Nomads and cities from tribes!!

Hello, I am curious if someone knew this.

I was playing a multiplayer game today on Prince-level. Since I was stuck on a continent, and had about 4 triemes ready to search the sea for other civs/huts, I decided to build the LIGHTHOUSE.

When the lighthouse was built, I explored the world (large map). To my amazement, I got nomads and cities from about every hut I encountered. I think of 15 huts, I got barbarians twice and an advance, but got nomads or cities from the rest of the huts.

Now this got me thinking...is this because of the easy level (I normally play on diety in single player games), or is it because I built the LIGHTHOUSE?

Has there been any testings about this? If it is because of the lighthouse, I think this wonder deserves to be a top priority. I mean if this is statistically confirmed, I will ALWAYS build the lighthouse.

Any comments?

I'm able to build lighthouse in about half my mp ( mostly on king) games but never expierienced that, so it could be the prince level but guess it's just luck.

Leave luck out of it!! If there is something I don't have, it is luck.

No actually, if it isn't the lighthouse, it must have been the easy level. OR...maybe it's even the fact that it is a multiplayer game. Since a settler works as fast as an engineer, they could also have made it more easy to get cities from huts.

Altho nobody has pinned down a full explanation, there are many anecdotes that point to different continents being a key factor. Basically, a continent with no cities is more likely to give a nomad or city from a hut. Also, settling a nomad before the next hut pop greatly increases the likelihood of another nomad or city. Some players have reported that huts tend to produce like results, several huts in a row (including those the AI gets).

But luck helps, too...

Yeah Sodak, I have also heard about that. I don't know if I believe it though. In my games that I have played that I knew about this, I tried to take advantage of it, and entered a lot of huts on different islands. But it is very rarely that I get a city/nomad, so I have dissed those facts now. The probability of getting barbarians are really high. About 50%, at least for me. So I was chocked when I got so many cities/nomad in the mp-game. I think there has to be another factor too, like level or lighthouse.

Another observation: You tend to get proportionally more advanced tribes when mopping up small islands late in the game -> they also tend to be larger, with a temple and marketplace etc.

At what point do they become larger than size 1???

It must be fairly early. I've popped size 3 and 4 advanced tribes in the mid-game. Maybe around 500ad - 1300ad? I've never paid much heed to when, so I'm just guessing the years.

I had a great run getting advanced tribes last night - about 6 out of 10!

One thing I noticed - it appeared that I often got an advanced tribe when I entered the hut from the side, but never when I entered on the diagonal.

Nothing conclusive - but has anyone else noticed this?

Tho I've not paid enough attention to say, SG(2) at Apolyton has posted that he gets better results by entering huts from the side. Just today someone posted that they get better results if they explore the squares around the hut before popping it.