Naghite does pestilence strike according to a percentage chance when your city health is below a certain number, or can it only happen on certain months (much like curses and blesings from the Gods). I'm pretty sure that at easier difficulties pestilence is less likely at a given health standard.

In hard if you get rats and your health becomes "bad" you are pretty well guaranteed an outbreak of disease pretty promptly, most often next month. In easy it isn't as likely, often you can survive rats even though health does plummet. You can also get disease on poor or below average health (the latter maybe only in Very Hard). You can even get it where houses that have doctor coverage get disease and are fumigated, this is most likely if you've recently built doctors everywhere in response to rats in the water. If some houses don't have clinic coverage these are generally the ones to go, especially if they are tents.

Do you know what affect hospitals have on disease? Do they make the pestilence less likely to happen or less severe or both? I've tried building a stack of hospitals after rats have been discovered but it didn't seem to make a lot of difference.

GS,

I cannot comment on differences between easy or very hard settings except that I can verify that your level (Poor, Average ect) are independent of playing difficulty level. So, I'll answer your questions based on the Hard Setting.

"Naghite does pestilence strike according to a percentage chance when your city health is below a certain number, or can it only happen on certain months (much like curses and blesings from the Gods)."

Rats (contaminated water) can occur during any month. They happen always at the very end of the month AFTER your next months health rating is calculated but BEFORE it is implemented. In essence you always lose your progress/regression tick during the month that rats come. It seems to me that rats are a random event. Based on Casaerea (by Wizardman) I got rats well over 100 times (hit message limit so can't check for sure) and I did examine there timing / occurrence and didn't see a specific pattern. Maybe you can tell me....when one creates a map (I never have), must one manually input each contaminated water incident, or does the comp automatically do them for you, or can you choose?? Anyway, disease can then occur on hard if your health rating is less than Below Average (or would be at the beginning of the next month). Now, in many tests, every time I fell to Appalling or Terrible I would get disease quickly. I have however fallen to the lowest level of Bad and climbed 3 more months through Bad and 5 more through Poor without getting Diseased. Other times I have fallen to JUST Poor (say from Very Good or Excellent range) and gotten disease right away after one month. It seems random, the one thing that does seem to effect the occurrence of disease, and which I tested but do not have definitive numbers on, is time since previous disease. For example, if you can get your city to run without an occurrence of disease hitting and you mainting your health setting at say, low Good for 5 years, you will fall to Poor or possibly Poor (+1 month) after a Rats. I would be very suprised if Disease was to strike during the 4-5 months it takes to climb out of Poor to Below Average. On the other hand, if you had a diseased city 1-2 years earlier, I would consider you lucky to not get diseased again even if you fell to the same level. No matter the occurrence of when houses get diseased, a house that gets diseased once, will always be a likely target for future diseases, should they occur. During 650 years, some houses got hit almost every disease (and I let a lot happen during testing) while others right beside it never did once. The best way to prevent disease, if you wanted too, is simply clinics. Perfect health can take two rats hits in a row and you still have a 75% chance of making it out unscathed. Anything less than perfect will take you to bad on two hits and chances are probably 75 (AP)-95(VG)% on Hard setting that you will get diseased before reaching BA health.

Note: Here is a rough rule of thumb for Hard. You have 1 month to get better than Appalling, 3 months to get better than Terrible, 6 months to get better than Bad and 12 months to get better than Poor -- or you are doomed (I have run a city for 14 months in Poor/Bad without Disease, but it's rare).

" If some houses don't have clinic coverage these are generally the ones to go, especially if they are tents."

I agree, previous occurrences of disease plays an equal role in this though. If an area keeps getting hit, and you then add a doctor to that area and take one away somewhere else, those houses may still get diseased 100 years later while the ones without coverage may not.

"Do you know what affect hospitals have on disease? Do they make the pestilence less likely to happen or less severe or both? I've tried building a stack of hospitals after rats have been discovered but it didn't seem to make a lot of difference."

Hospital are completely useless for health care. They do not effect the rate at which your health rating moves towards the limit, nor do they assist in your health rating or helping with disease. They are however extremely useful for building stable cities...../wink. And Patricians like them too, so there's always that.

[This message has been edited by Naghite (edited 03-21-2005 @ 02:40 PM).]

You are right about the rats. They are a random event that can be enabled or otherwise when the scenario is created. I don't know what the average frequency of a rats event is, I'd guess once every four or five years would be in the ballpark.

Since disease is based on your health rating (which can be random from rats ), disease then could also be considered random, with the provisions above, I guess.

Your guess is close to what mine would be, but I'll go through my logs for the first 1000 messages and check for rats and when ....... sometime. They are not equially distributed, and I'd hazard a guess to say that about every 30ish years or so they clump up and you can get 3 in 2 under years (or 5 in 3-4 years). With both Perfect health and perfect health coverage I've seen cities take disease hits (tested both with and without Hospitals). I've really only payed attention recently, but 650 years of Casaerea seemed to show this pattern. I thought maybe they were put in by the Map maker, since the densest clumps always seem to come at the worst times .

[This message has been edited by Naghite (edited 03-23-2005 @ 00:13 AM).]

Assuming that my game isn't messed up, my observations indicate that city health is affected by something other than clinic coverage and "rats". In a city without rats, one time health fell from below average to poor when clinic coverage was between 21% and 22%, and another time health fell from below average to poor when clinic coverage was between 25% and 26%. Each time I checked the numbers carefully, and reproduced the observation by raising and lowering clinic coverage slightly.

Could you send me the file with 25-26% coverage rating as Poor Brugle (preferably before the health change if possible)? If there is something that I never noticed before, that would be good to learn. My only guess is to check if immigration is throwing off the numbers. A high immigration rate can exceed the ability of the health rating to keep up if coverage is not maximal. If it isn't immigration I'll be curious to check out why if I can.

[This message has been edited by Naghite (edited 09-04-2005 @ 10:43 PM).]

Naghite,
I sent a zipped saved game and description to the address you gave for White Oaks Challenge entries.

Brugle,

I got your file and took a quick look at it. You are correct, something is different and effects the health rating. I will need to spend some time looking at it as I do not understand why at this time. I suspect it will take me a couple weeks to figure it out, if I can at all.

There's a couple of other possible variables I can think of.

Firstly, and its so obvious it can surely be discounted in this case, a curse from Venus will lower health, even a minor one.

It's now widely accepted that the mood of the gods affects the mood of the people to a fairly minor but still significant degree, could it affect their health slightly as well? ( I have serious doubts about this.)

I'm wondering whether the health "cap" is calculated according to the present number of inhabitants of houses with doctor coverage, or the number when each house was last passed by a doctor?

And finally, the game keeps telling us that supplying food will improve health. Is it possible that there is some formula for houses other than tents that is different than for tents? Or could it be in some way connected to the amount of food stored in the city?

Quote:

Based on my what I remember while running the tests, I think that it is based on the population when the doctor passed the houses. As I noted to Brugle, when immigration is high I have seen a city temporarily lose a health level only to gain it back again shortly after (without any change to the clinic coverage). My guess was that the immigrants moved into the house after the doctor passed and added to the total population but not to the "covered" houses population, even though the display showed the house they moved into as "recently passed by a doctor". I could be wrong, but it made sense at the time.

Quote:

This was my thinking, but I'll have to do a few things to make sure. Go back and look at the cities I used for testing 6 months ago (and only a few months after I started playing this game) and see if all the cities had food or what percentage of the population did. Also create some new cities to examine. It would make sense that food would make some difference, and although I didn't notice it before, I may see things differently now that I can actually play this game half decently. It would not suprise me to find that there are three categories, unfed plebs, fed plebs and patricians, just like in taxing situations. Anyway, I'll get to this, well, when I can /wink.

EDIT 2: Although I suspect as stated that the factors of food and possibly patrician's effect percentage of people needing coverage for a particular health level, I have not, and honestly do not expect to really get back into this, perhaps someone else will finish this off, perhaps not I just do not have the motivation for it, unfortunately. Still, I hope it helps some people examing age and its effects.

[This message has been edited by Naghite (edited 04-26-2006 @ 03:49 PM).]

Naghite,

Could you share any observations on births and deaths you have made while testing health? I am trying to find ways to create cities with a completely stable census. It turned out to be possible - you can see how one looks here.

What would be important is to produce a census that looks as similar to \ as possible. part of it involves having a birth rate high enough to compensate for all deaths. If a \ shaped census is be achieved I believe that it will quickly settle into the right attractor.

If you have any ideas or comments it would be great to hear them.

[This message has been edited by Trurl (edited 04-27-2006 @ 11:05 AM).]

"Terrible has two ticks and Bad has 3 ticks (it takes 3 full months to move from the lowest Bad up to Poor) – each tick at these extremes is only about 1 percent."
In Miletus,when we discovered the rats,my health was around 80.Then it fell up to average(my english is bad).In the table 80 falls to 25.??????

Trurl

You may also want to d/l the file 2345 years of Brundisium as I have a large text file in there with many of my thoughts on death. Included is an exponential approximation I made for deaths with the Health Rating appearing in the exponential. Having said this, I think I realized the formula was wrong later, but it should provide a good basis for someone else with strong math skills to correct (like you, or me if I get around to looking at it again). Your census curve is just what I would have expected, and what the census looks like in Brundisium. I would probably be better able to answer direct questions re: deaths, as at this point, I am unsure what you are looking for.

iamdmxthecoolman:

Those are the stats I found in my tests, although as Brugle pointed out, my tests were incomplete. Remember though, that 80% coverage is only excellent health, and I can guarantee that my tests showed anything excellent or less to fall to at least Below Average .... when you say 80, is that calculated on coverage or on current stated health rating (which may not be the same).

Naghite,

I was hoping that you have hints for stabilizing the census quickly, but it turned out to do so pretty well on its own. I made a 2k town run for 300 years - after 100 the census looked like descending linearly and after 50 more years it settled in a stable shape. After another 150 years it still looked pretty much the same including the variations, so it will probably never become as nicely curved as the 125k city's. Still the procentages held very well.

They are mentioned in the other thread but in case you missed them(125k ones): 28.3% is the workforce, 13.8% are school age, and 35.6 are school age. Once the census in the 2k city stabilized, the workforce didnt fall below 28%, and academy youth didn't go above 15% and schoolchildren didn't go above 36%. In general 28/15/36 should be safe estimates for after 150-200 years since immigration stops.

On ghosts - I saw in the Tarraco in the year 2k thread that you believe that the rate of their creation depends on the population. This doesnt seem to be the case - the 125k city produced ghosts at about the same rate as the 2k one. It looks like the old people's numbers are quickly reduced when they are many, and it is individuals that are very persistent and turn into ghosts.

Trurl:

As you noted, it does tend to stabilize itself rather quickly. The one thing I did to help stabilize it quicker, was to have a rather slow constant rate of immigration over a few years, rather than a massive influx quickly. This allowed for a few more workers at the critical points before the percentage of workers starts to increase back up after the first few large rounds of retirees.

I find it very interesting that your ghost creation numbers were so low for a 125K city. It is counter-intuitive, but quite useful then. A larger city will actually then have a smaller percentage of ghosts appear, making larger cities easier to turn into ling term steady-state cities than smaller cities.

I have run tests on the effects of hospitals on cities that suffer pestilence.

My city has a population of 4783 at the moment disease strikes. Health is bad as a result of two "rats" within a few months. All houses are tents. All except one 2x2 tent (20 population) have clinic coverage.

The figure at the left is number of hospitals, the second figure the population immediately after pestilence strikes, and in brackets the number of population lost. The hospitals can be anywhere, it makes no difference whether houses have hospital walker coverage, and it is also interesting that the benefit from hospitals still increases after "perfect citywide coverage" is reached.

0 hospitals---4783 population---4352 after disease (loss of 431)
1- 4381-(402)
2- 4401 (382)
3- 4425 (358)
4- 4473 (310)
5- 4483 (300)
6- 4517 (266)
7- 4556 (227)
8- 4585 (198)
9- 4609 (174)
10- 4647 (136)
11- 4682 (101)
12- 4712 (71)
13- 4737 (46)
14- 4763 (20) This of course is the 2x2 small tent without clinic coverage.
15- 4783 (nil)

Goonsquad, why do I suspect which map you are using?

goonsquad,

That is consistent with the C3 manual, as Trium pointed out in the CBC thread Contest 143 (C3) Revenge of the Market Ladies- Discussion and Results. When there's pestilence, the game appears to determine the number of sick people, subtracts the number of people that can be put in hospitals (equal to the total hospital employees), and fumigates houses until at least that many people have died. That would be consistent with your results, assuming that your hospitals were fully staffed and that at least one fumigated house had had at least 21 residents.

(To test more precisely, we'd need data from a city where no house has very many people, perhaps a city where all houses are 1x1 small tents.)

My guess is that the houses chosen for fumigation are those without clinic coverage that are earliest in the building list, then (if all houses without clinic coverage are fumigated and more need to be fumigated) those with clinic coverage that are earliest in the building list. The game might do something more complicated, such as fumigate those houses with clinic coverage that have gone the longest since being passed by a doctor, but I doubt it.

I'll also guess (based on your results) that the game always makes 9% of the people sicken from pestilence.

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 04-10-2009 @ 03:09 PM).]

Nice test, gs.

Quoted from Brugle:

My guess is that the houses chosen for fumigation are those without clinic coverage that are earliest in the building list, then (if all houses without clinic coverage are fumigated and more need to be fumigated) those with clinic coverage that are earliest in the building list. The game might do something more complicated, such as fumigate those houses with clinic coverage that have gone the longest since being passed by a doctor, but I doubt it.

A very reasonable guess, considering how the game uses the building list for other things, but I have the impression (maybe wrong) that lower housing levels are fumigated first.

It may also be relevant that, while trying to figure out the values in the save file, I appear to have found two separate figures for clinic coverage - one for plebians and one for patricians. Then again, it may be of no consequence since the game also keeps separate tallies for plebian/patrician tax coverage for no purpose I can think of.

Quoted from Brugle:

I'll also guess (based on your results) that the game always makes 9% of the people sicken from pestilence

Looks good to me. Strange that the Health Advisor reports that a hospital cares for 1000 patients. Looks like we actually need 3 hospitals per 1000 to fully cope with an outbrake.

Goonsquad - if you still have those saves and a copy of Caesar Jan's decompression tool, you should be able to verify that the 4-byte integer at offset 926108 is the number of people employed in hospitals (and therefore the number of people curable). The integer immediately preceding this appears to be the current city health rating and immediately preceding that is the overall clinic coverage. The former drifts towards the latter over time.

I hadn't previously questioned the contents of this thread, but since goonsquad bumped it up I took a closer look. I have not conducted particularly extensive tests, but I've done a little digging around and the results are curious.

It's a great help to be able to see hard numbers in the game file. As Naghite rightly supposed, the game uses two values in monitoring city health, both of which are a whole number between 0 and 100. The first of these represents 'potential' or 'target' city health, ie the level towards which it is currently heading, and the second is the actual current rating (reported by the Chief Advisor), which will slowly rise if it is below the current target, or fall if it is above it.

Naghite based his figures on the assumption that clinic coverage accounts for 100% of the health rating. This appears to be incorrect. Here are the correct 'bands' as far as I have been able to ascertain:

20(?)-29 Bad
30-39 Poor
40-49 Below Average
50-59 Average
60-69 Good
70-79 Very Good
80-89 Excellent
90-99 Almost Perfect
100 Perfect

I have been unable to make health fall below 21 and I suspect that can only be done with rats, so I have no figure for 'Terrible' nor 'Appalling'.

In a new city, health starts at 50 and remains there until the population reaches 200. If no clinics are built, the target rating falls to somewhere in the range 21 to 24 (in all the tests I carried out) and stays there. The 'current' rating then moves towards it at the rate of 2 points each month-end. I cannot account for the small variation in the target rating I see in different cities.

The same figure (in the low 20's) is seen if you take an existing city and delete all the clinics (once all the houses have lost access).

Thus the first 20-odd points in the health rating are 'taken care of' without clinic coverage.

If clinics are built, the target appears to be calculated by applying the coverage ratio to the remaining (just under) 80 points. For example, suppose the clinic-free figure is 22. The remainder of the range is 78 (100-22). Now suppose you provide clinic cover for half the population. 50% of 78 is 39, add to the 22 and you get 61. Thus your health rating for 50% coverage will actually be around 61 - the lower end of 'good'. Naghite also puts 50% at the lower end of 'good', but by making the ranges fit.

So Naghite's data only actually applies to (typically) a little under 80% of the rating. That is why his bands are around 14 points wide instead of 10, and his monthly changes are 14/5 points instead of 2.

Regarding Brugle's reply #5 a coverage ratio of 21% should work out at around 38. A drop from 40 to 38 would have the described effect, but a 25% ratio should keep him (just) above 'poor' unless the 'clinic free' component falls below 20. I do not know what circumstances might cause that.

Edit - translating Naghite's scale to mine, his data on the effects of rats is consistent with the idea that the current health rating is halved. Note also that current health rises by 10 points after an outbreak of disease has been dealt with.

Edit 2 - none of this is claimed to apply to difficulty levels other than 'Hard'

[This message has been edited by Trium3 (edited 04-14-2009 @ 06:45 PM).]

Maybe a major venus curse can take health below 20 as well as rats?

goonsquad - you're quite right, it can. I just ran a couple of tests which show that upsetting Venus reduces health by 10 points from its current rating, even if that takes it below the 'target' rating.

In one test, I allowed health to fall to its minimum level of 23, then deleted all Venus temples. After her wrath health was 13 (described by the advisor as 'terrible'). I re-ran the test with a clinic - health rose to 66 then dropped to 56.

The target itself remains unchanged, so if your current rating was equal to the target it will take 5 months to recover from the effect.

With regard to which houses are chosen by the game to suffer disease, I agree it is based on firstly clinic coverage and then order of placement, except that the events in the city I recently tested (which is the subject of the current C3 contest in normal difficulty and which it seems highly unlikely will be affected by this discussion as currently only one player has entered) seem to suggest that the game keeps count of what proportion of current occupants have doctor coverage. If immigrants have arrived since the last doctor passed, this puts that house below 100% coverage and thus ahead of other houses with clinic coverage of all their occupants (ie ahead in the order of disease) and also ahead of the houses that were placed first. Maybe a house having less than 100% clinic coverage is the same as none, I cannot say for sure at this stage.

I still have the save just before before disease if anyone wants to see it.

[This message has been edited by goonsquad (edited 04-16-2009 @ 10:24 AM).]

Goonsquad

The word 'major' did not register when I read your reply #21 - primarily because I did not realize until now that there are two 'levels' of curse. I guess I just never encountered it. Even us nerds are always learning new things

My last post referred to a 10-point drop in health which occurs after a minor curse from Venus - ie one which occurs with just a couple of lightning bolts and is accompanied by the message 'Venus is upset'. The major curse, when she is really fuming with four or five bolts, appears to have the same effect as contamination by rats - the health rating is halved. It also has a more severe effect on sentiment and I'll need to amend my 'sentiment' thread when I've done some more testing.

As for the incidence of disease - I always doubted that coverage would depend on population when a doctor last passed, but it could do. In the light of your observations I'm inclined to look again at offset 28 in the Building Table . I would like to see your save, but since I intend to enter street's contest I think it improper to see any save of yours, however unhelpful it might be to me, until the contest is over.

I take it you are entering hard...in which case you would not be affected in any case (a quirk in C3 that I won't elaborate further on at this point). Still it would be respectful to the designer to wait until the event is over, so I'll get it to you then.