Your Rival's Antechambers?

[Nethog]

From the Civ2 manual (p101):

When you meet with an emissary of a rival ruler, the decor of his antechamber can tell you much about the relative size and type of government employed by the enemy civilization. One alcove displays icons relating to the military might of your rival, the other icons represent his or her knowledge and advancement. Decorative details indicate what type of government is in power.

This is all very vague. Does anyone know precisely how the decor indicates relative size? By size do they mean population, military, or both? How does decor indicate type of government in power? What meaning has the number of icons in the alcoves? or the actual symbol of the icon?

[La Fayette]

IIRC the number of weapons indicates military strength = 0 weapons means that the civ owns the smallest number of military units (and is therefore supposed to be the weakest); 6 weapons means that the civ owns the highest number of military units (and is therefore supposed to be the strongest).

The names of some recent techs owned by the civ are also displayed.

About the decor related to the type of government: I dunno

[Mercator]

I'm working from memory here (I have the diplomacy background screen turned off), but...

First of all, the "architectural" design of the background is different for all government types. So you can determine your opponent's government type.

(edit: these images are located in the MK.DLL file. You can view/edit them with GifX. The download version of my "hacking" guide (see reference section) includes a full listing with descriptions of all images in the DLL's).


Secondly, on the left, you'll see a number of sticks/arrows/missiles (?, relating to the civ's technological era) that indicate the civ's power rating. In your foreign minister screen, you'll see your own power rating (Moderate, Strong, Supreme and what have you) along with your reputation. The more arrows they got, the more powerful they are. I believe 6 arrows is the highest, corresponding to "Supreme".

I'm not entirely sure what exactly determines the power rating, but I'm sure others can fill you in on the details.

Finally, on the right you'll see the 6 latest discovered (or most advanced?) technologies the civ has. The icons before them simply are the icons you see in the technology lists. They indicate what kind of technology it is (you can see what types there are in the comment above the technologies section in the rules.txt).

(edit: crosspost)

[Scouse Gits]

You only actually see the names of the techs if you have an Embassy with this power, but you still see the icons for the tech advances ...

[Elephant]

(repost from your question on CFC):

The left side is their Power Rating, 0 items = Pathetic, 6 items = Supreme. The type of weapon corresponds to their tech age: Spears = before Invention, then Arrows till Conscription, then Rifles till (Rocketry? thought it was Flight), then Missiles.

The left side is the highest techs they have in each of the Categories: Military, Economic, Social, Academic, Applied. The names are gibberish until you make an embassy or get Marco Polo/UN.

[SlowThinker]

Power rating is explained in Info:Statistic (in the GL).

[Nethog]

Great info everyone, thanks for your replies. I do have more questions about the power rating however...

SlowThinker, from GL Info:Statistic:

According to the Civ Fanatics posting, the correct formula for the powergraph is:
citizens + (techs/2.67) + (gold/256)

So power rating has nothing to do with military strength?!? And does everyone agree that the power rating (as defined by this equation) is what is used to display the number of weapons in the left hand antechambers display? If so, how does each civ get ranked from 0 to 6 if there are less than 7 civs at a given point in the game? (assuming that a simple ranking is used to display the number of weapons). Also, is there a way to determine MY civ's power rating (other then when it is announced during the game at seemingly random intervals?).

[Bloody Monk]

Nethog,

I can answer your question about finding YOUR power rating. Open the Diplomacy/Foreign Minister Screen and it will be at the top.

"Sire, our power is Supreme and our reputation is Excellent."

In general, I have found that if Slow says something, it is based on much testing and can be relied on. (Even in cases like this where the result seems counter-intuitive.) I would have expected some relation to mil-units as well. But I have noticed that building a few more cities can change the rating so that follows his formula.

Hope this is helpful

Monk

edit: adding parenthesis

[duke o' york]

Hi Nethog - are you working on an addition to your Civ reference pack?
The last one was quite fun to put together, but obviously it wasn't absolutely definitive. Is there enough info on diplomacy to put onto a single quick reference sheet, or would it have to be combined with something else? The various tasks of dips and spies could be evaluated, with the prices to calculate bribery etc.

[Elephant]

Originally posted by Nethog
So power rating has nothing to do with military strength?!?

That formula was calculated a long time ago based on some cheat-mode testing. As I recall, the tester did try adding and subtracting groups of military units but the Power Rating did not change. I think you can find some of the analysis in CFC's War Academy.

And does everyone agree that the power rating (as defined by this equation) is what is used to display the number of weapons in the left hand antechambers display? If so, how does each civ get ranked from 0 to 6 if there are less than 7 civs at a given point in the game?

My experience has been that when a civ is eliminated, the lowest rank is eliminated as well, so for 6 civs you will never see an empty alcove (0 weapons=Pathetic).

There was some assertion that Power Ratings only change on OEDO years, but that is NOT my experience. I check and log my gold, beakers, turns for tech, and Power Rating EVERY turn on serious games, and I have seen my Power go up and down from one turn to the next - usually one step, but in a few cases by two. My guess is that one or more civs are very close in the formula, and the production of a Settler (or a hut outcome or BarbLeader capture) change things enough to flip the list.

[Old n Slow]

Elephant is so right on these things changing from year to year -- I noticed my power rating changed from one year to the next in the OCC #2, affecting my required beakers by a few hundred -- cost me a year of research.

[Nethog]

Bloody Monk , thanks for the info on finding power rating. Actually I checked the diplomacy screen but didn't see the rating. After your post I looked again and sure enough, there it is! Thanks.

duke o' york said:

are you working on an addition to your Civ reference pack? The last one was quite fun to put together, but obviously it wasn't absolutely definitive.

Actually, I have taken a renewed interest in Civ2 after picking up a new copy of Test of Time at Best Buy for $1.99! TOT is actually very good - the graphics are great, much better then Civ2 MPGE. I don't understand why TOT received such negative reviews (but if I forked out $45 maybe I would have been disappointed). Anyway, I may add TOT tech trees to my reference pack and make notes to the minor differences in unit stats. As for a a dips/spies summary - I'll have to think about that.

Elephant, so with only 2 civs, their power ratings can only ever be Supreme and Mighty? As for the fluctuating power rating ... very interesting.

On a new but similar topic, After I gave several techs to my key civ as gifts during a diplomacy session during my game today, the diplomacy screen showed the civ's attitude as "worshipful", but when I ended the dip session and immediately returned to the F3 screen, the Civ's attitude was shown only as "Cordial". What is the reason for this?

[Bloody Monk]

Originally posted by Nethog

On a new but similar topic, After I gave several techs to my key civ as gifts during a diplomacy session during my game today, the diplomacy screen showed the civ's attitude as "worshipful", but when I ended the dip session and immediately returned to the F3 screen, the Civ's attitude was shown only as "Cordial". What is the reason for this?

You must be playing the MPGE. "They" must have thought that the 2.42 vanilla version had too easy diplomacy, so the MP version (and the Mac port of 2.42) got a more hostile AI. Keeping enthusiastic relations over time is impossible. Eventually, all the AI will "hate" you. I think "they"(the developers) must have had terrible childhoods.

In any case, don't blame yourself or wonder if you did something wrong.

Monk

[Scouse Gits]

... and to follow that ... although I am not an avid ToT player - my limited experience and the received wisdom on these boards places the ToT AI as even more hostile than that in MPGE - for example OCC seems to be impossible (or nearly so) in ToT - and you don' t get the extra food when you found on a gold mountain in ToT either...

Stu

[Nethog]

Scouse Gits wrote:

my limited experience and the received wisdom on these boards places the ToT AI as even more hostile than that in MPGE

I admit that the Civs in my current (and first) (extended) game of TOT are very hostile. More then the patched version of Civ2 MPGE? I can't say for sure (its been a while since I played MPGE). I am at the point in the game where I have researched all of the standard Civ 2 techs and am building my spaceship to enable me access to the second connected alpha centauri map (France beat me by the way, they have already landed on AC). All the Civs are at war with me, and I can't seem to hold a ceasfire/peace treaty for more then a few turns.

But hey, you can't play the extended game with MPGE addition can you? (Let alone the sci-fi and fantasy games with multiple linked maps).