The Dark arts - C&D Master Thread

[SevenSpirits]

I was also thinking a bit more about CivPlayers, and I think it's quite possible that they are planning to Oracle Code of Laws.

We talked about this a few days ago. Priesthood is pretty obviously their most likely tech. And them getting it already is bad news; kjn predicted they would get it next turn, and even then they could beat us to oracle by a full turn with any amount of micro, or tie us for a coinflip with no micro, by building it with full hammers in their cap. So things do not look good. We may want to start thinking about alternative continuations if we miss oracle. I wouldn't abort the plan though unless we have a really good reason, since it's low risk high reward at this point.

One other thing to look into if at all possible is the current hammer output of civplayers' capital. However, I wouldn't be surprised if this is too hard to figure out.

[luddite]

If they are to get the wonder on T69 (ie finish it on T68 just as us) they need to build it in 9t to tie with us, and 8t to beat us. They will need 19hpt to beat us, and 17hpt to tie with us, and they have a size 5 city. 2 from city tile, 1 from deer, 3 from plains cow. So they can do it, but I doubt it, not without plenty of bare hills that they could mine.

Still, getting 19 hpt would be hard. With 1 pop on the deer and 1 on the cow, giving 7hpt with the base tile, they would need 12 hpt from their other 3 citizens. Unless all three of them are working plains hill mines, that's not gonna happen.

17 hpt is more likely, but still difficult. They would need 2 grass mines and 1 plains mine. Do we know whether or not they could be the team with #1 production?

Of course this is all assuming no overflow...

[Sullla]

Priesthood is definitely the most likely tech for CivPlayers to have picked up this turn. Even if it isn't, we pretty much have to assume the worst-case scenario where they have Priesthood starting this turn (T59). They also should be able to out-build us to the Oracle if they start immediately in their capital, Bronze Working or no Bronze Working. I'm assuming that their terrain at the start is roughly mirrored to ours, and we know that they moved on the first turn to settle on a plains hill tile. Their capital should look something like this:

Settled on plains hill (2/2)
Camped deer (5/1)
Pastured plains cow (3/3)

That gives them the 10 food they need at size 5 to feed the city. Then add in 3 mined hill tiles with the other three pop points, and they get 2+1+3+3+3+3 = 15 production/turn with all grassland hills, up to 18 prod/turn with all plains hills. If they started Oracle this turn in the capital, they'll finish it eot 67 or eot 68. At best we'd get a coin flip, at worst we'd lose the wonder.

CivPlayers with early sacrificial altars (they are Aztecs) would be fairly powerful. Do we want to consider trying to build Oracle faster for denial value? I would probably say no, as we've gone over the other techs we could slingshot and they would have a lot less value than Currency. Overall though, I would say that we are most likely to get beat for a turn or two at the current rate.

Maybe they'll tech Bronze Working and spend a tech in Anarchy to cost them the Oracle. Now that would be amusing.

[regoarrarr]

Is there any other way we can speed things up? I'm assuming that we're research limited, and that we could build the Oracle faster, just not getting Currency with it. What if we do get open borders / ICTRs with the Germans or any other civs?

Can we work max commerce everywhere to shave off a turn or two from Math?

[NobleHelium]

We can't get trade routes with the Germans unless we defog the river to them AND research Sailing, which would delay our research even further.

It might be possible to speed up Mathematics by a turn by running breakeven and running heavier commerce, but the difference was like 30-40 beakers so I doubt it.

Also if you look at our start, settling on the northern PH would mean that there is a maximum of two workable plains hill mines, so that's 17 hpt max. Their start could easily be different of course.

[kjn]

Yes, only way to speed up Currency would be to get the Oracle the same turn as Math (ie eot 67), but that would also mean we'd have to bring in another 30H to the wonder, ie we'd probably have to whip MM down to size 2 or 3, and that would in itself make it harder to reach Math at eot 67.

So, this is the contribution from C&D: we are likely in an Oracle race. Discussion can continue in other threads.

[NobleHelium]

Actually, we've overlooked one very important fact.

If CivPlayers do not have BW, they cannot chop down forests. Thus, they cannot mine hills that are forested. Our start has one unforested grass hill. Assuming near-mirrored starts, I'd say their capital caps out at 15 hpt or at most 16 hpt if they work another grass hill forest and burn food instead of working the deer.

[kjn]

Actually, we've overlooked one very important fact.

If CivPlayers does not have BW, they cannot chop down forests. Thus, they cannot mine hills that are forested.

They can still reach a non-trivial amount of hammers.

Assume a similar setup to us on T0. They have a PH city centre (2/2), deer (5/1), a corn (6/0), a cow (3/3), one minable grass hill and one minable plains hill, and some forested tiles.

At size 6 they can reach 10F6H with 2 pop, and add one grass mine (1F3H), one plains mine (4H), one 1F2H and one 3H tile, for 12F 18H.

[NobleHelium]

I thought we were calculating for a size 5 city? And our start doesn't have any bare plains hills for them to mine, the bare plains hill is at their city center (yes, their start could be different).

[kjn]

Their city has been size 5 forever, so we can't assume they won't grow while building the Oracle. Even size 5 they can reach 15hpt, working cow, deer, grass mine, 2 forested plains hills, with +1F (11F 15H).

And even without a bare plains hill to mine, they will get 2 forested plains hills, so that would still put them at 17hpt at size 6.

However, this might very well delay them to Writing, but my projection for that tech was 5 or 6t, and they likely have a gold mine and some cottages in other cities to speed their research.