With Entertainment being restricted to towns & cities, and very competitive
in those locales, the skill is getting to be a real dog. Also, Houses,
things a Construction unit can build, are too small to be usefull for much.
My idea: Have an Entertainment USE called "Innkeeping". This skill requires
the unit to be stacked with a house, and require a long period per use - say
30 days, or whatever the minimum month length is. What this use does is
make money in any terrain (you could open an Inn in a town as well).
Demand - I think each square should have a demand based on the local population
(Towns & Cities high, wilderness & forest low, deserts & swamps minimal) plus
an estimate of the traffic flow through a square. The latter would be some
kind of network flow algorithm which would give bonuses to squares along short
paths, and squares between population sessions. Easy approximation:
1.) Each province sends out some portion of it's population each month.
2.) These people move to all squares within a month's journey, with more going
to larger population centers.
3.) They move via the shortest path, and all squares along that path count
these people as part of their flow.
Ramifications: squares in the middle of a large territory are better Inn
choices, particularly those with short links. Also, building a road by your
Inn will help business, to the detrement to squares on parallel routes.
Tweak 1: Make the Inn generate more as it remains in business longer, but only
up to the max demand. For example, the first month it is in business with no
competition, it does 50% of max business, 2nd month 75%, 3rd 88%, 4th 94%, etc.
Also, larger and better fortified structures would do better business (perhaps
a house has max business of 500gp/month, so any flow greater than this couldn't
be capitalized on, while a tower could do 1000gp/month. Mines have a max of
0gp/month).
Tweak 2: All disposeable income units get also contribute to all Entertainment
potentials for a square. So, more units with more disposeable income helps
Street Performers and Innkeepers. Disposable income that goes into the
pot (but not 100%):
Persuade, Recruit, Monthly pay, a very small portion of BUYs.
Tweak 3: Higher level Entertainment USEs could do similar things, though only
in towns. Specifically - Theatrical Production, which opens a theater. This
would be a high-powered Street Performing USE, competing for the same local
demand as Street Performing and NOT Innkeeping, and requiring some
structure. It could also require and/or consume Fine Cloaks and Rugs (costumes
and scenery).
Scott Hauck
hauck@cs.washington.edu