High score board - how do you stay at the top?

I was wondering if anyone can provide tips for the high score players. I am constantly building and I still keep dropping in the high score board.

Any thoughts on what I can do to at least stay in the top 50? I looked through my rankings and here's where I stand;

Snapshot Jan 12th
Master Builder......... 50
Building Levels.......... 11
Scientists................. 27
Levels of Research.... 36
Generals.................. 212
Overall.................... 68

I currently have 5 towns. My net income for all towns at the moment is 176 gold. LOL.

I have most of my buildings at the soft cap. Between all my towns, i have 500 Phalanx, 60 Archers, 30 Steam Giants, and 27 doctors. I pretty much ignore ships, although I do have a ship in each port so that troops can't simply land without a sea escort. I usually keep around 20k+ wine in each town (2 weeks+ supply), so an enemy blockade really wouldn't have any effect on me.

Based on my scores, i'd say maybe what I need to do is get some of my troops killed and then build more troops? i don't really see any other way to keep my score from moving down. Any thoughts?

What I have learned from talking with Nolandshield about this same exact subject is one of the biggest factors in highscore is completing research advancements. Hopefully Noland will be able to add a few more thoughts too.

Other than that the only other thing I do is a lot of pillaging. I usually run a negative 2-5K gold/hr upkeep. Finding good targets and taking their resources to build with.

Yes, the higher researches achieved will yield a lot of total points. Also, a high number of trade ships will greatly help your overall score.

I have 50 trade ships, so I don't really want to buy any more until at least version 3.0... maybe even later. I bought them a long time ago to help my score.

I have the max scientists allowed under the soft caps. 134 per town for a total of 670 scientists. So unless I break the soft cap on that, I can't do much there either. And once the research gets close to be done, I buy it with crystal.

So I'm still not sure what else I can really do... other than try breaking some soft caps.

Breaking soft caps will boost your score a lot because it takes a lot of resources to do that. Basically, the more resources spent to build a building, the more points added to your total score when the building is completed. Trade ships, research, and upgrading buildings are the only things, to my knowledge, that will boost your overall score.

First, if you haven't already seen this, check out how Total Score is (currently) calculated:

http://ikariam.wikia.com/wiki/Scores

You can see from this that a few categories on the high score list don't matter, while other things which are not on the high score lists matter a lot. A few comments:

1. Gold stock doesn't matter at all in the total score. However, trade ships purchased does. I think most of the players at the top of the high score chart spend all of their free gold on ships, not on trade. I personally have 71 ships at the time of this message, which is probably on the low end. I bet Fear Poopie is getting close to 120 already.
2. Ignore the following two categories: Building Levels and Levels of Research. The game doesn't care that you've made an additional building or researched an additional advancement; rather, it cares how much it cost you to get there. Building a level 1 workshop does nothing for your total score. Building a level 5 Palace does a ton. Same concept for the researches. I have two of the futures already which is keeping me in the top 3.
3. Population is a big component of your score. There is no high score list for that. If you don't already have your town halls at level 24, and fairly well stocked with people, your score isn't going to be as high as it could be.

If you want to stay on the high score list, you need to max research all the time, break soft caps, buy trade ships, and pillage like crazy to keep the gold and resources coming in. Hope this helps.

PS: Getting troops killed won't help. The Generals score only counts your living troops. And it costs you population to make more (not to mention resources you could otherwise use to make more buildings).

I gotta disagree on your tactics about reaching the top.
The utterly most important thing is planning ahead and beeing peacefull. Having an army/navy and pillaging people while making enemies will not profit you in the end if you're not in an alliance like SoS that lives from pillaging.
Instead make friends all around you and benefit from cheap trading with them instead, as this will help you alot more in the long term.

Another very important thing is to place your colonies on the same resource islands.
I have 3 towns on the same marble island, 2 on the same wine island, and would have had 2 on the same crystal island, if not the upcoming version had forced me to place my 7th town on a sulfur island instead.
If I upgrade my quarry, all my other cities located there gain the profit instantly too - and it's much easier upgrading mines while having multiple cities on the island.
I have upgraded all sawmills and mines to their soft caps on my islands, which has cost me +5,7 million wood over time. Now I'm just sitting back while wood and resources are pouring in.

Something else that is important, is not to go over level 20 with your town halls, as you will be needing too much wine to keep the demand satisfied. Instead this will ensure that you have an overflow of wine that you will be saving up for the palaces/governor residences.
That has made it possible for me to upgrade 3 palace/gr's to level 6 at once, which is 400k wood, 264k marble, 176k wine and 176k crystal multiplied by 3.
Friends around me have made it possible for me not to have an army as they know I'm peaceful and not a threat to them, which mean I get over 25k gold per hour in income, that is spent on buying ships and resources, while I get tremendous amounts of wood and resources in from the high level sawmills and mines.
Breaking the soft caps on buildings is just plain stupid, as it is a short term point boost, which is not what you want, but a steady growth rate instead.

All this has guaranteed me a top50 position on the gamma server out of almost 12,000 people.

Keep in mind that this is not aimed at the upcoming 0.3.0 version, as this will need another strategy. A more aggresive and militaristic one.
But for now, this is what works best.

Cheers mate.

There is definitely more than one way to play this game. I wholeheartedly agree that having multiple towns on the same island is beneficial for the reasons you stated.

I don't see why smart pillaging can't be a part of a successful strategy, though, especially when it focuses mainly on inactive and quasi-inactive players. My island resources are also all at the soft cap (21 sawmill and 16 lux), but even at that level the rate of harvesting pales in comparison to what I can bring in by sending out my phalanxes to pillage inactive players around the clock.

Furthermore, I don't see how upgrading a building past the soft cap is a short-term boost. Once a palace is level 6, it is always level 6, always contributing the same amount to your master builder score. I also think breaking the soft caps on museums is especially smart as it takes the pressure off your taverns and allows for expansion of town halls to level 24 without any difficulty.

I don't play on Gamma, but from what I've seen on Eta it would be foolish to leave yourself without an army, regardless of how friendly you are with your neighbors. There are a couple of alliances who love to pillage the weak and will happily plop down roving colonies to do the dirty work.

I would like to add for the people that do not play on Eta that Nolandshield is ranked number 2 right. I know he is too humble to say that himself so I will say it for him.

Congratulations Noland, i know for a fact that is a hard feat. Keep up the great work mate!

I wish I could keep up with you. lol

Hey again.

Pillaging inactives and semi-inactives is smart, indeed. But my point was aimed at pillaging active +medium sized players, which I could not see any reason to do, as you'll get bitten in the butt later on for your deeds.
What goes around, comes around in the end as you know.

As for the soft caps, the only one worth breaking is the museum, as it is not expensive at all getting to level 9, compared what you get in whole from it.
There are no real soft caps on palaces and governor residences, as they are crucial for your expansion and growth, and therefor a must to upgrade nomatter what.
At any other buildings, going over the soft cap is a pure waste of resources as it will slow down your expansion rate in the end, and you get very little for your spent money.

To comment the military part; well maybe I've been lucky only to have been attacked by a handful of different players since I started, or maybe it's due to the diplomatic part. Who knows..

Beeing started on the Gamma-server over a month later after it opened, and beeing in the top50 with 470k points, 7 towns and all sawmills and mines on level 22/18, I'd say it's acceptable.

Cheers.

Obviously there is more than 1 way to play the game and be successful as Nolan and Janzor clearly illustrate. What I would like to say is thanks for a lot of great info! This is a great thread!

Congrats to both of you for outstanding achievements!

I have the distinct pleasure of having some colonies close to Nolan and he is not only one of the top ranked players on ETA, but he is a great neighbor and has been much help to me which is greatly appreciated!!

Johnny H wrote:Obviously there is more than 1 way to play the game and be successful as Nolan and Janzor clearly illustrate. What I would like to say is thanks for a lot of great info! This is a great thread!

Congrats to both of you for outstanding achievements!

I have the distinct pleasure of having some colonies close to Nolan and he is not only one of the top ranked players on ETA, but he is a great neighbor and has been much help to me which is greatly appreciated!!

Glad to hear.

That's what were here for - to help each other.

Cheers.

Janzor wrote:Hey again.

Pillaging inactives and semi-inactives is smart, indeed. But my point was aimed at pillaging active +medium sized players, which I could not see any reason to do, as you'll get bitten in the butt later on for your deeds.
What goes around, comes around in the end as you know.

As for the soft caps, the only one worth breaking is the museum, as it is not expensive at all getting to level 9, compared what you get in whole from it.
There are no real soft caps on palaces and governor residences, as they are crucial for your expansion and growth, and therefor a must to upgrade nomatter what.
At any other buildings, going over the soft cap is a pure waste of resources as it will slow down your expansion rate in the end, and you get very little for your spent money.

To comment the military part; well maybe I've been lucky only to have been attacked by a handful of different players since I started, or maybe it's due to the diplomatic part. Who knows..

Beeing started on the Gamma-server over a month later after it opened, and beeing in the top50 with 470k points, 7 towns and all sawmills and mines on level 22/18, I'd say it's acceptable.

Cheers.

I would say breaking the soft cap on walls is also a good idea

Yes, I have been thinking about making level 25 walls soon. Another excellent soft cap buster is the warehouse. Level 17 capacity just destroys the capacity of the level 16 'house.

Of course, this will all change in v3.0, but for now that's the case.

Where can we find a list of soft caps for each building, reasearch, etc?

No such thing as soft caps anymore, but here is the new (and old) data for 2.8 and .3.

http://board.ikariam.com/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=27780