Patrizierforum

Only countig the Population. Will reduce the result to buildingabilities. Early made mistakes can not be corrected later.

Maybe Time could be a factor to give a cance to the not turkish building people. Maybe the everage of population growth per year can be counted. So you are a bit independend from reaching max. People.

An other key is to add special points for reaching some Tragets.

If you eliminate the time factor and CV, it does not matter if you do MK 7 arbitrage, piracy or none of it. It's the end result that counts.
Counting employees is the same as counting population, it depends entirely on your building skills.
I just thought of an equalizer. If you build the right amount of everything you will be able to be self-sufficient. Now, with lack of staple goods, people will run away. Why not evaluate to what level you provide your Hanse with some key luxury goods without mports? I.e. count the percentage you produce furs, wine or pottery. If you cover 100%, you get 100 points. To allow for seasonal changes, look at the inventory on March 31st and determine production levels in by number of businesses x seasonal adjusted average output.
This would be an equalizer for the diferent building skills. If you only build blocks of 4, you have less people and need less businesses to reach the self-sufficiency level. Then it beomes a game of balanced production vs building.

I would never assign any points for beggars.
Let's stick with the example of furs and wine. Everybody has access to the tables that show the consumption for each good by society classes, beggars consume nothing. If you have 100,000 rich and 200,000 wealthy in your Hanse, you need:

• 2,100 furs for the rich and 2,100 furs for the waelthy =4,200furs ~ 546 hunting lodges
  
• 5,250 wine for the rich and 2,660 wine for the wealthy = 7,910. Now, the seasonally adjusted output for wine is 15.46 for 9 months and 7.73 for three months so a monthly average of 13.48; so you need ~1,0229 vinyards. All the supporting data are no secrets, they are all in the forum.

Yes, it will require fine-tunng at the end, but, as I said, it does not matter how you build, balanced production is what counts. A lack in staple goods has a direct impact on population, some goods have hardly any impact and then there are the luxury goods. And yes, a mint in every town would be required.

Well, I mentioned it earlier much time and will do so now again:

Only that things are important for the formula of points:

- number of total population
- number of rich people in the complete Hanse

Reasons:

In the game are much possibilitys to produce money. Examples are the Arbitrage, Levon´s Gold Nugget, Outrigger Trick. That means, that it is simple to make cash and so to make a high cv in the game beside normal trading and development of the Hanse.
That means, that all money values in the game are no scale for the skills of the players and also no scale for valuation. That´s because I won´t have any money inside the formula and valuation.
The alternative solution would be, that the named "tricks" are not allowed. In my eyes it is not practicable, because there are some difficulties to control the saves for the not allowed tricks (but not impossible). Also the interdiction of the tricks makes it in my eyes to difficult for rookies and the distance between better players and rookis will frustrate the rookie and maybe the number of players will be low (a thing we want not to have, I believe).
Also I will clear say, that only the good using of the made money shows the difference between good players and not so good one. So an interdiction is in my eyes useless.

I said, that the using of the made money is important. Well, question:

What shows for the best the good using of made money in the game?

The population! You can make miliions and millions with all the tricks, but if you don´t use the money in a good development of the Hanse, your population is low. A good development means also a profitable using, because if not, you make a fat minus! So the "how" of making money is not important, the using of money is important!
Some critics will say, that some players will make an extra poor Hanse to overdrill the population number. Well. that´s the reason why I will also have the rich part of the population by number inside the formula. So it´s not easy to make it!

I will also say, that the optimation of building is important. Builder won´t it, but why? Because it´s too difficult?
Well, we have a lot of tools to learn it in the forum and everyone can feel free to ask. I´m a dopey in that stuff and "turkish building" is unreachable for me. But I made some 6´and 8´blocks in the actual contest. That shows, everyone could do it and learn it!

Edit
I mentioned all that things earlier, before the contest 2006 was. The majority had an other meaning. So, I stand alone with my meaning and will maybe again. But thats ok.

Mandela: you know that I am all in favour of no time limit and points for population, exclusive of beggars, where each social class gets a different point value, i.e. 3 for rich, 2 for wealthy and 1 for poor.
Now, that still favours those who can build Turkish. The only eaulization is the balanced production evaluation and you can stop at any time. Your building abilities become tertiary, your planning becomes everything. Have the right mix and you get top marks, no matter if you have a popualtion of 300,000 or 3,000,000. Imports don't count!
You can even have different categories like those > 1,000,000, then 750.000 to 1,000,000 and 500,000 to 749,999 etc.

Well,

I know what you mean and I know / understand your standpoint.

Well, the "turkishbuilders" are by this formula of course in a better situation. But is it such a problem? I believe not, because only a handfull could it and this handfull is allways on the top of every contest in all cases.
Also a solution will be simple:
turkish building is forbidden. Only 10´blocks maximum!

It´s of course a restriction and I don´t like any restriction in the game (only cheating like Hexeditor and such stuff is forbidden). A restriction is not needfull, because also now only a handfull try to build turkish. The majority try to build better than last year.

Zitat

Bizpro, the wealthy are mostly irrelevant, it's the rich and poor that should be accounted for somehow. And with building for the rich, versus the poor, I am not sure your point system still doesn't favor the poor Hanse.

That's exacly the reason to require a mint eveywhere, you have to supply for the rich.

I still fail to see the benefits of traders vs raiders. Raiders only get there a little bit faster than traders w/o arbitrage. If you eliminate the time factor there is no difference. Who cares if it's AD 1304 or 1320? As you can see, you can quit anytime; as long as you have a balanced production you get max points. BUT, there should be a division by population.

Now I am beginning to ponder. When I asked if businesses still get filled with workers if I only have housing for the poor, I was told YES. Then, when I asked about the effects of the composition I was told that the rich, wealthy and poor all make up the working population. Somehow those two statements seem to contradict each other.

@ B.T.

We agree in most points, that´s true. Only the two different maps are not good. I believe, that a same map is better, because all players have the same conditions.
On the other hand, I agree with a better distinction between traders and pirates in the valuation with two differnet ranking list. Of course, we have in 2006 a clear distinction with clear rules in this case and the ranking list shows, who is what. On Hopsings page is such a distinction made with an extra list.
But also I would like to see a common ranking list with some reasons:

a) In the later stage of a game, nearly every pirate is peacefull or mostly peacefull ( ). There are no really advantages in this stage of a game. Also, with my suggestion we have the advantage, that the money is in the valuation not important and piracy means an advantage in money. That the factor, because own piracy exists in the game.
On the other hand, pirates have on the start a clear advantage over white doves, because with the "black money" they could do things faster. That couldn´t be ignored.
b) there are traders, wich are not inferior of pirates. Swartenhengst and Ugh! (if a white dove) and some others will be better than most pirates in the game.

However, this point is something, where I´m a little bit splitted.

@ bizpro

The timefactor is important in a contest. You need goals an points of valuation and that means a timefactor. There are of course some possibilitys for it, for example a "goalyear" in the game (1310 or what ever). Also don´t forget, that not all players play to the end! Take a look on the contest ranking in years of the contest 2005. So we have an assessment after every gameyear.
We have also the problem, that it is a full (real) year contest, so we have to use that time. If we take, for example only a "goalyear" of 1303 in the year, everyone is in june / july ready. What we make after?

You wrote also, that pirates are only a little bit faster and so on. Well, thats partially true. Pirates can plunder and so on, traders make Arbitrage. But whats about pirates, that make plundering and heavy Arbitrage? A trader could only arbitrage

Your question about the population is simple to answer: poor people become wealthy and rich. The quota how much become and stay richis a question of their supply. I believe Gesil wrote about it ealier.
About the mint itself I´m a little bit splitted what the effects are. Of course, the mint is good for the settlement of rich people, but thats the only thing. I´m nearly sure, that they have no effects on the poor people.
Also and more important: With my suggestion it´s automatically necessary to build a mint in every town.

Mandela: I think you missed the direction I was going with the point system (post # 4 on this page) . It's all a balance of trade or, at least of some commodities. You can achieve that a lot faster than by playing to the bitter end. It's basically up to you when you want to stop, 1303 or 1405. Just fine-tune your production and you’re a winner, regardless if you wear a white or black frock, 200,000 or 3,000,000 citizens.
And that's why time does not matter, it's open ended.
I believe it was Holzwurm who suggested that points are allocated for population only, regardless of when the limit is achieved. I like that too, provided there is some compensation for rich/wealthy/poor. BUT, as you said, not everybody goes to the end, either due to timer or interest, the latter could be triggered by results of cracks. That's why I started to think about a point system that would suit any level of player and would make everybody equal. Just get the right businesses up and going.
Regarding the dropout rate, it's always going to be relatively high, no matter how long the contest lasts. Even in Baltic Trader's relatively short contests there was a considerable dropout rate. Also, just look at our team and without mentioning any names:
two have not yet completed 1300 even though one is now hard at it if we can keep him playing instead of starting new threads, he might complete this contest
one is somewhere in 1302
one is in 1303
one will soon finish 1304
one has started 1305 and is now taking a break.

I agree most with Bitzpros Formula.

Ich dont think that the players shold be froces to make a poor hanse only for getting more people. A ritch one shold give the same points.

Becaus im using UGH's tool I make every second month a complete count to calculate the needed amount of wares.

There is a statistic for satisfaction of the People maybe it could help to make the calculation easier.

@ Anne Bonny and Patrician jr.

Well, we are of course a little bit early about that stuff, but in german we have saying:

Only the early bird catches the worm!

I mean, a little bit sicussion about it is not bad, because during a running contest we all have some recognitionals about the valuation and so on.

By the way: Gesil postet in german corner about that theme, that a) he thinks like you about the discussion, but b) we will start the contest 2007 later than 01.01.2007, because the endsaves of 2006 is not really ended at that time.
A point, I aggree with...

@ bizpro

So long so good... But one question, if allowed:

Where ist the finnish in your suggestion?

Maybe my English understanding is not so good, but I found no answer in your posts about it...

What I mean is when is the end? dec, 31. 2007 and uninteresting wich gameyear the indivisual players then have?
Well, I believe that there is a maximum of the gameyears, when the complete development of the Hanse is done. That "maximum" is varying from player to player and is a matter of the individual skills. Some will end in the 9th gameyear, some later, some earlier.
How will you make a valuation that acknowlegded the players in the ranking, who arer earlier ready with their game? Player "A" is 1309 ready, player "B" with (nearly) the same Endresults in 1310, player "C" in 1322.
Please explain me your suggestion in this matter

@ Mandela:

The contest runs, as usual. to the end of the calender year. BTW, I would prefer starting January 01, 2007, since otherwise I will not be able to get any playing done in January. And how many players submitted a save late?

Now, back to end date: 31. 12. 2007
You end the game at anytime if you think you got the required coverage with goods. You can end in 1304 or play to 1405, it's up to you.

I thing that I is an effort if we manage to find a system that gives the same chances to all players independent of individual strategy.

I its possible to make restarts unnecesarry more players would reach 1305.