Plantations Expansion

[Captain Jack]

Upon inspecting the code, it seems that Lod is right regarding same minute bids. Issue has been fixed now.

[Lod]

Still QM doesn't bid on all:



Bid for New Acres Set Acres #: Set Price/Acre: Gold Coins
Assign your quartermaster
Your Open Bids
# Bid Acres Total Rent Action
1 gc 77 187 302,379 Cancel
Your Active Deals
Bid Acres Expiration
gc 63 106 7m 19s
gc 57 406 1h 27m

The 187 is my manual bid since this morning. I can't put in more bids now so I'll lose those 106 acres



Bid Acres Expiration
gc 132 820 Expired
gc 131 11 Expired

Still more acres lost because I can't bid on them. I think it should always be possible to bid on my own expireing leases. In total I now lost almost 3k acres at this plant since yesterday because of this.

[Lod]

Here is another 500 acres the QM isnt bidding for:

Your Open Bids
# Bid Acres Total Rent Action
1 gc 160 75 252,000 Cancel
2 gc 158 218 723,324 Cancel
Your Active Deals
Bid Acres Expiration
gc 111 12 Expired
gc 111 13 3m 18s
gc 111 500 33m 18s

[Captain Jack]

Can you post me your accomplished bids at the specific plantation. The ones expiring last, no need to include them all.

If there are 3 or 33 mins remaining, then it means that the bids might have been placed and have been successful already.

[Lod]

Still 4 minutes left until expire and no bid

Bid Acres Total Rent Action
1 gc 160 75 252,000 Cancel
2 gc 158 218 723,324 Cancel
Your Active Deals
Bid Acres Expiration
gc 111 500 4m 24s

[Captain Jack]

QM, unless activated at that time, will have already placed his bid before 50m at least.

Again, as wrote in PM:
1)Check QM status
2)Check Open Bids
3)Check Active Deals (in case bid has already registered)

If there is a problem, pm me the Port Plantation so I can check it.

[Stan Rogers]

In a post way back it was mentioned that if one goes completely inactive on their plantation, the results would be somewhat dire. I assume loss of investment in building improvements as the buildings crumble over time.

If I wanted out of plantations for a while but perhaps wanted to resume at a later time, what would I need to have to avoid degradation on my billion dollar investments ?

A minimum population of workers I would assume (how many?)

Will I need to maintain a small acreage to keep my buildings ? How many to avoid degradation

Obviously I need food for my workers but how much will they consume ? As I understand it, food consumption control only applies to field workers and the "camp tramps" require a fixed amount.

[Grimrock Litless]

Tbh, certain things with plantation is pretty flawed, which is a clear turn off for most, you take a lot of resources and time to build up a plantation and can easily suddenly end up not being able to use the plantation anymore because of how it's set up.

Is it built to allow people to be able to use it for as long as it's maintained or not?
Is the improvement permanent?

CJ said it is, a lot of info about plantations are locked from others and wants others to find them? For some reason? I am not sure.

With the ability for people with money to just instant the build up, it also no longer is the case for you to just build up before others does, which is, why is it added?

Currently, the point from CJ to me, don't know if others agree, was to push the ability to make goods to players instead of auto gen.
But the extra stuff the dev added to plantation is leaving me pretty confused on what their plan is, what is the point of plantation, and what role does it play when it comes to being added into the game?

Is it just something that is added extra that is as far away from being connected to the rest of the game?

Plantation seems to me like something that was added to a need, and not something added to create more in the game.

Does my opinion even matter?

[Most Lee Harmless]

As I understood the initial debates and proposals : the devs wish to make all resources primarily player generated : fishing was a first step in this process : it largely succeeds in its aim but could use some improvement. Plantations were the next step and in my view are failing for a number of reasons to be adopted by the player base. The resource market is a third step and in and of itself succeeds. A few tweaks here and there may be nice but by and large I find it does well what needs to be done.

The chokepoint is plantations. When players of the calibre of Stan, and with due modesty, myself, find them unworkable questions must be asked and answers found if they are to function effectively as a key part of player generated resources.

Yes, there is arisk that plantations and markets could impact badly upon the need to trade port-to-port : I can see why the devs would consider that to be a retrograde step. But I dont think keeping plantations 'difficult' is a happy way to enforce trade fleet use. On the contrary I see it as avoiding the issue of finding the needed balance between the necessary functions of plantation, trade fleets and port markets. If this balance can only be maintained by keeping plantation development 'dark', vague and somewhat arbitsry then players will abandon current plantations (as is happening) and declining to develop more. The game cant afford its veteran players, those with the assets needed to develop this key aspect of the entire games development, stepping aside from involvement in it. Then the entire cause of player generated resources will falter and ultimately fail. In which case we would be better off keeping the old system of game generated resources even with its flaws.

To make it work we need healthy production : plantations making the resources : we need an active market system creating surplus to trade and more than that we need an active demand : we need plantations demanding more food, more workers, more investment to use generate shortages and generate port-to-port demand and thus opportunity to develop trade fleets which carry their own demands for resources.

That is the virtuous circle needed but current plantations mechanics will not create the vital middle step : rather a death spiral as few can understand what is needed to adequately develop them and justify the effort and resources needed to do so.

Yes : if you throw enough coin and bars at the problem and import millions of workers you can make plantations 'work' : well enough to provide some level of return : if you ignore ROI or bang per buck measures of success you could claim victory. But few can do thst and is providing resources to the entire player base truly to be seen as an asset sinker rather than as a profit center?

That way lies madness indeed. Its relevant to too much of the game : for pirates to steal successfully then players must have assets worth stealing : for nations to thrive there must be surplus assets to sink into them :for port control there must be more assets again to risk losing in the fight : for trade fleets to work it needs surplus and demand between ports : fresh assets must be generated by each new generation of players : we cant rely on the few veterans with their long held wealth created many years in the past to keep the game funded for ever more.

If we dont get plantations working then the game is doomed eventually.

[Stan Rogers]

Plants and workshops are a necessary function of the game and I like the concept.
I think my problem is trying to ensure I had raw materials to work with to earn a wage.
My intent was never to be a plant owner for the sake of looking for a new career path but rather, one of necessity if resources run low.

With the huge expense of trying to develop even one plantation, I find myself now in over my head trying to develop eight of them.
Perhaps I should concentrate on one until I get the right building ratios figured out and the effects of pop and acreage changes.
I can't quit now though for fear of losing 7 other plants and literally hundreds of millions of GC invested. I need some way to get in and out of the plantation market and concentrate on any one particular resource without losing my investment in other resources.