C3C Corruption: Whoa!!! - Page 3

vulture · November 12, 2003, 05:36

I'm not a big fan of this chosen 'fix' for RCP. RCP has to go, but this is the wrong way to do it, and the FP thing definitely looks like a bug. It sounds like the best you can do building the FP is to get a total civ productivity about the same as you had without the FP, and without good positioning you do worse.

I think it's fair to say that between this and the gpt bug, I'm not going to bother with conquests until a patch arrives for it.

Harovan · November 12, 2003, 05:44

A RCP fix with tied cities solved by a foundation counter (not "time", as more than one city can be built in a given turn), seems the most logical fix. The counter should even be global (only one for all civs), since cities can be gifted, be taken or culture flip.

Don't forget with all the fix proposals the completely screwed FP.

DrSpike · November 12, 2003, 06:16

There are several intuitive ways to implement the fix. Just break rank ties by order of building, or average the rank of the ring cities. With the latter you'd have to decide which rank to give an even number of cities, but you may as well round down.

The second leaves some RCP elements in place (albeit greatly reduced effects), but given the way it was implemented first I think that's probably a good thing. I mean, (as in method 1) should the rank of your new cities necessarily be increasing for EVERY city you build? I don't think so.

Provost Harrison · November 12, 2003, 06:19

I think that idea is the best Sir Ralph, it would certainly make sense. To me, it would have made sense to use a purely distance-dependent system in the first place, of course taking into account distance from the palace and the FP and both being additive, dependent on map size, etc, etc...

Stuie · November 12, 2003, 09:24

Quote:

Originally posted by notyoueither

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.

Must agree with nye here. If I had to choose, I'd want the gpt bug fixed.

Jon Miller · November 12, 2003, 09:50

I woudl prefer a pseudo random solution

like use the rank thing, and than add a +# where # depends on the number of cities at that rank

Jn Miller

Doc Tsiolkovski · November 12, 2003, 10:06

Quote:

Yes, RCP was "fixed" after the beta test ended

Not true. This bug was already in the up-to-now playable beta version, and submitted. It especially makes Conquests with no proper ways to fight corruption (Middle Ages) a major p.i.t.a....

But for me, this is good news, since now I know I can wait some more weeks for C3C without problems, and concentrate on the next DyP release.

Slax · November 12, 2003, 10:13

Quote:

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

Do cities placed in the editor have the same foundation time?

Quote:

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.

What about ties in production?

bongo · November 12, 2003, 10:35

Quote:

Do cities placed in the editor have the same foundation time?

Never used the editor...Either add foundation time to the editor or use some randomness

Quote:

What about ties in production?

With productivity, I was originally refering to the 'F11' kind of productivity but as it includes food surplus(which isn't affected by corruption, at least in PTW) a better solution would be to take the combined shields+gold+science output of a city. In case of a tie, flip a coin or use age, culture, whatever.

Fosse · November 12, 2003, 10:41

I never used RCP anyway, favoring a "natural" city placement scheme. This means I never bothered counting tiles before, but when I get Conquests I had sure as spit BETTER count tiles to make sure I don't have any "rings."

And the last thing I want are more corrupted AI civs.

I'm going to hold out for a patch that addresses this (and this after my PtW CD just shattered (in the drive!!)).

I favor the build order fix.. it's simple and intuitve, and the best human and AI cities will often tend to be the earlier ones that have had more time to grow and build infrastructure, so it nets the best advantage for both.

edited for typo

Arnelos · November 12, 2003, 11:51

Concerning the RCP "fix"...

They need to have more statisticians and fewer programmers making these rules

The solution should be obvious.

Say you have cities at the following distances:

3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6

Under the old rules, it would have produced either:

1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4
(sum of ranks is 16, where it should be 28)

or (I'm not sure from what you guys have presented):

1, 1, 1, 4, 5, 6, 6
(sum of ranks is 24, where it should be 28)

The new system with release C3C is the following:

3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 7, 7
(sum of ranks is 32, where it should be 28)

What it SHOULD be is that if you have a tie, as with ranking with a data set with certain statistical methods, you just add together the ranks that those data points would have (if they were at different distances) and average them - then assign the average rank to each data point in the tie.

So...

(1+2+3)/3 = 2 and (6+7)/2 = 6.5

thus...

2, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6.5, 6.5 (assuming this is possible with the way the math is done)

1+2+3+4+5+6+7 = 28
2+2+2+4+5+6.5+6.5 = 28
(the sum of the ranks in both cases is 28)

Since you're averaging them out, it's no more or less advantageous to build one city each at ranges 3, 4, and 5 than it is to build three cities at range 4. Thus you would be neither rewarded nor penalized for RCP, as it should be.

Dominae · November 12, 2003, 12:33

Just watch Firaxis hire a statistician in the upcoming weeks!

Fried-Psitalon · November 12, 2003, 12:35

Arenlos -

I certainly respect the logic of your position, but remember that we don't know how exactly they have such things coded, as outsiders looking in. Your "simple solution" may be as simple to them as, say, one of us being told the simple solution to our problem is to hang a cow by a piece of twine from a stoplight during the busy time for traffic.

Arnelos · November 12, 2003, 13:42

Quote:

Originally posted by Fried-Psitalon
Arenlos -

I certainly respect the logic of your position, but remember that we don't know how exactly they have such things coded, as outsiders looking in. Your "simple solution" may be as simple to them as, say, one of us being told the simple solution to our problem is to hang a cow by a piece of twine from a stoplight during the busy time for traffic.

Quote:

Originally posted by Arnelos
2, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6.5, 6.5 (assuming this is possible with the way the math is done)

That was basically what I was trying to point out with that parenthetical note there. I recognize that using fractions may not be easy with the rank system, depending on how it is coded.

Sorry if I didn't make that more clear.

That said, if it's possible to code it this way, it would certainly work better.

GhengisFarb™ · November 12, 2003, 14:06

I have a off the wall question.

What happens if you mod the rules to allow more than one FP? Does it triple the rate at which the cites are corrupt, sorta average the productive capacity amongst the three palaces?

alexman · November 12, 2003, 14:37

A second FP does increase the rate of rank increase, but slightly less than three times the original. I didn't bother to figure exact numbers because by that point I was sure it was a bug, not a feature.

Fosse · November 12, 2003, 15:01

Quote:

Originally posted by Arnelos
Since you're averaging them out, it's no more or less advantageous to build one city each at ranges 3, 4, and 5 than it is to build three cities at range 4. Thus you would be neither rewarded nor penalized for RCP, as it should be.

I hope this is possible for Firaxis, and implemented in a patch. Thanks for the explanation, Arnelos.

bongo · November 12, 2003, 15:04

So far 3 or more solutions here are better than both the old(PTW) and new(c3c) way of doing it.

Start coding!!

Fried-Psitalon · November 12, 2003, 15:10

Yeah, because what you find important is more vital than anything else they might be doing, or anything else in their lives. Get a grip and have some patience.

Or enjoy the other 99 percent of the game that works just fine. The "I'm not going to bother with Conquests until it gets a patch" people need to seriously examine themselves in the mirror. Or maybe not, because if they found they weren't completely and utterly perfect, they might not want to bother with themselves either.

Conquests is a VAST improvement, and just because it wasn't a shimmering diamond the moment you got your hands on it doesn't mean it's not worth playing. I guess all the new units, fixes to a dozen different aspects of gameplay, and all the new scenarios are completely overshadowed by one thing, eh?

Like I said, be careful not to look in the mirror, lest you find yourself imperfect too.

bongo · November 12, 2003, 15:44

Quote:

I'm not going to bother with Conquests until it gets a patch

My opinion is that I am not going to bother with conquest until I get it. As I don't have it yet(unavailable here

) I choose to amuse myself(and maybe a few others) by suggesting minor improvements. Ther may be other things that need patching more than city-rank calculations, but if they decide that it is worth the time and effort to fix it,(anything from 1 hour to a day for a skilled prorammer) we have provided them with several solutions to choose from.

statusperfect · November 12, 2003, 17:26

Quote:

Originally posted by Fried-Psitalon
Yeah, because what you find important is more vital than anything else they might be doing, or anything else in their lives. Get a grip and have some patience.

Or enjoy the other 99 percent of the game that works just fine. The "I'm not going to bother with Conquests until it gets a patch" people need to seriously examine themselves in the mirror. Or maybe not, because if they found they weren't completely and utterly perfect, they might not want to bother with themselves either.

Conquests is a VAST improvement, and just because it wasn't a shimmering diamond the moment you got your hands on it doesn't mean it's not worth playing. I guess all the new units, fixes to a dozen different aspects of gameplay, and all the new scenarios are completely overshadowed by one thing, eh?

Like I said, be careful not to look in the mirror, lest you find yourself imperfect too.

Corruption is such a fundamental part of the game that i will wait buying until I'm sure this is fixed. The developers promised RCP would be fixed... and they gave us inverted RCP. Makes me sick.

Dominae · November 12, 2003, 17:47

Quote:

Originally posted by statusperfect
Makes me sick.

Really?!

The game still plays well (i.e. is fun). Just try not to concentrate on the details and you should recover from your nausea.

Dominae

alva · November 12, 2003, 17:56

That's why people should not read these boards, most would probably never even have noticed on their own.

statusperfect · November 12, 2003, 18:16

Quote:

Originally posted by Dominae

Really?!

The game still plays well (i.e. is fun). Just try not to concentrate on the details and you should recover from your nausea.

Dominae

I'm so brutally anal when playing civ i will count ranks for every city i found to make sure it is optimal. I thought i would recover from that behavior with C3C

RobC · November 12, 2003, 18:29

Quote:

Originally posted by Dominae

Really?!

The game still plays well (i.e. is fun). Just try not to concentrate on the details

Dom, did you not see the 'perfect' part of his name?

statusperfect · November 12, 2003, 18:32

Quote:

Originally posted by alva
That's why people should not read these boards, most would probably never even have noticed on their own.

Maybe we should leave Firaxis/BA Games support alone and send some anthrax letters to alexman instead??

OPD · November 12, 2003, 19:08

So basically what this amounts to is that building a FP no longer decreases "overall" corruption due to city rank except for the -1 part of the equation.

alexman · November 12, 2003, 19:14

Well, it still decreases distance corruption for the cities that are closer to the FP than the palace.

joncnunn · November 12, 2003, 20:43

In that case, there was no need to change it if cities after the tied cities have the proper values.

Quote:

Originally posted by Sir Ralph

No, that's the way it was.

joncnunn · November 12, 2003, 20:49

But since OCN is more imporatant than distance corruption combined with the fact that the area of the palace is more developed than a typical location of the FP when there's no intention for palace hoping, it's almost certinately the case that building the FP will reduce the overall efficency of your empire curent curent civ 1.00 rules.

Quote:

Originally posted by alexman
Well, it still decreases distance corruption for the cities that are closer to the FP than the palace.