Structural drones

[Snowflake]

Could anybody explain Vev's waves of expansion technique? My understanding is that for transcend, huge map, Hive
base limit = (8-5)*(4+0)*3/2 = 18

So that would mean that in the first wave you could set up 18 bases without the first citizen being a drone, right? Then you build some anti drone facility and then start the second wave. Can somebody confirm this?

My question is when you are over the base limit, will a drone always appear in the new base or in an old base randomly? Or is it true that a structual dron will appear in all the previous bases? And after you build anti drone facilities, the new base will still have a drone as the first citizen right?

[Sikander]

Yang's first bureau limit is 9, which is the minimum regardless of your efficiency on a huge map. 18 is the most bases you can have without triggering the second bureau limit, again for any efficiency rating <= zero. The drones seem to appear more or less randomly, so be sure to check all of your bases whenever you plant a new base to see if they have been bumped over into drone riots.

[Gufnork]

I think it has something to do with distance from headquearters. Further away = more inefficiency = more drones. That's what I've experienced anyway, it's always the newest colonies that gets the most upset and almost never your HQ.

[Flubber]

Sorry gang but it is not random. IIRC the work on this issue was done a year or so ago ( by Ned perhaps . . . I don't remember). What they found was that each base beyond the first limit would create one drone in a base determined by build order. The pattern was something non-sequential like 2, 5,3, 6 but it was predictable in that the drones would appear in the same order each time.


Seee the following by Ned


WE, et al., You may want to clip the following an paste it on the wall. The drone pattern is highly repeateable. The following is the pattern for a standard planet.

What apparently is happening is that as you reach the end of the first b/w, all bases have one b-drone. At the end of the second, all have two. At the end of the third, three. And so on.

Here is the data:


code:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcend, Standard, 0 Efficiency. B/W after 6 bases.
Bases start with two content workers, third is a drone
Bases Drones Location
0-6 0 0
7 1 2
8 3 2, 7-8
9 4 2, 6-8
10 5 2, 5-8
11 8 2, 4-8, 10-11
12 12 1-12
13 15 1-13, 2, 8
14 19 1-14, 2. 7-8. 14-15
15 22 1-15, 2, 6-8, 12-14
16 25 1-16, 2. 5-8, 11-14
17 30 1-17, 2, 4-8, 10-14, 16-17
18 36 1-18 (2)
19 41 1-19(2), 2, 8, 14
20 47 1-20(2), 2, 7-8, 13-14, 19-20
21 52 1-21(2), 2, 6-8, 12-14, 18-20
22 57 1-22(2), 2, 5-8, 11-14, 17-20
23 64 1-23(2), 2, 4-8, 10-14, 16-20, 22-23
24 72 1-24(3)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------





Basil Warlord
Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Apr 2000
time: 18:25

21-06-2001 02:48 | profile | mail | pm | search | buddy edit | quote link | report | ip

Drones in captured bases


My understanding of how drones in captured bases work (and this is only something I read somewhere, not something I've tested, so take it with a pinch of salt) is this: it depends on the difficulty rating of the game and the number of years since the base was captured.
- At most 5 - ceiling(years_since_capture/10) citizens are drones
- At most 7-difficulty_setting citizens are drones (difficulty_setting = 6 for transcend, 5 for thinker, etc.)

So at Transcend you get one extra drone until 50 years are up. However, at Citizen you get 5 extra drones for the first 9 years, 4 extra drones for years 10-19, etc. At Thinker you would get 2 extra drones for the first 39 years then 1 extra drone for years 40-49.

Like I said, this is just something I read somewhere I can't find now, so feel free to shoot it down !



Note this is all in this thread http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...&threadid=7361

[Curiosity]

OK - I wrote this before Flubber posted the link, so you'll find most of the info on bureaucracy drones there; this is a bit more condensed, though.

At Transcend, baselimit = (4+Efficiency)*MapRoot*3/2.
MapRoot = Square root of No of squares in map over Square root of 3200.
Efficiency = Your efficiency rating or zero, whichever is higher.

On the left of this table are the maproot values for the standard map sizes, from huge to tiny. On the right is maproot*3/2 -

1.6 : 2.4
1.1 : 1.65
1 : 1.5
0.8 : 1.2
0.6 : 0.9

So, on a huge map with zero efficiency baselimit = 2.4*(4+0) = 9.6.
When you exceed this number you will get at least one drone somewhere in your empire, plus the warning. The drone will often be in a base other than the one you just founded.

By the time you get to twice the baselimit, every base will have an extra drone. Building in excess of this number of bases will produce yet more drones, however, on transcend that doesn't matter much, as now all of your citizens start as drones regadless. You get 'angry' drones, which look different but are quelled just as easily by facilities/police. They do take 2 psych to change to normal drones, except in a size one base. (This is exceptionally annoying when playing Lal, as bases which appeared fine for psych suddenly riot with two new drones as they hit size two.)



Sooo, 'Waves' of expansion. IIRC (it's been three years now ), that's a sort stepped expansion process. Some people have advocated expanding to the baselimit, stopping, consolidating, building tree-farms etc., and pop-booming. Then, they build colony pods from the top during the boom, and finally finish off their expansion.

It's main disadvantage is that it tends not to work very well. Well, at least it doesn't, if you have room for significantly more bases than you're 'allowed'. The second wave of bases takes ages to get on-line, and someone who has taken an extra 15-20 turn to expand to twice the limit will have boomed to twice your population while your new little bases are still dreaming about pop-booming. It's not so bad with the Gaians/CyC, as you get the extra 50% bases due to +2 efficiency. Also, the CyC/Morgan/Pirates will not be able to pop boom at all if they expand to the point where their bases have a drone as their first population point, since it's no longer possible to get a GA. Their only saviour is the HGP.

Stopping when you hit the first efficiency warning to build rec commons is another strategy, a more valid one IMO. It's normally something only done in FM, due to the lack of police. E.g. build nine bases, rush-build commons with the cash you saved up while in FM, then build the rest. Trouble is, the new bases still eventually have drone problems, and don't have the ability to deal with them unless you have truly obscene amounts of cash. Alternatively you can build the HGP, and just carry on building bases without a pause... but you can't guarantee an SP in multiplayer, and so you can get stuck. It's somewhat better if you're Zak, and have a choice between HGP and VW.

Of course, I may be mixed up; I don't think that 'waves' of expansion ever became a common term, or if it did then it was after my time.

Personally, when I hit the bureacracy limit I tend to stop and build scout patrols. Not always, though.

[Snowflake]

Wow thanks for all the discussions! I suppose I was doing the maproot wrong. No wonder I was always surprised that I reach the base limit sooner than I expected. The "waves of expansion" is a name I invented cause I didn't remember what it is called.

[Kody]

I was doing some testing and found that the B drones are also dependant on when other factions build their bases.

Where a new B drone will appear depends on where in the gobal list of bases your bases are.

To explain it simply, every base ever planted gets a number. With the first base planted by any faction being 1, and then the 2nd base being 2. Etc. This is a gobal numbering system of bases, so it includes other factions bases in it too.

If the efficiency baselimit is 7. The drone pattern repeats itself in the gobal base list every 7 bases. I've only tested between the first limit to the second limit, and found the pattern was extra drone in base 7+(multiples of 7), then a new drone in bases 6+(multiples of 7), 5+(multiples of 7), 4+(multiples of 7), 3+(multiples of 7), 2 +(multiples of 7), 1+(multiples of 7) after which all your bases will have a B drone.

So technically if you had infiltration of all the other players you could time your bases such that you only get your first B drones on your 14th base (for first efficency limit of 7). You just make sure your bases fit in the spots 1,8,15,29,36,33, etc in the gobal base order.

[Curiosity]

Ahhhh - I'd been wondering why my playing experience wasn't quite tallying with testing in the editor. Very interesting, Kody.

[Jamski]

Kody, you really should make a list of all the things you've worked out recently, it would make a great "Advanced Strategy Guide"

-Jam

[Kody]

And make it easier for the other factions in the ACDG.

[Vev]

I know it is nice to be mentioned for such wonderful technique, HongHu , but sadly I am not in the same league as Vel.

[Snowflake]

Oh! Didn't notice that before now.

[HeymlicH]

Originally posted by Flubber
Sorry gang but it is not random. IIRC the work on this issue was done a year or so ago ( by Ned perhaps . . . I don't remember). What they found was that each base beyond the first limit would create one drone in a base determined by build order. The pattern was something non-sequential like 2, 5,3, 6 but it was predictable in that the drones would appear in the same order each time.

I think this is not correct. As far as I remember it depends on a cities position in the city list which bases get an extra drone. This city list contains the opponents cities, too. So you have to take into account when your opponents build a city. To make it more complicated, it is implemented as an array. If bases are destroyed there will be a free place which will be taken by the base founded next.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Kody
I was doing some testing and found that the B drones are also dependant on when other factions build their bases.

Where a new B drone will appear depends on where in the gobal list of bases your bases are.

To explain it simply, every base ever planted gets a number. With the first base planted by any faction being 1, and then the 2nd base being 2. Etc. This is a gobal numbering system of bases, so it includes other factions bases in it too.

If the efficiency baselimit is 7. The drone pattern repeats itself in the gobal base list every 7 bases. I've only tested between the first limit to the second limit, and found the pattern was extra drone in base 7+(multiples of 7), then a new drone in bases 6+(multiples of 7), 5+(multiples of 7), 4+(multiples of 7), 3+(multiples of 7), 2 +(multiples of 7), 1+(multiples of 7) after which all your bases will have a B drone.

So technically if you had infiltration of all the other players you could time your bases such that you only get your first B drones on your 14th base (for first efficency limit of 7). You just make sure your bases fit in the spots 1,8,15,29,36,33, etc in the gobal base order.

Doesn't that only work if your efficiency rating will be the same for about the entire game?
Also this would mean sometimes having to postpone the founding of a new base as you wait for other factions to found some bases first. Won't the comparative turn advantage you lose that way outweigh the benefit you gain?

[Flubber]

Originally posted by HeymlicH


I think this is not correct. As far as I remember it depends on a cities position in the city list which bases get an extra drone. This city list contains the opponents cities, too. So you have to take into account when your opponents build a city. To make it more complicated, it is implemented as an array. If bases are destroyed there will be a free place which will be taken by the base founded next.

THis definitely does not seem to be correct -- On this theory, one faction could get saddled with the first so many B drones and you could be saddled with them with very few bases if you happen to found a base after the limits are passed.

My recollection is that opponents bases matter only if you capture them. A captured base goes in the list for b drone purposes in the year it was built . .. so schemes to deal with an additional B drone in a certain base can be inneffective if it moves in the base order

[Enigma_Nova]

I'm also skeptical. Hypothetically, my opponent could make 16 bases while I still have one.

While 1 base is well under any b-limit, I apparently could still get b-drones.

I don't see how you can extract the base build order in the game but if you could, Presuming Kody's analysis to be correct,
My bet is that the following would happen:

All your bases have numbers.
The system works out how many b-drones you should have.
I don't know exactly how that works, since (presume your b-limit is 9) you have:
0 b-drones by 9
18 b-drones by 18 (1 per base)
54 b-drones by 27 (2 per base)
et cetera

Having found that number of drones it would make sense that the game searches the base numbers in this order:
(First base number 1)
9 18 27 36... 8 17 26 35... 7 16 25 34...
And if a base is yours the game plants a drone there.

This is untested but it sounds sensible.
You can test it by making a scenario map, filling it with colony pods and watching how the drones appear in the bases.

Matter of fact I might try to do that.

[johndmuller]

I like the notion that Enigma-Nova seemed to be working with that some combination of Ned's fixed b-drone pattern and Kody's global numbering system is at play here. I have personally experienced my first b-drone in seemingly arbitrary locations viz-a-viz founding order, including in my HQ, so I am pretty sure that Ned's observation of a fixed order probably stemmed from his method of testing (i.e. founding a whole bunch of bases in the ScenEd for just his faction, without bothering to found any outside his faction); using the ScenEd for testing is frought with all sorts of sneaky little zingers like that.

In other words, I'm signing up for a theory sort of like this: that the game decides that your faction is eligible for n b-drones that will be placed at global base numbers b1, b2, b3, ... bn, according to some sequence like the one Ned cites (perhaps exactly that one), but only the bases on that list that your faction controls. Each faction would make this calculation separately, so drones triggered by one faction for base # 13, say, would only occur for them, and only if they controlled base # 13.

This method would probably evolve into the game design in order to stabilize the location of the drones through capture and loss of bases, so that a complete recalculation of all or many of your base's drones would not occur whenever a capture or loss occurred for you (leading to all or much of your drone control needing to be rearranged to accomodate the new numbering of your faction's private base numbers). The reusing of global base numbers of eliminated bases would be nothing special with this system, although it could still lead to occasional new bases appearing high in one's base list (something which I have never noticed happening, btw).

[Kody]

Maniac Wrote:

Doesn't that only work if your efficiency rating will be the same for about the entire game?

The pattern works as a mod of your b-limit. So if you have b-limit of 9 due to having +2 efficiency then where the b-drones appear will occur as a mod 9 function of the global base limit.

Also this would mean sometimes having to postpone the founding of a new base as you wait for other factions to found some bases first. Won't the comparative turn advantage you lose that way outweigh the benefit you gain?

Correct, the only use I found for it is knowing when and where you will obtain b-drones and being able to plan the facilities/police beforehand. Assuming you know how many bases there were when you planted each of your bases. Personally I wouldn't delay building a base to adjust the b-drones. I would consider rebuilding bases when I have the PTS to manipulate the b-drones and allow for golden aging certain bases.
__________________________________________________ __

Johndmuller & Flubber

Sorry I didn't make myself clear. The explaination I gave here wasn't as good as the one I posted in the hive forum. Basically what Enigma said is how the structural drones work. When I wrote my explaination I made the assumption everyone knew how the basic structual drone principles worked. I was merely trying to dispel the misconception of randomness in where b-drones appear that people saw.

This method would probably evolve into the game design in order to stabilize the location of the drones through capture and loss of bases, so that a complete recalculation of all or many of your base's drones would not occur whenever a capture or loss occurred for you (leading to all or much of your drone control needing to be rearranged to accomodate the new numbering of your faction's private base numbers). The reusing of global base numbers of eliminated bases would be nothing special with this system, although it could still lead to occasional new bases appearing high in one's base list (something which I have never noticed happening, btw).

You give too much credit to the designers. When a base is destoryed the global base list completely reorders. Eg b-drone levels shift in all bases that were built later.

[Enigma_Nova]

How does the game determine the amount of drones per empire?

Presuming a b-limit of 3 (which does happen in a lot of my tiny map games) :

# of bases vs. Drones:
0 - 0
3 - 0
6 - 6 (1 per base)
9 - 18 (2 per base)
12 - 36 (3 per base) and so on...
That be correct?

So how does it determine the # of drones for other numbers?
I'm guessing...
1 - 0
2 - 0
3 - 0
4 - 2
5 - 4
6 - 6
7 - 10
8 - 14
9 - 18
10 - 24
11 - 30
12 - 36

See the pattern?
Is this the way the number of drones are calculated?

With this knowledge, I can calculate where drones are!

[Flubber]

Kody

It was because I understand the basic pattern that I found your comments puzzling as I took them to mean that the entire b -drone effect was global which could mean getting B drones even if you founded only 2 bases. Now that you have clarified I see that there is even more to b-drones than was originally thought.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Kody
I would consider rebuilding bases when I have the PTS to manipulate the b-drones and allow for golden aging certain bases.

You mean building a colony pod in a size 1 base in order to destroy it, thereby reducing by 1 the rank number of all bases built at a later date? If so, how does the PTS help with that? After all, you'd have to destroy a size 3 instead of a size 1 base. Also, if comments made earlier are true, even if for example you have 16 bases but destroy one of it, resulting in 15 bases, the bureaucracy limit and b-drones will still be calculated as if you had 16 bases. So though with this tactic you could temporarily reduce the amount of b-drones, eventually - if you continue building bases - you'll get more b-drones than you would have without using the tactic. Granted of course, drones are easier to control later in the game.
As you say this can be useful to easier get golden ages, but unless you're the Hive, Morgan, Pirates or Consciousness and don't have the HGP, it seems quite a lot of trouble for what you get in return.

[Enigma_Nova]

Well what I think he means is that destroying a base will shift down the numbers of the other bases.
Bases that weren't booming now will be, and bases that were booming before now aren't.

[Kody]

You mean building a colony pod in a size 1 base in order to destroy it, thereby reducing by 1 the rank number of all bases built at a later date? If so, how does the PTS help with that? After all, you'd have to destroy a size 3 instead of a size 1 base.

PTS doesn't help, it just makes rebuilding a base wortwhile as you get 2 extra pop points in addition to shifting the b-drones.

As you say this can be useful to easier get golden ages, but unless you're the Hive, Morgan, Pirates or Consciousness and don't have the HGP, it seems quite a lot of trouble for what you get in return.

You're forgetting when I come up with strategies I optimise them for the situation.

Also, if comments made earlier are true, even if for example you have 16 bases but destroy one of it, resulting in 15 bases, the bureaucracy limit and b-drones will still be calculated as if you had 16 bases. So though with this tactic you could temporarily reduce the amount of b-drones, eventually - if you continue building bases - you'll get more b-drones than you would have without using the tactic.

I think I've confused everyone. I guess I better give a more detailed explanation.

[Kody]

The formula for b-drones in any particular base is.

NBGBL = number base is in global base list (first base is base 0)
Blimit = number of bases you plant before first b warning
Bases = number of bases that you own

drones in a base = int((Bases+(NBGBL%Blimit))/Blimit) - 1

From this I simpilfy it to.
B-level = How many times you've passed the bueacracy limit.
Base B-drone level = NBGBL%Blimit+1
Faction B-drone level = Blimit - (Bases%Blimit)

When the B-drone level is higher or equal to the faction B-drone level. Then the base will receive the extra drone for that B-level. The bases will still have the extra drones from previous B-levels but those are not hard to figure out.

[Sarxis]

Wow! I wish I had known all this years ago.

[Maniac]

It's of course two years ago I had my last lesson in mathematics, but I can't recall ever seeing this before:
What does the notation X%Y mean??

[Jamski]

I just watch out for the warning that I'm exceeding the buerocracy limit.

-Jam

[Hercules]

I just watch out for the warning that I'm exceeding the buerocracy limit

Me too.

But I guess this all ties in with other calculations, so that after x turns you have an advantage.

[Kody]

It's of course two years ago I had my last lesson in mathematics, but I can't recall ever seeing this before:
What does the notation X%Y mean??

% means "mod".

It's not maths notation it's computer notation.

But I guess this all ties in with other calculations, so that after x turns you have an advantage.

You have no idea what a big different getting 1 mineral here and there per turn makes. It's like compound interest. Think of the resimark system at civgaming. 4% interest and people ended up overflowing with money.

[Enigma_Nova]

How do you obtain this global base list again?