The Dark arts - C&D Master Thread

[kjn]

Another notable thing: the Germans probably switched from a food-heavy configuration after they settled but before they ended turn. At a guess, they work a forested plains hill instead of an unimproved flood plains.

[kjn]

T31 - 2760 BC

Cliff's Notes: CFC researched Pottery, and the German capital grew to size 4. Someone, probably the Spanish, built a warrior using overflow from their settler build, and another team lost a warrior.

Demos:

Pretty simple turn to figure out. There were two score increases: CFC and the Germans both increased score to 70. Top power rose to 17000, but the average didn't change, so another team must have lost a warrior too. Our power ranking didn't change.

CFC gained 6 points, a tech. It was 11t since they researched The Wheel, so the best candidate is Pottery. They've picked up a couple of unimproved flood plains while growing, so they could reach 13-14bpt. They will have their first cottage the turn before we have our first hamlet.

The Germans gained 3 points, a pop point. Since their second city was founded 2t ago, it must be their capital that grew to size 4. This is confirmed by the cities screen and the population numbers in the demos.

The most likely candidate for the warrior build is the Spanish. With plenty of overflow from their settler build on T30 and a mine, it's possible to finish a warrior in 1t.

The warrior loss has several candidates. The main ones are WPC, Apolyton, CivFr, and CFC.

An oddity is the production numbers. Top production rose, but the average fell. And weirdly enough, the average life expectancy rose at the same time as the Germans grew their population. Either several teams has finally managed to connect a health resource, or the approval and life expectancy values are weighted so larger cities have more influence. Someone who knows?

[kjn]

Univers becomes the third team to a second city!

Demos:

Their new city claims 8 land tiles, and so is either coastal or has one tile of overlap with their capital. Since they haven't researched Fishing, I think the overlap theory and an inland city is more likely.

[kjn]

Another interesting thing: top life expectancy dropped as Univers settled their second city, from 83 to 82.

Their old capital had 83, which corresponds to 10 health (EXP +2, fresh water +2, start +2, and 4 or 5 forests). Their new city must have 82 or 81, which aren't reachable with 1 unhealth. 81 corresponds to 9 health and 2 unhealth, however.

This tells us Univers second city either has 3 or 4 floodplains, or 2 or 3 jungles in its BFC. And a bunch of forests, and probably fresh water.

[regoarrarr]

Either several teams has finally managed to connect a health resource, or the approval and life expectancy values are weighted so larger cities have more influence. Someone who knows?

IIRC, it adds up the health / unhealth for each city. So if you have 5 health and 1 unhealth, your life expectancy is 5/6 or 83.

If you settle a 2nd city with 5/1, then your life expectancy is 10/2 or also 83.

Could be that they settled their 2nd city on a river?

[kjn]

Code-diving seems to confirm that for how the values are calculated for each player, though I haven't looked up every function called. The average in demos is however just the simple numeric average from each player (ie a player with 10 total pop and one with 5 will have the same impact on the average).

That also gives possible explanations for the the value from Univers, who went from 83 (with 2 pop in 1 city) to 82 (with 2+1 pop in 2 cities).

83 comes from:

10 health / 2 unhealth

82 can come from:

14 health / 3 unhealth
19 health / 4 unhealth

So either their new city is without fresh water and has no other health bonuses or maluses, or it has jungle/flood plains, probably fresh water, and 6 or 7 forests.

[regoarrarr]

So either their new city is without fresh water and has no other health bonuses or maluses, or it has jungle/flood plains, probably fresh water, and 6 or 7 forests.

First option seems much more likely to me

[kjn]

Probably best to start collating a team dossier on CFC. How should we do this best? One sheet for each team in our C&D spread sheet?

What do we know about team CFC from C&D and other means?

General

Leader: Mansa Musa, FIN/SPI
Civ: India, Fast Worker and Mausoleum

Internal organisation

Turnplayers (number of finished turns, of 14 logged):

Grant2004 (1)
Cav Scout (10)
Caledorn (3)

C&D: probably Yossarian

Diplo: probably Caledorn

Team leader: unknown, but hints of an internal conflict from the story thread

Gameplay

Known techs:

Mysticism (T0)
Mining (T0)
Agriculture (T10)
The Wheel (T20)
Pottery (T31)

Started with a worker (T12), grew to size 5 (T27, ie they've accumulated at least 100F in 15t, 88 in 11t. If I do my count correctly, they must've farmed their banana as their second tile improvement, on T17-21. I think their third tile improvement was a grass hill mine, on T23-26, which would fit with rival best in food on T27 was 19 (working PH city, Corn, farmed banana, 2xFP, and grass hill mine).

They built a warrior T20 and probably another on T27. Since they've managed to get a scouting warrior this far, I think they haven't lost a warrior yet, putting their army at 3 warriors. One warrior must be staying at their capital as a garrison.

Current build is either a settler or a worker, at 14 foodhammers per turn. If a worker, it is built T32. If a settler, it finishes T35. In either case they will have plenty of overflow.

My conclusion is that their start gives no sign of any belligerence at all.

[kjn]

T32 - 2720 BC

Cliff's Notes: CivFr's second city grew to size 2. CivPlayers researched The Wheel.

Demos:

First, some additional notes on CFC. Their EP spending indicates the veracity of their claim to not having met anyone earlier, since we're at 4/4 EPs (of course, they might be sneaky). Their capital is called "Indira".

CivFr gained 2 points, CivPlayers gained 6, rival best and average food output rose, global power rose with 5000, and rival best in land is now 48000.

CivFr gained a pop point in their second city, gaining 2 score and 1000 in power, in 5t since it was founded, ie it probably worked the improved deer. It also expanded borders, and claimed 7 tiles. This pretty much confirms that it was settled at a distance of 3-2 in the cardinal directions from their capital and that it is inland (for us it would be the PH 1NE of the deer).

CivPlayers gained a tech in 11t. Assuming 10bbpt and 2 overflow from Mining, the possible fits are The Wheel and Masonry. I judge The Wheel to be a far more sensible choice, which also fits with the remaining increase in power of 4000.

[kjn]

T32 Breaking News!

Apolyton just settled their second city.

Demos:

It gives them 8 land tiles, and was probably built in 8 turns. It wouldn't surprise me if it is coastal, and if the maps are similar, a possible placement would be 1NE of the fish. However, if that is the case, they can't share the corn, since there would be zero overlap between their capital and city B.

But the most interesting thing is the top GNP: 33!

My first guess would be that the Germans had pre-placed a worker on their gold on T29 - the same turn their second city was founded - and finished it this turn. However, that would be crappy play since it hasn't grown yet, and the Germans haven't been logged in this turn:

Gamelog:

The only team with a second city at size 2 is CivFr, and they must've managed to get the gold in their first ring. They were logged in while I took my beginning-of-turn screenshot, and finished their gold mine and assigned a citizen to it just after I took it.

With 4c and 4e that leaves 25 GNP unassigned. 20C from gold, palace, city centres, and a riverside corn. Times 1.4 for a double-discounted tech gives 28, and remove 3 for city maintenance, for a total of 33.

Only trouble with that calculation is that it is 14 turns since they finished Hunting, and at 15bpt they'd have finished AH in 12 turns. Perhaps they've run 0% science for several turns, or they don't run binary science?

Anyway, I expect a score increase from tech from them next turn.