Bug with Almanac economics?

[Brf]

The free hotel is like any other hotel, so there shouldnt be any difference with it.....

It appears that revenue and expenses from buildings are added at Month-End. The "extra" revenue from hotels also appears to be added at Month-End.... The only extra jump in treasury I was seeing at year-end was due to foreign aid.

Therefore, when each month's Hotel Revenue is added at month-end, it is being added twice.

[Brf]

Hopefully the end-of-year events can be sorted to run in advance of the Almanac report.

The Almanac Report runs on January-1, so there is no problem with End-of-Year events.

Taking all that cash away at end-of-year has its own problems though.... Try playing my Scenerio Busted to see what it is like

[Arphahat]

I am not picking on CafeDave nor am I excluding other scenarios for non-interest. Indeed, some of the "producer" provided scenarios probably would benefit from the "correction." What I am suggesting is that CafeDave's well tested scenarios provide the "gold standard" for testing a "BUG" correcting script so we can try to understand if this is a "BUG" or an "Unintended Feature."

I don't think that this would be an effective test, since it is likely the scenarios were balanced with the current tourism issue. 

Additionally, I would bet that Tropico is balanced with this issue in place, so it might be a non-issue. 

I'd be interested to see how the game plays with the corrective script.  As I am just getting back into Tropico again, I would not be an ideal candidate for providing a comparison.  Anyone up for the task?

[Brf]

Balance is determined by playtesting. If the playtesting was done with this bug in place, then it might be balanced with this bug in place.

I do agree that tourism seems abit easier than it should be though. I will write up a script to correct this bug and post it here.

[Brf]

OK. Here we go....

I verified that "The Bug" exists for all 5 hotel types: Hotel, Cheap Hotel, Luxury Hotel, Villa, and Bungalow.

I created, tested, and re-tested, this script I attach. To use it:

Create the folder "Events" under your Tropico Folder.
Unzip this script set into that folder. If it works, it should create the folder "FixHotel" within that folder, with 3 events.

In my testing I discovered that my "endofmonth" script was running BEFORE the endofmonth revenue was added to LTDGSRevTourismHotelRents, therefore I had to repeat the event at endofyear to get it to add up right at endofyear.

Give it a good shakedown, and enjoy

BTW.... The amount it subtracts will show up in the almanac under "Other Special Expenses"

[Arphahat]

Thanks, Brf.  I'll try your script out.  Though, I will likely be unable to say if it is any more difficult or not. 

[MrManganese]

I didn't have any luck with those scripts. Are you sure there's nothing else I need to do, beyond placing the FixHotel folder in my Tropico\Events folder?

[MrManganese]

I suppose I might mention that I conducted a test and found that the difference between the actual change in my coffers and the change indicated by the Almanac was equal to the exact amount of rent I was receiving from hotels. So yes, I'm sure the script wasn't active. Special expenses also didn't show any sign of having been changed.

[Brf]

Well... the almanac will still be wrong with this script. The correction made by this script shows on the almanac under "Other Special Expenses". But your cash should now be correct, since that special expense is subtracting out the extra hotel cash.

[MrManganese]

But I can't get any special expense to show up. I did this on a very basic island with just one hotel, and special expenses were at 0. I suspect the script is not active.

[Brf]

Was the script installed when you started your game? I dont think you can use this method with a saved game.....

[Coconut Kid]

@ MrManganese,

Also, did you follow the step-by-step directions and first create the Events Directory/Folder?

I have a hard time holding the exact details in my head without reference to the the exact magic, but I think just putting a script in the Tropico folder randomly will not cause it to function.

http://tropico.strategyplanet.gamespy.com/cafe/index.php?topic=9134.msg186943#msg186943

Scriptor's Hint - CafeDave's Event File

From CafeDave:

I have found that you can run events directly from your files without loading them into a map!  All you need to do is create a directory under your main Tropico directory called 'events'.  Then put your events in that directory or in subdirectories under it.  You can even load a whole scenario's events there.  Then open a saved game or start a new random game and voila!, your events will run just like in a scenario.

I discovered this quite by accident today after saving some random events sent to me by Burt, the author of El Feo Returns, in a new directory.  After looking at them, I went back to play the El Feo scenario, which I had started yesterday.  Suddenly one of the random events popped up with an error and I thought, that's strange, he must have left them in the scenario by mistake.  But I checked the events and none called up those events.  So I went back to the game and a random rebel event popped up!  Then the rebels proceeded to destroy my palace!  So I looked at the events again and realized the game was running them right from my directory!  I did a test on a brand new random map too and they ran in it too.

My guess is that it's an undocumented feature that PopTop used for event troubleshooting and left in the game.  This will make it very easy to troubleshoot and tweak new events without having to save to a scenario.  It also opens up new cheat possibilties!  Want to add 100,000 pesos every year, just add an event.  Want a free airport in every game, just script it!  You can even play a whole scenario on different maps.

[Coconut Kid]

... However, I'm not sure that it is accurate to say "a lot of people noticed but never bothered to investigate" this problem. I have read a lot of old posts, and it doesn't "jump out." In fact, I fear it may have been introduced by an error in either PI or patch 1.51. I say that because if it had existed before, then Tourism would have jumped to a favored position among the earlier players. I have seen no evidence of that among the old posts. Indeed, there were debates between industry and tourism which would never have happened with these huge erroneous additions to the treasury. ...

... But there can be a difference between v1.07 and v1.53 and I have mostly played the original version because of the hotel bug/feature.

It seems that here we finally have someone who has played both versions, and perhaps can confirm that the doubling of Hotel Revenue was introduced with "Paradise Island". If that is the case, it is far less likely that the double revenue is an intentional, 'play-balance' change.

Now if Dr. Jekyll will comment ~~~

 

[Dr. Jekyll]

I have not tested for the hotel bug/feature myself, only read a few posts about it and accepted the result from those posts.
I have both versions installed so I should be able to create a map in v1.07 and run it in both versions, and with a few scripts in the scorepage and identical maps it should be able to tell if there are a difference.

Have to figure out how to create the scorepage though.

[Dr. Jekyll]

Tried a small scenario wich I ran for 10 years.
Used 3 medium hotels with the rate set to $20. Also used immigration office set to noone leaves this paradise, one dock was set to yacts only.
Did not build or export anything during the test.

Score event used:
CheckFrequencyAlmanacScore

GeneralEffect SetTo EventVariable1 LTDGSRevTourismHotelRents
GeneralEffect SetTo EventVariable2 LTDGSNumberTourists
GeneralEffect SetTo EventVariable3 (LTDGSRevTourismHotelRents / LTDGSNumberTourists)
GeneralEffect SetTo EventVariable4 (Money - 500000)

MessageTypeSpecial
MessageText "Total income from Hotels: [trIGGER_EVENT_VARIABLE_1] \nTotal amount of tourists: [trIGGER_EVENT_VARIABLE_2] \nHotelincome for each tourist: [trIGGER_EVENT_VARIABLE_3] \nTreasury increase: [trIGGER_MONEY_EVENT_VARIABLE_4] \n"


Result v1.07:
Total income from Hotels: $68.900
Total amount of tourists: 551
Hotelincome for each tourist: $125
Treasury increase: $70.307
Banking Profit: $36.599

Result v1.53:
Total income from Hotels: $71.140
Total amount of tourists: 498
Hotelincome for each tourist: $143
Treasury increase: $149.899
Banking Profit: $40.179

[Coconut Kid]

Thank you very much. If I understood correctly, you have confirmed that the doubling of hotel income was introduced with PI.

 

[Dr. Jekyll]

Not sure if my test is bulletproof though, but it does give a strong indication that the hoteldubling was introduced by PI.
Atleast I don't see anything else that match the difference in the treasury increase between the two versions.

[Coconut Kid]

Cross reference to Consolidated List of Confirmed Bugs:
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=9278.0

The summary of the information in this thread is that Breakaway added a secret cheat to the code which adds the tourist accommodation revenue to the treasury a second time without passing it through the Almanac accounting.

I charge that they introduced this BUG deliberately to tilt\skew the playtests so they would show players to be preferring to develop tourism as an industry. That would confirm that Breakaway had met its major task in developing the PI expansion.

With the tourist accomodation revenue corrected, tourism is no better than any other industry. Then it is an interesting challenge rather than a "run-away cash cow!"

[Coconut Kid]

...  I verified that "The Bug" exists for all 5 hotel types: Hotel, Cheap Hotel, Luxury Hotel, Villa, and Bungalow.

I created, tested, and re-tested, this script I attach. To use it:

Create the folder "Events" under your Tropico Folder.
Unzip this script set into that folder. If it works, it should create the folder "FixHotel" within that folder, with 3 events.

In my testing I discovered that my "endofmonth" script was running BEFORE the endofmonth revenue was added to LTDGSRevTourismHotelRents, therefore I had to repeat the event at endofyear to get it to add up right at endofyear.  ...

BTW - The amount it subtracts will show up in the almanac under "Other Special Expenses"

The attachment is lost due to the hack which also lost many posts during an un-backed-up period. The attachment system is out of service. So here is the whole thing:

Put the following three script items (evt files) in a folder (FixHotel) :

FHCheck1.evt
CheckFrequencyMonthEnd
Generaleffect CallEvent SubHotel

FHCheck2.evt
CheckFrequencyYearEnd
Generaleffect CallEvent SubHotel

SubHotel.evt
CheckFrequencyOnlyWhenCalled
Generaleffect Setto EventVariable1 LTDGSRevTourismHotelRents
GeneralEffect AddTo Money (GroupVariable1 - EventVariable1)
GeneralEffect Setto GroupVariable1 Eventvariable1

I hope I found the correct stuff in my files.

[Coconut Kid]

Although it seems that scripted scenarios work on MACs, there seems to be a question about the effect of the "Events" folder scripts. On a Windows PC, the 'Events' folder mades scripts in it effective on all scenarios\games. It seems less clear that it will have the same general effect on a MAC PC.

If nothing happened, that is a good indication that your "events" folder is non-functinal  --  although I believe Brf's fix hotel script ran in the background without ever alerting you that it was firing, so this is probably not the best test.

Try dropping the following script in there and see what happens:

checkfrequencyweekend
messagetypedossier
messagetext "Presidente, the event folder is firing as it does on a Windows based machine"

If it fires, you know it works.  If not, you know it doesn't.

That seems like a good suggestion. Possibly a similar message could be used in a lot to test situations.