Arioch's Analyst Thread

[Calouste]

Some screenshots from the GameStar.de video:

Looking goooooooooooooooood!

 

[Gre_Magus]

Great screenshots, AlienXorcist. Interesting that they're calculating production to ~13 decimal places.

 

[Windsor]

In the Berlin screenshot there is 8 citizens. The city produces 18 so you would expect a surplus of +2 but why is the screen saying "Food +1.5"? There's 0.5 food I don't understand where is ending up.

 

[Schuesseled]

is there somewhere i can buy this mag and its dvd bonus, i soooooooo wanna watch it....legally preferred.

 

[Calouste]

12agnar0k: Thanks for posting those odds, they're pretty interesting. The calculated strength seems pretty straightforward: it's 1000xStrengthx(1+SUM(Modifiers%)) There does not seem to be a penalty for starting a combat with low health EXCEPT in the one example where one tank is attacking another (whose starting health is very low and has a 3350 strength instead of 5000, with no visible modifiers). The total strength for the cannon being attacked by the cavalry also seems off - I don't know if that's from an earlier build where modifiers aren't displayed.
You can see the breakdown for current health and health after the battle (Green, Yellow, and different shades of Red). There's no chance of victory or range of damage indicated here, which makes me wonder whether: there is no random element to combat or the random element has already been figured in this prediction. I'm not sure what I think about that...of course, are we sure that these are combat predictions and not combat results?

I'm pretty sure these are combat results. Look at the rifleman v rifleman matchup that ends in a stalemate. Even though the attacker has a slightly lower strength than the defender he still ends up with more health. That also indicates that there is still a certain amount of randomness in the way combat is calculated. No sign though that any of the promotions shown have any effect on combat. The strenght of the units in just (100 + modifiers) * base strength. I suspect the lightning "promotions" are actually unused ones, considering that there are ranks (1,2,3) for other similar promotions shown. Alternatively, although less likely, they could be the number of attacks left this turn.

On a slightly related topic, I only just realized that Barracks are no longer available from the start of the game, if they are still in the game at all. I think this is a good thing, as one of the things that bugged me in Civ4 that it was almost always more effective to disband your existing units and build new ones with all the production and XP bonusses than it was to upgrade the existing ones (unless of course if you immediately wanted to go to war on the discovery of a new tech).

 

[mjs0]

Third, the great people match up with the three specialist buildings. This suggests that specialists generate GPP as in civ 4, except now GPP are so that each type of great person accrues points independently.

You probably know this, but just to be clear:
I'm pretty sure they always did accrue points independently, it was just that achieving the next threshold for GP spawning was based on aggregating those points and which GP you got was random with the odds determined by the % of GPPs from each category.
So, the change is not during accrual but hopefully each GP now has independent thresholds and a 100% chance of spawning that type.


If true, I like the idea that GPs are generated independently for each category, it was very frustrating when one was (e.g.) focusing on a Great Prophet and the RNG decided the 2% science GPPs won the day and a Great Scientist popped.

It makes more sense to me that different GP types would have both independent GPP accrual and independent spawning thresholds.
( Compared to Civ4 where, when the Gt Sci in the example above popped, all points accrued for all other GP types got zeroed and everyone started again towards the next threshold with a clean slate. )

 

[Churchdown Yank]

is there somewhere i can buy this mag and its dvd bonus, i soooooooo wanna watch it....legally preferred.

Probably on a German newstand/bookshop somewhere. You're in Germany right?

And the video is pretty tasty. In the words of Ferris Bueller "If you have the means, I highly recommend it." Although there is not a huge amount of new info on details like resources/improvements it's good to see the UI and the Social Policies screens. And watch the gameplay. The graphics look lush. I like the combat too. The flaming arrows and so on. I am seriously jacked after seeing this.

And as far as wonder movies and final polish on the graphics, I would suggest that this build might be missing some things as the 17 digits on some of the displayed variables shows. I don't think this video - as good as it looks - represents the finished product.

 

[Schuesseled]

no alas, i have never set foot in the fatherland!

Just here in england, any chance this mag can be shipped?

 

[12agnar0k]

Now, I do not totally recall the vids, but is it possible the combat results are from AFTER the combat was committed, but before the combat animations were displayed?

Nope, its before they select "attack" as it were. The outcome of the battles I've seen so far mirror what is stated before hand. They are not showing "this might happen" but this will happen, different to the "XX.XX% chance of winning" predictions that were given in previous civs. So I can safely assume I am right, and results will always end up as they state in the combat info before fighting. I don't think it will make the fighting boring or lame, just different. You will still want to suicide one unit to bring down the enemies health enough to take it with a second attack, just like in previous civs, just this time thier isn't a small chance of victory in the suicide. Likewise thier isn't a small chance of loss in an easy victory.

 

[12agnar0k]

no alas, i have never set foot in the fatherland!

Just here in england, any chance this mag can be shipped?

Hah! I have, and why would you want the magazine bro, you can't even read German lol.

Thier is good news though, a magazine in the UK will have a civ5 preview on the 17th of August, not sure if it will be as in depth or have a video feature too, but we can hope.

 

[12agnar0k]

If true, I like the idea that GPs are generated independently for each category, it was very frustrating when one was (e.g.) focusing on a Great Prophet and the RNG decided the 2% science GPPs won the day and a Great Scientist popped.

Looks like from assumption on the Screen shot, that it will indeed not be the case this time around, following on with the "removal of chance" that we are probably seeing in combat results. Certainties are always re-assuring.

 

[Aramel]

In the Berlin screenshot there is 8 citizens. The city produces 18 so you would expect a surplus of +2 but why is the screen saying "Food +1.5"? There's 0.5 food I don't understand where is ending up.

Maybe it relates to the fact that Germany is apparently 4 unhappiness over it's happiness limit. Something like -0.125 per excess .

 

[AriochIV]

The developers said that they wanted to remove the views of some specific numbers you see in the game, and they ones they mentioned specifically were the +/- diplomacy modifiers and the exact combat odds display. This doesn't mean the underlying numbers are gone, just that they're no longer presented to the player. The new pre-combat screen no longer shows your exact percentage probability of winning, but abstracts it as "major victory" or "stalemate" or whatever. But that does not mean that the results are predetermined.

I don't believe for one second that they would eliminate the random element from combat. Randomness is an intrinsic part of all serious wargames (and every Civ game ever made) because without it there is no risk; you won't attack if you can see beforehand that you will lose. It would make the game like Chess, which is not what it's supposed to be like.

If you watch all the videos, you'll see some very different outcomes from different iterations of more or less the same starting positions of those troops around Newcastle.

 

[alienXorcist]

Not sure if this is a new find or not but if you look hard enough (zoom) you can see that commerce, "provides bonuses to naval empires, and those focused on Gold."

Moderator Action: *snip*

Also, for the paranoid people out there if you look at the lower right hand corner you will see the Utopia Project symbol that, to me at least, resembles the Illuminati "All-Seeing Eye" thing.

 

[AriochIV]

Yeah, I thought it was cute that the icon for the Utopia Project is the Illuminati symbol.

 

[Aramel]

Illuminati Victory is awesome!

Anyway, looking at that screen, I think I've figured out how social policies are purchased. I'll post it in the social policy thread, though.

 

[AriochIV]

I thought it was pretty obvious that they're purchased with Culture.

 

[kurtkage]

Ok but the icons are clearly still showing empire-wide and not just Berlin having 77 science and 4 unhappiness... so knowing that there is 4 unhappiness, how much of that is in Berlin?

You notice it has 15 population, 15 science, 8 citizens working tiles, 4 citizens as specialists (2 in library, 1 market 1 workshop), so erm 8+4 = 12... are there other specialists not shown? Is berlin taking on 3 out of 4 unhappy citizens for the empire? Are there some unassigned citizens not working anything?

This also brings me to the fact that Berlin shows 15 science with 2 library specialists working, so the science from specialists is not counted in the city but added to empire wide? Or is it related to unhappiness again, the 2 library specialists just happen to bring it back to 15 science since the unhappy citizens not producing leave exactly that amount of shortfall for pop:sci

 

[AriochIV]

Happiness is now global, not per-city. It appears that unhappiness no longer takes individual citizens out of work, but rather adds cost penalties to the whole empire.

 

[12agnar0k]

I dont think it has 15 pop, we are nto sure that 15 represents population. It may do though.