/sigh all that and I score a lousy 4k - just rushed to finish as the end game bores me.

Hey Chris. You thought Frenchy and the poodles were all huggy huggy. Get aload of that midwestern schmuck and his touchy feely "its amazing you plant a seed ans watch it grow" junk regarding his empire.

Made me want to break out with I'd like to teach the world to sing or Khumbaya or some other idiot touchy feely camp song like that. Friggin Hilarious.

Kiwi Greg: Still, well done. Was it fun? I do milk games at the end for extra points, but its the only way I can contribute in some small way to the Southern Hemisphere. Lets hope the scoring system is overhauled to eventually embarrass milkers like me. In the meantime, I LOVE that medal. Yet, as Cataleptic would say: "you are either number one, or you've lost".

Pontius: Damn, in my games I've never got the Olympiad. The Torians did, but then the swimmers ran amok and trashed their capitol, so be careful!

Well, I just completed my third game (the first was a loss and the second netted me a tiny 53 points!!!) and submitted the score: 1153.

I know its not much, but hopefully after I improve some more I will be able to contribute in a more substantial manner.

PS: Any tips on late game milking? I just played through the level normally, trading for the end tech at the end as well rather than researching it...

Oh, by the way, can you submit the same game twice? IE, can you submit one score, load it up, milk it for another X amount of turns, then submit again?

I don't believe so... I think every game has a unique metaverse ID that gets dished out upon Game Creation... Ur second submit would probably be rejected or you would get branded as a cheater or some such.

But It's a Nice Idea. Create the Ultimate Game and reload the Save from a particular point every time and hammer the Drengin.. Again.. and Again... and Again.

~SDC~

Does anyone have a sense of what type of victory is easier? Do most of you start a game with the express intention of a military victory and go down those research channels, or start a game and see how it plays out and adjust accordingly? I thought I would try and work my way through different victory types in order to learn the game mechanics - GalCiv never struck me as a "one sure path to victory" type of game.

I'd be interested in your thoughts...oh, and if anyone tries singing Khumbaya here, I'm defecting.....

Dead Agent: Just enjoy your games and forget about cheesy tactics for increasing scores. But, if you must, by now you've probably read "How I scored 23k step by step" by Citizen Staffa. My understanding is that the scoring system will one day be retroactively fixed (but I'll believe it when I see it).

I milked 2 games for scores by:
-leaving my game at version 1.20. I did this after reading a post which discussed how cheesy the PQ+15% choice was (at the set-up stage). I had never tried that choice, so thought I would see what a difference it made. It was huge! All PQ14 planets colonised become PQ16 immediately. A PQ20 becomes PQ23 and so on.
Not only that, but the planet improvements like soil enhancement also seem to increase the PQ by a bigger margin.
-the higher PQ = population growth and that equals higher scores.
-I turned off the culture victory option so that my game didn't prematurely end
-at the end of my 2 games just before a tech victory, (and the last civ had a few planets left about to be culturally assimilated) I directed all money into the economy and 0 into research. Then just hit the 'end turn' button. You just watch the population figure at the bottom left side of the screen. Each trillion people seem to equal about 1,000 points on the Metaverse. The more improvements you build, the more score, but Staffa is right in suggesting that population scores BY FAR the most.

Space Wombat: When I play CIV3 I am a turtle. But this game pays you to AT LEAST declare war every now and then against really weak civs, especially towards the end-game. This is why I ALWAYS keep my military high. For example, last game I got from the Arceans war reparations of over 3,000bc per turn for 40 turns. They went into debt of over 100,000bc but that is another story.
For me, the culture victory (if turned on) is presently the easiest to achieve. Military victory (and wars) takes a lot of preparation. As well, each transport sucks away your tax paying citizens! It doesn't make sense to me to constantly attack planets if it drops your economy, and destroys the planet economy you capture.
The tech victory is the longest and most tedious. I could have always won well before I finished researching every tech. That path currently gives you the most points tho, but is not as enjoyable.

Future updates have and will tighten all of this. For example by penalising taking too long to win. But will the current scores of players be changed I wonder. And anyway, does the Metaverse matter? (You bet. Heh heh. Its changed my life for the better LOL )

lol

Doh hit return

I jsut won on Challenging, tiny - got a mighty 118 points and submitting it actually lowered my overall score - I am going to play each size of galaxy on challenging and see how I go.

I decided this time to be military (I tend to be a research/assimilate player normally) so chose war party (50 HP) and repair ability and went all out for tranports (propulsion -> cold fusion -> impulse drives) and battle axes (defence -> defenders - > shields).

It worked quite well - I DOWed the Yor and they actually surrendered to me after I had taken one of their planets (never seen that before - normally they just surrender to someone else just to spite you).

I didnt really focus on tech - just invaded people.

Got to the end game there was onle me, the Torians and the Altarians left plus the Carinoids. I allied with the Altarians and invaded the CArinoids with everything I had. Once they fell (there planet had a 70 influence value!!!) the rest of the galaxy fell under my sway in 12 turns.

I normally take speed 2 as my racial and I really noticed the slowness of my ships but it matters a lot less on the tiny galaxy.

I see the Euro's color is pink. How appropriate.

on the #4 position!

OK managed to get my score even lower with a challenging win in a small galaxy.

I would have called it a military victory (as I won by invading a planet) but I seemed to get cultural victory as I was in an alliance /shrug.

Went with War Party (50 hp), +50 weapons, +30 solidering an +10 pop growth, seemed to work ok.

Got a lot of the trade goods and that, plus invading a lot, kept me up to date from a research perspective.

Kiwi Greg: I have to say, the scoring system in Galciv is starting to anoy me. I know, I know, its not a big thing, and its icing on the cake yudda yudda, but, no win should decrease your score. I mean, a scoring system which PENALISES you for playing different maps and going for different victory conditions?!

Veteran Freya: You seem OK for a European. Join an Empire with less shibboleths!

Freya: the coolest Euro of the alliance. Freya belongs in the Viking empire. Raaaaaahhhh!!!! Don't you think? I picture Freya with a colander over the head and a turkey leg in hand shouting Arrrrrghhhh at the dinner table. Nice Viking look.


Actually Chris, the scoring system is not so much annoying as is the crybabies that when they alone were exploiting it thought it fine, but now that someone else is more than they, waaaaaaah!!! At least those in our two empires did it right. Put it out here for all to see.

But it is wierd that you can't play certain type games and submit them because it will decrease your score.

I'd like to see separate Scores by size. Because you just can't balance it. No matter what you do one size benefits vs the other. And why should I be locked out of any size I want to play small or big just because I don't wish to lower the score?
__________
I'd be interested in your thoughts...oh, and if anyone tries singing Khumbaya here, I'm defecting.....

LMAO "Khumbaya my (RATTATATTATATTTATAT TAT) Phew. Lucky I had that Gross Death Ray Zorcher with machine gun sound handy. That was close.

Re #93 Pontius - you spend so much time here on the ANZAC thread with us...you seem like a decent type....ever thought of a happier (great southern) existence down here with us? You're just a simple couple of clicks away (cue hypnotic background music)......

And where can I get one of those Gross Death Ray Zorchers, anyway?

Given that the reason given for the scoring system was to get people to submit games and allow them to tweak the AI it is pretty crazy if the only games they have to work off are ones played on gigantic galaxies where the tactics and strategy are so different and the gme is more forgiving.

"Pontius - you spend so much time here on the ANZAC thread with us"

He is all over our thread too!!! The happy chap, they must be having bad wheather over there in Grossland.

I quite like you Aussies though, I had an Aussi girlfriend at one point, boy, she was cool

I just dislike your TV series, though. And Ms Minongue.

Impune, you've gone too far. You can have our women, you can hate our TV shows, but hands off Our Kylie!

Hey - DONT KNOCK OUR KYLIE! Or the Wiggles! Or any other national treasures either! If this continues, I'll have to recruit one of our Test cricketers - then you'll see some world championship sledging on these boards. You will crumble when faced with Glenn McGrath!

Serious footnote: I'd support calls for revising the scoring based on my (admittedly limited) experience. I can't get my head around how long it would take to complete a gigantic game; and with gaming time limited by Real Life (TM) I'm more likely to complete a series of tiny/small games with increasing difficulty levels. Following on from threads above, I wonder if the real 'champions' of the game should have to demonstrate wins of each type before proceeding. For example, I would have to register wins of type tech, mil and cultural at the easiest level before any scores at higher levels would count. This might continue until you had achieved each type of win at the highest difficulty level, REGARDLESS OF MAP SIZE. After you had worked through each round to the top, you would then be free to register any game score of any size or type as the ultimate reward thereafter. I realise that being too prescriptive takes the fun out of it, though - just offering some food for thought.

Even with my limited play times I can knock off a gigantic game within about a wekk - call it 15 hours of play or so.

To the extent there is a "trick" - use governors, macro manage your fleet builds (using the governor screen again), avoid wars, put your survey ship(s) on auto survey (I do this for any map size).

I'm sorry...."auto survey"? Have I missed something? How? Oh, goodbye tedium.

Re #93 Pontius - you spend so much time here on the ANZAC thread with us...you seem like a decent type....ever thought of a happier (great southern) existence down here with us? You're just a simple couple of clicks away (cue hypnotic background music)......

And where can I get one of those Gross Death Ray Zorchers, anyway?


Zorchers are a Trade secret. Just like our Kentucky Fried Drengin 11 herbs and spices recipe. Did you know Drengin tastes like chicken? We at Gross expected as much.
Oh yeah the emporer deserts Gross for the Aussies. They would have a field day with that one.

Chris and I have a funny habit of carrying on our conversations on 20 threads at a time. Kind of makes it interesting.

Speaking of which, Have I ever mentioned how good Misty Hymen looks in her swimsuit Chris?

#96 by Citizen Impune_Lacessit - 5/19/2003 8:01:07 AM

"Pontius - you spend so much time here on the ANZAC thread with us"

He is all over our thread too!!! The happy chap, they must be having bad wheather over there in Grossland.



Well Frenchy, someone has to come over and liven up your lap poodles' debates on the relative merits of turning the outside lights off vs leaving them on at night.

Chris:

Double clikc on your survey vessel. Choose "auto survey" from the command list. It seems to do pretty well and is a hell of a lot more convenient than trying to find all the space junk manually.