If you read through the XML each artifact grants a chance to roll a preferred wonder. I know it's not completely random because I can't remove and add items to reroll the wonder. I wish I paid more attention to the 50% worker speed wonder.
Artifact Combos
- Thread starter Promethian
- Start date
can anyone tell me if artifacts disappear once an ai civ has conducted an expedition. In my last game i went for heavy scouting early on the mid game i got distracted with settling cities and war and then went back to it late game I found 3 artifacts out of 4 sites early on and late game i got 1 artifact from 5 sites.
kipwheeler
Warlord
- Joined
- May 25, 2014
- Messages
- 238
Nooo! Don't nerf Quantum Politics! It's the one saving grace that can leave Elodie competitive with the big boys!
gunnergoz
Cat Herder
If I'm lucky enough to find them, I burn up some of the big culture heavy artifacts solo or in pairs, allowing me to buy virtues much sooner than otherwise...in one instance I got 3 virtues in two turns just from those artifact research culture points when I was only generating 2 or 3 points turn from my budding city. This is most useful in the very early turns.
Galgus
Emperor
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2012
- Messages
- 1,705
Elodie needs a huge buff or rework anyway.
Acken
Deity
I recommend doing that with artifacts leading to crappy rewards but you should keep the ones leading to good rewards until you get a combo giving that reward (and enough of the crappy ones to have opportunities to do so).
kipwheeler
Warlord
- Joined
- May 25, 2014
- Messages
- 238
I agree! But let's not throw out Quantum Politics *until* she gets that buff or rework!
mnf
King
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2006
- Messages
- 659
My look at the lua code regarding cashing in artifacts in another thread, but I thought it's better posted here as well:
====================
TL;DR is at the bolded "HOWEVER" below.
Each artifact has a "preferred" reward. The following lists mean this:
Category Name of the listed rewards
Old Earth category rewards (unlocks buildings):
Alien World category rewards:
Progenitor category rewards:
Hybrid category rewards:
How the code works:
EIL5 (Explain Like I'm 5) version:
So basically if you're aiming for OE/AW/Pr rewards, you can aim for 100% if you have 3 artifacts listed under your target reward. Failing 100%, you should aim to have at least 2 artifacts that prefer your target ward, then add in a 3rd artifact from the same category. This gives you a 66% chance. Failing that you can combine artifacts from the same category but all preferring different rewards, giving you a 33% chance.
If you throw in even 1 artifact from a different category, you pollute your draw with everything in the Hybrid category.
Note that there's an interesting little trick. Any artifact that prefers a reward you have already received can be used as filler for other rewards from that same category without lowering the probability.
For example, let's look at only the Drone Command and the Old Voice Archive. Say you used Senor Caffeine, Drone Hive Mind, and Clean Air Generator to 100% get Drone Command, and you still have the Butuiller Family Drone artifact. Then you could combine Personal Meditaion Helmet and Toymark Media Cube with the Butuiller for 100% chance to get the Old Voice Archive, because you can't receive the Drone Command reward again. (Note that this only works with all artifacts in the same category.)
Another twist is that if you use 3 artifacts from the same category, yet you have received the preferred reward of all 3 artifacts, then you have an equal chance to get one of the remaining rewards from that category.
For example you have received War Spire, Drone Command, and Old Voice Archives. Then you combine Suspended Animation Chamber + Senor Caffeine + Personal Meditation Helmet, then you will receive one of the remaining 3 rewards in the Old Earth category with each reward having equal chance.
HOWEVER, in practice, because you can see the result of the combine and are able to cancel it if you don't like it, the optimal way to game the system is to try out all the different combinations as long as you have at least 1 artifact that prefers to give the reward you want. For example, Machine Assisted Free Will (tech costs 30% less) is preferred by Void spectre, M theory capsule, Sporadic listener, and Unknown progenitor. The moment you get one of these 4 artifacts, you should try to combine it with all your other artifacts (regardless of their category and preferred reward) and you might just get lucky and end up with Machine Assisted Free Will.
Order of the combine doesn't matter because the possible reward "List" is sorted each time before taking the random number. Don't bother closing the window or clearing the slots and putting the same things back on because results won't change within the same generated game world. Results may change after save/load if you enabled the advanced setup option to get a new random seed each time. Also, results may change after each combine because the pool of possible rewards are reduced after each combine.
So the simplest rules are:
Lastly, please remember that I do not guarantee this is correct. It's what I gathered from skimming through the code. I may very well be wrong.
====================
Regarding the quality of the artifacts:
====================
Yes. The artifact quality has no effect whatsoever on the rewards you get.
When you "process" artifacts, if you process 3 at once, it's called "cash in" in the codes, which gives you a tangible reward from one of the categories. If you process only 1 or 2, it's called "break down" in the codes, and you only get yields back, no tangible reward.
The artifact qualities act as a modifier on the yields you get when you break down artifacts.
====================
A little mod to label the artifacts with their reward preference is attached. It should not affect any savegames as it only changes the artifact popup lua (not even the xml layout).
Screenshot:
====================
TL;DR is at the bolded "HOWEVER" below.
Each artifact has a "preferred" reward. The following lists mean this:
Category Name of the listed rewards
- Reward 1 name: Artifact 1 name, Artifact 2 name
- Reward 2 name: Artifact 6 name
Old Earth category rewards (unlocks buildings):
- Warp Spire (domestic trade routes +50% yield): Suspended animation chamber, Near lightspeed accelerator, Polypeptor organic antifreeze, High mass friction welder
- Drone Command (work 2 more tiles than a city has citizens): Senor caffeine, Drone hive mind, Clean air generator, Butuiller family drone
- Old Voice Archives (+10% yields when at war): Personal meditaion helmet, Toymark media cube, Messiah stradivarius, Isotopic decay three
- Pan Spectral Observatory (orbital units +100 production, orbital strike range +2): Volumetric component printer, Plasma turbine engine, Silver pont navigation gyroscope, Impossible drive
- Frontier Stadium (city defense +10, military units start with 1 free promotion): Hull repair suit, Jowler ball field set, Lineage two interactive family tree, Thoughtful chess set
- Xenomass Bath House (culture +2, units in city heal 100% after 1 turn): Collapsing family library, Speech compression computer, Population estimation computer, Telemed remote operating theatre
Alien World category rewards:
- Zygotic Engineering (outpost growth speed +100%): Ross weed, Noose vertebrae, Giant pheromone sack
- Sky Chitin (air units +50% strength and +3 range): Lattus ore, Cloud coral, Macroelectrons, Breeze weed, Carbon hail
- Counter Battery Fire (siege units ability unlock: lower enemy unit's defense by 20% for the rest of your turn): Seismic sounding fork, Zero point soil, Pressured magma sample, Mobius horn
- Vapor Shield (all units +100% defense when embarked): Jelly stalk ring, Soap seed, Acidic crystals, Flexible keratin tusk
- Projected Chasis Construction (worker movement +2): Cocoon flies, Crystal shrimp pupa, Floating canopy worms, Electric brain moss
- Tidal Navigation (naval units defense against ranged attacks +100%): Crystal shrimp adult, Carnivorous hive heels, Heterophobic solution, Tungsten bubbles
Progenitor category rewards:
- Tesselation Foundry (military units cost 30% less production): Geon spores, Single pass geometry, Tesselation vault, Atomic tesselator
- Dimension Folding Complex (city population unhealth -50%): Jelly space, Planes of dimensional influence, Dimension oven, The folder
- Machine Assisted Free Will (tech costs 30% less): Void spectre, M theory capsule, Sporadic listener, Unknown progenitor
- Temporal Calculus (all units visibility +2): Auratic magnet, Models of entropy, Casual looking glass, Deviation fork
- Quantum Politics (virtue acquisition speed +100%): Superposition containment device, Superposition, Decoherence chamber, Fundamental object
- Relativistic Data Bank (all cities -1 intrigue per turn): Temporal injector, String weaver, Fixed position locator, Bright matter
Hybrid category rewards:
- Tesseract Targeting: cities can bombard through terrain obstacles
- Soul Discerner Training: covert operations speed +25%
- Xenoanthopology: discover artifacts 20% more often
- Slumber Slaughter Extract: worker build speed +50%
- Ground Penetraing Lidar: expedition speed +100%
- Statecraft: +2 diplomatic capital from agreements
How the code works:
Spoiler :
EIL5 (Explain Like I'm 5) version:
- Each artifact belongs to a "category" (i.e. Old Earth=OE, Alien World=AW, or Progenitor=Pr), and each artifact has a "preferred reward".
- A special "Hybrid" category has no artifacts, only rewards.
- What you get after combining 3 artifacts depends on the preferred rewards of those 3 artifacts.
- If all 3 preferred rewards are the same, you get that reward 100%. Else it's equal chance among the possible rewards.
- When all the preferred rewards are rewards you've already got, then you have equal chance to get any one of the remaining rewards in the categories to which the 3 artifacts belong.
- When any of the 3 artifacts you combine belong to a different "category", or if you have exhausted all other rewards, then all the Hybrid rewards are thrown in as candidates.
So basically if you're aiming for OE/AW/Pr rewards, you can aim for 100% if you have 3 artifacts listed under your target reward. Failing 100%, you should aim to have at least 2 artifacts that prefer your target ward, then add in a 3rd artifact from the same category. This gives you a 66% chance. Failing that you can combine artifacts from the same category but all preferring different rewards, giving you a 33% chance.
If you throw in even 1 artifact from a different category, you pollute your draw with everything in the Hybrid category.
Note that there's an interesting little trick. Any artifact that prefers a reward you have already received can be used as filler for other rewards from that same category without lowering the probability.
For example, let's look at only the Drone Command and the Old Voice Archive. Say you used Senor Caffeine, Drone Hive Mind, and Clean Air Generator to 100% get Drone Command, and you still have the Butuiller Family Drone artifact. Then you could combine Personal Meditaion Helmet and Toymark Media Cube with the Butuiller for 100% chance to get the Old Voice Archive, because you can't receive the Drone Command reward again. (Note that this only works with all artifacts in the same category.)
Another twist is that if you use 3 artifacts from the same category, yet you have received the preferred reward of all 3 artifacts, then you have an equal chance to get one of the remaining rewards from that category.
For example you have received War Spire, Drone Command, and Old Voice Archives. Then you combine Suspended Animation Chamber + Senor Caffeine + Personal Meditation Helmet, then you will receive one of the remaining 3 rewards in the Old Earth category with each reward having equal chance.
HOWEVER, in practice, because you can see the result of the combine and are able to cancel it if you don't like it, the optimal way to game the system is to try out all the different combinations as long as you have at least 1 artifact that prefers to give the reward you want. For example, Machine Assisted Free Will (tech costs 30% less) is preferred by Void spectre, M theory capsule, Sporadic listener, and Unknown progenitor. The moment you get one of these 4 artifacts, you should try to combine it with all your other artifacts (regardless of their category and preferred reward) and you might just get lucky and end up with Machine Assisted Free Will.
Order of the combine doesn't matter because the possible reward "List" is sorted each time before taking the random number. Don't bother closing the window or clearing the slots and putting the same things back on because results won't change within the same generated game world. Results may change after save/load if you enabled the advanced setup option to get a new random seed each time. Also, results may change after each combine because the pool of possible rewards are reduced after each combine.
So the simplest rules are:
- If you want OE/AW/Pr rewards, try all the combinations of artifacts within the same category as the reward you want.
- If you want Hybrid rewards, try all the combination that uses artifacts from at least 2 different categories.
- After you have tried all combinations and the reward you want didn't show, bad luck, try again once you get another artifact that you can use in the two rules above.
Lastly, please remember that I do not guarantee this is correct. It's what I gathered from skimming through the code. I may very well be wrong.
====================
Regarding the quality of the artifacts:
====================
Yes. The artifact quality has no effect whatsoever on the rewards you get.
When you "process" artifacts, if you process 3 at once, it's called "cash in" in the codes, which gives you a tangible reward from one of the categories. If you process only 1 or 2, it's called "break down" in the codes, and you only get yields back, no tangible reward.
The artifact qualities act as a modifier on the yields you get when you break down artifacts.
====================
A little mod to label the artifacts with their reward preference is attached. It should not affect any savegames as it only changes the artifact popup lua (not even the xml layout).
Screenshot:
Spoiler :
Yeah, everyone uses the same pool of artifacts
Incidentally, does anyone know where the bit of code that controls that is?
I kinda want to see if I can rig something that'll either let everyone have their own pool or keeps the AI from getting artifacts. They can't really handle it and immediately pop them regardless what they could get
mnf
King
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2006
- Messages
- 659
It looks like ArtifactUtilities.GetAvailableArtifactTypesByCategory(playerType : number, artifactCategoryType : number) is the key.
Just add a check for the playerType and return an empty table for AI players. That should prevent AIs from ever getting any artifacts.
Since AIs only use artifacts for yields, I don't think this will make much difference. If you really care about the AI advantage, it's also possible to just give the AI player the yields here directly.
Just add a check for the playerType and return an empty table for AI players. That should prevent AIs from ever getting any artifacts.
Since AIs only use artifacts for yields, I don't think this will make much difference. If you really care about the AI advantage, it's also possible to just give the AI player the yields here directly.
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