More often than not, multiplayer games are won by score. The purpose of this guide is to provide clarity about how scoring works, focused on MPT (Multiplayer Tournment)*

Scoring formula is (Territory + HappyCitizens*2 + ContentCitizens + Specialists) * Difficulty.

The total of all per-turn scores is divided by the number of turns played so far to get your actual game score. i.e. score is the average of all scores.

For Territory, all tiles but Ocean (dark blue) are included in the count.

*A guide to MPT can be found at https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1669107567

Two examples are put below in order to illustrate the impact of the scoring formula above.

Example (1):

You have a size 4 city without temple and granary, sitting in grassland. It will grow every 5 turns. Assuming you have two units policing the city and 0 lux, you will have 4 content citzens.
Your score first five turns are (9 territory tiles + 4 content citzens ) * 3 (regent difficulty) = 39 points. Once your city grows one pop., scoring will go to 42 points per turn.

Total average points in 10 turns: 40.5 points.

If two citzens were kept happy, average score would be 46.5.

If instead a temple is pop-rushed “eating” two citzens, the score would be as follows:
First five turns are (9 territory tiles + 2 content citzens) * 3 = 33 points.
After five turns, the population will grow and the border will expand on another 12 tiles. The score then will be (21 territory tiles + 3 content citzens) * 3 = 72.

Total average points in 10 turns: 55.5 points.

Pop-rushing temple for 2 citzens will payback after 6 turns (soon after the city border expands).

Example (2):

A size 6 city and no expanded borders with two happy citzens and two unhappy will generate (9 for territory, 4 for two happy citzens + 2 content + 0 happy)*3 = 45 points per turn.

If two citzens are turned into entertainer – assuming the city can still will keep its population – will generate (9 for territory, 8 for four happy citzens + 2 specialists)*3 = 57 points per turn.

In order to maximize your score – you should follow the following order:
a. Maximize territory.
b. Maximize the number of happy citzens, either by lux or by specialists (entertainers).

In practical terms:
a. Build new cities, as further apart from possible as it can be. Keeping your capital locked at size 8 with zero growth may be a good option to keep up production, but not for scoring - get some settlers out of it! Also, planting cities very close will not maximize your score.
b. Pop-rush temples .
c. Try to anticipate how the game will look like at the end – if it seems like there will be 4-5 players alive at the end, then it is likely that it will go down to score and if that's the case start expanding ASAP. Planting a city (even if it stays size 1) on turn 60 will equal to 10 points at the end of the game. A city planted 15 turns after will be worth 5 only points at the end.
d. Before lose all your gold by turning lux slider up, consider turn your citzens into entertainers as you will get additional points for that - at the 'cost' of slower growth.