Solved: Domination Victory Calculation

[chiefpaco]

Hi. Well, I believe from the analysis I've done & with some help from many others, including SirPleb & Aeson & Beard Rinker, & more...

I've done some major backing for the theory that the Domination calculation is as follows:

Domination% = Player's Controlled Tiles (Land + Coast) / Total Map's Tiles (Land + Coast)

Domination Victory occurs when Domination% > 66.66%

By Controlled, I mean the territory in your sphere of influence.

My theory comes as the result testing on various maps but the icing was probably studying the GOTM03 results for each player who submitted a Domination Victory. I made an Excel Spreadsheet, which I will attach, to show the results of my testing. It also contains the statistics on Aeson's GOTM05 domination test, which he was looking at for domination victory.

Using my new Utility, MapStat, I extracted each player's territory land & coast & calculated that as a percentage of total land & coast. In each case, the Domination triggered as a result of the formula above becoming true.

If anyone has a save that proves otherwise, please post! If anyone agrees with me, post anyway!

Some remarks:
- I'm not sure if the formula above should be a >= or a > because I did not have a case that satisfied this criteria. This could be a case for further study. Edit: it is the ">", not the ">=". See the post below for further details.

- This study only covers GOTM03 & 1 case for GOTM05. I am assuming it is ok to say this formula would work for all maps. In other testing I have done, I have not seen a case to dispute this theory.

- For the players in the study whose territory already exceeded 66.66%, I took their word that domination victory occured. I only double-checked those whose territory had yet to expand over the threshold.

- Including Aeson's GOTM#5 was to help solve our debate from a previous point in the Territory Score Formula Thread.

Relevant Links:
Territory Score Formula & Domination Discussion:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17439

MapStat Utility:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18243

SirPleb's Maximizing your Score Guide (with helpful explanations on the statistics presented in the game):
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18729

Warning: Attached file has map statistics for GOTM#3 and GOTM#5. I don't know if this is really SPOILER material, but I guess I should at least put up the warning...

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

aaaargh, can`t dl, buggy Netscape again...

anyway, thanx a lot!

I still don`t get it since I had some very strange domination things (like I control all land except 1 city and still dont get domination, but when that city`s radius expands I do get it ) but I do guess what you found is the rule (whatever bugs there may be in it...)

 

[Beard Rinker]

Originally posted by chiefpaco
- I'm not sure if the formula above should be a >= or a > because I did not have a case that satisfied this criteria. This could be a case for further study.

I reloaded my GOTM 4 amd played it to a domination victory. I used Chiefpaco's tile counter and if I remember correctly 2/3 of all land + coast was 1115.333 tiles.

I claimed tiles right up to 1115, did nothing for a few turns then claimed 1 more tile and triggered domination. This doesn't answer whether domination is determined using > or >=, but it does show that if 2/3 of all tiles are a fractional number, you can claim right up to that number without triggering domination. This will be the case in 2 out of 3 games.

 

[Trash]

A few things this will change for me when trying to maximise score.

When i'm on an island that i completely cover (all the land) I build all my cultural improvements & stuff, so my sphere of influence normaly covers any coastline squares whether they are worked or not.

I tried to use the coastal tiles if i could but i considered them a 'bonus' so i wasn't too worried if i missed a few.

Now that i know those tiles are counting towards my domination threshold, I'm going to want to take advantage of everyone that is in my sphere of infulence. Since they are effectively land (equal to desert).

It also drops the usefulness of island cities. where you had maybe 4-5 squares of land and 10-12 coastal tiles. I used to think i was getting 18 pop to contribute to score and only 4-5 squares contributing to domination, which was a very good ratio.
Now it's not so good and these island cities 'score to territory' ratio aren't really that good.

 

[MindRunner]

Excellent work chiefpaco! You and SirPleb really should deserve some kind of medal for your commitment to this cause: knowing how the domination victory works.

Thank you very much for this extremely piece of useful info.

 

[chiefpaco]

I just finished testing the > vs >= limit and found that the answer is....

>

Time to celebrate!

I don't think I need to go into all the details of the test because it's pretty boring but here's a basic rundown, just to record what I did (for justification purposes)

- Took GOTM 03 again. Why? Because the domination limit (i.e. 2/3 of the world's land+coast) was precisely 1646 tiles.

- Took JMarc's near domination victory save from the GOTM downloads. JMarc had 1642 squares this turn.

- Next turn, fixed it so I would gain 4 squares to yield 1646 total. No victory!

- Tried again, gaining 5 tiles to have a total of 1647. Victory!

So thanks JMarc for the great game & playing a great indirect part here, whoever you are!

It is only 1 test, but I think it should be pretty safe to imply that it should hold. Anyone who thinks different, please post!

A few more notes:
- with this refinement in the theory, I will try to update Mapstat to include the calculation, just to make things super visible.

- There are a few reports of domination victories happening later than they were supposed to. I believe that it may have to do with 1.07 patched games. They might have made a fix in 1.16 or maybe 1.17. All my testing was with 1.17.

- I should add Aeson to Silvagem's credit list. There's a lot of valuable information buried in all of his posts. Unfortunately, a lot of them are buried in HOF or GOTM discussions & chatrooms & don't see the light of day. I think he knows all but enlightens us as he sees appropriate . lol Aeson.

Anyway, I'm eating up valuable GOTM time... I'll update the first post here...