The (not so) random turns of anarchy

[Bamspeedy]

Are the turns of anarchy really random, set at the beginning of the game, or the same for every game?

When playing a game I had a one turn anarchy, went back to an earlier save for one reason or another and this time I was able to start the revolution one turn earlier, but now had two turns of anarchy (emerging from anarchy on the same year).

SNES version, so I don't know if this is the same in DOS.

So I decided to run some tests.... Started a new game on the earth map (Chieftain level for testing). Can start a revolution without knowing any other government techs (Dictator is your only option of course).

Whether I revolted at 4000 BC, 3980 BC, 3960 BC or 3940 BC I would always emerge from anarchy at 3920 BC. Also would emerge at 3840 BC, 3760 BC, 3680 BC, 3600 BC, 3520 BC, etc. etc.

Needs more testing, but I believe the years of emerging from anarchy are set, so knowing this you can decide for yourself if you want one or four turns of anarchy.

If this works on other levels and random (non-earth maps) one could create a spreadsheet showing ideal turns to have your revolution resulting in one turn anarchy.

 

[SWY]

The random generator in Civilization is not so random. It can be influenced by entering screens that change the seed.
For example, when you go to View City, the random seed will be generated according to the city name. This is done so that the layout for the city will be the same every time.

More info from darkpanda: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=509679

 

[humbe]

I'm pretty sure the number of turns for revolution is not decided by random number generator when you go for a revolution. I have many times saved the game and tested when I can select a new gov, and regardless of what else I did in the meantime after loading, this time did not change.

I haven't logged it across multiple games, so it could in theory be decided on game start or based on something that don't change much, but I'd guess it's the same each game, and just every N'th turn, where N becomes 1 if you build pyramids. N is not 5 from experience at least.

There's two exploits here:
- You can save game and test when gov switch can happen, so you know when you replay.
- If you save the game after revolution and load it back, you are able to pick new gov same turn if the current turn is valid for new gov.

This can be exploited to have instant government changes without pyramids, or just to declare war as republic/democracy, by having a revolution, attack, and then load the game back to be able to pick republic/democracy again.

 

[Mize]

N = 4

1AD is a revolution year, meaning you have to revolt in 20BC to get to choose on the very next turn. You can easily extrapolate from that for the bigger part of the game, until the turns start getting in the 10's, 5's, 2's and 1's. While they're 20 years long, it's an 80 year cycle. I use 400-year periods as a base when I'm calculating when to do early BC revolutions. 1AD, 400BC, 800BC, 1200BC, 1600BC, 2000BC, etc. are all generally good markers and you can tweak from there using the smaller 80-year cycles if you really need to.