I do *not* want food to be coded in. Even as something resembling a merchant
food is 1) too complicated for someone *not* interested in the logistical
aspect of Olympia. I suppose the easiest thing for one to do if they wanted
to simulate seige would be to make it cost more gold to maintain units in
a town that was beseiged. To simulate trade being cut off and thus making
it harder to feed men as things got scarce etc... I suppose to simulate
a seige, one would have to block exits into a province... but Rich just
took that out.
My current complaint right now is that part of the amount of money you
spend on persuading men should be used to maintain them. I just got burned
by persuading some men, have them swear loyalty to me and then lose them
again in the same round. And personally that just plain sucks. It makes
terrorism much more efficient than persuasion in almost all cases. There
is also no real way to counteract it since I can't give them money in
the good chance they are not convinced. I have wrote to him about the
topic but I want something done quick because well... I plan to persuade
many units this round what with all of them just sitting there...
Subskills are icky. Making people have a skill to help build a house is
icky. Icky Icky Icky. Well now to a better argument.... it's this. While
subskills allow you to specialise in certain things and advance faster
they detract on the immediate ability to use said skill for immediate
gratification. This is worse for new players whose units are not up to
level 6 of whatever and have all the subskills at automatic whatever.
And would those subskills have further subskills? Take Equestrian.
Let's say you acquire the subskill train horses. would you then have
to use different numbers for each kind of horse you want to train?
I don't particulary enjoy the prospect of training for skills to get
more skills at 0. It might be nice to pick a subskill specialization
right away instead of having it revealed to you. Related subskills
could cost less to go up in and other skills might have prequisites.
Next on my list is assisting people to build things like ships. AIGH
I cannot tell you how long this had been eating at me. I heard rumors
that it was taken out but if it is ever considered to be put in again.
NO. Don't do it. This is why. Assist with people with the skill should
make things go faster but should not. I repeat. Should not be required.
Why? First of all it's too expensive... nothing is so hard that on the
job training should prevent a task from being done. It doesn't require
a degree to build a ship. It requires competetant supervision. If you
must make things complicated make a subskill of teach called supervise.
Railroads were built with menial labor.. so was the great wall and the
pyramids... The people didn't need a degree.. they need to be able to
carry heavy objects around.
Also this lets me be able to suggest my next idea. If all these units
sitting in the cities are WORKing at manual labor, shouldn't other units
be able to hire them to build a ship, be stagehands in a world class theatre
production, go fortify some building. This is a pure cosmetic change. I mean
mostly I want this for atmosphere purposes and cause it makes sense. I mean
let's say I don't want to buy a unit off someone or really have to go and
bargain with player3... after all he DID send his units to go off and work
in the mines or whatever. And the person who works gets a turn report like:
>Group of slaves[1196] works for 7 days building Tony's ship[765]
>Supervised by Joe [500] with a level 3 in shipbuilding.
>Group of slaves[1196] earned 200 coins building Tony's ship[765] which is
>86% completed.
People who help build a fortress will have some idea of the skill of the
creator and the fortifications. People with the building get cheap labor
without having to rely on their email diplomacy skills. I see the
inplementation be a HIRE [amount of money]. The quality and bang for your
buck would depend on your trade skill. There are a lot of ways this can
go and I'm not sure all the effects of what I propose but there you go.
I also would like to suggest some more leniency on part of the entertainment
money generating machines. While they were making outrageous amounts of $$$
for people per turn, i don't like the sheer amount of no money at all that
I've been seeing recently. I don't actually see entertainment to be a bunch
of fire eaters and jugglers and mimes. I would also classify them as people
who sell pasteries, wines, and food. They are the service industry. They
cut your hair, tell your horoscope, make your day to day life more
enjoyable. They can even be beggars. While I agree 300 mimes wandering
the streets of
drassa would be tiresome, even a beggar would get a penny here and there.
Actually I'm pretty confident most of the people with entertainers have
probably lost their units via disloyalty by now. But hey, entertainment
was the only skill that produced more money than work that did not require
an immense amount of time and money to achieve profits while being able to
pay your men at the end of the day.
I calculate a sucessful round trip trading mission with 2 markets with the
same item should take about 2 months and require 3000 coins. 300 to pay your
men. 1-200 more to train them at trade. More if you want them to learn combat
as well. then you have to buy transportation so they can get to the next
market in a month. Boats & oxen avg. 100 each. Horses avg. 700. Then you need
a product to bring in. Now you have to calculate how much you can carry. You
can expect maybe a 10% difference in standard prices increased by how much
you spent trading and how much productline you move. So if you spent 2500
on trading (that meaning you sell part of your transportation for profit
and then buy new transportation which you will then sell for profit coming
the other way.) On your first leg, you make let's be generous... 25% profit.
You make 625 coins. Add this an reinvest on your trip back and make 781.
for 1406. Minus 300 to pay your men. 1106 for 2 months trading with 25 men.
Let's say you just made same 25 men sit at home and WORK. You get an average
of 2 gold a day. For 60 days. 3000 coins. Minus the 300 for wages. 2700.
Sure, those men get no skills but they are safe at home and available as
a defensive unit. You don't need any investment. And they make near 3 times
the amount of gold. Now by this example I don't mean for Rich to take out
work and make it less profitable. (eek!) But I do want to point out the
utter uselessness of trading between two places.
I know there are much more profits to be made with trading in combination
with making items out of thin air. But both equestrian and mining need
time (3+months) to get the ball rolling. I thought a courier service would
be a mondo cool thing to have for various people who use it. In any case
it's hard to pay your guys and make money at the same time, and yet still
make more units and train. One reason, I think that banditry has gotten so
popular is that you make money. People hate you, put bounties on your head
and would like to kill you, but they'll never keep up with the amount of
money you generate by laying havok on poor newbies.
I'm not not suggesting you do anything to prevent newbies from being killed
that's part of the game IMO. It brings about a very medieval feel to the
world where if you don't learn the rules fast, you meet a horrid end in a
dark alley. But with such a world do you blame some of us testosterone
deficient players to go hide in a city and not budge trying to make our
entertainers earn us a decent living? I'd like trading to be more profitable
*somehow*. If nothing to just give me a reason to go out and explore.
Tony Wayland [572]
Starlight Courier