Skullduggery Thread for Demohacking

Spreadsheet updated with the demographics and score numbers that cav scout posted. Thanks for that!

First things first. The screenshots show two very important things. We have 0/2060 possible population, and 0/2868 land tiles within our cultural borders. We now can calculate how many points each population and each land tile gives us:

Pop= 5000/2060=2.43 points per population

Land=2000/2868=0.70 points per land tile within cultural borders, with a 20-turn delay

We already knew that each Tech would be worth 5.99 points*tech era value (thus we have 11 points for two Ancient techs), and that each wonder will be worth 1000/62=16.13 points each. So now we should be able to make very good deductions on what causes our opponents’ score increases or decreases.

Onto the demo numbers. Because RB is the only team to have settled a city, we know they are Rival Best in GNP, Mfg, Food and Land (16, 4, 3, 8000, respectively). Keep in mind, this only applies to the time this screenshot was taken (if I understand correctly, teams can change which tiles they are working all the way up to the turn flip, thus confusing the demo numbers). RB is working 4 hammers and 3 food. This is a great start for an Exp civ as it gets the prod bonus for a worker, and also +1 food somehow. Taking a look at our screenshot, they could have accomplished this by moving 1E and settling on the bananas, while working the forested PH that the settler started on. There is further evidence for this because they have 8,000 land tiles, not 9,000, meaning that there is 1 water tile in their initial 9 tiles. This holds true to them moving 1E and settling on bananas.

My conclusion is that there is very strong evidence that the starts are mirrored, and that Team RB settled 1E on the bananas, and are currently working the forested PH tile while building a worker.

Now the hard part, GNP. If my assumption is correct, then RB is not working a commerce tile. That means 8 commerce from palace and one from the city tile = 9 commerce into research, plus 2 culture and 4 espy = 15 GNP, with no research bonus. If they are teching something that has a single pre-reqs (such as AH), they should be getting (roughly) 9 research * (1.2 pre-req bonus) = 10.8 research (rounded down) + 2 culture + 4 espy = 16 GNP. If they are teching something with two pre-reqs (Pottery), they would be getting (roughly) 9 * (1+.2+.2)=12.6 + 2 culture + 4 espy = 18 GNP. Therefore, they must be researching a tech with one pre-req.

My conclusion is that RB is researching AH.

This is actually not what I got the first time I did these calculations. I have never tried to break down the GNP numbers before, so it is very possible I am doing this wrong. I guess it makes sense that they want to know where horses are for WC, and they have agri to hook up the corn, and can do a quick pottery next to start their cottages.
 
if the starts are truly mirrored then RB SIPed since lake is not counted as land tile and on bananas would give them 7000 land and not 8000

teching AH for SIP doesn't makes much sense, but since they are egypt they maybe want to check for horses ASAP.

does mean they would lose a bit the commerce advantage if they do so.

there is possibility that they work flood plains for 10C + 2 culture + 4 espy for 16 GNP and tech first tier tech (for example mining)

that would mean they have BW in mind and some slavery abuse.
 
YossarianLives: I think you missed the free beaker they get when settling first city. So they have 10 commerce into research +2 culture + 4 esp = 16GNP. This mean they are not researching a tech with pre-reqs. Hence they are researching fishing, hunting mysticism or mining. They already have Agriculture and The wheel.
 
Thanks for the feedback. I definitely felt that I was missing something there. In this case, they are most likely researching Mining on the way to BW.

@vranasm, wouldn't SIP mean 9 land tiles, for 9,000 points? I am pretty sure. I guess we will see for sure once we settle and can see how many land tiles we have.

Spanish Poly settled and ended turn. If possible, can we get a new Demo screenshot?
 
Thanks for the feedback. I definitely felt that I was missing something there. In this case, they are most likely researching Mining on the way to BW.

@vranasm, wouldn't SIP mean 9 land tiles, for 9,000 points? I am pretty sure. I guess we will see for sure once we settle and can see how many land tiles we have.

Spanish Poly settled and ended turn. If possible, can we get a new Demo screenshot?

aaah sorry yeah of course ;-) so they settled with lake in BFC (or coast for that matter)
 
:hammer2: All this time I assumed it must be on a slow movement tile, like jungle. Never actually paid attention to that part of the pic other than a quick look on the 1st day. :lol:

I'm still skeptical about the starts being exactly mirrored though.
 
Yes, the more I think about it, the more strongly I believe I really have no idea what they are doing.

The same tile yield could result from a similar but non-mirrored start if RB settled on a PH, and are working a 1 food, 2 hammer tile (such as forested plains or a forested grass hill). There is no such tile in range for us if we SIP, so that is only possible if the starts are not mirrored, but we both started with settlers on a PH.

So, anything is possible. I will refrain from making conclusions in bold, since incorrect information is worse than no info at all! I will continue posting my theories, I just won't present them so definitively.
 
I don't have very much to contribute to the demohacking - but I would like to point out this from the final settings / final ruleset thread:

Mirrored starts - NO (capital locations are very similar though)

I believe this is based on plako's own comments about how he made the map.
 
Haha, thanks Caledorn. I think that is the most certain statement that has been posted in this thread so far!
 
Ok, spreadsheet updated again, although everything could potentially change with a re-load.

Spanish Poly settled their cap and ended turn. I have marked on the spreadsheet when their land will count towards score (turns 20 & 25). CivFr also settled, but that might have been a mistake entirely, so perhaps they will not settle on the re-load. In case they still do, I have marked the spreadsheet where they will get score increases for land points (turns 20, 23 & 45).

Since CivFr is asking for a re-load, there's no need to get new demos screenshots now, but if we can get them between each city being settled after we re-load(a hard task, so understandable if it's not possible), that should help us puzzle out the tile yields for each team. Does that give us any sort of advantage? Probably not, but it could be one more clue to use when trying to figure out more important things, like what caused a power increase.
 
Yes, the more I think about it, the more strongly I believe I really have no idea what they are doing.

The same tile yield could result from a similar but non-mirrored start if RB settled on a PH, and are working a 1 food, 2 hammer tile (such as forested plains or a forested grass hill). There is no such tile in range for us if we SIP, so that is only possible if the starts are not mirrored, but we both started with settlers on a PH.

So, anything is possible. I will refrain from making conclusions in bold, since incorrect information is worse than no info at all! I will continue posting my theories, I just won't present them so definitively.

not sure how Mfg is calculated when you build worker/settler and work food tiles. Since then your food become "hammers"... maybe worth the checking.
 
My understanding is that they still show separately as food and hammers. Also, the bonus for Exp and Imp leaders does not show in the demo screen. For example, if RB was building a worker from Turn 0, the demos screen will still show them getting three food, and four hammers (instead of the five hammers that are actually going into the worker).
 
i did very quick test with joao...

with normal city (aka 2f1h1c) 3F corn, 3H forested PH

building warrior:
Food is 5, Mfg is 1

building worker:
Food is 2, Mfg is 4 (exp bonus doesn't count)

building settler:
food is 2, Mfg is 4 (imp bonus doesn't count)

So if we see more food produced then 2 as max it definitely means someone starts not building worker/settler.

edit:
if we see them produce 3 food while building something it means they settled on high food tile (if the starts were mirrored it would mean bananas, but could be sugar (another typical one for settling on))
maybe dry rice comes to mind as another possibility.
 
i did very quick test with joao...

with normal city (aka 2f1h1c) 3F corn, 3H forested PH

building warrior:
Food is 5, Mfg is 1

building worker:
Food is 2, Mfg is 4 (exp bonus doesn't count)

building settler:
food is 2, Mfg is 4 (imp bonus doesn't count)

So if we see more food produced then 2 as max it definitely means someone starts not building worker/settler.

edit:
if we see them produce 3 food while building something it means they settled on high food tile (if the starts were mirrored it would mean bananas, but could be sugar (another typical one for settling on))
maybe dry rice comes to mind as another possibility.

Good job.
 
i did very quick test with joao...

with normal city (aka 2f1h1c) 3F corn, 3H forested PH

building warrior:
Food is 5, Mfg is 1

building worker:
Food is 2, Mfg is 4 (exp bonus doesn't count)

building settler:
food is 2, Mfg is 4 (imp bonus doesn't count)

So if we see more food produced then 2 as max it definitely means someone starts not building worker/settler.

edit:
if we see them produce 3 food while building something it means they settled on high food tile (if the starts were mirrored it would mean bananas, but could be sugar (another typical one for settling on))
maybe dry rice comes to mind as another possibility.

I wasn't sure if you meant that food would show up as Mfg on the demoscreen whenever workers/settlers are being built, so I tested it out with the same set-up. When building a worker/settler, demos showed 2 food & 4 Mfg if I worked the forested PH, but 5 food and 1 Mfg if I worked the corn. So, food will appear beyond 2 even when building workers/settlers.
 
I wasn't sure if you meant that food would show up as Mfg on the demoscreen whenever workers/settlers are being built, so I tested it out with the same set-up. When building a worker/settler, demos showed 2 food & 4 Mfg if I worked the forested PH, but 5 food and 1 Mfg if I worked the corn. So, food will appear beyond 2 even when building workers/settlers.

ah... well I maybe should stop doing this things :-D always don't take something into account

I guess what is confusing that for exp leader it's clear choice to work those hammers, so maybe if we see RB as settled first with 3F 4H then the conclusion is "settled on food tile, working 3H tile"

max food output of 5F after all civs settled would basically mean someone didn't settle on food tile and works normal 3F tile

if we see maximum of 6F then it's settled on food tile working 3F tile etc.

Imo what matters most is what RB does and we got already some solid leads that they go along the "settle on food, work 3H tile"? most probably building worker then expecting him to arrive T10
 
Just a quick update with the re-load.

RB settled their city again and ended turn. Poly ended turn without settling (again). No one else has ended turn yet.

Civfr has settled their capital, but have not yet ended turn (and I noticed it was a different turnplayer who logged in for them first and settled. Only after the city was settled did Inao log in).

Spanish Poly should settle their capital this turn, as that is what they did the first time around. Team CivPlayers ended turn without settling the first time, so we should be able to expect the same from them again.

Could we get a new screenshot of the demos when someone logs in for us?
 
Could we get a new screenshot of the demos when someone logs in for us?

I said the same thing 2 hours ago to Caledorn. I would like the demos too, rather before any new cities is built.
 
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