Carvan Delivery Payoff formula

[DaveV]

William,

See the Diplomats and Spies thread for a complete explanation of how to calculate distance (4.31ff).

[La Fayette]

distance calculation

There is a very clear explanation of distance calculation in civ2 given by SlowThinker in the thread 'Info: diplomats and spies'
(tested it myself many times: always OK)

[La Fayette]

hello Dave

It seems that your connection is slightly faster than mine
(BTW I did notice that Alexandria was in civil disorder, but SG1 explained that I probably forgot to press Ctrl+N, so I played it as it was = nice gift to the Romans and other second class civs)

[Xin Yu]

Should "flight" be "advanced flight"?

Building airports on both cities will cancel the effect of discovering "advanced flight"; also, connecting two cities with railroad will cancel the effect of discovering "railroad". Strangely the prerequisite for building airports is "radio", not "advanced flight".

[William Keenan]

Originally posted by Xin Yu
Should "flight" be "advanced flight"?

Nope. Flight is the one.

Building airports on both cities will cancel the effect of discovering "advanced flight"; also, connecting two cities with railroad will cancel the effect of discovering "railroad". Strangely the prerequisite for building airports is "radio", not "advanced flight".

The Airport bonus has no connection to the Flight, Advanced Flight, or Radio techs. If two cities with airports get the bonus whether or not that civilization knows how to fly. Funny, eh?

Similarly, the railroad trade bonus is not diminished by a civilization's inability to build box-cars.

[William Keenan]

distance = (length of longer side of rectangle) + 0.5 * (length of shorter side of rectangle)

This is the distance formula, right?

[Scouse Gits]

Yes WK - that is correct - and the same as that given by Smash above - travel diagonally at 1.5 a square until you are orthogonal and then run home at 1 per square - I shall try an ASCII diagram ...
O . . . . . .
. x . . . . .
. . x . . . .
. . . x z z O

Distance = 3 'x' @ 1.5 each + 3 'z' @ 1 each = 7.5
or
Distance = 6 + 0.5(3) = 7.5

or at least this is how I understand it - I would be happy to be corrected if I am in error ...

[La Fayette]

Originally posted by Scouse Gits
- I shall try an ASCII diagram ...
O . . . . . .
. x . . . . .
. . x . . . .
. . . x z z O

Distance = 3 'x' @ 1.5 each + 3 'z' @ 1 each = 7.5
or
Distance = 6 + 0.5(3) = 7.5

or at least this is how I understand it - I would be happy to be corrected if I am in error ...

No need to correct you AFAIK.
This is also how I understand it, and I have tested it many times.

[debeest]

Am I wrong in thinking that under "Foreign Delivery" you've accidentally placed the text from the beginning of "Commodity Demand" instead of the text you meant to put there?

[debeest]

I just tried delivering three caravans, and in each case the actual payoff was almost exactly 90% of that predicted by your formula. I'm pretty sure that I did the calculations and measurements and so on correctly, but I'd be happy to send you a save if you want to check it out yourself (and if I can remember how). The fact that the results are wrong is disappointing, but the consistency is encouraging because it might mean that only one factor needs tweaking.

Oops. I just realized that I saved AFTER delivering. Still, there are numerous camels lurking in my capital, and I'd bet that a test with remaining ones would give similar results.

[debeest]

Tried it myself with a bunch more caravans. Mostly they came in at about 10% less than predicted by your formula, some closer, one exactly right. Of course, this is all from one game situation, post-navigation, pre-flight, etc. Clearly the formula isn't entirely right, and sadly it's probably not just one factor that's off, but it's far closer than anything I've previously seen. For a long time I've been looking for a way to predict payoff in order to figure out whether it's worth delivering caravans at all. This will help a lot. Thanks!

[William Keenan]

Originally posted by debeest
Am I wrong in thinking that under "Foreign Delivery" you've accidentally placed the text from the beginning of "Commodity Demand" instead of the text you meant to put there?

You are exactly right, debeest. It's fixed now. Thanks.

Originally posted by debeest
Tried it myself with a bunch more caravans. Mostly they came in at about 10% less than predicted by your formula, some closer, one exactly right. Of course, this is all from one game situation, post-navigation, pre-flight, etc. Clearly the formula isn't entirely right ....

When I did the derived the formula I incorrectly counted diagonals as 1 instead of 1.5. This, of course, caused a big problem with the formula. I'm currently working on a revised formula.

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by DaveV
William,

See the Diplomats and Spies thread for a complete explanation of how to calculate distance (4.31ff).

DaveV, your link link goes to the old Apolyton forum. This is the link to the updated Info: diplomats and spies thread.

[markusf]

In trying to brush away the rust, I have been combing civ2 sites for basic info and have come across the nitty-gritties of trade routes which might bear reproducing here (as I have not seen this tabling in the threads I have come across here). Source is the Scrolls of Wisdom website which acknowledged the original post by Robert Lancaster to alt.games.civ2
"The amount of trade and the bonus payment you get for establishing a trade route between two cities with a caravan or a freight depends on quite a few factors. The formulas below contain all the details.
Trade = ( trade of home city + trade of destination city + 4 ) / 8
Note that it does not directly depend on city size or distance. The following (cumulative) modifiers apply:
Both cities are yours -50%
Freight instead of caravan +50%
Cities connected by road +50%
Cities connected by rail +50%
Cities on different continents +100%
Airports in both cities +50%
Superhighways in home city +50%
The one time bonus payment is calculated as follows:
Payment = ( ( distance + 10 ) x ( trade of both cities ) ) / 24
It increases if the destination city demands one of these goods (double these figures if the city is not yours):
Silver, Cloth, Wine +50%
Silk, Spice, Gems, Gold +100%
Oil +150%
Uranium +200%
The final bonus payment figure is then doubled during the first 200 game turns or until both Navigation and Invention are discovered. It is reduced by one third after the discovery of Railroad, and by another third after the discovery of Flight. "

[La Fayette]

Originally posted by markusf
have come across the nitty-gritties of trade routes which might bear reproducing here (as I have not seen this tabling in the threads I have come across here). Source is the Scrolls of Wisdom website which acknowledged the original post by Robert Lancaster to alt.games.civ2

It is very kind of you to provide this, markusf.
But this is already in the GL (look at 'scrolls').
The problem is that many of us think that R. Lancaster's results need to be improved, and that's what William is trying to do.