Ciao to all forum members. This happens in my italian version 1.1: I give myself a 100 deben wage from january to november, so I get 1100 deben. In december I give myself a zero deben wage. The result is: I gain 1 reign point, I have enough money to send a modest gift and gain other 3 reign points, I can give the rest to the city to improve the city balance. Is it an already known bug?
Author
Replies:
Seneca Pleb
posted 09-05-00 08:29
ET (US)
1 / 5
Hi Alberto, hah, for the first time I can welcome a new member at the forums myself! Hope you enjoy your stay!
Yes, this "wage bug" is a known feature of the game. Several ratings are only calculated at certain moments (some yearly, some quarterly) in the game and you can do what you want the rest of the time. Your wage pattern is even recommended by swillwater to get the money necessary for gifts to cope with the "Iunet bug" in v1.1 (Search the archives for more information on this.)
While obviously every strategy which is covered by the rules is fair play - if I remember well, this one is perfectly consistent with the Pharaolympics rules - I personally don't like it, since I'm looking for cities who behave themselves under given constant parameters without any micromanaging. This meant I had a much harder time in Iunet. On the other hand, I was much more proud when I finally managed the level in spite of the bug I'm getting off topic, just a last thank you to swillwater and Mentuemhat for their tips.
But that's my personal opinion and nobody will consider you a cheater because you use this feature of the game.
Yours,
RobKid Pleb
posted 09-05-00 09:38
ET (US)
2 / 5
Remember, your salary comes out of the city treasury, so giving it back doesn't increase the city funds, just sends the money back where it came from.
Baltic Pleb
posted 09-05-00 10:05
ET (US)
3 / 5
Ciao, Alberto! Come va? (no, I don't speak Italian.. just a few words ) Yes, this is known feature (I wouldn't say it is a bug, because this is how it was programmed - that you can use it to your advantage is another thing).
As RobKid said, giving the salary to city at the end of year is precisely the same as not drawing any salary. There is no difference between these two things. So, what I'm doing when I need to boost Kingdom rating quickly is, that I set my salary to Pharaoh for 2 months, and then to 0 again. At the end of 2 months I have 200 Deben, which precisely allows the greatest gift (you can't send it if you have less than 200) and this results in 10 point increase.
If you play some mission where you already know that in the next years you will have financial problems (e.g. because your export trade route will close) and don't want to lose prosperity/slow down prosperity growth rate, then you can accumulate money from your salary over a few years, and then when your city needs it set your salary to 0 and give some of the money back to keep the year's balance positive. This is different from repaying the salary in the same year, and it can help to finish the mission quicker... although thanks to quick prosperity growth it isn't as essential as it was in Caesar, where the maximum prosperity increase was 10 points per year.
Cherub Baltic
Alberto Z Pleb
posted 09-06-00 03:08
ET (US)
4 / 5
To Seneca: You are right, the better thing to do is to ignore this feature. Otherwise, Reign points are no more a challenge and no more fun.
To RobKid: I didn't notice that my salary was paid by the City. After all the Pharaoh is not as stupid as I thought!
To Baltic: non va malaccio, e tu? (A good 10 points for only 200 deben, it's too much!).
To all: Thank You.
Baltic Pleb
posted 09-06-00 05:41
ET (US)
5 / 5
Alberto: Bene . BTW, I didn't use it much, too - you don't really need it in career missions (unless there is a bug like in Iunet). Complying to requests is mostly enough to achieve the needed rating in time (not having to wait for it long).
Seneca, yes, it was allowed in Pharaolympics, but only in missions where it made no big difference . Otherwise it wouldn't be interesting. Where Kingdom rating was an issue, Mansion was disabled and you couldn't get the point for lower salary or send any gifts. And where city funds played some role, Tax collectors were disabled to avoid the tax/sentiment loophole (taxes at 0% all the time, only at the end of month set to 25%).