Factors in choosing a civ in SP

[Edward]

rixxie,

I think the 0 (zero) for a leader's/tribe's attribute means that that tribe is neutral for that attribute and doesn't lean toward either side.

For example, the Russians, Vikings, Mongols, etc. are on the "aggressive" side so they tend to start wars and demand tribute. This is why the AI French can be such a pain in the butt. The Babylonians, Americans, Indians, etc. are on the "rational" side and tend to make treaties and exchange knowledge. The Egyptians, Aztecs, Sioux, etc. are "0" or neutral and are more balanced in their friendliness towards others. They'll be more cautious than the "rational" tribes in making treaties with you, but aren't as hostile as the "aggressive" tribes.

This works similarly for civilized/militaristic - which influences how much a given tribe values different tech advances. Tribes which are "neutral" for this attribute think Literacy is a pretty good advance to have. "Civilized" tribes think Literacy is the best thing since sliced bread and "militaristic" tribes think it's pretty worthless. These biases are quantified in the tech table.

The expansionist/perfectionist attribute influences whether a tribe builds more cities or develops the ones it already has. A "perfectionistic" tribe will have a few well developed mega-cities with lots of improvements. An "expansionist" tribe will try to settle all the land it can and have "leaner" cities. Tribes which are "neutral" for this attribute are in between.

Note: Even "expansionistic" tribes are sluggish compared to humans at peaceful colonization. Because of it's programming, the AI expands more effectively through conquering than through settling land. This means that tribes that span the globe tend to be "aggressive" not necessarily "expansionistic". (Witness vast empires of the non-expansionistic but aggressive Russians and Zulus. However the expansionistic but peaceful Celts and Spanish never seem to get too big.)

[Kitana]

I don't know what it means but I was playing a game as the French and had a heck of a time trying to beat a phalanx on a river with a veteran elephant. Now when I play with the Japanese I have an easier time defeating the same phalanx with the same veteran elephant. Now French are civilized and Japanese are militaristic so maybe it does play a role. I will also admit that I start with more (not necessarily better) tech as French than I do with Japanese. With Japanese I typically start with Bronze Working and with the French I get Alphabet, Ceremonial Burial and sometimes Code of Laws (Real easy to get Monarchy from there. )

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Kitana
Shogun of the Japanese

[Rufus T. Firefly]

quote: Originally posted by Scouse Gits on 12-20-2000 09:37 AM Yeah - 'fess up Dr. Firefly - my sins are in my profile as are ESTs ... p.s. in edit - Yikes there not any more - sorry - I'm in Information Technology.

I deal a lot with I.T. guy, so I see why you call what you do a sin

I'm in Communication Studies, mostly mass media/popular culture but also some telecommunications and Internet stuff (from a policy/social impact angle; my techie skills are limited to being able to automate settlers )

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Dig trenches, with our men being killed off like flies? There isn't time to dig trenches. We'll have to buy them ready made. Here, run out and get some trenches.
-- Rufus T. Firefly, the original rush-builder
[This message has been edited by Rufus T. Firefly (edited December 21, 2000).]

[Rufus T. Firefly]

quote: Originally posted by rixxe on 12-20-2000 03:23 PM Here are the results.... So, per example, Win Green is incremented if he won with his stamina bar remaining in the green, Lost Yellow, if he lost with his opponent's stamina bar staying in the yellow zone....In every case, the mongol won more combats than the Babylonian....

I'm not a statistician -- I'm not even sure I can spell "statistician" -- but a couple of things occur to me looking over this table:

First, it's not clear who's attacking and who's defending; this is enormously important in the archer test, since defenders are at a disadvantage versus attackers (d2 v. a3). It's also may be important in the alpine test, since I would assume (perhaps incorrectly) that the attacker always has the advantage of striking the first blow.

Second, the sample seems to me too small (and I say this knowing I would never have the time or patience to do even as much as you've done). With the alpine test, a shift of a single victory in any category (except vet-lost-red) would either reverse the results or render them a tie (kind of like the recent U.S. election...but I digress ). It seems to me that if a larger sample produced proportionally larger gaps in the win-loss column, you'd be onto something; if the gap was still a single victory, you'd have a statistical fluke.

Finally, there's seems to be no way to reconcile the Bab vet archers victories in the "won yellow" category with everything else these tables seek to demonstrate.

Not that I'm not impressed by the effort; as I said, it's more than I would have done or thought to do.

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Dig trenches, with our men being killed off like flies? There isn't time to dig trenches. We'll have to buy them ready made. Here, run out and get some trenches.
-- Rufus T. Firefly, the original rush-builder
[This message has been edited by Rufus T. Firefly (edited December 21, 2000).]

[Deity Dude]

I'm not understanding the table could you please explain it again. I tlooks like you put a lot of work into it and may be on to something - I'm just ont undeerstanding the table.

[Edward]

rixxie,

Let me see if I've got it straight.

Each of your four tables show the results of 40 battles. For a given table, the left and right column of numbers refer to different battles (with similar combatants).

For any table, the first column has the Babylonians on the offense. They attack 20 times (fresh units each time). The second column has the Mongols on the offense in 20 new battles.

For the Babylonian Alpine/Mongol Alpine table in particular:

When a fresh Babylonian Alpine attacked a fresh Mongol Alpine, the Babylonian Alpine won 5 times (twice with yellow left, 3 times with red left). The attacking Babylonian Alpine lost 15 times (3 times with the defending Mongol Alpine still in the yellow, 12 times with the defending Mongol Alpine in the red).

In a separate 20 battles, when a fresh Mongol Alpine attacked a fresh Babylonian Alpine, the Mongol Alpine won 6 times (once with yellow left, 5 times with red left). The Mongol Alpine lost 14 times (4 times with the defending Babylonian Alpine still in the yellow, 10 times with the defending Babylonian Alpine in the red).

Is this correct?

[Albert B]

I majored in applied mathematics and I do know about statistics and numerical analysis. Now that I understand your tables, I find them intriguing. First, each individual test of only 20 attacks leads me to believe that the “advantage” of the Mongols may well be just an anomaly. Flipping a coin 20 times should result in 10 heads and 10 tails but most of the time this will not be the case. Since the difference in the number of wins is never more than 3, I would say that there is not conclusive evidence that the Mongols have a definite advantage. However, that being said, the fact that all 4 tests resulted in a Mongol victory and even more so that the non-vet tests each resulted in a +1 victory margin while each vet test ended in a +3 differential, it makes me go “hmmmm….”.

I would definitely be interested in seeing the results of the extended tests you plan to do. I may even have to do some of my own. When the idea was first introduced, I was VERY skeptical. I am still skeptical that in the end, this will pan out as a coincidence but my mind has been opened a little to the possibility… This could get very interesting.

Albert B

Ps, I am basing this analysis with the same understanding of the tables that Edward has just posted.

[Bohlen]

I’ve got to put my $0.02 in here.

Thanks for the clarification on the testing results table. I get it now.

I’d have to agree with Mr. Firefly in that the sample group is too small. Kudos too you, rixxe, for taking the initiative to do the tests for this theory on civ personality and how it effects combat. Although I think the theory will not pan out, I’d love to see some more tests. Theories are meant to be proven, so go for it!

I can’t see the programmers putting that much time into making sure that each civ personality has an effect on combat results. The personality settings in the rules.txt simply controls, as Edward pointed out, how the AI creates a strategy for a particular civ.

But keep going. It is a very interesting theory that I’m sure we’d all like to see proven or not proven.

I’ve said this before…Where is Dave V when you need him? The more mathematicians who are present, the better.

[Albert B]

As I stated before, I don't think the theory will hold true under more rigorous testing but to say that it would have been too much work to include a bonus/penalty to attack/defense strength is a bit overstated.

You already have the varible included in rules.txt that gives a 1/0/-1 score based on the militeristic view of the civ. To include this in a calculation to resolve combat would be fairly simple. However, based on generally accepted theory that the attack score of a unit is a whole number (since veteran gives a 50% bonus rounded down, etc.), it would appear unlikely that this has been done or the benefits would be far more obvious since a unit would have to receive a whole point(s) more.

Anyway, I have the day off work tomorrow with my daughter still going to daycare so I should be able to run some tests on this and hopefully come up with some more conclusive results.

[Albert B]

I have a quick question before I go off to test... In your original post about testing, rixxe, you stated that gov's must be the same. Is this just to keep the 'control' group consistent or is there some accepted advantage that a particular government has over another that I don't know about? (other than fanatics for fanaticism and vet spies for communism)

[Deity Dude]

Thanks for the explanation rixxe.

Forgetting about the variable values theory for now, I find it interesting that when the OFFENSIVE 5 unit attacked the DEFENSIVE 5 unit (Non-vet Alpine vs Non-vet Alpine) it lost 31 out of 40. I thought that its losses would be closer to 50% rather than the 77.5% reported. Does anyone else find this unusual or is defense supposed to have an advantage when all else is equal.

I am assuming that neither had a terrain advantage.

[Bohlen]

Don't forget about Firepower and Hit Points.
Alpine troops have Hit Points=2, Firepower=1.

More Hit Points = Tougher unit to kill.
[This message has been edited by Bohlen (edited December 21, 2000).]

[rixxe]

Oh, sorry, let's take this example...:

Babylonian Alpine/Mongol Alpine
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Win Green.......0/0
Win Yellow......2/1
Win Red .......>3/5
Lost Green......0/0
Lost Yellow.....3/4<
Lost Red........12/10

So this is a babylonian alpine attacking a mongol alpine, for the first row, and the inverse for the second row.

Now, we take the third result of the first row the one with the ">" just b4...: Its the number of situations (out of 20 attacks) where the babylonian alpine won with his stamina bar remaining in the red zone....

Now the fifth result of the second row (with the "<" after). It's the number of situations (out of 20 attacks) where the mongol have lost the combat, with his opponent's stamina bar remaining in the yellow zone....

I hope its ok now cu

PS: Ill do advanced tests but 4 only 1 situation....its not too long to do.....but tomorrow

[Edward]

Deity Dude,

As Rufus T. Firefly alluded to, when the attacker and defender have the same combat value, hit points, firepower, etc. the defender will have the advantage.

I'm sure someone less lazy than I can find the thread where this was discussed. Basically an entire battle is broken into mini turns. On each mini turn the computer cranks some random numbers and sees who won. If the attacker wins, the defender losses hitpoints equal to the attacker's firepower. Similarly if the defender wins, the attacker losses hitpoints equal to the defender's firepower. This goes on until one unit has no more hitpoints left.

What are the odds for each mini turn? Each unit is given a combat number. For the attacker it's based on his attack value and his vet-ness. For the defender it's based on his defense value, vet-ness, terrain, and a host of fortification modifiers (and there's special unit vs. unit modifiers, etc.). Then each unit rolls a random number and multiplies his roll by his combat number and the unit with the higher result wins.

As you noted, Deity Dude, this should result in an Alpine winning roughly half the time when he attacks another Alpine (5 attack value vs. 5 defense value all other things being equal). The surprise comes from empirical evidence from much hard work by people on this board.

It turns out that the die roll each unit makes is NOT the usual 0 to .99999 a computer programmer would expect. It's actually 0 to 7 with only whole numbers! (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7) And the defender wins ties. This means that a mighty battleship might roll a "0" and a lowly phalanx might roll a "0" too. 0 times anything is 0 so there'd be a tie so the phalanx would win that mini-turn! Of course with CIV2's hit point system, the chance of the phalanx winning enough mini-turns to win the whole battle is insanely small.

However, the fact that the combat is based on 8 discrete numbers (like a die, not a continuum of rational numbers) means that ties happen quite often with equally matched units (1 in 8 chance? someone check my math) so the defender has an empirically noticeable advantage. Also the fact that the "die" has a 0 on it means that units with 0 combat value can sometimes win when the hitpoints are low (and therefore fewer mini-turns must be won to win the battle) e.g. that barbarian leader just might survive your warrior's attack.

[Blaupanzer]

Bohlen, both have the same hit points since both are the same type of unit. Barring a terrain anamoly, implication is 50/50 would be normal. A built-in bias toward the defender would not surprise me, actually. Statistically, that part of rixxe's result is much more significant than the national bias supposedly shown in the table.