Contest 2007 Smalltalk

  • I just went back and counted how many cycles I could get in with my method. On slowdown ... painfully slow ... and double clicking, I made 63 cycles in one day (August 11 1300 - I opened up an old save). Note that I both buy and sell in each cycle so the ship is always full (eg one cycle would be: buy skins & sell IG, then sell skins & buy IG), so that's not looking much worse than selling manually. Total mouse clicks = 4x63 ~ 250 :hit:


    Most of my manual arbitrage I did on "very slow" instead of "slowdown"; if I'm feeling bored I'll go back and count to see whether or not I still get 63 cycles on "very slow". If so, I'll edit this space just
    ...
    46.


    So doing it on very slow is a bit less efficient, but not greatly - and it takes a couple of minutes instead of, well, many more.


    Note that all these numbers are done with a trade office, but in my method its presence shouldn't make any difference.

  • @ Starstruck:


    I auto buy 1 to 3 goods. As soon as they are in I sell manually, doubble click the route, and go back to max selling. The reason why it's a few cycles less/day with a TO is because of the additional stroke on the keyboard or mouse click. I am faster on the mouse, aka trackball, than on the keyboard. The thumb is the clicker on a trackball, so no probs there.
    BT gets between 60 -70 cycles on his laptop with touchpad - now that's impressive :170:
    If you just buy on each cycle - you need more capacity - it does make a difference. I like to use 390 holks, besides pirate hunters they are not too good for anything else. And, for arbitrage, they are good as long as they are 30% or better in health. Smoking or not, they smoke in arbitrage. :D

    Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new
    Wer niemals einen Fehler gemacht hat, hat noch nie etwas neues probiert Albert Einstein

  • After two days of havoc Hanse-wide, John Le Blund has just founded a new town called Ripen.


    :cheers:


    It's my first experience of trying to change a new town's resources. It took a lot of effort to get rid of wool (induced by not enough pig iron), and my Hanse went without grain, cloth and pottery in order to get a town with meat, salt and bricks (timber import, anyone?)


    Trying to clear goods out of the trade office in Goteburg, with 2200 grain, 16000 cloth and 19000 pottery, was fun ... :bloed:.


    Still, a few days later at the end of August my Hanse seems none the worse for wear :dance:.

  • Marauding hordes of mercenaries are descending on Brugge


    However, Brugge currently has only a small section of its second town wall built, while the rest is still frameworked. The first town wall is long gone. I always thought mercenaries didn't attack until a new town wall was complete ...


    Does this mean they'll come in a month, walk through a building site and capture the town money? Or will they hang around near the city, drinking wine and chatting about their future conquests, for the eight to twelve months it's likely to take the wall to be built?


    Sorry men, the town hasn't finished it's wall yet. We'll just wait here through the winter while they finish their wall, train some more troops and build a few cannon towers, and then we'll attack them without mercy.


    :fenc:


    Or will they see the framework, decide it's all too much bother, and not come at all?


    :flag:

  • Auch wenn ich hier sprachlich falsch bin.


    Ich arbitriere manuell in zwei Städten (Danzig+Reval). Das macht acht Klicks und passt gut in den Zyklus, den die Zeitbremse vorgibt. Bei ca. 115 (mal acht klicks) habe ich gerade am 7.7.00 Schluss gemacht. Etwas mehr ist wohl noch drin.

  • Zitat

    Originally posted by Roland
    Auch wenn ich hier sprachlich falsch bin.


    Ich arbitriere manuell in zwei Städten (Danzig+Reval). Das macht acht Klicks und passt gut in den Zyklus, den die Zeitbremse vorgibt. Bei ca. 115 (mal acht klicks) habe ich gerade am 7.7.00 Schluss gemacht. Etwas mehr ist wohl noch drin.


    In spite of using the wrong language ...


    I use manual arbitration in two towns (Danzig + Revel). The 8 clicks requried fit well into the cycle given by the slowdown mode. After ca 115 (times 8 clicks) I quit on 07/07/1300. There may be room for some improvement.



    Yes, use Reval and Ladoga, closer together. :D


    @ Starstruck:
    There will be no attacks if the entire wall has been placed as long as the gates have not been completed. At least, that's what the observatiosn were to date. Just wait it out, they may not come at all. I had an announcement in March 1301 they they were going to attack - nothing happened. Then, in September they announced they attack again but that time they came and flattend 5 businesses.

    Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new
    Wer niemals einen Fehler gemacht hat, hat noch nie etwas neues probiert Albert Einstein

  • Hotkeys?


    You can hotkey ships?


    I didn't know about the 1/2/3/4 shortcuts until mentioned above ... what else is there around? I know TAB shifts ships within a city but find it fairly useless.


    @ bizpro:
    I may be waiting a long time! In Brugge I need to build a lot more merchant houses then cattle farms, which delay the wall progress greatly. Only time will tell if that third gate actually gets completed before the end of 1302, and I don't plan on submitting past there (even if I play on for interest).

  • Starstruck


    Thank you for describing the trick where you feed 6 beer to the poor to attract beggars from everywhere. It works very well in my towns. I had a look through the German forum and since I couldn't find the trick anywhere, I opened a new thread (of course mentioning whom I got it from).


    Regards,
    Balou

  • [quote][i]Original von Starstruck[/i]
    Hotkeys? You can hotkey ships? I didn't know about the 1/2/3/4 shortcuts until mentioned above ... what else is there around? I know TAB shifts ships within a city but find it fairly useless.[/quote]

    [u][b]List of PIII Hotkeys[/b][/u]

    Pausereduce game speed to slowdown
    - (minus)decrease game speed
    + (plus)increase game speed
    ESCclose window / call options menu
    arrow keysmove map or town view
    F5switch minimap
    F6call ship list
    F7call message menu
    F8exit town
    F12fast forward
    Spaceopen trading menu
    1, 2, 3, 4 (in trading menu only!)number of goods per click in trading menu
    TABswitch through ships and center them
    Deldelete selected message
    Space / 0 (zero on number block) (in battles only!)fire
    Pg up (in battles only!)increase sail area
    Pg dwn (in battles only!)decrease sail area
    Ins (in battles only!)board enemy
    Del (in battles only!)plunder enemy
    Pos1 (in battles only!)flee
    End (in battles only!)surrender / end battle
    Ctrl + 1 - 9assign hotkey 1 - 9 to seleced ship
    1 - 9 (first keystroke)select ship on hotkey 1 - 9
    1 - 9 (second keystroke)center ship on hotkey 1 - 9 to screen


    Might be useful...
  • Oh ...


    How odd. That post looks like it could have been lifted straight from the hotkeys page in my manual.


    Except for the last three lines, which aren't in my manual ?(. But I can definitely see how they would be useful :D


    Pending testing tonight ;) , thanks muchly :170:

  • @ Starstruck:


    In my game I have a mint in one hub and none in the other. The difference between them is 0.3% rich. IMHO, you can neglect any difference.

    Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new
    Wer niemals einen Fehler gemacht hat, hat noch nie etwas neues probiert Albert Einstein

  • My cities all have mints now (since I built them assuming they did something), and my cities have much more than 0.3% differences in rich. That's due to many other factors completely. Excluding NPTs, my hub (Goteburg) actually has my lowest rich composition. :sad2:


    My records and observations, over more than 12 months of game time, are all compatible with mints making NO difference whatsoever.


    The increase in rich and wealthy people in a town seems to be very steady at 3 new rich and wealthy people per day, with or without a mint, unless:
    * Rich/wealthy are not at least content, in which case it is less
    * Occupancy of housing is close to 100%, in which case it is less
    * Occupancy of housing is less than ~ 67%, in which case growth increases to 4 per day. That 67% doesn't seem to be a hard number; I've had cases of 3 growth in wealthy at about 65% occupancy and am not sure why. But the changeover between 3 and 4 growth always seems to be near 67%.
    -There may be some greater growth rate that kicks in well below 67% rich (if interested, I'd try probing at 33%); I've never had enough gabled or merchant houses to test that theory so it remains just an interesting possibility.


    Note that I can't extrapolate any of these observations for towns not between 1500 and 8000 people; I had hoped that large towns might have faster rich growth and while I haven't observed this, I also can't rule out that 20,000 people cities might behave differently to the above.


    Hamburg, Stettin and Ladoga have my highest rich compositions, all approaching 18% rich. They currently still match the observations above, but fast forwarding seems to indicate there is some limit beyond which the above stops applying. Some old comments in the German forum make me think it's 20%/30%/50% (my rough aim for the 1301 assessment, and also compatible with my testing) although I haven't probed the details of how the limit kicks in myself, beyond confirming that it's within a few % of those numbers and is a soft, rather than a hard, limit.


    One thing I haven't tested (and can't since I can't find a way to destroy a mint) is whether the 20%/30% composition limit is affected by the presence of mints. Possibly my 18% rich Ladoga would stop producing more rich people if it didn't have a mint. But rich growth up to about 13-14% rich and 21-22% wealthy is DEFINITELY NOT affected by the presence of a mint.


    Wasa is running at the insane averaged values of 14.3% rich in April, and 26.7% wealthy, without mints :crazy:. If he can confirm that his growth of rich/wealthy matches my description above in his highest rich-% towns, then it probably means the limits without mints are at least 16%/28%, and, most likely, mints make no difference to the composition limit either.


    (PS Despite his insane stats, I still hope to give Wasa a challenge in 1301 as well ;). I already know I'll beat Ugh!'s numbers by a bit ...)

  • I tried reading the German forum to catch up on this subject (mints) since I need to increase my town populations. From what I gather:


    1. Mints help increase the rate at which the rich come to a town.
    This increase is probably not worth the cost of the mint in this game.
    Mints do not increase the total population of the rich in a town.


    Having a place for the wealthy and rich to live and available jobs is most important (along with satisfaction)
    Would you agree?


    2. Also, I know an outrigger increases satisfaction. Does the size and armament affect the level of satisfaction?


    3. Taxes - would you recommend having all towns at zero taxes for satisfaction? If so, does this mean you get blasted with a huge tax bill when a wall is finished? I've never finished a wall so I don't know what that tax will be, although some people have talked about it.

  • @ Man of the C


    1. You're right.
    2. Yes, size and armament affect the level of satisfaction.
    3. I'd recommend about 7 or 8%.


    When a wall is finished you - and all other players- have to pay a special tax to refinance the investment. It depends from your assets in this town and there's no reference to the "normal" tax.


    So long. Stipen O.

  • Hello all,
    I am just about to place an outrigger in every town and found that it seems to increase the satisfaction level of all three population groups by about one degree. My outriggers have the least possible armament.


    Is it really true that more weapons give an even better effect? So far, I thought it is the mere presence of an outrigger, regardless of armament as long as it fulfills the minimum criteria.


    Regards,
    Balou

  • #1.
    The manual states that mints increase the rate at which rich/wealthy come to a town. However, Wasa and I have both pointed out recently that this does not seem to be the case - so no, mints do not increase the rate at which rich come to towns.


    I'm going to sit out of the question of whether they affect the maximum rich composition; the Germans seem to claiming they don't, but I have some not yet reliable data which indicates otherwise. It's hard for me to investigate because my only towns without mints are NPTs ... however Newcastle appears to have a noticeably lower rich cap than my other towns which are all much larger, not NPTs, and have mints. I don't know which of those three factors is the critical one.


    #2/3: No idea about taxes or outrigger armament.
    I've never got a town wall bill either; maybe they don't come if you are Mayor when the wall is completed?

  • Wall taxes are only assessed in towns where you are neither LM nor manager.
    Mints are supposed to influence the rate at which rich come to the town, not the ultimate ratio.

    Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new
    Wer niemals einen Fehler gemacht hat, hat noch nie etwas neues probiert Albert Einstein