Excellent work Plebus!

I just ran some tests in the Valentia CCK and confirmed your results. Not only that, but using delete/rebuild I managed to have a single wheat farm supporting four cart-pushers at once! I also ran the tests on timber yards, furniture shops, clay pits, pottery shops, and warehouses. The double-cart-pusher trick worked with all of them. I even got the clay pits to support three cart-pushers. The other tests will have to wait as it is now time for the weekend chores, but perhaps some else can test the rest of the buildings.

Treborius

As has happened many times before, I am impressed with the brilliance of others in developing imaginative and clever tricks to extend the game capabilities. Some questions come to mind.

1. Does this technique depend on a critical distance between the farm and the granary? That is, do the two cartpushers have to be 180 degrees out of phase? If they ever meet back at the farm, do they collapse together so that you lose the bonus?

2. I see that the goal is to get a highly prosperous city of 20000. I ask the next part in ignorance, since I have no experience with cities much greater than the 10000 in Lutetia and Valentia. I am wondering about possible trouble using this trick. Would it generate so many walker sprites that you would hit the limit sooner?

Interesting trick... I just thought about the delete & rebuild. What about deleting the farm/wharf and then undoing the delete? It could save more Denarii. I haven't tested it though, just a thought...

Very interesting, Plebus. It'll go into the "bag of tricks" to be pulled out for a contest.

I just thought, for The Day at the Races, farmland is so little that we could use this trick!

Thanks,Treborius and Brugle.

Wolf,

For your first question,I think its not neccesary,becuase it is the distance between farm and granary make the second cart,if that distance has not been changed,the two carts will never collapse,but I haven't tested with the extreme condition:all granaries are full.

For your second question,yes,I think it will be a problem when the city is close to walker limits and there are a lot of Double-cart farms out there,but for a city of "merely" 20K,and all houses are 2x2 and above,it won't cause trouble.According to my calculation,the walkers for my 20K Valentia will be somewhere between 800-900,even if there will be 50 schools working for 100 culture.As for Lutetia,you can only feed 15k people there(I've just finished that city,with 14.5k population, and I think I've been close to the limit of food production and distribution abilities).

DX,

As far as I know,that won't work.At least the interval between delete/undo is too short for a new harvest:the key to that trick is,there should be the need to generate a second cart.

[This message has been edited by Plebus (edited 02-09-2002 @ 09:41 PM).]

Wait... let me clarify with you how your trick works, Plebus.

You want the farm to reach 100% productivity and let the cartpusher go to the Granary. The farm resets production to 0%. While the cartpusher is travelling to the Granary, the farm starts growing wheat again, and it must reach 100% production before the cartpusher returns?

DX,

I've just run a test:When you hit delete/undo,the farm production will not be set to 0%,the game will still link that farm to the previous cartpusher.You have to rebuild it(bad news for poor governers)

Here are some thoughts and observations based on some more tests. Note: it isn't just cart-pushers, but any walker.

When a building is built the walker is inside "waiting for orders" so to speak. When a walker leaves his building he "punches out" and the building now considers the walker to be "out."

A destination walker's existence is independent of his home building, but he remembers his "home tile" for his return. If a building with a destination walker "out" is deleted, the walker returns to his "home-tile" before disappearing. A "random" walker will disappear at his "turn-around" point if his original building has been deleted and not been replaced.

If the building's deletion is undone, the building reappears with status (employment, production % and cart pusher out or in) unchanged. If the building is rebuilt, it must seek new workers, production status starts at 0%, and the walker status is "in."

If, before the original walker returns, the new building completes production it will send out a new walker and the building considers its walker to be "out." When the original walker returns to his home-tile he adopts the new building as his home and "punches in" (note that this happens even if it is a different type of building, for instance if a timber yard has been replaced by a farm, a theatre with a temple, or even a timber yard with a theatre or vice versa). (Note: I seem to recall someone -- a long time ago -- mentioning that you could get 2 prefects out of one prefecture).

As long as a building considers its walker to be "in," the building immediately dispatches a new walker upon reaching 100% production. So the trick to maintaining multiple walkers is to make certain that the building continuously alternates between "out" and "in."

If two walkers return before the production cycle completes to send forth a new walker, one of the walkers will be lost (since the sequence will go "out," "in," "in," and "out"). The extra walkers do not form a "reserve;" there is no "double in."

If a cart-pusher returns while another cart-pusher is waiting with a load (because "there's no room for this lot anywhere") both cart-pushers disappear and the load is lost.

Treborius

So a farm's production speed will be much higher depending on the distance between it and the Granary. I think, if the distance is too short, then this trick won't be of much use, am I correct?

Treborius,

Excellent analysis,I think you've found the game machanism behind this trick,and I won't have to make a test on the extreme condition I mentioned in Reply #6,It will be a must that there will always be some storage space for products when this trick is used.(And the double getting cart trick will also fail when that granary has been filled full)

To avoid planting the ugly labour access tents everywhere,I've thought of a whole set of procedure when using this trick.

(in the case of wheat farms of Valentia)

1.Build a wheat farm(or the number of farms you need),let it delivered to the granary near wharf,as distance will be long enough for a new farm get laboured and complete its production, you can provide labour access to the farms as you usually do.You can also build a granary for wheat at a proper place,but set it "not accept" wheat at the moment.

2.Delete that farm and rebuild,and at the same time,build the wheat granary,and set the fish granary not acceptting wheat.

3.Build extra storage spaces for wheat(it could be a warehouse) whenever the wheat granary is nearly full,to avoid the "out-out" situation.

DX,
I think the distance between wheat farm and granary should be at least 20 tiles to make this trick work.

[This message has been edited by Plebus (edited 02-10-2002 @ 02:37 AM).]

That's quite far... Thanks anyway.

Plebus,

I've been thinking about your technique a bit. I'd guess that you can find ways to use it in a stable city without constant micromanagement, but it seems like a lot of effort. I haven't had a lot of experience with "getting" granaries (the most I can remember building in one city is 8), but I'd guess that it wouldn't be hard to have a lot more of them (with one cart pusher each) in Valentia. The easiest way might be to build the city in several similar-sized disconnected sections, each with its own wheat and fish supply.

(Whenever I've used "getting" granaries, there has never been a problem when all connected granaries are full. Even if most of the farms/wharves send their cart pushers to the distant "getting" granaries, the loss in production doesn't matter since there is plenty of reserve in all of the full granaries. To be extra safe, just build a few extra "getting" granaries so there will be even more reserve.)

By the way, if you're not on a MacIntosh, 800-900 walkers is getting rather close to the walker sprite limit (1000). If you've missed a few walkers (soldiers, labor seekers, delivery boys behind market buyers), you might have a problem trying to build a 20000 population 100 Culture all-multiple-food-house Valentia, regardless of how many farm/wharf/granary cart pushers are used.

Good luck! I'll be interested in seeing your completed city.

Duan Xuan,
I'm not sure if I understand your question in reply #10. Just to make sure that there's no misunderstanding, let me say that a farm's maximimum production is not increased by this technique. The idea is to maintain high production when the distance to the granary is too great for a single cart pusher to handle.

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 02-10-2002 @ 03:17 AM).]

Brugle,

Thanks for your suggestions.It's really some hard work planning for that city(it will take about 10 days to two weeks,drawing,testing,etc,I've spent that much time on Lutetia).

I used the autonomy districts strategy as you descibed ,in my newly fished Tingis and Lutetia,I will submit the city soon,but I fear they won't show up quickly(I had submitted my Carthago a month ago ),I can mail you the zipped save if you are interested to see them.

The real problem for Valentia is,I must detach the palace block with plebians,otherwise,the plebians won't eat fish,and there will be a shortage of wheat or vege,but aburdant fish,which will be really ugly.The large farmland is not enough to feed all plebians with wheat and vegetable,so if I choose to locate a majority of plebians there(say 150 or so insulae),I have to get a lot of fish there,which is too far away without some tricks(6-8 getting granaries might work,need testing).If I locate the plebians near the shore and farming plateau,I cannot isolate them because there is the pesky terrace!and the distance is too far for a few getting granaries(BTW,building many farms on the plateau is not easy).So,I've thought of those "features".

The 800-900 spirit estimation is based on the assumption that all 200 school kids and all 240 child labour(about 30 markets) and all cartpushers/walkers are on the street,things would not be so bad,I guess(don't forget your Caesaramia,21K,much more blocks and much more industies!)

[This message has been edited by Plebus (edited 02-10-2002 @ 04:30 AM).]

Plebus,
I should have known better than to think that you'd forget delivery boys. Yes, in Caesaramia, the lack of gatehouses made the housing blocks less efficient, the nature of the contest led me to put in lots of amphitheaters and colosseums, and there was no need to export that many goods, and I still got close to 100 Culture before hitting the sprite limit. Given your conservative assumptions, you'll probably be well under the sprite limit.

Oh,I forgot there are some military activity in Valentia...It seem that I can't build all six legions there as usual,96 spirits are a little dangerous!

Brugle, you got that right. I was asking about the distance. If it ain't great, then it would be wasting lots of money rebuilding farms...

That was great, Plebus ! I tried and that worked fluently !