anyone know which cities produce stone

[stoneself]

it might be useful to play games in those cities, if you're playing outside of emerald city.

stoneself

[nat268]

According to the map and the history of bsw http://www.brettspielwelt.de/en/Staedte/Weltkarte.html, those cities located along the yellow belt are suppose to have an abundance in stone. I would recommend trying such cities as NightOwlsHome(C2), Clantobia(C9), Reality-Town(C34), or Matrix(C5), who are all located near that belt.

Towns in the far north are suppose to produce a lot of ore. These are also valuable resources to trade at the moment, so earning that resource would also be good.

Cheers,
nat268  

[Alexfrog]

Keep in mind that it is still better to play in EC if possible, over another city.  Keeping the EC gamerooms in use is the key to us getting lots of resources, because the gameroom gets the resources half the time!

If you play 6 3-player PR games in EC, with 2 out-of-towners, our city will get the recources 4 times on average, for a total of 32 resources.  (On average, about 3.2 stone, 7.2 wool, 7.2 food, 14.4 wood, according to Garnetts calculation of EC producing 10% stone, 22.5% food/wool, 45% wood

The food and wool are both good for selling, as their prices are pretty good.

Playing in a stone producing town, say 45% stone producing, 6 3-player games of PR with 2-out-of-towners, would yield you the resources once on average, for 8 resources:  3.6 Stone, 4.4 others.

Comparing between 3 EC players in each game, playing in EC gives 48 resources: 4.8 Stone, 10.8 Wool, 10.8 Food, 21.6 Wood.  In another town (stone producing) you'll get resources about 3 times, for 24 resources: 10.8 Stone, 11.2 others.  Assuming the best case that none of those others was wood, then while this nets you 6 stone, you lose out on 10.4 Wool/Food, and 21.6 Wood, which is worth at least as much as the 6 stone, and undoubtedly more.

So playing in EC is best!  Of course, if EC doesnt have the appropriate gameroom, or all the ones in EC are full (not likely for PR!), then a stone town is of course the next best thing.

[HerrGoetze]

If you have a group of 4 EC players, is it better for them to play one game in EC or to participate in 4 different games outsize of EC? I think it's the latter, but I didn't do the math.

[Alexfrog]

If you have 4 EC players, and they play in one game in EC, you get 100% of the resources generated.  (SO playing 16 games, you'll get it 16 times...say, for a round of Doko)

If those 4 players play in other cities (the same or different), you'll get 50% of the resources you would before, if playing the same game.

However, If 1 of those players plays in EC with 3 out-of-towners, and the other 3 ECers play in other towns, it will be 'equivalent', to all playing in the EC room, and that in fact will be the same as if 4 ARMfelders play in EC while the 4 ECers play somewhere else.

Basically, there are 2 separate things which are important:  Occupation of the EC gamerooms, and activity of the EC players.  An active gameroom receives 50% of the resources generated by games in it, so keeping EC gamerooms occupied is very important!  (It doesnt have to be by EC players, but usually it requires at least 1 or 2 ECers to get the game to be played there)  

THe other factor is EC players playing games...anywhere.  AS long as the EC gamerooms are staying active, it doesnt matter where the EC players play.  But if an EC gameroom is inactive, then it is far better for an EC player to start a game there (with anyone, EC or not), than to go play in another city.

That make sense?  Basically, you want to keep the EC gamerooms as active as possible, and the EC players play as many games as possible, but the most important is to keep our gamerooms active!  Even if its not us playing in them!  Because that gets 50% of the resources.  The player will get the resources for their city 1 in 6 times for a 3 player, 1 in 8 for a 4 player, etc.

[nat268]

Thanks Alex for providing us with that explanation.

The way resources are distributed at the end of a game is this:

50% chance - 100% of earned resources goes to the host city
50% chance - 100% will go to one of the player's cities

http://www.brettspielwelt.de/en/Staedte/Rohstoffe.html

This means that if one EC player joins a 4p PR game outside of EC, there's a 12.5% chance all 12 resources (4 x (# of players - 1) since PR has a multiplier of 4) earned will be given to EC. 100% of the talers earned goes to the host city.

See RichardT's entry in ET's bulletin for more information on multipliers:
http://www.brettspielwelt.de/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=EnglishTown;action=display;num=1030501721

If an EC player starts a 4p PR game in EC, we would have 62.5% chance of getting all 12 resources. With each additional EC player in the game, our chance of distribution increases by 12.5%. In addition, we would earn 16 talers (# of players x 4) from the game.

Alexfrog's calculation above of what happens when 1 EC'er starts a game with 3 out-of-town players, while the other 3 EC'ers play in other towns is correct (62.5% + 12.5% + 12.5% + 12.5% = 100%). The only word of caution here is that there is also a possibility of getting no resources at all!!!

If 4 EC players play in different 4p PR games out of town, our chances of winning the resources earned would still be 12.5% for each game. This means that if we're lucky, we could earn 100% from all 4 games or 48 resources. If we're unlucky, we get none. On average, we should get 50% or 24 resources.

There's no "best" answer to your question since we have a chance of earning more resources by playing in 4 different game rooms but this would depend on whether there are sufficient players online to support the games. On the other hand, we have a definite chance of earning all resources if all 4 EC players played the game in town.

Cheers,
nat268

[Esterio]

What makes things even more difficult to evaluate is the fact that we may get different resources depending on the place we play.

Just a few thoughts: if we have 4 EC players wanting to play PR, is it better for them to play together in EC or in a stone-producing city? A 4-player PR game produces 12 resources.

In EC: EC earns resources with 100% probability. These resources are wood (50%) or food/wool (50%). They can be sold for 30€ (wood) or 80€ (food/wool), getting an average income of 6*30+6*80 = 660€, as well as 16 additional talers for the game being held in EC. Total: about 675€, which is worth about 5.5 stone.

In a stone-producing city: EC earns resources with only 50% probability. These resources are stone (50%), wood (25%) or food/wool/ore (25%). If it is stone, we get 12 of them. If it is wood, we can sell it for 12*30 = 360€, which is about 3 stone. If it is something else, we can sell it for 12*80 = 960€, which is about 8 stone. In average, we get about 9 stone worth of resources, if EC gets resources for this game, which happens once in two games. That is about 4.5 stone per game.

Conclusion: it it slighly (about 20%) better to play in EC to get resources to sell than to play in a stone-producing city. I have the feeling it is even more true when some of the players are not from EC.

What makes it even better is the fact we aren't sure about any city producing stone with about 50% probability, and we wouldn't want to get wood outside EC when we could get more wood in EC (even if it is only wood).

However, the more we sell wood/food/wool, the less we can sell them for. Hopefully, some cities will have to buy food and possibly wool as the end of the month is coming, but I'm not sure we will see the wood prices rise a lot.

Another question I was thinking about is: should we buy stone once we have reached 1000 tools and met our cloth requirements, or wait some more until we accumulate some more stone by playing, and earn other resources even if it delays the building of the town hall some more?

What do you think?

Esterio

PS: I will probably not have much time to connect until Sunday , but I should be there next week

[Nikita]

If you wonder which town produce what you might do good in order a copy of YELL. There is a table published saying what the different towns produce.

I don't think you will find any town that produce 50% stone though....

Anther thing is that it is totaly impossible for a town to calculate the correct production % because of out of town play. ET make 33% stone in general, but I think that if we played all our games in ET it could rise as high as 40%

Never expect wood prices to rise...

-Nikita
Mayor of ET

[Esterio]

If you wonder which town produce what you might do good in order a copy of YELL. There is a table published saying what the different towns produce.

I probably overlooked the information about YELL if I ever read it. How do you get it?

Another thing is that it is totaly impossible for a town to calculate the correct production % because of out of town play. ET make 33% stone in general, but I think that if we played all our games in ET it could rise as high as 40%

Quite true. It should be somewhat easier to compute for EC as there are less citizens than in ET, but still quite difficult. That's why I used 50% wood, 25% food and 25% wool as an approximation, although we probably get some stone too (as we seem to get slightly more stone than ore - or maybe our outside games mainly take place in stone rather than ore-cities?).

Never expect wood prices to rise...

Unless they introduce a tax on wood for heating in winter months, who knows?

Thanks for your answer, Nikita,

Esterio

[Alexfrog]

EC DOES produce some stone, it seems to be about 10%.

According to Garnett, our production is:  Stone: 10%, Wood: 45%, Food and Wool: 22.5%

This seems accurate to what I have observed.


About producing, and whether its better to play in EC:

Consider:

4 ARMfelders playing PR in EC is equivalent to 4 ECers playing games in other cities which produce similarly to EC.  (Maybe thats equivalent to 3 ECers playing in a city producing lots of stone (around 40% is probably lots)

Having our EC gamerooms occupied is the important thing.  Think of it this way:  If 4 ECers want to play PR, and they play PR in EC, in 1 room, we get 12 resources.  If they get 4 ARMfelders to come play, and play 2 4-player games, using both our rooms, we get 75% chance of resources for each, or 2*.75*12 = 18 resources on average!  The key is to occupy all the EC gameroms as much as possible.  This is far more important than having EC players actually playing, because it gives 50% of the resource chance, while the player is 50% divided by the # of players.

Of course, in order to get games played in EC, it usually requires having an EC player or two play it.



About the probablities of getting resources:
I consider 4 25% chances at a resource equivalent to 1 of that resource, because over time, all the probabilities will average out.  When thousands of games are played in the town, over time, you'll get very close to the average of what you would expect to get in terms of resources.  Just because the city got or didnt get the resources from an individual game isnt very important, the key is that over time, the averages will work out.

So priorities are:

1st priority: Keep as many EC gamerooms occupied as often as possible, by anybody (doesnt matter who, could be all ARMfelders.  If so, they are just working for us )

2nd priority: Have ECers play as many games as possible, anywhere (doesnt really matter where, but in stone producing cities is better than not.  Remember EC at least produces that 10% stone, and the 22.5% wool and food arent bad either)

Of course, achieving priority 1 often requires you to play in EC, to make sure the game is set up there.  If all of the ECgamerooms are in use (for the game you want to play), then playing somewhere else is fine, and choosing a heavy stone city is good.  But if the EC gameroom is not occupied, playing there is MUCH better!

Hope that makes sense...

[nat268]

I've located the ordering information for YELL and have placed an order. Once I receive this publication, I will share the information with the rest of you.

Cheers,
nat268

[schnuff]

A lot of interesting strategic aspects, especially for someone like me who likes probability calculation anyway!

I'd like to add 2 non-strategic views that could turn out to be of some strategic importance as well...

priority 1A: have fun!
priority 1B: play with people you like!

Sounds foolish?  

I think if people get to know/like players from EC there could be some profit to fill our gamerooms.

Enjoy what your doing, win friends and you wont have to fear that EC will be deserted anytime soon.

I for one will always try to start a game in EC but if I'm playing anywhere else its not the town but the people with whom I can play that decide it for me.

[Alexfrog]

Absolutely I agree with this...

There is no point to the rest of it if you dont have fun and play with people you like

As you note, making friends will also contribute to the long term growth/benefit of EC, and more importantly, to our enjoyment of BSW.


The rest of this was simply determining what would probabilistically be the best place to play any given game, in terms of resources gained.  When you must choose between this and having fun/playing with whom you want, then fun must of course come first! (This is a game, after all

I also think its fun to calculate probabilities, and to play the "meta-game" of BSW, which is itself another game to play, encompassing all of the other games.  Thats what I think of all this as...another game to be played on BSW, one which is long term, resource based, and massively multiplayer interactive...just my favorite type...so I want to figure out how to play it most effectively, that is, how to gain the most resources/build the correct buildings and all.  

Its really cool that it is a 'city' of people contributing together, as a team, to this development, which is my favorite aspect of it all.  One person cannot do it all, but everyones help makes a difference (especially in a small town!)

Other massively multiplayer games, such as Everquest, Diablo2, etc, do not have this same "team" aspect, they allow only individual achievements (for the most part).

Nothing in those games is comparable to the building of a town hall...a project which sustaines the efforts of a couple dozen people over a several month period!


However, this 'game' does have the drawback that it is somewhat limited...I think there should be a lot more large, advanced buildings such as Town Hall/Guild Hall/Weaving Mill/Forge.  But we are just at the beginning of the time on BSW using resources, so who knows what the future will bring!


I play this 'meta'-game of BSW as yet another game of the BSW, alongside PR, Tichu, Doko, and all the rest.
And I think looking at it like that makes it a lot of fun  

Now how can we lobby them to create a wood tax in the winter.... hehe

Have fun everyone! And watch our town grow...

[stoneself]

 

i still didn't get an answer...

but my comment was _if_ you were playing outside of ec, it would be useful to know which cities produce stone to increase the probability of getting stone.  _if_ you're playing outside of ec.

[Nikita]

Well, as I responded earlier, we have no stone problems in ET. It will surprise me if there are towns that have a higher stone production ratio than what we have.

-Nikita