Replace the term
power value of materials and cost + 9
by
power value of materials and cost + maximum population / 1000 * 8 + 1
The value of ordinary sectors (maximum population 1000) doesn't
change. The stock game's mountains, plains and bridges are now worth
only 28% as much.
This concludes my tweaking of the power factor for now. I tested it
with data from a real game (Hvy Metal II). The effect is small: #5
overtakes #4, and the lead of #1 over #2 and #3 shrinks some. Closer
analysis finds the following reasons. The game had very expensive big
cities. Valuing them correctly gives countries with many cities a
noticeable boost. Planes are worth less than before, but the
difference is much larger for cheap planes. Big piles of construction
materials are worth much less, and shells, guns and bars are worth
more.
Signed-off-by: Markus Armbruster <armbru@pond.sub.org>
Building sectors can make you rate *lower* on the power chart, because
the power factor treats all sectors the same, regardless of build
materials and cost.
To avoid that, replace the term
efficiency / 10.0
by
(power value of materials + power value of cost + 9)
* efficiency/100.0
The value of ordinary sectors, which take no materials and cost $100,
doesn't change. The stock game's fortress is now worth 80% more due
to its materials and higher cost. The stock game's wilderness is
worth 10% less, because it costs nothing.
Signed-off-by: Markus Armbruster <armbru@pond.sub.org>
Building nukes makes you rate *lower* on the power chart, because the
power factor ignores nukes. Fix that.
Signed-off-by: Markus Armbruster <armbru@pond.sub.org>
Items, ships, planes and land units all contribute to the power
factor, which determines position on the power chart.
Items are worth
amount * item value * (0.5 + nation tech level / 1000.0)
The item values aren't quite right: producing stuff can *hurt* your
position on the power chart. Food, uw and rads are worth nothng.
Reduce the value of oil, and give rads the same value as oil. Tweak
value of iron and oil products so that production's power change is
roughly zero around p.e. 0.9 (tech 110), except for construction
materials, where it's zero at p.e. 0.5 (tech 0). Construction
materials become less valuable, shells, guns and petrol become more
valuable. Increase value of bars to roughly match the other changes.
It may still be too low. Halve the value of civilians, and give the
other half to uw. Results:
old new change
civ 100 50 / 2
mil 100 100
shell 80 125 * 1.5625
gun 400 950 * 2.375
pet 2 7 * 3.5
iron 10 10
dust 200 200
bar 1000 2500 * 2.5
food 0 0
oil 100 50 / 2
lcm 100 20 / 5
hcm 200 40 / 5
uw 0 50 new
rad 0 50 new
Ships, planes and land units are worth
base value * effic/100.0 * (0.5 + unit tech level / 1000.0)
For ships and land units, the base value is
lcm/5.0 + hcm/5.0
Build cost is ignored, but lcms are valued twice as much "loose" ones
(before this commit). Therefore, building stuff can change your
position on the power chart in both directions, depending on the type
of build.
For planes, the base value is
20 * (0.5 + nation tech level / 1000.0)
Build cost and materials are ignored, and tech is squared. This
is plainly absurd.
Unify to
(power value of money and materials to build) * effic/100.0
This formula is chosen so that building stuff doesn't change your
power factor. Bonus: it doesn't assume anything about possible build
materials.
For ships and land units, factoring in build cost overcompensates the
discounted value of construction materials more often than not.
Noteworthy changes for the stock game:
ship type old new change
ss slave ship 20 5.8 * 0.29 largest decrease
cs cargo ship 20 7.8 * 0.39
ts trade ship 60 25.5 * 0.42
frg frigate 12 7.8 * 0.65
bb battleship 24 21.8 * 0.91
cal light carrier 22 30.4 * 1.38
can nuc carrier 30 84.6 * 2.82 largest increase
land unit type old new change
hat hvy artillery 12 9.6 * 0.8 largest decrease
linf light infantry 2.4 3.32 * 1.38
cav cavalry 3 5.4 * 1.8
inf infantry 3 5.4 * 1.8
lar lt armor 3 6.4 * 2.13
com commando 3 15.4 * 5.13
eng engineer 3 30.4 * 10.13
meng mech engineer 3 45.4 * 15.13 largest increase
For planes, the power value change depends on the type. Below a
certain nation tech level, planes of this type become more valuable,
above less.
For the stock game, planes costing at most $1000 become less valuable
at any nation tech level that can build them, and planes costing at
least $1800 become more valuable at any practical tech level,
i.e. under 400. Noteworthy planes:
plane type new
sam Sea Sparrow 2.1 least valuable
f2 P-51 Mustang 4.34
lb TBD-1 Devastator 5.92
jf1 F-4 Phantom 10.6
tr C-56 Lodestar 10.78
jt C-141 Starlifter 15.86
jhb B-52 Strato-Fortress 33.54
ss KH-7 spysat 41.2 most valuable
The old value is a flat 12 at nation tech level 100, 15 at tech level
250, and 18 at tech level 400.
Signed-off-by: Markus Armbruster <armbru@pond.sub.org>
Actual abilities of ships, planes and land units depend almost
completely on the individual unit's tech, not the nation's tech. The
power factor should reflect that.
The power value of a unit is of the form
base value * (20 + nation's tech level) / 500
Change it to
base value * (20 + unit's tech level) / 500
Note that a plane's base value still depends on the nation's tech
level. This commit merely makes the absurdity stand out a bit more.
To be fixed later.
Signed-off-by: Markus Armbruster <armbru@pond.sub.org>
In the old times, power didn't consider tech at all. Chainsaw's
option NEWPOWER (mandatory since v4.2.14, on by default before)
changed this dramatically: the power factor gets multiplied by
max(1, tech) / 500.
In the early game, small absolute tech differences yield large power
factor differences. For instance, if country A has tech level 10, and
B has 5, then A gets a factor two boost.
As the game progresses, tech differences between viable countries tend
to grow, but only slowly. The influence on power diminishes. For
instance, if C has tech level 270 and D has 240 (quite a respectable
tech lead), then C gets a modest 1.125x boost over D.
Change the factor to (20 + tech) / 500. Now A's advantage is only
1.2, and C's is 1.115.
You might think that's rather low. However, tech is not power unless
you project it, and then it manifests itself as sectors, population
and other stuff power counts.
The same tech term occurs in plane power, except with just tech
instead of max(1, tech) . Change it there as well, for consistency.
Signed-off-by: Markus Armbruster <armbru@pond.sub.org>
If option RES_POP is enabled, the power factor is multiplied by a
"research factor" of 1.0 + maxpop / 10000.0, where maxpop is the
maximum population of a mine sector.
Back when this code was written (Chainsaw 3), all sectors had the same
population limit, so using a mine sector was as good as any. Since
then, it has become configurable, and the stock game has both sector
types with lower (mountains, plains) and with higher (cities)
population limits.
Space for people is worth considering for power, but multiplying total
power by a fudge factor based on the most common sector type's maximum
population is silly. Drop it.
Adjusting each sector's value for maximum population would make more
sense, with and without RES_POP. Perhaps later.
Signed-off-by: Markus Armbruster <armbru@pond.sub.org>
TREATIES has issues:
* Treaties can cover attack, assault, paradrop, board, lboard, fire,
build (s|p|l|n) and enlist, but not bomb, launch, torpedo and
enlistment centers.
* Usability is very poor. While a treaty is in effect, every player
action that violates a treaty condition triggers a prompt like this:
This action is in contravention of treaty #0 (with Curmudgeon)
Do you wish to go ahead anyway? [yn]
If you decline, the action is not executed. If you accept, it is.
In both cases, your decision is reported in the news.
You cannot get rid of these prompts until the treaty expires.
* Virtually nobody uses them.
* Virtually unused code is buggy code. There is at least one race
condition: multifire() reads the firing sector, ship or land unit
before the treaty prompt, and writes it back after, triggering a
generation oops. Any updates made by other threads while trechk()
waits for input are wiped out, triggering a seqno mismatch oops.
* The treaty prompts could confuse smart clients that aren't prepared
for them. WinACE isn't, but is reported to work anyway at least
common usage. Ron Koenderink (the WinACE maintainer) suspects there
could be a few situations where it will fail.
This feature is not earning its keep. Remove it. Drop command
treaty, consider treaty, offer treaty, xdump treaty, reject treaties.
Output of accept changed, obviously.
Signed-off-by: Markus Armbruster <armbru@pond.sub.org>
(opt_AUTO_POWER, update_power): New.
(update_main): Implement AUTO_POWER.
(powe): Disable power new when AUTO_POWER is on.
(powe): New power update.
(gen_power): Compute power into buffer passed by caller, make write to
power file optional.
(all): Depend on info.
Flatten info directory. This undoes the move to one subdirectory per
chapter, which was done during Empire 2. The structure doesn't buy us
much, as the info name space is flat, and it complicates makefiles.
Overhaul info.pl:
- It now wants to run in the root of the build tree.
- Information on source files and subjects is now stored in makefiles,
thus info.pl no longer picks up random junk from the file system.
- Clean up Perl anachronisms, in particular use subroutine arguments and
results rather than global variables where convenient.
- Change format of diagnostics to the common format used by GNU tools,
so that Emacs and the like can parse it.
- Catch missing .SA.
- When creating a new subject file, cowardly refuse to overwrite an
existing file.
- Subject files contain topics sorted by chapter, then by name. The
order of chapters used to depend on how Perl sorts hash keys. Fix
it.
