The Dark arts - C&D Master Thread

[SevenSpirits]

Nice analysis!

Two comments.

1) Let's watch for their GNP dropping - perhaps they have been working cottages to grow, and will swap to hills/forests now?

2) Is their cap on the top 5 cities screen, so we can determine the sum of its yields?

[kjn]

1) Their GNP need not drop. They can have all their pop in their capital working resources and hammers, and the rest of the cities are on cottage duty.

2) They are, but we aren't. We need to reach size 5 or even better 6 to do that analysis.

I can probably do it after AO has grown, in case it would be a bad sign if I can catch them at size 5. The reason being that the hammer tiles I imagine they work are all giving F+P+C of at most 4, while hamlets would give 6. (Of course, riverside mines reach 5...).

[SevenSpirits]

1) Their GNP need not drop. They can have all their pop in their capital working resources and hammers, and the rest of the cities are on cottage duty.

I didn't say it had to, I said it might. If it does, we can make further inferences about their production.

[novice]

Nice GNP analysis, kjn.

[mostly_harmless]

A nice "Oracle Thriller" developing here.

mh

[Fintourist]

Many thanks kjn!

Do I read the C&D file correctly, that Civplayers have had their capital at size 5 at least since T49? In that case, they could have just squeezed in the last missing food and worked a quite hammer heavy configuration during last two turns as well. This would mean that they would tie us more easily at T67 and T66 would be theoretically possible as well?

Next ten days will be extremely exciting!

[kjn]

Do I read the C&D file correctly, that Civplayers have had their capital at size 5 at least since T49? In that case, they could have just squeezed in the last missing food and worked a quite hammer heavy configuration during last two turns as well. This would mean that they would tie us more easily at T67 and T66 would be theoretically possible as well?

Longer than that, actually - since T28 (or end of turn 27 for those preferring that), so CivPlayers grew their capital as hard and fast as CFC (who reached size 5 1t earlier, but settled T0 instead of T1 too).

The analysis was mostly to give refute Sullla's theory that their capital growing was good for us, when in fact it's quite likely the opposite.

[kjn]

WPC and the Happy

This turn WPC settled their third city, and last turn they grew their capital to size 7.

Here are the rival worst approval ratings for T59-61 (now), coupled with their cities:

Turn	Rival worst approval	WellPlacedCity	WeProvideCorn	Cahokia
59	52	6	3
60	50	7	3
61	55	7	3	1

WellPlacedCity has 6 happy, provided they received an early happy resource like us, and WeProvideCorn has 5. Each get 1 unhappy per pop point. At size 3, a city will also demand a military unit, and this becomes stronger at size 6.

So T59 we look at 9 unhappy, and they have 11 happy, giving 55 in approval, but if WeProvideCorn is empty then they get 10 unhappy and 11 happy, which fits with 52.

Then on T60 WellPlacedCity grows to 7, and they get 11 unhappy and 11 happy, fitting with 50. Do note that the happy is limited to 6, so they have an unhappy citizen in their capital.

On T61 they settle their third city is settled, and they gain 5 happy and 1 unhappy, for a total of 16 happy and either 11 or 12 unhappy. This should give an approval of either 59 or 57, which fits with us dropping from #6 to #7 in that rating (we have 56) and with the rival average rising with 1.

The result of this exercise is simply that WPC still are limited to a single happy resource, and managed to grow their capital into unhappiness. We'll have to see if they whip it soon.

[NobleHelium]

There is one helpful sign, however, and that is GNP. Assuming CivPlayers is top GNP, they have 11g in costs that are cancelled out by 7 culture (holy city and palace) and 4 EPs for GNP purposes, a GNP of 73 when researching Writing with a 1.6 bonus fits with 46, which also happens to be top GNP last turn (which probably was spent collecting gold).

Uh, if they were collecting gold then they weren't getting the 1.6 multiplier on Writing. Gold does not get any science multipliers.

[kjn]

There is one helpful sign, however, and that is GNP. Assuming CivPlayers is top GNP, they have 11g in costs that are cancelled out by 7 culture (holy city and palace) and 4 EPs for GNP purposes, a GNP of 73 when researching Writing with a 1.6 bonus fits with 46, which also happens to be top GNP last turn (which probably was spent collecting gold).

Uh, if they were collecting gold then they weren't getting the 1.6 multiplier on Writing. Gold does not get any science multipliers.

Top GNP T60: 46
Top GNP T61 (now): 73

46 * 1.6 = 73.6

So 46 is their base commerce, 73 is their effective beakers.