The Dark arts - C&D Master Thread

[kjn]

Just WBed a test, and a dry whip is worth 20H. However, that's not a 50% penalty, it's a 33% one (the "wet" whip is at a 50% advantage). Learn something new - also shows how often I dry whip

[novice]

The modifiers affect hurry cost to be compatible with cash rushing. So +50% cost = -33% hammers per pop.

[NobleHelium]

It costs 50% more pop to produce the same amount of hammers, thus it is a 50% penalty. If you had a -50% modifier on your production item, the game would divide by 1.5 and you would get 20h instead of 30h.

Edit: Actually I'm not so sure now, that second sentence might be incorrect.

[kjn]

It costs 50% more pop to produce the same amount of hammers, thus it is a 50% penalty. If you had a -50% modifier on your production item, the game would divide by 1.5 and you would get 20h instead of 30h.

Edit: Actually I'm not so sure now, that second sentence might be incorrect.

Yes. When doing a percentage modifier, it's best to start with a base of 1, and add the percentage modifier. Thus:

A 100% bonus: 1 + 1, for a total multiplier of 2
A 50% bonus: 1 + 0.5, for a total multiplier of 1.5
A -50% bonus: 1 - 0.5, for a total multiplier of 0.5

In this case, you get 20H per pop instead of 30H. That's a penalty of (1 - 20/30) per cent, or 33%. If you had received 15H per pop, it'd have been a penalty of (1 - 15/30) per cent, or 50%.

[NobleHelium]

Sure, that's the intuitive way of doing it. But many games have a -50% penalty interpreted as 1 / 1.5, and I believe Civ4 is one of them, although I'm not sure now for production as I mentioned. Look at combat - a -100% penalty doesn't mean the unit's strength goes to 0, it means the unit loses half of its strength.

And yes, now that I've thought about combat, I'm pretty sure production modifiers work the same way.

[SevenSpirits]

Everyone's right, here. The hammers per pop is reduced by 33%. The hurry cost (pop or gold per hammer) is increased by 50%. Previously it was 0.0333 pop per hammer, now it's 0.05 pop per hammer, and that's 50% more.

Conversely, when the Kremlin says -33% hurry cost (i.e. pop per hammer), that is +50% hammers per pop.

@NobleHelium while CivIV does that sort of calculation for combat, I don't think it does for production.

[kjn]

Sure, that's the intuitive way of doing it.

No, it's the only mathematically correct way of doing it. The people doing it intuitively (ie without having internalised the math) often get it wrong.

But many games have a -50% penalty interpreted as 1 / 1.5, and I believe Civ4 is one of them, although I'm not sure now for production as I mentioned. Look at combat - a -100% penalty doesn't mean the unit's strength goes to 0, it means the unit loses half of its strength.

And yes, now that I've thought about combat, I'm pretty sure production modifiers work the same way.

The only units that gets a malus in combat that I could find in the Civilopedia were the bombers, -50% vs. Water Units.

[SevenSpirits]

The only units that gets a malus in combat that I could find in the Civilopedia were the bombers, -50% vs. Water Units.

Any land unit can get a malus in combat, by defending against a unit that has a bonus against it.

If a CR3 (+75%) axe attacks an archer in a city (+50% defense), it's resolved like this:

* Net bonus on the defender is -25%.
* Therefore, divide defender's combat strength by 1.25.

[NobleHelium]

Actually, the way the mathematics works out is why many games do it unintuitively. Doing it intuitively leads to negative multipliers giving increasing returns while positive multipliers give constant returns, which is very unbalanced. That's why many games don't do it that way.

[T-hawk]

Combat is the weird case for these modifiers. -100% doesn't functionally mean the relevant unit loses all its strength, it means the opposing unit functions as 100% stronger. But that's mathematically unsound. Turning -25% into a division by 1.25 or -100% into a division by 2 alters the meaning of the modifier and is logically unjustified. That's Civ 4's hacky way of applying combat modifiers, to accommodate large aesthetically appealing numbers without actually making the defender's strength zero or negative.

The whipping modifiers make total sense. The math is the same as in any other context. Suppose you're buying bananas in Sam's Club that adds a 50% surcharge if you're not a member. You get 66% as much bananas per unit of money spent. That could accurately be interpreted as a 33% penalty on your banana yield. In no way is it a 50% penalty on your banana yield, even though the store rule (the XML definition) says 50% extra cost.