- current build overflow correction?

When a project will be finished in the current turn, mouse over the hammer number will tell you - some hammers current build overflow correction. What exactly is that? I am kind of confused.

For example. my heroic epic city is building a knight, 68/90 done, and it just needs 22 hammers for this turn to complete. Now it shows this turn's production is 46 hammers: 26 base, +25% from forge, +125% for military units (police state + heroic epic), -19 for current build overflow correction. I understand that in a normal turn (not starting or finishing a build) it's 26*(1+0.25+1.25)=26*2.5=65 hammers, and 65-19=46. But where does 19 come from and what does it do?

... It seems that it's just wasted! If I start another knight next turn, it says now total production is 89 hammers: 65 as above, +24 overflow from previous build. Why 24? Because 46-22=24. So only 46 out from the supposed 65 hammers were built in last turn, 22 completed the knight, 24 carries over to next knight. Where is the 19?!

If this is true, then micromanaging to fight waste again becomes very important, and I feel disappointed for it.

You get the -19 even if you build another unit? It's there because the 100% production bonus you get from Heroic Epic doesn't overflow, but I thought it did if you kept producing units.

Gufnork said:

You get the -19 even if you build another unit? It's there because the 100% production bonus you get from Heroic Epic doesn't overflow, but I thought it did if you kept producing units.

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Yes, that's why I feel shocked. Didn't they say everything will carry over?

My hypothesis
you have
65 hammers going to that knight,
22 will be used

43 remaining (overflow)...but only the 'generic hammers' can overflow so
43/(1+1.25)=19 where 1.25 is the 'special' bonus (sounds really wierd but this seems to explain the number)

It does seem like some degree of mm may be working its way back in... because the truly (non mm) correct math Should be
1.. CBO should be for ALL bonuses. So the CBO really should be 43*1.5/(1+1.5)=25 or 26 depending on rounding
2.. the overflow should then get all bonuses (be added to base shields) so the remaining 17 or 18 (43-25 or 26) is added to your base of 26 for a (1 turn) base of 43 or 44... leading to 53/54 hammers for a building or 107/110 for a unit.

With this math, the most you would lose/gain from MM is 1 hammer due to rounding

Krikkitone said:

My hypothesis
you have
65 hammers going to that knight,
22 will be used

43 remaining (overflow)...but only the 'generic hammers' can overflow so
43/(1+1.25)=19 where 1.25 is the 'special' bonus (sounds really wierd but this seems to explain the number)

It does seem like some degree of mm may be working its way back in... because the truly correct math should be
1.. CBO should be for ALL bonuses. So the CBO really should be 43*1.5/(1+1.5)=25 or 26 depending on rounding
2.. the overflow should then get all bonuses (be added to base shields) so the remaining 17 or 18 (43-25 or 26) is added to your base of 26 for a (1 turn) base of 43 or 44... leading to 53/54 hammers for a building or 107/110 for a unit.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm guessing the similar way. At least, this current build overflow correction can be in any city, not limitied to the heroic epic one. For example, another city is building knight, 73/90 done, the total production now is 18: base 13, +25% from forge, +25% from police state, -1 overflow correction. Well, you can guess that the 25% from police state is lost.

Anyway, the huge question is: is MM still needed?!

one thing to test would be. Using the knight example you gave, add another knight to the build que after it and take a look at how many shields are carried over, is it the full amount including modifiers or reduced still? because it may just be that the specific bonus' are added AS the hammers go into the production while non-specific bonuses are done before then.

Heroes said:

Anyway, the huge question is: is MM still needed?!

Click to expand...

I believe the answer to that is a simple "No". If for no other reason than that all methods of micromanaging will result in a lower number of hammers being carried over to your next build. Sure, you can play with tile usage to reduce the number of hammers "thrown away", in order to increase food or commerce in the city for that one turn. But when you reduce these wasted hammers, you are also reducing the number of base hammers that you get to carry over. So unless you are not going to be building anything ever again in that city (setting it to wealth/culture/research), it doesn't strike me that micromanaging gets you much of anything. All you are doing is trading base hammers for base food/commerce. Which is true regardless of whether or not building bonuses exist. Since these "wasted hammers" are imaginary to begin with, there is nothing to be gained.

For example, say you are working a mined hill which gives you 4 hammers. You micromanage and switch that to a tile producing 4 food instead. So what is the result? You get 4 extra food for 1 turn, and 5 fewer hammers carried over for your next build (1 extra hammer with your forge). The herioc epic could give a 1% bonus, a 100% bonus, or a 10000000% bonus. The fundamental benefit of micromanaging does not change.


I believe the mechanic is working as intended. Imagine for a moment, the below scenario:

You are running police state and organized religion. As such, this one city you have has a production bonus of 25% for military units, and 25% production bonus for buildings.

Ask yourself the following question:

If you are building a military unit, and have "wasted" overflow from that build from the 25% bonus, shouldn't you get this overflow if you make a military unit the next turn?

Judging by your posts, I think you believe this answer to be yes.


Then ask yourself this:

If you are building a unit, and have "wasted" overflow from that build from the 25% bonus, shouldn't you get that overflow if you make a building the next turn, since you have the very same 25% bonus for making buildings?


I think the logic that is used to answer this last question is why non-generic production bonuses do not carry over in the game.

rayw69 said:

I believe the mechanic is working as intended. Imagine for a moment, the below scenario:

You are running police state and organized religion. As such, this one city you have has a production bonus of 25% for military units, and 25% production bonus for buildings.

Ask yourself the following question:

If you are building a military unit, and have "wasted" overflow from that build from the 25% bonus, shouldn't you get this overflow if you make a military unit the next turn?

Judging by your posts, I think you believe this answer to be yes.


Then ask yourself this:

If you are building a unit, and have "wasted" overflow from that build from the 25% bonus, shouldn't you get that overflow if you make a building the next turn, since you have the very same 25% bonus for making buildings?


I think the logic that is used to answer this last question is why non-generic production bonuses do not carry over in the game.

Click to expand...

The problem is the mechanic isn't working like that, the numbers are being calculated..well wrong

example: the 43 overflow hammers in the original situation
if that is broken up it comes to
Base=17.4=43/(1+.25+1.25)
Forge=4.35=Base *0.25
'Special' bonus=21.75=Base*1.25

Now admitedly there is rounding involved...but the Current build overflow should be 21.75 (21 or 22) if all generic bonuses carry over.
OR if No bonuses carry over it should be 26.1 (26 or 27) instead we get 19.... a ridiculous number that shows no resemblance to any possible Proper allocation.

The point is this does require MM in the sense of 'sculpting' the city so as to finish with the Maximum or Minimum carry over to get the most out of those errors.
for example
build sequence Knight->Knight
you want to minimize carry over because carried hammers won't get the full bonus.
build sequence Knight->Temple
you want to MAXimize carry over because carried hammers will get more bonus than they should.
build sequence temple->Knight
you want to Minimize carry over because carried hammers won't get the bonus than they should.


This Only works if you have both a generic + non generic bonus working at the same time

The game could of fixed itself by reducing the price of items instead of increasing hammers...

KAuss said:

The game could of fixed itself by reducing the price of items instead of increasing hammers...

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Not really, what happens if you are mostly through a Wonder for example and you get some bonus that 'drops the cost' to less than you have already put in.. It's as if you had the bonus the whole time you were building it.

The current method is better, but they need a better way to do it (only carrying over base shields and adding the carry over to the base shields of the next turn would be the best.

Krikkitone said:

The problem is the mechanic isn't working like that, the numbers are being calculated..well wrong

example: the 43 overflow hammers in the original situation
if that is broken up it comes to
Base=17.4=43/(1+.25+1.25)
Forge=4.35=Base *0.25
'Special' bonus=21.75=Base*1.25

Now admitedly there is rounding involved...but the Current build overflow should be 21.75 (21 or 22) if all generic bonuses carry over.
OR if No bonuses carry over it should be 26.1 (26 or 27) instead we get 19.... a ridiculous number that shows no resemblance to any possible Proper allocation.

The point is this does require MM in the sense of 'sculpting' the city so as to finish with the Maximum or Minimum carry over to get the most out of those errors.
for example
build sequence Knight->Knight
you want to minimize carry over because carried hammers won't get the full bonus.
build sequence Knight->Temple
you want to MAXimize carry over because carried hammers will get more bonus than they should.
build sequence temple->Knight
you want to Minimize carry over because carried hammers won't get the bonus than they should.


This Only works if you have both a generic + non generic bonus working at the same time

Click to expand...

You are right about the math being wrong. IMO, in the OP's scenario, only 21.5, or 21 hammers should be carried over to the next build, and not 24.

rayw69 said:

You are right about the math being wrong. IMO, in the OP's scenario, only 21.5, or 21 hammers should be carried over to the next build, and not 24.

Click to expand...

Well it depends, if he's producing a building next, only 21 hammers should carry over. If he's making another Knight, all 43 should carry over. (easiest way to do this being to make the base hammers only carry over AS base hammers, ie the bonuses get applied to the carry over.)

so he would have 17 carry over, which would be 21 with the Forge for a building, or 42 for a knight (one would be lost due to rounding, but that's small enough to not spur MM)

I think the problem with the overflow is that there is no simple way to do the math and they just did it wrong. As other people point out its ******** to apply the bonus to production of hammers, they shoudl reduce the cost of the items being made instead. It's the only way to make this retardedly complicated thing simple. I mean the leader traits already reduce the cost... Just apply it to civics/wonders.

Krikkitone said:

Well it depends, if he's producing a building next, only 21 hammers should carry over. If he's making another Knight, all 43 should carry over. (easiest way to do this being to make the base hammers only carry over AS base hammers, ie the bonuses get applied to the carry over.)

so he would have 17 carry over, which would be 21 with the Forge for a building, or 42 for a knight (one would be lost due to rounding, but that's small enough to not spur MM)

Click to expand...

In the example, whatever I build next, a unit or a building, I also get the same 24 overflow and 19 waste. This looks very absurd. And it seems to me that MM is strongly encouraged.

Astax said:

I think the problem with the overflow is that there is no simple way to do the math and they just did it wrong. As other people point out its ******** to apply the bonus to production of hammers, they shoudl reduce the cost of the items being made instead. It's the only way to make this retardedly complicated thing simple. I mean the leader traits already reduce the cost... Just apply it to civics/wonders.

Click to expand...

The issue is that Civics and Wonders can change throughout the game, Leaders can't. Imagine switching to organized religion when something was 80% done...should it instantly finish because now it costs 20% less?

The fact is there IS a simple way to do the math
Either
Overflow Correction=Extra Hammers * All Bonuses / (1+ All bonuses)
OR
Overflow=Extra Hammers / (1+ All bonuses)

Then add the Overflow to the BASE hammers of the next turn...you will lose/gain at most 1 or 2 hammers due to rounding.

Krikkitone said:

The issue is that Civics and Wonders can change throughout the game, Leaders can't. Imagine switching to organized religion when something was 80% done...should it instantly finish because now it costs 20% less?

The fact is there IS a simple way to do the math
Either
Overflow Correction=Extra Hammers * All Bonuses / (1+ All bonuses)
OR
Overflow=Extra Hammers / (1+ All bonuses)

Then add the Overflow to the BASE hammers of the next turn...you will lose/gain at most 1 or 2 hammers due to rounding.

Click to expand...

Yes, the 2nd way should be simple and accurate. It seems that the program is partly using the 1st way, but forgets to get bonuses back for next build!

I spent some hours testing all this, and here's how I think it works:

The easy part: Overflow from the previous building/unit is used without multipliers, that means no matter what wonder, civic, resource or forge/factory you have available, and no matter what you build next, the overflow shields will be used as if nothing was there.

The exact number of hammers carried over is always the amount of current total production (as shown in the city screen) minus the hammers necessary to complete the current building/unit (as shown in the city screen). This is what's called "overflow" in the next turn.

Now what's that "overflow correction"? You get that when something produced with a special bonus (anything but forge/factory) will finish at the end of this turn, producing overflow.

Normally, correction and resulting overflow are spread 1:1 for a 100% bonus (unit w/epic or stonehenge w/stone). For example total production 60, scout costs 40, correction 10, overflow for next build 10. That's how it should work since static multipliers (forge) are not taken into account. So, you never loose overflow from forges, but (and this may be deliberate) you always loose overflow from special multipliers - no matter what you build next. You can never win hammers with e.g. Knight->Temple, as a previous post suggests.

However, and now things become weird, the ratio correction/overflow (normally 1.0) decreases for heavily increasing production.
My observation is that, at least for a 100% bonus, the correction will never exceed half the amount of base production. For example, imagine a base production of 100, total hammers 225, overflow without correction 225-40=185. Correction is capped at 100/2, so actual overflow/correction = 135/50 = 2.7. This is the situation where you can actually win hammers with "Knight->Temple", and it's clearly an exploit.

Now let's take a look at the OP's example. The difference is the special multiplier of 125% instead of 100%. The numbers clearly show that correction and overflow aren't spread 1:1, but 100% : 125% (19:25). But it should be exactly the other way round, less overflow but more loss! So this is cleary a bug...although, maybe there's the correction cap in effect already...with a base of 26, base/2 < 19, but 26*(25% + 125%) / 2 = 19. Maybe that's how the correction cap works: correction < (base * total bonus / 2).

Conclusion:
The overflow correction calculation might be deliberate, but it's certainly not how it was advertised.
-> You loose every special bonus overflow, no matter what you produce next.
-> At very high excess production the correction is capped, which can be used as an exploit by maximizing overflow to non-bonus projects.

Time for a bug report

Heroes said:

Yes, the 2nd way should be simple and accurate. It seems that the program is partly using the 1st way, but forgets to get bonuses back for next build!

Click to expand...

Well it seems what they are doing is
1. Overflow Correction=Extra Hammers * Special Bonuses / (1+ Special bonuses)

Capping that

And then adding it in without applying bonuses. This has a few problems

1-as karmina mentioned, if you have very large Special bonuses and move on to something with no special bonuses, then you get a bonus for overflow (due to cap)

2-If you move to something with special bonuses you get a penalty for overflow (due to direct adding in...although this penalty may be lessened due to the cap)

3-If you have a generic Bonus (forge, Factory) then the penalty is larger than it should be (you Should have a correction of Extra * Special / (1+GENERIC+Special) ) instead you divide by 1+special...divide by smaller number, means larger correction than you should have. (if the cap was not inplace the 'example correction would be 24 not 21 as it should be or 19 as the cap makes it)

So MM guidelines, if this is not changed

If any special bonuses are involved in your current build or the build after it, you want to minimize overflow, but it is still useful.

The one exception is when You have
1-Very large special bonus for your current build (over 100%)
2-Very small special bonus for your next build (25% may be too high)
3-A small Generic Bonus (Forge Only, No Factories, Ironworks, etc.)

Further investigations on a size 38 occ capital:

-> The generic bonus (here 250%) does indeed not matter for any overflow correction calculation.
@Krikkitone: I'm afraid you're wrong there. Just look at it as "enhanced base production".
/EDIT: sorry, my mistake. You're right, more hammers are wasted with generic boni involved

-> When correction caps aren't involved, everything works as intended (except for the loss of special bonus overflow of course): ratio of correction to actual overflow is 1/1 for 100%, 1.25/1.0 for 125% with more correction than overflow, and 1.75/1.0 for 175% bonus (civic+wonder+docks for ships).

-> The hidden meaning of correction caps are still a mystery to me, but their values are definitely:

0.500 * base hammers for 100% bonus (-> 0.50 * base remains)
0.700 * base hammers for 125% bonus (-> 0.55...)
0.900 * base hammers for 150% bonus (-> 0.60...)
1.125 * base hammers for 175% bonus (-> 0.625..)

The next highest integer defines the maximum correction, so that explains the OPs 19 correction hammers: 26*0.7 = 18.2
Probably these cap factors are hard coded, since I have no idea how you can fit them into one simple formula.

So what's the worst exploit? Clearly you need a MAXIMUM of generic boni, since the cap is scaled by the base value only. My city can produce about 70 base hammers. Build a worker boat(25). Total production would be ideally 70*(1+250%+175%) = 367. Correction w/o cap would be (367-25)*1.75/2.75 = 218, but it's capped at 70*1.125 = 79. So we have cheated 139 hammers in one turn. You can even win more with any unit by maximizing overflow.
/EDIT: w/o generic boni this would be (192-25)*1.75/2.75 = 107 not capped, 79 capped, 28 hammers won.
/EDIT: even when comparing to the case how it should work, the above scenario with generic boni is still best: (367-25)*1.75/5.25 = 114 > 107 > 79

(What's worse, overflows stack so it's no problem to build a coupla nukes or spaceships at a rate of one each turn. Not directly related to the correction bug, but that's another serious exploit: Wonder prebuilds)

Krikkitone said:

The issue is that Civics and Wonders can change throughout the game, Leaders can't. Imagine switching to organized religion when something was 80% done...should it instantly finish because now it costs 20% less?

Click to expand...

I'd imagined the remainder would be 80% so it would be 80% done 16% to go. The hammers spent on a building already cant be reclaimed or transfered to another building. The game remebers partially completed structures for one turn I think if you accidentily remove something from queue, or is it till you leave the city screen, either way this could work. It woudl work exactly how the current production bonuses from civics are transfered to partially completed structers since it would only calculate the bonus for unfinished part.