A pattern governing supply and demand changes

[Scouse Gits]

That confirms my observations - Dye is always demanded, but when the screen is refreshed the Dye becomes Hides.

---------------------

SG(2)

[samson]

Solo - Okay.
What if you use Reveal Map on all these Dye-hungry cities? Does Dye go away? Or does it stick?

[solo]

One small correction first.

In the SP game, all the AI were given dye, but the human player went through the first few cycles without getting it.

Cheat mode can not be used to reveal the whole map in a hot seat game, but the map is pretty much revealed to all civs at this stage due to map trades.

In my hot seat game all cities except for a few of the newest, yet to be "cycled", now have dye in demand slot #1.

SG, I am not understanding what you mean by refreshing the screen.

Samson, I will try and locate and reload my SP test game and reveal the map to see if all the AI still demand hides.

[solo]

Okay, I am back. Reveal map got rid of all the dye, but the trade demand lists no longer correspond to city lists. Attached is the save.

[Scouse Gits]

solo ... I'm probably using the wrong jargon but this is what I mean:

In cheat mode > Reveal Entire Map > Create Settler > Build City > Monitor Supply/Demand on first viewing the city screen. Then come out of new city to the map of the world (refreshing) and return to cheat city. Commodities have changed. Dye demand (in early years) is usually Hides.
Typically:
Supply: Silk Beads Salt
Demand: Dye Copper Wine

changes to:

Silk Dye Beads
Hides Copper Wool

-----------------------

SG(2)

[William Keenan]

Solo, here are the vb files you need.

[samson]

Sg - Thanks for the confirmation of the "Dye effect". I strongly believe that Reveal Map is showing the "correct" S/D values. Solo's save confirms this, too. However, it is unsettling to hear that the solo-cycle doesn't produce the same fix as Reveal Map.

As for map exploration, I don't believe it is a factor in Supply and Demand. And I don't think Reveal Map simulates exploration. Reveal (Entire) Map, I believe, does exactly that. And part of the revealing involves updating the Supply/Demand stuff when you go into City Display.

Solo - thanks for the save. Very helpful.

Another trigger event for S/D updates is the delivery of a carvan to help build a Wonder. Food caravans work just as well as commodities. This could be a good tactic, using food caravans to update S/D in a city when you know the supply is set to change.

[solo]

William,

Thanks a bunch for those files. I will download and give them a try with civcity.

Samson,

I'm a little confused by your statement that reveal map shows "correct" S/D values, as it appears to me that its use replaces the correct values (i.e. current values attained so far by game play) with arbitrary ones that do not even tally with the Trade Advisor S/D screens.

I do agree that use the reveal map cheat does not simulate total map exploration, since when I trade maps, the demand lists of AI capitals do not instantly change the way they always do when reveal map is used.

I agree about food caravans as another trigger. I have forgotten about terraforming, which we can addd to the list of independent triggering events, now consisting of:

1) 16 turn cycles
2) caravan deliveries (may affect Source or Destination, and possibly both)
3) food contributions to wonders (include ordinary food deliveries to cities, too)
4) terraforming (with added chances of a change when the tile contains a special)

[samson]

Solo -

The S/D values shown by Reveal Map and not arbitrary at all. They are "correct" in the sense that they are the values the city will take on after the next trigger event occurs, with the exception of the DYE problem with have discussed. Demand for Dye works strangely under gameplay but shows quite regular behavior when Reveal Map is used. Of course, gameplay behavior is what matters and so will have to be accounted for at some point.

Terraforming is not a trigger event. I think at one point I said it was, but it isn't. Changes to terrain show immediate S/D results under Reveal Map but not during normal gameplay. They need a trigger event to take effect.

Caravan deliveries can act as a trigger for either the Source or Destination city, but I have not yet seen them affect both at once. Odd.

[solo]

Samson,

Okay, I see what you mean by "correct", in that reveal map shows the next change, which is predictable, and not arbitrary. So am I right in now assuming that reveal map acts as an instant trigger of the next S/D change for each city?

Terraforming can come off the trigger list. I thought had remembered a previous post by you where you had altered the timing of an S/D change by changing the rate of terraforming a tile.

I am pumping out caravans now in my test game and will continue to monitor how often and where deliveries act as triggers. Source and Destination changes at the same time should be possible, if both cities have been enabled by independent causitive events.

More later.

[samson]

From the thread "Ancient Words of Wisdom"

Originally posted by debeest
In the game I just finished, I traded dye profusely for a long time, but somewhere around 1500-1700 the demand began to diminish. By the end of the game in 1800, no city, domestic or foreign, had demanded dye for quite some time, and it seemed as if dye was the only commodity any of my cities would produce. During that time, I grew from maybe 40 cities to maybe 80; the AI dropped from about 35 to 0. Partly republic, partly democracy.

The thing that caught my attention was: when I would save the game, quit, and come back later, if I checked the trade adviser, there were dozens of cities demanding dye -- but as I clicked on those cities to examine them, they didn't really want dye, and then they weren't listed that way by the trade adviser anymore.

I've heard of commodities having volatile demand, but that's going a bit too far!

It would seem that the false demand of Dye is a common phenomenon.

[Elephant]

There does seem to be a "difference of opinion" between what the Trade Advisor lists as Demand and what a click on the map or a glimpse of the CityScreen lists. This is a high-priority issue as it is what mostly frustrates people into thinking the Trade system is broken. In the example I listed earlier, the CityScreen listed one thing (a change), but the Trade Advisor listed something else (no change), and returning to the CityScreen the S/D was back to normal.

Here's a snip from the beginning of one of my test games, using SG's large map start where the English got Trade as a freebie:

1el_b4000
free techs:Alph/Bro/Cer/CoL/Cur/Hor/Map/Tra

2 settlers started on Plains; moved 2 spaces to Grass.
3900- founded LONdon (c9/101,15) on GS, working Whale
__Supplies Silk/Salt/Dye
__Demands Hide/Wine/Bead
founded YORk (c9/106,16) on GS, working Forest
__Supplies Silk/Salt/Dye
__Demands Hide/Cop/Bead

TradeAdvisorCheck:
(Hmmm- no one wants Dye...)
Hides: Cardiff/Zimbabwe/Crewe/Beijing/LON/YOR/(Delhi)
Wool: (Delhi)
Beads: Cardiff/Zimbabwe/Madrid/LON/YOR
Cloth: Cardiff
Wine: Zimbabwe/Crewe/Beijing/LON/(Delhi)
Spice: Madrid/Beijing
Gems: Crewe/Madrid
no: Wool/Coal/Dye/Silver/Gold/Oil/Uranium

so looks like
C01=Cardiff (Hide/Bead/Cloth)
C02=Zimbabwe (Hide/Bead/Wine)
C03=Crewe (Hide/Wine/Gem)
C04=Madrid (Bead/Spice/Gem)
C05=Beijing (Hide/Wine/Spice)
C06=LONdon
C07=YORk
3800- Delhi (new add- added to lists above in parens)
C08=Delhi (Hide/Wool/Wine)
MONARCHY; start Write
3700- Warrior in LON & YOR, start MPE in LON, Settler in YOR
3550- Delhi now Wool/Dye/Wine
3500- LON now Supplies Silk/Salt/GEMS, same Demand
3450- Beijing now Beads/Dye/Wine
3400- Madrid now Cloth/Dye/Gems

Notice that there is NO demand for Dye at start; Delhi, the eighth city, got it first in 3550BC. The commodity sequences are NOT correct; I was interpreting them from the TradeAdvisor, not from map clicks or hot-seating. Come to think of it, if we suspect the TradeAdvisor is not correct, or there is some sort of trigger event with using it, these could be tainted data. I think we need to resolve the "reliability" issue of TradeAdvisor lists (once Trade is discovered) versus CityScreen lists (shows Demand and Supply lists IN SEQUENCE, but to get them all you need to run a hot-seat game) versus map clicking. Otherwise we'll get inundated by questionable data points.

[samson]

Elephant,

You raise a number of good points. I'll give you my current understanding of them.

1) The Trade Advisor itself is not a trigger event. Using it does not cause changes to supply and demand commodities. It merely displays the saved S/D values of each city when it was last updated.

2) There are three clear trigger events. The 16-turn solo cycle; the delivery of caravans (commodity or food) for trade or Wonders; and having the Reveal Map command on in the Cheat Menu. The last of these doesn't cause changes directly, but forces all cities to update their S/D lists when clicked on.

3) The algorithm for the calculation of the demand of Dye has a bug in it, in my opinion, which causes many cities to demand Dye that don't really "want" it. Since the supply and demand lists are a result of comparing the SQs and DQs of all commodities, a bug in one formula such as Dye, can falsely promote or demote other commodities as well. This means other items on the lists can be "incorrect" also.

Now, don't misunderstand. "Incorrect" doesn't mean that the city won't pay the demand bonus for a commodity it says it demands. It will. It's just that the demand of Dye is ephemeral and will disappear when a caravan delivery triggers an update to the city's S/D lists. If the Dye demand was indeed false, both lists are likely to change dramatically.

4) The Demand list shown by clicking on a visible foreign city is in the same sequence shown in its city display, as investigated by a diplo.

[solo]

I will check the Trade Advisor in my hot seat game, to see if I can find differences from the actual lists I see in each city.

A delivery of dye has been made in my game already to a city "addicted" to it. Nothing happened to the S/D list of the Destination city, but the Source city, Washington, had two supply AND two demand changes. Washington was able to supply and build this dye only because the commodity was built on a cycle turn, where a glitch resulted in momentary supply.

Elephant, in an SP game, so far I have observed that all the AI want dye, and only the human supplies it. Thus, it is no surprise to me to see demand disappear as they AI cities were destroyed or captured.

And William, thanks for supplying those .DLL's. The only thing I wish I had more than that right now would be a copy of the Rise of Nations beta being circulated among reviewers.

[samson]

Originally posted by solo

A delivery of dye has been made in my game already to a city "addicted" to it. Nothing happened to the S/D list of the Destination city, but the Source city, Washington, had two supply AND two demand changes. Washington was able to supply and build this dye only because the commodity was built on a cycle turn, where a glitch resulted in momentary supply.

I have seen a caravan delivery to a foreign city cause its false Dye demand to disappear immediately. This was in an SP game. So there's evidence on both sides of this question.

I'd like more info on this glitch in Washington. Can you give me the S/D lists before and after the event, plus the supply list that disappeared? Also, if you would, the coordinates of Washington.