Misc
Knights are being promoted if they are inside the castle, any stock or any military building.
Approximately every 60 seconds, on default game speed, a random number will be generated to determine the chance for the promotion of a single knight. If the chance is high enough, the promotion will be done. This is done separately for every knight with its own random number.
The chances for the individual grades of a knight sitting inside a stock or the castle are as follows (65535 is the range for every random number in settlers 1):
1: 4000 / 65535 = 6.1%
2: 2000 / 65535 = 3.1%
3: 1000 / 65535 = 1.5%
4: 500 / 65535 = 0.76%
5: Final Grade, no promotion
So for stocks or the castle the chances are calculated by using the numbers 4000, 2000, 1000 and 500. Stocks and the castle provide the biggest chances for promotion.
The numbers for the military buildings are:
garrison: 2000, 1000, 500, 250 (half of stock/castle)
watch tower: 1000, 500, 250, 125 (half of garrison)
guard room: 250, 125, 62, 31 (quarter of watch tower)
As you can see it is possible for a knight to be promoted in military buildings. However the chances are heavily dropping for guard rooms. The knight exchange remains the preferred way to get higher grades near the border.
Gold has impact of soldiers motivation, it has nothing to do with rank promotion.
Motivation for a knight on your own territory is always 100% regardless of attacking or defending. Knight_grade is a number from 0 (first grade) to 4 (fifth grade).
Numeric values for motivation (if not on own territory) as seen in the knight settings:
0% = 1
25% = 1024
50% = 2048
75% = 3072
100% = 4096
200% = 8192
...
1600% = 65535
Calculated attackerScore: ((1024 << knight_grade) * Motivation) >> 16
Calculated defenderScore: (((((1024 << knight_grade) * Motivation) >> 16) + attackerScore) * Random(0-65535)) >> 16
if defenderScore < attackerScore = attacker wins else = defender wins
Also important: If your motivation is above 100% it only counts if you don't fight on your own territory. This means your knights are weaker while defending your own buildings than attacking enemy buildings.
Also the calculation is done for every single fight. There is no health like in Settlers 2.
Motivation is not connected to a single knight. It depends on the amount of gold in military buildings, stocks and the castle and every knight has the same motivation.
The motivation (first number as percentage), along with the number of calculated gold (second number), can be seen in the knight settings.
The motivation does not depend on your army size. It is based on your gold in relation to the maximum gold available on the map (every gold, whether it is inside a mountain or not) and the number of players. This means one gold will push the motivation higher if there is less gold on the map available.
It does not matter if gold is inside a military building, a stock or the castle. Only gold outside of a building is not counting.
There is however a second thing that will have an effect on motivation: Defeating a castle.
If you loose your castle your motivation will drop by approximately 25% and if you defeat a castle your motivation will increase by approximately 25%. This means if you destroy the castle of one of your opponents your motivation will increase by 25% and the motivation of your opponent will drop by 25%.
But remember: Knights on their own territory will always have a fixed motivation of 100%.
The mine is working like this:
- Search for a random position
- Check for resource
- Repeat four times
- If nothing was found, reduce percentage and send message if zero
Numbers and distribution of mining resource units:
- Every potential mining spot has random amount of resource units of one (and only one) resource type, ranging from 0 to 31
- Geologist's markings reflect above value in following ranges:
0 resource units - blank marker
1-11 resource units - small marker
12-31 resource units - large marker
Also worth noting:
The information on a single spot for available ground resources and the data about a possible building or flag do share the same memory area. The game solves this by distributing the resources to the surrounding spots if you place a building or a flag in the mountains. For this to work the surrounding spots must either be empty or must be of the same type and the amount must must be lower than 31. If there are resources left that can not be distributed they will be lost. This means you should not place too many flags or mines on a mountain. You can validate this by sending a geologist, place a flag on a positive resource sign, remove the flag and send a geologist again. The spot of the former flag will now be empty.
The game does some complicated stuff if a building needs something.
Settlers are requested directly by the building. If a building needs a settler it searches for stocks near and checks if the stock can provide the settler. If everything is fine the settler is sent to the building.
Goods are not requested by the building. The building just marks itself as "I need good type [X]". The stocks (castle is also considered a stock) search for buildings around which need goods and will send them. But: Every stock has an outgoing queue of two goods. If the queue is full the stock stops searching for buildings.
- Open map
- Special-Click on the building icon beneath the map
- Select desired building
- Voila! Only this type of building is shown on the map.