C&D questions (and other newbie questions)

[Catwalk]

I'm trying to learn how to do C&D, and have run into a few road blocks.

1) What methods do you use to determine which tech someone has researched? Tracking soldier counts is one way, but that only works on techs that give soldiers. Do you track GNP for each player and assume that players use all their cash?
2) Do you try to determine which player has built a unit whenever the soldier count goes up, or do you wait until you have graphs?
3) What determines which cities are on the top5 list?

Any other tips and tricks are most welcome. Thanks in advance!

[AutomatedTeller]

I'm no expert, but...

1) Knowing what is and what is not a soldier tech helps. For instance, if someone gets a tech on turn 4 and soldier count doesn't go up, it's fishing. if it does go up, it's probably hunting.
You can also kind of get an idea based on fluctuations in GNP, at least after the 1st city goes down, if they are doing binary.
2) try, yes - succeed - not always.
3) Culture and (I think) size as a tie-breaker. If culture and size are the same, random pick.

[Krill]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140952

[Catwalk]

Thanks for the tips AT, if culture is the main determinant then that would explain a lot. I thought wonders were part of it, I guess it's just the culture part.

Krill, that link takes me to great people tech preferences. Anything useful there about tech C&D? I wasn't able to find anything.

[Krill]

Try this one.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=163098

[Iskender]

re: #3 - the known tech bonus is a nice giveaway. The idea is that you can reverse engineer the gnp displayed in the demos screen to see how many players have a tech that you can immediately research. Coupled with score tracking and with enough raw gnp this gives pretty much certain knowledge on opponents' techs that you haven't researched yet.

Here's an example how it works and a spreadsheet to calculate less obvious techs:

http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showpost....tcount=161

[waterbat]

Rather than use the # of turns to discover as the investigation tool, use your own GNP as the starting point. It should offer more a tighter solution set, although ( especially early on when research is low) it can also result in an incomplete answer.

The thing is, if you get an ambiguous answer (I.e. 1 or 2 civs know this tech), you can adjust your GNP by hiring a bunch of citizens and you might find a resolution.

[Iskender]

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.

[Catwalk]

That's excellent, thanks! Will take me a little while to digest it, but I think I got it.

EDIT: Just read it again, and realized what you're actually doing. Very clever to first reverse calculate how many civs have a tech, then match the techs to civs later And many thanks for the spreadsheet, saves me a lot of work.

[AutomatedTeller]

As to question #2:

I think you can kind of figure it out, sort of, before you get graphs. Obviously, it's easier when you do get them (you can see who has gone up and down, relative to you)

That the graphs don't have scales has always bugged me - but then, I think the idea is that you are supposed to be working in the fog of war, anyway.

If you get visibility on your opponent, you get a lot better understanding of what they are building, of course.