Culture Flip Formula

[DeepO]

Arian, I agree, but just one question: do you starve citizens because of going to the dark side, or because you believe it to be a good tactic?

Because, as shown above, it is not really helpful. Of course, pop rushing temples and garrison is a double solution (adding happyness or troops, while lowering foreign citizens), but pure starving for the fun of it doesn't help that much. You'd better make sure you get into WLTKD mode, so that those happy, foreign slaves actually are of some use to you, for production (if not totally corrupt), tax, science, whatever.

This doesn't rule out starving, though, if you don't have enough luxuries, starving will be the only reasonable way you get to WLTKD. And if your culture is already twice the enemies (or more), after your cityCulture rises above the previous cityCulture, one or two troops would totally negate the chance, making WLTKD not a necessity anymore.

DeepO

[Arrian]

DeepO,

I will typically only starve cities while I'm quelling resistence. Once I'm done quelling (usually only takes 1-2 turns), I rush a spear and/or temple, depending on the situation, and that drops the pop low enough for my comfort level 9 times out of 10. If for some reason the AI has pumped it's capitol up to size 12 that early on, I may starve it for a while.

-Arrian

[Fitz]

It seems Arrian, that you are specifically talking about the early game when despotic pop-rushing is still available. This has a bunch of ramifications:

1) The AI culture as a whole is probably still low, especially compared to a human player.
2) The culture in any given city is probably low to 0, excepting of course the capitol, meaning that it is relatively simple to play catch up for that city.
3) The populations in general are low, and certainly below 12 to start with, if not 6.
4) Despotic pop-rush once out of resistance gives an easy means of reducing the native population even further.

Once your talking about a modern era size 17 conquest in Democracy, and the civ has had several 1000 years of culture in that city, and probably has caught up to a 2:1 or better ratio against you, it gets a little harder to keep that city.

Incidentally, I was wondering if Soren has put an Interger function on the Culture ratio (top or bottom). If so, there would be no effect until you get to *2 or *1/2 for that factor. I think it unlikely since a Int(CutureA/CultureB) will return 2, 1, 0 or etc but not a fraction, but still worth considering. Opinions on the likelyhood, and can anyone think of a simple C++ function that return 1/2 1/3 1/4 (interger on the bottom)? I do believe his comments made it sound like it is a decimal ratio, but all his examples were integers (possibly just for simplicity).

[Arrian]

Fitz,

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. You're absolutely right that keeping a size 17 city in 1800AD under a democracy is MUCH more difficult than keeping a size 4 city in 400BC as a despot. And that's my point. It makes sense to do the bulk of your fighting early (for many other reasons, too).

-Arrian

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Fitz
Incidentally, I was wondering if Soren has put an Interger function on the Culture ratio (top or bottom). If so, there would be no effect until you get to *2 or *1/2 for that factor. I think it unlikely since a Int(CutureA/CultureB) will return 2, 1, 0 or etc but not a fraction, but still worth considering. Opinions on the likelyhood,

well, in one of his quotes on page 2, he said that it was needed that the AI would have a 3.5 ratio to the human... which was actually more then 3.5. Of course, it could be 7/2, but if you are working with decimal numbers, why is it needed to have a ratio of two simple integers? My guess is it was only for simplicity

and can anyone think of a simple C++ function that return 1/2 1/3 1/4 (interger on the bottom)?

This is not a problem. There might be a nicer way, but for clarity the following:

float r=3.45
float rCapped=1/((int)r)   //rCapped is exactly 1/3

I believe this should work (C++ has been a while, though)

DeepO

[Fitz]

Ah, that's right, he was using decimals.

BTW, how about Inv(Int(Inv X)) when X is less than 1? Can't really see a reason for it though.

[Coracle]

How about factoring in the IQ's of the leaders of a city based on their literacy?

Why?

Any town or city that still flips WITH A HUGE ENEMY ARMY A TILE OR TWO AWAY ready to destroy them is even more braindead than the concept of culture flipping itself.

No city would dare do that - but the APPROACH of a huge enemy army MIGHT cause a city to defect out of fear. That would be too HISTORICAL for Firaxis - something Soren is unfamiliar with.


BTW, Jimmytrick was right: I can see this entire matter is devolving into the esoterica so beloved by the math heads and statistical freaks.

[FrantzX]

"That's math staring right back at you."

[DeepO]

Coracle, you're sure you and jimmytrick are not two online personalities of the same socially impaired basement-kid?

If you don't like math-heads, good for you. But this one made a genuine effort to explain your example, and even give possible solutions so that you shouldn't be troubled anymore. Sure, I had to improvise, but you gave no real information.

This is a formula-math-statistic thread, which evolved to try to come up with solutions so that people who don't want to dig into the logarithms at work are helped as well. If that doesn't suit you, fine. Just don't ruin it for others who do like it

DeepO

[Arrian]

DeepO,

I strongly suggest the use of the "ignore" feature.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

Originally posted by DeepO

float r=3.45
float rCapped=1/((int)r)   //rCapped is exactly 1/3

That gives a rCapped of 0.0, as 1 / 3 is computed with integer arithmetic and then converted to float. . But you're close: float rCapped = 1.0 / ((int)r); would do the trick. Btw, the use of float is CPU rape, double is better.

Btw... I don't ignore Coracle. His fight against the wind mills often makes my day .

[Phil_de_geezer]

Thanks for all the hard work people!

...rummages around under bed...finds CIV3 CD...blows dust off...

Me thinks i might give CIV3 another chance. I dislike not knowing what factors contribute to certain game features so thanks again!

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
That gives a rCapped of 0.0, as 1 / 3 is computed with integer arithmetic and then converted to float. . But you're close: float rCapped = 1.0 / ((int)r); would do the trick. Btw, the use of float is CPU rape, double is better.

Oops, of course you're right. As I said, it's been a while since I programmed in C++, you loose those small tricks fast

I know, I should ignore Coracle. But it just pissed me off that his posts spoiled the atmosphere of the thread. Replying doesn't make things better though. If he would only whine in the opinion threads it would still annoy people, but at least it would be more or less the right place to do it.

DeepO

[Capt Dizle]

The insults are unnecessary.

[DeepO]

If you're referring to comparing you to Coracle, I agree, it was not very fair off me, and certainly could be looked upon as an insult. Sorry about that, I was angry at that moment.

But, for the past weeks I've been wondering whether you were two persons, or just one person, Coracle to flame, and you to give more reasonable critique. You're posting habits are remarkably simular, and one seems always be there to defend the other.

DeepO