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Answered Trader range and number of trades

DeletedUser

Guest
Rob15 showed up as an undiscovered trader. The problem is that his city is one ring further North than either of our models needs to support 200 traders.

Hopefully this simply means that we're allowed to have MORE than 200 trading partners. It will be interesting to see how many more out-of-bounds cities pop up in the Trade window.

Rob15.png
Rob15Map.png
 

DeletedUser

Guest
en2Scouting 2016A27.png

  • The scouting costs are looking exponential, or hyperbolic
  • The Advanced Scouting I technology dropped the next cost by 20%, from 15,000 coins to 12,000 coins
  • The number of minutes required for scouting is right at 0.25% of the cost in coins
  • The hurry up cost, in Diamonds, is right at 80% of the number of remaining minutes
1 shows All of 2 Commentary
100 ~ Scout I
200 230 30
300 330 30
410 430 20
510 540 30
630 660 30
2 shows All of 3 Commentary
780 ~ Scout I
920 1,800 880
1,100 2,000 900
1,200 2,100 900
1,400 2,300 900
1,600 2,500 900
3 shows All of 4 Commentary
2,800 ~ Scout I
3,000 9,700 6700
3,300 10,000 6700
3,700 10,000 6300
4,000 11,000 7000
4,400 11,000 6600
4,900 12,000 7100
5,400 12,000 6600
6,000 13,000 7000
6,600 13,000 6400
7,300 14,000 6700
8,000 15,000 7000
4 shows All of 5 Commentary
15,000 ~ Scout I
12,000 ~ Scout II
 
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DeletedUser219

Guest
Another possible explanation for Rob15 is vacant cities (if any). This would indicate that the algorithm counts actual cities rather than just locations, and a trading partner could vanish again when a location is refilled.

The Scouting costs have the appearance of a parabolic curve, providing you research the advanced scouts at the right time. Further evidence that there is an expected rate of progress, and too fast is as bad or worse than too slow.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
This would indicate that the algorithm counts actual cities rather than just locations
Hyperbolic curves arise when points are equidistant between a line (the edge of the hexagonal ring) and a point (your city), so a parabolic curve would indeed be a natural.

If we had any current vacancies, your explanation would be very attractive. There's some pretty decent evidence that the various groups are driven by simply sorting the available cities (or scoutable sectors) and that the fancy patterns we're seeing are simply emergent, rather than anything intentional.

300px-Tip-splitting_bacteria.jpg
https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Patterns_of_Bacterial_Growth
is a rather interesting site that illustrates complex growth patterns that can arise
when bacteria are grown on an Agar surface, patterns that are far more complex
than anything that we're seeing on our Elvenar world map, It may well be that our
map is more closely related to an agar culture than to any fancy abstract
mathematical model.

There are a couple of local algorithms that we may be dealing with:
  • When a city is occupied, check the 6 adjacent cities starting at 1 o'clock, add them if they are missing, and increment their adjacent cities count. We'll end up with flat-topped hexagonal rings, simply because there's nowhere else to add anything. And the creation sequence doesn't even matter, just the adjacencies.
  • When a relic sector is scouted, check the 6 adjacent sectors (either cities or relics this time) starting at 12 o'clock and activate the adjacent scouting flag if it's missing. Setting the costs is a BIT more complex than counting the number of adjacent cities, because ALL of the costs in a ring change each time something is scouted, but there are several local ways to deal with that issue. This time we'll end up with pointy-topped hexagonal rings, for all of the same simple reasons.
  • It may very well be that beauty, and complexity, are indeed in the eye of the beholder.
And, just in case you
didn't already have enough
to worry about today. :eek:
HandPrint.JPG
 
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DeletedUser

Guest
Well this is a fine kettle of fish! Guess which sector I just scouted, during my previous session?

en2DeadSector.png


I reloaded and the sector was still dead, even though it's ADJACENT to an acquired sector and has, in fact, been scouted.

Dragging the map DOWN, just a bit, forced the dead sector to load, plus the discovered city to its immediate north.

This has some interesting implications for the database schema.
  • The locked Scouting costs are probably associated with the adjacent CITY record rather than being sponsored by the relic sector itself.
  • The relic sector record probably doesn't even exist until the sector is actually scouted, and the number of acquired relics is probably associated with the relic sector itself, not with the adjacent city.
en2LiveSector.png
 
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DeletedUser

Guest
Adryell showed up in my trade list, so now we have two cities that fall outside of both models, one at the top and one at the bottom. It occurs to me that the shape of the discovered area MAY have something to do with it, if the algorithm starts with what you've discovered, and expands from there.

en2Undiscovered 2016A28.png
150% Traders Distance Score
Adryell ~ ~
BROWEX ~ ~
Cunga-uk ~ ~
dabookman ~ ~
Daenira ~ ~
dch6mg ~ ~
DecimusAura ~ ~
Deidra ~ ~
Dianaguitar R12 ~ ~
Gwynhyfer ~ ~
Inukshuk ~ ~
irishjorge ~ ~
jc0508 ~ ~
Jeffro the Hopeful ~ ~
Katwijk Home City ~
Kaztan ~ ~
Khayman ~ ~
Lisetta ~ ~
lusy ~ ~
ontus ~ ~
phantom184 ~ ~
pink cosmic ~ ~
Psoriasis ~ ~
RANGER7 ~ ~
Rob15 ~ ~
Rumi ~ ~
shadow75 ~ ~
violla ~ ~
My neighborhood has a LOT of active traders! In addition to the folks in my fellowship and my discovered neighbors, everybody on the following UNdiscovered list, sorted alphabetically, has posted trades that I could have used to balance my inventory, if I had one. 150% is still a lot better than the 500% that's offered by the Wholesaler.
 
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DeletedUser

Guest
This post is a "thought experiment" that assumes the Elvenar world map is created piecemeal, using two very simple algorithms. Further, the program needs no awareness of spirals, rhomboids, nor of hexagonal rings that contain more than 6 relic sectors and/or 6 cities.
  • We'll assume that there's a comprehensive set of master records for each world map, and that your particular version of that map is mostly pointers to the master map. The creation of your private instance uses the same procedures.
  • The city in the exact center of the map is seeded, but thereafter cities are processed in IDentity order.
    • Starting at 12 o'clock in the adjacent hexes, Relic sectors are assigned in Ring 1, using a clockwise rotation.
      See R001 - R006 in the following diagram.
    • Starting at 1 o'clock in the adjacent hexes, once removed, City sectors are assigned to the odd numbered positions in Ring 2, using a clockwise rotation.
      See C01 - C06 in the following diagram.
    • If a sector has been previously claimed, it is simply skipped.
Here's the chart from processing the first 37 cities. (If you want a closer look, Ctrl+ScrollWheel will zoom the window in most browsers.)
NotASpiral 2016A29.png

Ring City Ring City
Ring 0 C00 Ring 6 C19
Ring 2 C01 Ring 6 C24
Ring 2 C02 Ring 6 C27
Ring 2 C03 Ring 6 C30
Ring 2 C04 Ring 6 C33
Ring 2 C05 Ring 6 C36
Ring 2 C06 Ring 6 C40
Ring 3 C08 Ring 6 C41
Ring 3 C09 Ring 6 C46
Ring 3 C11 Ring 6 C50
Ring 3 C13 Ring 6 C54
Ring 3 C15 Ring 6 C58
Ring 3 C17 Ring 7 C38
Ring 4 C07 Ring 7 C39
Ring 4 C10 Ring 7 C42
Ring 4 C12 Ring 7 C43
Ring 4 C14 Ring 7 C45
Ring 4 C16 Ring 7 C47
Ring 4 C18 Ring 7 C49
Ring 5 C20 Ring 7 C51
Ring 5 C21 Ring 7 C53
Ring 5 C22 Ring 7 C55
Ring 5 C23 Ring 7 C57
Ring 5 C25 Ring 7 C59
Ring 5 C26 Ring 8 C37
Ring 5 C28 Ring 8 C44
Ring 5 C29 Ring 8 C48
Ring 5 C31 Ring 8 C52
Ring 5 C32 Ring 8 C56
Ring 5 C34 Ring 8 C60
Ring 5 C35 Ring 9 C62
~ ~ Ring 9 C63
~ ~ Ring l0 C61
The IDentity space is pointy-topped, but it's flat-bottomed, and the City IDentities oscillate near the 1 o'clock corner, all of which we have previously observed in the data, as anomalies. Vacating cities and assigning them to new immigrants, pretty much ring by ring, requires nothing fancier than walking down a (perhaps filtered) list that's in City IDentity order.

While I only processed the first 37 cities, turning the crank to find all 200 trading partners would just be more of the same. You'll note that the IDentity space is extra wide at the equator, it's a bit pear-shaped, and C41 and C49 are in EXACTLY the right positions to account for Rob15 and Adryell, the out-of-bounds traders that we were complaining about earlier.
 
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DeletedUser

Guest
In every 3rd row there'll be a city that blocks immediate access for scouting the relic sectors in the 12 o'clock and 6 o'clock positions. This has already occurred, as we had to scout the sector at 2 o'clock, relative to Chaladriel, so that we'd be able to reach the 12 o'clock position.

As luck would have it, that's a Steel sector, and Cannoneers are tough to handle with just Sword Dancers and Archers. Treants, at the end of Chapter II, will make that nut much easier to crack.
 
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DeletedUser

Guest
@Katwijk,

Sorry that I haven't replied earlier. I must admit that I'm not entirely certain I understand what the result of your study is exactly. I mean, I get the jist of it, but I have trouble following this experimental piecemeal concept of yours. I'm going to have another read through from the beginning, so wish me luck. :D
 

DeletedUser

Guest
You are, quite literally, filling in the blanks. You have NO knowledge other than
  • A City IDentity list which you seed with your Home City, and then append with each new city as it's assigned
  • An index that allows you to walk down the list in City IDentity sequence
  • The ability to locate the 6 city sectors that are once removed from your current city,
    at 1 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 5 o'clock, 7 o'clock, 9 o'clock, and 11 o'clock
  • The ability to skip a located sector that is already in the City IDentity list
If you simply start in the center, ONLY look locally, and assign new cities in the flat topped hex that's once removed from your current city, THEN process the subsequent cities in IDentity order, our flat-topped hexagonal spiral will EMERGE, but it's not a pattern that the program actually knows anything about. It's an observed pattern, not a designed pattern.
  • If you're at 1 o'clock, your new city rotation will be 1,2,skip,skip,skip,6
  • When you process the next city, that was defined in the previous round, your new city rotation will be skip,2,skip,skip,skip,skip
  • Then you have to jump back over to the top row, and you'll get skip,skip,skip,skip,skip,6
  • When you finally get to the 3 o'clock corner you'll get skip,2,3,skip,skip,skip
  • And the top row will lose the race so you'll be clockwise monotonic until you get to 11 o'clock
You can't really "think" your way through it. You have to get a pencil, maybe select the above graphic and print it out with your printer set to fit the page (zoom the graphic), or print out the same map that's included in the spreadsheet over at https://us.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/winyandor-vacancy-watch.1572/#post-10612, and be very DUMB about what's going to happen. Just turn the simple crank, and our hexagonal patterns will emerge as a consequence of the sectors that are still available at each step.
 
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DeletedUser

Guest
Okay, thanks for the explanation. I'll go grab a pencil later and draw my way to the bottom of this. :)
 
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