was concetrating on getting through the tech tree ASAP and getting that spaceship built. I used nearly all of the production to build caravans for wonders and then for spaceship parts and didn't build many improvements or units other than city walls, libraries and universities. Using caravans and some cash, I built the spaceship (15-3-3-1-1-1) in 7 turns.

I thought the goal of the game was to get to AC first. That was no problem since the other civs were no where near capable of building a spaceship. I know that the landing was quite late (as compared to the rest of you), but golly, I thought I deserved more than a 44% rating???

Xin Yu · December 15, 1999, 15:33

Have you maximized your luxury at the last turn? unhappy citizens will cost your points, so make them happy, or at least make them entertainers.

DaveV · December 15, 1999, 15:40

Steve,

There's no bonus for early arrival on AC. If you're going for high score, the best way to do it is to delay your launch as long as possible and micromanage till your brain goes numb. I, personally, don't pay any attention to my score.

Peter Hennesy · December 15, 1999, 15:50

steve, if your going for score build a bigger space ship as well - you get points for each 10000 colonists as I recall. Me I never usually worry about it. Manged 2% last time, though it ws OCC and a shitload of polution. I go for the year now. (Still only manged 1935 though

Sten Sture · December 15, 1999, 16:10

Steve - First, congrats on making AC in 1931. That is a really solid effort. You can tell from your game that the score thing is Crap!

You can bully the the other civs down to the ground, leave one foreign city for a trading partner, build up your population in 255 cities to 30+ citizens (this takes forever), set Lux to 100% just before you land on AC in 2019 and score huge. But make an effort to do something difficult like OCC or an early landing, and you get no credit!

I hereby bequeath to you 1000 Sten points.

C Chulainn · December 15, 1999, 17:12

Of course, sometimes you have to launch earlier than for a 2019 landing, because an AI civ is about to complete the Manhattan Project and start a global thermonuclear conflagration which will cost you -900 point for all that pollution or force you to switch production to a desparate attempt to build SDI Defence in every single city...

SandMonkey · December 15, 1999, 17:35

Like Sten said, you would be launching in 2019 once you have destroyed the AI down to one city, so you wouldn't have a problem with them trying to nuke you, they should still be in the stone age.

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SandMonkey

"Fear can sometimes be a useful emotion. For instance, let's say that you're an astronaught on the moon and you fear that your partner has been turned into Dracula. The next time he goes out for the moon pieces, wham!, you just slam the door behind him and blast off. He might call you on the radio and say he's not Dracula, but you just say, 'Think again, bat man'"

Genghis Al · December 16, 1999, 01:06

Sorry about this I just got here. What is this whole OCC concept you guys are always talking about?

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A russian never forgets

johnmcd · December 16, 1999, 12:01

OCC is one city challenge which means that you can never ever have more than one city, and if you do get one, an advanced tribe perhaps you must starve it or reload and reopen the hut.

My worst score ever is -343%, and I won!

jpk · December 16, 1999, 14:30

Don't worry about the score. Trying to get a high score is extremely boring. It depends upon having lots of very large cites, building or capturing all the wonders, and landing the largest possible space ship.

Try it once. In the off chance that you actually finish the game (I never did), you will swear to yourself that you will never do it again.

If you want to play competitively try one of the challenges. The One City Challenge and earliest conquest of the world are two that come to mind.

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If you can not think of a good reason to build something other than a caravan, build a caravan!

Scouse Gits · December 17, 1999, 06:41

Hey - I missed something - I've only been around for a couple of months and I don't recall seeing any postings about earliest conquest anyone got a reference to a past thread or can give some ball park dates for fair - good and incredible??

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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor

ZhugeLiang · December 17, 1999, 10:25

I hate going for space. Its funner and far better score wise to just take over the world, before nukes are around anyways. Just the other week I got 270% on deity, raging 7 civs, and it seemed easy....I just took all but one city and I micro'ed for about 10 turns, had WLT_D in all the cities, jakced the pops through the roof and then beat the last beliegured city. When it was all said and done i had over 86,000,000 people and almost all the wonders, save manhatan project and a few others. All that by 2000. I'm not sure, what is the highest percent you can get, 270 is the highest i've ever gotten, and i've only gotten it the once.

Steve Clark · December 17, 1999, 11:56

Thanks all for the encouragement and thanks especially to my friend Sten for those 1000 points

I did try Xin's suggestion. In the last turn before landing, I adjusted the lux rate to 80% (I was in Fundamentalism) and turned every worker into happy or entertainers. It did move the rating up to 49%.

I agree with most of you here, I have no patience for micromanaging the cities just to get a high score (especially after playing for 30 hours). The purpose of the game is to win (either by bloodlust or AC), the rest is just ego.

DaveV · December 20, 1999, 10:22

Scouse Git [1] -

One of my first posts concerned a 175BC conquest:
http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum3/HT...tml?date=07:35

I don't know what the records are for medium or large map. Whether or not you restart eliminated civs can make a big difference, so there should probably be 6 categories for each map size and restarting/non-restarting.

Scouse Gits · December 20, 1999, 11:44

Thanks DaveV

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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor

Aurelius · December 20, 1999, 14:09

My favorite game of civ involved a position I was militarily weak and far behind in science. Through theft of science and giving away science to my allies and hostile peaceniks, I was able to steal/trade my way back into the space race with the strongest AI civ.

Well, I won the game in 1950 by a year. But I will be remembered as "Aurelius the Glutton"

So I don't put much stock in the score unless I'm trying to break a record (which I haven't.) Those population games are work.

:-)