How the game calculates the odds for great people

[Kylearan]

Hi,

when generating a great person, the buildings and specialists in a city decide which kind of great person that city will give you. If you only have sources of one kind of great person in the city, for example only having the Great Library and one scientist specialist, then you are guaranteed to get a great person of that type (a great scientist, in this case). If you have sources of more than one type in the city though, it's more complicated. You can mouse over the great people points bar in the city screen to get info about the current odds of generating each type of great person.

Until now, I thought the game would sum up all great people points generated from all sources, and the number of GPPs of each type would yield the chance of generating a great person of that type. Example: If you have a scientist specialist (+3 great scientist points) and the Colossus (+2 great merchant points) in a city, then I believed that you would have a 3/5 = 60% chance of getting a great scientist, and a 2/5 = 40% chance of getting a great merchant.

(The city "remembers" which sources of GPPs you had each turn, so having only the Colossus in the city and then adding one scientist one turn before generating a great person will still give you a nearly 100% chance of getting a great merchant. Without loss of generality, I'll ignore that here.)


I just found out that it's different than I had previously believed. When calculating the odds, the game only counts how many sources of each type of GPPs the city has, ignoring how many GPPs each source actually provides. So in the above example, both the scientist and the colossus would count as one source, giving you a 50%/50% chance, even if the specialist generates 3 GPPs per turn, 1 more than the Colossus.


Maybe you knew that already; I did not, so I thought I should share my observations.

-Kylearan

[Rowain]

Thanks Kylearan


I have not paid much attention to the odds but had wondered about the chances severaltimes.

[playshogi]

How do you explain the odds that I see frequently for 97% great prophet 3% scientist, because the game automically will add a scientist rather than work an unimproved grassland square upon city growth. That is really an annoying feature of the game. Perhaps, I MUST highlight the food button in city manager to prevent this?

[Kylearan]

Hi,

How do you explain the odds that I see frequently for 97% great prophet 3% scientist, because the game automically will add a scientist rather than work an unimproved grassland square upon city growth.

That's probably the reason, yes - some turns during a GPP accumulation period with a "wrong" specialist hired will lead to this.

That is really an annoying feature of the game. Perhaps, I MUST highlight the food button in city manager to prevent this?

I play with the governor on most of the time, and have at least one of the three (emphasize food/hammers/commerce) checked. This will lead to the odd specialist assigned, an engineer most of the time. A "no specialists!" button would be nice, but then the odds of generating a "wrong" great person that way are very low, and a city specialized to generate great people (like the great artist city in my 3CC culture game) is one of the two exceptions where I switch the governor off and micromanage the cititens by hand anyway.

-Kylearan

[microbe]

My question is that does the game calculate the odds when the great person is generated, or across the process when it's being generated?

For example, if I have no wonders and just specialists, and along the way I've always hired scientists, and at the last turn of generating the GP I switch it to artists, do I have 100% of chance of getting a great artist?

[Kylearan]

Hi,

For example, if I have no wonders and just specialists, and along the way I've always hired scientists, and at the last turn of generating the GP I switch it to artists, do I have 100% of chance of getting a great artist?

No, you will have a 99% chance of getting a great scientist. The game takes all turns into account and the odds are the average of the odds of all turns.

What I have yet to test is whether the game looks only at the turns since the last great person was generated, or if every turn since the founding of the city counts.

-Kylearan

[microbe]

Hi,


No, you will have a 99% chance of getting a great scientist. The game takes all turns into account and the odds are the average of the odds of all turns.

What I have yet to test is whether the game looks only at the turns since the last great person was generated, or if every turn since the founding of the city counts.

Cool, that makes sense. I would think the most reasonable way is to calculate since the last GP.