World Update and Player Turn Order

[ptarth]

The order of World Update and the Player Turn in a game makes a huge difference in what happens in a game. Most games update everything at the start of a turn. SBR doesn't. It's causing some odd behaviors. I'm not sure if they are good or bad.

Some of the problems:

• Crime-Death Spirals
• Building Unemployment-X spirals.

This happens because SBR uses a recursive updating mechanic where changes in city status trigger city status re-evaluation.

Illustration:

• Calculate Building Effects
• Calculate Crime Effects
• Kill People
• Recalculate Building Effects loop 2

Example of Crime-Death Spiral:

• **Start of Turn 1**
• You have a little crime left over at the start of the turn.
• The crime causes some people to die.
• This lowers police effectiveness.
• This increases crime and causes more people to die.
• This powers police effectiveness, repeat.
• **Player has Turn 1**
• **End of Turn 1**

Pro Arguments

• Feels real
• Reducing cheese strategies
• Emergent game play

Con Arguments

• Lack of control
• Can be Highly inefficient (so many recalculations)
• Allows things to spiral out of control reducing fun

Alternative

• Have status of city/world established at the END of the previous turn.
• Currently the player gets to interact with the world after the world is updated. I would suggest having the player interact with the world prior to the calculation of world status. The effects of buildings (and everything else) would be calculated once per turn, and would not change.

To explain how this would work, I'm going to revisit our previous crime-death spiral.

Example:

• **New & Old Start of Turn 1**
• You have a little crime left over at the start of the turn.
• The crime causes some people to die.
• **New Player Turn 1**
• **New End of Turn 1**
• This lowers police effectiveness.
• This increases crime and causes more people to die.
• **New Start of Turn 2**
• **New Player Turn 2**
• **New End of Turn 2**
• This powers police effectiveness, repeat.
• **New Start of Turn 3**
• ...
• **Old Player Turn 1**
• **Old End of Turn 1**

Potential Abuses and Solutions

• Military Buildings can be turned on/off  to use them, then use population else where.
• Building Status is based on status at START of turn. Changes to building take place at end of turn. Not a problem.
• Crime infested buildings can be disabled stopping crime deaths.
• Crime deaths occur at start/end of turn, prior to the ability to stop them. However, deaths do not impact same turns resource generation.
• Your loyal restaurant employees make all of the food, then die in horrible 'mob accidents'.

[crazyroosterman]

I've personally never had this issue for me when I start to notice my crime getting into the hundreds I look for the building/buildings that are causing then drop down a few police stations and I'm fine I don't know how you could be having a crime death spree?.

[ptarth]

It's a population size problem difference. When you have massive cities, even a few points of crime will cause hundreds, if not thousands, of deaths. However, that's just a symptom of restructuring when calculations occur.

[crazyroosterman]

o yea I forget your city's are stupidly big usually I tend to keep my city's roughly 5000 in pop or a few hundred more.

[ptarth]

o yea I forget your city's are stupidly big usually I tend to keep my city's roughly 5000 in pop or a few hundred more.

Don't you mean hamlet or village? >D

[tombik]

o yea I forget your city's are stupidly big usually I tend to keep my city's roughly 5000 in pop or a few hundred more.

Don't you mean hamlet or village? >D

So infinite sprawl is a valid strategy in this game?

I intentionally did not beef up my city, then got pocketed

[Captain Jack]

It's a population size problem difference. When you have massive cities, even a few points of crime will cause hundreds, if not thousands, of deaths. However, that's just a symptom of restructuring when calculations occur.

It starts quite early in my experience. My last city had 4000 population, when a riot police building was destroyed unexpectedly in my city core. The cascade was impressive and took some time to bring under control.

[ptarth]

So infinite sprawl is a valid strategy in this game?
...
I intentionally did not beef up my city, then got pocketed

ICS? Balance is MIA ATM, so any conclusion should be held very lightly.

It starts quite early in my experience. My last city had 4000 population, when a riot police building was destroyed unexpectedly in my city core. The cascade was impressive and took some time to bring under control.

I find building riot police on a 2 interval spacing is pretty safe. To shut down riots, if you have a loss of police, just shut down those buildings.

[ptarth]

Feedback to this idea has been minimal. Possibly because I'm not explaining very well or I'm just crazy. I'm going to keep trying.

Another problem caused by world and player turn order is the amount and delay in GUI information. As an example, in previous games I kept having problems with my power fluctuating. I built some more power plants, they finished, and I would still be having power issues. I'd then queue up another 5 plants, to fix my power issues. A few turns later not only  are my power woes gone, but I'm swimming in 100k excess power.

I finally figured out what was happening. The reason is that power plant employment occurs after buildings finish building AND after power is generated. This makes sense, but leads to situations where you have X finished power plants, but since they have no workers, they don't actually produce power. Hence my problem above. This is also true for other buildings, there is a one turn delay between them being finished building and them actually producing.

The GUI information should display the situation as it is now and as it will be after you hit end turn. If I have power plants that are finished, they should be producing power visibly for next turn, and not contributing to my available power this turn.  The same should be true for all of the GUI information.

Knowing how many people died last turn is useful. But knowing how many people are estimated to die next turn with the current state of affairs is REALLY useful. Note that this wouldn't be able to predict death by war or new disease deaths, but it shouldn't have it.  The same is true for all of the information we are given. Currently the display shows a variety of past, present and future predictions about performance (for example power shows all of this). What I really want to know on a turn is what's happening now and what will happen when I hit end turn (past information should be available via tooltip). Then I can try to do something about the problems I'm having (even though the amount of things that I can effect in a single turn is going to be limited).

This would then fit hand in hand with moving the effective part of the turn to after the players turn. So if I get notices of brownouts, I can selectively choose which buildings are disabled, thus focusing my power where I need it. If I get a warning that I'm about to have riots, I can shut those buildings down before the riots happen. And so forth.

[nas1m]

I agree that clarifying this up would go a long way. It also bugged (and bit) me on more than one occasion...

[Endymion]

Sounds good I think? I'm not sure if the current way is good or bad but it can be a little confusing/weird.

[ptarth]

So, I keep thinking Chris keeps making these changes that I'm pretty sure would be unnecessary if he this proposal was implemented. Am I wrong? Should I nag Chris to think about this more? Should I get Chinese for dinner tomorrow?

[nas1m]

So, I keep thinking Chris keeps making these changes that I'm pretty sure would be unnecessary if he this proposal was implemented. Am I wrong? Should I nag Chris to think about this more? Should I get Chinese for dinner tomorrow?

Definitely. Nor sure about the first part, though, too few (meat)brain-space available for gauging this at the moment...

[jerith]

Should I get Chinese for dinner tomorrow?

Tomorrow seems more like a day for Ethiopian. Maybe Mozambiquan or Tanzanian on Sunday. Now I'm hungry.

[ptarth]

I really don't understand the Ethiopian food appeal. I've tried it, but it just was lacking in appeal to me. I hate to say it, but all the non-native food I've confused has been more appealing to me once it has been westernized. (I know, I'm horrible) A classic example of this is the famous Indian dish, Chicken Tiki Marsala which originated in... Scotland.