Reply With QuoteWildcards eliminated some of the observations first posted here.
Further investigation indicates spice on the largest continent, often clustered close together, with excellent access to water.
Just did a quick test. Continent size does seem to be a determinant of Spice Demand. Thanks, Solo and DrFell, you may have found the missing factor. Let me do a bit more testing and see if this is it.
Wildcards eliminated some of the observations first posted here.
Further investigation indicates spice on the largest continent, often clustered close together, with excellent access to water.
Last edited by solo; November 21, 2002 at 14:51.
Well, it's pretty tough to get a demand for Spice under testing conditions. It has a pretty low demand quotient whatever you do. But it does indeed seem that the strongest factor is continent size. And you need a darn big one, too. I've posted a tentative DQ formula for Spice above, let me know if it works in your cases.
I've also found a correction to the Silk demand formula in the process of testing for Spice. A really strange bonus based on City#. If this is an indication of the kinds of subtle modifiers at work, we may never get this whole thing nailed down.
Samson,
The adjustment to silver also helped another Roman city, Antium, pass muster with the commodity formulas. The next city, Cumae, also had spice early at size 1. Same continent (#13) and also a seaport.
Two other problems with Cumae(59,51), wildcards (salt,gems), (Pottery and iron working known):
forest: 5 + pheasant = 9
mountain: gold = 4
ocean: 4 + whale = 8
hills: wine = 4
jungle =1
grass = 3
plains = 4
1150 hides,salt,coal dye,gems,wool size 1 techs: 17
600 (coal),salt,hides dye,gems,cloth size 3 techs: 23
600 BC checks out okay, but for 1150 I am getting:
hides,salt,silk dye,gems,cloth
On the supply side, I'm suspecting that continent 13 may not be acting as a multiplier for coal, since if this step is left out, coal will show up in slot 3 as required in 1150 and still be strong enough for slot #1 in 600, leaving silk under the wildcard both times.
On the demand side, it is a very close call with cloth inching out wool by a score of 36 to 35, so this city may provide some help in tweaking the cloth formula for when techs are not below 10. Gems cover beads on both of these dates.
Just saw your latest, and will check this out. Problem may not be with coal. Could be silk. I'll check out the new spice deamnd formula.
You know, continent size is not an easy thing to determine. In my testing it wasn't too bad because I used edited maps with continents of 25, 50, 100, 200, 500, 1000 squares. But in a game, nobody's going to count up all those squares!
Nope on silk, as I was dealing with supplies.
However, that latest modifier for silk demand is hard to believe (continent #1 AND city#/2 is ODD!!!!!!!!!).
There must be more to spice demand, which sure does come and go in mysterious ways. I was starting to think that it may only come around to visit at the EVEN city sizes.
In spite of this weirdness, the formulas are holding up pretty well so far in my tests, and perhaps very good approximations are the best we can ever hope for.
I wouldn't expect too many exceptions to your general rules, because these would add a lot of programming overhead in making the commodity calculations. In addition, we can never rule out the occasional spin of the dice, too, just to put some more "spice" into these mysteries.
Having a big continent for spice demand might make sense. After all, wasn't the spice trade in Asia quite a lucrative business in ancient times? (I might be wrong though). Basing supply/demand on continent numbers is odd though, although higher numbers are more likely to be out of the way islands, so I suppose that also makes some sense. But basing it on city numbers seems inexplicable...
Solo,
Another good catch on Coal. The supply formula did indeed have an error in the Continent# bonus. A transcription error from my testing notes to my formula writeup. The bonus should be x 3/2 (50%) not 2x. That should fix up things in Cumae.
Re: Spice. I. too, noticed that I could only get Spice demand to appear in coastal cities, those with lots of Ocean. But I believe this is due not to a dependency of Spice on Ocean, but to the fact that Ocean is demand-neutral terrain. Ocean does not figuire in any demand formulas. So more Ocean reduces the DQs of other commodities, allowing Spice to make the list. Spice's DQ is very low, so it is only in these coastal cities with few commodities having any demand that it appears.
And yes, there's probably more to the formula. We need to find cases where it doesn't predict correctly.
DrFell & Solo,
The City# in the Silk demand formula is weird and disheartening. Like continent size, it is not easy to determine and thus reduces the utility of the formulas as a whole. However, it is not entirely unexpected. After all, City# is a factor in the solo-cycle which is where this all got started.
Update: another mod to the Wool Supply formula based on another geographic concept: Polar Circles.
I think I understand now what happens when there aren't enough commodities with non-zero SQs or DQS to fill out a list. It simply takes the highest numbered commodity (Uranium=15, Hides=0) with a 0 quotient. At the start of the game this is would be Oil (14) for supply and Gold (13) for demand. After Industrialization, Oil is available for demand as well. After Nuclear Fission, Uranium is available for both.
Yes, the fix for coal now works for Cumae.
Your explanation for why oil appears on some early supply lists makes a lot of sense, and in a way it also supports William's contention that oil should not be available for supply until later in the game. Ordinarily, its chances of making a supply list early on are quite low, and when it does, it's probably because of lack of other candidates.
I am looking into spice a little, using the giga-sized map we played an OCC game on where the largest continent produced a demand quotient of roughly 2000 for spice. (No, I didn't dare count them all up!) You would think that this would put spice on every demand list. Not so, but I have some more checking to do on that.
Correction.
Oil is not available for supply list fill-in until after Industrialization. I checked on a saved game where I saw Gems appear on both the Supply and Demand lists. The demand was legit, but the supply of Gems was a fill-in. Oil was not used (no Industrialization) and Gold was already being supplied, so Gems (12) was next in line.
It's possible that for spice there is some kind of scaling factor based on map size, or an upper limit on the continent size count.
Yes, there has to be some mitigating factor, otherwise the largest continents would be overrun with spice-demanders.
Then William is right about oil, but only when it's being used as a fill in!
It looks like a scaling factor of some sort for spice, but the scale is not based on the total number of tiles. Spice does well on the giga map, but not as well as predicted by its formula.
This brings up another point. Many of the formulae depend on map distances, and it is possible that they may have to be scaled when applied to maps that are not the standard size.
Not really. Oil is just like any other terrain-dependant commodity. Build a city near a lot of deserts, especially with specials nearby, and it will supply Oil. The big increase in Oil supply comes from the discovery of Combustion.Then William is right about oil, but only when it's being used as a fill in!
Can you expand on this a bit more? Or post a save of your Giga map test with Spice-demanding cities?It looks like a scaling factor of some sort for spice, but the scale is not based on the total number of tiles. Spice does well on the giga map, but not as well as predicted by its formula.
BTW, I'm looking at Spice supply, and it seems to be affected by Continent size, too ... in reverse. Smaller continents produce more Spice.
Or perhaps formulas with DistanceToSomething will produce higher supply/demand quotients on larger maps where the absolute distances are greater.This brings up another point. Many of the formulae depend on map distances, and it is possible that they may have to be scaled when applied to maps that are not the standard size.
Okay, let's forget about William and oil!
I've returned to checking test game cities, with Neapolis (63,61) (wildcards hides,salt) doing okay except for a small matter with hides. The demand quotient (192) exceeds the supply quotient (160) in 725 BC, yet hides is placed on the supply list:
725 hides,coal,silk dye,salt,cloth size 2, techs: 22
I think this may be a city size issue, or possibly a # of techs issue, since there were not any changes for the quotients used for the earlier list:
1250 silk,coal,wool dye,salt,beads size 1, techs: 17
In 1250, hides was in the demand roster, and was covered up by the salt wildcard. In 725, hides needs to switch rosters to make it to the #1 spot on the supply list. Since terrain is a constant, I'm betting on city size or tech modifiers, my guess being that demand is not doubled at city size 2.
In regard to spice, I looked at several saves of the giga map game, so I will go back and try and find a good one that illustrates how spice demand came in lower than predicted by the formula.
What are the terrain and continent# for Neopolis?
Continent for Neapolis is #13
hills = 3
grass = 5
forest = 3 + pheasant = 7
plains = 4
tundra = 2
ocean = 3
(By the way, Neapolis was founded on a hill, and on its cycle turn. I doubt these are factors, but it does not hurt to mention this, too)
Server is busy, but I will try to attach a save for the giga map game. On it, you'll see that Asia (joined to Europe and Africa) has a good supply of tiles. My estimate for the count is about 19000, when divided by 10 gives a suggested DQ of 1900 for spice.
Spice does not get that high. If you look at Orleans, for example, spice must be on the demand roster, since Orleans can not supply spice, yet the commodities listed there are beads,cloth, and hides. Two of these use map distances, and when I did quick calculations, it appeared that the bigger size map threw these off. In any event, none of the DQs even came close to 1900.
However spice is doing okay, if you look at Madras, where it is #1 in demand, leading whatever is under Madras's wine wildcard and beads, thrid on the Madras list. You'll also ind spice in 4 other cities.
Thanks for the Spice save, I'm eager to look at it.
I did find a problem with Hides and Citysize, but it's at the 7/8 boundary so it doesn't affect Neopolis. Can you post the Neopolis save, too? Since a lot of your tests come off that map it might be easier if I had a copy.
How do you count # of techs? Are you including starting techs or not?
What are the map dimensions for your Neopolis game?
The Romans had 3 free techs at the start. Since you asked, I will now assume that # of techs used for calculations does not include the free ones given with the start. Maybe a note should be added up front, so others will not repeat my mistake.
This means that the Roman tech total should be 14 in 1250 BC and 19 in 725 BC. If I am not mistaken, this correction to tech totals makes things even worse, since it pushes the supply quotient higher than the demand quotient at the earlier date, when hides are wanted on the demand roster.
Here is the save made at the end of the Roman's 725 BC turn:
The Romans had 3 free techs at the start. Since you asked, I will now assume that # of techs used for calculations does not include the free ones given with the start. Maybe a note should be added up front, so others will not repeat my mistake.
This means that the Roman tech total should be 14 in 1250 BC and 19 in 725 BC. If I am not mistaken, this correction to tech totals makes things even worse, since it pushes the supply quotient higher than the demand quotient at the earlier date, when hides are wanted on the demand roster.
One other quick question, while it comes to mind. Are rivers added into the Land total for Land only calculations?
Here is the save made at the end of the Roman's 725 BC turn:
Solo,
I looked at your Giga map. Of 13 cities on the continent, 6 are spice-demanders although one of them is masked by a wildcard. Comparing the map coordinates of the cities I found that all sum of the coordinates divided by two, ie. (X+Y)/2, is ODD for all demanders and EVEN for all non-demanders. It seems that cities on large continents would all demand spice, so half of them are masked out. A few others get wildcarded. As for the Supply side of Spice, there are two threshold values which favor small continents. I've updated the formulas for this.
I didn't know the answer myself when I asked. My systematic testing of Techs was done in Cheat Mode using Edit Techs. The numbers matched what was shown on the screen. A few odd results in games made me curious. I need a little more testing, but I think you are correct that Starting Techs don't count. That makes sense, they don't count towards research costs and the trade system is probably using the same concept.The Romans had 3 free techs at the start. Since you asked, I will now assume that # of techs used for calculations does not include the free ones given with the start. Maybe a note should be added up front, so others will not repeat my mistake.
No, rivers don't count. Neither do specials. Just a plain count of the number of non-ocean squares.One other quick question, while it comes to mind. Are rivers added into the Land total for Land only calculations?
Thanks for the save, I'll take a look at it soon.
Looks like a double post above, my apologies to Apolyton for wasting some space.
Yes, I had noticed on continent #13 of my test game map where spice demanders were all in the ODD category, but when I checked over all spice demanders throughout the game, I noticed that Philadelphia, on another continent was in the EVEN category.
Perhaps the reverse holds true for the 2nd largest continent, EVEN demands spice and the ODD's are screened off the list.
More games will have to be inspected to see if a general rule can be made.
During my test game 3 spice demanders, I believe Rome, Cumae and Knossus, have been in cities having 4 specials, and these were along the same band of specials, each city center 8 tiles from the another. Other cities that have demanded spice have been: Delhi, Babylon, Antium, Veii, Bangalore, Corinth, and Philadelphia on continent #1. You can check these out with the Roman save at 725 BC.
Here is another save where a large map was used, almost entirely filled with one continent. 16 cities in all, with many spice demanders. They are following the ODD rule. A quick inspection of some other saves has confirmed this for largest continents. You might enjoy looking at this map, the one I designed to make the first OCC BC landing (in scenario mode).
I found the Neopolis Hides problem. The breakpoint between the 4x and 2x tech modifier for demand is at 20 not 24. The DQ drops and so the jump the supply list happens.
Checked a couple of saves I have for Spice demand and the ODD rule, all held true. Do you still have that city demanding spice at an EVEN?
Yes, Philadelphia is as even as they get at 88/2 = 44, but was on the second largest continent. It wanted spice in 1550. ODD rule seems to hold for largest continents, though, and this may mean that spice is getting fully charged in the giga map game. However, on that map, other commodities were not coming out right when depending on map distances for their quotients, with Orleans an example of this.
I have finished testing another city, Pompeii, which does fine, except in 900 BC when wool nudges out cloth by a score of 20 to 16, but since techs > 10, the adjustments needed for cloth are apt to push it onto the list where it did end up ahead of wool. The same thing happened with Cumae earlier.
Another commodity for that city, coal, moves from 4th place in 900 BC to the top of the supply list in 775. This is only to be believed IF starting techs are NOT taken in account, since coal will not make the supply list if the starting techs (3) are subtracted from the tech total (22) at that time. 22- 3 yields 19, which is below the 20 tech level requiring a division by 2. A division would take coal out of contention, so for now I'm sticking with ordinary tech totals.
The same holds true for hides in Neapolis. IF techs are actually 22 in 725 BC, this replaces the 2x multiplier with 1x, lowering demand and putting hides on the supply roster where it should be. If starting techs are subtracted from tech totals, techs would be 19 in 725 BC, still allowing that unwanted 2x multiplier. This makes everything consistent, so far. Forget starting techs, as a modifier.
Last edited by solo; November 22, 2002 at 22:09.
I think the answer is that starting techs are not included but the currently researched is. That's how techs are counted in determining research cost. You start paying the big jump in cost when you have 19 acquired techs and researching the 20th. The cost of that tech is a multiple of 20. It makes sense that the system uses the same accounting method when # of techs are used in other places.
If this is correct, then you have 20 techs at that point in the game and both Neopolis and Pompeii compute correctly.
What size was the continent that Philadelphia was on?
Yes, 20 techs works in that case. It's just a matter of further testing to see which tech total is the best to use, as sooner or later there will be a situation right at the borderline.
Philadelphia is in the .hot save I gave you when you were checking hides for Neapolis. It's the second largest continent. I think I will bite the bullet and count up the tiles on that one and on #13, where the other spice demanders are.
I'm hoping Dr Fell is lurking and can check out the ODD or EVEN effects using his save that had spice demanders on two continents, also. I'm really starting to think that largest continent is ODD, second largest is EVEN and so forth, for spice demanders.
If the ODD theory holds up, perhaps huge continents can be used allowing spice to compete directly with copper and dye. If so, altering continent size can at least help pin down their quotients, which may provide a clue in how they are determined.
I'll be back later with continent counts for my hot seat test game.
That wasn't so bad: Continent #13 has 689 tiles and continent #1 has 300 tiles
Oh, I just re-checked your post about how very high copper and dye quotients are, even out of reach of uranium. So much for trying this with spice!
Last edited by solo; November 23, 2002 at 11:29.
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