Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Manco Capac]

@AdamCrock

It is really appreciated you pushed forward to help me while some armed with versed code-diving abilities could simply resolved this in perhaps less than 5 mins.

Sadly, those numbers are war weariness, not war success. Why I kept question about ship's cargo being count towards war success is because war success is not shown in the UI? There are some theories coming straight from the code, but not the actual game everybody feels.

Seems war weariness has some connections with war success according to some, but war success is a different concept.

But, after looking into the code again, I wasn't able to find the functions manipulating war success values in GlobalDefines.xml.

So I tested too and found a decisive conclusion: Indeed, cargo is totally ignored.

We need to get 40 war success points, so I put 5 transports with full cargo. So, I supposed 5*4(for attacking)=20.
Let suppose cargo is worth 4 each unit too. So 5(five transports)*4(units per transport)*4(war success)=80 war success for a grand total of 120, which is far enough for capitulation. I didn't do anything, so I had to suppose it was worth 20 < needed 40 war success.

Then, I made supposition sunk units were worth 1 point each (just like captured settler/worker).
5*4*1=20
Thus a grand total of 20+20=40. Jackpot? Nope. Still no capitulation.

Conclusion, seems devs knew the gamebreaking value of letting sunken units worth in war success. Either they forgot to code something to this perspective or they intentionally ignored those units for game balance.

N.B. I also tested that little theory of a stack of workers where the first worth 4 war success and the rest 1 each. Yes, it did work. I put 37 workers. The first worth 4 points and remaining 36 worth 1 point each. So 4+36=40. Capitulation was available. If workers were all valued at 1 point, I should have scored 37<40 (No capitulation).

So, mass capturing workers in different plots have a great value in capitulation because the act fo capturing is worth 4 points for the head unit in the worker stack.

 

[Manco Capac]

Barbarian can create culture over time. Why people thinks they are culture-less? It's because most of the time, they do not get enough time to advance both city-wise and tech-wise. Yes, barbarian units+cities are a nation/team in the point of the game. And they tech just like normal civs, but given their lack of palace+high special maintenace (without palace), their tech pace is snail-like. And barb nation gets their tech rate from special rules depending of civs advances. Something like 3% of each nation getting such tech, but I don't remember.

 

[Manco Capac]

Interesting findings

President / Monarch / Despot: Unfortunately we lost 4 ships during the war.
Crowd: Oh, no
President / Monarch / Despot: And therefore we lost twelve of our most trusted legions, friends or relatives to many of you.
Crowd: Well, obviously. Who cares?

Yep, it pretty much resume messed up minds of the mob.

 

[elmurcis]

Barbarian can create culture over time. Why people thinks they are culture-less? It's because most of the time, they do not get enough time to advance both city-wise and tech-wise. Yes, barbarian units+cities are a nation/team in the point of the game. And they tech just like normal civs, but given their lack of palace+high special maintenace (without palace), their tech pace is snail-like. And barb nation gets their tech rate from special rules depending of civs advances. Something like 3% of each nation getting such tech, but I don't remember.

Thanks, I have seen lot of barbarians cities with expanded borders... Actually I have seen also how barbarian worker build road between 2 cities
And nothing can't be sweeter to take barb city with 2-3 towns

 

[AdamCrock]

Sadly, those numbers are war weariness, not war success. Why I kept question about ship's cargo being count towards war success is because war success is not shown in the UI? There are some theories coming straight from the code, but not the actual game everybody feels.

Seems war weariness has some connections with war success according to some, but war success is a different concept.

This is a great info Tachy ! Thanks ! I was totally unaware of the "war succes" factor That is why I have responded humorously at first for Your inquiry I have got a related question however. How much war weariness is needed for the AI ultimate capitualtion and vassaling ? I have always presumed it somewhere around ~120 points. I bet it also depends on difficulty. If You can asnwear it I would be more than happy and it would make my wars even easier to predict Thanks again

 

[s.bernbaum]

Please explain what you are referring to when you speak of "war success". What does it affect in the game?

 

[Manco Capac]

Please explain what you are referring to when you speak of "war success". What does it affect in the game?

War success is defined in BTS/Assets/XML/GlobalDefines.xml
There we see 5 definitions of war success:

<Define>
		<DefineName>WAR_SUCCESS_DEFENDING</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>3</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>
	<Define>
		<DefineName>WAR_SUCCESS_ATTACKING</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>4</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>
	<Define>
		<DefineName>WAR_SUCCESS_UNIT_CAPTURING</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>1</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>
	<Define>
		<DefineName>WAR_SUCCESS_CITY_CAPTURING</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>10</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>
	<Define>
		<DefineName>WAR_SUCCESS_NUKE</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>10</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>

Pretty much telling by their names.
Yes, I knew all the types of war success but when I asked about war success from cargo, I was wondering how those types of war success definitions were handled. For instance, when attacking a pile of workers, we get WAR_SUCCESS_ATTACKING for the head unit and WAR_SUCCESS_UNIT_CAPTURING for the rest. I didn't find the code dealing with the definitions, but I get the game handled the act of pushing an attacking unit onto another (whatever class it is) is considered as WAR_SUCCESS_ATTACKING. I thought cargo units were handled with a special rule, but reality doesn't do this.

War success has many repercussions in the game like:

• How fast the AI refusing to talk is willing to make contact.
• Affect a special and invisible diplo modifier called "We lose the war!" when two nations (AI-AI or AI-human) are at war and the one with the least war success gets angrier and reports -1 of diplo attitude. Not that is matters that much, but in AI-AI relationships, this very hidden negmods can be the threshold between civ A who was the worst enemy is no longer a worst enemy of civ B because civ B is at war with civ C. And some dynamics in worst enemy system is good for game variety and especially for trade opportunities without bad diplo aftermath.
• Affects the value for ending a war.
• Indeed, a measure on how succesful you are in war against the AI and if one reaches 40 war success points, then capitulation should be available if no other types of denial override this like "We're fine on our own!" (i.e. you're too weak or them too strong approx.).
• Since BTS (in Warlords that was a plague without this added function), determines who is the best master between warring civs against one common foe.
• Affects the "Declare onto X leader" on the diplo table. Not sure how it works with a skimming perusal.

Meanwhile, war weariness is different from war success from many accounts:

War weariness is not set to zero like war success after a period of peace.
War weariness induces unhappiness and that is seemingly the only location where it has effects.
War weariness is calculated differently from war success and goes high quickly in terms of raw numbers. You can see a good résumé here. That was posted not too long ago in the same thread.

Now, I must go, I have a SGOTM PPP to prepare.

 

[s.bernbaum]

Thanks for the explanation, Tachy.

 

[Core Imposter]

If I bribe a civ (A) to declare war on another civ (B), will I automatically be in a state of war with civ B if I am not already?

 

[s.bernbaum]

No, you will not automatically be in a state of war with civ B. You will receive negative diplo points from civ B. The AIs always know when you bribe some other AI to declare war on them.

 

[Manco Capac]

This is a great info Tachy ! Thanks ! I was totally unaware of the "war succes" factor That is why I have responded humorously at first for Your inquiry I have got a related question however. How much war weariness is needed for the AI ultimate capitualtion and vassaling ? I have always presumed it somewhere around ~120 points. I bet it also depends on difficulty. If You can asnwear it I would be more than happy and it would make my wars even easier to predict Thanks again

See my big post; it does make the difference between war weariness and war succes.

 

[Manco Capac]

No, you will not automatically be in a state of war with civ B. You will receive negative diplo points from civ B. The AIs always know when you bribe some other AI to declare war on them.

M.Cooper is prolly confusing with CivIII I guess.

 

[AdamCrock]

So winning a war is possible just by capturing ~40 workers or killing 40 units or capturing 4 cities and bam! capitualtion! wow ! haha No wonder why 'war success' is not visible in the UI - it is a huuuge exploit of the game mechanics just knowing this numbers For this I must try a game on low difficulty just for testing purposes

 

[Manco Capac]

But you have to know AI gets war success too if the wins go to their side . For human point of view, it's negative war success.
And capitulation system has a bunch of other denials than "You're joking, right..." (a.k.a. not enough war success).

BTW, killing units are worth 4 war success each.

If you want examples, it is 37 workers/settlers=capitulation, 4 nuclear weapons=capitulation, 4 cities=capitulation, 10 units killed= capitulation and ~14 units killed on the defensive=capitulation.

There are far bigger exploits than this...

 

[AdamCrock]

Oh I get it ! But I wonder about wars between AI's ? Maybe AI wars are the net value of both negative and positive war success(es?) or the ratio between the two warring nations like: nation A has 35 war success and nation B has 25 so the net value is 10 in favor of nation A or the A35-B25=A10 wins by 10 points And Player vs. AI is narrowed down for the player to get 40 to win and if player unit is killed it's -4 success points, player city captured by AI -10 points etc. Okays now it's more clear ^^ Wow Tachy! Just wow! xD Sometimes I wonder where do You get all this fantastic info Come to think of it I think it should be visible to the player ...

 

[Core Imposter]

M.Cooper is prolly confusing with CivIII I guess.

And SMAC too if iirc.

After I posted that dumb question I just did it and found out.

Now, I wonder where else lies false assumptions I have made. This is a pretty powerful design decision imo, as I had a huge stack of Greek footsoldiers on my border that had to be on an invasion mission. And I couldn't have dealt with them cheaply.

They just turned around and marched away. I expected that I would have to fight them anyway and nearly didn't do the bribe but I have noticed in the past that sometimes a civ will be willing to take a war bribe before you get into a war but after you have been attacked can't be bribed into getting involved. I don't understand why though.

 

[elmurcis]

Question about promotions and upgrade of unit.. For example old unit reach 10/10 XP (ready to promote), and I upgrade it to higher level before I use promotion (whatever.. Axe to maceman.. or privateer to destroyer), will I get chance to promote it anyway?

 

[Sisiutil]

Question about promotions and upgrade of unit.. For example old unit reach 10/10 XP (ready to promote), and I upgrade it to higher level before I use promotion (whatever.. Axe to maceman.. or privateer to destroyer), will I get chance to promote it anyway?

IIRC, at exactly 10/10 XPs, yes, the promotion will remain available. However, promotions unavailable to the upgraded unit remain unavailable. (For example, if you upgrade a 10/10 Maceman to a Rifleman, City Raider units will no longer be available). And I'm also pretty sure that at promotion levels above 10 XPs (for example, 17/17), unless you assign the promotion before upgrading, you'll lose it, as an upgraded unit automatically goes back down to 10 XPs.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, anyone...

 

[Manco Capac]

What's a contem...uh content staff?

 

[telgardrakore]

Hello, just started playing this game after having it sit in my CD case for a good many years. I have a question that I had absolutely no idea how to search for since the question isn't Google search friendly. I have been playing a game with what I thought was 6 other factions (The game is currently now at 1914 AD, so for 5914 game years it was ONLY 6 others) and the entire game map revealed except for a very small portion of ocean and the artics. I am just about to finish satalite research so i can see the entire map and all of a sudden I get a "Hi are you friend or foe?!? " communication from a civilization that never existed before. I do the usual "Yup Im a friend " response and 5 cities that were previously one of my allies change into a new color and this new civilization has taken over them and become a vassel of my allies.

Now I know this civilization never existed before because the cities they now own were my allies. The civilization never participated in the Apostol vote, and now that the civilization exists its in the Apostol vote at only 3 votes. Where the hell did it come from? Can you create a new leader and appoint them as a vassel over territories you no longer want to deal with? Can a civilization literally hide on a small island with only one town in a less then 4x4 fog of war block and literally never join the Apostol vote, never make a new town, never build a ship to explore, never attempt communication with anyone, never leave the island and never be seen until the 1900's?