C3C Corruption: Whoa!!! - Page 2

Arrian · November 11, 2003, 18:07

Excellent. You have been re-educated, citizen Dominae. Your doctrine is now correct. We are proud of you. [/Big Brother voice]

-Arrian

Catt · November 11, 2003, 18:12

I knew I wasn't hallucinating when my first game of C3C had a corruption flavor more akin to my first game of (unpatched) Vanilla Civ than to a recent game of PTW

.

For a moment, I had the feeling that the changes were actually by design -- and necessitated the increase in the OCN found in C3C -- but if the SPHQ actually increases corruption in communism, then I guess it is safe to say that this is a goof.

Catt

dexters · November 11, 2003, 18:14

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian
The AI in PTW also used to build its FP close in, which Alexman notes is really bad in Conquests. So if the AI is still doing that... it's really getting screwed.

Which may help explain the "X" factor I couldn't put my finger on in my game we're talking about in the other thread.

-Arrian

AI is still doing that. Here's a shot from my debug game.

Take that as a sample. The other Civ in the game also went for a close fp placement.

WarpStorm · November 11, 2003, 18:54

Firaxis is looking at it right now

Theseus · November 11, 2003, 19:01

Was alexman as beta tester?

WarpStorm · November 11, 2003, 19:03

It wouldn't have mattered. This wasn't happening in the beta (the beta ended a while ago).

alexman · November 11, 2003, 19:05

Quote:

Originally posted by Theseus
Was alexman as beta tester?

It depends on whether the copy I just received from Amazon today is a beta release...

DrSpike · November 11, 2003, 19:40

Good work Alexman. Bad result. I'm having a hard time deciding whether the FP thing or the anti-RCP factor is more ludicrous. On balance I think the anti-RCP snatches the award by a whisker.

Jamski · November 11, 2003, 19:47

I'm laughing my arse off actually. Its like watching a bomb dropped into an ant hill

Your precious RCP exploit has been taken away from you!

-Jam

Panzer32 · November 11, 2003, 19:52

Quote:

Originally posted by Jamski
I'm laughing my arse off actually. Its like watching a bomb dropped into an ant hill

Your precious RCP exploit has been taken away from you!

-Jam

IIRC most people wanted to get rid of RCP. However, the way they fixed it was as bad as it was originally - now we'll just make sure NOT to put any cities at the same distance!

DrSpike · November 11, 2003, 19:54

Don't be an ass Jamski...........not many would argue with an RCP nerf. But this is like nerfing an AK-47 by using a nuclear bomb on it. The 'solution' is hamfisted, and is actually worse than the problem.

DrSpike · November 11, 2003, 19:58

Quote:

Originally posted by Panzer32

IIRC most people wanted to get rid of RCP. However, the way they fixed it was as bad as it was originally - now we'll just make sure NOT to put any cities at the same distance!

Yes, but that is far worse. Just think how many 'natural' city placement schemes are adversely affected, especially since firaxian distances are rounded down.

Jamski · November 11, 2003, 20:03

Quote:

Don't be an ass Jamski

Sorry.

I just get carried away on occasions like this. I felt the same when people complained that they couldn't plant and harvest forests for ever

And I never liked the FP idea anyway, so anything that stopsit being effective is good by me. More corruption, maybe the AI won't build soooooooo many units anymore.

-Jam

DrSpike · November 11, 2003, 20:07

Well it would only be the same as this 'fix' if they had removed IFE and replaced it with -100 shields for every forest chopped down.

joncnunn · November 11, 2003, 20:11

Not sure about the paticlar fix, all they needed to do was something like

Changing from 1, 2 (tie), 2 (tie), 2 (tie), 3 to 1, 2 (tie), 2 (tie), 2 (tie), 5 would have fixed the exploit IMHO.

But 1, 5 (tie), 5 (tie), 5 (tie), 5 (tie) isn't unreasonable.

Guess I won't build any FP unless corruption rules are changed. I see no point in simply redisputing which cities are corrupted.

Louis XXIV · November 11, 2003, 20:35

What not make a ring cause the result (* indicates city in a ring) of 1, 2*, 3*, 4*, 5.

Randomly determining which city gets which corruption.

vmxa1 · November 11, 2003, 20:39

I really hate to see them punish OCP or a near OCP style.

Louis XXIV · November 11, 2003, 20:46

OCP?

dagta · November 11, 2003, 20:50

What is the ring exploit?
I've always placed my cities in a grid pattern with four squares in between so there is no resource overlap or waste.
-Dagta

Harovan · November 11, 2003, 21:04

Quote:

Originally posted by joncnunn
Changing from 1, 2 (tie), 2 (tie), 2 (tie), 3 to 1, 2 (tie), 2 (tie), 2 (tie), 5 would have fixed the exploit IMHO.

No, that's the way it was.

statusperfect · November 11, 2003, 21:06

Corruption within each circle should be calculated by culture.

asleepathewheel · November 11, 2003, 21:11

Quote:

Originally posted by WarpStorm
Firaxis is looking at it right now

I don't know why they can't keep the rings in, but just have a random corruption assingment, say within +/- percentage of other cities in the ring. make it less perfect than it was, but better than it is.

edit: I really have no clue how it works, so maybe I shouldn't type random thoughts

Dominae · November 11, 2003, 22:13

Quote:

Originally posted by WarpStorm
It wouldn't have mattered. This wasn't happening in the beta (the beta ended a while ago).

Yes, RCP was "fixed" after the beta test ended (which is why no tester could answer any specific questions about it!). They had to let us go sometime and start preparing the release version, and this is just something that slipped through the cracks.

Given all the stuff in C3C (the Conquests, for example!), I'm quite happy that this is the biggest patch-worthy problem encountered thus far.

How would you guys fix RCP? Keep in mind that simple, easy-to-implement solutions are preferred.

Dominae

Dominae · November 11, 2003, 22:19

I think the fix should look something like:

Each city in a ring is ordered by rank. Ones at the beginning of this ordering suffer lower Corruption, ones toward the end suffer higher Corruption. To calculate this, a simple factor could be introduced, such as: b^(n-r), where b is some constant, n is the total number of cities in the ring, and r is the rank of a certain city. Choosing b would be the most difficult part here, but at least the formula is easily calibrated.

Dominae

vmxa1 · November 11, 2003, 23:15

Quote:

Originally posted by Louis XXIV
OCP?

Sorry it is Optimal City Placement. This is usually taken to mean CxxxxC. It allows you to use all of the squares in the city.
At lower levels a placement sort of like that can be use to not leave any open tiles say size 19. This is where you lay them out so that only 19 tiles are available in a given city, but you have no gaps or dead tiles either.
This type of pattern will lead to the early cities being at equal distance near the palace. It seems that will be punished now as a means of crippling the RCP.

vmxa1 · November 11, 2003, 23:21

Dom I wold just let them come up with a number and that would be allowed for the first X cities after the capitol. The same for FP.
So if it is 4, then the first 4 will be rank one, then next four rank 2.
This is simple and we can understand it. It allows us to get the good corruption of being close to the two hubs.
Drop distance as it will sort of be included anyway. I mean the 22nd city wil not be all that close, so do we really care how far it is away?
Civs can control corruption at any distance if they choose to, they just use more resources to accomplish it, so we ignore distance.

Dominae · November 11, 2003, 23:40

That would be a major change from the current Corruption system, vmxa1. I doubt they'll go for something like that.

Dominae

Sarxis · November 12, 2003, 00:27

I'm wondering, is there any interim fix that we could mod into the game, or is this stuff pretty hard-coded?

notyoueither · November 12, 2003, 00:50

Quote:

Originally posted by Dominae
Given all the stuff in C3C (the Conquests, for example!), I'm quite happy that this is the biggest patch-worthy problem encountered thus far.

I think the gpt bug is bigger. Unless you think that AI civs should have 20 or 30,000 gold in the bank.

bongo · November 12, 2003, 03:53

Alexman

on the analysis,

on the results though

This is worse than I thought

Ok, so RCP was a corruption exploit, but it was also a very valid defensive strategy(breaking the ring pattern won't break the defensive value but still...)

The simplest way to fix the RCP-exploit is to base rank on foundation time.

The 'best' fix would be to give best rank to the city that would benefit most from it. So if two cities are at the same distance, the one with the highest productivity gets the best rank.

No big deal in computer time either, ranks need to be recalculated only once each turn.