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Population experiments

Started by Nilla, February 22, 2015, 01:47:40 PM

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Nilla

I will not disturb @irrelevant´s nice blog with the story of my experiments. I will start a new thread.

The purpose is to understand the dynamics of the game, to test some theories, to get some answers to; What happens if....? What's the differens between....? What is the effect of....?

I have several ideas/theories, that I hope to test in this game. I also hope, I got some ideas and questions from you people. But maybe I am the only "geek" in this forum, that is interested in such things.  :-\ :-[

The first test is the population change, if you do not build any new homes. We all know the famous sinus graph.

I want to know if it could be "manipulated". My first test is; does it makes a difference, if you force divorced couples together or nor. My theory is that the amplitude is smaller, if you don't force divorced couples together.

I started the experiment game this morning. 50 houses, uneducated people (later I will build some schools to explore the difference). I let it grow as fast as possible; as soon as there was a new couple old enough to move out, I built a house. Then I let it run, mostly without any attendance, but sometimes I had to make some changes; There is a difference if you run a game with 90 or 200 people!

I'll show you some screenshots I made along the way.

First picture year 2
This is the start. Not a very good map but I play easy, because i want a fast population growth from the start. I wanted sheep and as I saw, there was wheat, pepper and plums, I was quite content.

Second picture, year 12
South part of the settlement. 50 houses ready.

Third picture, year 16
North part of the settlement a little bit later, population high. The number of children is getting down.

Fourth picture, year 29
These are the problems I discovered, as I left the game unattended; a low population, no free laborers, some deceased cannot be replaced (red) and full barns (blue)


Nilla

Here are some more pictures. It takes very long to post more than a few, so I'll make another post.

First picture, year 31
So few people and than this !!! >:(

You can see there are only 38 families for my 50 homes, so there will be a wave of divorces, that's for sure. As soon as the number of families reach 50, I will start to force them together again.

Second picture, year 39

Next peak, again almost 200 people.

Third picture, year 56

Now we´re on the bottom again, only 63 people !  This time I will not force any couples together.

Fourth picture, year 62
There are certainly a lot of divorced couples, I counted 12 single male/females !! (I found the 12th male after I made this screenshot)
If there's a difference, I'm sure it will be shown.


Nilla

First picture, year 68
This is where I am right now: it's hard to say if there is a difference, but it looks like the growth is somehow slower and that the number of children isn't getting down as fast.

Second picture ,year 68
This is somehow the problem: Of cause I want enough supply. The experiment shouldn't be disturbed from starvation or tool shortage  or something like that, but I don't want 100 overfilled barns eather. Not so easy.



irrelevant

Oh, just build some more barns! I know that's very painful for you.  ;D

Seriously though, this is very interesting, don't let a storage problem interfere with your experiment.

Demonocracy

Forgive my newbie-ish question, but how exactly do you force divorced people together?  Is there benefit in that?

Nilla

Quote from: Demonocracy on February 23, 2015, 07:47:05 PM
Forgive my newbie-ish question, but how exactly do you force divorced people together?  Is there benefit in that?

Not a stupid question.

If you see a single person living alone or one adult with children, "fake demolish" the house. (fake demolish= demolish and immediately undo). If it's a divorced person, he or she will move back to his mate. (Unless you have more homes than families, more hoses then families is the reason for divorces in this game)

Is there a benefit? That's harder to answer. A part of this experiment is to find out if it is. In a normal game, where the population grows, I think it is a benefit to force them together. There will be more houses occupied, if there are divorced couples. More houses need more fuel and more building materials is used. If you find a divorced couple and force them together, you'll get free house for someone else to move in. And here is my hesitation. It might not always be profitable to get new houses, not even for free.

I didn't run the game yesterday, but maybe I will later today. Than I might be able to tell a bit more.

And @irrelevant you seem to know me and my pain building too many barns. This is an awful game. Barn-spam! As I told you, I let it run more or less the whole sunday. Most of the time, I wasn't at the computer but in the same room. From time to time there was this gong; "bim, bim, bim, bim", this time no tornado (I play distasters off). Always full storage! I tried other solutions (filling my trading port with mushrooms and wool), closing fields, sending gatherers and fisher out to unemployment, but also the easy solution; more barns (and stockpiles, as I saw how fast the mines and the quarry were emptied, I started to autopurchase iron and stones, together with the tools I bought all the time)

Nilla

I let the game run yesterday and I even "played" a bit in the evening. Played is here paying some attention to the game.

What did I find out?

First picture, year 107

As I supposed; The amplitude is really a bit lower, if you don't force any couples together. But of cause, it only stays one cycle: As the population is low this time, there are no divorced couples and the next high is really high again and the low is really low.

Now I want to take control, let the population be as constant as possible. With 50 houses, I will try to get about 150 people, I will try to have between 15 and 20 children (about 12%). My strategy is to use a boarding house. At this picture I have 22 children, that's too much. So even if the population is very low, I've sent a bunch of elder childless couples to the boardinghouse and closed their houses. They will not be opened until there are less than 15 children.

Second picture, year 121


At this point I open closed homes. The couples, that are moving in, are not always perfect. I would prefere mothers in their late 20ies, but I suppose this will also work. The average is good.

Third picture, year141


It works quite well, not much trouble, so I've taken a bunch of nomads, about 25 of them, as the population was about 150 (about 17%). I will try to get it down to my 150 inhabitants and keep it there for some time.

rkelly17

So, @Nilla, you do find that there is a real difference between managing house occupancy vs. just letting nature take its course?

Quote from: Nilla on February 25, 2015, 03:44:30 AM
. . . so I've taken a bunch of nomads, about 25 of them . . . .

Couldn't resist the temptation, eh? Wasn't it @irrelevant who once said that there is no problem that can be solved by admitting nomads?  ;D

Nilla

Yes, @rkelly17 as you can see at the graph, there's a big difference.

And the nomads; I didn't take them to solve any problems. I took them to get some! ;) In that case. I fully agree with @irrelevant !

And to assure myself, that the trouble isn't too minor, I took another batch of nomads a few years after the first. I will go on later and see if I can solve it.  ;D

I'll let you know how it worked out!

rkelly17

Quote from: Nilla on February 26, 2015, 03:51:55 AM
And the nomads; I didn't take them to solve any problems. I took them to get some! ;) In that case. I fully agree with @irrelevant !

And to assure myself, that the trouble isn't too minor, I took another batch of nomads a few years after the first. I will go on later and see if I can solve it.  ;D

Now that is first class masochism!  ;D

Demonocracy

Thank you, @Nilla for the explanation.

I tried this just recently because of your information, and it was pretty awesome.  Two new younger people moved in and had a baby.  Yay!  I'm not sure if that's how it generally works.  Maybe I just got lucky while I was desperate for a bit more population growth.

Nilla

Quote from: Demonocracy on February 27, 2015, 07:52:49 PM

I tried this just recently because of your information, and it was pretty awesome.  Two new younger people moved in and had a baby.  Yay!  I'm not sure if that's how it generally works.  Maybe I just got lucky while I was desperate for a bit more population growth.

It is generally that way unless the single person is a widow/er or if you have a lot of unmarried "over-aged" (40+) women.

I let this game run a bit longer (with some control).

It was a bit harder to control it the way I wanted, after the nomads. First of cause, there was a lot of (nomad)children, so I filled the boardinghouse with old, childless couples. I didn't allow any new couples to be formed. But i think I was too eager; the population went down and also the number of children. I again filled the boardinghouse, but this time with families with grown up children. But in this case, I would have needed another boardinghouse. Although I tried to form as many newcouples as I could, the number of children went down. But now i think it's under control again. :)

What's next?

I want to let it run with no attendance, until the population is down to minimum again. Than I will build some schools (two or three) and let it run again, without attendance. I suppose that the sinus curve will go on, also with the educated people but the amplitude again will be smaller. We will see how it works. Or maybe, I will see if I have a suitable save, before I started to take control of the game.