Firaxis: Corruption Breakdown

[akots]

Originally posted by SirPleb
Why not? I think that the two small code changes I proposed will accomplish exactly that, fixing the loopholes and behaving like PTW - have you reviewed my fix and concluded that it won't?

It looks like your code is working rather well in eliminating rank sharing. I have run two tests in Excel for standard map size coefficients and Sid level with 2 remote cores 6 cities each. Benefit from building FP in the second core is about 45% overall increase in prodyctivity plus increase from FP city itself assuming it was 95% corrupt (which might be as high as 15% of total). This is without rank sharing. With rank sharing, increase is about 55-60% plus increase from FP city itself. However, if FP is built in the capital, increase is too difficult to determine because it would depend on location of other cities. If FP is built close to the capital in rank 2 or 3 city, it is also diffuclt to tell the exact numbers. I tried several possibilities. One with single core can give up to 30% production increase. With remote core, increase is negligible even with rank sharing (up to 10% maximum). Apparenlty, the benefits would be much higher on Chieftain level. However, even if OCN is considerably increased, it would have zero impact on Sid level for a reasonable size civilization, i.e. 12 cities on Standard map size, because corruption will be 95% anyhow in all cities ranked higher than 12 at distance higher than 10. Great, because this fixes RCP and Palace jump. However, the things are still poorly balanced. It still might be possible to play because AI is soo stupid. Though, lack of rank sharing decreases overall productivity in such test by at least 15%.

Edited: Note: This numbers are very approximate indeed and they would greatly vary depending on position of cities and distance between the cores. From another Excel test, it looks like that if FP is either too close or too far from the Palace, benefit is less than when it is located at a certain distance. At this distance, benefit is maximal. This optimal Palace-FP distance might depend on map size, difficulty, and government. Apparently, the two cores have to slightly overlap with, e.g., 3-4 cities out of 12 "covered" both by Palace benefit and FP benefit.

 

[Tharak]

Originally posted by SirPleb

But against that I'm more worried that increasing the mid/late game AI strength by an untested amount could have a negative impact on the majority of players.

Personally, I find this quote interesting. I am unsure how you got the idea that this change would impact "the majority of players". If you are speaking of the majority of people who frequent these boards (and Apolyton), I would say you are right. However, I would suggest that the average person playing Civ (and its expansions) would never really notice the difference. I can tell you for a fact that other than myself, no one I know ever really used the FP, and when they did, they didn't pay too much attention to what it did other than it was "good". The initial increase in corruption when using C3C was bad, I'll admit, but I bet the average joe who plays wouldn't notice the difference between the FP now and before (unless I'm involved with a decidely slow group of people ).

The people who are deeply involved in this on these (and other boards) are much more involved in the game from both a skill level and a "mathematical" level...well beyond what the average person would be.

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by Tharak
I am unsure how you got the idea that this change would impact "the majority of players". If you are speaking of the majority of people who frequent these boards (and Apolyton), I would say you are right. However, I would suggest that the average person playing Civ (and its expansions) would never really notice the difference. I can tell you for a fact that other than myself, no one I know ever really used the FP, and when they did, they didn't pay too much attention to what it did other than it was "good".

I understand that the people at CivFanatics are not the average user of the game nor the majority.
It may even be true that the people posting on this thread are not the average CivFanatic.
Nonetheless, I'm finding it hard to understand or agree with your post. If anything I feel that the exact opposite is more true. A few points:

1) This is perhaps nitpicking but I said (and meant) "could have a negative impact", not as you suggested I said "would impact". There is a big difference. I'd like to be quoted or paraphrased accurately please.

2) You say "can tell you for a fact that other than myself, no one I know ever really used the FP, and when they did" ... Ummm, I'm confused - did anyone you know really use it, or didn't they?
In any case, I find it hard to believe that the majority of casual non-CivFanatic players don't "really use the FP". As soon as it can be built the game pops up a message saying something like "our people want to build Forbidden Palace, maybe we should." And from then on until it is built, Forbidden Palace shows up in the list of buildable improvements for every city. It is hard to imagine that even the most casual players don't really use it. (Even if they don't understand it completely.) If they miss using the FP, I'd expect them to miss all the wonders too. Do you think they do that?

3) "and when they did, they didn't pay too much attention to what it did other than it was 'good'".
That has nothing to do with the point I was making when I talked about a possible impact on the majority of players. I wasn't talking about anything to do with whether they built the FP or not. I was talking about when the AI builds an FP, not when the human builds one. If we increase the strength of a certain kind of FP placement (the kind the AI most often uses) then we'll be making the AIs stronger. And if that is the case and the effect is dramatic, it will be visible to all players, casual or advanced. Advanced players like those at CivFanatics would be the least affected. They'd adapt to the change. Some of them would even say "oh goody, a harder AI". (Others, more I think, would say "damnit, why on earth did you change that?" And would then proceed to destroy the new and stronger AI anyway ) The players who would be most affected are the ones you describe. They wouldn't know what hit them. All of a sudden the game could be a lot harder at Regent (or whatever level they play) and it wouldn't be clear to them what had changed. And THAT is what I was worrying about. (What WE were worrying about actually. Some other people at CivFanatics clearly feel the same way.)

[EDIT:]I'm afraid I may have reacted a bit strongly here, my post was a bit of a sledgehammer. Tharak, I sincerely apologize for coming on strongly. I do appreciate what you are concerned about and agree that it is most important. I'm afraid this is a button for me - I get a bit hot when I feel I've been accused of not considering "real" (as I think of it) users when that is actually what I spend much of my time thinking about.[/EDIT]

 

[Megalou]

I can appreciate what SirPleb, Anarres and a few others are saying about making the AI stronger, even though in my first C3C-game I was most disturbed when I saw the greater-than-50% waste in my FP-city - I had actually read the Civilopedia entry for FP prior to my palace jump plans in that game. The fact that the high waste/corruption was never meant to exist may lead us to believe that there could be better, intentional ways to help the AI along - like the limited use of Military Leaders already implemented - although with so many knowlegeable people around I would not dare to say anything definite about that.

I do feel that the term "exploit" is being used a bit carelessly sometimes, and I subscribe to Colonel Kraken's point of view earlier in this thread. I even doubt that it is possible to draw the line between exploit and strategy. When SirPleb used TOE to gain modern techs in a recent Game of The Month, many people were amazed. The fact that he had a prebuild (exploit?) going to complete United Nations (or was it SETI?) on the turn of the TOE-completion, didn't that just put a nice finishing touch on this strategic move? My theory is that when an "exploit" is used in a complex way it becomes less of an exploit and more of a strategy.

But that is not the only doubts of the term "exploit" that I have. Someone said that exploits are when the humans do things that the AI cannot do. That would mean that researching "boring" techs like polytheism, chemistry and physics is also an exploit, and an exploit that becomes even more useful with the implementation of scientific leaders. This means that the whole idea of bancrupting the AI by selling these boring techs to them is an exploit. (But selling those techs doesn't always work since the AI might be researching at 80-90%.) Palace jumps is another example. This takes a lot of planning. You may be forced to raze a library, barracks and/or temple, you may lose valuable time before the preparations for the jump is complete. Another scheme that may be considered an exploit is the mass upgrade, because the AI is basically unable to perform that too.

Maybe the strategies/exploits I have listed really should all be removed from the game, but for the most part I enjoy fooling the AI when I can. The AI can get all sorts of handicaps, and I doubt that higher corruption/waste for the human is an appropriate one. But again, I don't want to say anything definite about it. A lot of this depends on the characteristics of the new Sid-level in C3C, which I have not tried yet - will it give the best players a great enough challenge?

 

[Commander Bello]

I agree with Megalou on that the term 'exploit' seems to be used very often to condemn something which in the poster's sight just is something he doesn't like.

 

[Grille]

Hehe, this whole discussion shows the difficulties of implementing a complex corruption model. Not only that we misunderstand each other or confuse things about the theory of the model, there's also a bigger risk of incorrect software code realisation for that model (so no wonder it went 'wrong' in vanilla/PTW and the C3C fix attempts). Don't get me wrong - I like a complex corruption model.
So Tavis thread here to openly discuss the issue is really admirable. Again, a big 'thank you'.

Originally posted by SirPleb

Something I think could be interesting to try (after next patch) is a test of a "distinct list" model, e.g. with that one extra line of code. Tavis, would I be right to guess that Firaxis has a "self-play" test mode for the program? I.e. where AIs just play each other and info gets recorded for subsequent analysis? No need to answer that if you don't want to of course. But, if you do have that, it might be interesting to play a few AIs with the first model against a few with the stronger "close FP" model, to see how much stronger the modified ones play

I second this suggestion.

 

[Yeti]

Akots:

NICE work!

If I'm understanding correctly, your work says that SirPleb's method:

Creates a powerful PTW style FP that allows formation of a second core of productive cities, but the overall corruption in a nation will run about 10 to 15% higher due to elimination of rank sharing (RCP).

That sounds pretty good to me. I think we've hit the "target" - Re-creating a PTW FP while also fixing the RCP and remote palace exploits.

Great job SirPleb! (and great job Akots in giving us some hard numbers to confirm it!)

 

[anarres]

Yeti - from what I can tell what has been described is only how the FP was 'meant' to work all along, and how Firaxis intended it to work in patch 1.12.

The idea of distinct lists is new though, although it would need thinking about in detail to make sure there are no new loopholes or weird behaviour caused by it...

 

[Yeti]

Originally posted by anarres
Yeti - from what I can tell what has been described is only how the FP was 'meant' to work all along, and how Firaxis intended it to work in patch 1.12.

The idea of distinct lists is new though, although it would need thinking about in detail to make sure there are no new loopholes or weird behaviour caused by it...

Yes, it is my understanding as well that this matches with Firaxis's goals for how the FP should work in C3C (the same as in PTW - just that the general corruption model needs to support the new SPHQ and no longer have RCP / remote palace issues).

It wouldn't surprise me if where we ended up (with a lot of help from a number of people!) is where they already are They may very well have already made the same changes or changes that achieve the same effect!

That's true about the distinct lists But that appears to be the best way of achieving a similar effect to the duplicate ranks that existed in PTW.

If there IS a better way, hopefully someone thinks of it BEFORE the patch comes out, instead of too late.

 

[anarres]

I see no need to have distinct lists - this will make the FP even more powerful than in Civ3/PTW.

 

[Tharak]

Originally posted by SirPleb
1) This is perhaps nitpicking but I said (and meant) "could have a negative impact", not as you suggested I said "would impact". There is a big difference. I'd like to be quoted or paraphrased accurately please.

Hehe--sorry..I wasn't trying to imply that you actually meant that it "would, definately affect every single person who ever did or wo ever would" play the game. Its just my loose use of the language there...wasn't trying to make it seem like you were using a massive generalization.

2) You say "can tell you for a fact that other than myself, no one I know ever really used the FP, and when they did" ... Ummm, I'm confused - did anyone you know really use it, or didn't they?
In any case, I find it hard to believe that the majority of casual non-CivFanatic players don't "really use the FP". As soon as it can be built the game pops up a message saying something like "our people want to build Forbidden Palace, maybe we should." And from then on until it is built, Forbidden Palace shows up in the list of buildable improvements for every city. It is hard to imagine that even the most casual players don't really use it. (Even if they don't understand it completely.) If they miss using the FP, I'd expect them to miss all the wonders too. Do you think they do that?

Hmm...again , the loose use of language. Most of the people I know RARELY use the FP. Why, I don't know. Generally they are too busy building war units to bother, and prefer to use any GLs the got to build armies. Occasionally when bogged down, or with too many cities to really know what to do with, or if I managed to convince them to go for a different victory condition would they then build it. Even then, they'd build it in their better cities ("because it takes less time") despite my telling them there were, perhaps, better places to put it. All in all, they were more concerned with wiping out that next civ, then building up infrastructure.

And no, they didn't miss out on the wonders..lots of them they like..GL, Leo's, etc.

3) "and when they did, they didn't pay too much attention to what it did other than it was 'good'".
That has nothing to do with the point I was making when I talked about a possible impact on the majority of players. I wasn't talking about anything to do with whether they built the FP or not. I was talking about when the AI builds an FP, not when the human builds one. If we increase the strength of a certain kind of FP placement (the kind the AI most often uses) then we'll be making the AIs stronger. And if that is the case and the effect is dramatic, it will be visible to all players, casual or advanced. Advanced players like those at CivFanatics would be the least affected. They'd adapt to the change. Some of them would even say "oh goody, a harder AI". (Others, more I think, would say "damnit, why on earth did you change that?" And would then proceed to destroy the new and stronger AI anyway ) The players who would be most affected are the ones you describe. They wouldn't know what hit them. All of a sudden the game could be a lot harder at Regent (or whatever level they play) and it wouldn't be clear to them what had changed. And THAT is what I was worrying about. (What WE were worrying about actually. Some other people at CivFanatics clearly feel the same way.)

I understood this, however, I don't think that making the AI stronger within the framework of the game is a big problem. As it is now, the AI can't use some of the game mechanics to its own advantage, and that further handicaps the AI (beyond what the various game levels do). You are right that assuming the AI is able to capitalize on the changes (which is seems like it will), the game will get harer...so the average gamer might have to drop down a level on order to win...then learn (like everyone else) how to win on progressively harder levels.

I think this change might actually cause people to have to look at newer ways to win other then "kill them all and take their stuff"..or at least better ways of doing that. Gone (or at least diminished) will be the days of wiping out the AI's prodictive cities, while the peripheral ones rot in corruption..because it couldn't use the palace. AI might actually be able to launch a reasonable counter attack before burning all its resources.

[EDIT:]I'm afraid I may have reacted a bit strongly here, my post was a bit of a sledgehammer. Tharak, I sincerely apologize for coming on strongly. I do appreciate what you are concerned about and agree that it is most important. I'm afraid this is a button for me - I get a bit hot when I feel I've been accused of not considering "real" (as I think of it) users when that is actually what I spend much of my time thinking about.[/EDIT]

No worries...wasn't trying to "accuse" you of anything... I was more interested in hearing why you thought what you did, as opposed to implying that you are "out of touch" with the "average player". I think 99% of the people here want the same thing..a bug free game that can be enjoyed by everyone whatever their play level or style.

 

[akots]

I am very worried about playability of extreme Sid level. The production/growth penalty is 2.5-fold. The corruption penalty for a 20-city core with Palace/FP optimally located for human player and sub-optimally (like it is now) for AI is about 2.3-2.7-fold and can be up to 3-fold on a huge map. Considering also trade penalty, overall will be close to 10-fold. That is a huge number indeed. For comparison, typical penalty on Deity in PTW is less than 3-fold. Basically, it means that Sid level in C3C even with SirPleb's adjustments is almost 3 times more difficult than Deity is in PTW! In the present version, it is essentially not worth trying to play for score with such little FP benefit.

 

[Bamspeedy]

I think whether or not Sid level ends up way too hard, isn't much of a priority. Sid level should be very hard to win. Give the top players a challenge, because there is several players who beat deity 90%+ of the time.

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

I thought the whole purpose of Sid level was to have a level that cannot be won.

 

[akots]

Originally posted by watorrey
I thought the whole purpose of Sid level was to have a level that cannot be won.

It might be indeed. It is a good idea to wait for SirPleb to beat it, read his post and try to repeat... It is somehow playable at present on tiny/small map but not by the gotm rules.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Originally posted by watorrey
I thought the whole purpose of Sid level was to have a level that cannot be won.

Well, *impossible* to win, I don't think anyone would want. It's no fun to lose 100% of the time (that is why regent level players play regent/monarch and not deity).

I think it should be very hard to win so that people can't win it all the time, but it should still be possible to win with the right map, great luck, etc. Some players didn't need a good map to beat Deity (Aeson's and Charis's games come to mind, both of those games had these players starting in tundra).

 

[anarres]

It's not that Sid is unwinnable, it's that Sid is so damn hard you can't really deviate from the 'optimum' solution. Also bad luck can sweep you away in a few turns, with no way to stop it (unlike 95% of Deity games, where you have enough slack to compensate).

 

[socralynnek]

So here's my proposed solution:

(I assume there is an array of FP like structures called MoreCapitals, would allow more of them for modders with very huge maps. In Epic Game it is initially empty, after you build the FP, the city with it is in there)
(Forthermore I assume an array of cities called CITIES)


// first compute the city ranks

// keep a list for all Capitals

For all City in CITIES
{
RealCapital->RankList.insert(City);
For all Capital in MoreCapitals
{
Capital->RankList.insert(City); //RankList should be a sorted array, the cities are sorted by distance (founded date if tie)
// then you can get the city rank by the order of the cities
}
}


// the following part computes the corruption as the minimum of the corruptions computed by the capitals

For all City in CITIES
{
City->corruption= computeCorruption(City, RealCapital); // this should work like the way it does, with distance and ranking component
For all Capital in MoreCapitals
{
newCorruption = computeCorruption(City, Capital);
if (newCorruption < City->corruption) {City->corruption=newCorruption;}

}
}


PROs that I see: Easy to understand, FP works exactly like the Palace, expandable to various FPs, building FP doesn't increase corruption in any city, I don't see any part that can be exploited
and it's very efficient, because there's just one Loop through all cities for Ranking and one Loop for computing corruption.

The only CON I see is that AI can't handle FP, but this should be improved at another point instead of penalizing human.

I hope you understand the pseudo-code I've written.

 

[Commander Bello]

Maybe a silly question, as always....

Why have two ranklists (on for RealCapital, one for Capital)? Wouldn't be one enough, with RealCapital being always on top, as long as no palace movement has taken place?

In your last section you have two slopes for all cities to be computed. If Capitals were just a list in founding order, wouldn't this speed up the whole thing?

 

[socralynnek]

Originally posted by Commander Bello
Maybe a silly question, as always....

Why have two ranklists (on for RealCapital, one for Capital)? Wouldn't be one enough, with RealCapital being always on top, as long as no palace movement has taken place?

The # of RankLists is the number of Capitals (because you have one for each capital), so if you only have one Palace and no FP or similar, you only have that one rank lists.

In your last section you have two slopes for all cities to be computed. If Capitals were just a list in founding order, wouldn't this speed up the whole thing?

No, it's not two slopes for all cities, because not every city is a capital. (With Capitals, I'm thinking of all cities that have a Palace, a FP or s.t. with the same effect.)