Utility: MapStat

[Justus II]

I echo everyone's thanks for this great utility. I would also like the export function to include more info, everything on the F1 screen would be great. (a listing of improvements by city would be great also, but I don't know if it is possible). Currently I capture a bunch of screenshots of the F1 and F5 (Culture) screens, save to disk, and take them to work with me (oops, I don't take them to work . . . um)
Anyway, it is good for planning build queues, etc, to make sure you haven't forgotten a marketplace or something somewhere, then wonder why it goes into unrest!

 

[Lovro]

Originally posted by Justus II
I would also like the export function to include more info, everything on the F1 screen would be great. (a listing of improvements by city would be great also, but I don't know if it is possible).

Actually, all of this should be very easy. I already have the code that reads city improvements (for Apollo), it's just a matter of copy/paste

However, how should it be exported? i.e. do you want all improvements comma-separated in a single column or an additional section for every city?

Everyone, please post any suggestions here or email me so that we don't have to release new versions too often. The more functions we include in the next version, the less versions we need

 

[Jersey Joe]

First, thank you Chiefpaco & Lovro for 2 very useful programs

Originally posted by Lovro
Actually, all of this should be very easy. I already have the code that reads city improvements (for Apollo), it's just a matter of copy/paste

However, how should it be exported? i.e. do you want all improvements comma-separated in a single column or an additional section for every city?

My preference would be for a grid with the Improvements as column headings and City names as row headings (or the reverse) and the improvements in a city "checked" off, or

City name followed by a string of ones and zeros for the improvements built, not built.

One other piece of information that would be useful, if it is readily available would be how long whipping/ drafting penalties will last.

Once again, thank you for your efforts.

 

[Lovro]

Originally posted by Jersey Joe
My preference would be for a grid with the Improvements as column headings and City names as row headings (or the reverse) and the improvements in a city "checked" off, or

City name followed by a string of ones and zeros for the improvements built, not built.

The first option would take just too much space (there are 49 or 0x49 buildings, IIRC).

The second one would perhaps be more useful for programs having the output fed to them, but hardly useful otherwise.

One other piece of information that would be useful, if it is readily available would be how long whipping/ drafting penalties will last.

Noted. I don't think we have an idea on how this is stored, but I'll try and figure it out.

 

[Jersey Joe]

Originally posted by Lovro
The first option would take just too much space (there are 49 or 0x49 buildings, IIRC).
The second one would perhaps be more useful for programs having the output fed to them, but hardly useful otherwise.

I figured that the first option might be cumbersome.
With the second, I would be importing the "ones & zeros" into a spreadsheet and parse it there. If you would like I could even send you a sample of the spreadsheet I would use.

Noted. I don't think we have an idea on how this is stored, but I'll try and figure it out.

This was one of those "it would be nice to have requests" I play sucession games and it would make it a little easier to pick up a game after several tens of turns have passed.

Actually, even if there are no further revisions to the 2 programs I would like to once again say Thank you Lovro & Chiefpaco

 

[Lovro]

Originally posted by Jersey Joe
With the second, I would be importing the "ones & zeros" into a spreadsheet and parse it there. If you would like I could even send you a sample of the spreadsheet I would use.

I figured that. Still, that option would be not mod-compatible as you don't know how many or what buildings a mod has added or removed.

You should have no trouble parsing a comma-separated building list, and it is readable, and can be split into categories across columns (culture, science, military)

 

[Jersey Joe]

Comma separated would be fine.

I am not sure exactly what you meant by this:

Originally posted by Lovro
However, how should it be exported? i.e. do you want all improvements comma-separated in a single column or an additional section for every city?

As long as I could tell improvement by city, either way is okay by me.

 

[IDSmoker]

Originally posted by Jersey Joe
My preference would be for a grid with the Improvements as column headings and City names as row headings (or the reverse) and the improvements in a city "checked" off, or

City name followed by a string of ones and zeros for the improvements built, not built.

Originally posted by Lovro
The first option would take just too much space (there are 49 or 0x49 buildings, IIRC).

The second one would perhaps be more useful for programs having the output fed to them, but hardly useful otherwise.

I agree that this would be a 'wide' file, and it would probably be difficult to read in it's 'raw' text format, but the only time anyone would be using it, is when they have too many cities to track them comfortably within the game. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that the user will be using some sort of analysis tool with this information.

On formatting the new export file... I would recommend sticking with tab-delimited. If you can come up with a way of abbreviating the improvement names to 2-4 letter codes (perhaps with a key at the end of the file, after the counts/totals), the file might still be somewhat readable in plain text.

As for each City improvement listing... I think using a non-zero value (1 or -1) for showing improvements would work well both visually and when brought into Excel. If the city doesn't have an improvement, either leave it blank or use a zero (personally, I would vote for leaving it blank, looks cleaner).

Of course, adding another function to this utility, is going to be alot of work...

Speaking of adding to Lovro's workload <grin>... Is there any chance of adding the 'Food Stored/Eaten' information to the City Stats file? It has always irked me that there is no way to sort your cities by population in the advisor screen. With this information in the export file, I can modify my spreadsheet to calculate the population and do the sorting myself.

Even if it should be decided that MapStat is 'feature-complete' in it's current form, it is an incredibly useful tool as is, and all of the hard work that has gone into bringing it to it's current state is GREATLY appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[Lovro]

Originally posted by IDSmoker
It has always irked me that there is no way to sort your cities by population in the advisor screen.

I am almost 100% sure you can click the population column header in the domestic advisor screen to sort the cities by population...

 

[IDSmoker]

Originally posted by Lovro
I am almost 100% sure you can click the population column header in the domestic advisor screen to sort the cities by population...

Ohhhh.... you can sort that column, just like you can the others, but since the column is: "Food Eaten/Stored", the sort works with the "Food Stored" value (FS for short). I haven't figured out exactly what the FS represents, but it does NOT seem to be any of the following: Turns to Next Growth, Food Points Stored, or any other value that would make easy sense/use.

Actually, the Food Eaten value is the actual Food points consumed by the population, so you have to divide it by 2 just to figure out the population (and you still can't sort on it!). Dividing the FS value by 2 is probably required, but I still haven't figured out what that gives you.

In fact the only reason to ever use the sort on this column of the Domestic Advisor is to check for Starvation (the FS goes negative).

It's been one of my minor pet peeves... <grin>

 

[Lovro]

Originally posted by IDSmoker
Ohhhh.... you can sort that column, just like you can the others, but since the column is: "Food Eaten/Stored"

I meant the population column with the citizens' heads...

 

[IDSmoker]

Whooooopsss.... how the ?!#*% did I manage to miss that?!?!? Learn something new everyday I guess. <grin>

Thanks!

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

Wouldn't FS stand for 'food surplus'? That is how the column sorts.

 

[cracker]

I just completed GOTM-8 using V1.21 and version 2.12 of mapstat for windows. The mapstat program is a great help in games where you are trying to hit or avoid domination.

The only problem is that in one of the ending scenarios for this game, I went over the domination limit and got a negative number for tiles to limit. The actual domination event did not trigger until we finally got to 50 tile over the limit calculated by mapstat.

Is this a bug in the mapstat routine or is it a bug in how Firaxis calculates the actual domination limit at something different than 66% of the world's land mass?

Could it be a round off error in mapstat since the 50 tiles difference is exactly 1% of the 5000 tiles listed in the world size for this map (or is this just a coincidence?)?

I have saved game files, but will need to email them directly since this is a currently active GOTM and it would not be appropriate to post them publicly before the submission date.

 

[Lovro]

Originally posted by cracker
Is this a bug in the mapstat routine or is it a bug in how Firaxis calculates the actual domination limit at something different than 66% of the world's land mass?

We have already noticed this problem in game 2 (of the regular division only) of Grey Fox's tournament.

The MapStat routine has been coded twice from the ground up (Java and PC) and both versions output the same results for those problematic games. My guess is that, yes, there is another condition for domination, since the victories in those problematic games seem to appear completely randomly (once at -41, once at -65 tiles etc.).

Could it be a round off error in mapstat since the 50 tiles difference is exactly 1% of the 5000 tiles listed in the world size for this map (or is this just a coincidence?)?

Hardly. No actual percentages are compared. The number of land+coast owned by a civilization is compared to two thirds of the total world land+coast. Thus, the 1% has to be accidental, as proved in the answer to your previous question.

 

[LKendter]

I have also seen this program with false domination counts.

Could it have to be 2/3 of the cities on the map also?

The game in question went a handful more turns, and ended after multiple new small cities were added.

 

[Lovro]

Interesting idea, Lee. I'll look into it.

 

[chiefpaco]

I'm with Lovro as well. While I haven't experienced my own games in the negative domination numbers, I have validated others claims too. I'm not sure what the reason could be at this time too, but I agree with Lovro to this point.

The reason Mapstat hasn't been my 1st worry so far is because the tournament game worked just fine with Mapstat on the same map in other divisions. In these cases, Mapstat's count was pretty consistent but the domination trigger was not. However, I concede that it may very well be Mapstat yet, especially since discussing otherwise....

Perhaps there is another factor that is normally tripped when playing a domination game. The # cities may be a good candidate, or population, I suppose. The latter is a factor in the diplomatic victory so its count might apply here too. Unfortunately, it is hard to test. I'll take a look too.

 

[MuddyOne]

I have used Mapstat for a little while, and enjoy it a lot. The recent addition of the export is quite nice. I was wondering though, would it be difficult to add the rest of the city based stats to it? This would allow for easier testing of a multitude of different things.

Thanks for a great program.

 

[Strider]

Could you add something that lists the city and the improvments/wonders/small wonders ithas?