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Wow. Input into this particular forum seems to have pretty much disappeared. I guess that answers the earlier question about who will buy Civ 3 -- just about everybody. But I for one expect to wait for a multiplayer version, and in the meantime, I've been doing a little Civ2 research for those who are still paying attention.
Anyone paying attention has no doubt noticed that huts appear in a four-corner pattern like that of special resources. But they may also have found that it's not a straightforward thing to figure out where those four-corner groups will appear. When I've asked here for a way to predict where they'll be, I've been told that if you look at a whole map, there's an obvious pattern that will let you predict the exact location of every hut if you know where just a few of them are. When I tried that, the large-scale pattern of four-groups was not at all obvious to me. But recently I generated a few maps and think I've determined that full pattern. No doubt many of you have already figured this out, but I haven't seen it detailed anywhere, and I wonder if most people have underestimated the complexity of it. I'd like to give a simple visual of it, but I'm not sure how to. I guess I could create an all-land map and place something on it to show the hut pattern; if people are interested, let me know. Meanwhile, I'll describe it.
Every hut is part of a standard four-corner group. The groups do not intersect, as the specials groups do. They form dyads, where two adjacent groups are "connected" at either one or two corners by a three-spaces-directly-east-west relationship (either upper-right-corner-to-lower-left-corner, or both-right-corners-to-both-left-corners). All of the dyads in a given horizontal band are the same form -- all of them one-corner attachment, or all of them two-corner attachment. These dyads form a continuous pattern that angles up-down-up-down-up-down as you move horizontally across the map, making sort of an extended "w" shape if you were to connect their centers with lines. One "w" zone is about 7 squares tall; by diagonal map-square numbering, it's a range of 13, so it covers about 1/6 of a standard-sized world map.
Above and below each horizontal "w" band is a band two squares tall (four by map-square numbering) with no huts.
Above and below each empty band is another "w" band. These bands alternate, from north to south, between the one-corner-contact and both-corners-contact arrangements. These bands are not aligned directly above one another. As you move from north to south, the higher-placed group in each dyad is related to the higher-placed group in the dyad most nearly straight south of it in the next lower band, by one of two relationships: (1) the southern group is numbered (-1,+17) compared to the northern group, or (2) the southern group is numbered (-7,+15) compared to the northern group. Since the connection-types alternate between "w" bands, so does this relationship; if the higher-placed groups in two bands have a (-1,+17) relationship, then the lower-placed groups have a (-7,+15) relationship, and vice versa.
This constitutes the full pattern: four-group "squares" in two different types of dyads, forming "w" bands of two alternating types, with the "sine curves" of the "w" bands being slightly out of synch in an alternating consistent way.
Thus, indeed, it is only necessary to locate some fairly modest number of huts in order to calculate the exact locations of every hut point on the map. In fact, I think it may sometimes be possible with just two huts in two different four-groups, if you've got the full pattern mapped out and you're willing to look on your model map and find two points on it that bear the same relationship as the two huts. I think it may always be possible with just three huts in one group and two in another. However, it's not really very easy to do in practice. Water causes holes in the pattern, and there's enough repetition so that it's fairly tough to be sure which part of the overall pattern a single group represents.
So... there we go. My small contribution to Civ2 arcana, just in time for Civ3.
Anyone paying attention has no doubt noticed that huts appear in a four-corner pattern like that of special resources. But they may also have found that it's not a straightforward thing to figure out where those four-corner groups will appear. When I've asked here for a way to predict where they'll be, I've been told that if you look at a whole map, there's an obvious pattern that will let you predict the exact location of every hut if you know where just a few of them are. When I tried that, the large-scale pattern of four-groups was not at all obvious to me. But recently I generated a few maps and think I've determined that full pattern. No doubt many of you have already figured this out, but I haven't seen it detailed anywhere, and I wonder if most people have underestimated the complexity of it. I'd like to give a simple visual of it, but I'm not sure how to. I guess I could create an all-land map and place something on it to show the hut pattern; if people are interested, let me know. Meanwhile, I'll describe it.
Every hut is part of a standard four-corner group. The groups do not intersect, as the specials groups do. They form dyads, where two adjacent groups are "connected" at either one or two corners by a three-spaces-directly-east-west relationship (either upper-right-corner-to-lower-left-corner, or both-right-corners-to-both-left-corners). All of the dyads in a given horizontal band are the same form -- all of them one-corner attachment, or all of them two-corner attachment. These dyads form a continuous pattern that angles up-down-up-down-up-down as you move horizontally across the map, making sort of an extended "w" shape if you were to connect their centers with lines. One "w" zone is about 7 squares tall; by diagonal map-square numbering, it's a range of 13, so it covers about 1/6 of a standard-sized world map.
Above and below each horizontal "w" band is a band two squares tall (four by map-square numbering) with no huts.
Above and below each empty band is another "w" band. These bands alternate, from north to south, between the one-corner-contact and both-corners-contact arrangements. These bands are not aligned directly above one another. As you move from north to south, the higher-placed group in each dyad is related to the higher-placed group in the dyad most nearly straight south of it in the next lower band, by one of two relationships: (1) the southern group is numbered (-1,+17) compared to the northern group, or (2) the southern group is numbered (-7,+15) compared to the northern group. Since the connection-types alternate between "w" bands, so does this relationship; if the higher-placed groups in two bands have a (-1,+17) relationship, then the lower-placed groups have a (-7,+15) relationship, and vice versa.
This constitutes the full pattern: four-group "squares" in two different types of dyads, forming "w" bands of two alternating types, with the "sine curves" of the "w" bands being slightly out of synch in an alternating consistent way.
Thus, indeed, it is only necessary to locate some fairly modest number of huts in order to calculate the exact locations of every hut point on the map. In fact, I think it may sometimes be possible with just two huts in two different four-groups, if you've got the full pattern mapped out and you're willing to look on your model map and find two points on it that bear the same relationship as the two huts. I think it may always be possible with just three huts in one group and two in another. However, it's not really very easy to do in practice. Water causes holes in the pattern, and there's enough repetition so that it's fairly tough to be sure which part of the overall pattern a single group represents.
So... there we go. My small contribution to Civ2 arcana, just in time for Civ3.
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