Announcement

**Arrian** · December 30, 2003, 11:22

Thanks, Jesse.

I'm not sure I understand, so here goes:

The FP isn't working quite right in the beta patch, because the corruption system is miscalculating city ranking around the FP. As I understand it, if you fix this, it will result in a FP that works pretty much the way it did in PTW (full-power second "core" of cities around it).

Am I getting it?

-Arrian

**ducki** · December 30, 2003, 11:34

That's what I read.
City rank is currently not taking into account the nearest capitol, but only the "real" capitol.

At least, that's how I read it.
Which also sounds like - in addition to a fix giving you two cores - Communists should be able to get 3 cores, but only while in Communism. That could be a handy boost, no?

And yes, thank you Jesse for taking the time to clarify this.

Edit: Looking at those functions, I'm not seeing anything that would _seem_ to do the funky math that kills RCP... is that somewhere else, or was the "RCP bug/fix" just a side effect of this bug?

**UnityScoutChopper** · December 30, 2003, 12:28

Ducki,

it sounds like the function just delivers a "distance number" that is converted into a "rank number" by a function further on in the code. The RCP fix was probably a fix to that rank-assigning function further on -- not to the function call, but to the code within the function. The old rank-assigning function probably sorted cities by vectorDist and for simplicity's sake gave all tied cities the lowest rank in the tied group. I bet the programmer who made it that way said, "heck, it would delay this stage of the programming to implement a different tie-breaking system, and besides... nobody would ever be obsessed and have enough free time to reverse-engineer and exploit this... right?!?" :-)

I kinda can't blame him/her.

Regarding 3 cores in Communism -- I thought Communism had FLAT corruption and thus no cores?!? There may be "invisible" cores, however -- with those cores' beneficial effect being expressed as lower corruption after "flattening." In any case, the FPs each raise the OCN, helping fight corruption if you have a high city count (i.e. potentially putting you back under the OCN when you were over, which is a Very Good Thing). But I have a hunch the "invisible cores" are the real providers of FPs' benefits under communism... I really should check Alexman's thread before stating this, but I'm too lazy.

JesseSmith,

You almost have my gratitude... if it's not a state secret: how SHOULD the system work when redesigned? I'm glad to hear that FP's apparently ARE still meant to lower cityrank in their surroundings -- but it's obvious you HAVE done SOMETHING that you think may be controversial -- out with it! We'll find out soon enough anyway!

USC

**JesseSmith** · December 30, 2003, 12:54

The whole reason we added the Secret Police HQ was to give Communism the added benefit of having a 3rd Corruption Reducing building so that it could be this massive empire. The fact that its broken is appalling!!! One of the disadvantages of being human - mistake prone, if only I had that drone! =)

I will go into more detail on the final workings of the RCP once I'm sure I have the details correct. The gist of it is that the distribution will be based on distance from "capital" instead of by how you place your initial expansion cities

**alexman** · December 30, 2003, 13:25

First of all, a big thumbs up to Jesse and Firaxis for this communication!

Originally posted by JesseSmith
This system will benefit the game on all sides, from Diff Balancing to AI. Your feedback (yes the vocal people are the ones who get heard most... you have to be more vocal if you want to be heard!!) will ultimately decide how it functions in the Release Patch.

How can a whole new second core help the AI? It can't, unless the AI knows how to rush a FP far away from its palace. The current 1.12 implementation gives a boost to the AI in the late game, where it most needs it. Builder or warmongerer, the late game becomes more exciting. Chalk me up as a vocal person for the v1.12 FP implementation!

I think jshelr put it well in another thread:

Originally posted by jshelr
Congrats to the folks at Firaxis, IMO.

My impression about the new FP is very favorable, in fact, extremely favorable. I think the FP change interacts with other changes to produce a new and better game, a more balanced game that makes simple warmongering much harder.

Size no longer necessarily is the best path to tech superiority and there may be a very important improvement in the tradeoff between going for an SS win and going for a domination win. (I mean that going for domination, you may find yourself screwed on the tech front and actually lose a game or two.) This is a tremendous improvement that makes the later stages of the game much more fun.

On the domination path, only your core cities will really be significant unit producers and war weariness will shove you off democracy unless you fully use your bag of war tricks to reduce the impact of WW. (Get the AI to attack, no AI units in your territory after every turn, none of your units in AI territory after every turn, etc.) It's worth emphasizing that you can no longer simply go to republic and pay little attention to WW while you slug it out without much lost efficiency versus a democracy government. You have to use democracy to both cut corruption, without the FP to bail you out easily, and also to cut the cost of maintaining units in a big industrial era army.

**Theseus** · December 30, 2003, 13:54

Thanks for the heads up, Jesse!

**vmxa1** · December 30, 2003, 14:10

Now that is what I like to see. Someone giving us the facts as best they can. I don't care how it works, just so I know it does, so I can plan accordingly. I mean I don't care iif there is a better way or it is broken, IF I can at least understand it.

It sounds like it is going in the right direction. Thanks for the update.

**kring** · December 30, 2003, 14:21

Thank you Jesse.

**Catt** · December 30, 2003, 15:06

Many thanks for the updates!

Catt

**RobC** · December 30, 2003, 15:20

Thanks Jesse!

**Kuciwalker** · December 30, 2003, 15:44

Firaxis has to be the most responsive company EVER

**Alex** · December 30, 2003, 17:15

Thanks, Jesse.

This thread and the other ("Firaxis: Beta Patch info") should be topped. Mods?

**Fried-Psitalon** · December 30, 2003, 17:35

Definitely agree with the toppage - looks like the ultra-responsive folks from Galactic Civilizations have competition from Firaxis in the "response and feedback" department now.

Very good things for the future of the Civ series.

**Master Marcus** · December 30, 2003, 18:35

Originally posted by Fried-Psitalon
Definitely agree with the toppage - looks like the ultra-responsive folks from Galactic Civilizations have competition from Firaxis in the "response and feedback" department now.

Yeah, it seems the way Brad Wardell & his team are working the updates for their game GalCiv has influenced Firaxis in a positive way ( monthly updates, wow... ). I just hope for the day when corruption is going to be fixed for good, it stays that way and, well...anyway there'll always be some whining from the minority about it. The devs can listen to them if they want, but they choose the engine they want. I don't mind if the FP is less powerful than a regular Palace, not being a full second core, just make it useful that's all. Once the SPHQ is fixed, as well as Civilopedia entries related to corruption buildings and all, then everything's perfect for me ( anyway the experience is already more than satisfying like 97 % of civers out there having never complained ).

Now instead of tweaking the editor for corruption calculations, I prefer to see modders making new scenarios.

Announcement

Firaxis: Corruption Breakdown

Firaxis: Corruption Breakdown

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