This is not a hideout building. This is a port building, specific to every player. There will also be port buildings specific to nations but this is another feature.
Plantations will be available to the ports which produce the following goods:
Cotton, Rum, Tobacco, Food
Construction details
- Any player (even Pirates) will be able to start up to 1 plantation per port
- Any player will be able to buy a Construction Permission from the game for a total of 100 credits (one time fee). Construction Permission will allow the initial creation of the Plantation in a port.
Operating Permission
- A rightful King must be in position before a new operation permission can be issued/renewed
- An Operating permission will be required for the Plantation operation. Without it, there will be no work. The rest (ie, workers upkeep) will continue normally. Operating Permissions will have a lifetime of 90 days. Plantation owners who already have a permission and want to renew it, they wwill be given the option to do so in the remaining 10 days remaining of every contract.
- Operating permissions are final. No one can cancel them. If a port changes hands, permissions issued by the previous port controller remain valid.
- Permissions will be negotiated with the port Governor. The port governor will have no restrictions! The Governor will be able to give a permission to anyone (!) and to ANY fee he desires (0 gc to 150M max). However, any fee received will be distributed in this way:
- Every permission initiation/renewal proposal will begin from the interested player. The governor will have up to 48 hours (plus some random delay) to respond. If no respond comes within deadline, the proposal will always be successful based on the following: 15M fee, 90% to the coffers, 10% corruption fee. The governor will be given the option to accept/reject or negotiate the offer. In case a negotiation begins, the counterpart will be given a new deadline to respond within 48hours. Failure to conclude it within the 48h, will always result in proposal failure and a new proposal will need to be sent.
- Rightful Kings and same port Governors will need no operating permission license. If any of them, for any reason, lose their place, they will automatically receive an Operating Permission with 3 days remaining. This will happen to allow them to either attempt to return to their place or negotiate a new contract without losing any production.
- For Pirate ports, no permission will be required and existing licenses days countdown will freeze.
1)55% will go into his pocket (Governors will be able to set this down to 5% and donate the rest to the nation although this very setting will be private - the rest officials will just see the amount they got from the deal in the coffers (at treasury log) with no explanations. So, the only way for anyone else to tell the actual fee held from the Governor, will be to get both the real value of the proposal and also have access to the treasury log. In different case, the governor can be as scammy as he desires to be without anyone knowing.
2)35% will go to the nation coffers (up to 85% if the governor decides this). 10% of the amount that is destined for the coffers, will go to the king.
3)10% will go to corruption (game)
Operating Permission payment
- Once the contract is finalized, this is when the payment will need to be sent. Once the full payment is sent, then the contract will be activated.
- A payment window will open, containing the full sum. The player will have 48hours to finish the payment.
- The Governor and the King will be able to set a priority list of eligible banks. If listed banks do not have enough space to accept the sum in total, the system will automatically list new banks based on available capacity priority
- Once the payment is finalized, the King and the Governor will receive their payment to banks, based on the list of priorities at preferred banks.
Acres Rental
1)Basics
- Every port is assigned a pool of 20,000 available acres. Nations will be able to add more later, with Port Buildings (up to 30,000 more)
- The available acres are available to Plantation owners for a daily fee (rent) starting from as low as 10gc/acre.
- Rental price is based on demand from other plantation owners and their bidding.
- Income from acres rental goes 80% to the nation coffers, 20% to corruption.
- At Pirate ports, acres are divided equally based on the amount of workers each plantation has. No rent fee exists.
- As long as you have an Operating Permission, you will be able to bid for new acres at anytime.
- Without an operating permission, you will not be able to bid for new acres. However,you will be able to retain the ones you have as long as there are available acres. You will normally pay the rent during this time. You will not be able to bid for acres kept by other players.
- If for any reason, your plantation has severely less or no acres at all, you will be penalized accordingly. However, penalties will be less harmful if the period is small.
- When losing acres, these will be removed on priority from the fields. If you have no fields, the rest of the buildings will equally lose acres.
- There is no limit in how many acres a plantation can have.
- Every plantation owner can bid up to a total number of 500 acres per 24hours.
- Plantation which have produce more than 100k crates the previous day AND are among the top 5 producers of the port in the last week, will be allowed to bid up to a total number of 2,500 acres per day.
- When bidding, plantation owners will select the amount of acres they want and the amount of gc they will want to pay for each one.
- The higher your bid, the higher your bid priority over the rest bids.
- Every bid costs 2 turns to place. Every bid must target at least 10 acres.
- If there are un-allocated acres (acres not assigned to a plantation yet), the bidder will receive the acres (for the which he created a bid) right away (within 10 minutes).
- Once Acres are received, the plantation locks them for a total of 30 days (rental contract).
- The owner will be able to either pay the daily rent in hourly format,or daily or prepay the rent amount
- Once acres contract expires, the acres will be lost from the plantation and will be returned to the un-allocated pool.
- If a bid cannot be fulfilled, it will remain there till it is either fulfilled or canceled by the plantation owner.
- Multiple bids from the same plantation owner are possible (up to 100 pending ones)
- All pending bids (un-fulfilled ones), regardless if they are of one or multiple owners, will be served on priority based on their bid price.
- Highest bids are served first. When bids have similar price, the ones that have been placed first receive priority
- Partial filament is possible. If there are not enough acres, the bid will be served partially but it will remain on the bidding priority list till it is fully filled (or canceled).
- Canceling bids will cost 1 turn.
- You will be able to see all open bids with price and acres. However, no names will be mentioned.
- Owners will be able to instruct their quartermaster to automatically attempt to bid, in an attempt to automatically sign a new contract for the acres about to lose.
- Automatic bids will happen 24hours before the existing contract expires and they will appear and resolved as manual bid.
- Automatic bids will not fall into the daily limit when placed but once placed, they will count against manual bids.
- A quartermaster fee of 10k gc for every automatic bid will be charged. No turns cost.
- Players will be able to set different options per plantation.
Plantation Operation
A plantation owner will have to deal with the following:
- Plantation size The owners will constantly trade for more or less acres, based on acres available and the rental price given by the port governor.
- Workers Owners will be able to add more and more workers. However, hiring workers from the port will not be possible. The only way to put workers to your plantation will be through immigrants carried with ships (only with ships - voodoo will not work). Workers brought with this way will not count as immigrants. However, if you ever release them from your plantation, these workers will go to the main port and they will count as immigrants (both in stats and missions) at the moment of their release.
- Worker Attributes There will be a whole system related with workers who will have two general public (visible) attributes and several hidden ones. The visible attributes will be the ones of Happiness and Health.
- Caring Workers Workers will have certain needs. Such needs are first and foremost food. Therefore you will need to have food crates stocked in your warehouse and a constant supply in order to feed them. You will be able to adjust the food amount to them though.
- Guards[*/]
You can optionally hire guards. These are hired directly by city population so you can hire them in mass at anytime. They help keeping your plantations peaceful. - Production You will get to decide how many hours every worker will spend for the production in your plantation. You will be able to select it based in hours from 1 minimum and up to 22 maximum. Hours of work will affect a lot of their hidden attributes but also their visible attributes. Hours of work will greatly affect production.
- Logistics Once stored in warehouse, you will no longer be able to sell it to the port so this decision must be made in the plantation management. You will be able to change this anytime.
You will also have to decide how much space to allocate for them. They need space to live and the only thing you got is the acres which you will also use for your crops. Additionally, you may construct further buildings for them (buildings will need acres) to accommodate them further, such as housing, baths, utility shacks,etc. All these cost gold bars to build and come with maintenance fees but they will improve their living conditions.
Workers will have a natural mortality rate which will be increased based on the decisions you take for them.
You will also be able to invest gold coins and time to improve the methods you use in your production. There will be a maximum limit per plantation. Once reached, you will be not be able to improve it further and the game will prevent further investment to prevent loss. You will be able to spend turns to hasten the time needed.
Production yield will be the same for all resources (same overall output - however, obviously, the more expensive a resource, the less crates will be produced which tends to be better if you intend to transport them).
Plantation Buildings
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Plantations will have Crop Fields. This is where your crops will grow. The larger they are, the bigger the maximum production.
However, they also come with several, OPTIONAL, buildings that will affect your production and your workers. Every building will come with a constructions cost and a maintenance fee. Besides choosing which buildings to build and how many, you will also decide how big they will be.
Housing -> Provides shelter and a place to rest for your workers.
Utility Shacks -> These will provide space for tools,crops,etc. They help workers and production. Also, they help to keep buildings at good condition.
Baths -> These are not supplemented with houses. You need to add them as extras. They do not cost a lot to maintain in terms of gold but require man power to clean. You will be able to choose how many workers to allocate for their cleaning. They help with the hygiene of your workers.
Kitchens -> This is where food is prepared for your workers. You will be able to set the amount of workers to this type of building. It decreases maximum food consumption and provides the ability to set how much food every worker consumes.
Guard House -> It improves the efficiency of your guards. It also helps prevent fires.
Recreational Buildings -> These improve your workers happiness. They need a workforce to run and you can decide the amount.
Depending on their type, Plantations will come with different requirements.
General Help on Buildings
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Every building adds something but all are optional. It is up to the players to choose the strategy plan that they prefer. There is no such thing as guaranteed success if you build everything, keep them all well fed and well treated. For example, a well fed worker that spends few time on the crops, might end up fat and this will reduce production. Sure, he will be very happy and will create less trouble for your guards but you need to ensure that overall costs of provided goods are worth it.
You will be able to expand an existing building or build more of the same type. If for whichever reason you want to limit it, you will be able to do so by limiting the acres of space allocated by it. This will be a way to turn the building off, or limiting it, without destroying any infrastructure. By doing this, you gain on two aspects: 1)Less upkeep and 2)Less workers to the particular building
Acres of space will also play a quality role. Piling up one building in to another is going to create more hygiene problems for example. However, too large space will mean that your workers have to move more which means they will spend more energy for non productive tasks, such as moving around. This will reduce your production.
Buildings Upkeep
======================
According to the building, a different upkeep (paid per hour, whenever at least 1 to pay is gathered) will be required.
Housing -> Iron
Utility -> Tools
Kitchens -> Wood
Baths -> Cloth
Recreational Areas -> Rum
Guard Houses -> Tobacco
Buildings upkeep, as well as food for workers, is calculated and paid once per hour.
If you fail to pay the FULL upkeep for a building, you lose its bonus till you will be able to pay it fully.
Buildings with upkeep similar to the plantation's produce, have no upkeep (ie, at a wood port, kitchens get no upkeep).
Improving Buildings
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Plantation Owners will be able to improve their infrastructure.
Improving buildings will also increase maintenance but also required workers in order to work at full capacity.
The amount of needed workers for each building, is calculated automatically and it is redacted from your workforce at the fields.
Improving Buildings costs gold bars.
All improvements costs are linear, for all buildings and any level.
Improvements are final and permanent but are vulnerable to events (Events System - Driven/Random events. Ie During a revolt, some of the houses might burn down).
Buildings Rating
Each building will count its total quality in stars. There will be multiple factors that will affect efficiency. Such factors will be:
-Building state (you improve this by expanding it)
-Total Acres allocated to it (you improve this by allocating extra acres to it)
-Amount of workers (You improve this by having more people working at the building)
-Amount of Plantation population (Higher population means higher needs, therefore higher demands to maintain top quality)
-Maintenance (whether you will be able to maintain it at its fullest by both supplying needed resources for its operation, as well as keeping it at its best shape).
Maintenance in particular, will be affected by two buildings:
Utility Shack -> Workers here help maintain the condition of all other buildings.
Guard House- > By protecting buildings from fires.
Long Term Management
=========================
You will not be able to see immediate effects on every decision you take. Most actions you take will need time to reflect on your plantation and your production. Sudden events may happen but eventually, they will play little role to your long term management.
You need to keep in mind that the following elements are scripted:
-Workers are the heart of your plantation and they have various traits/attributes. Some are visible (Happiness/Health) but there are other, multiple traits/attributes, that are hidden (ie Hunger).
-Workers also have memory and will remind past behavior, be it good or bad. This does not mean that you need to always treat them fairly. This is up to you and there is not a single way of success. There is not one path (the good path) or two paths (the good or evil path). However, workers will be easier to adapt to consistent behavior and you will also be able to understand better the affects of your decision in this way.
-Remember, that since workers have memory and also adaptation, workers will rarely react the same on every plantation. Picture it like you are shaping a community at your Plantation. Your decisions, events and strategies will shape them. Then, the same decisions will have different effects on different plantations, just because the "communities" will be different.
-You will get insight on what the plantation population believes of you with several reports.
Events
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As a plantation owner, besides having to deal with all the above, you will also have to deal with events that will randomly pop or events that are result of your management.
Examples of random effects:
-Natural Disasters
-Pirate Raids
-Wondrous beneficial weather
Examples of driven events:
-Revolts
-Fires
-Famines
-Celebrations
Whenever an event occurs, you will be given the option to reflect on them and play your role on their outcome. You will be given a list of options and you will get to choose which your decision will be. Your decisions will affect your "workers community" in the long term and you should always keep this in mind. You can use these decisions to affect your community in order to have better results in the future or choose a decision that would be more important for your plantation at the current time.
The events system will be given extra care, in order to reduce any repetitive spirals. Our objective is to simulate a real plantation experience and not to provide users with fictional challenges.
If a user warehouse is filled, production will be sold to the port instead.
If both fill up, production will stop.
Other
-Workers in plantations are not port citizens just like crew in ships are not citizens.
Future Expansions:
-Contract Shipping might be lined up as a Plantation Expansion
-Port Building to manage rent incomes (right now 80% goes to nation, perhaps this can reset to 0% and then with a port building it can reach up to 80%)
-Graphics (initial version will be text only but future version could become fully graphical - a little better than the hideout graphics)
-Crop risk
-Possible sabotage/raid options
-The way you treat your workers will have roleplay effects (such as workers calling you in a specific way, ie cruel if you treat them badly or benevolent if you treat them well). We really like this aspect and we believe we can create some great depth in workers reactions. Then these reactions will be broadcast in some statistics, leaderboards, rumors at the tavern, etc.
Prerequisites:
-Nation Diplomacy (Implemented)
-Governor port preference (Implemented)
-Removal of Fertile lands ( (Implemented)
ANY VALUES PROPOSED will stand for Version 1.0 and are all up for discussion.
A REVISION will follow sooner than later. The revision will change metrics in the way we feel it is best for the game balance, always taking your feedback in mind
Your feedback is mostly welcome
