Year Zero Club

...when simply winning is not enough!

By pndrev Posted February 22, 2008 13:02:02

First off, I couldn't have done this without the inspiration of the Metaverse League and Wyndstar in particular. Kudos to the master!

Now to the matter at hand.

I finally did it. A year zero win! Granted, it was only against 1 AI and on challenging (my current level) but I'm certain that 'tough' wouldn't have been much harder. On the other hand, it was my first attempt at an 'all-labs' and 'lease instead of buy' approach, so I consider myself proud that I could do it at all.

Here is the link to the character, as a proof: http://metaverse.galciv2.com/index.aspx?g=player&id=14517

For all of you, who like me thought that year zero wins are nigh impossible: Try it! Read the posts about it! It is difficult, requires constant micromanagement, but I found it incredibly rewarding to see that victory screen after 25 - 30 turns. Not the way I'd like to play constantly, but as a change of pace, it's a incredible challenge.

And of course, once you've accomplished your first 'Year Zero', post here and rejoice!

As an edit, I now include the current top score.

Attention new players!
Do not be frightened by these scores! Playing a ZYW is actually really easy, and getting a score close to 30000 points takes just a few tries. These games are usually finished in less than 20 minutes, so have at it. Try the tiny ZYWs first, I find them easier and you might get the unique chance to beat players like neilo or Wyndstar.

Current ZYW record holders:

'expert' ZYW - Gigantic

1) 198450 points - MottiKhan

2) 119000 points - Kzinti Patriarch

3) 109500 points - neilo

'classic' ZYW - Tiny

1) 56700points - MottiKhan

2) 40600 points - Kzinti Patriarch / Magnumaniac

3) 38850 points - Wyndstar

0 Karma 893 Replies 9 Referrals

Dystopic just successfully ejected Magnumaniac from the gigantic top three!

one part luck, and two parts playing alongside some of the MV's best players [e digicons]:grin:[/e] i also made it to 20th on the MV, and i feel pretty good about that considering i've played fewer than 50 games on that character. over the weekend we managed to close the gap between us and the kzinti by ten million points. now, just 100 million more to go.

Just thought id show off my new "500" medal. Wish there was a new achievement medal to show off as well....Hopefully the medals and the MV get some attention in 2.0, it was said this would be so.

very nice!

A couple times lately with gigantic ZYWs I've had a cheat flag be tripped and I cant figure out why. Both times it was with games over 100k, but other than that there was nothing unusual about them. For one of them I reloaded to turn 1, replayed, increased my score, and resubmitted successfully. For the second one, either it didnt notify me or I didnt notice somehow (unlikely), until after I had deleted the save game file. Anybody else having similar problems?

Also, for the tiny ZYWs I only reported my best score overall, but actually also have these:

39,900 Devilcat, game # 232

39,200 Devilcat & Slayer-Churuff, at least 4 different games

I just assumed only the best for each person was being listed, but maybe I should be listed three times under tiny. [e digicons]XD[/e]

Sentient species taste better...

KzintiPatriarch

reply 4

I had a cheat flag show up once on a 100k+ game, but assumed that I had finished it before Apr 8. I also re-ran it for a higher score without a problem.

For the 2nd game I mentioned, it's remotely possible I finished on April 1. But for the 1st game there was definitely something strange going on. Any savegame that I reloaded immediately notified me a cheat flag had been tripped, no matter what point it was in the game. The only savegame that was "clean" was my turn 1 save. If a setup looks good enough to possibly break a record, I'll have a bunch of saves so I can try to squeeze out a few more points.

Sentient species taste better...

KzintiPatriarch

reply 4

I just assumed only the best for each person was being listed, but maybe I should be listed three times under tiny.

Correct, that way more players can get in the highscores -> more incentives to play ZYWs.

This may be the most (or at least close) research I've had on one planet during a ZYW. I had three 1000bc anomalies in the game.

I think I'm going to replay and try for a better score. This one came in at 98k.

Sentient species taste better...

That's an odd planet - you using a mod or is that what it looks like with all the graphics turned off?

do you mean the texture in the upper left corner?

dystopic

reply 10

That's an odd planet - you using a mod or is that what it looks like with all the graphics turned off?

do you mean the texture in the upper left corner?

Yeah

I turn off some of the graphics, including planet textures, to improve performance. It really only matters in games with hundreds of planets, but I dont bother changing it back for ZYWs.

Sentient species taste better...

A new PB for me. Slowly but surely increasing score with the smallest amount of fuss per game.

Ok i would like to include myself into the esteemed Zero Year Club!

16 week game netting 64400 points! [e digicons]\o/[/e]

Good game, Metal Swarm. [e classic]:congrat:[/e] Welcome to the fray. [e classic]:hot:[/e]

Nice going MS, and on TA too, which is far harder.

[e digicons][/e]

Thanks! Managed to get in 5 games tonight [e digicons]:S[/e] ! Think i need a breask for a couple of hours though now

Back at it again tomorrow.

Now all i need to do is work out which techs to go for to max out my score a bit more..

Oh and i lied 2 more to close out on.. 7 for the day is not a bad evenings work. The only thing i would say is that ZYW are great for points but dont really do a lot for the fun of playing the game. That said i will carry on knocking them out to see how well i can do in a week with my little empire of one!

I love a good entrance! I think that game is better than any of my previous attempts at doing a TA ZYW - somehow I can't find the right combination of tech tree, racial boni and research path...