posted 04-30-08 19:08 ET (US)
Forumers may (or may not) find it interesting to look at the detail of how a bazaar trader distributes food. I hope my attempts at levity do not inhibit comprehension. None of this knowledge is particularly useful - just interesting 
In Caesar III a market trader will simply supply four units of food per person if the house does not already have four (subject to supplies, of course). If a house is getting food for the first time, it will evolve (subject to other conditions). The next time she passes either the house will have consumed a small amount or a couple more residents will be in occupation, so she drops another four. Once the population stabilizes, the house will demand no food for up to 8 months, then suddenly it will want four units per capita. In a Large Insulae holding up to 84 people that is a lot of food in one go - more than half of the market's getting capacity (for non-wheat) for a single house.
Whether to avoid that intermittent demand for large amounts of food or to somehow attempt to relate service levels to access levels (or for some other reason) when it comes to food Pharoah bazaars work differently, strangely, over-complicatedly and largely un-noticed.
Food is scarce in Ancient Egypt and bazaars are under strict orders to ration it. Some foods are more strictly rationed than others - grain and fish are more liberally distributed. If the food is not one of those, though, the populace have a hard time getting a share of it.
First, single tile housing (1x1). When a trader steps onto a tile within two tiles of a house, she will assess the difference between the amount the house has and the amount it wants to stock, the latter being an optimistic six units per person. She will only supply half of what the house wants. Worse than that, she will in any event refuse to supply any more than one unit per person.
But all is not lost. The Egyptians are wily people and manage to re-join the rationing queue, pretending they haven't already been served. When she steps onto the next tile, if she is still in range, the crafty citizens are there again with their fake ration tickets. We go through the same rigmarole. "Five units each? Sorry, you can't have that. There's your ration - be off with you"
So take the example of a (fully occupied) sturdy hut on a straight piece of road. They've got no food yet and they're hoping to get 42 units (7 persons x 6 units each). Some hope. They catch the trader two tiles away from their house and plead. 7 units is all they come away with. They catch her again on the next tile and wangle another 7. By the time she leaves the fifth tile and moves away they've done pretty well and managed to blag a total of 35 units out of her.
But the ones who live near the corners (on the inside) are even craftier. They can nip round the back and queue innocently on the sixth tile. They are now only 7 units short of being satisfied so she gives them half (truncated, of course, being particularly mean) so they get 3. If they can, they'll catch her on the seventh tile to try and get the last 4 units but she'll only give them 2. On the eighth tile they can scrounge one more, making 41 in total.
You will obviously by now be thinking anxiously about those poor souls, less fortunate than others, who live in awkward places like the outside of corners, who have less blagging opportunities than others. Yes, I'm afraid it's a cruel world and they only con as much extra as they have time to as the trader hurries through their neighborhood. Some, if the city governor has been sufficiently inconsiderate as to place them right out on an outside corner or a dead end, two tiles away from the only access they have to the trader, must make do with basic rations only - one unit per person. So a hut can end up with anything from 7 to 41 units, depending on location.
If you live in a nice two by two with 27 others it's comforting to have 168 or so goodies lying in the cupboard for emergencies but you know the bazaar trader only wants to give you 28. But the trader thinks it's four separate addresses, so we can hatch a plan. You go and 'claim' from that address and I'll claim from this one. She doesn't know we all live in the same house. So when she gets in range, I dash out and get rations for all 28 of us. Meanwhile you, claiming from the other tile do the same, so between us we come away with 56 units - 2 for everyone in the house. Not bad. When she gets to the next tile not only do we both rejoin the queue but we are joined by another two accomplices from the other half of the house. She gives three of us another 28 units each bringing the household plunder to 140. Now the fourth conspititor asks for the other 28 but has to settle for half. So altogether we managed - let's see, 154 that's five and a half units each! And as she wanders off with the uncomfortable feeling that something wasn't quite right about all that we are all still in range and slip into the queue again. "14 units, please" says one. He gets half (7) the next gets half again (3), you get 2 and I get 1. We're still one short at 167 but we haven't done badly at all. We can try our luck on the next tile and get in the queue again but we waste our time. She doesn't entertain orders for just one, and carries on, urchins hanging from her skirts, basket handcuffed to the wrist, apparently unaware that she has just been thoroughly done over.
She isn't quite so tight-fisted when it comes to grain (the veggie favorite) or fish (the preferred morsel for carnivors before McDonald's). She gladly gives two units per person to small houses, but that doesn't stop them repeatedly slipping into the queue again further down the road until they've made off with six. Nor does it stop our co-habiting benefit fraudsters using multiple addresses to get four units per person from two tiles of contact, plus the last two on the next tile. It's ingrained in their nature. Jack-the-lad culture. You probably know a neighborhood like that.
There are occasions when the riff-raff stoop to even lower levels in their attempts to corner the food supply. At intersections they often take advantage of the trader's pre-occupation with deciding where to go next, confusing her into believing their claims that she didn't just serve them, so she serves them again. This doesn't always work. I suppose sometimes she knows where she is going already and is keeping her wits about her. Sometimes they try and play the same game as she emerges from the bazaar, wondering which way to go, carelessly oblivious to the quick fingers dipping into her basket. I don't know if they understand Ambulomancy, but I'm sure they would take advantage if they did.
In the end, most people end up with what they want - maybe just one unit short but who cares. She may as well just give them the whole lot in the first place and I really don't know why she doesn't for all the difference it makes. Even those restricted to one unit each can survive four months on that and only need worry if they upgrade and move the relatives in. And after all, if you're in a 1x1, running out of (heaven forbid) Pottery is usually a much more immediate worry so why there is all this fuss over food I don't know. Someone at Impressions had a plan, I think, and no-one else knows what it was. Or they were trying to fix something. Usually we feel enlightened when we discover something not obvious in the game. This time I just ask ... why?
In Caesar III a market trader will simply supply four units of food per person if the house does not already have four (subject to supplies, of course). If a house is getting food for the first time, it will evolve (subject to other conditions). The next time she passes either the house will have consumed a small amount or a couple more residents will be in occupation, so she drops another four. Once the population stabilizes, the house will demand no food for up to 8 months, then suddenly it will want four units per capita. In a Large Insulae holding up to 84 people that is a lot of food in one go - more than half of the market's getting capacity (for non-wheat) for a single house.
Whether to avoid that intermittent demand for large amounts of food or to somehow attempt to relate service levels to access levels (or for some other reason) when it comes to food Pharoah bazaars work differently, strangely, over-complicatedly and largely un-noticed.
Food is scarce in Ancient Egypt and bazaars are under strict orders to ration it. Some foods are more strictly rationed than others - grain and fish are more liberally distributed. If the food is not one of those, though, the populace have a hard time getting a share of it.
First, single tile housing (1x1). When a trader steps onto a tile within two tiles of a house, she will assess the difference between the amount the house has and the amount it wants to stock, the latter being an optimistic six units per person. She will only supply half of what the house wants. Worse than that, she will in any event refuse to supply any more than one unit per person.
But all is not lost. The Egyptians are wily people and manage to re-join the rationing queue, pretending they haven't already been served. When she steps onto the next tile, if she is still in range, the crafty citizens are there again with their fake ration tickets. We go through the same rigmarole. "Five units each? Sorry, you can't have that. There's your ration - be off with you"
So take the example of a (fully occupied) sturdy hut on a straight piece of road. They've got no food yet and they're hoping to get 42 units (7 persons x 6 units each). Some hope. They catch the trader two tiles away from their house and plead. 7 units is all they come away with. They catch her again on the next tile and wangle another 7. By the time she leaves the fifth tile and moves away they've done pretty well and managed to blag a total of 35 units out of her.
But the ones who live near the corners (on the inside) are even craftier. They can nip round the back and queue innocently on the sixth tile. They are now only 7 units short of being satisfied so she gives them half (truncated, of course, being particularly mean) so they get 3. If they can, they'll catch her on the seventh tile to try and get the last 4 units but she'll only give them 2. On the eighth tile they can scrounge one more, making 41 in total.
You will obviously by now be thinking anxiously about those poor souls, less fortunate than others, who live in awkward places like the outside of corners, who have less blagging opportunities than others. Yes, I'm afraid it's a cruel world and they only con as much extra as they have time to as the trader hurries through their neighborhood. Some, if the city governor has been sufficiently inconsiderate as to place them right out on an outside corner or a dead end, two tiles away from the only access they have to the trader, must make do with basic rations only - one unit per person. So a hut can end up with anything from 7 to 41 units, depending on location.
If you live in a nice two by two with 27 others it's comforting to have 168 or so goodies lying in the cupboard for emergencies but you know the bazaar trader only wants to give you 28. But the trader thinks it's four separate addresses, so we can hatch a plan. You go and 'claim' from that address and I'll claim from this one. She doesn't know we all live in the same house. So when she gets in range, I dash out and get rations for all 28 of us. Meanwhile you, claiming from the other tile do the same, so between us we come away with 56 units - 2 for everyone in the house. Not bad. When she gets to the next tile not only do we both rejoin the queue but we are joined by another two accomplices from the other half of the house. She gives three of us another 28 units each bringing the household plunder to 140. Now the fourth conspititor asks for the other 28 but has to settle for half. So altogether we managed - let's see, 154 that's five and a half units each! And as she wanders off with the uncomfortable feeling that something wasn't quite right about all that we are all still in range and slip into the queue again. "14 units, please" says one. He gets half (7) the next gets half again (3), you get 2 and I get 1. We're still one short at 167 but we haven't done badly at all. We can try our luck on the next tile and get in the queue again but we waste our time. She doesn't entertain orders for just one, and carries on, urchins hanging from her skirts, basket handcuffed to the wrist, apparently unaware that she has just been thoroughly done over.
She isn't quite so tight-fisted when it comes to grain (the veggie favorite) or fish (the preferred morsel for carnivors before McDonald's). She gladly gives two units per person to small houses, but that doesn't stop them repeatedly slipping into the queue again further down the road until they've made off with six. Nor does it stop our co-habiting benefit fraudsters using multiple addresses to get four units per person from two tiles of contact, plus the last two on the next tile. It's ingrained in their nature. Jack-the-lad culture. You probably know a neighborhood like that.
There are occasions when the riff-raff stoop to even lower levels in their attempts to corner the food supply. At intersections they often take advantage of the trader's pre-occupation with deciding where to go next, confusing her into believing their claims that she didn't just serve them, so she serves them again. This doesn't always work. I suppose sometimes she knows where she is going already and is keeping her wits about her. Sometimes they try and play the same game as she emerges from the bazaar, wondering which way to go, carelessly oblivious to the quick fingers dipping into her basket. I don't know if they understand Ambulomancy, but I'm sure they would take advantage if they did.
In the end, most people end up with what they want - maybe just one unit short but who cares. She may as well just give them the whole lot in the first place and I really don't know why she doesn't for all the difference it makes. Even those restricted to one unit each can survive four months on that and only need worry if they upgrade and move the relatives in. And after all, if you're in a 1x1, running out of (heaven forbid) Pottery is usually a much more immediate worry so why there is all this fuss over food I don't know. Someone at Impressions had a plan, I think, and no-one else knows what it was. Or they were trying to fix something. Usually we feel enlightened when we discover something not obvious in the game. This time I just ask ... why?
[This message has been edited by Trium3 (edited 04-30-2008 @ 07:26 PM).]
