hope these could be added to the guides
Trade:
Increasing/decreasing price of the goods causes your trading partner to be unhappy/happier. the change in mood works for both way and is related to change in absolute value of price rather than percentage.
it appears that the formula for favour change when changing price is:
favour increase=⌊price decrease from imperial standard price or current price, whichever is lower/3.75⌋
favour decrease=⌊price increase/2.5⌋
so u can probably sneakily increase your price 2 at a time without incurring penalty. they dun feel gratitude when u decide to overcharge them less
trading partner changes in favour in response to change in trading price rather than ability to buy at the price. hence, any favour change in one-off. hence, u can sell one item simply to get the favour boost and price decrease and not sell anymore yet maintaining the advantage.
the increase/decrease of selling price of partner is normally symmetrical to the increase/decrease of your selling price. ie, u increase/decrease a good by 1 cash, he will decrease/increase the selling price of one his good by 1 too, if ever. however, once the trading partner selling price hit the hard price floor(1)/ceiling(about 2.2X of imperial price?) the symmetry may disappear. ie, further reduction/increase does not result in any change. this lead to the changes not being entirely reversible.
for example:
u decrease your silk price from 225 to 1, he is likely to decrease his one of his goods, say weapon to 1 too. but when u increase your silk back to 225, the weapon is likely to cost 225 now.
the price of each good u are selling can be pegged to the price of different good you can buy from the same partner.
there may also be the case whereby the price is spillover to other goods.
there is a tendency where trading partner doesnt react to you decreasing your price, yet increasing his selling price when u do. this tends to happen to foreign traders. taking notes of all above mention points, Kashgar is a nice trading partner to extort money from provided he doesnt increase the price of jade for the goods u increased.
there is memory effect in trading prices for the duration of the campaign.
for example: i used to be able to buy silk from Chang'an at 101 cash in An Agricultural Community. when i return to Chang'an at A Palace for Xuansong, the selling price for silk to Lanzhou is 101.
if u buy all the goods from the trader(8 for caravan, 12 for ship), and then sell him one of each of the goods u hold in the station/dock at previous price, then u can increase the selling price to the max without getting rejected(red). this new selling price will then get accepted by the rest of the traders from that partner.
Mencius boost 30% of the blessed trade venue, rather than 33%. mint/money maker boost slightly less than 4%. eg, 225 net u 8 extra cash while 226 will give u 9 extra cash. Mencius boost will also stack with mint boost. ie, trade price*130%*104%
Military:
if the formula of damage dealt=attack-armour
Infantry appears to be the best fort for direct confrontation. they got the highest combined hitpoint. they got the twice the number of horseman to compensate for its slightly weaker melee attack. melee appears to attack faster than ranged and their higher respective attack value results in far higher damage compared to ranged after factoring in armour.
Chariot will be comparable to infantry if not for being obsolete.
Catapults appears to have an advantage in invading walled cities. 2 full fort of catapults achieved what 2 forts of infantry/horseman couldnt do.
Missiles are difficult to hit unless the target is stationary. hence, hostile shots can easily be dodged by moving your units provided they are still willing to move. missiles are also likely to damage single target rather than AOE(area of effect). i dun see more than 1 unit dying from a catapult shot .
your army starts advancing towards your target the moment you decided to launch the invasion. they may appear to be moving on your city map, but they are already moving on the empire. so there is no need to build forts too near to the exit point. however, the attack will not commence until all your assigned units have left the map, so do not put the forts too far behind from the exit point either.
hunter's tent is better than guardtower since u can have 3 hunter while guard tower generate up to 2. hunter also has stronger stats. hunter's tent also has no risk of fire/damage
residential gates appears to have high attack priority for enemies. provided they are placed before the invasion forces appear, they are a cheap distraction for u to buy time.
a gatehouse on its own will need an extra tile of road for it to get labour. however, if any wall fortification are joined to another wall fortification, they do not need road nor gatehouse.
Enemy units are able to pass through water and rocks, but they can be blocked by cliffs {not 100% sure} walls and gatehouse if u manage to build them after the enemy appear. the enemy might find their pathing blocked and hence not move, but this must be used provided they are trapped by cliff or they will simply move across other obstacles or along the side of the map.
Hero/Homage:
a hero disappears the following month if he ended the current month with at most the lowest possible level for content. that being said, if u do a cheap offering, ie small offering of food, he will still stay till next month. this might be a cheaper way of keep hero in city
blessing reduces a hero happiness but they continue to bless at any level. a non-ancestral hero doesnt drop below content. hence, u can abuse hero by getting them to bless as many things as possible within a month, and end it with an offering to keep the hero in the city for more blessings next month.
a hero happiness appears to have a cap. it doesnt appear in city yet remaining exalted for more than 6 months. a medium offering of wares/silk/carved jade should be able to boost a hero from content to near the cap given good coverage and harmonious balance.
a hero not appearing in city happiness decay at about 1/3 that of appearing in city, after factoring the finding overhere
according tohere, one happy ancestral hero is enough
Diplomacy:
{not sure}a hostile to be enemy, those that usually acquired at the beginning of a new map at very hard difficulty, starts executing/refusing your emissary about 3-4 months into the game, take the window of opportunity before that to boost your favour or prepare for a conflict.
{not sure}an invasion is usually launched 1 year ago, with u receiving the notification only 6 months before the invasion unless you have a spy. i concluded this after a made a hostile rival vassal yet his army can still invade me.
allies doesnt invade you. rivals can invade u. vassals normally cant, but a scripted attack can still come from vassal. it might be wise to ally a known enemy rather than conquering him.
the amount of goods a city will pay for tribute:
4/8/12 for 12/24/36 of the goods the city is willing to sell
2/3/4/5 for harsh level of the goods given the city has a coin rating of 1/2/3/4
levying a mild tribute on your attack appears to have higher chance of succeeding, yet with seemingly no penalty for increasing the tribute after u conquered.
to appear as a walled city on the empire map, u need 100 defence points.
Each wall gives 1 point
Each tower gives 4 points
Each gatehouse gives 15 points
when u walled a city and proceed to a different city in the same campaign, the previous city will appear walled too. conversely, if u finished the previous city without walled, it will show as without walls.
the shields are calculated by by the number of forts with at least a unit. the first shield is obtained by having 1 fort with unit. subsequent shield is obtained by having 2 more forts with unit
Spies:
enemy spies can appear from mothballed building. they dun appear in the overlay containing the character they are disguising as, but they do provide the coverage.
if one has separated the housing and industrial function, especially in disconnected area, consider walling/combining with ditches to narrow the crossing between these 2 areas and then patrol heavily with guardtowers to capture spies crossing from the housing area into the industrial area.
when spies steal goods, they also appear at the same time to sabotage the building by increasing its fire and damage risk.
Desirability:
Only aesthetic buildings i considered are:
grand and imperial way: they are real estate efficient when they are able to make the road emanate positive desirability. also helps to increase the number of builldings u can put in a loop. also good for feng shui freak to put their building slightly further away from the loop just for the feng shui, yet not increasing the loop size.
residental wall: just one near undesirable building is sufficient to remove all negative desirability except for adjacent tile
residential gate: a residential wall combined with road block yet at the same price of road block
1X1 statue:they are the best 1 tile building to boost desirability
2X2 statue: they are the best when u need to boost desirability at 4 tiles range, something that 1X1 statue cant do. however, they are weaker compared to 1X1 statue at boost desirability closer
in my opinion, statues rather than flowering trees should appear in thedesirability tables
Farms:
similar to what the archive of history has suggested, food and hemp farm are optimal with maximum field, while silk/lacquer/tea work best with about 1/2 the maximum possible area as field
irrigation appears to boost the output of the farm at harvest than during growth period. hence, theres no hurry to staff the pump in the early months.
ditches are counted as impassable terrain too, so an area enclosed by ditches without bridges do not get access to the labour pool. also, build bridges across ditches if they
are separating parts of your field from the rest to avoid the worker walking big rounds.
Housing:
as mentioned by others in the archives, build your worker housing loop near the entrance so that immigrants are housed at the earliest possible moment and will start working earlier.
Somehow, after a shelter has evolved, the additional immigrant will always hit the housing limit of 7 before increasing further.eg, the first family populated the shelter to 6 population, but after the house has evolved to hut and even beyond, the next family that arrive, will consistently populate the house to 7, increasing merely by 1, regardless of popularity and etc.
Food for thought:
not all missions requires evolved housing. why not just build Hut and spend the rest of the initial labour towards achieving the mission goal?
It will be interesting to know:
how long does it take for army/emissary/spy to travel? what are the factors involved?spies and emissaries appears to only start traveling on the empire map after they exited the city map.
Trade:
Increasing/decreasing price of the goods causes your trading partner to be unhappy/happier. the change in mood works for both way and is related to change in absolute value of price rather than percentage.
it appears that the formula for favour change when changing price is:
favour increase=⌊
favour decrease=⌊
so u can probably sneakily increase your price 2 at a time without incurring penalty. they dun feel gratitude when u decide to overcharge them less
trading partner changes in favour in response to change in trading price rather than ability to buy at the price. hence, any favour change in one-off. hence, u can sell one item simply to get the favour boost and price decrease and not sell anymore yet maintaining the advantage.
the increase/decrease of selling price of partner is normally symmetrical to the increase/decrease of your selling price. ie, u increase/decrease a good by 1 cash, he will decrease/increase the selling price of one his good by 1 too, if ever. however, once the trading partner selling price hit the hard price floor(1)/ceiling(about 2.2X of imperial price?) the symmetry may disappear. ie, further reduction/increase does not result in any change. this lead to the changes not being entirely reversible.
for example:
u decrease your silk price from 225 to 1, he is likely to decrease his one of his goods, say weapon to 1 too. but when u increase your silk back to 225, the weapon is likely to cost 225 now.
the price of each good u are selling can be pegged to the price of different good you can buy from the same partner.
there may also be the case whereby the price is spillover to other goods.
there is a tendency where trading partner doesnt react to you decreasing your price, yet increasing his selling price when u do. this tends to happen to foreign traders. taking notes of all above mention points, Kashgar is a nice trading partner to extort money from provided he doesnt increase the price of jade for the goods u increased.
there is memory effect in trading prices for the duration of the campaign.
for example: i used to be able to buy silk from Chang'an at 101 cash in An Agricultural Community. when i return to Chang'an at A Palace for Xuansong, the selling price for silk to Lanzhou is 101.
if u buy all the goods from the trader(8 for caravan, 12 for ship), and then sell him one of each of the goods u hold in the station/dock at previous price, then u can increase the selling price to the max without getting rejected(red). this new selling price will then get accepted by the rest of the traders from that partner.
Mencius boost 30% of the blessed trade venue, rather than 33%. mint/money maker boost slightly less than 4%. eg, 225 net u 8 extra cash while 226 will give u 9 extra cash. Mencius boost will also stack with mint boost. ie, trade price*130%*104%
Military:
if the formula of damage dealt=attack-armour
Infantry appears to be the best fort for direct confrontation. they got the highest combined hitpoint. they got the twice the number of horseman to compensate for its slightly weaker melee attack. melee appears to attack faster than ranged and their higher respective attack value results in far higher damage compared to ranged after factoring in armour.
Chariot will be comparable to infantry if not for being obsolete.
Catapults appears to have an advantage in invading walled cities. 2 full fort of catapults achieved what 2 forts of infantry/horseman couldnt do.
Missiles are difficult to hit unless the target is stationary. hence, hostile shots can easily be dodged by moving your units provided they are still willing to move. missiles are also likely to damage single target rather than AOE(area of effect). i dun see more than 1 unit dying from a catapult shot .
your army starts advancing towards your target the moment you decided to launch the invasion. they may appear to be moving on your city map, but they are already moving on the empire. so there is no need to build forts too near to the exit point. however, the attack will not commence until all your assigned units have left the map, so do not put the forts too far behind from the exit point either.
hunter's tent is better than guardtower since u can have 3 hunter while guard tower generate up to 2. hunter also has stronger stats. hunter's tent also has no risk of fire/damage
residential gates appears to have high attack priority for enemies. provided they are placed before the invasion forces appear, they are a cheap distraction for u to buy time.
a gatehouse on its own will need an extra tile of road for it to get labour. however, if any wall fortification are joined to another wall fortification, they do not need road nor gatehouse.
Enemy units are able to pass through water and rocks, but they can be blocked by cliffs {not 100% sure} walls and gatehouse if u manage to build them after the enemy appear. the enemy might find their pathing blocked and hence not move, but this must be used provided they are trapped by cliff or they will simply move across other obstacles or along the side of the map.
Hero/Homage:
a hero disappears the following month if he ended the current month with at most the lowest possible level for content. that being said, if u do a cheap offering, ie small offering of food, he will still stay till next month. this might be a cheaper way of keep hero in city
blessing reduces a hero happiness but they continue to bless at any level. a non-ancestral hero doesnt drop below content. hence, u can abuse hero by getting them to bless as many things as possible within a month, and end it with an offering to keep the hero in the city for more blessings next month.
a hero happiness appears to have a cap. it doesnt appear in city yet remaining exalted for more than 6 months. a medium offering of wares/silk/carved jade should be able to boost a hero from content to near the cap given good coverage and harmonious balance.
a hero not appearing in city happiness decay at about 1/3 that of appearing in city, after factoring the finding over
according to
Diplomacy:
{not sure}a hostile to be enemy, those that usually acquired at the beginning of a new map at very hard difficulty, starts executing/refusing your emissary about 3-4 months into the game, take the window of opportunity before that to boost your favour or prepare for a conflict.
{not sure}an invasion is usually launched 1 year ago, with u receiving the notification only 6 months before the invasion unless you have a spy. i concluded this after a made a hostile rival vassal yet his army can still invade me.
allies doesnt invade you. rivals can invade u. vassals normally cant, but a scripted attack can still come from vassal. it might be wise to ally a known enemy rather than conquering him.
the amount of goods a city will pay for tribute:
4/8/12 for 12/24/36 of the goods the city is willing to sell
2/3/4/5 for harsh level of the goods given the city has a coin rating of 1/2/3/4
levying a mild tribute on your attack appears to have higher chance of succeeding, yet with seemingly no penalty for increasing the tribute after u conquered.
to appear as a walled city on the empire map, u need 100 defence points.
Each wall gives 1 point
Each tower gives 4 points
Each gatehouse gives 15 points
when u walled a city and proceed to a different city in the same campaign, the previous city will appear walled too. conversely, if u finished the previous city without walled, it will show as without walls.
the shields are calculated by by the number of forts with at least a unit. the first shield is obtained by having 1 fort with unit. subsequent shield is obtained by having 2 more forts with unit
Spies:
enemy spies can appear from mothballed building. they dun appear in the overlay containing the character they are disguising as, but they do provide the coverage.
if one has separated the housing and industrial function, especially in disconnected area, consider walling/combining with ditches to narrow the crossing between these 2 areas and then patrol heavily with guardtowers to capture spies crossing from the housing area into the industrial area.
when spies steal goods, they also appear at the same time to sabotage the building by increasing its fire and damage risk.
Desirability:
Only aesthetic buildings i considered are:
grand and imperial way: they are real estate efficient when they are able to make the road emanate positive desirability. also helps to increase the number of builldings u can put in a loop. also good for feng shui freak to put their building slightly further away from the loop just for the feng shui, yet not increasing the loop size.
residental wall: just one near undesirable building is sufficient to remove all negative desirability except for adjacent tile
residential gate: a residential wall combined with road block yet at the same price of road block
1X1 statue:they are the best 1 tile building to boost desirability
2X2 statue: they are the best when u need to boost desirability at 4 tiles range, something that 1X1 statue cant do. however, they are weaker compared to 1X1 statue at boost desirability closer
in my opinion, statues rather than flowering trees should appear in the
Farms:
similar to what the archive of history has suggested, food and hemp farm are optimal with maximum field, while silk/lacquer/tea work best with about 1/2 the maximum possible area as field
irrigation appears to boost the output of the farm at harvest than during growth period. hence, theres no hurry to staff the pump in the early months.
ditches are counted as impassable terrain too, so an area enclosed by ditches without bridges do not get access to the labour pool. also, build bridges across ditches if they
are separating parts of your field from the rest to avoid the worker walking big rounds.
Housing:
as mentioned by others in the archives, build your worker housing loop near the entrance so that immigrants are housed at the earliest possible moment and will start working earlier.
Somehow, after a shelter has evolved, the additional immigrant will always hit the housing limit of 7 before increasing further.eg, the first family populated the shelter to 6 population, but after the house has evolved to hut and even beyond, the next family that arrive, will consistently populate the house to 7, increasing merely by 1, regardless of popularity and etc.
Food for thought:
not all missions requires evolved housing. why not just build Hut and spend the rest of the initial labour towards achieving the mission goal?
It will be interesting to know:
how long does it take for army/emissary/spy to travel? what are the factors involved?spies and emissaries appears to only start traveling on the empire map after they exited the city map.
[This message has been edited by Blizstorm (edited 03-27-2010 @ 00:37 AM).]