C&D questions (and other newbie questions)

[Catwalk]

Iskender, do I have to change anything in the formulas for that spreadsheet to make it work for Bts? AT, got any tricks for tracking soldier counts pre-graph?

[Iskender]

For BTS you need to change the multiplier in B6-B11 from 0.1 to 0.3 (it's a 30% bonus in BTS I believe), and of course put the proper number of players in B2 (only those count with whom you've got contact).

[AutomatedTeller]

No, not really. It depends a lot on how many people are playing. In an 18 team FFA, you can't really figure anything, I don't think.

In a 4 person game, though, very early, you can make some educated guesses. If average soldiers goes up and no one gets a score increase, then clearly someone built something and you can figure it out. I mean - in a 4 person game, you only have 3 opponents, so min/max/avg pins it exactly. Then all you have to do is figure out who is which Which you might be able to do from knowing starting techs/bonuses/etc.

it's a lot of work

[Catwalk]

If average soldiers goes up and no one gets a score increase, then clearly someone built something

For some reason that one flew right by me, thanks. Will be a little more complicated when a tech lands same turn as someone builds a warrior, but this should be doable.

[Catwalk]

I just realized another thing that's painstakingly obvious: I can always be certain if a score change (after subtracting points from land and wonders) comes from tech (+ pop) or from pop only. A score change of 2 has to be tech, change of 4 can't be tech, 6 has to be tech, and so on. This assumes that no more than one tech is acquired on the same turn, of course. Excepting Liberalism, espionage and tech trading this assumption is valid.

[waterbat]

Yes, raw beaker output is always the basis for comparison, but if a tech is not immediately reserchable (and thus cannot be selected to simply compare raw beakers with modified gnp displayed in the demos) it is still possible to see how many players have it by mousing over it in the tech tree. This will make civ calculate # of turns to get the tech taking into account the known tech bonus, so with carefully adjusting raw beakers it's possible to look for discrepancies - the spreadsheet does just that, ie. calculates how many raw beakers to set for a tech of a given beaker cost and for a given number of players.

ahh good point! i didnt think about future techs that you can't research quite yet. In early game, Priesthood would be a good example - if you suspect someone has it , but you don't have meditation or ..... polytheism?? (cant remember the prereqs), you might still possibly see if someone researched it.

if you don't start with wheel, you could use this to see if someone hit an early pottery.

unfortunately, you'd have to meet the other civs pretty quickly in that scenario, but its still cool.

thanks iskender same as lkender?

[AutomatedTeller]

poly and med are prereqs for priesthood.

[Iskender]

ahh good point! i didnt think about future techs that you can't research quite yet. In early game, Priesthood would be a good example - if you suspect someone has it , but you don't have meditation or ..... polytheism?? (cant remember the prereqs), you might still possibly see if someone researched it.

OK Priesthood in this case is a confusing example - the linked post analysed Priesthood in Fall from Heaven, where it is a mid-game tech, so there's a fair chance that some or all of the opponents have been met before it is researchable.

[Catwalk]

Will the diplo screen always show all non-capital cities the opponent has, regardless of visibility or any other factors?

[Square Leg]

Will the diplo screen always show all non-capital cities the opponent has, regardless of visibility or any other factors?

yes