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Old 02-23-2008
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goonsquad goonsquad is offline
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Default C3 Basics for Novices Entering Team Contest

C3 Walkers

C3 has two main kinds of walkers. These are random walkers and destination walkers.

Random Walkers

Random walkers are spawned from many buildings in the game. Most of them have a cycle of four different walks, so can walk in either direction from their home building. Their path is determined by complex algorhythms in the game. So a random walker encountering a road intersection has to choose which direction to take, and this might be a different direction each time. Thus if you are relying on walkers to provide goods and services to your houses you need to eliminate intersections from their random walks. This is why square or (more commonly) rectangular building blocks are so popular and successful in C3.

Random walkers walk a certain number of tiles (which varies according to what building spawned them and also varies between the four different walks, generally one being longer than the other three). When they have reached the limit of their random walk, they then become destination walkers, and return by the shortest route to their home building.

Labor seekers who spawn from all buildings that require workers (except mission posts) follow the same rule. They are random walkers until they have walked their set number of squares, then become destination walkers, returning to their home building.

Random walk lengths vary between about 12 squares (missionaries , market sellers whose markets have no food/commodities) and 35+ squares (prefects), but most go around 23 squares on their shorter walks. When making a rectangular housing block it is useful to make the circumference just under double the lowest random walk distance (or shorter). This way when they become destination walkers, the quickest way home will be to complete the circuit of the block. I very frequently use 16x5 blocks (inside measurements).

Random walkers will not walk through gatehouses, and will only ever walk along a road (or through a granary) except that they will cross gardens, rubble, the pulley house of a warehouse or the forecourt of a fort, provided it leads to another road.

A random walker who becomes a destination walker but does not does not have a path its home building (perhaps because a tile of road has been deleted) will just disappear.

A note on granaries- granaries in fact have roads under them in a + shape. Thus they form an intersection with the road they are built on, with a further intersection at the centre tile of the granary. Granaries are not good news for random walkers, who can get caught up in them for what seems like hours, resulting in loss of control of your walkers. It is always a good idea to build granaries not in your housing block, but behind a gatehouse close to your housing block.

Destination Walkers

Destination walkers can be further divided into those that require a road connection to make a path, and those that do not.

Destination Walkers Requiring a Road Connection to Make a Path


Almost all random walkers become destination walkers after having walked their allotted number of squares (exception school children, who disappear into thin air at the end of their walk. Very occasionally engineers and tax collectors do this as well).

As well as random walkers returning home, all cartpushers are destination walkers from the moment they are spawned. So too are walkers spawned at entertainment schools, and market buyers (but not market sellers).

Destination walkers (including random walkers returning home) have their path mapped at the time they are spawned as destination walkers or at the time they become destination walkers, and do not deviate from this path. If their mapped path is blocked, they disappear. The road connection need not be maintained after the path has been set. If part of their road path is deleted they will just walk along the bare gound where the road formerly was.

Market buyers or cartpushers (including cartpushers from getting granaries) who reach their destination then become destination walkers once again for the return leg to their home building. If the road connection no longer exists at this time, they will teleport immediately to their home building. Much time can be saved with this completely legal trick. There are down sides though. If a docker does not have a road connection to its dock when returning, the docked ship will immediately leave. And if a getting granary cartpusher does not have a road connection after getting food from another granary, the food will be lost. Conversely, market buyers who teleport back to their home market due to a broken road connection take the food or goods they collected with them.

Destination walkers will make a path through gatehouses, gardens, rubble, the pulley house of a warehouse, or the forecourt of a fort provided these lead to a road that is connected by road to both the starting and finishing point, and provided also that this forms the shortest route to their destination. Destination walkers will also cut corners. This can be used to good effect by making a stepped road, destination walkers will treat it as diagonal and much time will be saved.

Destination Walkers Not Requiring a Road Connection to Make a Path

These are cartpushers from getting warehouses (but only when "getting goods" not when deliveriing), new immigrants, soldiers heading for their forts, (whether from a barracks or from being deployed) and land traders. None of these require a road connection to make a path, and if blocked will attempt to make a new path, but will disappear if unable to do so. Getting warehouse cartpushers and land traders will, however, use a road connection if one is available, even if this is further than an available non-road path.

Forced Walkers

Some consider forced walkers to be a third kind of walker, but really they are exactly the same as random walkers who later become destination walkers. The trick with them is controlling the destination square when they are returning to their home building. Forced walkers can be made to walk extroadinarily long distances, I believe up to 500 squares. Explaining exactly how they work is beyond the scope of this post, I would suggest do a search at C3 Heaven for Forced Walkers. Forced walkers are legal in C3 contests.

Multiple Cartpushers

Cartpushers (with the exception of dockers) who are walking somewhere generally do not disappear if their home building is deleted or destroyed. In the case of warehouses, a boolean flag in the game records whether the cartpusher is out or in. If, while the cartpusher is out, the warehouse is deleted and a new one built in its place (in exactly the same location), the flag on the new one will be set to in. If the warehouse is set to get something, a new cartpusher will spawn when the warehouse gets labor, and the flag will be again set to out. You can have an unlimited number of cartpushers owned by a single warehouse in this way, but they only last so long as no more than one is "in". As soon as one arrives at the warehouse while it is set to "in" that cartpusher is lost. Nonetheless it is a very useful exploit and regarded at CBC as completely fair play.

Note that rule 2.10 in CBC's C3 rules is incorrect. Multiple cartpushers do not necessarily last the rest of the game. They persist until such time as they arrive at their home building whilst the flag is set to "in".

The next one of these will concern market ladies, the bane of many a C3 novice.

Last edited by goonsquad; 02-23-2008 at 05:26 PM.
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