How Supply and Demand Lists Are Determined

[solo]

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.

[samson]

What are the terrain and continent# for Neopolis?

[solo]

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.

[samson]

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?

[samson]

What are the map dimensions for your Neopolis game?

[solo]

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:

[solo]

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:

[samson]

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.

[samson]

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.

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.

One other quick question, while it comes to mind. Are rivers added into the Land total for Land only calculations?

No, rivers don't count. Neither do specials. Just a plain count of the number of non-ocean squares.

Thanks for the save, I'll take a look at it soon.

[solo]

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.

[solo]

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).

[samson]

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?

[solo]

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.

[samson]

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?

[solo]

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!