Finance Advisor

[EmperorFool]

I've started a small tweak of the Finance Advisor (F2) that I will commit shortly. The first step was to add more details to the Commerce and Income columns.

It shows the breakdown of all sources of and . Note that the values are rounded down and may not add up exactly to the actual income value shown at the bottom of the column.

My end goal is to expand the screen into an Economic Advisor by adding tabs to show empire-wide resources and tile improvement types, but for that I think I'd really like to have a minimap to find them as well.

Any other ideas for this screen?

 

[Dresden]

On the income screen, I'm guessing Market, etc are separate from Buildings because one is +X and the others are +X % ? Are the % ones hardcoded or does it just iterate over all buildings and grab anything with a % modifier so that it'll pick up stuff like the Mall and Mint?

Regarding rounding, the income column on that screenshot adds up to 2633. Is there really 35 error solely from rounding?

 

[EmperorFool]

On the income screen, I'm guessing Market, etc are separate from Buildings because one is +X and the others are +X % ?

Yup. I was thinking of showing the effective % for the latter ones to make it clearer. The +X ones should include Shrines and the effects of the Spiral Minerat.

Are the % ones hardcoded or does it just iterate over all buildings and grab anything with a % modifier so that it'll pick up stuff like the Mall and Mint?

It's entirely dynamic, scanning all buildings that have a percentage.

Regarding rounding, the income column on that screenshot adds up to 2633. Is there really 35 error solely from rounding?

Fixed, and it's committed for your enjoyment.

 

[Dresden]

Got a new thing for you to add.

Why is my Income 2339 short? ...

... because of building massive amounts of Wealth.

Wealth can be accounted for by doing something like this:

fCityProduction = city.getProductionToCommerceModifier(CommerceTypes.COMMERCE_GOLD) * city.getYieldRate(YieldTypes.YIELD_PRODUCTION) / 100.0

And it is not further modified by Market-type buildings.

 

[EmperorFool]

Done. Like the multiplier buildings, I also show how many cities are building Wealth.

One question: As I drop the fractions from multiplier buildings, there can be a few gold missing if you add up the line items (the displayed total is always correct as seen with the missing Wealth). Should I add a "Rounding Error" line item to show this missing gold? Or should I just add it to the "Taxes" line.

For each building type, I was thinking of displaying the effective percentage or the average gain. I want this screen to provide insight into the decision to produce individual buildings eventually. The effective percentage would range from 0 to the actual full multiplier depending on how many cities had the building.

For example, 10 cities each producing 10 from . If you build a bank in 5 of the cities yielding 10 x 50% x 10 = 25 , the effective percentage is 25 / (10 x 10 ) = 25%. This is only useful when compared to how many cities have the building. A number close to the actual modifier is only good if only a few cities have the building. When every city has the building, it will always be the full modifier.

The average return, however, might be more useful as it immediately gives you an idea of how useful those buildings are. An average of 2 for banks tells you that you're probably wasting your hammers. But the decision to build a bank really needs to be made on a city-by-city basis.

 

[Dresden]

I think throwing the round-off error into Taxes will probably work fine.

As for modifier buildings, it sounds like average return would be more useful than effective percentage.

 

[EmperorFool]

Okay, I added the rounding error (should ever only be 1-4 total) to the Taxes line item and added the average per modifier building.

 

[The Doc]

Is it possible to display the "avg" in the tag for average gold per modifier building as a font icon instead of text? Maybe something like this: Ø
Unfortunately, there is no really good AND short abbreviation for "average" in German.

 

[EmperorFool]

Wow, I've never seen that (or any) symbol used for average, yet there it is in black and white. Learn something new every day. Having studied math in college, I would never have guessed that as it's the null (empty) set to me.

If NikNaks can create it, I can put it into text.

 

[Dresden]

We could use unicode character 00d8 (Ø) (capital O with a slash through it) directly. I have also never seen that abbreviation but am used to a lower-case greek mu to denote a statistical mean. Anyhow, the 00d8 character is available in the standard civ font:

And we should be able to use it in XML with Ø

 

[EmperorFool]

I've simply removed "avg" from the text altogether since it shows the total as a calculation of "count x average". Is that clear enough? Feel free to change it (anyone) if you like. I also changed the "x" to the real multiplication symbol.

 

[ruff_hi]

Are you planning on adding the same for beakers? Sure it isn't finance, but it something that you do with your commerce, just like gold.

 

[ruff_hi]

For each building type, I was thinking of displaying the effective percentage or the average gain. I want this screen to provide insight into the decision to produce individual buildings eventually. The effective percentage would range from 0 to the actual full multiplier depending on how many cities had the building.

Can I suggest something else? Your suggestion is good but it forces the poor user to remember that banks add 50% while markets add 25%, etc. Why not show the effective percentage as a percentage of the maximum. Then ...

Bank (1 / 10 - 50%)

... will so that the 1 bank you have in your 10 cities is adding 50% of the maximum total possible - a pretty good investment. It will also mean that ...

Bank (5 / 10 - 95%)

... would show that adding those extra 5 banks for an additional 5% wouldn't be worth it.

 

[EmperorFool]

Are you planning on adding the same for beakers? Sure it isn't finance, but it something that you do with your commerce, just like gold.

I wanted to add beakers and production. Was thinking how to do it, though. For wide-screen setups, beakers would fit as another block. The other option would be a RESEARCH tab, but it would be awfully lonely with just one block on it. I was thinking to add the other commerce and yields too, but I dunno if they're that useful.

I intended to turn this screen into the Economic Advisor which would include research and production since they make up your economy.

Bank (1 / 10 - 50%)
Bank (5 / 10 - 95%)

I don't quite get this. I thought I understood your suggestion to be "show a percentage 0 - 100 as a percentage of the max the bank could give you", but 95% is not 5% more than 50%. Should the first one be 90%? So your first bank is giving you nearly 90% of all the gold possible from putting a bank in every city.

That suggestion might be useful. As the value gets further from 100%, it tells you that it would be good to build a building of that type.

 

[ruff_hi]

I don't quite get this. I thought I understood your suggestion to be "show a percentage 0 - 100 as a percentage of the max the bank could give you", but 95% is not 5% more than 50%. Should the first one be 90%? So your first bank is giving you nearly 90% of all the gold possible from putting a bank in every city.

Let be wrap some numbers around it for you ...

Consider a civ with 10 cities that yield the following in gold ...

City 1 - 26
City 2 - 16
City 3 - 10
City 4 - 10
City 5 - 8
City 6 - 6
City 7 - 4
City 8 - 4
City 9 - 2
City 10 - 2

Total gold over the whole Civ is 88.

So, with zero banks the line would show ...

Bank (0/10 - 0%)

... as it generates 0% of the max.

If you put a bank in City 1 it would generate 13 gold, then the bank line would show ...

Bank (1/10 - 15%) ... 13 / 88

If you add banks to the top 5 cities ...

Bank (5/10 - 40%) ... 35 / 88

If you add banks to all of your cities ...

Bank (10/10 - 50%) ... 44 / 88

So, the fact of adding 5 banks to those last 5 cities increased your civ-wide bank yield from 40% to 50% - probably not worth it.

 

[Cammagno]

Let be wrap some numbers around it for you ...

Consider a civ with 10 cities that yield the following in gold ...

City 1 - 26
City 2 - 16
City 3 - 10
City 4 - 10
City 5 - 8
City 6 - 6
City 7 - 4
City 8 - 4
City 9 - 2
City 10 - 2

Total gold over the whole Civ is 88.

So, with zero banks the line would show ...

Bank (0/10 - 0%)

... as it generates 0% of the max.

If you put a bank in City 1 it would generate 13 gold, then the bank line would show ...

Bank (1/10 - 15%) ... 13 / 88

If you add banks to the top 5 cities ...

Bank (5/10 - 40%) ... 35 / 88

If you add banks to all of your cities ...

Bank (10/10 - 50%) ... 44 / 88

So, the fact of adding 5 banks to those last 5 cities increased your civ-wide bank yield from 40% to 50% - probably not worth it.

But this is not consistent with your previous example
There you considered as maximum the half of the row gold (because bank can give a maximum of 50% of it) and you set it as 100% (look at that 95%), now instead you use it simply as it is, a 50%. Tu use your numbers, in your previous post the maximum against which you have to calculate the current percentage was 88*0.5=44, now it is 88 itself.
I don't know which one I prefer, I see + and - for both.

 

[ruff_hi]

duh - you are right. Guess I am conflicted too. I would prefer something like this ...

Bank (5/10 - 80%) ... 35 / (88 x 50%)

... to show that you are getting 80% of maximum impact from your 5 banks.

 

[Cammagno]

duh - you are right. Guess I am conflicted too. I would prefer something like this ...

Bank (5/10 - 80%) ... 35 / (88 x 50%)

... to show that you are getting 80% of maximum impact from your 5 banks.

Good

What about:

Bank (5/10): 80% ... 35 / 44 (88*50%)

 

[ruff_hi]

sure - assuming you will only display the 'Bank (5/10): 80%' part. I added the extra just to show where the calcs were coming from.

 

[EmperorFool]

Then it appears I understood your first example even though it was wrong, and your second example describes exactly the effective percentage I first coded up.

Just to be clear, we're all in agreement that this new "% of max possible" value is the best thing to show, instead of the current average yield per bank, right? If so, I'll gladly change it.

Also, is it sufficient to show the # of cities you have at the top instead of on each line? Also, I'm not showing the line if you don't have any of that building type. I assume this is preferable.