General Principal
Send forth ships and caravans abroad to gather rare foreign resources and build a Lighthouse
Test Mechanic
- In order to pass, one need to build a Lightouse.
- Upon signing on the test the player now has the possibility to build a Shipyard and a Trade Port. Both need to be located on the Nile, the Mediterranean coast, or the Lake of Reeds (access to the Mediterranean). (1)
- Each player can only have one port at any time, and each port can hold a maximum of 7 boats (at sea or anchored) - it can later be expanded to hold more boats.
Shipyards
- Each shipyard can hold only one ship being built at the time.
- Seven kinds of boats can be assembled from the shipyard, each specialised in one of the 7 different foreign regions to trade with. Each kind of boat requires some generic materials and some specific materials depending on the destination.
- Once built, a ship can be send to a Port. She will take the same amount of time as if the ship was "using travel time" to reach a port in Egypt.
Ports
- In addition to various player-built ports in Egypt, there are 7 foreign lands ports, each trading for a specific resource :
- Byblos, Cedar
- Nubia, Ivory
- Ionia, Obsidian
- Crete, Lapis Lazuli
- Atlas, Granite
- Atlantis, Water Marble
- Some other place, some other resource
- Once a port is built in Egypt, rumors of what is demanded in all foreign ports reach Egypt. This demand will change every week, but not on the same day for each port. After 7 Teppy days days of trading for a resource, the requirement will change.
- Ie, as soon as the first port is built, Byblos will announce to be buying papyrus. The next RL day, Nubia will announce to be buying Gold, and so on until a week has passed since Byblos announcement and they are now demanding a new merchandise.
- A ship can be loaded with goods and be send to a Port. Each ship can only hold a certain weight/bulk (whatever that cargo totals to, we'll call it 1 arbitrary unit).
- When a ship is sent to a foreign port, she will take 3 days to reach her destination (3). A ship can take less time to travel by being fueled with accumulated travel time by a player - any player can contribute, TT is expected to be bought and sold through this.
- If a ship is sent to a player port (any ship can), she will take as long as if she was "using travel time", and goods will be unloaded to the player's port, the ship will then return to her original port. Ships can be fueled using TT as above. (2)
Trading with foreign ports
- When the change for resource from a foreign port is triggered, the server calculates how many resources demanded have been brought to the foreign port, and will give a total of 1 arbitrary unit of their foreign resource, proportionally shared amongst all traders.
- If a ship has not reached her port of trade at this moment, she will return to Egypt with the cargo she sailed with.
- Returns takes as long as it took to go to the foreign port in the first place.
Passing
- In order to pass, one need to build a Lighthouse.
- A lighthouse needs 1 arbitrary unit of each of the 7 foreign resources.
- You could trade in Egypt to get those materials and never sail a ship if you wanted to.
Notes
(1) Even if it doesn't physically makes much sense, it could be discussed whether the Red Sea would be a proper location as well, meaning that there would de facto be a sea trade link between the red sea and the Mediterranean (mainly for game balance, but this depend a lot on T4 map and distribution of resource). In Ancient Egypt, there were trade routes hauled on land instead of the Suez canal.
(2) This may be tweaked by taking much more time or holding more or less cargo. It could also be vetoed, and although it is not a vital idea in the test, it would certainly be a nice addition provided it is fairly balanced.
(3) Maybe that's too long ? Here's a place to ...
Discuss
This seems very similar to Ka. First build Tomb/Ships, then sacrifice/trade random items for a pass. That being said I think this is a better version of the test allowing trading of partial passes between players but in the end it only seems like a good idea if it were replacing Ka. -Eldrad