$MINI-GAME Main Thread and Directory.

[GhengisFarb™]

Originally posted by Epistax
lol ok if it's open then you're in the game. wait for GF to respond.

Apparently he's tired of bananas..............

[UnOrthOdOx]

Would someone involved in the Mini Game care to submit a Market update to the paper? They would need to be Either once a week, or twice. Need to be in by Teusday night for the Wed edition, or Friday night for the Sat edition. Taken by PM, (a PM to me will get forwarded to whoever the editor will be) or by E-mail @ UnOrthOdOx3040@AOL.com. Anyone interested?

[GhengisFarb™]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
Would someone involved in the Mini Game care to submit an update to the paper? They would need to be Either once a week, or twice. Need to be in by Teusday night for the Wed edition, or Friday night for the Sat edition. Taken by PM, (a PM to me will get forwarded to whoever the editor will be) or by E-mail @ UnOrthOdOx3040@AOL.com. Anyone interested?

If no one else will, I could probably do it, although the entire system seems bogged down in limbo for now.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Eh, so write that the persians, germans, or french somehow took out the bank, or headquarters, or something. I am talking kinda for a regular basis, though. To keep this in the paper with linkage to all that is happening. For Sat, for instance, any new ideas or polls that come up, or if a new trade turn starts, should be linked to.

[GhengisFarb™]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
Eh, so write that the persians, germans, or french somehow took out the bank, or headquarters, or something. I am talking kinda for a regular basis, though. To keep this in the paper with linkage to all that is happening. For Sat, for instance, any new ideas or polls that come up, or if a new trade turn starts, should be linked to.

I should be able to do something by Friday night...........

I mean, heck, we sure aren't playing the game anymore so I got some time.

[Kuciwalker]

I think our trading system is flawed. If we're going to post our assets, let's just do it seperate from trades. Also, if you are buying things, shouldn't you, instead of saying that you're buying such and such at this price, just accept a sell offer? I think that everything should be sell offers and purchases. If you had 2 food you wanted to sell, you would post a thread saying that you offered to sell 2 shields at, say $45 each. If this was the first sell offer in the thread, you put a 1 in the title bar, and if it's the second, a 2, etc. THIS IS REQUIRED OR THE SELL OFFER IS INVALID. Then, if someone wants to buy those two food, they post "I accept offer #1" and put ~1 in the title bar. THIS IS REQUIRED OR THE SELL OFFER IS INVALID. If someone has accepted your sell offer, you cannot edit it. You cannot edit an acceptance post, either. The trade is now set in stone.

[Epistax]

sky, you do realize when we buy something, we aren't always buying from eachother. You can buy something no one is selling. When I bought my two shields, I did not buy them from anyone directly. I bought them form the pool of shields people were selling to, and where the general shields went to as well.

IF I had bought directly from someone, we could have reached a midpoint between my high buy level and their low sell level so that we both had better deals, but no one seemed interested.

[Kuciwalker]

Only food (and maybe commerce - though commerce as a commodity is a very strange idea) should be able to be sold without a buyer, or more accurately, to actual pop points. Actually, that's not true. The "government" should buy all unsold shields at half of their stated sell price at the end of a trading session.

[GhengisFarb™]

Originally posted by Epistax
IF I had bought directly from someone, we could have reached a midpoint between my high buy level and their low sell level so that we both had better deals, but no one seemed interested.

I was waiting for you to make an offer if someone would agree to sell you specific shields but you seemed only interested in buying from the pool.

I agree with skywalker's conceptual grasp of the food commerce thing (food represents food, commerce represents trade goods by the way). I'm having a hard time coming up with an effective system for the shields that will 1)properly represent their value and 2)continue to work throughout the game evolution.

[Epistax]

I see commerce as everything non essential to the survival of people and constructs.

Art in all forms from paintings to plates. Some furnature (some would be covered by shields). Herbal supplements, and so on (real medicine would have to be under food).

Also under commerce is 'money to be made'. Such as any service too petty for us to deal with personally

[Kuciwalker]

Shields should be traded items, not just sold and bought from a pool, because that more accurately reflects how things really work. Once food and commerce can actually be used to create things or whatever, they also will be traded that way AND sold to the pop points. I dislike generalizing buying from the pool, because we ARE the pool.

[GhengisFarb™]

The general idea with Proposal 2 was that no one would be able to build their own multi industrial network with ease. It would encourage players to work together to make higher profits sooner.

For example:
Epistax and Spiifor make a deal that Epistax will pay Spiffor $60 a turn for the next 10 turns for one of Spiffor;s shields. Epistax gets a shield and Spiffor has a guaranteed buyer for one of his shields. as Spiffor produces 2 shields and they both have their base 1 labor that means both can now work on a building for 10 turns.

Even more elaborate. Spiffor has agreed that he will build a Smokehouse and Epistax has agreed to build a Tavern. Once completed, Spiffor will sell his Jerky to Epistax and Epistax will sell the Jerky through his Tavern and they will split the bonus from the final sale.

[Kuciwalker]

Could you build structures on other people's land (with their permission)? This would add a LOT of flavor to the game, and let people choose different styles of play. You could just own structures, no land, and buy, say, food and then sell jerky. Or you could rent out the right to own a structure on your land. Or you could just own a bunch of Silos and Warehouses, and rent space in them. It would be really fun.

[GhengisFarb™]

That's what I was trying to accomplish in Building Proposal two. Most buildings are build in cities but if you didn't own land you could build a warehouse or silo in a city. I figured you could own a Bakery, Brewery, or Tavern and make money by buying Raw resources and converting them into Finished Goods at a higher price.

ALTERATION to Proposal 2's subProducts. Shields from Mountains still Stone, but shields from Hills would be called Ore and simulate early metals like tin and bronze. Food from hills would be a bean called Cofa Bean (equivilent of RL coffee and cocoa) which could later be ground into Coffee or processed into Cocoa.

Resources:
Iron - Shields from tiles with the Iron resource.
Horses - Commerce from tiles with the Horse Resource
Grapes - Food from tiles with the Wine Resource
Wine - Commerce from tiles with the WIne Resource
Dye - Commerce from tiles with the Dye Resource

Also implement a subDemand bonus. For example, say 50% of the population is alcoholic. Until that demand is met (current population of market is 14, so demand 7) all alcoholic products (beer and wine) recieve an additional 50% bonus representing the subDemand's overwhelming need to have that demand met.

Percentages and demand numbers may need to be tweaked but you get the general idea. The only two subDemands I see now are Alcohol and Bananas (representing the cultural history of our nation's dependence on Bananas).

Alcohol-50% of population (bonus for unmet demand 50%)
Bananas-100% of population (bonus for unmet demand 10%-they're not that religious anymore)

[Kuciwalker]

Wait - are you saying that if demand for alcohol is 7, and supply is 6, there's a 50% price bonus, but as soon as supply reaches 7, that bonus disappears?

Also, I don't like those new resources. I think that it would be difficult to implement them well.

[Kuciwalker]

I don't think specific resources should get bonuses. They should just be there to allow people to split into different specialties.

EDIT: Actually, bonuses should be there, but just for a few rare, special resources and in the form of a different base value.

[GhengisFarb™]

Originally posted by skywalker
Wait - are you saying that if demand for alcohol is 7, and supply is 6, there's a 50% price bonus, but as soon as supply reaches 7, that bonus disappears?

Yes, (although I think there should be tiers to the dropping bonus) kinda like when the US had prohibition. Even though alcohol was illegal the consumers were so desperate as to pay large amounts of money to get their hooch. It was so profitable that gangsters like Al Capone could hire small armies to smuggle, transport and enforce contracts because of the huge demand.

Thus until someone can meet the demand there would be a large bonus. Encouraging someone(s) to build a Brewery. If they keep production low to maintain high profits someone else is going to want to get in on the action and build another Brewery.

Eventually, the Brewer could easily be a non-landowner, having contracts with landowners to supply the grain and commerce needed to make Beer and selling the Beer at a higher profit.

Originally posted by skywalker
EDIT: Actually, bonuses should be there, but just for a few rare, special resources and in the form of a different base value.

Oh, heck no. Everytime you add a different base you would have to create a new market and I'd rather stick with just three.

[Kuciwalker]

I'm working on my own set of resources that I think will work better.

[Kuciwalker]

There are three categories of resources - food, shields, commodities.

There are three types of resources - raw ,finished, and special.

Some things need better names.



Food:

Raw:

Grassland - Wheat
Plain - Wheat
Jungle - Bananas
Forest - Game
Hill - no idea
Desert - no idea
Flood Plain - Wheat


Special:

Cattle

Finished:

Bread
Meat
Beef
Something about bananas


Shields:

Raw:

Grassland - Generic
Plain - Generic
Mountain - Rock
Hill - Rock
Forest - Wood
Jungle - Wood
Desert - Generic

Special:
Peat
Iron Ore
Bauxite
Oil

Finished:

Paper
Boards
Stone
Generic
Coal*
Iron*
Aluminum*
Petroleum*


Commodities

Raw:

Grassland - Commerce
Plain - Commerce
Mountain - Commerce
Hill - Commerce
Forest - Commerce
Jungle - Commerce
Desert - Commerce
Flood Plain - Commerce

Special:

Gold
Uranium
Elephants
Colts
Saltpeter
Tree Sap
Grapes
Beavers
Dyes
Incense
Spices
Spiders
Gems

Finished:

Business
Jewelry**
Plutonium*
Ivory**
Horses*
Gunpowder*
Rubber*
Wine**
Furs**
Dyed Cloth**
Candles**
Condiments**
Silk**

*Military resources
**Luxury resources

More on buildings under this system later.

[Kuciwalker]

For the rules, they work pretty much the same, except that they use the new trading format I suggested, and you can only sell finished resources. Actually, there are several differences, so I'll just list them:

Each resource has its own base value.

Business always sells EXACTLY at a price determined by something related to amount of trading going on. I don't know quite how to quantify it yet.

All Finished Commodities other than Gunpowder, Rubber, Plutonium, and Business sell to pop points (in addition to food, not instead of).

The price of Aluminum, Iron, Gunpowder, Horses, Petroleum, Plutonium, Rubber, and Coal is doubled during wartime.

The price of all Food increases by 50% during wartime.

All finished Food and Shield resources can be sold to the government (not pop points), though I don't know how to determine demand yet.

The Shield resource Generic is both a Raw and Finished product.

[GhengisFarb™]

See, doesn't my proposal seem simple now?

[Epistax]

You can only sell finished resources? Don't agree. To the PUBLIC, yes, but between eachother? Any trade goes as long as both sides agree.

Floodplains- RICE (rice is better than wheat in many ways)


Suggestion: Altering the fundamental $100 level for some products, to show their value above others. That way supply and demand still works.

Suggestion: A building is required to extract the special benifits of a resource square-- Stable for horses, deep mines for Uranium, coal and iron, etc. Besides this, they would still produce their extra food/shields/commerce.

[Kuciwalker]

The types of buildings are completely irrelevent except to help me explain something later on.

NOTE: Most buildings need names.

General Buildings

Bakery
2 Beams OR 1 Stone OR 4 Generic
Converts 2 Wheat into 2 Bread per turn.

Butchery
2 Beams OR 1 Stone OR 4 Generic
Converts 2 Game into 2 Meat OR 2 Cattle into 2 Beef per turn.

Banana Building
2 Beams OR 1 Stone OR 4 Generic
Converts 2 Bananas into 2 as of yet unnamed finished banana products.

Stone Building
2 Beams OR 1 Stone OR 4 Generic
Converts 2 Rock into 2 Stone per turn.

Paper Building
2 Beams OR 1 Stone OR 4 Generic
Converts 2 Wood into 2 Paper per turn.

Mill
2 Beams OR 1 Stone OR 4 Generic
Converts 2 Wood into 2 Beams per turn.


Business Buildings

Office
(2 Beams OR 1 Stone OR 4 Generic) AND 2 Paper
Converts 2 Commerce into 2 Business per turn.

Business HQ
4 Beams AND 2 Stone AND 6 Generic AND 6 Paper
For affected buildings, makes you convert 2 of a raw resource into 3 of a finished resource. See bottom for explanation.


Luxury Buildings

Winery
2 Beams OR 1 Stone OR 4 Generic
Converts 2 Grapes into 2 Wine per turn.

Jeweler
2 Beams OR 1 Stone OR 4 Generic
Converts 2 Gold OR 2 Gems into 2 Jewelry per turn.

Trappers' Lodge
2 Beams OR 1 Stone OR 4 Generic
Converts 2 Beavers into 2 Furns per turn.

Condiment Building
2 Beams OR 1 Stone OR 4 Generic
Converts 2 Spices into 2 Condiments per turn.

Dyes Building
2 Beams OR 1 Stone OR 4 Generic
Converts 2 Dyes into 2 Dyed Cloth per turn.

Silk Building
2 Beams OR 1 Stone OR 4 Generic
Converts 2 Spiders into 2 Silk per turn.

Candles Building
2 Beams OR 1 Stone OR 4 Generic
Converts 2 Incense into 2 Candles per turn.

Ivory Building
2 Beams OR 1 Stone OR 4 Generic
Converts 2 Elephants into 2 Ivory per turn.


Military Buildings

Stable
2 Beams OR 1 Stone OR 4 Generic
Converts 2 Colts into 2 Horses per turn.

Iron Building
2 Stone OR 6 Generic
Converts 2 Iron Ore into 2 Iron per turn.

Gunpowder Building
2 Beams OR 1 Stone OR 4 Generic
Converts 2 Saltpeter into 2 Gunpowder per turn.

Coal Building
2 Stone OR 6 Generic
Converts 2 Peat into 2 Coal per turn.

Rubber Building
2 Beams OR 1 Stone OR 4 Generic
Converts 2 Tree Sap into 2 Rubber per turn.

Refinery
2 Stone OR 6 Generic
Converts 2 Oil into 2 Petroleum per turn.

Aluminum Building
2 Stone OR 6 Generic
Converts 2 Bauxite into 2 Aluminum per turn.

Reactor
2 Stone OR 6 Generic
Converts 2 Uranium into 2 Plutonium per turn.


Storage Buildings

Silo
2 Beams OR 1 Stone OR 4 Generic
Stores up to 10 finished, raw, or special food resources.

Warehouse
2 Beams OR 1 Stone OR 4 Generic
Stores up to 10 Shield or Commodity resources except Commerce and Business.

Bank
2 Beams OR 1 Stone OR 4 Generic
Stores up to 10 Commerce or Business.


The Business HQ is supposed to be the crowning achievement of any player. To build one, you must have either 8 Offices (in which case it will only affect offices), 3 luxury buildings of any kind (in which case it will only affect luxury buildings), 3 military buildings of any kind (in which case it will only affect military buildings), 5 of a specific general building except bakeries (in which case it will only affect that specific building), or 10 Bakeries (in which case blah blah blah you get it by now). You can only have ONE Business HQ. Also, if you have 6 of a specific storage building then you can build one and it will make that type of building hold 5 extra resources.

[Kuciwalker]

Epistax - sorry, that's what I meant. Between players, anything can be traded.

About the building required to use special resources, I think that we have enough buildings under this as it is. Special resources on a square mean that you sell your raw food, shields, or commodities from that square as the special resource, not the standard.

I think I already put in something about how each thing has its own base value.

[Franses]

Skywalker,

If we ever get to a system as you just proposed we will have to automate it (unless of course you know a way to clone GhengisFarb ).

[GhengisFarb™]

I don't think that would work yet as we have to pay off our loans and that would require us building infrastruture.

My plan was to gradually expand the finished resource arena as our civilization progressed (automobiles should be VERY profitable). We have just entered the Middle Ages and most products were still raw resources at that point in time. This is where you start seeing Finished Goods entering the marketplace.

Epistax, like the rice idea. Food from floodplains should be called rice. Another thing, many of skywalker's goods have the same name as resources.

[Kuciwalker]

Here's an idea - you get to start with either a Bakery, Butchery, Mill, Office, or Stone Building (maybe a Paper Building would be a choice too).

[Kuciwalker]

Also, I have an idea as to why the food price has plummeted. We currently have 1 pop demanding 1 food, right? Well, each pop point eats TWO food. d'oh!

[GhengisFarb™]

Uh, 2 food per pop has always been the demand # for the food market....................

[Kuciwalker]

Ok, sorry, I thought it was 1.