Enhanced Herbiculture
Allows you to grow any herb from seed at an aqueduct tower. The tower appears to be different for each avatar.
My unedited research notes are available for examination.
Warning: This skill effectively destroys an aqauduct's ability to grow vegetables. No known method for recovery has yet been discovered. I suggest not using this skill for the time being. -- Cappu
Aqueduct lines appear to recover after a week. To minimize impact, I strongly urge folks to use EH only with towers dedicated to the cause. I have five towers set up in LN to that end, and I'm working on increasing that number. See the "People for the Ethical Treatment of Aqueducts" guild for more info. -- Japto
Teaching
This skill was obtained from the
Mysterious Altar located in Cradle of the Sun. If the behavior is the same as the other skills, the Tier 1 teacher can teach up to 8 people. These Tier 2 teachers can teach an unknown (unlimited?) number of people. Those people taught by Tier 2 are considered Tier 3 and can only teach one person, and if they do so, they lose the skill and cannot relearn it. Anyone taught by a Tier 3 is also considered a Tier 3. As with the other Enhanced skills, this skill is teachable in two lessons.
Herbiculture Effects
Herb grow appears to be identical in behavior as with
Herbiculture, except any herb can be grown at the tower. Yields are the same (7 after 3 minutes; disappears after 4 minutes), and no seeds are returned.
Once again, the tower that works appears to be avatar-specific. Personally, I seached 5 different aqueduct lines (213 towers) before I found the one that worked for me. If you want this skill, be prepared to work for it. The tower that works for me is nothing special; no veggie multipliers and it happens to give speed.
Pollution
At this time no pollution has been detected from the use of this skill. A number before-and-after
Ecology tests were run with no changes in acidity, phosphorous, heavy metals, groundwater, or soot encountered. Additionally, the tower itself continues to grow moss and bestow its attribute. The number of plantings has been limited however (less than 40 at one tower), so heavier use of the skill may bring these effects to light.
Before-and-after Ecology tests were also performed when locating the working tower, and no differences were detected. However those tests were not run on every single tower attempted due to the volume of effort it would require.
Additionally, there are ecological effects that cannot be measured directly at this time. This is evident with flax growth behavior (and possibly grape vines). No testing was performed on these effects.
Side Effects
It has been discovered that the growth of such herbs reduces the vegetable yeld to zero for that tower and all towers downstream.
Currently know affected towers and Lines are:
| line | location | owner |
| Karnak Water & Power | Karnak 860, -936 | Anakaaira |
| also affected: Katar, Riet, Alyxandrinia, Vraitak, others |
| |
| Karnak Water & Power | Karnak 1380, -1005 | Lindie |
| also affected: none |
| |
| PBBB | Pharoahs Bay -310, 6180 | Sonny |
| | Nile Delta 1208, 7208 | Stoiss |
| Also affected: 41 other people, more than 50 towers |
|
| RAC | Nile Delta 1171 7323 | Sallah-Hazerah |
| Also affected: Looks like the entire line has been turned off. |
You might want to check if it's only for 4 hours and 10 minutes (250 mins). This would be enough time for the towers' water to completely cycle. If not, let that tower set run dry, which may well reset it. --Sedelyan
Draining the aquaduct line completely did not help -- Promiscuous
Karnak Water & Power (860, -936) is working again, stopped January 24, 2006 1:18 am, started January 28, 2006 10:07 pm. A tower was added to the end of the line about 24 hours before restart. Also a herb was "failed" grown at the tower just before the restart -- Rena
- The last planting I did at the tower was approximately 24 hours prior to the discovery of the 0 yields. -- Japto
- It doesnt mean this tower went dry in the last 24h hours since planting. Or does it ? :) --Ankh-el-Pandemis
- An influx of herbs for cooking will reduce their effectiveness as use increases; this much is given.
- The total effectiveness of all ingredients appears to be zerosum affair, so the reduction in effectiveness of some herbs will increase the effectiveness of other ingredients. In other words, this concern is moot -- Cappu
- Considering all herbs are used in an equal amount. However, end herbs are more oftenly used than others, and one can assume that this skill may quickly degrade the quality of end herbs. -- ShanVizen
- This is already the case. That is why end recipes are much more expensive than say, focus, or constitution. As the balance between herbs remain the same, I really doubt that this will have any major impact.Remember, in modern recipes, all herbs not actively neg. end are potential candidates for end recipes, and those with neg. end are already insanely powerful and probably maxed out, as far I have been able to determine. -- Cappu
- I sincerely doubt it is possible to 'max out' a particular ingredient -- remember what Teppy said about oil and cabbage, and how the former would eventually devalue EVERY other ingredient. --Sedelyan
- Perhaps we can use the skill for increasing end? Assemble large quantities of non-end herbs, burn them for their effect and allow the end herbs to increase? Of course, assuming it IS zero-sum. -- ShanVizen
- Effect on wild-growing herbs have not been noticed, nor have any effects been detected on the aqueducts themselves.
For the paranoid, I have come up with a few possibilities that are just WAGs:
- Interference with flax growing in the area
- Increased water consumption by the aqueduct
- Ecological effects with heavier use
- Effects on tower moss
- Effects on tower attributes
- Effects on tower or aqueduct structure (does it crumble after x number of uses? ack...)
- Wild growing herbs are impacted -- they become less common, yield less herb or seeds, or something else
- The wrath of Amun strikes us all down and erases Egypt from the face of the Earth while Gharib laughs all the way to Greece