'NONE' settlers?

[Caligastia]

quote: Originally posted by Ming on 03-16-2000 10:36 AM Besides the non settlers you get from huts, they are easy to build. Put a city down closer to another civ than any of your cities. Before the city can go to two population, quick build the settler and in the process, disband the city. This will create a non settler as long as another civ has a city closer to the disbanded city than any of yours. Good luck!

Do you have to be a certain amount of squares away from one of your own cities or doesnt it matter. For example will it work if you are 4 squares away from one of your cities and 3 squares away from another civ's city?

[rah]

yes

[Marquis de Sodaq]

quote: Originally posted by My Wife Hates CIV on 03-17-2000 10:42 PM none settlers... I dont see how this is any less of a cheat than bomber stacking.

Think of it as slavery - no food or shield needed, because they don't get fed and nobody bothers to clothe them... Actually, they are referred to as nomads in the game, at least when they come from huts - people who do not depend on cities (or permanent residence) for food or materials.


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"There is no fortress impregnable to an ass laden with gold."
-Philip of Macedon

[EdwardTKing]

"I assume the designers wanted to reduce the chance that a hut unit would immediately be disbanded due to lack of shield support, or that a hut nomad would starve some distant border city."


I doubt that. I suspect the algorythm was simply to home to nearest city; but when they realized nearest city was different tribe found that it crashed or had bizarre results. Rather than keep running algorythm recursively until hut popping tribe found ~(assuming there is one; and there is often not at beginning for skilled mercenaries); it was easier to make settler or skilled mercenaries a None unit.

[EdwardTKing]

~ = city

corruption - no courthouse on internet

[Edward]

EdwardTKing,

Your "easy to program" explanation sounds very plausible. I think you're right.


Blaupanzer,

No offense meant! Upon re-reading, my "formula" does sound like a lot of nonsense. While I only vaguely remembered a couple discussions on the game's distance calculation I did remember that none of the proposed answers were a simple counting of squares along a path (counting squares "as the bomber flies" so-to-speak). I guess I was trying to say "Hey. It ain't as easy as countin' squares."

You've gotten me off my lazy butt and I've tracked down an answer from the wonderful Great Library.
http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum1/HTML/001678.html?36
This entry is for city bribing, but I think it works for determining closest cities as well. My vaguely remembered rambling was meant to be the 4.32 method.

quote: Way to measure distance between a unit and the capital... 4.31 Imagine Civ2-map turned by 45 degrees. Then you see that map is a simple grid of squares. Then use 4.32 or 4.33 (both are equal). 4.32 Take the "rectangle" defined by the position of the unit and the position of the city (all sides of rectangle are built by squares connected by lines, not by by edges). [comment]comment by me, Edward - I think he means all sides of the rectangle are formed from squares which share a side, not squares that merely touch at a corner.[/comment] distance = (length of longer side of rectangle) + 0.5 * (length of shorter side of rectangle) Only integer part of distance is considered. 4.33 Take the "rhomboid" defined by the position of the unit and the position of the city (two sides of rhomboid are built by squares connected by lines ("straight sides" ), other two sides are built by squares connected by edges ("diagonal sides" ); note: the rhomboid is included in the rectangle that came up in 4.33). distance = (length of straight side of rhomboid) + 1.5 * (length of diagonal side of rhomboid) . Only integer part of distance is considered. 4.35 This method of measuring the distance between two squares is valid for all Civilization.

[Edward]

My Wife Hates CIV,

While NON settlers (and other NON units) might not have been a wise addition to the game, they were definitely intended by the designers. (I'll agree that disbanding cities solely to get NON settlers, allowing one's cities to be conquered solely to get NON partisans, and setting up diplomat NON "recruiting stations" near barb hot spots/cities were not intended.)

I assume the designers wanted to reduce the chance that a hut unit would immediately be disbanded due to lack of shield support, or that a hut nomad would starve some distant border city. These bad consequences of a hut unit (or worse yet a unit you just paid good money for in a bribe) could also include city (or even civ-wide) disorder if you're in a representative government. In all these cases being "far away" from any border city means that the bad consequences can't easily be rectified by disbanding in or joining a nearby city. The designers probably should have had the unit be supported by the nearest of your cities that had enough shields and wouldn't starve or go into disorder.

Bomber stacking is an unfortunate game mechanic side effect of not allowing air units to fly "above" foreign units on the same square. Hopefully Civ3 will allow "international" stacking. Then your air units could fly over a land-based blockade (or run under a squadron of bombers). This would be especially cool for allied nations. An English pikeman could help defend an American catapult.


AkwaticDudeCity & Caligastia,

Be warned that the game's counting of spaces is probably not how you would count spaces. I can't remember the formula, but it was something crazy like the greater of the x or y distance plus half the remaining rectilinear (x or y) distance.

[Blaupanzer]

MWHC, how can a designed concept be a "cheat?" If you pop a forest hut and get a settler, he will ne a "none" unit, by DESIGN. Thus, their existence is clearly intended. How they are derived now becomes the point of discussion. Edward discussed the hesitancies there, but their existance cannot be seen as a "cheat."

Edward, is that last paragraph an elaborate spoof of the rest of us, or do you think it really explains distance measuring?

[Blaupanzer]

Edward, thanks both for the clarification and the agreement that it did sound a little off-the-wall the first time. :-) LOL