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Chaos Theory
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Missouri / Misery; CC
Oct 2002
time: 04:36
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After fiddling with Impaler's mod, I discovered some undocumented or unexpected SE effects, particularly regarding industry, growth, and economy:
Industry and Growth
In a standard game, your nutrient tanks and mineral boxes are 10 wide, before SE mods. Each + reduces the width by 1 and each - increases it by 1. What if you change the starting widths, by messing with alphax? Then each + and - represents a 10% shift, *not* a 1 column shift! The result is that the formula for the width of a nutrient tank or mineral box is
ceil(base * (1 - .1*rating))
Where ceil is the ceiling function,
base is the width of the box with 0 industry or growth,
and rating is of course the appropriate SE effect rating, bounded to be within [-2, 5] for growth, and [-3, 5] for industry.
Furthermore, on Transcend difficulty, the AI has boxes of base width
floor(.7*your base),
or 7 wide with an unaltered alphax. During the course of games, I have observed these base widths decline to 6 and even 5. The dates at which they change are not fixed and probably depend on how the AI is doing. This explains why Lal can have nutrient tanks 3 boxes wide (base width 6 and +6 growth or base width 5 and +4 growth).
Industry < -7 overflows and acts as if it were +5.
Economy
The effects of negative economy are not properly documented. It turns out that for an econ rating of less than -1, the effect is that each base tile loses (-rating - 1) energy. Base tiles can never give negative energy, but recycling tanks contribute to their production before energy is subtracted for low econ. Therefore, if base tiles produce 10 energy and recycling tanks add 10 energy, but you have -20 econ, those base tiles provide zero energy, or one energy with rec tanks. Headquarters and rivers seem to add after this step.
Research
After a little testing, I have observed that changes to the research rating via SE have NO direct effect on tech cost.
Oddly, when the AI was given the choice between -48 research and economy, or +32 research and economy, it usually picked -48 research and economy. When given the choice between -48 economy and industry, or +32 economy and industry, it always picked +32 economy and industry.
Talent
Yes, this is a SE category, but it doesn't appear anywhere except a few places in alphax. It was apparently abandoned in development, but it still functions. Government choices can contribute to Talent, but their contributions will not appear on the SE screen. Your talent rating has the following effect:
Talent = X, X > 0: X extra talents, added in the same way as Lal's talents
Talent = 0: nothing, of course
Talent = X, X < 0: X extra drones, added in the same way as Zak's. This also means that on transcend, Talent < -1 has no additional effect.
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Chaos Theory
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Missouri / Misery; CC
Oct 2002
time: 04:36
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Impaler: These are some tables generated from the formula I derived:
code:
Base Rating Width
11 -3 15
11 -2 14
11 -1 13
11 0 11
11 +1 10
11 +2 9
11 +3 8
11 +4 7
11 +5 6
12 -3 16
12 -2 15
12 -1 14
12 0 12
12 +1 11
12 +2 10
12 +3 9
12 +4 8
12 +5 6
13 -3 17
13 -2 16
13 -1 15
13 0 13
13 +1 12
13 +2 11
13 +3 10
13 +4 8
13 +5 7
14 -3 19
14 -2 17
14 -1 16
14 0 14
14 +1 13
14 +2 12
14 +3 10
14 +4 9
14 +5 7
As you can see, when base / 10 is not an integer, the change from a rating of -1 to 0 is always one larger than the change from a rating of 0 to +1.
Rather than changing the row width, if everyone starts with low industry and growth values, each + means less. For example, if everyone suffers a -2 industry penalty on top of other mods (yielding -3 for Santi, -1 for Yang), then mineral rows are 12 wide, minus your relative industry rating. The side effect is that the effective range of industry is now [-1, 7], but power's downside is too harsh anyway.
Googlie:
I checked the effect of Research because I still see people claim that your research rating affects your tech costs.
binTravkin:
Worth a try.
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Chaunk
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CEO of Morgan Industries, ACDG3
Apr 2002
time: 05:36
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I'm fairly sure it does... As the believers I always have a massivly inflated tech cost at the start of the game. I remember reading an Acol post saying the extra tech cost for a negetive research bonus in the faction file was 2x for the first two techs, then 1/2 extra cost, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5 and so on. Thats for any negetive bonus. I've never checked that, cos it always felt about right.
For instance, in a recent 3x2, my factions are Miriam and Morgan. My starting tech costs were 32 & 16 IIRC, which is precicly what I'd have expected. During the game, I don't think it makes a difference, but at the start of the game from the faction.txt, it does I think.
Will run some tests though.
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johndmuller
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Capitol Hill, Colony of DC
Feb 2001
time: 00:36
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I also frequently get the impression that the research penalties and bonuses seem to be exagerated by an impact on tech costs as well. It is, however, difficult to nail it down in a game, as people are often getting additional techs in the middle of researching stuff, so a simple snapshot may not reallly reflect the tech costs associated with the apparent number of techs at the moment.
I just invested some serious time checking through am archived game where I was pacted with 2 other human players from nearly the beginning. I was expecting that I would find evidence that the Drones were penalized in the tech cost department relative to their two 'normal' partners (Morgan and PK). Unfortunately, after the Drones' tech cost rocketed up to 70 due to exchanging techs with us other two, they got spooked and henceforth stayed generally behind in techs, making direct comparisons elusive. FYI, here is a table with selected snapshots of the tech cost situation (until I got tired of looking for evidence)
.code:
Drones Morgan PKs
Year #Techs / TCost #Techs / TCost #Techs / TCost
---- ------ ----- ------ ----- ------ -----
2102 1 ? 1 14 1 ? Initial Turn, no pact
2103 1 ? 1 14 1 ? Still not pacted
2104 1 28 2 33 2 33 All Pacted; M & PK traded techs
2105 2 49 2 33 2 33 Biogen from M to Ds
2109 2 46 2 31 2 31
2110 2 46 3 53 2 31 M's & PK's 1st Breakthrus (PK's later in turn)
2111 3 70 4 53 3 31 PK's New Tech distributed
2112 3 70 4 53 4 53 M's tech to PK's only
2115 3 70 4 53 4 53
2117 3 66 5 105 4 53 M's New Breakthru
2120 4 88 6 105 6 105 M's received tech being researched from PK
2124 5 119 6 105 6 105 D's First Breakthru
2125 5 119 6 105 6 105
2127 5 119 7 162 6 105 M's & PK's get Breakthrus (PK's later in turn)
2130 7 119 9 162 8 162
2132 8 229 9 162 8 162 D's had new breakthru
2135 8 229 9 162 8 162 PK's had new breakthru after M's turn
2136 8 229 11 353 10 298 M's had new breakthru
.
What this does show is that there is indeed some sort of initial tech cost penalty for the Drones, but I don't think it clearly shows any ongoing penalty, just some sort of decaying penalty at the beginning. It looks like it might be a x2 factor at the very beginning, a x1.5 penalty with 2 techs, a x1.333 with 3 techs, pretty much what Chaunk cited as being posted at ACOL. By the time the Drones got their first own discovery, freezing their costs, they were up to 5 techs, which still seemed to qualify them for a penalty (119 vx 105). When they got their next breakthru, they would be at 8 techs (for which there was no direct comparison as the other two went from 7 to 10 or 11 techs for their breakthrus - the Drones' 229 at 8 techs compared to PK's 298 at 10 and/or PK/Morgan's 162 at 7. It looks like there is still some sort of penalty going on there, but it is hard to say for sure. Perhaps I'll run some more numbers further on in the game.
It does certainly demonstrate the inadvisability of acquiring additional techs before researdhing your own first tech, as that seems to cause a recalculation of tech cost greatly to your disadvantage
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Commy
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St. Louis, MO, USA
Mar 2004
time: 05:36
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Okay, I haven't really been to this site for a couple of months, and I really don't understand half the stuff you guys are saying, but the AI SE choices are based on what gives the most energy in the future. So basically, the AI will usually do planned economy in the beginning (usually) to increase growth so that in the future, the AI can do whatever that will give them a lot of energy then. Kind of confusing? Basically, the AI wants the maximum amount of energy produced in the entire game, not on the present turn. Using formulas and calculations, it makes the right decisions that will allow it to get the most energy in the future. The problem is, this way doesn't hold the AI factions to their idealogies and the AI doesn't know when the game ends, so they always plan for 200 years after they will have to "retire".
If any body has already said this I deeply apoligize, for I haven't read this entire thread and am not trying to steal others ideas.
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Commy
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St. Louis, MO, USA
Mar 2004
time: 05:36
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Does anybody actually know the formulas used to calculate the rows and columns needed when growth and industry in SE are changed? Or are all of these formulas made up from speculating? If only Firaxis actually responded to consumer e-mails, we might be able to find out. And I still think the computer tries to get the most energy in the future. The AI doesn't care about research. If true, it would explain why Deirdre does Wealth, and Lal, Morgan, Roze, Domai, Yang, and Miriam usually do Eudaimonia, when given a choice. Of course, that's under controlled conditions in the beginning of the game.
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Commy
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St. Louis, MO, USA
Mar 2004
time: 05:36
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Enigma_Nova
First off, the preemptive-quote there doesn't make sense, since I'm a stupid person and I have no idea what a mod is, and since I don't have a social life myself, I would never insult someone because their's included computer game characters, and secondly, the president doesn't calculate that under democracy the US will grow exactly 20% faster, but that on a small map the effects are not as great, and that if there were indeed 15 rows, it would not be exactly 20%, more like 2 or 3 less rows. Of course, with Bush as president, you never know. And lastly, I have nothing against people who wish to take time to be "creative", and I never insulted those who wish to make mods (whatever those may be) and I never said that "balancing" the game is wrong or unworthy, but if you take it as an insult, then you must truly have the diplomatic skills of the AI (god help us all). Now someone's going to complain to me about "using the lord's name in vain" and blah blah blah.
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Enigma_Nova
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I thought I'd save you some time by replying to things before you said them.
Since you'd rather post impulsively, I'll take each of your posts as they come. Flames spread upredictably.
quote:
I'm a stupid person and I have no idea what a mod is, |
A mod keeps these boards in check by locking spam threads.
I see you'd enjoy a first-hand lesson; you are not as stupid as you'd like to think you are.
quote:
and since I don't have a social life myself, I would never insult someone because their's included computer game characters, |
Nope. Because that would be a pointless insult, and you've obviously had enough social experience to avoid such mistakes.
quote:
the president doesn't calculate that under democracy the US will grow exactly 20% faster, but that on a small map the effects are not as great, and that if there were indeed 15 rows, it would not be exactly 20%, more like 2 or 3 less rows. |
If his government knew all the variables of the equation and had the computational power to consider them, do you think they'd avoid considering these variables and lead the country less than to the best of their abilities?
No, I don't think so. 
quote:
but if you take it as an insult, then you must truly have the diplomatic skills of the AI (god help us all). |
The only way you can annoy me is by ignoring me and refusing to reply to this post, but you lack the self-control to do that. 
quote:
Now someone's going to complain to me about "using the lord's name in vain" |
Yes, I believe that was you. Well done.
PS.
Paragraphs, mother****er. CAN YOU USE THEM?
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Enigma_Nova
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Laggy connection. Poor ISP.
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Enigma_Nova
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Quad Damage
...or something like that...
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Enigma_Nova
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I did this on request.
If people want me to keep flaming, they'll have to join in - I will not continue a flamewar for no point whatsoever.
Aside from +1, that is.
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24-05-2004 20:55
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