Skullduggery Thread for Demohacking

[YossarianLives]

Thanks talonschild. That makes sense, but unfortunately means we can't determine whether there's more than one team at 12 Food.

Well, since we got a fresh T18 Demo screen, might as well do some more demohacking!

There were only a couple slight differences between cav scout’s screenshot early in the turn, and Caledorn’s screenshot after a few more teams ended turn. Best Mfg went down from 6 to 5, and Best Food went up from 5 to 6 (with corresponding changes to the averages in each category). Let’s take a closer look at these.

I think it’s reasonable to pair the Best Mfg with the Worst Food (5), since the team would have to sacrifice somewhere to get that high number. I have to imagine that if they had time to make any worker improvements, it would probably be a food resource, so I’m going to assume no improvements. This means that it is probably Uciv or WPC that is getting this yield, since they grew first before starting their worker. One tile combo that gives the correct numbers is if the team founded on a PH (2-2), while working a forested Deer (3-1) and a forest PH (0-3). I'm guessing this team was working on a Worker or Settler, since these are horrible yields for growth.

The later demos show the Worst Food went up to 6, which is still pretty bad and probably means no tiles have been improved yet. So again, this is probably Uciv or WPC. Since Worst Food went up mid-turn, could that mean that a worker or settler was completed, and now it’s time to grow again?

I also wanted to ask the team about the Top 5 Cities. #1 is obviously RB since they’re the only ones at Pop 3. #2 is obviously Civfr since they are getting the +2 culture. What confuse me are the #3 and #5 spots, who each settled on T1, not T0. How did #3 get ahead of us, and how did #5 get ahead of Spanish Poly? Does anyone have a better understanding about how these rankings are calculated? Would culture or buildings be needed to push #3 ahead of us?

And...I just saw that the turn has flipped with a few score increases:

Civforum.de: 43 (+6), this is their second tech, 10 turns after their first tech
Spaniards: 37 (+2), this is their cap growing to Pop 2
CivPlayers: 37 (+2), this is their cap growing to Pop 2

 

[YossarianLives]

Oh, and one other quick thought that I had. Could a team have gold/silver/gems in their BFC? That might explain both the low food and the high GNP, but I doubt Plako would have given this to one team and none of the others.

 

[YossarianLives]

Hmm, I noticed this is the first turn that RB seems to have delayed ending turn. Usually they end turn the first time they log in, often right after the turn flips. Then I noticed something interesting about WPC's log-in's this turn. Here is a sampling of their log-in times (US West Coast time):

RB: 8/15, 9:57am
WPC: 8/15, 10:51am

WPC: 8/15, 12:25pm
RB: 8/15, 12:45pm

RB: 8/16, 11:01am
WPC: 8/16, 12:01pm

Maybe it's just coincidence, but they seem to be watching each other.

 

[Arkipeller]

It could also explain the silence on the story-thread

 

[2metraninja]

Does anyone have a better understanding about how these rankings are calculated?

I might be wrong, but I always though this is only the culture generated which counts and population is not included. Or it is way smaller part of the equation at least.

 

[YossarianLives]

Ok, I was curious, so I looked it up. There are actually a couple threads asking about this, and most people, including some real experts, also believed that it was solely based on culture. However, someone dug up the code in this thread. Here are the relevant bits:

Looks like its in assets/python/screens/cvinfoscreen.py. Looks like its this line. I don't know python. Can somebody translate this to english for me?

iTotalCityValue = ((pCity.getCulture() / 5) + (pCity.getFoodRate() + pCity.getProductionRate() \
					+ pCity.calculateGoldRate())) * pCity.getPopulation()

Ok, so maybe it seems easy to me because I am a programmer by trade, but are you serious that you need help translating that? I'm not even sure how to really make it simpler. The only tricky part is the backslash, which just means that the current line continues onto the next line, so just ignore it.

The value for a city in the ranking appears to be
Population * (One Fifth of Total Culture Points + Food per turn + Hammers per turn + Gold per turn)

So, the way it's formulated, population is technically the biggest factor. Food, production and gold matter, beakers, espionage and current culture rate do not. A fifth of the total culture points for a legendary city is 10,000, which completely swallows any difference in food and production, and is still significantly more than gold per turn even with the sliders at 0. So a good approximation is probably population x total culture. The two tend to go together anyway so it might only rarely make a difference

It actually seems like a reasonable forumla to me.

Thanks Irgy! So, total culture points becomes the most important factor because it increases much faster than the other factors. However, at this early stage, a city producing more food/hammers/gold than us can slip by us, even though we have two more total culture than them.

 

[YossarianLives]

I’m falling behind here, so we have some catching up to do! I’ll start on T19.

As mentioned above, we had a few score increases.

Civforum.de: 43 (+6), this is their second tech, 10 turns after their first tech
Spaniards: 37 (+2), this is their cap growing to Pop 2
CivPlayers: 37 (+2), this is their cap growing to Pop 2

Total soldiers went up 6k this turn. The two pop increases each come with a 1k soldier increase. That means we have 4k soldiers still to make up. I am guessing Civforum.de researched The Wheel, which comes with 4k soldiers, and at a cost of 100, the timing works out perfectly.

Not too much else to report for this turn. Rival Best GNP fell back down to 21. I doubt Civfr was getting the 24 GNP while researching something with no pre-req, so it was a team that switched tiles midway through a tech. Maybe they worked the commerce tiles long enough to shave a turn off their research? Rival Worst Food increased again, from 6 to 7. Maybe that’s related to the GNP drop?

Let’s move on to T20.

This is an exciting turn for us, as we’ve shot up to first place! The reason we’re one point ahead is because we didn’t have a lake tile in our starting nine like 7/8 of our opponents. Every score increase this turn is associated with finally getting the points for our initial land tiles, so there were no pop increases, techs researched, or anything else.

Total soldiers went up 2k this turn, which is probably another warrior build. For now I’ll give him to CivPlayers, just because they were the first team to finish their first warrior (among the teams that started with a worker build). This could be anyone though, really. Worst Food went up from 7 to 8, slowly catching up to the teams who already have worker improvements. And that’s it for this turn.

 

[Sommerswerd]

[spam]This thread is awesome

Yossarian, you are awesome. Keep it up [/spam]

 

[YossarianLives]

Thanks Sommerswerd. I'm having a great time with the demo-hacking, so keep the popcorn close by!

There were lots of score increases at the start of turn 21. Most are for the teams who settled on T1 getting their land points. RB researched a Tech this turn, putting them into 1st place. I'm pretty sure it's BW, but we'll see for sure if the new Rival Best Soldiers has gone up to 17 (BW worth 8). Poly got a Pop increase, so they're the second team to get a 3-pop capital. And CivPlayers got a tech, but I don't have any guesses on this one yet. We should have a better idea once we see if it came with any soldier points.

 

[2metraninja]

I dont know if CivPlaers were able to research BW at this time too, but if they could, I can bet it was BW that they researched. This is how they play - look for copper, if in sight, settle city#2 to claim it. If not - try for horses. If both fail, go IW.

 

[YossarianLives]

They could not have researched BW yet. CP started with Hunting and Myst. There was no power increase on T12, when they finished their first tech, so Agri and Masonry are the only candidates. It's possible they started with Agri and just finished AH with the 40‰ bonus. Maybe they'll go Mining->BW next. This makes a lot of sense if they have an animal resource in their BFC.

 

[vranasm]

from the latest demo screen it appears someone has size 3 capital (21k population)... is it even possible with worker first strategy? if I remember right on bananas would allow T9 worker for RB meaning 11 turns of growing. Could it be them, too lazy to count?

 

[YossarianLives]

Yes, RB has a size-3 capital. RB got that big that fast with a 3 capital. Being Exp, they got their Worker by T10, grew to size-2 by T15, then they were working a 6 farm, a 3 resource and their 3 capital for a total of 12 (8 surplus). This let them grow again 3 turns later, on T18 (8 x 3 = 24). Since they didn't pick up any more food with their third citizen, I am guessing they are now working on a first Settler.

Actually, based on the score increases, Apolyton grew to size 3 this turn so now we have two size-3 capitals. We should see this reflected in the new T21 demos.

 

[cav scout]

Actually, based on the score increases, Apolyton grew to size 3 this turn so now we have two size-3 capitals. We should see this reflected in the new T21 demos.

You are correct sir. I can grab some screens for this turn later today if our turn logging team hasn't gotten them yet.

 

[cav scout]

Here is a screenshot of the demographics at the end of turn 20. Not sure if it will be helpful, but I noticed it was a little different than the one from the beginning of the turn.

Spoiler :

 

[YossarianLives]

Well, I was definitely wrong with RB’s tech.

The demos show a total power increase of only 2k soldiers this turn. Both RB and CP finished techs this turn, so either both got powerless techs and some team built a Warrior somewhere, or one team got a powerless tech and the other got a 2k tech. BW is 8k, so that’s definitely out. Earlier we speculated that CivPlayers had finished AH, and I’m going to stick with that. At 2k soldiers, it means that RB finished something without any soldier points. Pottery makes the most sense to me. 12 turns to get 134 research with the 40% bonus means the timing seems a little off (they should have finished faster), but I guess it works.

The other big news is that Rival Best Food shot up to 16. With Poly growing so quickly, I’m guessing they’re the culprits here. They probably also have a 3 capital, working a 6 resource, 4 farm, and 3 FP or Deer for 16 total. This could also be RB, but since their food didn’t go up when they grew, I’m guessing it’s not them.

Thanks for sharing that screenshot cav scout. At first I thought it was from later in T21, and got excited that someone had lost 2k soldiers! Then I realized it was from the end of last turn. Whoops! Well, the change in Rival Best Food from 12 to 14 is interesting. If that was RB, the only team with 3 pop at the time, then Poly definitely has the 16 pop this turn. It also could have been a 2-pop civ with a 3 capital, working a 6 resource and a 5 improved Deer.

 

[YossarianLives]

The turn has flipped with a few notable score increases.

We grew this turn, so with 52 points, we're back to #1 (just until next turn, when CivFr will take a sizable lead with their land points from a Cre border pop). Civforum.de also grew this turn, so now four of us have size 3 capitals, and five of us have size 2 capitals. It doesn't surprise me that the first two teams to grow (WPC and UCiv) are still stuck at size 2, since they didn't have an early worker to start improving their tiles.

There were also two techs researched this turn, by WPC and Poly. I'm going to guess BW again, since I had them down for Mining first and BW makes the most sense as the next tech. I was wrong last time, though, so I guess we'll just have to see. They both finished their first tech on T9, so to get BW on T22, they needed to be averaging about 15 research (21 GNP) per turn for the timing to work out. We'll see what the demos show. If there is a power increase of 8k or a little more, than one team definitely finished BW. If there is an increase of 16k or a little more, then both teams definitely finished BW.

 

[YossarianLives]

Man, it seems that I’m putting way too much weight on Bronze Working. I’m 0 for 3 so far. It makes me think I’m probably off with some of those Mining predictions from T9, but the timing and power increases fit too well, so I’m not changing any of those quite yet.

Both Poly and WPC took 13 turns to finish their research. Techs that cost 134 or less are probably too cheap with this timeframe, and techs that are 200 or more are probably too expensive. That leaves AH (2k soldiers), Sailing, (2K) or Polytheism. Of these, AH probably makes most sense for both. This turn saw a 4k total power increase. These could be warrior builds, but it also fits if both researched AH. Previously, Poly was tied with Civforum.de for Rival Best Power at 11k, and best went up to 13k this turn, so it fits here, too.

Other interesting notes from the demos this turn:
Best and Worst GNP stayed the same, but Average dropped down one, so at least one team lowered their research this turn.
Best Mfg went up from 5 to 6, but our rank improved, so someone else went down in Mfg.
Best Food went up to 17. Maybe the team who had 14 food last turn with two pop, added a 3 tile when they grew this turn?

 

[talonschild]

We have 21000 citizens, tied with Rival Best, and ranked 1. This means the team which arbitrarily outranks us is sitting at 6000, or two population.

EDIT: I seem to remember figuring out once the game ranks arbitraily higher the last team in turn order. While this 'turn order' is irrelevant in a Simultaneous Moves game, it could explain this piece of the puzzle. Does anyone know if and where the technical turn order was posted? If so, are we eighth (of nine, and the game ranks in backwards order so eighth in order means ranked second)? If so, is the team in ninth at two pop?

 

[YossarianLives]

Hmm, I looked for a turn order list, but couldn't find one... I didn't even realize that a turn order existed with Simultaneous turns.

At any rate, the newest Top 5 Cities screenshot that Caledorn posted gives us a better idea of where everyone is at.

Spoiler :

#1: Realms Beyond
#2: Poly (or perhaps Civforum.de)
#3: Civforum.de (or perhaps Poly)
#4: Us!
#5: Civfr

I'm putting Poly ahead of Civforum.de because they grew faster, and their Warrior did not come out after Civforum.de's, so they probably have higher food/hammer production.

Here's the equation again to determine Top 5 Cities:

The value for a city in the ranking appears to be
Population * (One Fifth of Total Culture Points + Food per turn + Hammers per turn + Gold per turn)

On T22, Indira had 3 pop, 44 culture, and was producing 14 2 10, so our city value was 3 * ((44 / 5) + 14 + 2 + 10) = 104.4.

The difference between 44 culture and 42 culture is pretty minor, especially once it gets divided by 5, so the 3-pop teams who settled one turn behind us only need to be producing 1 or 2 more food/hammer/gold than us to get ahead on the Top 5 Cities scoreboard.

Edit: Sorry, you're clearly talking about our rank in the Demographics screen, not the Top 5 Cities.