The Dark arts - C&D Master Thread

[kjn]

For those curious, here is how the current espionage graph in APTmod looks like:



I guess CivPlayers were rival best for quite some time, but the peak just before T150 might be due to Apolyton running spy specialists - and then we have the GSpy infiltration, which more than doubled their total - it might even have tripled it.

[kjn]

Main news this turn is that Apolyton has researched Gunpowder. Assuming they finished Printing Press without overflow, this means they have researched Construction, Iron Working, Calendar, and Gunpowder in 4t, and gained 171g at the same time.

That's a total of 3780 effective beakers in 4t, and lets assume a known tech and prerequisite multiplier of 1.4 for them. That gives a total of 2700 raw beakers, or 675bpt with a small gold surplus. As a comparison, we generate 770gpt (including shrine) right now, and probably something similar at max science.

As noted earlier, Univers researched Liberalism. WPC researched Priesthood.

The Germans have circa 360k power right now according to the APTmod graph, and we have visibility on 172k of units. Then they have 72k from pop, tech, and buildings. Not sure where the last 110k might be.

[kjn]

Most notable about builds is that Univers has finished a couple of universities. They're not there yet for Oxford, but clearly headed that way.

[Ubercannon]

That's a total of 3780 effective beakers in 4t, and lets assume a known tech and prerequisite multiplier of 1.4 for them. That gives a total of 2700 raw beakers, or 675bpt with a small gold surplus. As a comparison, we generate 770gpt (including shrine) right now, and probably something similar at max science.

is that just the income with no expenses? Because in all the screenshots our gpt is much lower (like 150 or so).

[kjn]

Correct. I usually pick a screenshot of our budget each turn. Maybe I should start to do it at breakeven, for easier comparison from turn to turn?

[Ubercannon]

Well I was just confused since you were comparing it to apolyton's average bpt. This thread is really great though, kjn!

[novice]

Main news this turn is that Apolyton has researched Gunpowder. Assuming they finished Printing Press without overflow, this means they have researched Construction, Iron Working, Calendar, and Gunpowder in 4t, and gained 171g at the same time.

That's a total of 3780 effective beakers in 4t, and lets assume a known tech and prerequisite multiplier of 1.4 for them. That gives a total of 2700 raw beakers, or 675bpt with a small gold surplus.

That is really interesting. We should compare that 675bpt number with our bpt at breakeven (or more precisely +43gpt) slider setting.

[sooooo]

Impressive researching. Is it possible that apolyton researched most of gunpowder, then went back and finished the classical techs, then completed gunpowder? That would be a smart play to avoid giving other teams known-tech-bonus on it and also makes them seem less advanced than they are (useful when you're about to steal 3 big techs). At the same time it lets them finish the tech whenever they like if they felt the need to quickly draft janissaries.

[kjn]

They finished Printing Press just before all those techs - I really doubt they almost-finished Gunpowder and then went ahead towards PP. Also remember that they could get lots of overflow from those old techs, similar to how we one-turned Liberalism.

For that matter, we currently make 158bpt (raw) at -6gpt, and 83bpt at +66gpt. Our breakeven rate is probably 15% or so right now - and that's with Mansa's Muse just finishing a grocer

We will turn things around relatively quickly, I think, between missionaries (fewer units, shrine income), courthouses, and markets, but it will take us at least 10-15t to turn things around. Apolyton can build up quite the lead during those turns. Say 5000 raw beakers over 10t - that's enough for Chemistry and three-quarters of Scientific Method, if they decide to push for Communism.

[SleepingMoogle]

Wouldn't something like a beeline to Democracy be more beneficial to Apolyton? They don't stand to gain nearly as much from a Communism beeline than we do.