Question about random events in BTS

[TacNuke]

Disclaimer: I am new (as in a couple days) to BTS but not CivIV/Warlords. I know you can turn random events on and off but if I turn them off would that prevent things like iron or gems (etc.) from appearing on already mined hills?

For example, in my game last night with the discovery of both BW and IW there was no metals anywhere near me on the whole island/continent that I was on. About 15 turns after IW I see a message that I now have access to iron? Sure enough, in one of the hills I mined many turns ago had iron pop in it. (iron pop sounds delicious)

I'm on the fence about the whole random events in BTS thus my question about if random events (ala BTS) were turned off; would that turn off events like I just described?

Thanks in advance
TAC

 

[r_rolo1]

No... feel free to disable the events.

 

[Supr49er]

I don't believe the generation of resources on mined hills are 'Random Events'. You just have to mine the hill and connect it with a road. Then if you're lucky, it might pop a resource.

 

[Sisiutil]

I don't believe the generation of resources on mined hills are 'Random Events'. You just have to mine the hill and connect it with a road. Then if you're lucky, it might pop a resource.

You also have to assign a citizen to work the mine. The more turns the mine is worked, the greater the chance (though it's not that great to begin with) that you'll pop a resource.

This is a "random event" that pre-dates the BtS random events, so turning off the latter shouldn't affect it. (However, I rather like playing with the random events--they're fun!)

 

[PieceOfMind]

You also have to assign a citizen to work the mine. The more turns the mine is worked, the greater the chance (though it's not that great to begin with) that you'll pop a resource.

This is a "random event" that pre-dates the BtS random events, so turning off the latter shouldn't affect it. (However, I rather like playing with the random events--they're fun!)

Just to be clear the chance each turn of discovering a resource does not become greater the longer you have worked the mine. In other words, the chance of discovering a new resource on a mine on a given turn depends only on whether you are working the mine or not and not how long you have worked the mine. (I know you understand this Sisiutil)

It was a good question though because it does more or less look like a BtS random event. I guess the big clue that it wasn't a BtS one was that you didn't get a popup saying "Woohoo you found a new resource" and asking you to click on a button that says "Send engineers to the site to begin mining". (you know what I mean).

 

[paydro]

I don't think you should disable random events if you've only had the game a few days. They add great flavor to the game, I think they're a wonderful addition. The only event that I don't approve of is the early barbarian event, but that doesn't happen very often, and when it does, it's at least early so you didn't waste much time. Otherwise they're pretty cool!

 

[Question]

Is there any way to increase the quantity of random events? Especially quests? Quests almost never appear for me, i can easily finish a 300+ turn game and not get a single quest.

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

I'm thinking of starting to turn off the random events.

There's too many bad ones. yeah ok, let me build 10 chariots before reaching the classical age. Let me delay ironworking and ignore all those jungle gems. right. Or let me build those 7 stables asap, i'll get right on that. Lets ignore that i don't have horses and only have 6 cities.

Yet every 5 turns there's a mine explosion, a volcano eruption, a tornado, or a plague of locusts.

 

[TacNuke]

Thanks for all the replies. I'm still in the same game and now have had Gems appear in one of my other cities mines .

Yeah, I had a quest to build 9 coliseums before the modern age and if I had the statue of Zeus I would get something extra. Well I did that and had the Zeus statue but nothing happened that I could tell and the quest had disappeared from my quest log?

Interesting game for my first BTS. Bouddica to the north and Hammurabi to the south. Bouddica must send spys over to me every turn b/c I catch a bunch of them but she's always poisoning my water supply. Not sure how I can counter that.

Anyway its like 1740-ish in the game and I don't think anyones discovered astronomy yet....between the espionage and random events it seems to have slowed everyone down....(FYI playing etheopia, large map, noble, 8 AIs, epic speed)

 

[paydro]

Either you didn't do it in time, or it's one of those quests that the AI can complete before you.

I don't really get it, so what if you don't complete the quests? You've never gotten free promotions? A bonus to relations? Electrical workers who do it quickly? Free gold, or culture? Plus, all the negative effects can and do happen to the computer as well.

 

[Sisiutil]

Just to be clear the chance each turn of discovering a resource does not become greater the longer you have worked the mine. In other words, the chance of discovering a new resource on a mine on a given turn depends only on whether you are working the mine or not and not how long you have worked the mine. (I know you understand this Sisiutil)

A good clarification. You have a random chance of popping a resource from a mine each turn provided the mine is being worked. So the more turns you spend working the mine, the greater the chance you have of popping a resource. This is why, if I have to reallocate citizens to tiles, I'll pull them off of a "flat" production tile like a workshop, watermill, or flat tile resource (like copper on a plains tile) before I'll pull them off of a mine on a hill. But you're right, it has nothing directly to do with the overall length of time you spend working the mine.

 

[jray]

I don't believe the generation of resources on mined hills are 'Random Events'. You just have to mine the hill and connect it with a road. Then if you're lucky, it might pop a resource.

Roads are irrelevant. I popped a Copper last night on an un-roaded mine. And as others have said, you need to be working the mine at the time.

I'm not sure whether or not the number of mines you are working makes a difference. I say this because a few days ago, I re-loaded a turn several times to experiment with something else. In every case, I would pop a resource in some mine on the very next turn, but it would be a different resource and in a different location each time! Apparently other things I was doing were nudging the random number generator a bit, but the decision "you will pop a resource somewhere" was pre-made.

I'm sure someone could look at the code and reveal the exact mechanism, but I did find this interesting.

 

[Supr49er]

But you will need a road to access the resource.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Roads are irrelevant. I popped a Copper last night on an un-roaded mine. And as others have said, you need to be working the mine at the time.

I'm not sure whether or not the number of mines you are working makes a difference. I say this because a few days ago, I re-loaded a turn several times to experiment with something else. In every case, I would pop a resource in some mine on the very next turn, but it would be a different resource and in a different location each time! Apparently other things I was doing were nudging the random number generator a bit, but the decision "you will pop a resource somewhere" was pre-made.

I'm sure someone could look at the code and reveal the exact mechanism, but I did find this interesting.

I find this interesting too because that would seem to imply the decision to have the event appear would have occured some number of turns prior. Otherwise you'd expect nudging the RNG to make it not occur at all (much more likely anyway). Your anecdote here basically contradicts the way this event is understood at the moment so it would definitely be interesting to see the code for this. Can you get in touch with someone who can read the code?

 

[paydro]

A lot of events are determined before the turn they happen. For instance, I once popped a Great Engineer at a low probability. I misclicked or something, and wanted to reload, and I figured I'd keep doing it until I got the GE again, because I was pleased by my good fortune. It happened the first time... and the second... and the third. It wasn't until I reloaded two autosaves before that it started popping GAs and GPs like the higher probability suggested. So definitely some events are determined by the RNG at least two turns in advance.

 

[Question]

Thats because the RNG uses the same seed on reload unless you are playing a custom game. IMHO it should use a different seed every reload by default.

 

[jkp1187]

Is there any way to increase the quantity of random events? Especially quests? Quests almost never appear for me, i can easily finish a 300+ turn game and not get a single quest.

Not necessarily the quantity, but you can increase the chance that such events will appear.

Go to this path:

C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Assets\XML\Events

and open the file titled:

CIV4EventTriggerInfos.xml

There will be a list of the events (the title is always: EVENTTRIGGER_EVENTNAME). Search for the ones you want. (Ori has posted a very helpful list of all random events here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=236727)

The two XML values you want to look for are:

<iPercentGamesActive> -- this controls whether or not the event will even be available for selection in a game. It's a value from 0 to 100, with 100 being active in 100% of all games.

<iWeight> -- this controls the likelihood of the event being triggered, assuming that the event is active in the game and that the civ otherwise meets all of the prerequisites. I don't know what the upper limit is, but I think ~200 is the average. If you set iWeight to "-1", the event will trigger immediately if all of the prerequisites are met.

So if you want to have lots of quests, search for the quests in the EventTrigger xml file, and increase those two values for the quest events. If there are events that you don't like, search for them and decrease one or both of those values (or, if you detest them completely, set <iPercentGamesActive> to "0", and you'll never have to worry about them again. Simple.)

Of course...back up this file before you make any edits. It's probably better to create this as a mod for extra protection.

And Solver has posted a very helpful thread on event modding here that is very worth reading: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=230567

 

[Sisiutil]

Thats because the RNG uses the same seed on reload unless you are playing a custom game. IMHO it should use a different seed every reload by default.

Many of us reload simply because we screw something up; all it takes is a click on the wrong button sometimes. I'd be upset if every time I reloaded to correct an honest mistake all the events of that turn changed on me.

That's why that option exists in the custom game screen. If you prefer to play that way, just turn it on.

 

[paydro]

Well my point is that it went like this (numbers made up): 1900 (autosave), 1901, 1902 (Great Person pops). So going back to 1900, you'd think that the random number for the GPPs would be figured out the next turn, before the GP pops, but apparently it happens in 1899 or so.

 

[r_rolo1]

Try this, paydro: load the 1901 save and put one unit in autoexplore (that uses the RNG to decide which path to take) just before pressing enter.... and see if the GP changes. I 've done it once and it changed the GP type. Thus I don't believe that the GP type is predetermined with that kind of precedence.