Exact squalor increments?

[Snipafist]

Greetings all,

I'm currently modding it up on the side and figured that asking some people in the know would be far wiser than wasting lots of time on the side. So the question is: when exactly does squalor increase? I know it's related to increments of people above the minimum required to upgrade the settlement, but at what incremements does it increase and by how much (vanilla, please)? Thanks in advance.

[Snipafist]

Maybe this requires some clarification:

At a certain point over the minimum population required to upgrade a city's walls, a certain percentage of squalor arrives, so say for example for every 2000 persons over the minimum, squalor increases by 1%. What I want to know is in what increments of people the squalor accrues (i.e.: a given percent for every 1000? 2000?) and how much squalor accrues per increment. Thanks.

[Doge]

Has anyone found an answer to this? I was wondering about the same thing. I can only give a partial response based on my (limited) experience modding.

It appears that the squalor value (# of pips that appear) is linearly correlated with raw population. In my modding I've had squalor set to 0.9 (in vanilla I believe it is 0.8), and squalor increases one pip value for every 1,500 in population exactly, with occasional 3,000-population jumps before the next pip value. As for what happens after a settlement reaches upgrade status and doesn't upgrade, I can't say exactly, only that squalor gets another boost.

This has implications for anyone who modifies the settlement upgrade requirements in the descr_settlement_mechanics file, because even if they don't change any other SPF factors, they still need to decrease squalor because of its direct correlation with population...they can accidentally get their cities "stuck" under the population needed to upgrade w/ squalor too high for population to grow.

[GrnEyedDvl]

I dont have a specific answer, but I seem to remember Alpaca making a graph related to squalor and unrest or something along those lines. It probably works similarly if you can find that post.

[Doge]

Thanks GrnEyedDvl, would you be able to post a link here in case you find it before I do? I'm not having much luck...
Thanks for the help!

[GrnEyedDvl]

Ummm I will try and find lol

Edit:
My mistake, I misremembered the thread. The one I was thinking of was about bribery. Hmmm now I am wondering too.

[Doge]

Hi again. I think I've figured this out. This was done pretty much with my own trial-and-error process with the descr_strat and descr_settlement_mechanics, so if anyone can correct my approach with a more scientific one, feel free - although this has universally proven to be correct in my games.

I was originally correct in my guess that the game calculates squalor from a direct relation with raw population and nothing else. To start, assume the SPF Squalor value in the descr_settlement_mechanics is set to 1.0 (in vanilla it's 0.8, but the game mechanics were clearly designed around a value of 1.0). At 1.0, the game adds one squalor pip value (0.5%) for every 1,500 population exactly, all the way up to whatever the squalor cap is. If you half the SPF value to 0.5, then the effect of squalor is halved, so one pip only shows up every 3,000 population. Simple, right?

It gets more complicated if you try to make the values almost anything other than 0.5 or 1.0. This is because the game only "thinks" in increments of 1,500. So if you double the effect of squalor to 2.0, a new pip does NOT appear for a marginal population increase of 750 (1/2*1,500). Instead, at the next 1,500 pop interval, 2 pips (1.0%) show up.

A similar situation arises if you decrease squalor by a different factor, say to an SPF value of 0.75. One might assume that with squalor lessened by 25%, the pop increase between pip increases would be 2,250 (1,500*1.5; or, halfway between 1,500 and 3,000, as .75 is halfway between 0.5 and 1.0). Instead, at the first 1,500 you will hit the first pip:

0.5% squalor at pop 1,500, then
1.0% squalor at pop 4,500, then
1.5% squalor at pop 6,000, etc.

Essentially meaning interchanging intervals of 1,500 and 3,000 between pips, again, as the game won't calculate squalor other than in terms of 1,500. Change squalor to something like 0.9 and you will get what I said in my first post: mostly 1,500 intervals between pips, with the occasional 3,000 interval. Change squalor to something like 0.2 and you will get mostly 3,000 intervals, with the occasional 1,500 increase.

When you take a step back and look at this, I'm probably not saying anything too surprising: if you decrease the SPF Squalor value, the average population intervals between squalor increases increases, and vice versa. This just solves the questions some people have as to the granularity of the increases. It also clarifies that the relationship is dependent on the raw population figure, and not the base/upgrade/max settlement populations; nor, I don't think, does the difficulty of the game have any effect on this.

Hopefully this is helpful for modders/players as curious about this as I am . If nothing else, it answers a question I don't believe has been answered yet. And still, I can't (yet) speak to the question of what happens to squalor once a settlement is ready to upgrade and doesn't, though I can say that I doubt the answer to this is in the settlement_mechanics file, and may just be a hardcoded element.

Doge

[GrnEyedDvl]

Well thats certainly more than I ever knew about it. Even if its not 100% accurate it helps. Good work.