The Dark arts - C&D Master Thread

[Sullla]

I've signed up with my normal username. Hopefully one of our team leaders (Parkin or Cyneheard) will be able to add me. They aren't exactly the most active members currently.

[Cyneheard]

I've signed up with my normal username. Hopefully one of our team leaders (Parkin or Cyneheard) will be able to add me. They aren't exactly the most active members currently.

You've been added. I think; it's a terrible interface in a number of ways. Remember: passwords are sent in plaintext, use something completely expendable.

Members:
LP, Cyneheard, Azza, waterbat, kjnoren, mostly_harmless, sunrise, scooter, Tyrmith, Shoot the Moon, ASM, Kalin, Nabaxo, Sullla

[Cyneheard]

I also think anyone else can invite new members in, as I wasn't the "leader" of our group.

[kjn]

T61 - 1560BC

Cliff's Notes: Apolyton and CivFr grew a city each to size 2. CivPlayers grew their capital to size 6. CFC tentatively researched Writing. Univers grew their third city to size 4, and tentatively researched Bronze Working. The German city of Worms (their second one) expanded borders.

Demos:

Definitely snowballs here - six score increases including our own. Apolyton, CivFr, and CivPlayers each increased score with 2, CivFanatics with 6, and Univers with 9. No land points this turn. Ie, Apolyton, CivFr, CivPlayers, and Univers each grew a pop, and CivFanatics and Univers each gained a tech.

Global population rose with 122000, and rival claimed land rose with 6 tiles. The F8 screen tells us that the German city of Worms reached 10 culture on the interturn, so the Germans receive those land tiles. The top cities screen shows that a third rival city, founded on T1 and from a team we haven't met, has reached size 6.

Global power rose with 18000, 2000 of which came from pop (Apolyton and CivFr).

The only team that grew and with a confirmed capital of size 5 is CivPlayers, so they get that growth, which leaves 62000 over three pop points. That fits with 1 city growing to 4 and 2 cities growing to 2. Univers has no size 1 cities, so they get the growth to 4 on their third city, while Apolyton and CivFr each grows their newest cities to size 2.

For comparison, Apolyton needed 5t to grow to size 2, implying a +5F surplus, or a +6F resource that was improved quickly. CivFr is harder to make sense of here, since they might have whipped the city earlier.

CFC needed 9t to research their tech, while Univers needed 8t. Eyeballing the CFC GNP graph gives circa 40-45b on their tops, and times 6 or 7 turns gives between 240 and 315 beakers, so I put them down for Writing, but I wouldn't be surprised if they've done some research swapping. With the high increase in power, I note down a tentative Bronze Working for Univers.

That leaves a power increase of 8000 from units and buildings.

The APTmod gold spying tells us that we are #4 team with our 47g, and we have just passed CFC (who are burning through their gold reserve). The primary gold hoarder is up to 185-190g. Do they use binary science and have simply forgot to turn tech back on?

[mostly_harmless]

Demos after WPC founded their city:

mh

[kjn]

Thanks!

And now I've either done something really stupid in the pop calculation, but now I've got 26000 missing pop, and will need to double-check everything...

[kjn]

Gah! Double-check everything before you commit!

My T61 pop growths were incorrect, since I simply forgot to make use of the population checks in the spread sheet. 62000 doesn't fit at all with 1*42000 + 2*5000 - it's 5000 too little. It fits with 42000 + 15000 + 5000, ie it is cities of size 4, 2, and 1 growing.

Apolyton: 6, 5, 3, and 1
CivFr: 6, 3, 2, and 1
Univers: 5, 4, 3, and 2

Apolyton grows a city to 2 in 5t. CivFr grows a city to 3. Univers grows a city to 5.

WPC's third city is named Cahokia (possibly a placeholder). It claims 9 land tiles, and it makes another team into rival worst in land at 48000. WPC expanded to 41 tiles on T51 with their third-ring expansion, and then claimed 9 tiles with their latest city.

Note also the rival best in GNP in m_h's screen shot: 73. At a guess it is a team researching Writing at max science and plenty of prerequisites after stockpiling gold for a turn, which would fit with CivPlayers. 73 divided by 1.6 happens to be about... 46! (Which was the rival top in GNP last turn.)

[scooter]

FYI for those of you signing up for the mod website - the passwords there are stored in plain text. It's totally insecure, and whoever owns the website could just look at your password in a database at any time. Do NOT use a password that you use elsewhere.

[NobleHelium]

I recommend something like "hashandsaltyourpwsnoob" .

[kjn]

Assessing CivPlayers and the Oracle

Earlier, we determined that CivPlayers probably teched Priesthood and could start the Oracle on T59, maybe helped with overflow from a worker or other unit.

Now, CivPlayers has quite likely taken the GNP lead, and definitely grown their capital to size 6. The growth by itself need not be a bad idea in a wonder race, assuming they have access to the following tiles:

Tile	Number	Food	Hammers
Corn	1	6	0
Grass forest deer	1	5	1
Plains cow	1	3	3
Grass mine	1	1	3
Forested plains hill	2	0	3
Forested plains/grass hills	3	1	2

Holding at size 5, working deer, cow, grass mine, and 2 forested plains hills will generate 15hpt with 1F surplus, and will finish end of turn 68. They will need 15H overflow from a previous build to speed up the wonder to end of turn 67.

Growth to 6 in 2t, working corn, deer, cow, grass mine, and 1 plains forest will generate 22H and 16F. Then switch to a high-hammer configuration, working deer, cow, grass mine, 2 forested plains hills, and a plains forest, generating 17hpt and 0F. At end of turn 67 they will stand at 141/150H, and will thus only need 9H overflow to complete the wonder.

The growth is a bad sign.

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). That results in that CivPlayers has 45 commerce right now. Break it down:

8 from palace
4 from city tiles
4 from trade routes
8 from gold
4 from other riverside tiles

That comes to 28, leaving 17 unaccounted. Assuming 1.5 citizens of each city works resource tiles, that leaves 8 "free" citizens. They also got Pottery on T43, so they are up to hamlets now (4C if riverside). Ie, they will need to use four of their "free" citizens to reach the assumed GNP, leaving only four to actually build the wonder.

So assuming CivPlayers are the top in GNP, then it's possible that they aren't going all out in the Oracle race. Of course, they may have all their four non-commerce working citizens in their capital...