Cloak & Dagger

[ruff_hi]

Originally posted by mostly-harmless Although, our decision making was not really affected by that wrong analysis, I nevertheless offer my resignation from the Cloak & Dagger department if the team wants it.

mh

Oh stop being silly. Pick up that letter and get back to work.

[sooooo]

Hmm, looks like Imperio have their own Cloak and Dagger department and worked out that no one had researched meditation. Or can you tell this in the game that you will found a religion?

[Sullla]

You can always tell if a religion is still available, sooooo. There will be a little religious icon next to the tech if it is still available, nothing if not. (It's a generic icon for "pick religions", the religious symbol otherwise.)

Of course, it's possible that they also have an Español version of the C&D too...

[ruff_hi]

Originally posted by Sullla
You can always tell if a religion is still available, sooooo. There will be a little religious icon next to the tech if it is still available, nothing if not. (It's a generic icon for "pick religions", the religious symbol otherwise.)

The little symbol comes and goes depending upon 'first there' against the row of techs on the top of the screen, it is mentioned when you hover over the tech but it is always there when you look at techs via F6 (tech tree). Same with GPs (ie music) and free techs.

[mostly-harmless]

PAL's demographics are available. Sullla are you volunteering to dig through the graphs?
If so let me know if you need info about PAL' growth and whip cycles.

I will provide a C&D update Monday or so.

mh

[Sullla]

Yeah, it's on my to-do list for Sunday. (I was at an American football game all day on Saturday. )

One quick thing to run past you, mh: Imperio's GNP went up by 10 last turn (thus showing up in the Demographics for the first time this turn), from 31 to 41. Obviously 5 of that came from founding religion... but where did the other 5 points come from? There are two choices:

- They are working one of their gold resources
- They are researching a tech with two known prerequisites

I'm leaning towards the second option, because their Food/Production numbers did not change. That would very likely mean that their current research is Masonry, which is also logical because they have marble to connect. Do you think that my reasoning here is on the right track?

[sunrise089]

Originally posted by Sullla
...(I was at an American football game all day on Saturday. )
...

Congrats on the UMd win.

[Sullla]

Alright, I have finally compiled the PAL demographics. It's been much harder to figure them out, due to their constant whippings, but I think I have a solid grasp of what they've been up to. Let's go through the graphs in order, starting with the GNP figures:



There isn't all that much of interest here; I mostly posted it for record-keeping purposes. As best I can tell, PAL is researching just slightly faster than us, due to working a couple of coastal tiles. They are probably getting about 15 beakers/turn right now. (We might look bad on the graphs, however most of the Templar and Imperio GNP numbers come from their culture, not research. Templars actually have the lowest research rate by a fair margin.)

As far as PAL's research path, we can figure that out completely:

Start with Agriculture and The Wheel
T1: Begin Fishing
T6: Fishing -> Mining
T12: Mining -> Bronze Working
T18: Pop Mysticism from hut
T24: Bronze Working -> Animal Husbandry
T33: Animal Husbandry -> Masonry
T39: Masonry -> Pottery
T46: Pottery -> Hunting
T50: Hunting -> Writing (?)

We know that they went for Masonry after AH because it was researched a full turn faster than Pottery (despite the fact that the two have the same cost in beakers). But PAL had both prereqs for Masonry and only one for Pottery, so we can tell them apart. I suspect Writing is the current project for similar reasons; the PAL GNP increase from 21 to 25 on T51 suggests going from a tech with no prereqs (Hunting) to one with two (Writing). That, and we told them to research towards Alphabet too!

Next up the Food and Production graphs, which go together:





As we correctly guessed, PAL has been food-heavy and shield-poor throughout the game so far. The bar graphs themselves are rather confusing, but once I put them in my table and worked things out turn-by-turn, much became clear. Here's my early tile analysis:

T1: Start by working 3/0 tile (fish resource?)
T9: Size 2, working 3/0 and 0/3 tiles (fish + forested plains hill)
T11: Working 1/2 and 0/3 tiles (plains forest + forested plains hill)
T14-15: Not really sure what's going on here
T16: 10 food/1 shield here comes from 5/0 fish + 3/0 tile (fish #2?) + center tile
T20: Size 3, working 5/0, 3/0, and 3/0 tiles. Either multiple fish or multiple floodplains. Either one is bad news for us.
T25: Whip capital to size 2; working 5/0 and 3/0 tiles
T31: Whip capital to size 1, working 5/0 tile
T34: City #2 founded; capital working 5/0 tile, second city working 2/2 tile (more likely 2/1 founded on plains hill)
T37: Whip capital again to size 1; if working 5/0 tile, second city must be working a 3/3 tile - plains cattle?
T44: Capital hits size 2, adds a 3/0 tile (floodplains?)
T47: PAL whips capital, back down to two size 1 cities (capital working 5/0 tile, second city 3/3 tile)
T48: PAL capital size 2, settles city #3. At this point, it just starts to get ridiculous.
T53: Food increase of exactly 2, with no production change, likely indicates that the work boat has connected a fish resource at city #3 (3/0 tile to 5/0 tile)

I'm willing to stake my Cloak and Dagger credentials on guessing that PAL started with one fish resource, and that their second city was founded on a plains hill. I don't see any other way that the numbers can work out. I also believe that they have at least two other floodplains at their capital, or at the very least several 3/0 tiles. (But if they were grassland cows or corn tiles or something like that, they should have been improved to better numbers - so I'm thinking floodplains.)

Working backwards from this, I *THINK* I have the rough outlines of their build order:

T1: Start building warrior. Swap to work boat after discovering Fishing.
T16: Work boat -> warrior
T19: Warrior -> ??? [not settler/worker]
T25: Double-pop whip (60 shields), either going into a settler or worker
[Speculation time: I believe that PAL put just less than 30 shields into a worker, then grew to size 4, swapped back to worker, and double-whipped it to completion, sending 30 shields of overflow into a settler. This is what the numbers suggest.]
T26-30: Halt growth at size 2 while putting 7 food/shields into settler.
T31: Single-pop whip (30 shields), completing settler. Start work boat (?) while running max food
T33: City #2 settled
T37: Single-pop whip (30 shields) [I think this must be a work boat, with virtually all overflow going into settler. Nothing else makes sense - they can't have whipped a warrior or barracks, we would have seen an increase in Soldier points. And our scout spotted a PAL work boat shortly thereafter.]
T38-46: Capital puts three turns into settler (6 food/shields each turn), spends three turns growing to size 2, three turns into settler (7 food/shields each turn), then whips the final 30 shields of settler to completion
T47: Single-pop whip (30 shields), completes settler
T48: City #3 settled
T50: Warrior #2 built. Not sure if it was capital or second city.
T53: Single-pop whip (30 shields) - second worker? Granary? Not used on anything military

This confirmed our guess, that PAL was using the whip to complete their settlers and workers. Almost all whips were used to complete settlers, as far as I can tell. The upshot is that PAL doesn't have any infrastructure (except possibly one granary?) and probably only just finished their second worker. So perhaps they're not quite as much of a runaway as we feared?

The other major revelation is that PAL is a paper tiger in terms of military:



T1: Start with 5000 from warrior (1000) + Wheel (4000)
T8: +1000 from capital growing to size 2
T12: +2000 (8k) from researching Mining
T19: +2000 (10k) from building post-patch warrior
T24: +9000 (19k) from growing to size 4 (1000) and discovering Bronze Working (8000)
T25: -1000 (18k) from whipping down to size 2
T31: -1000 (17k) from whipping down to size 1
T33: +2000 (19k) from discovering AH
T34: +1000 (20k) from growing to size 2
T48: +1000 (21k) from growing to size 4 [2+1+1 city sizes]
T50: +2000 (23k) from building warrior #3
T51: +2000 (25k) from discovering Hunting
T52: +1000 (26k) from growing to size 6 [3+2+1 city sizes)

PAL has the absolute minimum defense possible right now, one warrior in each city. They must not be close to the other two civs on their island, or have worked out some kind of deal that makes them feel secure. In any case, they've been able to put all their efforts into expansion, which accounts for their fast start.

Whew! That's my say. I've also updated the Excel charts so that everyone can have the numbers on hand. I hope that someone will try to check this info again, and make sure that I haven't made any glaring errors in analysis.

http://www.garath.net/Sullla/Civ4/ADGStats.xls

[mostly-harmless]

Outstanding work, Sullla!

Here is my summary of the Turns 48 - 54
PAL:
T50: The Warning popped 3rd ring gaining only 5 land tiles! This could of course mean that there is already some overlap with their 2nd and/or 3rd city.
T51: Learned a tech. Hunting.
T52: Whip-happy PALs lucked out with the post-war event giving one pop point to each city. A nice boost for the civ with th emost cities. The Warning, Thebes & Memphis grow to sizes 3, 2 & 2. Either Memphis or Thebes got whipped down to size 1 the very same turn.
T53: Get awarded 13 points for owning the 9 tiles in Thebes' 1st ring (landlocked city). I assumed that 9 tiles equal 12 points, but maybe the factor changes with time? (we certainly only got 12 points for 9 tiles, same goes for Imperio)

Rabbits:
T50: Tech learned. Pretty sure its Archery since the increase in soldier points by 8000 overall is not only accounted for by the Rabbits tech, but we know PAL increased their soldier points as well by 2000 on that turn.
T51: Capital popped 3rd ring gaining additional 10 land tiles

Templars:
Nothing worth mentioning point wise.
We know they delayed their settler for getting out one more Quecha.

Imperio:
T49: Founded their 2nd city Lakhama. Landlocked (9 land tiles in 1st ring)
T51: Mutal grown to size 4.
T52: Tech learned. Meditation! Islam founded in Lakhama.
T54: Lakhama's 2nd ring popped due to Monument & holy city. (12 additional land tiles, including 1 overlap with Mutal.)

Banana:
T49: Tech learned. Could be worth up to 6000 points, so Archery is a likely candidate.
T51: Banana's capital grown to size 3. Their 2nd city whipped from size 2 down to size 1.
T52: Capital popped 3rd ring only gaining additional 4 land tiles. Even if there is already some overlap with their second city, there "land" must look silly. A long slender peninsula of some sort. Remember they only have 5 workable land tiles within their BFC.
T54: 2nd city grown back to size 2.

Sullla:One quick thing to run past you, mh: Imperio's GNP went up by 10 last turn (thus showing up in the Demographics for the first time this turn), from 31 to 41. Obviously 5 of that came from founding religion... but where did the other 5 points come from? There are two choices: - They are working one of their gold resources - They are researching a tech with two known prerequisites I'm leaning towards the second option, because their Food/Production numbers did not change. That would very likely mean that their current research is Masonry, which is also logical because they have marble to connect. Do you think that my reasoning here is on the right track?

If they go for Masonry, they also get a bonus from PAL and Templars having researched Masonry already. Does that still add up?

Sullla:I also believe that they have at least two other floodplains at their capital,...

You are probably right about those flood plains.
If you zoom in really close to PAL's borders you can actually see a river starting there. They are also in the right latitude to get floodplains. Also that river is mapmaker-engineered as it's spring lies actually in the ocean and the it flows inwards!

mh

[mostly-harmless]

Warning!
If I read the signs correctly Templars just produced their next Quecha on turn 54! We see an increase of 2000 in soldier points in their graph. No pop increase, no city improvement, no tech. A unit is the only option.
Now, they have four Quechas running around our borders, presumably one guarding their settler (if the settler is indeed built yet). So they will be in need of a garrison unit in Jerusalem.
But, if we see on more Quecha being built, I suggest we rethink our defenses a bit.
An option is also to drop them a hint, that we are well informed about their status.

mh

[ruff_hi]

Originally posted by Sullla
The other major revelation is that PAL is a paper tiger in terms of military

I guess that makes us out to be a slightly thicker paper tiger then. Nice work Sullla.

I don't think that this game actually needs a historian as we seem to 'known' exactly what each team is doing ... so much so that we could write the early history of this game ourselves.

[sunrise089]

Another quecha?!

We may want a secret clarification from an Admin about the pseudo-double-move risk. As you will recall, double moving a city isn't allowed during war. As I stated in another thread however, moving, declaring war, and moving again may not be banned.

4 queches hitting any city will probably kill 2 warriors, so we may need to get some more troops out. Even breaking early unit chokes normally take 2:1 units...so having some extra warriors is a necessity if this cold war is heating up. We'd also want a warrior or two to send at the Templars to put pressure back on them.

[ruff_hi]

Should we reach out to our PALs and discuss the possibility of early military support?

[Krill]

Originally posted by ruff_hi
I don't think that this game actually needs a historian as we seem to 'known' exactly what each team is doing ... so much so that we could write the early history of this game ourselves.

Are you 100% correct though? And if you think so, are you willing to stake the game on it?

[ruff_hi]

Thought this would get a comment from you. And just to remind you ... the victory writes the history