Huts and scrolls of wisdom

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by Scouse Gits
STYOM ... if you're not banging your head against a brick wall run a few tests on the game below. It's 2.42 large world. Just run a 100 tests reloading every time. I remember solo thinking the outcome of huts could be related to your computer's clock ... let's see how Canadian time differs from the Scouse variety

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SG(2)

I ran it 50 times... to be consistent with my past practises.

Gits #1 - 3850, Russians, 1 city founded, hut away from city on rivered grass. rsch cerem, have alpha/bronze/horse
8 units 11 techs 7 cash 6 barbs 18 TRIBES.


compare with the numbers I posted from 3850:


#9 (1 city - hut plains 3850, black around hut, hut not touching radius - after map revealed, just river & pheasant nearby)
4 units 4 techs 4 cash 4 barbs 34 TRIBES

Oedo year - note large # of tribes

#10 (1 city - hut plains 3850, no black around hut, hut not touching radius)
6 units 7 techs 9 cash 2 barbs, 26 TRIBES


and



#3 (1 city hut away from city radius)
hut-grassland 3850 - 25 tech 9 unit 9 cash 7 barbs
In this last case, there were no nomads due to the non-settler I had, and the terrain was presumably unfavourable for a tribe.

Your save, SG(2), does shatter my hypothesis about number of food sheaves available dictating which of nomad/tribe will be available. This is damned complex! Perhaps the game weights the tribe option higher when the terrain is 'better' in the view of the AI. Does anyone know how the AI chooses city sites? (chorus: "Badly!" )

And perhaps it's food and production that dictates whether the advanced Tribe option is available and/or how much it is weighted - my #3 test above had grass and ocean, but no shield-rich squares. Take a look if you like :

[Scouse Gits]

Another observation ...
Remembering how fond the programmers for civ were of powers of 2 (just look at the Info-combat thread) were you to scale your tests up to 64 from 50 it does not look entirely impossible that the probabilities are all measured in sixteenths - in fact that's the best fit i can conme up with...

SG[1]

[Messer Niccolò]

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man

- not that I was looking really really hard - between what was being researched and scroll results. So, I'm not going to worry about that.

STYOM, this was the principal purpose of the thread, even if I'm really happy this has become a wide "hut tippind test thread"... useful, very useful.

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man
Nobody's going to sit in anarchy or set science at 0 in order to get a 30% better shot at a nomad, for example.

And why not?
If the parameters are checked at the moment you enter the hut (and not at the beginning/end of turn) you could modify the tax/lux rate in order to have that 30% more (of course going anarchy is definitely too "expensive" ).

I remeber that somewhere someone said that Lux rate influences the probability to obtain Settlers + ATribe or to minimize the appareance of a Raging Horde (with the exceptions of the "one NON nomad" in play).

That's sound really interesting is the tipping in Oedo years... and this will require a lot and a lot more work to our glorious testers!

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man
I think that you have a possibility to get a nomad

IF

there are no other nomads (NON Settlers) on the same landmass

Nope. Some time ago, there was just such a discussion. I and several other players had anecdotes about popping multiple nomads on one land mass. Using a big continent leads me to believe that if there is a geographic factor, it is distance.

For example, the game's default game's mediterranean map. Aside from the islands, all land is the same continent. If all seven civs start near the mediterranean sea, a trip to the ukraine will more or less guarantee you nomads or advanced tribes. On a huge map of eurasia and northern africa, a similar trip to siberia will net you nomads and tribes.

Of course, this is all well into the game, with many cities and techs...

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by Messer Niccolò

STYOM, this was the principal purpose of the thread, even if I'm really happy this has become a wide "hut tippind test thread"... useful, very useful.

That did sound like a thread jack, didn't it? Sorry I guess what I should have said was, my scroll results seem to be the same whether I was researching alphabet or researching nothing. I didn't observe a higher incidence of alphabet than, say, bronze or pottery in my tests. When SG(2) came out and said the same, he confirmed my findings. I can post those here, if you like

So to be on topic... I don't think the science under research influences the tech you might get from a hut.

And why not?
If the parameters are checked at the moment you enter the hut (and not at the beginning/end of turn) you could modify the tax/lux rate in order to have that 30% more (of course going anarchy is definitely too "expensive" ).

I remeber that somewhere someone said that Lux rate influences the probability to obtain Settlers + ATribe or to minimize the appareance of a Raging Horde (with the exceptions of the "one NON nomad" in play).

That's sound really interesting is the tipping in Oedo years... and this will require a lot and a lot more work to our glorious testers!

I may try that (playing with tax/lux/sci rate) at some point... but I think I want to play with the oedo thing more, for now. I don't need any more variables! But by all means, test away, M. N!

@ Marquis - I agree, on mega continents getting a nomad when you already have one can happen. I would be willing to bet, though, that you can't get a nomad if you tip the hut with a nomad. So, the algorithm in the program might say:

good city site? y/n
IF y then (%chance)tribe
IF n then (%chance)nomad -- UNLESS nomad
(or something like that)

What is also interesting is the possibility that a tribe is more likely on a really good city site.

[Scouse Gits]

STYOM - I had hoped to do some testing before our leave but will catch up with things in a couple of weeks.

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SG(2)

[Starlifter]

There are many, many variables that come into play, so here are a few highlights:

I feel I have shown, for huts opened before 3000 BC (and perhaps later, but I haven't tested that):

1) That when no cities are founded, no tribes or nomads will emerge from huts, and units will appear in a 3:1:1 ratio with scrolls and cash.

2) That results will be the same (3:1:1 ratio units:scrolls:cash) if a hut is opened either within the squares of a city radius, or in a square adjacent to the city radius.

3) That there does not appear to be a different pattern of scroll discovery when researching alphabet, than when not researching anything.

4) That nomads do not seem to appear if a non-settler exists, but that there is no such restriction against tribes appearing when a non settler exists.

5) Tribes and non settlers seem mutually exclusive - if a situation will produce one, a reload will not produce the other. Certain terrain seems more conducive to tribes.

6) Something odd happens in certain Oedo years... but I don't know exactly what, yet. (This has consumed the bulk of my testing time)

A couple weeks ago, I ran close to 1,000 tests on early hut pops (over at CFC), and my results were substantially the same. The map was mostly plains, one continent, created with map editor, no terrain was improved & all tests were done at or before Game Turn 16. My purpose was to look into the very early game hut popping.

My general comparisons with yours:

1. That is very consistent with mine. I could never, ever no way produce an Advanced Tribe (AT) before founding the capital. Ditto with Barbs and Nomads.... totally 100% not observed. However, I do suspect that at some later point, if you refuse to found a city, that eventually you will get an AT. That has happened to me a long time ago. But in these early game tests, it was not possible to produce a Nomad, Barb, or AT until the 1st city was founded.
2. I did not test for city radius issues.
3. I found no difference based on tech in research.
4. I did not examine the Nomad issue in that context.
5. Yes, plains and grass were more conducive. HOWEVER: I was able to generate an Advanced Tribe on ALL types of terrain, including Mountains and Glaciers. The map was mostly plains (made in map editor), with a few non-plains tiles. The Glacier AT was not at the pole... it was an inland glacier surrounded by 20 plains & wheat.
6. I did not look at Oedo years vs. results.

Nice thread.

[rah]

Number 5 is surprising. I've never gotten a nomad off plains or grassland, and never gotten an AT off the other terrains. I'd have to see that to believe it.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Rah,

On p.2 of this thread I uploaded a file called test3.sav. When I ran the test on my PC, tipping the hut on grassland resulted (sometimes) in nomads, never in an AT. I'm speculating that the program bases the AT/nomad decision on how good the hut square and surrounding terrain is as a city site. Normally plains/grass is a good city site, but...?



Anyway here's the save again (2.42):

[Starlifter]

by rah:

I've never gotten a nomad off plains or grassland, and never gotten an AT off the other terrains.

Since I don't know the trigger mechanism for differentiation, I can't provide a definitive answer. In a random game, I've never had an AT on a mountain, either. But in pre-Game Turn 16 testing on a medium map of mostly Plains (constructed with the default Civ 2 Map editor), I did have (much to my surprise) AT's occur in all terrain. The really surprising one was Glacier, since Glaciers get no food. At least Mountains get one food, which makes it analogous to a Forest in that regard. But my tests were not aimed at examining that issue; rather on the general early game odds and possibilities.


About Nomads, I was not interested in where they occured, just when/if they could occur. They do not occur until you found your first city, in pre GT 16 hut popping.... just like Barbs & ATs.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

I can't face tipping another hut right now, to be completely frank.

Later, I should probably do one of two things - tip more, so that I have more data to work with, or chart the existing data in a way that would hopefully allow me to detect a pattern. If I was better at excel, I'd probably be better at hut testing...

Re nomads and Tribes - I have never in any of my tests generated both nomads and tribes from the same hut. Thus I'm 99% sure it must be terrain - from what Starlifter says, surrounding terrain must matter as well, if AT can appear on mountains - that determines whether you have a chance at an AT versus a chance at a nomad.

Just to clarify though, Starlifter - founding a city on Glacier gives you NO food? I thought a city gave a minimum of 1 food no matter where it was founded?

[La Fayette]

Originally posted by Starlifter

At least Mountains get one food, which makes it analogous to a Forest in that regard.

If you get food from mountains, I bet you are a better gardener than most of us .

[rah]

Six Thousand Year Old Man, what version are you using.

Still a little skeptical on number 5, since i've tipped 10s of thousands of huts over the years, and never seen what was described.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Duh... sorry guys!

Originally posted by rah
Six Thousand Year Old Man, what version are you using.

Still a little skeptical on number 5, since i've tipped 10s of thousands of huts over the years, and never seen what was described.

My mistake. I uploaded the wrong file not once but twice when claiming to have popped nomads out of a grassland hut.

Here's the real save.

Apologies again... clearly, I feel like an idiot for not noticing my error sooner.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

The game version is 2.42.

In the test #6 above, a hypothectical AT would only access 2 squares of shielded grass in the city radius- the rest just grass or ocean. That's why I think the hut has the nomad as a possible result and not a tribe.

It might then follow that if grass with very poor surrounding terrain can yield a nomad and not a tribe, then perhaps hills or forest with great surrounding terrain could yield a tribe instead of nomads.