RNG attraction and cheating

[Tynendir]

Hi guys,

Got a little issue on one of my games that I had to terminate because of how frustrated I was.
First of all I must admit that I was tweaking some stuff with Cheat Engine notably giving me 30k of all ressources as well as a motherload of research points.
Before you start lynching me to oblivion, I would like to explaine my motives which were quite simple: I wanted to see what all the ressources were doing and all the bonus they would give as well as trying to strategize what I should put the most incentive on (Moonstone, the answer is moonstone).
However I was quite careful in what stuff I was tweaking and I believe I only changed the value of all the adresses for my ressources (won't probably make sense to you if you've never used CheatEngine, basically I only tweaked the data linked to those ressources). It worked great and I was able to build 10 buildings out of various materials which gave me attraction for (if my memory serves me right):
+2 Elven. +2 Dwarves, +20 Human, +5 Babies, +5 Demon, +4 Goblin, +6 Animal.
Probably not accurate but it will give you a good idea. I was trying to figure out how the attraction stat worked and I think my game bugged.
In 367 turns I got:
1 Scavenger, 2 Medics, 1 Witch, 3 Animals (1 Bear that I named Trinket, 1 Spider and 1 Bat) and 7 babies (yes that's it). No demons, no elves, no dwarves and no goblin alongside a ridiculously low amount of people.
I only had 37 people by the end of turn 367... Because yes in addition to that I only got 4 of my children who grew up to adults. Of course I had no deaths as I was playing in low difficulty and the amount of high end items I could craft by turn 60 was out of the roof.

So my questions would be:
1/ Did I break the game?
2/ Was I simply unlucky?
3/ Has someone figured out how the attraction stat works exactly? The numbers are way too abstract, is it a % chance each turn?
4/ Why is Steam suddenly speaking Italian to me? (random ranting as it happens as Im writing this)
5/ Same as 3 but for children? Is it simply random for when they grow up?

That's pretty much it. Thank you for reading and for your help!

[Tynendir]

Found the answer for 4/ it was the Steam's music player playing some Italian notifications sound from Civ 5...

[robbie.price]

Firstly, you don't need the cheat engine, You can do much less destructive testing by using the event editor, you can make an ''gift of all gifts" event that gives you as much of anything as you can possibly want.

More to your question:

1.) Growing up is ~7% chance per turn if you have at least one child (having 2 or 45 children has no effect on this %), in village or in an expedition. If you have Lots of children there is at least one other event that permits multiple children to mature at one time.

2.) The Spawn_(human, child, dwarf, elf, ..., etc) rates depend on 4 factors; The number of +'s you have, and the number of people you have, the turn number, and the "rate the game progresses (easy mode is slow, "true thea" is fast."

The game keeps a hidden 'The player should have ___ people' number. . The 'The player should have ___ people' number goes up depending on the turn number and the game rate.

If the player has more villagers then the magic number attraction rates fall, rapidly. The number seams to cap at ~24, (2 groups of 12, one in village and one wandering around). If you are under the magic number attraction works more or less as expected.

This is why some players will run "useless" villgers out on suicide missions, (most beasts, bandits, low or medium strength warriors, anybody who doesn't impress them, In short any villigers less valueable then an elf, dwarf, or orc witch). It's a somewhat ... unsatisfactory solution to the soft cap, but some people find it nessisary/worth while.

This mechanic appeared to be nessisary to keep the late game ballance remotely ballanced.


In short, you didn't (as far as I can tell) brick your game, you simply passed the poiint of deminishing returns on attraction.


Note: as far as I can tell children don't count as villiagers, so if you keep your village population low, your number of children will skyrocket if you have a lot of cabbage patches.

[Tynendir]

Thanks for that very comprehensive answer.
So I suppose the chance of children growing is also calculated considering that soft cap?
I was playing at Snail pace so i guess it makes sense and I now understand why some people boast of 50 villagers by turn 100 (when I had less than 20).
Moreover I had my population growing till around 20 villagers and then it simply stopped and no one joined and no children grew. I managed to grow my population simply through events (I learnt to love the dwarf bandit event).

Now I think the best strat is no longer attraction for human or others but atrraction for children as you can trade them when you won the Cosmic Tree quest line for villagers (15 children for an elf at Silverpeak for example).

Btw how did you come up with the numbers? Personal experience or quoted from the devs? Just curious, as I said they make a lot of sense.

[Tynendir]

Oh and I wonder if that soft cap could be modded.

[robbie.price]

the 7% was a quote from the devs.

the only mod support currently is the event editor.

you COULD, if you really didn't mind LOTs of writting, make an event to check your attraction rates for each type and then give you people based on it. . . but the built in soft cap is not got a "hook"

infact none of the "core" game is moddable.

Personally I am hoping for a "Modders delight" mod. but that's likely as much work as doing multi-player was if not more, and would almost certainly slow down run and load times.

[Tynendir]

Originally posted by robbie.price:

the 7% was a quote from the devs.

the only mod support currently is the event editor.

you COULD, if you really didn't mind LOTs of writting, make an event to check your attraction rates for each type and then give you people based on it. . . but the built in soft cap is not got a "hook"

infact none of the "core" game is moddable.

Personally I am hoping for a "Modders delight" mod. but that's likely as much work as doing multi-player was if not more, and would almost certainly slow down run and load times.

The initial load time isn't a problem in a TBS game. The problem is loading between turns which isn't an issue currently. We'll see what is reserved for Thea's future. Great things hopefully ;p

[MadCarlos]

Originally posted by robbie.price:

2.) The Spawn_(human, child, dwarf, elf, ..., etc) rates depend on 4 factors; The number of +'s you have, and the number of people you have, the turn number, and the "rate the game progresses (easy mode is slow, "true thea" is fast."

What did you mean by the number of +'s you have?
And how do you suspect it affects things?

[Tynendir]

Originally posted by MadCarlos:

Originally posted by robbie.price:

2.) The Spawn_(human, child, dwarf, elf, ..., etc) rates depend on 4 factors; The number of +'s you have, and the number of people you have, the turn number, and the "rate the game progresses (easy mode is slow, "true thea" is fast."

What did you mean by the number of +'s you have?
And how do you suspect it affects things?

Number of +'s = attraction

[robbie.price]

as long as your population is below the soft cap, that seams quite likely, attract 2 human = 2% chance to attract human if under soft cap, Not sure. that's purely speculation on my part.