20K Culture Calculator (in Excel)

[SirPleb]

(Edit) This thread contains two spreadsheets which can be used to calculate/project a 20K culture victory. This first post contains a spreadsheet I wrote. In the 5th post AlanH has posted a zip file containing a spreadsheet started by Greebley and then much enhanced by AlanH. You might prefer either or both spreadsheets (End of Edit)


This is an Excel worksheet I developed to help me in a 20K culture game.

It has a row for each Civ wonder/ city improvement which increases culture. For each one you enter an indicator for whether it should be included/excluded from the projection and if included you enter the year it is built.

The spreadsheet can be used in two modes:
1) For the given improvements, project the 20K culture date.
2) For the given improvements, calculate the city's culture at a particular date.

There's an "Instructions" button at the top-left of the spreadsheet which will display brief usage instructions.

When prompted by Excel while opening it, you must enable macros for the spreadsheet to work.

It may have some glitches (I have checked it through one 20K culture game and it was bang on for that game), and the user interface isn't wonderful, but here it is in case anyone wants it:

Click here to download 20K calculator

Edit: updated spreadsheet on 2004/6/26, added Conquests wonders.

[mad-bax]

This is really helpful SirPleb. Thanks.

How difficult would it be to allow manual input of the start and finish dates of Anarchy and use that information in the formulae?

How difficult would it be to allow manual input of Civ characteristcs (Scientific/religious) to adjust the shield cost of temples etc.?

BTW. I've checked it with my last GOTM and it was correct, but it was difficult (for me) to work out exactly how much culture I lost due to anarchy.

Again, thanks.

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by mad-bax
How difficult would it be to allow manual input of the start and finish dates of Anarchy and use that information in the formulae?

How difficult would it be to allow manual input of Civ characteristcs (Scientific/religious) to adjust the shield cost of temples etc.?

Allowing for anarchy would be a bit tricky in the spreadsheet, and I think very tricky when allowing for the possibility of multiple periods of anarchy within one game.

Adjusting the shields for Civ characteristics looks easy.

I'm not going to jump in right away though, I'm going to mull over how anarchy might be handled. I'm thinking about redoing the whole thing as a C# exercise - if I do that it should be easy to include. Might be a while before I do either (update spreadsheet or replace with a program) - I want to get into GOTM22 first

[AlanH]

I just realised that this thread exists and overlaps with Greebley's thread over in GOTM at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showth...hreadid=60121.

In that thread I have posted a modified version of the Excel calculator that Greebley and Co evolved that handles the anarchy periods as well (I think). It also avoid macros and such, and certainly goes nowhere near C#, as that might injure the health of my trusty Mac.

Take a look and see if it does the job. It ought not be too difficult to make it add up the shield costs as well. I'll take a look at that.

[AlanH]

Here is a copy of the latest version (v6) of the Excel 20K Culture calculator I posted recently in the GOTM forum. It does some of the things Sir Pleb's does, but also includes anarchy handling and gives shield costs for scientific and/or religious civs.

Version 6 has some extra Help words and a bit of conditional cell formatting. But its algorithms are unchanged from those that have been verified against in-game results by several GOTM22 players in version 5.

For those of a nervous disposition, it doesn't use macros. Unfortunately it does depend on one Excel function - SUMIF() - that those nice people at OpenOffice.org have chosen not to implement, at least not in the version I have, so you'll have to use M$ Excel to run it.

Please let me know if you spot any problems, or if it needs additional facilities.

The latest version is now maintained as an attachment to the next post.

Enjoy

[AlanH]

[Edit 4 June 2005]
V10 now attached. 1195 previous downloads of version 9.

A new layout on multiple sheets and a graph added following some ideas input by Dianthus. It also has flags to exclude improvements for quick what-if testing and a table of improvements and their costs, requirements and benefits, like SirPleb's calculator.

Note. It now appears that this tool is a more accurate predictor of your 20K culture victory date than the F5 screen. There have been a couple of reports that F5 displayed an incorrect culture total for a city, resulting in 20K victory NOT happening when F5 said it should.

Now supports Conquests.

[RougeKing]

AlanH
I just dowladed your calculator.
I can now try for a 20K victory. I have heard about them but never understood the details.

Thanks

[AlanH]

@RougeKing: I've never completed a 20K myself yet, but there are lots of interesting games about to study. There's a particularly fun SG here. The required victory condition includes TWO 20K culture cities, PLUS domination PLUS 100K culture on the same turn, and they are getting close to achieving it. It's been running since July, and I think they are using an earlier version of this spreadsheet to forecast and synchronise the two 20K cities.

[TedJackson]

AlanH,

I'm also using a slightly modified version of your spreadsheet for TJ01: Famous Five which is a 100K 5CC with each city needing to make 20K culture to win.


Ted

[AlanH]

i must confess I've only scratched the surface of the SG forums. There are only 30 hours in a day - I'll swear that used to be only 24?! I'll mosey on down to TJ01 real soon now.

I hardly like to interrupt the intense concentration of these private paries, but I noticed there was a small discrepency reported in the spreadsheet results in the double whammy. There has been almost total silence on the value or otherwise of this tool since GOTM22, so any feedback is interesting. I guess I should check the current save file against your spreadsheet and try to find your discrepency.

How far have you got with TJ01? And how are the results comparing so far?

[TedJackson]

TJ01 is fine apart from just 1 minor niggle, which might well have been a single turn riot.

I corrected it exactly by adding a 1 turn anarchy to the offending city

MB1 is a little further adrift but not too much. As it was the first time we'd used the tool we weren't exactly sure what to expect but it's worked really well for us


Ted

[TedJackson]

@AlanH

I realised that I've been using a modified v6 which had just started to exhibit errors in TJ01 (2nd anarchy perod causing the problem). I switched to v9 and everything seems to be fine.

The only anomaly I've noticed is that it's possible for the predicted Culture per Turn figure to differ from that displayed in-game. This is due, I suspect, to the fact that the calculator displays the end of turn cpt rather than the in turn cpt.

So, good job AlanH


Ted

[AlanH]

Originally posted by TedJackson
I realised that I've been using a modified v6 which had just started to exhibit errors in TJ01 (2nd anarchy perod causing the problem). I switched to v9 and everything seems to be fine.

Thanks for the feedback, Ted, that's good to hear. I did introduce an error in the anarchy stuff at one of the revisions and remove it later. I was using absolute references to the turn list cells and moved them wthout telling the calculator. I think it only made a diffference if a 1000 year doubling happened around the time of the anarchy. You probably fell over that one

The only anomaly I've noticed is that it's possible for the predicted Culture per Turn figure to differ from that displayed in-game. This is due, I suspect, to the fact that the calculator displays the end of turn cpt rather than the in turn cpt.

That's interesting! I think it actually means the game is displaying the culture just added, not the culture about to be added. I could change it in the calculator of course, and remove the anomaly, but it doesn't seem logical to me, Captain!

I've noticed references to Apollo in connection with 100K culture predictions. Does that handle anarchy? If not, is there any demand for something along the lines of the 20K tool that could do multi-city predictions?

[TedJackson]

Originally posted by AlanH

Thanks for the feedback, Ted, that's good to hear. I did introduce an error in the anarchy stuff at one of the revisions and remove it later. I was using absolute references to the turn list cells and moved them wthout telling the calculator. I think it only made a diffference if a 1000 year doubling happened around the time of the anarchy. You probably fell over that one

Oh well, that's what testers are for

Originally posted by AlanH
That's interesting! I think it actually means the game is displaying the culture just added, not the culture about to be added. I could change it in the calculator of course, and remove the anomaly, but it doesn't seem logical to me, Captain!

It's not a problem. I checked by hitting end turn and then comparing again, at which point the numbers tally. I just pointed it out so that other users would be aware.

I suppose, strictly speaking, that the calculator should display the CPt for the end of the preceding game turn but it's not a biggie for me.

Originally posted by AlanH
I've noticed references to Apollo in connection with 100K culture predictions. Does that handle anarchy? If not, is there any demand for something along the lines of the 20K tool that could do multi-city predictions?

I guess we'll know the answer to that question fairly soon as MB1 is definitely approaching the end

I think that the only real use for a multi-city version is the 5CC variant (but I could be wrong). I'll post a copy of my 5CC version once I've tidied it up.


Ted

[bradleyfeanor]

Dear SirPleb and AlanH,

Love your calculators! Knowing you guys have lots of free time (because you never play, post articles or write other utilities ) Are there any plans to update one of these calcs for C3C?

Brad

[AlanH]

I'd love to add C3C support to mine, but as I don't have C3C and can't run it, I'm not sure how to go about it. If there are simply a few more wonders to include in the wonder table, I can add them if there's a list somewhere. Are there any additional changes to the basic rules, such as 1000 year doubling or the effect of anarchy? Any other strange new culture effects?

[bradleyfeanor]

AFAIK, the only change is the new wonders. They include: Statue of Zeus, cost 200, 4cpt; Mausoleum of Mausollos, cost 200, 2cpt; Knights Templar, cost 300, 2cpt; Temple of Artemis, cost 500, 4cpt.

I think that is all of them. Thanks Alan!

[AlanH]

Originally Posted by bradleyfeanor

AFAIK, the only change is the new wonders. They include: Statue of Zeus, cost 200, 4cpt; Mausoleum of Mausollos, cost 200, 2cpt; Knights Templar, cost 300, 2cpt; Temple of Artemis, cost 500, 4cpt.

I think that is all of them. Thanks Alan!

Where do they appear in the sequence, or should I just put them at the end of the list as a C3C group? Are they all Great Wonders?

Do you know if any of the existing wonders change their cost or benefits in C3C?

[AlanH]

Follow up question:

i've looked around the Intelligence center for C3C wonder info, and can find zilch. It doesn't seem to have been updated at all for C3C. What are pre-requisite techs for these wonders, and does anything make them obsolete? Also, a small point, what are the benefits gained by building them?

[bradleyfeanor]

Yeah, the intelligence center doesn't seem to have been updated in quite a while. Maybe someone should be recruited to add a "Conquests additions/changes" section at the end?

Anyway, these are all great wonders.

Wonder > Requires > Obsolete > Effect
Zeus > Math > Metallurgy > Requires Ivory and gives an ancient cavalry (3/2/2) every five turns.
Mausoleum of Mausollos > Philosophy > never expires > makes 3 people content
Knights Templar > Chivalry > Steam Power > Gives a Crusader (5/2/1) every five turns.
Temple of Artemis > Polytheism > Education > Free temple in every city on the continent.

My own 2 cents on the wonders: I find Zeus to be extremely effective, so having ivory is great in Conquests. Knights Templar is too close to cavalry, so I have never found a use for it. I think Mausoleum would only be of use in a 20k game, and the Temple of Artemis is great to capture, but way too expensive to build by hand. It also has a nasty side effect of not being able to build a "real" temple until is expires. It is great for expanding the borders in captured cities though!

I know none of the ancient, middle or industrial wonders changed their effects/costs. I don't think the modern ones did either, but I am not 100% on that. I never make it to modern times .

Does Firaxis plan to get a Mac version out for the poor "less than 10%" in the world?