Topic: Crypto Kingdom - 1991 Retro Virtual World(City) - page 74. (Read 632672 times)

Following HM very generous offer, and the death some years ago of my character binaryFate, The Marquess of Naoned at a venerable age:

I would like to take this occasion to introduce binaryFate's direct heir: tertiiExclusi. Upon creation of this new character, I would like if possible to create a clan that would gather binaryFate's offspring for the years to come. (Do I need to do anything in particular?). I also intend to transfer all of binaryFate's wealth and belongings (currently hold as an Estate) to tertiiExclusi.

HSH Dr. Paul Choo, Ph.D, TMA, Most August, Blessed and Cultured Prince of Soul, High Rector of TMA University, 4th/I & 17th/I Bt of CK, AOD-Col, OD-K, RT-K, etc(x2)

All the townspeople in CryptoTown, who are in good standing


It pleases us (our clan of Paul Sr. and Paul Jr.) to announce that the construction of the Principal Palace of Soul (builders' nickname Marble and Glass Palace) in 7-SE is completed.

At the age of 276, it is the time to fulfil the dreams and visions of the youth, for who knows the end of his days. My brother, our loving father of three centuries, passed away without seeing his royal seat in its glory (missing it by barely 4 years to his sorrow).

Background

Rpietila I bought Versailles borough from the Town for 9,000 mil in about 1560. In 1620s, it was allocated to be haws for the most prominent nobles. (Haw means that the land is void of Building tax.) The lots were large, and given for free. Only the following rules were laid out:
- In 5 years since the Building module opens, there must be a building with (floor area > lot area). This 5 years started this month, therefore will end in December 1642.
- Building must conform to a set of rules, which were then left open but can now be disclosed:

* Usage=Residence (King has allocated his own = Villa so that will probably work out as well, as long as something is designated Residence)
* Minimum 80% (0.80) lux, though 100% earns favor (there is no maximum, the average in Versailles is 300% but it's pricey and degenerates faster)
* Minimum 3 m height, though 4 m earns favor (higher is completely ok but typically the average is no more than 5 m since auxiliaries are less high)
* Most Elaborate finish (Very is ok )
* The lots lining the street should have copper roof, in the circles up to the builder
* Maximum roofline 25 m (Versailles main body is only 18 m so it's not intended that subjects raise too much above the King)

The lot graciously allocated to Soul is a 1992 sqm Princes' Circle 1 (7-SE-P1) facing south-west over the 42 m diameter gardened rotunda called Princes' Circle. It is about 100 meters from Cour d'Honneur, the main square in front of Versailles and the largest square in town.

Planning phase

When designing, it is good to have an idea of the purpose of the building and approximate budget. It is possible to build very dense in a small lot, nothing is stopping you, but this might not be the most profitable option. Building sparse makes usually a better percentage payoff and building low lasts much longer than highrises.

Luckily the constraints are so strict in this project that it is possible to make a testimony instead of money. (Residence/Villa does not anyway produce money, rather produces CUL+IC at a favorable rate, for which reason their number is restricted to one each per char).

Soul has seen fantastic marble architecture in his travels to the orient, and knows the Rossiyan palace construction style as well. Unlike the King with his Versailles, which is outside just like any (huge) upscale residential block in Paris or stone palace just about anywhere, Soul seeks to have the building impressive from the outside as well as in. 2,000 sqm needs to be filled, and also some garden is sought.

Because of the need for certain interiors to be high, room height of 5 m is selected. The exterior is so demanding that Very Elaborate is the only possible option (and even that cannot guarantee a marble facade throughout, for the import of stone by cart is just so slow).

Number of floors is selected 4 to allow also enough gardenspace. It is allowed to make a shopfront but in this case it is not fitting for the style nor commercially viable. It is planned that King will make a shopfront in the North Wing and the palaces lining the Cour or Champs-Élysées might benefit from it (in densely pedestrianised areas, it does the double duty to raise the main usage higher from the noise, and bring in extra income).

The building is not 4 floors throughout, and has a sprawling appearance with wings and arcades. The control "footprint id" is for taking these into account. The control takes some time to understand, so what better than take the time now:

The floor area is calculated as (Lot area * footprint_id * #floors).

The maximum 0.65 means that the construction style we are using due to the quality of our stone, requires 35% of the area enclosed by the walls to be used for the wide exterior and interior stone walls. So if you have this selected, your building will fill the lot completely with not a square left out. This is viable if the lot is lined by streets in all 4 directions, but that is not too often. Suppose you have a 20x20 m lot and you leave even 2 m breathing space to each side - this causes the building to take only 16*16 m and its floor area to be 16^2*0.65 = 166 sqm ! Since the lot area was 400 sqm, this rounds to the nearest option of 0.4 footprint. If there are several floors, the upper floors might be smaller in floor area, might have terraces, might have double-height etc. All these take more away from the footprint ratio. When selecting footprint, try to design the building to the lot so that it actually fits in there! You will soon be required to do it, and woe to those whose lot is filled to the brim and windows staring hermetically at the walls of the neighbors!

Construction

The final parameters and their results are as follows:


Once you click "Save Building", if you have all the materials ready, it will not say a word but present you the new Lot view:


Final Discussion

The footprint ended up 0.35, which provides for adequate sprawl and variety in the building. The southern tip of the lot, 550 sqm is defined to be Yard in addition, so that all south-facing windows (and there are many!) would not have anything to block the sun.

Floor area, 2016 sqm, is just above the mandated. Initially it was the intention to have a few more, but the ballooning amount of BLD caused this last minute adjustment plus the lux was revised to 225% (originally 250%). The cost itself was not the issue, it is the availability of BLD - Soul felt that it is unfair to spend them all.

Sloping roof was selected for the style mainly, anything except copper would have fitted this particular one. Sloping provides some reduction in the repair depreciation, which is good because the facade is Very Elaborate, and it is not possible to repair the structure without rebuilding the facade. So it makes sense to try to delay the renovation. 4 floors is already a higher depreciation than 3 (Versailles) would have been.

WIRL windows and a lot of them (0.5) give the building an airy appearance and the halls inside bathe in light.

116,184 BLD is in the top end of the scale, being almost 6,000 BLD/sqm.
The amount of M comes solely from lux (being only half of the lux, the other being a subitem in BLD)
The windows are automatically consumed as is everything else, but their price is not included in the calculations because of so many types. Soul selected the best type of which 1,008 units was possible to be acquired, WIRL.

The total cost including windows ended up in the 900,000 m/sqm range. Building is somewhat cheaper now than in the historical times when monumental buildings easily surpassed 1 mil/sqm.

The return in the form of CUL+IC is calculated to be 4.3%, which is not in the high end, but not at all bad for a building completely designed for its owner's pleasure.

I'll buy a K7 one, 2 horse, blue, please.

Oyez! Oyez!

The bailliff has finally got around to making his final checks, having completely forgot about his task, while sleeping it off in a gutter in borough 9.

Once recovered enough, and content to have left much time for people to get their affairs in order, he still found the following people to be in contravention to the Town bylaws:

Knight Martti, for distilling illegal alcohol: 1 mil
Lord Thud and Lord Copper, for walking around stark naked, scaring pigs and children: 10mil

It seems the regulations are followed more closely now, this being totally not due to only checking part of the population, and the bailliff is pleased enough to head back to borough 9 in search of another watering hole.

Hello all,

Due to pressing money needs, and having just built a new residence in B22, I am selling two lots on B4, for 12 mil each only:

https://cryptokingdom.me/land/lot/details/720
https://cryptokingdom.me/land/lot/details/726

The yield for those is about 2.5%, making it a great buy for newer players who may not be able to afford outright construction.

I will either remove them from sale or increase the price next week if the pressing money needs stop being so urgent

County Activity Report 1636 - Forte Spagnolo

Gamemaster storytelling is again enabled after a 5-year hiatus caused by my IRL health difficulties and the priority in getting the Buildings module ready, which it now is in the most important features. After some preliminary d20 rolls that determined the overall political atmosphere in the continent, the main roll concerning whether the counties will have serious activity before the Coronation in 1640 showed that yeah, stuff will happen.

The hostilities in the continent stem from the rulers' willingness to stay in power, which is understandable. Germania is the cradle of protestantism, with several of the north Germanian states (foreign duchies) being protestant now. The rulers have embraced it because the population demands it, and also it allows the curbing of the power of the (papal catholic) Church, even the reorganisation of Church property, which in many places amounts to 10-15% of the wealth of the duchy (in CK: about 2%).

Such actions are not well received by the Pope, which also is understandable. The direct Papal power is limited, but there is the Imperial Alliance, led by the Holy Roman Emperor whose court is in Vienna. The Alliance is the other major power in the continent, the first power being France. France is also catholic, but, again understandably, sees the advance of the second most prominent power as undesirable. Because the Pope and the Empire have labeled this as a "war against the infidels/heretics", France cannot join the war actively against them in fear of the domestic public opinion.

Rossiya is constantly out of the game, due to its internal situation. The protestant Sweden is still regarding us as their major ally, but is probably unhappy with our preparations for war, even though the lack of preparations is understandable with our Kingdom also just emerging from the disarray.

The news that the King rpietila II has assumed power and made things happen, is alarming to the Empire, who are waging a slow war against the protestant duchies in their nominal domain (the Empire claims most of the continent as their domain, which is understandable - all the other powers also claim the soil where they have ever set their feet on, or in many cases also other places, even distant and mysterious lands).

The Event roll of 1/20 for the Principality of Forte Spagnolo, a tranquil hill fortress with the surrounding vineyards and a village, somewhere deep inside the Imperial territory, is in this environment a most unfortunate one. The previous instance of a countywide 1/20 was in Ironlock, where the count (HH the Duke of North Face) had sent a full regiment to claim the borderlands. It ended up the regiment being imprisoned wholesale, ridiculed, finally set free, and the county effectively lost (though we still claim it, just in case the fortunes turn).

Two previous warnings that Forte Spagnolo is under threat, had been sent. Luckily the viscount had heeded to them and a garrison of 7+7+19 (number of officers, NCO, troops) with 4 cannons and 23 horses was present and put in guard to prevent the taking of the fortress by surprise assault of intrigue. If the warnings had been ignored, the fortress would have been lost at once.

Now the situation is:
- The enemy knows the position of our troops as they have been able to observe the preparations and movements for a long time
- No shots have been fired and the enemy has let all the horses, NPC, etc. to go inside the castle
- Nobody is allowed either in or out
- The messenger to tell us all this is from the enemy troops, and tells that reinforcements will be regarded as hostile and unlikely to reach the site as there is a thousand miles of them in between our main lands and Forte Spagnolo
- We know that because of the Viscount's able preparations, the fortress is defensible against a siege for a long time, even several years, which will of course require slaughtering of the horses and letting go of the unmilitary NPC, which will be done according to commandant's discretion if no orders from the Viscount reach the site. The exact quantity of food supplies inside is not known (it is larger than Ultima shows, because local MEAT is not accounted for)
- No transfers to and from Forte Spagnolo are allowed.
- The envoy plenipotentiary from HIH The Emperor demands that the fortress is surrendered without resistance and that Crypto Kingdom drops the claim to Forte Spagnolo territory, which the Empire has claimed all the time. He possesses the diamond ring with engraving, official documents with seals, and apparently carries items with great value. It is unquestionable that he comes from the Emperor, the veracity of the message cannot be ascertained at the moment.

Other counties are encouraged to top up their military now, before, one by one, their rolls are evaluated. To train Rak (who will take this hosting for him soon) and increase trustability to the GM process, the main event roll of each county is published with its storytelling effect.

Baron SS, The King's Physician, is moving out of town

At the age of 85, Baron SS (Char_id=90) feels he is still in a good health but there have been rumors that the new king does not appreciate his services in the same way as the first one did. Using advanced age as an excuse, Dr. SS asks for a release from the King's service.

Char_id 90 will transform to a FOC and continue to own a wide range of investables including CKG, CON and buildings. SS is not withdrawing anything. Quite the contrary, he has minted 20*SS1600T (rare 20 CKG gold coin) that he has a pleasure to give according to his choice, which is a fixed (set of) criteria, but unknown to the recipients.

5 more coins are given (almost: "awarded") during the farewell visits:

Sir kronicblazer, the Marquess of Grass
Lord Cryptonic
Lord ArticMine
Wizard Dev PJ
Expert Mikko

4 remain, but since worthy recipients cannot be found, they are smelted, this happening so hastily that SS himself did not retain a single coin for his FOC. Total Exists now = 16.

The issue is fixed. The editor looks great now! Thank you! 

King has 2 challenges going on, for players to explore and gain prizes
- Wine tasting
- Populating the Lot market

The method of raffle for the latter is refined:
- 1 cartload of goods is raffled among the asks and 1 cartload for the Best bids
- first, all asks have equal probability to be picked in the raffle, but if the picked ask is 300 mil or more, it is reshuffled with every ask having equal probability (only max 1 reshuffle).
- second, bids are evaluated similarly, but all bids less than 50 mil are reshuffled in the first round, second round is no reshuffle.
- This ensures that the valid offers have a better chance to win than scripted offers, and also that placing an ask is much more probable to win since asks can only be placed by the respective owners of the lots.

The construction of the first stage of the Palace of Versailles, including the Hall of Mirrors

In 7-C-A1, in a 10,000 sqm lot, the new royal residence, or strictly speaking Villa (Château) features 5,274 sqm of 5 m high space on average, with Hall of Mirrors about 85 m long, 12 m wide and 12 m high. The south side of the Marble Court is not even built yet, much less the North and South wings, which will altogether expand the complex to 20,000+ sqm floor area.

Versailles produces at the current formula, 2,125*(CUL+IC) per year. If it were assigned to some of the M pools, the payout would be (only) about 100 mil per year. Being a haw, the annual 5.27 mil tax is evaded.

In the building cost side, enormous amounts of materials were used:

269,194 * BLD
6,856,200 * STO1
1,582 * WIRL
1,125 * KMT
1,318,500,000 m

At current ask prices, these would cost 4,900 mil to acquire. Price per sqm is 0.900 mil. The greatest determinant of the price was LUX: at an average 300% lux, the cost of that alone was 0.540 mil/sqm and the frame (at 0.360 mil/sqm) thus quite affordable.

The building was rushed to be completed still in 1636, even though this year's payout round is already done. The reason for the hurry was the King's fixation that it is cool to have it ready the year when he turns 200.

The IC that is being produced at a nice rate, will be required for the exceedingly great works of art and other items that are needed to furnish the palace, among them a silver throne.

It is still undecided what will happen to the lot of the now demolished (except the chapel/Throne Room wing) Royal Palace of Malla. It is likely that something will happen soon, because the payout stats of this lot are among top 5 in the whole game (others being: TH, NP, GH and LL)

i think there was also one with the windows - it seems if you select a window factor greater than something, it stops refreshing the payout change from the number of windows, unless you refresh the page.

The guide is very useful,many thanks to his majesty,the King! On the other hand I want to point out a bug I found in the building editor. When I click "Preview building",the "Preview Payout" section gets too low on the screen and I am not able to scroll down.

Building Guide for new buildings
This guide is to be copied to the Wiki, and will be a sticky in the Billboard.


1. To get to the building editor, you need to be in the Lot view of the lot on which you want to build. There are two buttons, "Edit Lot" and "Building Editor". The first one does not currently allow saving changes, but the Building Editor works, provided that:
- You are the owner of the lot
- There is no existing building in the lot (one lot may have one building only)
- You have the resources indicated in the cost calculation to erect the building (billing is automatic, and if not enough is found, it aborts without saving the template)


2. In the building editor (no screencap provided because it will still undergo layout changes) there you can find the 8 lot statistics relevant to building. These are not changeable, but they contribute to the selection of what type of building is reasonable to build on the lot. The examples below are from
7-S-M5 ; Marquesses' Circle 5, Marquesses' Circle 5 ; Owner Sir Heimo The Earl of Sarajas (54)

Total area   836
Haw   1
Macrolocation   0
Building bonus   0
Cul Bonus   
Sci Bonus
Commerciality   200
Visibility   0.03

The benefit of "Haw=1" is that the "building tax" is waived for the lot. The tax is 1,000 m/floor_sqm, so it is not very significant especially as it scales with the size of the building, and empty lots don't anyway need to pay (unlike Extra tax, which is per lot area, regardless if built or not).

Macrolocation is a general bonus ranging from 0...1.05. The payouts are calculated as a product of Multipliers, and Macrolocation alone forms one of them. The format of multipliers is typically (1+usage_coefficient*bonus). For instance, if a lot with Macrolocation=0.2 is used as a Villa, this multiplier is evaluated 1+0.5*0.2=1.1, whereas the same used as Headquarters evaluates as 1+2.5*0.2=1.5. With this, as well as all the others, it makes sense to think of the usage of building such that it can tap into the strengths of the lot (and where the weaknesses don't get a high weight in usage_coefficient), and also to construct the building such that it further leverages the strengths and ignores the weaknesses (except if catering to the weaknesses also provides a decent marginal return on investment).

Building bonus ranges from 0...0.2 and is added to Macrolocation. Historical and important buildings and buildings over 100 years old will get this.

CUL and SCI bonuses likewise, but they are only effective if the usage is such that the payout is in form of CUL or SCI.

Commerciality is only relevant if the building has a Shopfront. Shopfront pool is a separate pool from all the rest, and all buildings that have a shopfront, have pool shares in it, in addition to having them in the main pool (which is owner selectable). Whether a shopfront (ground floor dedicated to commerce and main function of the building starting only from the 1st floor) makes sense, can easily be tested in the editor. A notice though - it is not possible to later add or remove the shopfront so think ahead! Next to a major road in an upcoming area may soon become a good spot for shopfront even if it currently shows meager payouts.

Visibility is also called Prominence ("visibility" as a term will be phased out). This is a generic bonus yielding a linear payout increase in almost all of the pools. Its values range from 0...0.28 and they come from the lot being detached from other lots and surrounded by streets and parks, the wider, the better.


3. Below the previous, you will find the actual Building Editor, that is, the 11 building controls. By changing the values in these controls, you will alter the proposed constitution of the building, which you can re-evaluate for costs and benefits by clicking "Preview Building" button.

BUILDING USAGE
YARD
FOOTPRINT ID
NUMBER OF FLOORS
SHOPFRONT
ROOM HEIGHT
WINDOW RATIO
WINDOW TYPE
LUX
FINISH
ROOF

When designing the building, it is good to already have an idea of the usage, so set your preferred selection first. It will be checked later if it is the best-yielding one.

Yard tells about what area of the lot is not used for building. If the lot is large, but the intention is not to build it all, typing some amount of yard leaves space for garden (increasing the payout) and this area can also be separated to a different lot later, to sell it or build more.

Footprint is the density of building. If an urban building style is sought, values in the high range make sense, if a sprawling villa is the goal, the lower end is the preferred option. It is notable that the floor_sqm is nothing that you can just type, it will be calculated automatically based on these parameters. Since the higher footprint_id causes the building to have more sqm, it may be appealing to use as a default, but I exhort caution: the formulas that determine the pool payouts are changing to make the buildings to be as varied and realistic as possible. If building stupid and unrealistic things causes the payouts to look good now, and consequently everyone builds just them and not nice and balanced buildings, the formulas will be changed, and the loophole seekers will enjoy lower payouts than they hoped for. In the past the large garden gave unrealistic benefits to uninhabitably small huts, now this loophole is closed, and the "placeholder hut" people cannot even build on the same lots yet! (Pending additions to the module). This is intended to give the idea that the payout formulas are being polished to reward of sensible building, so even if sensible building does not give the top M in the payout just now, it may be that the formula changes as quickly as tomorrow (I will monitor what kind of buildings are being constructed, and if they all end up using the same value in a particular control, then obviously the script needs some fixing to promote variance).

Number of floors is limited to 12, and shopfront does not even count as a floor. The editor does not forbid building rather high, and again it may look tempting, but caution is warranted here also. The building repair% starts at 100% and goes down in random increments over time, however the rate of depreciation tends to repair_depreciator. This is not currently shown anywhere but it is dependent on the softness of the land (B.4!), roof (copper good, garden bad) and number of floors. The labor requirement for building high is also higher than that of having a modest height, but this is accounted for in the costs already. A few areas have public restriction on building height which is good to be observed.

Room height does not increase the stone usage, but increases the labor usage quite a lot.

Window ratio is rather simple, the ratio of window_area to floor_area. It is notable that the windows itself are currently not accounted for in the cost calculation, due to the difficulty of pricing them as there are so many options and prices vary. They will be billed from your character still. Window type is only one, so all the windows are required to be of same type.

Lux needs to be entered as a float. The range to be used is 0.25-3, corresponding to 25%-300%. Unlike previously, the lack of lux may cause the building to be sabotaged, and the risk becomes existent if the lux falls below 0.25. It is advisable to have at minimum 0.5 lux, or 0.4 if you intend to check out your buildings every week.

Finish is the facade and exteriors of the building. It is strongly advised that at least Elaborate is chosen in every instance.

Roof has 4 options - Terrace is the usual level roof, Garden gives somewhat better payouts but the building deteriorates quicker, Sloping is a nice-looking roof that takes the water and snow out, prolonging the life of the building (but does not add to the terrace/garden area) and Copper is a piece of artisan work, costing more (KMT) but being good looking and durable.

Now since Heimo was anyway about to build his palace, let us make some parameters that do not take any commercial things into account, just make a house for this old and wise Earl:

BUILDING USAGE : Residence
YARD : 275 (out of 836)
FOOTPRINT ID : 0.5
NUMBER OF FLOORS : 3
SHOPFRONT : no
ROOM HEIGHT : 4 m
WINDOW RATIO : 0.3
WINDOW TYPE : WIRS
LUX : 1 (100%)
FINISH : Most Elaborate
ROOF : Copper


4. Cost calculation:

In the above example,

BLD   25,937
STO1   1,092,000
M   84,000,000
KMT   179
APPROX TOTAL (M)   405,736,000
PER SQM (M)   483,019

The floor_sqm of the building needs to be reverse engineered from the stats above at present (will be directly visible soon, as well as many other stats). Also the windows' price is not counted (in this case they added 32 mil = 7.3% to the total).


5. Payout

The payout is 152 CUL + IC as Residence. Changing the "usage" and clicking "Building Preview" let's you compare the alternatives. Here it was not needed, because the prerequisite for even getting a haw in Versailles for free, was to build a palace as a Residence.

So for the total outlay of 436 mil (including the 836 sqm lot which was a gift from the late King) produces 152 CUL+IC. The midprice of IC is about 80k, and value of a CUL point is difficult to ascertain - since they are untradable and their benefits are erratic - but 50k should be a very conservative estimate. This makes the yield 19.8 mil on 436 mil, in percentage terms 4.5% APR.

Invitation to deduce the healthinesses of Wines

Under penalty of a DOLM (Knighthood of the Doplhin Medal), the following quest is announced:

Find out the healthinesses of the wines, in relation to the healthiness of BEER

The answer must be submitted by end-of-March 1637 to me.

There are 18 wines, the answer is a list of the item_id's, followed by a multiplier that tells how much is the healthiness of the product, relative to the healthiness of BEER, eg. "2" means that the product has a healthiness of twice that of BEER.

Grading is from 0-100% where 100% indicates an exactly correct answer and 50% indicates that the values were on average 50% off the correct.

Winner gets a DOLM. Superadmins and PJ are banned from participating.

To get started, take heed on the following:

- the effect_text is deterministic so you can easily figure out the thresholds
- consuming first time you get the variety bonus
- wines were just updated so do not rely on old info even if you have it

Health Challenge spex is available.

Wine (surprise!) will be gifted to the runner-ups!

First building that I know of, is successfully constructed in 2-E-I15. The building pays out 16.4 million per year for the 300 million upfront. Judging from these figures, there is a reason to believe that new building will be quite a nice return on investment

Building payout round is tomorrow, or latest Sunday. As soon as I make it, there will be a guide on how the different controls work as well, but it is possible to experiment and see the changes from the Building editor already!

New Feature: Billboard.

Log into the game, you can't miss it. It is also self-explanatory and fun, and because of it, there will be much less stuff in this thread in the future

Market is open and currently a ticket with 0.1% chance of winning is at 7700/6125 (hinting at the average gem price of 6-7 mil, with the range from TOP (topaz) of probably in low 7-figures, up to the minimum guaranteed price of 250 mil for the DIA20).

NPCC ruling
The gems in this allocation are intended for the coronets and other jewelry of the PC. At the end of May 1638 (no earlier than 24 hours after the last raffle item of allocating the most precious stones to the remaining 14 tickets), all the NPCC will be swept of their stones.

This leaves the option of either disposing of the RAF-2 immediately, with the added benefit of having the money back quicker, or keeping them until the raffle, and selling the gems, but that must be done quickly after they are raffled to avoid sweep.

The NPCC are not allowed to have bids in RAF-2 nor in the gems, it is sell only.

I have the feeling that as the NPCC now command the supply monopoly as the majority of tickets does not even exist yet, it might not be a stupid idea to seek to sell whatever possible before the PC get their allocation. On the other hand, I have the feeling that gems will perhaps establish their place as   the most coveted of all the luxuries, before SFS, Ming China, or even silver. (Historically, also suits were once a major luxury, carriages perhaps never reached their full potential, horses are just now on the rise).

CKG is up 51% since April Fools' Day. There is a new FOC in town, who scooped up some gold. When the account had some m left after CKG and CON buys, I was thinking what would be the next simplest guaranteed investment with actual potential. Since anything involving management is out of question, J-Corp is now seeking to buy gems and tickets to them. Fwiw.

The earliest time any gems come to existence is Nov 1637 (63*TOP, 50*EME). Prospective buyers are exhorted to have bids in place to ensure that the NPCC sales happen fairly.

Lot trade opens with the new market UI

Navigate yourselves to Agora Marketplace -> Land. There you will see a listing of all the boroughs and by clicking them, all the lots in the borough with their essential statistics. This will allow sorting for instance by price per sqm, a nice feature indeed.


To quickly populate the Lots Ask/Bid market, during the following days starting from now, King will give item prizes to the highest bidder or the (lowest) ask of a random lot. Listing everything you can for sale, and especially placing the highest bid promptly, you have the best chance to help the liquidity of the game and earn your share of the prizes worth 100+ mil. Also legitimate lot trades are eligible to win prizes!

NewCorp will be listing 50 lots for sale soon, and is also considering to add the mortgage values (50% of estimated fair price) of all the lots in the game as bids, in partnership with the Bank.

Jubilee to the Dead Ancients

We are sorry for the ancients that have died and not chosen to start a new character due to the early stage of the game development which requires pioneering spirit and dedication.

The game is now better than ever, both technically, and in fun aspect, and number of players, and economically, so to celebrate the Coronation in 1640, the following proclamation is made:

We are moving to Clans, which subordinates a Player Character to a larger entity called Clan, which is the complete extent of the player's empire and economy. This will allow richer gameplay with less mandatory micromanagement (optional micromanagement is endless, for those who enjoy ).

If you re-join the game with a new character now (it is possible in any age in the registration), and prove reasonably that you were the owner of a dead and withdrawn historical character, you will get the following:

- Your clan_id will be reset to the most ancient char_id you possessed
- Your level will be promoted to the highest level possessed by the ancestor
- The anciety of the clan will be counted from the patriarch.
- Nobles are eligible to be present at the Coronation, with lavish benefits (and quite a few requirements)

In return, I ask nothing. With the wish of course that the character would be loaded with the amount of wealth suiting its history and level and allowing the preferred playstyle.

Re-organization of the Royal Household

During the first years of my reign, the matters of the state were in disrepair for a short moment. Even though the end of our sagacious father's reign was reasonably well announced by him in every one of his last 25 years, it still was a shock to lose a father who had been the guiding star of the family and beyond, during all my life of nearly 200 years (in fact I am 200 years just now, but that is of no consequence to anything since reigning monarchs count their reign, and I am counting hours to the coronation in summer 1640).

The Royal Household is/will be a testbed for the new Clans core module. All possessions by the characters owned by me (late King, Zech, Ezekiel) will be swept to "1", which will be/remain as the account of the House of rpietila, the current royal house. Health permitting, I have no plans for abdication before the game has reached major success. This does not, however, mean that the crown is forever destined to be on the locks of the head of the house of rpietila. The coming game modules allow independent kingdoms, and Crypto Kingdom will be possible to be couped as well. Even a peaceful transition is not out of the question. (It is not for a joke that the peers need to make coronets, they are nice to have "just in case"

Periodically I will evaluate if someone has more resources to reign than I do. Last time this was conducted was in 1608, the year I was appointed the heir to the throne, but others were considered as well. The King's role is full time, which rules out most candidates. Unlike the recent full-time admin appoint, which fell on an outsider, becoming King requires an extensive ingame track record. Furthermore, it is not a paid post, and the subjects have become so spoilt of our eminent father's lavish gifts that they no doubt expect the horn of plenty to continue pouring its blessings during the coming eras as well. To offset the costs, certain benefits are present of course.

Unlike our virtuous father, I do not have the faculty to convene with beings in the other domains. I paid a visit to Zenon, who can act as a mediator. He was in a physically good shape but sorrowfully delayed in his quest for the Medicine of Youth (SW4). Finances were the main grievance, since the project requires 10,000*SCI and the considerable amount of raw material for a larger batch than before. Zenon's economy was also merged in the Crown to boost the project. 

RWWC is seeking Managing Director. The 3 factories can produce a number of things. Workforce needs to be managed (150*WP). Allocation of production, marketing, and listing of production. Scientific research (bigger cannons). Financial management, distribution of dividends. The post is very important. 10 mil annual salary.

The Town Hall has divested its plans to be a brewery. There is still the last possibility to consolidate the brewing business to it (by acquiring the 2 licenses from the crown that can be negotiated to end up with 3 total). This requires that we get a Managing Director whose salary is 5 mil, to operate the day-to-day brewing and Town Hall Corp investments.

The Bank will soon be able to open its services better. This requires some new features to the game such as enforceable mortgage, but these are not development-heavy, they are design-heavy, and I have now more time for designing than ever since the launch, thanks to the faithful minister Rakshasa. Bank will be able to offer the mortgage value to any lot, and tapping into it will be possible from the lot view, click-of-a-button. Loans will have annual payments. To handle the loan portfolio and spot and prosecute delinquencies, skilled human labor is needed and Bank is also looking for a CEO (10 million).

The listing view interface for land trade is under rehaul and will be launched today. It is possible to search land by borough, see the best bid and ask for each lot in a listing view, which also shows the essential stats of the lot directly without going to Lot details.

RAF-2 tickets are still finding their price - currently at 8,750/6,000. The average price by which the aggregate NPCC allocation gets sold, will be used as the basis of their allowance deduction so the selling is competitive and fun. Others - Put up your bids!