The game mechanics, formulas and constants

[SlowThinker]

I am an absolute total beginner, just tried several turns. I would like to play, but I know nothing about the game mechanics and formulas, and so I can't start to play - I don't know what to do, I have no base for my decisions.

I found the excellent Locotus' explanation about use of squares around cities:
about that green bar.........

Locutus mentions several constants, for example ...

Originally posted by Locutus
Over this you have to apply the government food coefficient though, which in this case - in 4000 BC in Tyranny - is 0.85.

To get the population growth from this, you need to first take into account the Crime. By default this is 25%

etc.

Of course there is many more important constants, like "costs" of units, amount of PW needed for tile improvements, formula for rushbuying...

Where do you get these constants? Can I find any overview?
Or ... it looks the constants depend on mods - so I must go in .txt files?

Use of the Commerce
Another point is that Locutus' explanations are clear for food and production, but it can't be applied to the commerce. For example if you open the Empire Manager in detailed mode, the Collected Food and Collected production is equal to the sum of the entries below (for example Collected Food = Crime + Consumed + Stored).
But this doesn't work with the Commerce! Although the crime is lower than in case of Food and Production, a part of Commerce is lost and there is no explanation why.

[SlowThinker]

I see first I should do more searching. OK, I went through all .txt files in the game package and I found it. I also found the Modification section of Apolyton. That's nice to have all the game constants available, I start to like CTP...

Still I have some questions:
It would be nice to have these .txt files in a form of tables (at least the most important values). Do you have such tables? And because there are different mods ... maybe ... a tool that would convert .txt files to tables would be nice. Is there such a tool?

And concrete questions:
Use of commerce - still I don't understand it.
And a new question: the combat math - how does it work? (Attack, Defense, Damage, Armor ... what is the effect of these constants?)

[Martin Gühmann]

Re: The game mechanics, formulas and constants

Originally posted by SlowThinker
Where do you get these constants? Can I find any overview?
Or ... it looks the constants depend on mods - so I must go in .txt files?

The text files.

Originally posted by SlowThinker
Use of the Commerce
Another point is that Locutus' explanations are clear for food and production, but it can't be applied to the commerce. For example if you open the Empire Manager in detailed mode, the Collected Food and Collected production is equal to the sum of the entries below (for example Collected Food = Crime + Consumed + Stored).
But this doesn't work with the Commerce! Although the crime is lower than in case of Food and Production, a part of Commerce is lost and there is no explanation why.

For commerce first it is collected from the field. From that raw amount, buildings are supported and wages are paid, and that is splitted accoring to the science tax into commerce and science.

And then on commerce and science all the buildinga nd wonder modifers are applied. By the way you don't support buildings and people from Capitalization and specialists.

-Martin

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
For commerce first it is collected from the field. From that raw amount, buildings are supported and wages are paid, and that is splitted accoring to the science tax into commerce and science.

Thx, I think I understand. I supposed the crime is abduced first and so it is applied first but this not true: The crime is applied after all modifiers and also after Wages are deducted (contrary to food rations that are reduced by crime).
Also I didn't know the crime doesn't apply to science.


Crime

Originally posted by Locutus
To get the population growth from this, you need to first take into account the Crime. By default this is 25%, so we substract that from our food supply and get 0.75 * 41 = 31 food.

25%? I searched all the file for 'crime' but found no a general value for Crime...?? I see only CrimeCoef in govern.txt.

So I made a test: I edited the govern.txt and created a "base government":
FoodCoef 1
ProductionCoef 1
KnowledgeCoef 1
GoldCoef 1
MaxScienceRate 1
CrimeCoef 1
CrimeOffset 95

Then I played with the cheat mode (changed terrain and city size) and changed the workday and got these values for production:
production 17 / crime 3, 18/4, 46/8, 56/10, 62/11, 65/12, 75/13, 75/15, 79/14, 85/17, 88/15, 91/18, 92/16, 102/20, 103/21, 105/18, 106/21, 115/23, 120/24, 121/21

First I thought the crime is 1/6 for the food, 1/5 for the production, 1/6 for the gold (and 0 for science), but the values 105/18 and 121/21 doesn't correspond...

[SlowThinker]

Pls don't overlook my 2nd post about the combat math.

[SlowThinker]

Maybe I found what is the problem with the crime - the crime is affected also by happiness, but the effect of happines doesn't refresh automately, so you must move the slider so that it gets rereshed.
For example if you change happiness by changing food rations then you don't see a correct crime of gold until you move the wages slider.

BTW ... the city window shows only the gross values of food/prod/commerce ... is there any way how to find out the net values? Except you have only one city and look the City Manager?

[SlowThinker]

I am sorry I am filling the forum by such a trash.
I have understood the formula for the Crime, but I suppose it is well known:

Crime (%) = CrimeCoef * (CrimeOffset - Happiness)

An example: the usual CrimeOffset is 95, under Tyranny the CrimeCoef is 1.5, so
with Happiness 95 the Crime is 0%,
with Happiness 75 the Crime is 1.5*20%=30% etc.
The crime level is equal for all Food/Production/Science/Gold but the value in the Commerce column of the Empire Manager shows crime of Gold only (the crime for Science is not shown).

Am I correct?

BTW it appears there is some limit of 78 for the Happiness - what's that?

Edit: added the CrimeCoef

[Maquiladora]

Hi SlowThinker,

heres an excel spreadsheet that should show the basics of combat.

[SlowThinker]

Maquiladora, thx very much.

But the spreadsheet looks suspicious:
The first column (situation A):

1.
Attacker's armour, hitpoints, defence capacity - shouldn't these values be Defender's?
2.
'Total Attack for Attacking Unit' is never used, I suppose it should be used in 'Chance of Attacker Hitting'? (C14 in place of C8)

[Maquiladora]

1. Attackers use their defence too. Both sides use defence and attack each round.

This might be changed in the sourcecode project where the defender doesnt use its attack value in a battle, and vice versa.

2. I think this is because veteran effect didnt work in 1.1 (fixed in the sourcecode).

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by SlowThinker
I have understood the formula for the Crime, but I suppose it is well known:

Crime (%) = CrimeCoef * (CrimeOffset - Happiness)

An example: the usual CrimeOffset is 95, under Tyranny the CrimeCoef is 1.5, so
with Happiness 95 the Crime is 0%,
with Happiness 75 the Crime is 1.5*20%=30% etc.
The crime level is equal for all Food/Production/Science/Gold but the value in the Commerce column of the Empire Manager shows crime of Gold only (the crime for Science is not shown).

Am I correct?

The building and wonder modifers are missing, but otherwise the formular is correct.

Originally posted by SlowThinker
BTW it appears there is some limit of 78 for the Happiness - what's that?

What do you mean by some limit of 78 for the happiness?

Originally posted by SlowThinker
Maybe I found what is the problem with the crime - the crime is affected also by happiness, but the effect of happines doesn't refresh automately, so you must move the slider so that it gets rereshed.
For example if you change happiness by changing food rations then you don't see a correct crime of gold until you move the wages slider.

Well that is true for the display of these values in this manager, at least in the executables relased by Activision. However this screen doesn't calculate the values that matter.

Originally posted by SlowThinker
BTW ... the city window shows only the gross values of food/prod/commerce ... is there any way how to find out the net values? Except you have only one city and look the City Manager?

Actual for gold you see the net value, afterwards you have collected everything payed upkeep and wages, splitted commerce into science and gold, processed the gold, added meanwhile the values from speacilists and trade routes and capitalization and finally subtraced crime loss and conversion loss.

-Martin

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
The building and wonder modifers are missing, but otherwise the formular is correct.

What did I overlook in the Apolyton documentation and/or the .txt files? Where is this formula (and other similar formulas) published?

What do you mean by some limit of 78 for the happiness?

When I started my first game (in Tyrrany) I was unable to set the Empire happiness over 78 (using the sliders of Wages, Rations and Workday).
But now (I have 3 cities now) I can't get over 77.

Well that is true for the display of these values in this manager, at least in the executables relased by Activision. However this screen doesn't calculate the values that matter.

The sentence in italics - what did you want to say?

Actual for gold you see the net value, afterwards you have collected everything payed upkeep and wages, splitted commerce into science and gold, processed the gold, added meanwhile the values from speacilists and trade routes and capitalization and finally subtraced crime loss and conversion loss.

The science appears to work in a similar fashion... am I correct?

---

Originally posted by Maquiladora
2. I think this is because veteran effect didnt work in 1.1 (fixed in the sourcecode).

Do you mean the sourcecode project? Do the mods apply the veteran status?

Is the formula for attack tried-and-true? Because this formula was supposed to work with Civ2 and later it was proved the formula is more complicated.

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by SlowThinker
And a new question: the combat math - how does it work? (Attack, Defense, Damage, Armor ... what is the effect of these constants?)

Big numbers = good
Small numbers = reseach more

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by SlowThinker
Do you mean the sourcecode project? Do the mods apply the veteran status?

Yes, but im not sure what the final fix was, I wanted +50% for attack and defence for veterans, but the original manual says only "a bonus to attack rating", so i think that was the final fix.

No, i dont think its possible to fix with SLIC in a mod.

Is the formula for attack tried-and-true? Because this formula was supposed to work with Civ2 and later it was proved the formula is more complicated.

It was done quite a while ago, before the sourcecode, in just a couple of days, "out of interest" kind of thing.

It could be found out for sure in the sourcecode, not by me though.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by SlowThinker
What did I overlook in the Apolyton documentation and/or the .txt files? Where is this formula (and other similar formulas) published?

In the Great Library you should find that there are wonders and buildings that reduce crime. You can find the stuff in the text files, too. And of course in the source code.

Originally posted by SlowThinker
When I started my first game (in Tyrrany) I was unable to set the Empire happiness over 78 (using the sliders of Wages, Rations and Workday).
But now (I have 3 cities now) I can't get over 77.

You need to construct buildings that increases happiness like shrines and theaters. But why maxing out happiness, as long as it is over the 73 the riot limit you are ok.

Originally posted by SlowThinker
The sentence in italics - what did you want to say?

The values that the game uses are calculated on BeginTurn event. The values that you see in the manager are just projections.

Originally posted by SlowThinker
The science appears to work in a similar fashion... am I correct?

Yes accept there is no science from trade routes or capitalisation.

-Martin