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Kloreep
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of the pillow
Jun 2002
time: 00:26
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The General Concept
What the $Mini-Game is About
The $Mini-Game is a combination empire management/business tycoon game. You own actual in-ISDG tiles that fall within Apolyton's cultural borders; these tiles produce the same resources they do if worked in the actual game. You then use these goods to make money (by selling them), construct buildings (using shields), feed vassals and troops (using food), and hire and maintain troops (with commerce). While money is a very powerful tool (perhaps the most useful), the three civ resources are important as well.
The rules start out explaining the game mechanics and don't go into the applications, IE how all these rules are played out. That's covered in the last section.
Winning and Losing
There is no real winning or losing in the $Mini-Game; you attempt to make money and out-expand and out-sell your competitors, but there is no ultimate goal besides having fun. 
$Mini-Game "Turns": Trading Sessions
The game revolves around Trading Sessions. These sessions are started, monitored, and ended by the GM (Game Master). While a session is open, players submit (and, if they wish, modify) their orders regarding sales, labor use, etc. These sessions must be open for at least ? hours, but may be extended up to ? hours beyond that if the GM feels there is good reason.
For all calculation relating to the in-game state, the most recent save at the start of the trading session is used throughout the session and for calculations after closing. The turn # will be posted in the Trading Session thread by the GM for player's reference.
Goods, Production, and the Market
The Basic Resources
 Money lies at the heart of the game; with the right strategies at the right time, it's possible to turn it into anything. But behind buying vassals and hiring labor (covered later) and buying tiles, there isn't much direct use of it. Food, shields, and commerce are required for most actions and maintenance; as in Civ3, they are the building blocks of the game.
Tiles and Production
To play the game, you must own at least one tile; ideally, you should own as many as possible. Tiles, once bought, produce for you the same resources they would in the real ISDG - and for free! Tiles are your bread and butter in a world that eats nothing but bread and butter.
You buy a few tiles on a government loan when you first join the game; after that, more may be bought whenever auctions are held. To buy tiles, you must have no debt before the auction. During the auction, you can loan up to $1000 from the government (or an unlimited amount if you bid on only one tile); since you start with no money when you first join the game, you must take out a loan to buy your first few tiles.
With the exception of city tiles, all tiles within Apolyton's cultural border can be owned by a $Mini-Game player.
The Market: Supply, Demand, and Competition
To make money, you must sell goods to the cities. The amount of goods the "market" (Apolyton's cities) will buy, and the price payed for them, depends on the ratio of supply and demand. Demand is the amount of a good Apolyton's cities produce in Civ + 3; thus, demand would stay constant within an ISDG game turn. Supply is the amount of goods players put up for sale on the market. The amount of goods needed by demand (the cities) determines how much can be sold, so if supply skyrockets and exceeds demand times 1.5, not all sellers will find buyers and some players will not be able to sell their goods. If this happens, the players offering the lowest minimum prices will sell. This is covered later in the Trading Session section.
The price at which goods are sold are determined by the supply and demand for the good, and by the base cost of the good. (Food, Shields, and Commerce have base costs of ?). The percentage from the ratio of demand over supply is multiplied times the base cost to get the market price.
Example: Food has a base cost of $100. Apolyton, Apolyton's only city, produces 7 food. $Mini-Game players are attempting to sell a total of 19 food on the market.
Supply is easy to figure out: 19 food are being put up for sale, so supply is 19. To calculate demand, we take the total of all city's production (7 is also the total as Apolyton is the only city). The ratio of demand to supply is 7:19; 7 divided by 19 is ~0.37 or ~37%
The base cost is $100. $100 * 37% = $37. Food will sell at $37 dollars.
Buildings, Labor, Processed Goods, and Troops
Construction, Labor, Stockpiling, and Basic Buildings
If producing and then selling goods was all the $Mini-Game was about, it would be pretty boring. What adds flavor is the variety of buildings you can construct to give yourself a boost; there are many different metheds you can use.
Buildings are constructed with shields (for materials) and labor (to work these shields into something useful). Labor is essentially in-game population, and takes two forms: city wage labor, and worker serf labor. City workers are paid every time you hire them; the in-game size of a city is the amount of labor available for hire in that city. Labor hiring works on demand/supply like goods, but is turned around: the supply from the city is always there, but availability and price is determined by demand. The base cost of labor is $100.
Example: Apolyton is at 3 pop in game. This means there are 3 wage laborers for hire from the city. 2 players want to hire 1 laborer each from the city. (If they had wanted 2 each, the price would be much higher AND one player would hire only one laborer.) What's the price?
Demand to supply ratio is 2:3 = ~67%. $100 * 67% = $67. The hiring players will have to pay $67 per worker.
The alternative to city labor is serfs. Serfs are essentially slave labor; you don't have to pay them. But you do have to feed them (0.5 food each, rounding up if you have an odd number of serfs). One player alone owns a serf and can use the unit for labor each turn, or even rent them out temporarily to another player. Since serfs eat whether they work or not, it's a good idea to put your serfs up for rent if you aren't going to use them. Serfs are auctioned off by the government as their numbers increase, with a minimum bid of $10 a serf. The serf count of the $Mini-Game is linked to the number of workers (whether captured or native) in the actual ISDG game: 1 ISDG worker = 2 $Mini-Game serfs.
So, back to buildings: with the required number of shields worked by an equal amount of labor, a building can be built on a tile. Some buildings must be built on a country tile, or on a city tile; some can be built on either. Anyone can construct buildings in a city, but a country tile can only be built on by its owner. (Note that nothing can be built on coast or sea tiles; they merely produce goods.) For a full building list, look below. One type of building is a bonus building, which provides a bonus % to the sale of some amount of a particular good. (In other words, the good is put on the market normally, but if sold, a % of the sale price is also added to the player's income.)
This is a good time to bring up stockpiling. Goods can be stockpiled for future use or sale if you don't wish to build with or sell them on the turn they're produced; however, these goods must go somewhere. Just by owning a tile, you are guaranteed 5 units of storage; any or all goods totalling 5 units can be stored without a building. However, to store more, you must construct a manor and/or storehouses.
Processed Goods and Processing Buildings
Another strategy in the $Mini-Game is to use labor, assigned to special buildings, to refine the three basic goods into something more valubale and/or more numerous. These refined, or processed, goods might also sell on a different market than the original material.
Example: Snacks. Food is processed in a Bakery (up to 4 labor, each changing 2 food into 4 snacks). Snacks sell on the commerce market instead of the food market.
Also, some types of processed goods require that you start out with a special variety of a good. There varieties are determined by bonus resources on a tile; IE, all food produced on a tile with wheat is referred to not as food, but as wheat. Commerce from a tile with dye is referred to as dye instead of commerce, etc. While wheat, game, dyes, etc. can be sold, used, or processed like the normal variety of their good, the can also be used for special kinds of precessed goods.
Example: Flour. Wheat is processed in a Flour Mill (up to 4 labor, each changing 2 food into 2 flour). Like wheat, flour sells on the food market, but at a 50% bonus to sale income.
Building List
Rules/list not hammered out.
Troops and Combat
Rules also need to be hammered out here.
Starting and Joining the Game
At the start of the game, tiles will be auctioned off in a special auction independant of a trading session. As with normal auctions, players may loan up to $1000 from the government to pay for their winnings. If a player only bids on one tile, there is no limit to the loan amount.
After that, play will begin normally. However, for the first 15 turns of the game, no interest will be charged on government loans. After that, ?% interest is charged at the end of each trading session.
Players joining after the game has started may join the game and participate in an auction to gain their first tile(s). The same loan restrictions apply (up to $1000 if bidding on multiple tiles) and they also get a 15 turn grace period, starting from the first trading session they have tiles during (the session after winning tiles in an auction).
Trading Sessions: Orders
This section will have a standardized format for submitting orders so that the GM doesn't have a headache reading many different sets of customized order formats. I'll get to this later.
Note: Trip and I were worried there would be too little demand at first, so we decided to inflate the amount of supply that can be unloaded (demand x 1.5; though note that prices still go down as more is sold with this method!) and inflate demand itself by +3 for each good market.
Note: Base costs still need to be figured out. I'd say stick with $100 for all four base costs (food, shields, commerce, labor) unless there's a good balance reason not too.
This is just a rough (very rough) draft to get us going. Feel free to argue over any of the values or rules herein - especially the ?s and the unwritten sections! These need to be filled in. Also, I'll pay attention to any style pointers or re-writes; I think the MOO3 manual has rubbed off on me, so I could definitely use those. 
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Kloreep
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of the pillow
Jun 2002
time: 00:26
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Pre-alpha building list:
Manor (1 or 4 shields): Only one per player. May be built on any tile the player owns for 1 shield initally; however, moving or rebuilding a manor costs 4 shields. The manor comes with one "Manor Serf," a free serf which also does not require any maintanence, and provides 5 more storage units. It allows you to buy more serfs, and own more than five tiles. You may also build any building except a shop on the manor tile, regardless of in-city or near-city restrictions to the building. If another player's units move on to your manor (first having to defeat any troops you may have on your manor's tile), you are reduced to a tributary of that player and must ?.
Warehouse (2 shields): Provides 10 more units of storage space; can be built either in a city or on a tile you own. Only one allowed on each owned tile, and only one for each player allowed in cities.
Shop (3 shields): Provides a bonus to sales on one of the three good markets (specified by the building player on completion): X goods sold on the specified market will get a +50% bonus to their sale price, where X is the population number of the city it is built in but must not exceed 6. Must be built in a city; one per good market per player in each city (maximum of three shops for one player in a city). A player may close down operation of a shop for one turn and pay 1 shield and labor to change the shop's good market.
Luxury Shop (3 shields): May be built in a city in place of a commerce shop (in other words, may not co-exist with a commerce shop owned by the same player). The bonus may ONLY apply to commerce from Luxuries (Dye, Wine, Furs, Ivory, Spices, etc.), but it is a +75% bonus instead of +50%. The rules to determining "X" are the same as they are for normal shops.
Bakery Shop (3 shields): May be built in a city in place of a food shop (in other words, may not co-exist with a food shop owned by the same player). Unlike most shops, requires labor: up to 3 labor may staff it. For every labor & 2 pop points in the city, 2 flour may be sold at a +125% bonus (In ADDITION to the inherent +75% bonus of selling flour, for a total of +200%!). So "X" is limited by by both labor & city pop; whichever limit of bonusable flour sales is lower is the limit.
Butcher Shop (3 shields): May be built in a city in place of a food shop (in other words, may not co-exist with a food shop owned by the same player). Unlike most shops, requires labor: up to 3 labor may staff it. For every labor & 2 pop points in the city, 2 meat (Cattle, Game, Fish, or Whale) may be sold at a +125% bonus. So "X" is limited by by both labor & city pop; whichever limit of bonusable meat sales is lower is the limit.
Shop Extension (1 shield): Addition that may be made to any kind of shop; as many may be added to a shop as a player desires. Each increases the roof on "X" (the number of goods that can be sold with a bonus) by 2 per addition, and increases the roof on labor in Bakery and Buther Shops by 1. Note that it just increases the LIMIT; the actual number of bonusable sales still depends on the actual city population (and, in the case of Bakery and Butcher Shops, labor assigned).
Lumber Workshop (6 shields): Must be in a city or on a tile you own in the eight-tile ring around a city; one per tile or city. Allows up to 4 labor to convert shields to "lumber" at the rate of 1 shield to 2 lumber per labor. Lumber also sells on the shield market, but at a -50% penalty; however, each unit of lumber can be used for construction just like a normal shield. (In other words, only build a workshop if you want to maximize construction efficiency, or if you also build a Furniture Shop; lumber isn't very useful for sale.)
Furniture Workshop (4 shields): Can be built in either a city or a tile you own; one per player per tile. Allows up to 4 labor to convert lumeber to "furniture," at the rate of 1 lumber to 1 furniture per labor. Furniture sells on the commerce market at a +100% bonus to income from sales.
Jewelry Workshop (8 shields): Can be built in a city or on a tile you own; one per player per city. Allows up to 4 labor to convert "precious materials" (either gems or gold) to jewelry, at the rate of 2 precious materials to 2 jewelry per labor. Jewelry also sells on the commerce market, but at a +75% bonus.
Flour Mill (8 shields): Must be built in a city or on a tile you own in the eight-tile ring around a city; one per player per tile. Allows up to 4 labor to convert wheat to flour. If the mill is by a river, it converts at the rate of 3 wheat to 3 flour per labor; otherwise, it converts at the rate of 2 wheat to 2 flour per labor. Flour also sells on the food market, but at a +75% bonus.
Comments? Suggestions?
I'm thinking of adding new markets in; alcohol was its own market in the $Mini-Game. Also, some special stuff for strategic resources in addition to bonus & luxes would be good.
And, obviously, the manor still needs to be straightened out. I figured we could put some limits on what you can do without one (limited number of tiles, no serfs, etc.), but it needs to be worked on. And there may be some military buildings to complement whatever troop system is worked out.
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Kloreep
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of the pillow
Jun 2002
time: 00:26
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I'm almost done with a beta version of the rules, but there is still no combat/troop system. Any ideas are both welcome and needed.
Edit: Here's the newest rules draft I made.
The General Concept
What the $Mini-Game is About
The $Mini-Game is a combination empire management/business tycoon game. You own actual in-ISDG tiles that fall within Apolyton's cultural borders; these tiles produce the same resources they do if worked in the actual game. You then use these goods to make money (by selling them), construct buildings (using shields), feed vassals and troops (using food), and hire and maintain troops (with commerce). While money is a very powerful tool (perhaps the most useful), the three civ resources are important as well.
The rules start out explaining the game mechanics and don't go into the applications, IE how all these rules are played out. That's covered in the last section.
Winning and Losing
There is no real winning or losing in the $Mini-Game; you attempt to make money and out-expand and out-sell your competitors, but there is no ultimate goal besides having fun.
$Mini-Game "Turns": Trading Sessions
The game revolves around Trading Sessions (abbreviated TS here). These sessions are started, monitored, and ended by the GM (Game Master). While a TS is open, players submit (and, if they wish, modify) their orders regarding sales, labor use, etc. TSs must be open for at least ? hours, but may be extended up to ? hours beyond that if the GM feels there is good reason.
For all calculation relating to the in-game state, the most recent save at the start of the TS is used throughout the session and for calculations after closing. The turn # and year will be posted in the Trading Session thread by the GM for player's reference.
Goods, Production, and the Market
The Basic Resources
:money: Money :money: lies at the heart of the game; it's possible to turn it into anything. But beyond buying vassals, hiring labor (covered later), and buying tiles, there isn't much direct use of it. Food, shields, and commerce are required for most actions and maintenance; as in Civ3, they are the building blocks of the game.
Tiles and Production
To play the game, you must own at least one tile; ideally, you should own as many as possible. Tiles, once bought, produce for you the same resources they would in the real ISDG - and for free! Tiles are your bread and butter.
You buy a few tiles on a government loan when you first join the game; after that, more may be bought whenever auctions are held, but you may not buy tiles if you own more than four tiles and don't have a manor. To buy tiles, you must be debt-free at the start of the TS during which the auction is held. During the auction, you can loan up to $1000 from the government (or an unlimited amount if you bid on only one tile); since you start with no money when you first join the game, you must take out a loan to buy your first few tiles.
With the exception of city tiles, all tiles within Apolyton's cultural border can be owned by a $Mini-Game player, even coast and sea tiles (though those tiles may not be built on, of course).
The Market: Supply, Demand, and Competition
To make money, you must sell goods to the cities. The amount of goods the "market" (Apolyton's cities) will buy, and the price payed for them, depends on the ratio of supply and demand. Demand is the amount of a good Apolyton's cities produce in Civ plus whatever goods players are trying to buy; thus, demand would stay constant within an ISDG game turn (and the city demand factor is held constant in a TS by holding constant the save used). Supply is the amount of goods players put up for sale on the market. The amount of goods needed by demand (the cities) determines how much can be sold, and if supply skyrockets and exceeds demand, not all sellers will find buyers and some players will not be able to sell their goods. If this happens, the players offering the lowest minimum prices will sell. This is covered later in the Trading Session section.
The price at which goods are ideally sold is determined by the supply and demand for the good, and by the base cost of the good. (Food, Shields, and Commerce have base costs of $100). The percentage from the ratio of demand over supply is multiplied times the base cost to get the market price.
Example: Food has a base cost of $100. Apolyton, Apolyton's only city (imagine we're back in the 3000s ), produces 7 food. $Mini-Game players are attempting to sell a total of 12 food on the market.
Supply is easy to figure out: 12 food are being put up for sale, so supply is 12. To calculate demand, we take the total of all city's production (7 is also the total as Apolyton is the only city). The ratio of demand to supply is 7:12; 7 divided by 12 is ~0.58 or ~58%
The base cost is $100. $100 * 58% = $58. Food will sell at a maximum of $58 dollars. (Note that only the demanded food will be sold, so the glut in supply means that not only does the price drop, but only 7 of the 12 food put up for sale will move off the shelves. This is covered later.)
Buildings, Labor, Processed Goods, and Troops
Construction, Labor, Stockpiling, and Basic Buildings
If producing and then selling goods was all the $Mini-Game was about, it would be pretty boring. What adds flavor is the variety of buildings you can construct to give yourself a boost; there are many different metheds you can use.
Buildings are constructed with shields (for materials) and labor (to work these shields into something useful). Labor is essentially in-game population, and takes two forms: city wage labor, and worker serf labor. City workers are paid every time you hire them; the in-game size of a city is the amount of labor available for hire in that city. Labor hiring works on demand/supply like goods, but is turned around: the supply from the city is always there, but availability and price is determined by demand. The base cost of labor is $100.
Example: Apolyton is at 3 pop in game. This means there are 3 wage laborers for hire from the city. 2 players want to hire 1 laborer each from the city. (If they had wanted 2 each, the price would be much higher AND one player would hire only one laborer.) What's the price?
Demand to supply ratio is 2:3 = ~67%. $100 * 67% = $67. The hiring players will have to pay $67 per worker.
The alternative to city labor is serfs. Serfs are essentially slave labor; you don't have to pay them. But you do have to feed them (0.5 food each, rounding up if you have an odd number of serfs). One player alone owns a serf and can use the unit for labor each turn, or even rent them out temporarily to another player. Since serfs eat whether they work or not, it's a good idea to put your serfs up for rent if you aren't going to use them. Serfs are auctioned off by the government as their numbers increase, with a minimum bid of $10 a serf. The serf count of the $Mini-Game is linked to the number of workers (both captured or native) in the actual ISDG game: 1 ISDG native worker = 2 $Mini-Game serfs, 1 captured worker = 1 $Mini-Game serf. Note that you must build a Manor in order to be able to own serfs.
So, back to buildings: with the required number of shields worked by an equal amount of labor, a building can be built on a tile. Some buildings must be built on a country tile, or on a city tile; some can be built on either, and some must be built by a river. Anyone can construct buildings in a city, but a country tile can only be built on by its owner. (Note that nothing can be built on coast or sea tiles; they merely produce goods.) For a full building list, look below. One type of building is a bonus building, which provides a bonus % to the sale of some amount of a particular good. (In other words, the good is put on the market normally, but if sold, a % of the sale price is added to the player's account in addition to the actual sale income.)
This is a good time to bring up stockpiling. Goods can be stockpiled for future use or sale if you don't wish to build with or sell them on the turn they're produced; however, these goods must go somewhere. Just by owning a tile, you are guaranteed 5 units of storage; any or all goods totalling 5 units can be stored without a building. However, to store more, you must construct a manor and/or storehouses.
Processed Goods and Processing Buildings
Another strategy in the $Mini-Game is to use labor, assigned to special buildings, to refine the three basic goods into something more valubale and/or more numerous. These refined, or processed, goods might also sell on a different market than the original material.
Example: ?
Also, some types of processed goods require that you start out with a special variety of a good. There varieties are determined by bonus resources on a tile; IE, all food produced on a tile with wheat is referred to not as food, but as wheat. Commerce from a tile with dye is referred to as dye instead of commerce, etc. While wheat, game, dye, etc. can be sold, used, or processed like the normal variety of their good, they can also be used for special kinds of precessed goods.
Example: ?
Note that all such processing buildings take a market session to finish their production, so you must have room to stockpile the goods between the session they are produced and the next market session, when they may actually be sold.
Also, it is possible to choose to create a special resource. Sugar is created by declaring a particular land tile you own a "sugar tile." (This tile must not have a food bonus resource like Wine, Cattle, Wheat, Game, etc.) This declaration costs $50 per tile. (The cost of changing crops.) This tile produces no food, and instead produces sugar - the same amount of sugar as it would normally produce food. Changing back to normal food production costs $50.
Building List
First, an explanation of some extra markets: the Literature market is nation-wide. It is determined by multiplying the total population of the region by the Literacy percentage in Civ's demographics screen. It is then added to by science improvements; every library or university in the nation creates +1 demand. If this final number is not an integer, it is rounded up. The base cost for the Literature market is $100
The alcohol market is also based on pop. Each city contributes City Pop times X to the demand, where x = 0.5 for towns, 0.75 for cities, and 1 for metros (rounding up; the capitol is considered to have +1 town/city/metro status as in Civ3). Buildings and demographics do not contribute to this demand.
The arms market is based on the # of units under construction, and the number of military units is factored in also. Note that in both steps of the calculation the value of mil units is each unit's value added up; a unit's value is its shield cost divided by 50. The formula for demand is mil units value (see above) for units that have been built, rounded up and square rooted + the mil value for units under production rounded up (the units under production value is NOT rooted).
The medicine market is based on demographics; it is (pop * disease demographic percentage) + pollution demographic. Each Hospital and Research Lab add +1 demand to the medicine market. (Research Labs can create more products that are in turn demanded.)
The fuel market ?
Manor (1 or 4 shields): Only one per player. May be built on any tile the player owns for 1 shield initally; however, moving or rebuilding a manor costs 4 shields. The manor comes with one "Manor Serf," a free serf which also does not require any maintanence, and provides 5 more storage units. It allows you to buy more serfs, and own more than five tiles. You may also build any building except a shop on the manor tile, regardless of in-city or near-city restrictions to the building (river restrictions still apply). If another player's units succeed in an attack on your manor (first having to defeat any troops you may have), you are reduced to a tributary of that player and must ?.
Warehouse (2 shields): Provides 10 more units of storage space; can be built either in a city or on a tile you own. Only one allowed on each owned tile (except for manor tiles which may hold two warehouses), and only one for each player allowed in cities.
Shop (3 shields): Provides a bonus to sales on one of the three good markets (specified by the building player on completion): X goods sold on the specified market will get a +50% bonus to their sale price, where X is the population number of the city it is built in but must not exceed 6. Must be built in a city; one per good market per player in each city (maximum of three shops for one player in a city). A player may close down operation of a shop for one turn and pay 1 shield and labor to change the shop's good market.
Luxury Shop (3 shields): May be built in a city in place of a commerce shop (in other words, may not co-exist with a commerce shop owned by the same player). The bonus may ONLY apply to Jewelry (see below) or commerce from Luxuries (Dye, Wine, Furs, Ivory, Spices, etc), but it is a +75% bonus instead of +50%. The rules to determining "X" are the same as they are for normal shops.
Bakery Shop (3 shields): May be built in a city in place of a food shop (in other words, may not co-exist with a food shop owned by the same player). Unlike most shops, requires labor: up to 3 labor may staff it. For every labor & 2 pop points in the city, 2 flour may be sold at a +100% bonus (In ADDITION to the inherent +50% bonus of selling flour, for a total of +150%!). OR use 1 sugar for every two sales of flour and raise the bonus by +50%, for a total of +200%! So "X" is limited by both labor & city pop; whichever limit of bonusable flour sales is lower is the limit.
Butcher Shop (3 shields): May be built in a city in place of a food shop (in other words, may not co-exist with a food shop owned by the same player). Unlike most shops, requires labor: up to 3 labor may staff it. For every labor & 2 pop points in the city, 2 meat (Cattle, Game, Fish, or Whale) may be sold at a +100% bonus. So "X" is limited by by both labor & city pop; whichever limit of bonusable meat sales is lower is the limit.
Shop Extension (1 shield): Addition that may be made to any kind of shop; as many may be added to a shop as a player desires. Each increases the roof on "X" (the number of goods that can be sold with a bonus) by 2 per addition (1 per addition for Pubs), and increases the roof on labor in Bakery and Butcher Shops by 1. Note that it just increases the LIMIT; the actual number of bonusable sales still depends on the actual city population (and, in the case of Bakery and Butcher Shops, labor assigned).
Lumber Mill (5 shields): Must be in a city or on a tile you own in the eight-tile ring around a city; one per tile or city. Allows up to 4 labor to convert shields to "lumber" at the rate of 1 shield to 2 lumber per labor (if the tile is by a river, shield conversion is increased to 3 shields converted for every 2 labor, rounding down with odd numbers of labor). Lumber also sells on the shield market, but at a -50% penalty; however, each unit of lumber can be used for construction just like a normal shield. (In other words, only build a workshop if you want to maximize construction efficiency, or if you build further conversion buildings to turn the lumber into more profitable goods; lumber isn't very useful for sale.)
Furniture Workshop (4 shields): Can be built in either a city or a tile you own; one per player per tile. Allows up to 4 labor to convert lumber to "furniture," at the rate of 1 lumber to 1 furniture per labor. Furniture sells on the commerce market at a +75% bonus.
Jewelry Workshop (6 shields): Can be built in a city or on a tile you own; one per player per city. Allows up to 4 labor to convert "precious materials" (either gems or gold) to jewelry, at the rate of 2 precious materials to 2 jewelry per labor. Jewelry also sells on the commerce market, but at a +50% bonus. Jewelry may be sold through luxury shops, regardless of whether its original form was gold or gems.
Flour Mill (5 shields): Must be built in a city or on a tile you own in the eight-tile ring around a city; one per player per tile. Allows up to 4 labor to convert wheat to flour. If the mill is by a river, it converts at the rate of 3 wheat to 3 flour per labor; otherwise, it converts at the rate of 2 wheat to 2 flour per labor. Flour also sells on the food market, but at a +50% bonus.
Paper Mill (5 shields): Must be built in a city or on a tile you own; one per player per tile. Allows up to 4 labor to convert Lumber to paper, at the rate of 2 Lumber to 2 Paper per labor (3 to 3 if the mill is on a tile by a river); paper sells on the literature market.
Bindery (5 shields): Must be built in a city or on a tile you own; one per player per tile. Allows up to 4 labor to convert paper to books, at the rate of 1 paper to 1 book per labor. Books sell on the literature market at a +100% bonus.
Printing Press (3 shields): Special addition to a bindery (like a shop extension, but may only be built once per bindery). Makes the conversion 2 paper to 2 books per labor.
Brewery (? shields): Must be built in a city or on a tile you own; one per player per tile, and cannot coexist with a Distillery owned by the same player. Allows up to 4 labor to food convert into Ale, and/or convert Wheat into Beer, at the rate of 2 food/Wheat to 2 Ale/Beer. Beer sells at a +50% bonus. Breweries may only sell their product to cities they are in the radius of until the construction of railroad. Ale and Beer may not be stored until the discovery of Electricity.
Distillery (? shields): Must be built in a city or on a tile you own; one per player per tile, and cannot coexist with a Brewery owned by the same player. Allows up to 4 labor to convert 2 Sugar to 2 Rum per labor. Rum sells at a +25% bonus. Rum can be sold anywhere and can be stored.
Pub (3 shields): May be built in a city in place of a food shop (in other words, may not co-exist with a food shop owned by the same player). Provides a bonus to both alcohol and food sales: X alcohol goods sold get a +50% bonus to their sale price, where X is the population number of the city it is built in divided by 2 (rounding up), but must not exceed 3. For every alcohol good sold this way, you may also sell a food through this shop at a +50% bonus.
Last edited by Kloreep on 07-06-2003 at 04:39
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Kloreep
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of the pillow
Jun 2002
time: 00:26
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Arms Workshop (3 shields): Must be built in a city or on a tile you own; one per player per tile. Allows up to 4 labor to convert Iron (defined as shields from tiles with the Iron) to Arms, at the rate of 1 to 1 per labor. Arms are sold on the Arms market, defined above.
Gun Workshop (Needs better name, but we have time to think of one. 2 shields): Add-on to the Arms Workshop. Allows Saltpeter (shields from tiles with saltpeter) to be converted to arms as well as Iron, but the limit on labor is still the same and applies to the total of both iron and saltpeter converted. After entry into the Industrial Age, all Arms Workshops are considered to have this improvement, so it is only useful for a short while.
"Aluminum" Workshop (Also needs better name, but we have plenty time to think of one before the Modern Age. 2 shields): Same as Gun Workshop, except allows Aluminum to be converted and is never considered included in the Arms Workshop; it must always be built.
Potions Workshop (2 shields): Must be built in a city or on a tile you own; one per player per tile. Allows up to 4 labor to convert ingredients (defined as food or commerce from jungle, or commerce from Fur and Incense tiles) to medicine, at the rate of 1 ingredients to 1 medicine.
Pharmaceutical Workshop (3 shields): Add-on to Potion Workshop; requires the discovery of Medicine. This new, improved Workshop allows up to 4 labor to convert either food or "ingredients," defined above, to medicine, at the rate of 2 food/ingredients to 2 medicine.
Fuel buildings to be defined another day.
Troops and Combat
Rules also need to be hammered out here. I think a simplified manor vs. manor system should be used without any movement; we already have a lot to keep track of.
Starting and Joining the Game
At the start of the game, tiles will be auctioned off in a special auction independant of a Trading Session. As with normal auctions, players may loan up to $1000 from the government to pay for their winnings. If a player only bids on one tile, there is no limit to the loan amount. (If a player starts out bidding on multiple tiles but later officially drops his bids on all but one tile, any loans he may be relying on have their $1000 ceiling removed for bidding on that one tile.)
After that, play will begin normally. However, for the first 15 turns of the game, no interest will be charged on government loans. After that, ?% interest is charged at the end of each trading session.
Players joining after the game has started may join the game and participate in an auction to gain their first tile(s). The same loan restrictions apply (up to $1000 if bidding on multiple tiles, limitless if bidding on one) and they also get a 15 turn grace period, starting from the first TS they have tiles during (the session after winning tiles in an auction).
Trading Sessions
Rules and Procedure
At the start of a Trading Session, the GM will open a new thread for the session; the thread will include an indexed map of tiles, a list of who owns what tiles, a list of who owns what buildings where, and a list of any tiles and serfs up for auction. (Players will need to look at the results of the previous trading session to see what items they have stockpiled, what serfs they own, and what their account balance is.) The thread must also mention how many hours there are till the TS closes.
Players will then post their orders in the thread; see the standardized form below. Your orders should include your current state of affairs at the beginning of the turn (again, see the standard form below), what you want to buy or sell, what city labor you want to hire, and how your city labor and serfs are to be used.
Orders may be changed up until the end of the session, BUT YOU MUST BOTH POST WHAT HAS BEEN CHANGED/ADDED/WITHDRAWN IN A NEW POST, and ALSO EDIT YOUR ORIGINAL POST WITH THE CHANGES SO THAT THE GM DOESN'T HAVE TO HUNT THROUGH THE THREAD FOR ALL CHANGES. The latter rule is simply for the convenience of the GM; the former is so that the other players will be notified of any change that may affect them, without having to look through every single set of orders to see if they've changed. If you don't post the changes, you are subject to a fine of ? per order changed/removed/added without warning, ?% of which goes to a player who reports the error (if it is not reported, it may go unnoticed, so this rule mostly relies on honesty). If you don't edit in the changes, it is likely they will not be carried out. Please be sure you do both. (Note: This is different from the SPDG version, where you were supposed to leave your orders unedited and only post the change. I figure this will give the GM some needed help.)
Once the appointed hour is reached, the GM should post "Session closed." (NOTE: WE SHOULD HAVE RULES FOR ALLOWING OTHERS TO POST THIS, IN CASE THE GM CAN'T BE ON POLY AT CLOSING TIME.) At this point, no further order changes are allowed, whether or not they could be made before the GM calculates the results of the session. If your orders are listed as edited after the closing time, the GM has the right to fine the player up to 10% of their gross profits, though the GM should examine any defense of the after-close change; the GM should also be tolerant of changes made a few minutes after closing time before the player saw the "session closed" message.
Order Format
To be made later.
Note: Note: Base costs still need to be figured out. I'd say stick with $100 for all four base costs (food, shields, commerce, labor) unless there's a good balance reason not too. Special Markets (eg. literature, alchohol, arms) will have to be play-balanced as well, but I'd suggest leaving them at $100 too for now.
This is just a rough draft to get us going. Feel free to debate any of the values or rules herein.
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14-03-2003 23:25
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That's a great idea GT. We could have a letter for each city, and a number to represent which tile in the radius it is. For example, Apolyton's "letter" would be "A", so if you wanted a particular tile, you'd call it A15, or whatever.
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