Bureaucracy formula help...

[Helium Pond]

Hi all. The bureaucracy formula just drives me nuts. I know a lot of you experienced types have it down, so I'd like your help. I'm trying to make a more accurate version of the datalinks, and I want to make the whole bureaucracy thing simpler. I want to just list the base limits before bureacracy penalties come into play. So I need a list of when, for each difficulty level and each planet size, the bureaucracy formula comes into play. Or, failing that, if someone could just tell me what the value of MAPROOT is for each of the default planet sizes, I could work the rest out. Anyone?

[Misotu]

I'd love to help but I'm completely vague about this area too.

Where I lose it is that I think it's not quite so simple as a difficulty level with map size = # of bases thing? (I could maybe get to grips with that). Maybe I'm confused, but I thought you then have to factor in factions (ie basic efficiency rating for each) and SE settings (ie demo will help, planned makes things worse)?

The aspect that confuses me is this: Say I hit the efficiency warning at 9 bases. How many more bases would I be able to build if I switched to demo? On the other hand, how much earlier would I hit the warning if I were running planned?

And so on.

But I would *love* to have the full information ...

[Simpson II]

Misotu, the full info is in the datalinks, I think. From memory the number of bases ou can build is proportional to efficiency + 4, so if efficiency = 0 and you go to demo giving +2 you can build 4+2/4+0 or 3/2 times as many bases, i.e. 50% more.

HP, IIRC for a standard planet maproot is 1. For the sizes above and below standard it can be regarded as one once rounding is taken into account. For a huge map it's about 1.6. I don't know for tiny, I rarely play that size. I'm going to reactivate my datalinks mod now I'm free for christmas (says he! ) so I'll put the full and correct info into that.
[This message has been edited by Simpson II (edited December 17, 2000).]

[WhiteElephants]

I have the most trouble with the maproot thing too, but I think Simpson is right about standard being 1 and huge 1.6. I think large is 1.2, but don't quote me.

I guess I could then add this to the list.

Standard Transcend 0 eff. would allow six bases before the first Bueracracy warning.

+1 eff = 7.5 (rounded up or down?)

+2 eff = 9

+3 eff = 10.5

+4 eff = 12

+5 eff = 13.5

+6 eff = 15

I've never played on any map smaller than standard and don't know the map roots for them anyways.

[Helium Pond]

Wait, so if you change you EFF rating, does the number of drones caused by your # of bases also change? I mean, does it change retroactively, so that you can get rid of those drones you already have? I thought that bureaucracy drones were permanent. But that doesn't make much sense, now that I think about it. Hm. Well, okay, cool.

Okay, so, here's the Datalinks formula for bureaucracy. Simpson II, this is what you were referring to, I think:

BaseLimit = (8 - Difficulty) * (4 + Efficiency) * MapRoot / 2

Where:
Difficulty = Player's difficulty level (0 - 5)
Efficiency = Social Engineering Efficiency rating.
MapRoot = Sq. Root of # Map Squares / Sq. Root of 3200.

First off, let me just say: sqare root of 3200??? What the f*&#@!%!??? Where the heck do they come up with these things? What could possibly be gained by using the SQUARE ROOT OF 3200 that makes it a better number to use than, say, 57?

So, from alpha.txt, this info on map sizes:

Tiny planet|(early conflict), 24, 48
Small planet, 32, 64
Standard planet, 40, 80
Large planet, 44, 90
Huge planet|(late conflict), 64, 128

Which means their total # of squares is:

Tiny planet: 1152
Small planet : 2048
Standard planet : 3200
Large planet : 3960
Huge planet : 8192

Which makes MAPROOT, lemme see here...

Tiny planet: 0.6
Small planet : 0.8
Standard planet : 1
Large planet : 1.11242blah blah blah
Huge planet: 1.6

Hmmm, odd that all the numbers work out nicely except for the Large planet. I was beginning to think MAPROOT actually made some sense, but of course not.

So, then, MAPROOT/2, the number we really need, is:

Tiny planet: 0.3
Small planet : 0.4
Standard planet : 0.5
Large planet : 0.55621blah blah blah
Huge planet : 0.8

So, okay. This means that, for someone playing on Transcend with no Efficiency modifiers, (8 - Difficulty) * (4 + Efficiency) works out to 3 * 4, which is 12, right, so for each planet size, that's:

Tiny planet: 3.6
Small planet : 4.8
Standard planet : 6
Large planet : 6.67457blah blah blah
Huge planet: 9.6

So, huh. Can you really only have 4 bases on a Tiny planet before you get a Bureaucracy warning? Hmm. Have to take a little trip into the Scenario Editor to see how those numbers round, no time for that just now. But for comparison, let's look at those numbers with a +1 Efficiency. That means that the non-maproot numbers work out to 15. This gives us:

Tiny planet: 4.5
Small planet : 6
Standard planet : 7.5
Large planet : 8.34322blah blah blah
Huge planet: 12

Hm. Maybe making this fit into a nice little chart isn't going to be easy. Maybe the most helpful thing I could do is eliminate the friggin' MAPROOT thing, by presenting what it works out to for the standard planet sizes.

Oh---and what about the SECOND bureaucracy warning? I've heard that there's another one that comes at another threshhold. Does anyone know anything about that?
[This message has been edited by Helium Pond (edited December 18, 2000).]

[DilithiumDad]

Efficincey definitely has immediate effects. Anytime after the first warning, you can consider your efficinecy setting to be a component of your psych. Green is an excellent SE choice for controlling those dratted drones.

[WhiteElephants]

I think that if you do increase your efficency rating you will do away with the drones in bases rioting due to inefficency. I'm also not sure wether there is a second warning. I may have gotten confused when I switched SE choices rasining my efficency and then hitting the beuracracy warning again.

[Googlie]

3200 is the size of the standard planet (40 x 80)

[big_canuk]

Second warning happens at double the first, 3rd warning at triple the first, etc., etc. Of course you can't have any more drones than citizens, but those "extra" non-visible drones do cancel out talents.

[Helium Pond]

But but but, what's the *effect* of the second threshhold? Does every base over that limit now cause *two* drones? And and and, if that's the case, then does every base over the third limit cause *three* drones, or does it cause *four* drones? Help help help (and does it say this anywhere, or is it just learned from playing?)

Goog:
Yeah, I got that. But so what? So, it makes a *couple* of the calculations come out to nice, round numbers. But most of the others are still messy, ooky numbers. So why not just use a simple number, is all I'm saying. It's not like using 57 instead of 56.5685424949238019520675489683879(etc) would throw the universe off its (fir)axis. What it is, is dumb over-smartness. (Mind you, I say that as a person with a masters degree in smart over-dumbness.)
[This message has been edited by Helium Pond (edited December 19, 2000).]

[MariOne]

HP, the SQRT thing is not made to introduce some frigging decimals into the calculation, but to decide which kind (type, order, whichever) of influence a parameter has on a formula.

Indeed, you did a very good job there.
You could also write that factor as
SQRT (#tiles your Map / #tiles Standard Map)

The basic parameter is "Current/Standard Planetsize", do you agree.
You can see the way of expressing Planetsize with #tiles incidental (otoh practically, what would you use better, considering that width/height ratio may vary?)

How MUCH, should that parameter influence your bureaucracy?
AND should that relation be constant, linear, proportional?
Or should some boosting/dumpening effect better put into action?
These could have been the questions the designers posed themselves.
And indeed using SQRT is a typical way to progressively reduce the increase due to size at grater sizes.


Now, a Standard Planet is 40x80 cells.
To keep the globe-to-cylinder projection proportions, you know that usually the width of the maps is double their height.
When you refer to a planet's size, you ususally first think at its linear dimensions. You might then calcultate its total tiles, but most don't.
So, when you think to a planetsize "double than standard", what would you think to? I'd bet that the average joe would think to a 80x160 map. That is, doubling BOTH dimensions.
You know tho that, calculating areas, squares are involved. Thus a 80x160 map has FOUR times the tiles of a Standard one.
The SQRT of the #tiles ratio probably came out of that, to keep the bureaucracy linearly proportional to the linear dimensions of the map, while not linking it to a fixed width/height ratio.

If you look at them, all the game-proposed sizes respect the 2:1 width/height ratio!
And if you notice, standard height is 40=5x8
Tiny is 3x8
Small is 4x8
Huge is 8x8
No wonder that the Size parameter for those planets come out nicely, 3/5, 4/5, 8/5!!!
Had the Large planet been of 48x96, its size parameter would have been 1.2
And a "Big" 56x112 one would have been 1.4

Finally, the average Joe's "Double to Standard" 80x160 planet, would have a bureaucracy Size Parameter of TWO.
Don't you think it comes out perfectly?
And you call this dumb over-smartness?

Now, this post demonstrates that in the end I begun to think like Firaxian developers.
All my resistance against their endless bugs was futile. There is a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment being asssimilated into one great distributed consciousness.

---
Edit: the "odd" parameter for Large planets comes indeed from the fact that its Width does NOT respect the ration to Height!!! Had a Large planet been of 44x88 instead of 44x90, its parameter would have been a nicely cut 1.1...

[This message has been edited by MariOne (edited December 26, 2000).]

[Fitz]

ARRRRGGGGGHHH. I'm so sick of how confused people get by this. It's pretty simple once you memorize the maproot values.

MAPROOTS
Tiny planet: 0.6
Small planet : 0.8
Standard planet : 1
Large planet : 1.1 (close enough)
Huge planet: 1.6

Now, don't do the /2 part yet, because it tends to cancel.

INT((8-diff)*(4-eff)*MAPROOT/2) = base limit

INT means ROUND DOWN

defaults to memorize:
librarian, 0 eff., standard planet: 10 bases
transcend, 0 eff., standard planet: 6 bases
librarian, 0 eff., huge planet: 16 bases (10*1.6)
transcend, o eff., huge planet: 9 bases (INT(6*1.6))

effect is immediate, heres how it works:

Rank all bases by fouding date (including captured bases). Using that order, count bases from the earliest to the newest. If you want to see this order, hit F4, and the base screen shows them IN THIS ORDER.

Every base after you reach your base limit gets ONE extra drone. Every base after two times the limit (21st base on Lib Stand) gets TWO extra drones. Every base after you reach three times the limit gets THREE extra drones and so on. Bases below this limit get NO extra drones, even after you have more bases than the limit total.

Important things to remember:

1) If you calculate the limit for your normal diff/eff, you can get the numbers for any planet size by multiplying it by maproot value.

2) When you capture bases, it reorganizes the order for determining which bases get drones if it has an earlier founding date. This is especially noticable when you capture an enemies HQ.

3) Edit: Removed due to faulty info. That's what I get for observing instead of testing.

4) You only get the warning when you plant a base that breaks the limitation. If you shoved yourself above by capturing a base, you will not get it when you build a new base. If you later go and change your eff. to raise the limit by several bases, you may get it if you haven't exceeded the new limit.

That's it. Simple, see?

[Googlie]

^

[Misotu]

Ah well. Sorry to upset you with my confusion Fitz but despite being an A maths student I find it *bloody irritating* to have to do this kind of stuff just to work out how many bases I can place given different map sizes, eff ratings and the rest of it (for goodness sake!!).

Rant on

It's ***way*** more complicated than I can stand. I NEED A TABLE. Or a sodding entry on the SE screen. But the only way I'm ever going to get this info is to plod through the whole damn thing in the scenario editor, because as soon as I start seeing this kind of gunk (no offence):

If you calculate the limit for your normal diff/eff, you can get the numbers for any planet size by multiplying it by maproot value

or

you could also write this as SQRT (#tiles your Map / #tiles Standard Map)


I want to:

a) shoot the person who believes this communicates anything sane at all to a normal human being

b) go and have a long drink of something very alcoholic

c) pulverise the game designers and datalinks/manual writers at Firaxis

We're not expected to use square roots and map diffs and a load of brackets to work out the effects of changing the settings on research/economy/psych. Nor are we expected to sit down with a calculator and a bunch of formulae to work out what changing to Power - for example - will do, because there's a lovely little screen that tells us.

So how come there isn't a box in the SE screen showing:

***MAXIMUM NUMBER OF BASES***

Huh?

How hard would this have been, exactly? It's not as if this is trivial information. It's pretty central to the game.

And I do appreciate that there are quite a few people out there who just *love* to fiddle with brackets and square roots. For whom understanding the brass tacks of the algorithm that determines these things is only a little short of nirvana. I just don't happen to be one of them. I think this sort of crap is best hidden from the general public who have, after all, bought a *game* and not a maths test paper. And I bet I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Rant off.

[Ned]

Fitz, I'm not so sure.

Have you verified everyting you say in your post? The reason I ask is that when I am in the "two-extra-drones-per-new-base" or higher level, I seem to get one or more drones in somewhat random other bases. Certainly, the new base I found gets an extra drone or two. But not always. However, other bases which were just fine before the founding of the new base now have an extra drone and are in riot.

I think I remember the same think from CIV and CIV II, but there I do not believe they had a bureaucracy warning.

I also suspect that captured bases do not count at all against bureaucracy warnings. The reason I say this is that I had a game where I got a warning that going over 39 bases would increase inefficiency. However, at the time of this warning, I had 60+ bases, more than 20 captured.

If captured bases counted, capturing a base above a bureacracy limit should cause drone problems elsewhere in the faction, but it does not, does it?

What I think is going on is that there is a counter that increases by one each time you found a new base. This counter is not incremented when you capture a base, or decreased when you give a base away. When this counter reaches the next threashold, you get the warning and if you continue to found the base, drones are then assigned to the founded base or to others in the faction. These drones are "permanent," and are not erased if you give the base away to a faction that has fewer bases than the limit.

Ned