Distant Areas

[Brf]

Hmmm.... I can count the number of rebels, tell if a particular unit is a rebel and spawn new rebels, but I cannot count how many you have killed.

There is a counter called KilledByEdict, which I assume counts the Eliminations.

I can count the current number of prisoners, but not how many have died.

How "effective" government control is has to be quantified... I am not sure how it would be measured unless it is by counting soldiers and police and crime-safety or something... maybe subtracting for coups or uptisings or something. I dont think there is a "Average government control"  number, although I know you can see the control overlay on the map.... oh yeah...there is one called AveStabilityOfPower....I will have to see what is in that.

[el_malo]

although I know you can see the control overlay on the map

I'm making an assumption... based on the above.   You could be right, this may be hard to qualify.   I guess it is time for me to get off my big fundio and do some research.  

Oh yeah, I would not hesitate to ask Dave questions...  

[Mr.P]

Whilst El and I bombard you with idea's (Tyrants' demands are so difficult to meet. ) I just wanted to say thank you for even thinking of tackling this.

As I was driving home I was thinking that it is the likes of you Brf, belbincolne, Dave, Che Miguel and all the other members who have spent countless hours making games, which we can play, that give so much added appreciation of the game.

A big thank you.

[Brf]

Whilst El and I bombard you with idea's (Tyrants' demands are so difficult to meet. ) I just wanted to say thank you for even thinking of tackling this.

As I was driving home I was thinking that it is the likes of you Brf, belbincolne, Dave, Che Miguel and all the other members who have spent countless hours making games, which we can play, that give so much added appreciation of the game.

A big thank you.

Heheh...it is from being a tyrant myself... How else could I create my own world, with my own starting conditions,  winning conditions, and events of my own liking?  

[timp999]

Whilst El and I bombard you with idea's (Tyrants' demands are so difficult to meet. ) I just wanted to say thank you for even thinking of tackling this.

As I was driving home I was thinking that it is the likes of you Brf, belbincolne, Dave, Che Miguel and all the other members who have spent countless hours making games, which we can play, that give so much added appreciation of the game.

A big thank you.

What P said... my tropico disk would have been a coaster long long ago otherwise... in fact the new scenarios brought me back to the game. Keep it up!

[belbincolne]

As someone who's incapable of writing a scenario (I dont even understand some of the above) I can only agree.  Most other games are brilliant BUT you're limited to what is on the disc however variable - or (like the self generated games on Tropico) there is not a winning target without which there's no challenge.  Which is why I play chess and bridge (now that's real hatred!).

Anyway I'll play your Military scenario when it comes up Brf but it's my least favourite type because all that seems to matter is numbers.  If you can have more military than the opposition you win so it's just balancing income against military cost.  No tactics involved.  So if I want a military type game I play Age of Empires or some such.

This is all a long way from the origin - don't you think a new thread is called for in a different section Brf?

[Brf]

Once I start coding this scenerio I will probably put something in the Scenerios forum.

Actually, it wont be strictly a military scenerio...you will have to learn to run your economy under a military regime, without liberty to make them happy. It should take some micro-managing to take care of the troublemakers.

Since this one is so unlike my other ones, it will take alot of testing to get all the pieces to work.

The requesters also asked for a bunch of scripted events. I have done those before... like the prefab houses events in Joy... and all the SuperDude events... so I know how to do them. The trick is think up some appropriate ones -- to create a storyline.

[Coconut Kid]

When you're trying to open up a distant area it's obvious that the closer together mines/logging camps/farms etc. are to teamsters, housing, market place/food the quicker they are productive and I usually build them in this order although it can often take years (and years, and years) especially as you may not want to build a construction office in the area first.  This is particularly the case for gold mines as, on most maps, the gold fields always seem to be in some far distant corner. 
As, initially, the workers live in town so have to travel to it, would building a construction office help anyway?  Similarly later on as teamsters have to get to the dock does it make that much difference whether their office is near the dock or the production unit? (It seems to). ...

This is really sad because of all the strategy hints which the PopTop developers could have tossed out publicly is the one to let players know that gameplay coding is predicated on growing the built-up area concentrically outwardly from its starting cluster. Reaching out in "strings" to distant resources takes special and expensive techniques. Greatly simplified, the efficient travel time is limited to 100 green squares (cells\tiles) and should be thought of in 25 square increments. Yes, you must "leap-frog" Construction Offices + adjacent housing (the housing is as important as the Office) in 100 square jumps.

1) Construction Priorities. Why do workers sometimes ignore a distant high-priority project in favor of a nearby low-priority project?  The priority system is not absolute, but rather is a function of distance and priority setting.  For buildings with equal priority, workers always go to the nearest building.  Each level of "construction priority" counts as 25 cells of map distance.  Workers will still go to a low-priority building if it's at least 25 cells closer than a medium-priority building, or 50 cells closer than a high-priority building.  The "stopped" priority is absolute; a stopped building will be ignored no matter what distance it is from a worker.

http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=9134.msg185787#msg185787

[Coconut Kid]

... A quick note on my Rapido habit.  While waiting for idiot laborers chaps my hide to no end, roads are best left to laborers.  Rapido roads do not clear off the vegetation, leaving an obstructed road.  Thus, I always keep one or two construction offices staffed anyway.

While many of JJ's exploits of the gameplay code were interesting and useful, I have to believe that his insistence on using "Rapido" was because he did not know about the 100 cell efficiency limitation. He also strongly believed that employees whose work was indoor were as productive whether actually in the building or not. He was clearly wrong on that, but he promoted it constantly.


I suspect that JJ's post #7 is in reply to one of my posts which I deleted.

The program puts difficulty on the player.
Does it compensate you when a teamster dies with his load?
Does it allow you to change your mind if you place an order for roads or vegetation?
What about dockworkers leaving for a nap in the middle of the loading process?

I really don't mind some explotation of the quirks of the code; but not for that line of reasoning. Those are not intentional or significant burdens on the player. They are a matter of scale and grinding the fringe matters to a fine point. JJ obsessed over the workers he could see, but ignored the productivity of the indoor workers.

I'm sorry that his concept of "game mastery and skill" did not extend further. I do appreciate that he could admit that using "Rapido" did limit his ability to compare his games with players who did not use it.

[Coconut Kid]

... I used to think making people happy made them work faster, now I know better.  The more things there are for them to do (church, clinic, entertainment, etc.) the longer they spend walking around.  Travel time is the worst destroyer of productivity.  Just watch how long it takes them to walk!   Nowadays, when I want to make them happy, I try to keep things efficient by putting things close by.  So that church only has one visitor and the pub is losing money every month, I more than make up for it in increased worker efficiency. ...

... I tend to follow the repressive route, deny every election and provide little by the way of services.
An island of 750 usually has 2 hospitals, I cathedral and 1 church, plus a variety of low-grade entertainment.
Housing is either Tenements, or for the rich, Apartments.
Well, when it comes to ruling this kind of island successfully (i.e staying in power) there are only a few key factors which will drive your game. ...

It is very interesting to me that the perceptive and practicing players who posted here seem to have been completely oblivious to the fact that the so-called "services" were actually needs with meters the same as the "life & death" meters for food and rest. It appears that they never consulted the information panel or thoughts panel with any curiosity about how the "services" meters were recharged without adequate building slots to provide "normal" recharge.

Now we know about the "default" algorithms with their serious penalities. Those penalities were noted by the players as stupid errors in the code of the game engine -- idiot developers, eh?