Project Taj Mahal?

[mostly-harmless]

Thanks, soooo.
PAl has to whip at least 4 pop points (3 in an absolute worst case scenario for us) in Thebes next turn to get a coin flip chance at the Taj.
If they don't do that, RB once again beats a industrious civ to an important wonder, while fighting two civs.

That would make me feel good.


mh

[regoarrarr]

The thoughts of PAL, expecting Taj in a turn or two, logging in to see

"The Taj Mahal has been completed in a faraway land"
"RealmsBeyond has started a Golden Age!"

brightens my day

[sooooo]

Well let's not do any gloating before the eggs are hatched. I wouldn't be surprised if they whip it next turn, leading to a coinflip.

[regoarrarr]

Oh yes - completely agree that it's too early. But nevertheless, even the possibility gives me a smile

[sooooo]

A double-whip from PAL but that's probably not the Taj. Mostly-harmless - how do you determine the population of a city?

[ruff_hi]

A double-whip from PAL but that's probably not the Taj. Mostly-harmless - how do you determine the population of a city?

I would love to know the answer to that too. As I understand it, population of city flows into the overall population stats (F9) and the score (based on city size). Then you have to juggle the various sizes of each city until both of those numbers line up. Painful and if mh has an easier way - that would be great.

[T-hawk]

I am eagerly anticipating tomorrow at 2:12 PM. If only the turn timer could be more accurate so I could make sure not to schedule any meetings at work during the turn changeover.

[mostly-harmless]

PAl has been known to whip their cities after they finished their turn. So, no surprise there. Double whip is correct. Since we have line of sight into all but two cities, it is now quite easy to check the size by grabbing multiple screenshots per turn. An super early screenshot (globe view) is always helpful.
Because I have taken on C&D for this game, I have to log in multiple times per turn to grab new screenies and verify certain assumptions. My screenshot numbers for this Demogame are four digits!
I already neglected keeping track of culture and land points since ca. 50 turns, because it becomes too much.

Anyway, back to PAL. Byblos was double whipped down to size 3. Definitely not the Taj!

Things are looking really good for us!!!

mh

[MyOtherCar]

I must say that the thing I most impressed with in this team, is the cloak&dagger thread. I never knew so much information can be deduced from the info screens. I really appreciate and admire the effort put into this.

[Sullla]

mostly_harmless is nothing short of incredible. Just doing Soldier count (and that only every couple of turns) is already pushing my limits of stat-mastery.

We're extremely lucky to have so many talented people contributing on this team.

[darrelljs]

Yeah, we have advantages all over the place but C&D has to be the biggest one. I'm constantly amazed what MH et. al. are able to figure out. I've seen some of the same tricks being applied in other settings now .

Edit: here's one of my favorite quotes from this game:

Analyzing single units of GNP from the demographics screen, thousands of years before civs contact each other, is a little bit deeper than even I usually go.

Darrell

[mostly-harmless]

I will abuse this thread (as it will close next turn anyway!) to shed some light on the C&D method.

I keep track of ingame score increases. Then I take a screenshot from the globe view, to check all visible cities and a screenshot from the demo-table, obviously looking at best, average, worst rival population.
After that it's just a little fiddling with the tables and the underlying maths to make my tables fit the numbers.
Here an example of this turns population table:

City size and population in the left columns. Number of cities per size for each civ in the next columns.
The brownish numbers are the numbers you should find in the best / worst rival population category (well, only two of them obviously). The yellow number is the average number that should match the demo-table number. If it doesn't something is wrong.
Underneath the brown line, the civ size in terms of tiles they can work (excluding city centres). This number is actually more useful in judging a civ's strength. Look for example at Banana's size 18 city (with 3.2million citizens its more than all 7 Imperio cities combined, although they account for 55 worked tiles).

In parallel I keep track of each individual city in the game from the turn it was settled, regardless of it's visibility.
Here an example of just PAL right from the start.
Size increase are coded green, whips are brown, growth-whips on the same turn are striped. Initially I was keeping track of culture to determine border pops (red letters) as well. But that got too messy after a while.


I think there is even more one can do if digging deeper through the screens and the underlying code. Sabotage costs for buildings could probably tell you something about what buildings are in the city (apart from the visual check).

I am not sure if during the Civ5 development they will make it harder to deduct these things, as it is a lot of work and takes away time.
I personally will probably not do something like that (at least to that extent) again. Anyway, I am not doing it for the ongoing RB PBEM #1 (now a few people might sleep better?). I was joining Team Sancta at CivFanatics at the very beginning to do the same sort of stuff, but could never find the time, especially as it was going on a very fast pace for the first turns.

Thanks for the praise, but lots of people helped with corrections, providing ideas and code-digging.

If we now face each other in different teams for the next MP games, I hope they won't become battles of math and formulas.

mh

[Dreylin]

I personally will probably not do something like that (at least to that extent) again. Anyway, I am not doing it for the ongoing RB PBEM #1 (now a few people might sleep better?).

Me, me; I like sleep!

[regoarrarr]

Timer has moved back to rolling over at 5:28pm EDT, so T-hawk doesn't (hopefully!) have to worry about schedulign any meetings!

[mostly-harmless]

Can you say: TAJ!
I doubt PAL will leave it that close to the turn end to whip it. The risk of Templars and Imperio ending their turn it too high.

mh