details of turnplay mechanics

vondrack · February 7, 2003, 11:41

Putting together some stat tables for my PtWDG team, I realized I knew very little about the order which various events take place during turns in. I spent hours looking for information here at Poly and over at CFC, but found nothing really helpful. It can be my incompetence only, so if there is anyone able to precise/explain/disprove what I have found out so far, I would be grateful.

From what I have been able to figure out, the order is as follows:

1) any worker actions that were to due to finish at the end of the previous turn, are actually finished and all the output figures (food, shields, gold) updated acording the new terrain output values.

2) research status and commerce updated; the current number of beakers/gold is added to the current research project/treasury (this includes any extra beakers/gold added by the recently finished roads that did not show in the F1 screen on the previous turn - thus you can have more beakers/gold added to your project/treasury than what you might have expected based upon the previous turn statistics).

EDIT:
2.5) disorder check
- thanks, Aeson!

3) population growth resolved; the current food surpluses are added to the accumulated food storages in your cities. Those cities hitting the full storage get an extra citizen that is automatically assigned to work a tile.

4) production updated; the current number of unwasted shields is added to the production projects in your cities (this includes any extra shields generated by the newly born citizens assigned to work new tiles in Step 3 - thus you can have more shields added to your production than what you might have expected based upon shield outputs shown in the F1 screen at the end of the previous turn).

4a) should the current production be a worker or a settler, they will now be created and the corresponding number of citizens removed from the city. It seems to me (but this is something I am not sure about) that any pop-decrease effects of rushed jobs are applied at this moment.

Also, the Demographics screen obviously reflects your ranking based upon the current (read: valid at the very moment you are looking at the F11 screen) slider settings and values for your food, shield, and gold output.

And the last bit of information I have figured out and never seen mentioned... the eye-candy population count on the city screen is determined as:

5,000*(Pop*Pop+Pop) + 1,000*Stored_Food

so that a city with 5 citizens and 10 food stored will have

5,000*(5*5+5)+1,000*10=160,000 people

Can anyone with more experience than me confirm that my findings are correct, please?

Thanks in advance.

Aeson · February 7, 2003, 14:16

Before 3 it checks for disorder. Also you could include a commerce check before the production I think (why the weath/production exploit works). The rest looks right, though I've never really payed much attention to the exact order of things.

Dominae · February 7, 2003, 14:22

vondrack, it all looks right to me too. Funny that you get the bonus Shields from a newly-born citizen, but not Commerce.

Aeson, what's the Wealth/Production exploit?

Dominae

Dominae · February 7, 2003, 14:33

An elaboration of the "bonus" production from new citizens thing:

Taking this effect into account is very important in the early-game, where it is not entirely obvious if it is better to emphasize production or growth. If a job finishes at the same time as the city grows, you'll usually waste a couple of Shields. So it is usually not recommended to have "Growth:2, Settler: 2" or somesuch. More careful planning is required to avoid waste. Similarly, sometimes a job will appear to require say 5 Shields to complete the turn it grows, but actually this number reduces to 4 or 3 because of the new citizen. Depending on your priorities, it is sometimes better to delay growth by assigning Laborers to Forest tiles, or (conversely) place Laborers on high-food but low-production tiles (like an unworked Grassland next to a River instead of a mined unroaded Bonus Grassland - counter-intuitive, but the right move).

All this to say that you should be checking the actual Shield count of jobs in the early-game, instead of relying on the turns to completion figure.

Dominae

Catt · February 7, 2003, 15:36

Quote:

Originally posted by Dominae
Aeson, what's the Wealth/Production exploit?

[aeson voice] Your can set cities to producing wealth, and at the first opportunity -- i.e., when a city completes a build project -- click the "Zoom to City" and then manually rotate through all city views via the arrow keys. In each city that was set to build "wealth" you can select a different build item. It seems that the wealth will already have been tallied as "accumulated" and therefore has beren credited towards your treasury, but by changing the build item you also enjoy the shield accumulation of that turn. It is essentially enjoying the benefits of a city's production accumulation twice in one turn -- once as wealth and a second time as shields towards another item. [/aeson voice]

Dominae · February 7, 2003, 16:43

Thanks Catt-with-Aeson-voice. So every city that finishes a job is placed on Wealth, then removed the next turn to get a bit of extra cash without loss of production, right? Nice exploit. I can see how this can get ridiculous entering the Industrial age.

Dominae

joncnunn · February 7, 2003, 16:43

I'm not sure if this trigures the exploit above, but I sometimes have cities set to wealth and when I discover the tech I hit the button to see the big picture and often convert wealth builds into the new structure or unit allows before continuing on with the turn.

Catt · February 7, 2003, 18:01

Quote:

Originally posted by Dominae
Thanks Catt-with-Aeson-voice. So every city that finishes a job is placed on Wealth, then removed the next turn to get a bit of extra cash without loss of production, right? Nice exploit. I can see how this can get ridiculous entering the Industrial age.

I should confess that I've never actually done it to confirm that it actually works as easily as this -- just read about it in the forums and in the "documented exploits not allowed" sorts of rules compilations for GOTM and other tourney ideas. It strikes me as an incredibly tedious way to take the enjoyment out of a game . . .

Catt

Aeson · February 8, 2003, 00:19

Quote:

[aeson voice] ... that turn... [/aeson voice]

Pretty good impression there, although my voice is incapable of italics.

-----------

joncnunn,

I'm not sure if the commerce is tabulated before or after the research either. Anyone know?

vondrack · February 8, 2003, 03:31

Everybody, thanks for responding!

Quote:

Originally posted by Aeson
Before 3 it checks for disorder. Also you could include a commerce check before the production I think (why the weath/production exploit works). The rest looks right, though I've never really payed much attention to the exact order of things.

I have edited the disorder check info into my thread starting post. Just BTW, running a sim, I have discovered a pretty strange thing I didn't know about... if your city is in disorder, it does not produce any surplus food or shield production, but it does generate beakers/gold! Wonder what kind of logic is that...?

Also, does anyone know what happens if the newly born citizen tips the (un)happiness balance into the disorder? In my little sim, it looked like he was always automatically made an entertainer, even though the governor was set to not manage citizen mood!?

Quote:

Originally posted by Aeson
I'm not sure if the commerce is tabulated before or after the research either. Anyone know?

The commerce check must be done at the same time the research is updated (not really sure if it is possible to tell which one comes first - to me, it looks like it is done at the same time). Definitely before the population growth is resolved, as you will not get any beakers/gold from newly born citizens (as Dominae pointed out).

Would it make any difference if commerce/treasury check was done prior to or after the research update?

Dominae · February 8, 2003, 03:44

Quote:

Originally posted by vondrack
Also, does anyone know what happens if the newly born citizen tips the (un)happiness balance into the disorder? In my little sim, it looked like he was always automatically made an entertainer, even though the governor was set to not manage citizen mood!?

Sometimes the extra citizen is assigned as a Laborer (even if the city would revolt the next turn), and sometimes it becomes an Entertainer to deal with unhappiness. I've found no pattern to this yet (definitely for lack of trying). However, the new citizen will never cause a revolt the turn of growth; the city will only riot if it would have rioted without the new citizen.

Dominae

alexman · February 8, 2003, 04:16

I used to play with the luxury slider to avoid the situation where the new citizen becomes an entertainer because I thought his production was lost otherwise.

However, I recently realized that's not the case. The city grows first, the new citizen works a tile, the city gets his production and commerce, and then the citizen sometimes gets converted into an entertainer.

DeepO · February 8, 2003, 08:02

A couple of things:
- I consider your first two points the last of previous turn, instead of the first of the current turn... all worker actions are resolved before the turn ends. It makes all of this a bit more logical, by letting the turn start at the disorder check.

- Disorder is never a problem in PTW in the same turn: you can have 2 unhappy and 3 happy citizens because of growth, but because the disorder was already checked, you still get production and food from them. You need to make sure the situation is solved before ending the turn, as the first that happens is the disorder check. This also has implications when luxuries are pillaged / stopped trading, these can lead to instant disorder, while growth can't.

- your pop formula is correct, and AFAIK it was never posted publicly... but I did post it a while back in the GS provate forum

- wealth exploit: You can't use it automatically. When a building ends, the turn is also over for that city, so the wealth exploit can only be used next turn. You can use it by having city 2 (youngest) complete a building in turn N and set it to wealth, city 1 (older) end a building in turn N+1. If city 1 asks for a new order, you can use the arrows to get to city 2, and change it from wealth to production to get both gold as production.
This happens because all empire things are resolved before city things happen, gold and beakers are done first, and only then each city looks what shields go to what buildings... Stil, it is a clear exploit, and not to be used in a competition.

- commerce / research order: My guess is that the division of commerce is done first: the amount of beakers is calculated (this is part of the commerce question), and the next thing is calculating if this was enough to get to the tech being researched. You can see this because it doesn't matter to research how you set the slider when discovering a new tech: you won't get any more beakers, beaker count = 0 when the initial turn-management is done (except with scientists). You won't get more gold either, setting the slider while discovering a new tech only influences the next turn. You can influence the city building orders, as these come later.

DeepO

DeepO · February 8, 2003, 08:05

Quote:

Originally posted by alexman
I used to play with the luxury slider to avoid the situation where the new citizen becomes an entertainer because I thought his production was lost otherwise.

However, I recently realized that's not the case. The city grows first, the new citizen works a tile, the city gets his production and commerce, and then the citizen sometimes gets converted into an entertainer.

It can only be converted to an entertainer if you have 'Governor manages moods' setting on. Otherwise, you will be able to play one turn with a city which should be in disorder, getting all bonusses, but before you hit enter, you need to go to the city adjusting its workers, or work the lux slider to get that citizen happy. Starting with too many unhappy workers is no problem, it's ending a turn that is. (BTW, I think this has changed in PTW when compared with 1.29f, where the disorder check seemed to happen after city growth.)

DeepO

Theseus · February 9, 2003, 15:18

Quote:

Originally posted by vondrack
3) population growth resolved; the current food surpluses are added to the accumulated food storages in your cities. Those cities hitting the full storage get an extra citizen that is automatically assigned to work a tile.

4) production updated; the current number of unwasted shields is added to the production projects in your cities (this includes any extra shields generated by the newly born citizens assigned to work new tiles in Step 3 - thus you can have more shields added to your production than what you might have expected based upon shield outputs shown in the F1 screen at the end of the previous turn).

4a) should the current production be a worker or a settler, they will now be created and the corresponding number of citizens removed from the city. It seems to me (but this is something I am not sure about) that any pop-decrease effects of rushed jobs are applied at this moment.

So does this mean that if you build a Settler / Worker on the same turn you build a Granary, you get the benefit of the Granary, and are left with half the previous food?

Or the opposite?

DaveMcW · February 9, 2003, 15:31

I think you mean: what happens when your food box fills up the same turn you build a granary?

According to the list, the city grows, the food box is emptied, and finally the granary is built leaving no food. I have confirmed this in my games.

Edit: One thing I haven't tested is how much food is left when the Pyramids are built the same turn in an earlier city.

vondrack · February 9, 2003, 20:44

Quote:

Originally posted by Theseus
So does this mean that if you build a Settler / Worker on the same turn you build a Granary, you get the benefit of the Granary, and are left with half the previous food?

Or the opposite?

What DaveMcW said - even though I have not tested it in my games, I am 100% sure that the pop growth is resolved before production jobs (as the production jobs use shields from newly born citizens). If you complete a granary on the same turn as your city grows, you will end up with your food box empty, not half-full.

I do not think you could build a Settler/Worker and a granary on the same turn...

alexman · February 10, 2003, 11:42

Quote:

Originally posted by DeepO
It can only be converted to an entertainer if you have 'Governor manages moods' setting on.

According to my experience (and to vondark's, see his post above) the game sometimes assigns a new citizen to be an entertainer, even though you don't have the governor managing moods.

This is no problem for production loss though. You don't lose the new citizen's production, as the switch to entertainer happens after production is calculated.

Dominae · February 10, 2003, 13:03

Quote:

Originally posted by alexman
According to my experience (and to vondark's, see his post above) the game sometimes assigns a new citizen to be an entertainer, even though you don't have the governor managing moods.

Anyone know why?

Dominae

Catt · February 10, 2003, 15:50

Quote:

Originally posted by alexman

According to my experience (and to vondark's, see his post above) the game sometimes assigns a new citizen to be an entertainer, even though you don't have the governor managing moods.

Happens to me too, and I have no idea why. I notice this in the very strat game. Sometimes, without an MP unit in my capitol, the city will grow to size 2 and automatically convert pop #2 to asn entertainer. Other times, it will leave pop #2 unhappy but working. All w/o any governor management.

Catt

DaveMcW · February 10, 2003, 16:04

I think it depends on your emphasize food settings.

DeepO · February 11, 2003, 08:46

Strange, never saw it. What you describe sounds like a bug, I can only see one other reason for it, and that's when you can't grow (size 6 w/o aquaduct), and an extra worker doesn't net you any shields or commerce due to corruption. But that is hardly common...

DeepO

Theseus · February 16, 2003, 15:44

Quote:

Originally posted by vondrack

What DaveMcW said - even though I have not tested it in my games, I am 100% sure that the pop growth is resolved before production jobs (as the production jobs use shields from newly born citizens). If you complete a granary on the same turn as your city grows, you will end up with your food box empty, not half-full.

I do not think you could build a Settler/Worker and a granary on the same turn...

Uh, yeah.

DOH!

But the answer you both provided was what I was looking for... thanks.

Catt · February 17, 2003, 16:37

Quote:

Originally posted by Catt

Happens to me too, and I have no idea why. I notice this in the very strat [sic - should have been "early"] game. Sometimes, without an MP unit in my capitol, the city will grow to size 2 and automatically convert pop #2 to an entertainer. Other times, it will leave pop #2 unhappy but working. All w/o any governor management.

For any who are interested in thinking through the how's and why's, here is an attached zip file (it's not important enough to me to spend any time on it).

The attached zip contains two games; both under standard rules; both on Emperor; both as the French; both one turn from pop growth from 1 to 2; both without an MP unit in Paris; and both without any governor control at all. In one game, pop #2 is converted to an entertainer. In the second game, pop #2 is assigned a tile, albeit as an unhappy laborer.

There are plenty of other "game facts" that are different (precise city outputs, time to growth, surrounding terrain, etc.), but none that one might instinctively say "Aha, that's the key!" (well, at least none that made me say "Aha!")

Catt

Mazarin · February 17, 2003, 18:43

Quote:

Originally posted by Catt

Happens to me too, and I have no idea why. I notice this in the very strat game. Sometimes, without an MP unit in my capitol, the city will grow to size 2 and automatically convert pop #2 to asn entertainer. Other times, it will leave pop #2 unhappy but working. All w/o any governor management.

Catt

this happens when the city-borders expand in the same turn when the city grows: whenever city borders expand to enable the use of 21-tile-radius, the governor checks whether there are better fields in the new radius or not and reassigns the citizens even when he's switched off. If the city grows in the same turn, he'll set one citizen as an entertainer. You can see that when you have a surplus of 2 food in your capitol (emperor or deity) and no military police/luxuries for that city: if I have this situation, I always set luxuries to 20% at round 9 to avoid loosing the second citizen's production.

Dominae · February 17, 2003, 19:58

Mazarin is correct about the border expansion thing: in Catt's scenarios, the one where the city grows the same turn its borders expand generates an Entertainer (the other one's borders do not grow, and so no Specialist). I've confirmed this with a few saves of my own. Good eye Mazarin!

But you're wrong about 1 thing: you always get the production from the extra laborer, even if the governor subsequently turns it into a Specialist. In Catt's scenario, a Warrior has 2 Shields complete, and the city is producing 3 Shields per turn. Another 2 Shield tile is available. When the city grows the next turn, the laborer is indeed turned into an Entertainer, but the Warrior is now at 7/10. This fits with what was said above about.

However, this does not apply to Commerce! In Catt's scenario, there is 37 Gold in the treasury, and you can set it such there is a revenue of 5 gpt. The next turn when the city grows, the treasury is only at 42 Gold, and not 54 Gold as you would expect if Commere and Shields worked symetrically.

Thus, your trick of putting Luxuries at 20% has the net effect of (uselessly) losing 1 Gold. Your city will never revolt, you get the extra production, and income stays the same. You only need to play with Luxuries the turn an unhappy citizen appears (you get 1 "free" turn with an unhappy citizen).

Dominae

Mazarin · February 17, 2003, 20:03

I wasn't sure about whether I receive the production nevertheless or not, and as I value shields more at this point than gold, I wanted to make sure not to loose anything...but with your explanation I now know better, thanks

So the order is: commerce-->growth-->production-->border expansion. good to know for mm-issues

Dominae · February 17, 2003, 20:11

Since the Governor picks newly-available tiles from expanding borders, I think the order is more like:

Unhappiness->Commerce->Borders->Growth->Production->Entertainers

Dominae

Mazarin · February 17, 2003, 20:22

But, as the unhappiness comes from the new citizen, it must be checked for *after* growth...or have I misunderstood something?

Dominae · February 17, 2003, 20:51

Unhappiness definitely comes at the beginning of the turn, since a city that ends a turn unhappy will always revolt the next turn before anything else happens. I think the Governor steps in later on in the turn phase to check if there are any unhappy citizens, and makes the change accordingly. Silly, really.

Dominae