3rd Apolyton Civ3 Tournament : 17/Dec/2001-7/Jan/2002 (results are in!)

[Allondro]

Told you there were lots of armies. And what's with the grape forest?

[Grumbold]

Interesting distribution of resources

Domination victory, 1908 AD, 3389 points.

I thought I was going to do better than that, but the science trade bug/feature messed me up.

[Jurassic Joe]

Here is my zip file. Just change the production at Athens to the space ship Lounge and launch the ship the next turn. For your gaming pleasure you can even beat upon the moron Aztecs who have backstabbed me at every turn.

This was a great game. very bloody and very challenging. I thought the Aztecs would get a domination victory after they wiped out the enormous chinese empire. But I was able to launch in 1918. this is my first victory on Monarch level.

[Eflin Soth]

CULTURAL VICTORY IN YEAR 1965.

2826 Points.

[mrknightly]

Stick'em with the pointy end!!

Here's my game.

[Roland Ehnström]

Hmm, I posted my savegame here before the server-crash, but now the message is gone - weird! So, here we go again...

I achieved a Domination Win in 1880 AD, and a nice tally of 3552 points (2nd highest I've ever got). However, I must admit that I reloaded a few times. If you find that this is illegal (I've never really got a good grip of what the rules are really like) you can count this submission out of the final results. In any case I won't reload anymore in future games, 'cause it really destroyes the challenge.

The win may be a bit difficult to reproduce exactly, because I got the domination win by rush-buying some temples and libraries in the former English cities on the turn before the win was announced. But I don't think this will do much of a difference in the score.

Peace!
-- Roland

[philler]

conquest victory, 1904 AD, 3150 pts.

at the beginning I thought I would simply eradicate the zulus, settle their territory and go for culutural or space race victory.
Then the Aztecs started pissing me off for no reason so I conquered them as well, then its was the romans and then the japanese. (these cities were almost completely useless because my forbidden palace was in zimbabwe).

by that time the germans had wiped out the chinese and the english had like one city left (which I took )

I fought a long battle with the germans, which I won easily when I got tanks.

I thought I would get a domination victory but it wasn't coming, so I managed to take the last german city and the last aztec city (in some remote part of the southern ocean) during the last turn.

it's not too bad a score considering how disjointed my strategy has been

--
also, anyone has any idea why the summary replays of my games never seem to be available? apparently they only work with short games...

[PFREMONT]

cultural victory, 1945 AD, 5615 pts
Sold all cultural improvements in early XIX century in order to get a higher score...

[DaBear]

I am not going to be posting a win here as I got trashed. I wanted to follow up my last great game with another and do it completely with no saves.

It started great and I had great plans.

I gave up one turn to make my capital on the coast. This accomplished two things. It got the Furs out of my city radius and allowed me to build coastal wonders. I played a number similar setups in getting ready for this tournament and I noticed that the aggression of the military civs was greatly lessened by not having any resources or luxuries in any city radius. This was an important step as I endeavored to build no hoplites.

By building no hoplites I was trying to have a late Golden Age where it could do the most good. I got the GL with no difficulty and was keeping everyone at least polite to me.

Then I made an error by not wiping out a barbarian encampment. I left them there to produce ships to protect my backside. I said an error because of a pop up saying something about rampaging hordes and my jaw hit the floor as units came poring out blowing past my gaurd and marching for my capital.

OK, regroup. Pulled lots of men from surrounding cities to protect the capital and I just (Down to the last warrior!) saved it. The next punch came almost immediately. The one lone German warrior that long ago got stuck behind my choke point goes and takes one of my undefended cities that no amount of tech or $ could prevent. I pull my last units from my choke point to clean it up and it is, as I feared. The Aztecs who are gracious to me attack.

It was a very exciting game for me but not having Iron really hurt. Since putting in the patch the non-military option is having a tougher time of it. I think it is time for a break for me. My son got a copy of zoo tycoon and it looks fun. Still waiting for NWN though.

[Severus]

I know time is running out on playing this 3rd tournament, but I was gonna give it a try anyway. BUT, it won't let me download the map. When I click to download, it takes me to the FILE DOWNLOAD page, where it says, if nothing happens in 5-10 seconds click here. Well, it takes me automatically to a page saying "Page not found" Am I doing something wrong? Thanks for any help.

[Kalani]

This was definitely an interesting game. i thought I lost it early, the Zulu gave me a run for my money. Centuries of war with them before taking their lands. I tried building right on their border, which got me the horses (off and on for a while), and we were lucky enough to discover a source of iron in the mountains near Sparta--anyone else experience this?? As someone else above, got the Chinese and Aztecs to dismember the English--by the way, seems no one noticed that militaristic Persia was left out--should have been either England or China (non-mil), not both--and I wonder what this game would have been like with immortals running around...?

I tried to stay peaceful, but when the Aztecs attacked I responded by taking all of their English lands and bottling them up in their original peninsula. Japan turned around and attacked me the turn after we made a MPP. Weird. Japan actually seemed to be threatening a culture win, as they had six wonders in Kyoto and three of their cities in the top five. Attempts at spying brought more war, but when I finally got a peek, they didn't have time to get there. So I left wondrous Kyoto standing as I didn't have the heart to raze it--captured it knowing full well it'd be back in their hands in a few turns, took a couple of their tiny cities for peace.

At this point I thought, now how was I planning to win this game...? It seemed I might not make it, as I certainly didn't want to go trashing my friends the chinese.... So space it was, eeking out the win in 2037. The last fifty turns or so were just passing the time, letting the governor build up my military. I have never once played a game where I used stealth planes or radar artillery. No nuke experiences either (except reloading and dropping the bomb for kicks).

I did try for a diplomatic victory actually, as I was honorable throughout, but each vote was the same: Mao votes for Mao, Caesar votes for Caesar, Alexander votes for Alexander, Tokugawa abstains. No consensus. Well I had to build the spaceship at that point so they'd recognize my (minor) greatness. Ah, and since I skipped the first UN meeting because I wanted to try some bribing, I lost 12-20 turns waiting for it to meet again before embarking on the space race. Interesting game, but I too, will be taking a break. (Alas?) there is more to life than civ.

space race win, 2037AD, 2028 (?) points.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Severus
BUT, it won't let me download the map.

try this link
http://apolyton.net/forums/attachmen...&postid=673242

you have to add the .zip extension in the name with which it will be saved on your disk

[kapapj]

Herewith a spaceship victory in 1992 with 2763 points.

[Eflin Soth]

5316 Points in year 1985.

Cultural victory
Space race visctory
Domination victory

all in the same turn...



But I'm not the Best

[Eflin Soth]

5817 Points....

This is the BEST......

[philler]

Cultural victory
Space race visctory
Domination victory

all in the same turn...

this is strictly a quirk of fate right?

no shenanigan whatsoever involved?

[DaveV]

I ran out of time to finish the game before the deadline, but I should be able to have a domination victory before AD 1000. No reloading, city trading, or treaty breaking; only a couple of gold/turn deals (both of which I regretted when I had to wait to attack). I just ran pure ICS (Infinite City Sleaze) and Despotic conquest.

[SonicMeiyu]

A very interesting game, far more wars for me this time (I didn't have any in the first two tournament games).

Three key events made this game much easier for me. First, Thea worker found iron in the mountain to the east of Athens very early in the game. Second the Germans were wiped out early leaving me the only scientific civ in the game, and third someone built Sun Tzu one turn before anyone else discovered invention. This left me alone to build Leonardo without any compitition. As a result I got Sistine, Bach, Leon, and Copernicus for my first time ever.

I started very slowly and conservatively until I developed cavalry and using Leon I upgraded my 15 or so horsemen to cavalry and blited the Zulu into history. Not oong after I developed steam engine only to find no coal! But there was Tenochtitlan for the taking so I took advantage of my cavalry monopoly and blitzed the Aztecs. The result was a nice large empire, and after building FP in Ulundi I had a beautiful low coruption empire. Befoe I knew it I had a huge 10 tech lead on my rivals (they stayed in comunism for an eternity fighting each other and only developed the tech that I sold them at a very high price) and any wonder I wanted was mine.

Eventually, the Japanese decided they wanted my oil and attacked me just after I had built up an army of tanks. Befoe I knew it the entire world was at war with Japan, and shortly afterwards Japan joined the Zulu and the Aztec.

Since my last game was a diplomatic victory I decided to go for a Space Race victory. I was well on my way when Rome decided they wanted to wipe me out (Judging by their early attacks I think they wanted my ivory). So I enlisted the Chinese at the price of some of my extra dye and proceded flatten the Romans (the stupid Romans proceded to declare war on the Enlish too, even though Julius had the smallest army in the world). Good thing too because just before I discovered Sattelites my only Uranium source ran out. Luckily I had 5 or 6 modern armours just out side the Roman uranium city.

When I finished the SS Party deck, I was in the middle of my Roman campaign, and war weariness was starting to climb. Despite all the fighting (by my standards) I only got one leader- and very late too, so I wasn't able to take advantage.

[La Fayette]

This should be a victory by domination since I conquered the whole island, which means more than 2/3 of the land (as the guidebook states), but the AI didn't tell me I had won, so I go on playing (until conquest, I suppose) and post the result in the near future.
Anyway, my main objective was to test my 'size 6' strategy and it did work very nicely indeed.

[La Fayette]

The AI just announced domination victory (1760, 3623 score).
I owned 70 cities and there were 14 left to take, so it seems that the 2/3 rule given by the civilopedia has probably been modified (patch?).
Anyway, it was fun getting there.

[Aeson]

In some limited testing of when domination is awarded, I've found it to be a sliding scale. The percentage of land tiles needed to be culturally claimed varies inversely to the number of total land tiles. Water tiles don't count either towards the total, or the number claimed.

Some of the numbers... Standard Maps, Regent (edited maps for easy tile counting and settlement)

100 Total
90 didn't trigger domination

1862 Total
1497 (~78%) needed for domination

1519 Total
1214 (~80%) needed for domination

As you can see, the % needed to trigger domination increases as the number of squares decreases. At what rate exactly I'm not sure. And as its very boring to do, this is all the testing you get from me I also tested whether or not how long the land was claimed mattered, and it didn't ever change the percentage.

[La Fayette]

Originally posted by Aeson
And as its very boring to do, this is all the testing you get from me .

I am fairly sure that this is not the truth: all good players at this game come to test ...sooner or later .

[Aeson]

I just meant im not running any more tests on when domination is triggered... not that i was the only one who would do it

[Conqueror]

Nice scores you have performed people, so nice that i couldnt beat them, so i wont be posting my game here

Got only about 2300 points with space race at 1940.

Waiting eagerly for the next tournament, this game tought me to play better then before and i'm sure ill do much better next time

[Chemical Ollie]

Very brutal map! I learned a lot. I got a cultural win in AD 2003, when China already had 9 parts of the spaceship ready. I had plans to nuke them if they had tried to build the last part (they had already nuked the Japs back to the Jurassic era, so they deserved it).

I see no reason to post any file, as I only got an average score of 2300 something, which is less than half of what the best players got.

I went for early culture. I missed the Pyramids to the Krauts with a few turns and got the GL instead. I also did some aggressive settling to grab the horse in the chokepoint. The poor Horse Town whas then whipped to a high culture value. I only did one early war, to grab the iron island that the Tommies settled just a few turns before I reached it. They were not amused, but could do little against it. Shortly after, a new iron popped up on the southwest hill, but you can't have too much iron can you? My great culture made the Zulu saltpeter city defect to me, so I could build mustketmen. I was also attacked by the Chinks, but as I had built some forts at the chokepoint, they could not hurt me. The war got me two leaders before they had to sue for peace and pay me tribute. I used one leader to rush J.S. Bach and one to build an army. I also built Sixtine, Shakespeare and Tsun Tzu. The Tsun Tzu is great if you want to upgrade your units in any city. I always build it if I can.


Then I started to build a huge army of cavallery, infantry and artillery so I could take on the strong Germans that had long ago erased the Zulus, Brits and Aztecs and was no 1 in the World. When I felt strong enough, I made a "Molotov-Ribbentrop" pact with Chinese and there was a race to grab as much of Germany as possible. They did not last for very long, and I suffered very few losses, as the Chinks kept the Krauts busy. In the meantime, Rome settled on the Aztec land the Krauts had razed. I had to do an aggressive settling to grab the coal in the middle of the new Roman land. Then, when I got mech inf, I deceided Rome should stick to their own continent. It took me only one turn to throw them back in the ocean. To bad for the Chinese, they had a pact with the Romans. I used armies of 4 veteran mech inf to defend most of my border cities, and put a stack of 25 artillery under such an army. They didn't even bother to attack it when I brutally shelled down the Chinese towns to a few citizens before my modern armour rolled in. I stopped just short of Bejing, after I had grabbed all luxuries I needed. The Chinks refused to talk to me until then anyway. War wearyness was a real pain, especially as the Japs had the Suffrage, but some luxuries did help. When peace broke out, all but me started the space race. The Chinks got the lead with the Japs close behind, which finally led to the Chinks nuking the Japs to death just to keep them tied down.

I had plans to get a conquest vic in AD 2040 by nuking and blitzing the rest of the world. I and started to decrease pollution and increase population to maximize my score, but my time ran out when my capital reached 20000 culture.


One thing I have noticed is that the scoring system highly encourages aggressive conquest rather than peaceful expansion. The earlier you conquer your neighbours, the higher your score. I normally build 20-30 towns of my own and then conquer a neighbour or two in the late game. If you want more than the average 2-3000 points I normally get, you must go for blood from the very start. I tried that once and got 4000 on a tiny map by domination in AD1400. You don't even get score points for building wonders any longer. Does anyone agree with this observation, or is it just my strategy that s*ck?

[Aeson]

The scoring bonus for all types of victories is indeed determined by date. Conquest being the type that is available earliest, it will often be the highest scoring option. On maps with a lot of land though, just missing a Domination victory and building up until 2050 can score higher than early Conquest. Sadly these are the only ways of getting "high" scores.

[SonicMeiyu]

Originally posted by Olaf Hårfagre
One thing I have noticed is that the scoring system highly encourages aggressive conquest rather than peaceful expansion. The earlier you conquer your neighbours, the higher your score. I normally build 20-30 towns of my own and then conquer a neighbour or two in the late game. If you want more than the average 2-3000 points I normally get, you must go for blood from the very start. I tried that once and got 4000 on a tiny map by domination in AD1400. You don't even get score points for building wonders any longer. Does anyone agree with this observation, or is it just my strategy that s*ck?

If you look at the histograph, you will see that only three factors influence your score for most of the game: land area (offhand I can't recall if this includes sea squares), happy population, and specialist population (I think you also get points for future tech but I'm not at my home computer and I've always won long before this became a possibility). Therfore, content pop, wonders, etc. count for nothing, and since all turns count to your score it is vital that you conquor a civ or two before the end of the midle ages if you want to be at the top. Strictly speaking, the only way I think you can get a huge 5000+ score is to take over just under 2/3 of the world and hold on as long as possible without triggering a cultural/domination victory.

While I believe that the current scoring system is much better than the old civ2 method, I think your cultural achievements,(especially wonders) should count towards your score. Currently, only happiness wonders indirectly count via increased happiness.

[SonicMeiyu]

This may be getting a bit off topic, but how about bringing back the peace dividend in some form? While the old civ2 system never seemed to count for much (at least in my games) the idea was good, and there should be some way to discourage, or at least not over reward, war mongering for 6000 years.

[La Fayette]

IMO high scores only mean boring endgames and use of specific techniques. (ask Ming, or Rah,...)
The best player is the one who achieves earliest victory of any kind (earliest landing, earliest domination,...), preferably without use of reloading or exploits, or even cheats or mods.

[SonicMeiyu]

Originally posted by La Fayette
IMO high scores only mean boring endgames and use of specific techniques. (ask Ming, or Rah,...)
The best player is the one who achieves earliest victory of any kind (earliest landing, earliest domination,...), preferably without use of reloading or exploits, or even cheats or mods.

Good point, I agree entirely.

I remember playing civ2 trying to finish the "perfect game", which meant dominating a huge map with large land area (usually the large earth map) and maximizing my score by lauching a 40,000 pop spaceship at the last possible moment.

Problem was, I never finished a single game. I would start a new game (always the best part) play off and on for a couple of weeks before quiting after the mind boggleing tedium of spending hours to micro-manage only a couple of turns . I'd then do something else (like work) before coming back a few months later and starting all over again.

In summary, don't be intimidated by those high scores, especially the early conquest/domination types which probably took a very long time to play anyway.

On a side note, I tried doing a borg style game building nothing but workers, settlers, and fighting units in the tournament 1 game but it just took too d--n long. I was sick of it before 2000 BC. I would be interested to know how long (in hours) it takes people to play this kind of style to the finish.