Firaxis: Corruption Breakdown

[Tavis]

FYI, the full patch final release won't occur until June. (Q2, '04) Monthly updates will be posted with the latest additions. Code lockdown will occur early May with just bug fixing from then on. Once I smooth out the installation & setup easy version switching I hope that everyone uses the Beta monthly updates. June is pretty far away!


Thanks SirPleb, I'm sure there will be all kinds of "critics" with the code. Its the side effect of an engine being used since Gettysburg and having numerous Lead Programmers/Architects and Developers working on it!

The side effect: C IV is a culmination of an incredible amount of hard learned lessons! Gotta love the fresh start!

 

[Yeti]

SirPleb:

That's a good point, and I know that I'm a prime offender. I try hard to understand as much as I can about game mechanics, and in the process I often come up with new ideas (new to me - they may already be doing much of what I think of!), some of which I post. Perhaps Tavis can make clear what level of feedback he would like in the event that they do post some code chunks. That way I (and others) will know whether we should review the code purely for bugs, or whether suggestions at the implementation or even design levels would also be appreciated.

anarres:

With a final fix approaching, at which point things will likely be set in stone for a while, I believe this is the best time to discuss the optimal way for the FP to work. Of course Firaxis won't necessarily agree with whatever conclusion we reach, but they do appear to be listening and interested in hearing feedback, and we all enjoy discussing our favorite game So let's take a shot at it.

There appear to be three slants on this:

1) Fix the bugs and leave the FP as it was in PTW. This is the currently planned design.

- Effect: The FP both increases the OCN (decreases corruption due to number of cities) and acts as a new capital (decreases corruption due to distance for those cities closer to the FP than they are to the palace).

- Pros: This makes the FP very powerful, allowing a civ to have a second cluster of highly productive cities. As a non-change it also minimizes coding and testing efforts and associated risks.

- Cons: The AI is not good at placing the FP, and therefore human players gain a substantially greater benefit from the FP. It creates an environment where the palace jump trick/exploit thrives. It rewards war mongering as well (Sorry, I'm not clear on this portion of Alexman's argument. Did he mean the fact that it can be built using a leader in a highly corrupt area, the fact that when you take over another civ's core you often gain a prime spot for your FP (or to jump your palace to), or that those that take over a lot of territory / cities benefit the most from the FP's reduced corruption? Isn't the first point no longer a factor with science leaders, and the third one not really a point since the OCN increase would exist regardless of which FP format is used?)

- Possible tweak: The FP could be made more powerful for the AI to help rebalance things. Perhaps remove the distance benefit for the AI (to avoid overpowering it in cases where the AI accidentally did place it well) and instead have it give a civ-wide percent reduction in corruption.

- Possible tweak: Reduce the distance benefit. Have corruption increase faster as you get further from the FP than it would at the same distance from the true palace. For example, being at a distance of 15 from the palace might give the same distance corruption as being 10 from the FP.

- Possible tweak: Anyone have a good suggestion for how to solve the palace jump issue without changing how the FP works?


2) Leave the FP as it is in C3C 1.12.

- Effect: The FP increases the OCN, but does not act as a new capital. It also appears to act like a courthouse / PS, providing a small corruption decrease in the city where it is built.

- Pros: Balances player vs AI better. Addresses the palace jump issue. Improves war monger vs builder balance (I'll be clearer on this point hopefully after some clarification on Alexman's points).

- Cons: More significant game change, therefore slight risk of unforeseen issues arising. Greatly reduces the power of the FP, which will change people's game play and strategies, possibly making some folks cranky

- Possible tweak: If the distance benefit of the FP is removed, then it should probably be strengthened in some other way. Perhaps make it work like an additional corruption reducing building (PS / courthouse) in every city. Or make it reduce by some percentage (25%?) the effect of distance related corruption in all cities, while still using the palace as the center for that calculation. It could also be given a continent wide effect as the system for implementing that already exists.

3) Leave the FP as it was in PTW, but improve the AI's use of it.

- Effect: Same as with PTW.

- Pros: This would help address the player vs AI benefits received from the FP issue. Does not affect anyone's playing style or strategy, while making the AI a bit more competitive.

- Cons: Significant design / coding change as AI behavior algorithms can be a bear to implement. More likely to introduce new bugs or exploits. Does not address palace jump or war mongering issues.

- Possible tweak: As above - does anyone have a good suggestion for another way (without changing the FP) or addressing the palace jump issue?

Comment away folks What did I miss? Where are the holes in my thought process? What are your opinions and further suggestions?

 

[Padma]

SirPleb & Anarres: Good point. I admit it was really just a little idle chit-chat, in the absence of any *real* knowledge about the code.

Yeti: nice summation! I'll have to think about it a while to see if I can poke any holes in those thoughts ....

 

[Yeti]

Originally posted by Tavis
The side effect: C IV is a culmination of an incredible amount of hard learned lessons! Gotta love the fresh start!

Even the slightest mention of Civ IV gets me drooling!

Tavis - Please don't think that this "critic" thinks anything but the highest of this game and all of your efforts! If it wasn't such a great game that I kept coming back to it after and between anything else I played I wouldn't care to understand the inner workings and wouldn't have any interest in contributing ideas and suggestions. I guess it all comes back to that "Fanatics" title... I (and I think I can speak for most of the folks on here) enjoy the game enough to really care what direction it takes, appreciate your taking the time to communicate with us here, and understand that our wild and crazy ideas will generally amount to nothing, but enjoy posting anyway because the topic is Civ III!

 

[Alexnm]

FYI, the full patch final release won't occur until June.

Hmm, not good.

Monthly updates will be posted with the latest additions.

Better now.

 

[Alexnm]

I'll be the bastard in this otherwise nice and informative thread...

Doesn't the long time needed to get the "final" patch (June 04) only shows that Conquests wasn't a finished product and was released too early?

Flame on.

 

[Qitai]

Yeti, I think you just broke what Sir Pleb suggested . Can we leave those simmary/suggestion to another thread?

 

[Commander Bello]

@Tavis:

I for my person could live with any FP, be it the old concept or the "new" or even a "newer" one.
Pre-condition(a): It should act as a prime corruption/waste-reducing facility, and therefore should minimize that considerably more than a police station, courthouse, policeman, whatever. After all it consumes 200 shields.
Pre-condition(b): it should help with the building of an large empire, as many players like huge maps and large empires.
Pre-condition(c): It really would be helpful, if the working then would be described in an understandable manner. A lot of players hate the following: "At last! ...Oh? Oooops??? Aarrrgh! I spent 200 shields on THAT???"

Considering your remark on Civ IV: Please have some thoughts about a new concept for corruption/waste. I really feel unhappy with a concept in which a town of mine, size 12+, existing since centuries, being fully uploaded with all corruption reducing means, just goes up only because a new city size 2 now is two tiles closer to the Palace/FP/SPHQ. That seems to make no sense, as far as I see it.
I absolutely understand, that the last paragraph of mine will not be considered earlier as for CIV IV and that is (not fine, but) ok with me.

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by Yeti
Perhaps Tavis can make clear what level of feedback he would like in the event that they do post some code chunks. That way I (and others) will know whether we should review the code purely for bugs, or whether suggestions at the implementation or even design levels would also be appreciated.

Tavis, I'm posting something here because I think you'd perhaps have to be a bit gentler in saying the following

I'd say it is a safe bet that Tavis is twisting arms to make this happen at all.

Yeti and others: Imagine that you are the developer behind Tavis on this. Are you looking forward to suggestions as to how your design and your coding technique could be better? From dozens of people you don't know, whose strengths you don't know, and some of whom seem to think they're better programmers than you are and you should just cheerfully accept that self-evident fact? I think the answer is fairly obvious

And therefore I'd assume that what Tavis wants in the current context is the bare minimum feedback which either:
1) Says that the code will work as they want
2) Says that it won't and why

(Please jump in and correct me if I'm wrong here Tavis )

 

[Yeti]

Qitai - Sorry. I was trying to walk a thin line here. On the one hand I agree with SirPleb and don't want to cause Tavis / Firaxis to regret ever posting any code or asking for any suggestions, but on the other hand this seems to be the only time when it would be easy to take one path or the other in regards to FP implementation. Is it possible for Padma or another moderator to pull my post out of this thread and pop it into a new one? Or should I just delete the contents and create a new thread?

Alexnm - Nahh. It seems to me that they are addressing the significant issues in a timely manner and making patches (beta or otherwise) available to fix them. If the bugs weren't going to be patched at all until June, then I would be unhappy, but living with beta patches until then does not upset me.

 

[player1 fanatic]

Originally posted by alexman
The current 1.12 implementation of the FP helps the AI in the late game where it needs the most help, it reduces the advantage of warmongering over peaceful building, and it all but eliminates the usefulness of the Palace jump, which many consider an exploit.

I know I'll be flamed for this, but please keep the 1.12 Forbidden Palace!

Then maybe we should remove Artillery from the game, since AI doesn't know how to use it well?

 

[Skyfish]

I can only second Alexman and anarres in agreeing that the FP is better in C3C 1.12 then other versions.
Anything that can give the AIs a push in the late game

 

[akots]

Originally posted by Tavis
Your feedback (yes the vocal people are the ones who get heard most... you have to be more vocal if you want to be heard!!) will ultimately decide how it functions in the Release Patch.

Just wanted to say that I really like what is done in beta 1.12 now. However, FP can have an effect on rank corruption and this effect indeed can be really similar to what it was in PTW. And this I don't like at all.

I would still try again and again bring the two points:

1) The effect of FP on rank corruption can be lower than the effect of Palace. For this to work, rank corruption must be split in 2 components, one includes a rank from palace with high benefit and another rank from FP with lower benefit. SPHQ effect on rank will require another component which is specific for Communism. It also makes sense because the head of the state actually resides in Palace city with most of government and visits FP city only from time to time. May be program code can be complicated but equations are supposed to be very simple.

2) After the Palace is destroyed/captured/disbanded, let it jump into FP city if these two are allowed to co-exist. This way you are really in trouble. If there is no FP, then Palace jumps to the next city in the build order or rank versus previous Palace. But not to the largest city. On the other hand, it would be possible to do FP prebuild in the first core, abandon the new second core Palace+FP city again and jump to some nearby city in the second core and finish the first core FP. Which will make 2 cores again. Ont the other hand, this is major effort indeed and with devaluated FP, it would not worth much. the major disadvantage of this would be for AI. If you get their capital, they are done.

3) Would not it be just easier for everyone that FP does very-very slightly decrease rank corruption but increases OCN considerably?

There are still some other points which are not very clear but Tavis very kindly mentioned that overall system for corruption works the same as it was in PTW, i.e., deciphered by alexman.

 

[SirPleb]

I've started a poll about Forbidden Palace effectiveness here. I included a copy of Yeti's summary from this thread in the first post on the poll thread.

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

Thanks for the info.

 

[Buckets]

Originally posted by anarres
hehe. I knew we'd get a few converts! So far The Last Conformist, alexman and myself like the FP as it is. 3 down, 40,000 to go!

Add me to the list, too! That makes about what, 7 now?

On the bright side, it looks as though the overall production won't go up all that much more for placing the FP far away (as opposed to near the palace). At least that's what i inferred. We shall see.

 

[PorthosdPirate]

Just wanted to say thanks for the info...

 

[Marlor]

I'm definately one of the 40,000

I like the ability to build a second effective core of cities.

Some people like the micromanagement that becomes necessary once corruption increases to 95% in the majority of cities. I am certainly not one of these people. The more corruption-fighting tools the better.

 

[ainwood]

Believe it or not, I think that the current FP corruption will result in more of a gap between micro-managers / math-freaks than the distance-from-closest-capital model. In the current (pathc) version, you can optimise the location, but it requires a bit of calculation

 

[Chieftess]

Originally posted by ainwood
Believe it or not, I think that the current FP corruption will result in more of a gap between micro-managers / math-freaks than the distance-from-closest-capital model. In the current (pathc) version, you can optimise the location, but it requires a bit of calculation

and the thing I liked about the FP in vanilla Civ3 and PTW was less micromanagement. Just stick your FP in a mostly corrupt area, and be happy with it. You'd have atleast 2 (Almost) perfectly corrupt-free cities, which is great for when they're both at 120spt.