bribe costs and city capture payoffs

debeest · July 11, 2000, 23:27

As noted by William Keenan (?) on another thread recently, the detailed formula that's been generally accepted for calculating the immediate bonus and ongoing trade benefits for caravans is approximately, but not precisely, right. By the same token, the accepted formula for calculating the cost of inciting a city revolt is also approximately right but rarely exactly right. I'm curious; how did people come up with these formulas in the first place, and what made them think they had the full story? I'm also curious whether anyone knows exactly how to calculate the gold bonus you'll get from capturing a city.

July 12, 2000, 03:25

To avoid misunderstanding, may I ask you to post the link of the city bribing formula that you are referring to?
The city bribing formula that I have seen and verified provided accurate results in my test.
Search for posts in the archives for a user name mingko to see if you get the formula.
In short, 7 factors affect cost of bribing cities: distance, size, treasury, city in revolt, courthouse, have capital, and diplomat or spy.

Scouse Gits · July 12, 2000, 03:57

Prior to these discussions my 'Bible' was the Scrolls of Wisdom and I believe that most people here felt the same ...

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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor

Oldman · July 12, 2000, 05:03

I second that!!!

not much else to say i'm afraid!!!! maybe i'll come back later and third it, just as something to do, you know...

debeest · July 12, 2000, 10:22

Yep, it's the scrolls of magic link that I'm referring to. In my experience over the last couple months since I found it, the formula for calculating bribing costs is often pretty close, but almost never exactly right, and often significantly off (by as much as about 3/2 or 2/3).

debeest · July 12, 2000, 10:28

Note the commentary in BuilderR's current "Trade Routes" thread. The Scrolls of Magic formulas don't seem dependable.

July 13, 2000, 03:14

Thanks all for the links. My text browser does not highlight the links thus I miss out Scouse's link in the Trade Route thread.
That formula seems dependable. I have doubts on the spy and veteran part as I have tested it long ago. I think if there is any major difference between projected cost and actual cost, it is the calculation of distance.
Civilization 2 distance is calculated by:
l = max(horizontal difference, vertical difference) w = min(horizontal differnce, vertical differnce)
distance = integer part of (l + (w / 2)
I have not tried verifying the trade formula but I've done a few test cases for city bribing and unit bribing and get the correct result.

Scouse Gits · July 13, 2000, 03:50

Pikachu - good catch with that distance metric - I was trying to figure it out only yesterday in order to determine whether a unit I was about to bribe / destroy was closer to Paris (bribe and get a non-unit) or Liverpolis (destroy the nasty interloper)
Thanks a lot

p.s. sorry about not highlighting the link - we can get blase with these high-performance browsers ...

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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor