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  1. #1
    Spends his time on TWC Member Simetrical's Avatar
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    Default Re: Question about ancillaries.

    Quote Originally Posted by Malrubius
    The bane of the ancillary system--we can't tell what ancillary a general has gotten, either through a trigger, or as a present from another general.
    Hmmmm. What if you assigned every ancillary a unique power of two as a code number (1, 2, 4, 8, 16 . . .), and then had it give an Electability bonus equal to that number? You would then have a finite number of possibilities for the Electability attribute for a possessor of the ancillary.

    For instance, say we wanted to check five ancillaries as part of trigger conditions. We assigned them respective powers of two from 2^0 to 2^4. Now, if we want to check whether a general has ancillary #3 (with code number 4), we check if his Electability is equal to 4, 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 15, 20, 21, 22, 23, 28, 29, 30, or 31. If it's equal to any of those numbers, he has the ancillary; if not, he doesn't. Of course, the number of possibilities will increase exponentially as we increase the number of ancillaries we want to test for, but there's no limit to triggers, so no worries there. We'd just need to make a simple program to generate them.

    *adds another notch to his List of Stuff I've Probably Helped EB Out with Without Having to Do a Damned Thing, a list quite a lot longer than the List of Stuff I've Helped EB Out with by Actually Doing Something*
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    EB Traiter Member Malrubius's Avatar
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    Default Re: Question about ancillaries.

    Any idea what the maximum value of Electability is?

    You're going to get into very large numbers very quickly, unless you just do this for a handful of ancillaries. (IOW, don't notch your chickens before they're hatched )

    Ah! the Generals! they are numerous, but not good for much (especially if they're Languorous)!
    -- Aristophanes, if he played EB

  3. #3
    graduated non-expert Member jerby's Avatar
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    Default Re: Question about ancillaries.

    if you , after a battle, get teh message that a general died in battle. is that a possible trigger?
    could that spawn a "avenger" trait for his son?

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    EB Traiter Member Malrubius's Avatar
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    Default Re: Question about ancillaries.

    Hmm, I'll have to test and see if that works.

    Ah! the Generals! they are numerous, but not good for much (especially if they're Languorous)!
    -- Aristophanes, if he played EB

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    graduated non-expert Member jerby's Avatar
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    Default Re: Question about ancillaries.

    Quote Originally Posted by Malrubius
    Hmm, I'll have to test and see if that works.
    would be nice to get: avenger ; this man wants to avenge his fathers death:
    +1 command (vs faction..is possible)

  6. #6
    Research Fiend Technical Administrator Tetris Champion, Summer Games Champion, Snakeman Champion, Ms Pacman Champion therother's Avatar
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    Default Re: Question about ancillaries.

    Quote Originally Posted by jerby
    if you , after a battle, get teh message that a general died in battle. is that a possible trigger?
    could that spawn a "avenger" trait for his son?
    It is possible, and we'll be looking into these sorts of traits. Probably not for the open beta though.

    Thanks for the suggestion!
    Nullius addictus iurare in verba magistri -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus

    History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren't there -- George Santayana

  7. #7
    EB Jr. Traiter Member kayapó's Avatar
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    Default Re: Question about ancillaries.

    Quote Originally Posted by therother
    It is possible, and we'll be looking into these sorts of traits. Probably not for the open beta though.

    Thanks for the suggestion!
    Oh, great. More work for us. Malrubius is already getting his
    k
    Worshiper of therother.

  8. #8
    boy of DESTINY Senior Member Big_John's Avatar
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    Default Re: Question about ancillaries.

    Quote Originally Posted by therother
    Thanks for the suggestion!
    it was my idea first...


    so the death event for a general being killed in battle is different than the event for dying of old-age/plague/whatever?
    now i'm here, and history is vindicated.

  9. #9

    Default Re: Question about ancillaries.

    HOLY SMOKES!!!!

    Where the hell do you guys learn this stuff? I knew it was complicated, but my God!

    You guys either:

    (1) Work for dev companies or have done so in the past.

    or

    (2) Went to school for this stuff?

    or

    (3) I don't know! Holy Crup!


    I would love to learn this, but the mod academy took a dump immediately. That's so damn cool....

    Are there any uses for this knowledge other than video games?
    "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." -Einstein

    Quote Originally Posted by Pannonian View Post
    The Backroom is the Crackroom.

  10. #10
    Research Fiend Technical Administrator Tetris Champion, Summer Games Champion, Snakeman Champion, Ms Pacman Champion therother's Avatar
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    Default Re: Question about ancillaries.

    Quote Originally Posted by Big_John
    it was my idea first...
    Sorry, Big_John! Serves me right for not rereading the thread.

    so the death event for a general being killed in battle is different than the event for dying of old-age/plague/whatever?
    Well, it's different in the sense that it occurs PostBattle rather than on the strategy map.
    Nullius addictus iurare in verba magistri -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus

    History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren't there -- George Santayana

  11. #11
    boy of DESTINY Senior Member Big_John's Avatar
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    Default Re: Question about ancillaries.

    Quote Originally Posted by therother
    Well, it's different in the sense that it occurs PostBattle rather than on the strategy map.
    so if you try to give people an "avenger" triat, they won't acquire that at any old death event? it can be tied specifically to the event of a general being killed in battle?
    now i'm here, and history is vindicated.

  12. #12
    graduated non-expert Member jerby's Avatar
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    Default Re: Question about ancillaries.

    Quote Originally Posted by Big_John
    it was my idea first...


    so the death event for a general being killed in battle is different than the event for dying of old-age/plague/whatever?
    that might have been teh inspiration for me suggesting..i felt liek my "avenger" was original...whoops..

    still feels nice to help

  13. #13
    Speaker of Truth Senior Member Moros's Avatar
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    Default Re: Question about ancillaries.

    Quote Originally Posted by jerby
    that might have been teh inspiration for me suggesting..i felt liek my "avenger" was original...whoops..

    still feels nice to help
    stealing Ideas are we? jerby,jerby, jerby

    you can say what you want about my wise lynx but at least I was original


  14. #14
    Spends his time on TWC Member Simetrical's Avatar
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    Default Re: Question about ancillaries.

    Quote Originally Posted by Malrubius
    Any idea what the maximum value of Electability is?
    I'll do a quick test.
    Quote Originally Posted by Malrubius
    (IOW, don't notch your chickens before they're hatched )
    That's why I said "Probably".

    Edit: I removed all triggers from EDCT, gave Good_Commander (which Flavius Julius starts with in vanilla) the effect of Electability 1000000000, and then added the following triggers:
    Code:
    ;------------------------------------------
    Trigger inherited
        WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd
    
        Condition Attribute Electability [gt]= 1000000000
    
        Affects GoodAttacker  20  Chance  100 
    
    ;------------------------------------------
    Trigger inherited
        WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd
    
        Condition Attribute Electability [gt]= 1000000
    
        Affects GoodDefender  20  Chance  100 
    
    ;------------------------------------------
    Trigger inherited
        WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd
    
        Condition Attribute Electability [gt]= 1000
    
        Affects Drink  100  Chance  100
    I then started a game and ended my turn. Suddenly, good ol' Flavius was a heroic attacker and defender, but Paralytic. I think we can safely guess that there's not any limit. 1,000,000,000 is good enough for 29-30 ancillaries, in any case.

    Of course, there's the slight problem of having to list roughly 500,000,000 possibilities to check for the presence of any given ancillary, but this can be simplified substantially by translating the triggers into ranges. The 29th ancillary, for instance, has a code number of 268,435,456, so (assuming 30 ancillaries) we can just check:
    Code:
        Condition Attribute Electability [gt]= 268435456
            and Attribute Electability [lt]= 536870911
    [next trigger]
        Condition Attribute Electability [gt]= 805306368
            and Attribute Electability [lt]= 1073741823
    The number of triggers will then double for each step down, all the way up to the maximum of 536,870,912 for the first ancillary (listing all odd numbers from 1 through 1,073,741,823). Of course, such problems wouldn't really arise if we just selected a few ancillaries we wanted to check for.

    Given the Senate's removal, perhaps we could also use SenateStanding and PopularStanding? Or are those used? They would, of course, reduce the burden exponentially.

    I can't help but think there must be some way to refine the system. What if we had, for each ancillary with code number N, a hidden trait, which would give -N electability? We could then have a progression of trigger pairs for CharacterTurnEnd that would grant or remove the traits in succession, such that only one pair would be necessary per ancillary. For example, say we have N ancillaries, where any ancillary N gives an Electability bonus of 2^(N−1) = N'. Then we would have a series of triggers such as:
    Code:
    ;------------------------------------------
    Trigger AncillaryNGain
        WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd
    
        Condition Attribute Electability [gt]= N'
    
        Affects AncillaryN  1  Chance  100 
    
    ;------------------------------------------
    Trigger AncillaryN−1Gain
        WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd
    
        Condition Attribute Electability [gt]= N'/2
    
        Affects AncillaryN−1  1  Chance  100 
    
    . . .
    ;------------------------------------------
    Trigger Ancillary1Gain
        WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd
    
        Condition Attribute Electability [gt]= 1
    
        Affects Ancillary1  1  Chance  100
    AncillaryNGain would, of course, give Electability -N' for any N. Now, consider. For the first trigger, what combination of ancillaries could possibly cause an Electability bonus of [gt]= N'? Only one that contains Ancillary N, because all other ancillaries' Electability combined amounts only to N'−1 Electability.

    So if the character has the ancillary, he'll gain the AncillaryN trait, which will reduce his Electability by N'. After that's checked, he can only have more than (N−1)' = N'/2 Electability if he has Ancillary N−1. And so on, all the way down to Ancillary 1. Do you follow?

    Okay, now after all those triggers, if the player hasn't traded away any ancillaries, Electability will be 0. If he has traded away ancillaries, we can test in exactly the same way as before. If the player traded away Ancillary N, Electability will be at -N' due to the AncillaryN trait, and so we check for that and adjust traits accordingly to account for lost ancillaries.

    Finally, as an error-catcher: immediately after all these checks are done, have the game check to be sure Electability is 0. If it's not, have a warning message popup saying "BUG! Save this game and send it to EB at foo@bar.com, or post it on our message boards!"
    Last edited by Simetrical; 08-29-2005 at 22:07. Reason: Because the damn board loathes pointy brackets
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