High scores and how you got them

[Wayward Raven]

What are some of your hall of fame high scores and how did you get them? Here are a few of mine:

6692 - Turn 200 Spell of Mastery. Hero strategy and horsebow rush.
5322 - Turn 136 Conquest. Life magic war troll rush.
4735 - Turn 176 Conquest. Death magic trolls and shadow demons.
4579 - Turn 182 Conquest. Super strategy gorgon rush.

I'm curious to see what everyone else is doing.

[Thewizardlord]

Those are rookie numbers in this racket. You got to pump those up.

Seriously I get roughly those turn victory numbers without going for score. I'm sure I get do better if I really try

[Wayward Raven]

I'm looking for suggestions on how to increase my own score. Do you have any suggestions? What about examples of what you've gotten?

I'm not really going for low turn numbers since that's pretty easy and dependent on luck. The fastest victory I've had was 4952 score on a turn 59 conquest using straight hero strategy. We can talk about turn numbers here too but there is a limit to how high a score you can get in a short game.

From what I've read, 8000 is considered to be a good score in the original game but I can't figure out how to break 7000 here.

[BadgerSmaker]

I got 7124 using Sorcery and Aura of Majesty to get the AI trading and offering alliances with me. Does not work on Master AI difficulty though, because they instantly war you.

[Wayward Raven]

Originally posted by BadgerSmaker:

I got 7124 using Sorcery and Aura of Majesty to get the AI trading and offering alliances with me. Does not work on Master AI difficulty though, because they instantly war you.

Thanks, I've been playing exclusively with master AI and very small maps for the score bonus and because those games are faster. When meeting a new wizard, half the time I extort their spells and attack them on the same turn I meet them before they have a chance to declare war. For scoring purposes though, it sounds like it might work better to let the AI live and stay active instead of keeping them permanently banished.

[Thewizardlord]

Originally posted by BadgerSmaker:

I got 7124 using Sorcery and Aura of Majesty to get the AI trading and offering alliances with me. Does not work on Master AI difficulty though, because they instantly war you.

Yeah it's crazy you can get 7124 and not even playing against Master AI

[woodnthlur]

Just to add more data - my highest was 6500 which was a 320+ turn Spell of Mastery Victory with all of the highest difficulty settings (not 'Hard', but whatever slider function gave the highest score modifier). I was High Elves and ran a magician/hero strat.

I intended it to be a 'rush' to the SoM, as I took both sage master and archmage, but it didn't work out that way. The settings made the start extremely slow and obviously I had to fight all the other wizards because they auto declared on me. In the end, I isolated the last enemy to one city and just sat there researching for a long ass time. I 'got lucky' and kept finding books from chaos and nature realms even though I originally chose only sorcery (with one life book to allow for Sage Master) with the result that I had to research tons of excess spells until the SoM showed up for me to research it.

I could have optimized my play better, but I was surprised the score was as high as it was based on how long it took to happen. I guess it would have been better had I kept the other two wizards alive? Honestly, this run through was a slog because I was constantly fighting for my life against all three until I gathered enough steam to roll one of them and turned the tide from there

I'd definitely be curious to know how people are getting higher than 7k with the new build. Also - it'd be nice if the Hall of Fame on this version kept more information than just the wizard name and final score (unless I'm missing something?).

[swilhelm73]

My highscore is...5876 with high elves and a custom life wizard. I tend to raze neutral/AI cities poorly located or with problematic races which is probably why I'm not scoring higher.

[Wayward Raven]

I just got 6995 in 221 turns with an undead horde strategy. This time I delayed my initial encounters with the AI and avoided banishing them in addition to delaying Spell of Mastery until I had finished clearing all lairs. There were a few problems though:

1/ Three AIs spawned on the same continent and proceeded to start a war against each other. I had to step in around turn 100 and defeat the two weaker ones before the strongest one could finish them off.

2/ After I met them, the AI never attempted to expand. They did put up a fight, sending large stacks of units, launching amphibious assaults, and attempting to steal nodes. However, in 120 turns, they did not build a single settler and remained confined to the same 4-5 cities while I had about 50. Of course since this was master AI, we were also at war the entire time.

[Brumm]

8244 in turn 540. Strategy: Population farming (altough not to the max) and spell of mastery / difficulty ~140% / wizard: custom myrran goblin with node mastery.

I'm pretty sure that 12-15k is possible and someone has already achieved it...

[Ichthyic]

7079 on day 110, highest difficulty, banished 3 wizards, spell of mastery for the last. best score so far for me in the remake. Yeah, I recall getting much higher scores in the OG, but it has been many years since I played it now. I notice my scores actually go up the longer I let the AI develop before taking them down. so you probably want to drag things out a bit for a higher score. highest difficulty means no alliances or treaties though. You get ONE day to trade with an AI the first time you meet them, and they typically go to war with you within the next day or two.

[m.w.islinger]

Originally posted by Ichthyic:

7079 on day 110, highest difficulty, banished 3 wizards, spell of mastery for the last. best score so far for me in the remake. Yeah, I recall getting much higher scores in the OG, but it has been many years since I played it now. I notice my scores actually go up the longer I let the AI develop before taking them down. so you probably want to drag things out a bit for a higher score. highest difficulty means no alliances or treaties though. You get ONE day to trade with an AI the first time you meet them, and they typically go to war with you within the next day or two.

I'd really like to watch a video of how you do that. I play this game much to casually to achieve such a quick victory. By turn 120 my first couple of cities usually almost finished their development and I decide to go after the first rival wizard at that point. :-)

[rgp151]

Yeah, I'm curious how you get 7079 on day 110. I assume a lot has to do with the starting difficulty and the score multipliers. Also whether any mods are being used. Smaller map size does increase the score multiplier and also makes it easier to win fast, so maybe..

[m.w.islinger]

I always play on Small. It usually is pretty clear that I am going to win the game by turn 250 but most of the time it takes well over 300 or even 350 turns until I eliminate all wizards. (I prefer conquest to casting the spell of Mastery)

[Ichthyic]

Originally posted by rgp151:

Yeah, I'm curious how you get 7079 on day 110. I assume a lot has to do with the starting difficulty and the score multipliers. Also whether any mods are being used. Smaller map size does increase the score multiplier and also makes it easier to win fast, so maybe..

yes, and yes. ;)

[Brumm]

Originally posted by Ichthyic:

7079 on day 110, highest difficulty, banished 3 wizards, spell of mastery for the last.

Interesting, SoM in round 110 - how do you get there that fast? Zero books?