[Guide] Resource Gathering (beta)
- Thread starter punctuator
- Start date
punctuator
Ginger Snap
This is accounted for by the "Benefit Building" leg of the journey. The House
Resource distance is always counted as 0 for Scientists, Artists, and Merchants.Unfortunately, no. So far I can only tell you how to maximize each one; you'll have to experiment to discover which trade-offs maximize productivity. As a general rule of thumb, I'd say that having a Ginormous Benefit Building/Drop Off Point is the single most important factor, followed by Resource Value, followed by Work Route length, with Happiness in last place. But I'm not willing to put it in the guide because I can't really back that up, at this point.
starrywisdom
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2010
- Messages
- 205
Bonus Resource Bubbles
Bonus resource bubbles will occasionally appear over your citizens' heads. Mouse over them to pop them and collect the bonus. These amounts are not multiplied by any percentage bonuses; if it says +1, you get +1. The rate at which they appear is not affected by citizen productivity or any other factor (however, it seems they can only appear when the citizen is still for a moment--some people claim that this means shorter work routes can increase bubble rate, but this is unconfirmed). While popping bonus resource bubbles is an effective way of getting a boost in the very early game, when trickle and Harvest values are small, it very quickly becomes pointless to pop bubbles, as the amount of resources generated will be much smaller than your trickle and Harvest income. At the risk of editorializing a bit: you should not spend a lot of time on this task. Regard these bubbles as a bonus, not as mandatory.
[/LIST]
This paragraph seems out of line with what can easily be observed if you can keep track of what you do in a given day. Let's take your values you've placed here:
In 5 minutes you will /not/ generate the added total of all from just bubble popping. You can generate a very large percentage, I would venture a good 75%~ extra, from bubble popping. In the later game you can frequently get bubbles giving you +5-7 every handful of seconds. In fact, if you're 'lucky' I think on a good day you can almost DOUBLE your 'trickle' rate by popping bubbles. Doubling the values is very...very..far from 'not important'.
I keep seeing everyone saying 'it doesn't give you much' and other spouts of information. Have anyone saying this actually tracked how much you can actually get form doing it from an extended period of time? Theres not much 'hands on' in this game that take too much time, in fact the majority of the game is on 'cruise control'. So once you set up what you want to do, and take the 20 seconds to do it -- you tend not to have much actively to do. Popping bubbles then can generate a LARGE increase in resources.
Next time you get a chance, take 30 minutes and track how many resources you gain and compare that to you're trickle rate - I gurantee you that number is no longer 'trivial'. That being said though, popping bubbles is mind numbingly boring so whether it's worth it or not is up to how much you can take.
punctuator
Ginger Snap
There is no way I can get 1000 resources per hour from bubble popping (best guesses on the official forums usually put it at ~200 if you're really diligent about it). It's just not going to happen. I'm already getting significantly more than that from trickle income. Add to that Harvest Income, what I can get from playing the Markets and Mini-games, and bubble popping is really a complete waste of time. You might try and argue that it shouldn't be a complete waste of time, but I just don't think you're going to get any traction with omg bubble popping is brokenly OP!!!
I've spent time popping bubbles, and while I don't know what their spawn rate is, so I can't compare numbers, I can tell you that from my experience, there is absolutely no reason to pop bubbles anymore, except as an occasional bonus when I'm doing other things about town. Your anecdotal evidence that the bonus resource rate increases in the late game conflicts with everything else I've read as well as my own experience; it seems to remain constant even as your productivity and population grows.
I've spent time popping bubbles, and while I don't know what their spawn rate is, so I can't compare numbers, I can tell you that from my experience, there is absolutely no reason to pop bubbles anymore, except as an occasional bonus when I'm doing other things about town. Your anecdotal evidence that the bonus resource rate increases in the late game conflicts with everything else I've read as well as my own experience; it seems to remain constant even as your productivity and population grows.
Minor Annoyance
Deity
I had an irritating resource problem recently. There was a contest for the most productive worker and I tied the current leader using iron and a forge. I had a 26 worker from that but the forge was only modest so I upgraded it and there was no increase and then again at ginormous still no increase, and the worker was definitely using iron. So I lost. Worst part is that same contest repeated right after and the same guy won. I might have won with 26 if I hadn't moved my workers back to other jobs.
punctuator
Ginger Snap
Hmmm. That's tough to troubleshoot without seeing the set up. Sounds like it shouldn't have happened, but there may be a confounding factor that is non-obvious.
The trickle used to be affected by unused harvests (shorter times between trickles), but that was changed in an update in late June.
Palace size affects productivity of houses dropping off at the palace, but not trickle rates. Likewise, the decoration on the palace (ie rank) affects fame, but not trickle rate.
Palace size affects productivity of houses dropping off at the palace, but not trickle rates. Likewise, the decoration on the palace (ie rank) affects fame, but not trickle rate.
starrywisdom
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2010
- Messages
- 205
Strange that I only see +5's in the 'late game' and never at the beginning of the game. I'm guessing you've gotten a few +5's in the earlier eras?
Bubble popping is much more useful early in the game, but really doesn't compare to playing the market as a way to maximize resources.
Take science as an example. While popping science bubbles can give you maze moves on early techs, when you are looking at later tech that is worth 100,000 science or more, is popping even 100 science bubbles going to make any significant difference? No.
Take science as an example. While popping science bubbles can give you maze moves on early techs, when you are looking at later tech that is worth 100,000 science or more, is popping even 100 science bubbles going to make any significant difference? No.
Shafi-is-back
Prince
Hey Sean! I'm assuming your the same Sean from Greece
Its ShafrazM if you havent already guessed Wonderful article - definitely informative without being subjective. My only comment is a math error. 12 * 1.5 is 18, but 18*12 = 216, not 204. I'm not trying to be knit-picky, but I figure you'd want to know.
I was simply going to divide the difference by 3 to determine how much of an increase a single great person makes to determine the break-even point of a great person purchase - then I figured the math must have been wrong.
For what it's worth, the great person break even point would be :
[Cost of great person] / ((2+pop)*.05)*[resource ratio in market] = hours for return on investment
In my case, Game 264:
Since food costs about 10 gold, and a great person can be found (after some patience) for about 7k
7k/(6 food * 10) = 4.8 days for return on investment. Or: 2/3rds a day for each 1k increased cost to the great person.
Thanks for the efforts, Punctuator!
Which meant that, per hour, I was getting the following amounts from trickle income:
Hammers: 12*1.5 = 18
Gold: 12*1.5 = 18
Culture: 12*1.5 = 18
I was simply going to divide the difference by 3 to determine how much of an increase a single great person makes to determine the break-even point of a great person purchase - then I figured the math must have been wrong.
For what it's worth, the great person break even point would be :
[Cost of great person] / ((2+pop)*.05)*[resource ratio in market] = hours for return on investment
In my case, Game 264:
Since food costs about 10 gold, and a great person can be found (after some patience) for about 7k
7k/(6 food * 10) = 4.8 days for return on investment. Or: 2/3rds a day for each 1k increased cost to the great person.
Thanks for the efforts, Punctuator!
Very informative post, thank you!
I still think you are underestimating bubbling, however.
First of all you are comparing total number of resource gathered, which lead by default to wrong results. You should have bubbled either food or productions, which are usually the most expensive resources on the market. Then you should have convereted the trickled resources gathered to the same resource through the market and compare the values.
Since culture, gold and science produced were most likely worth a lot less you should have a quite smaller number than 543. Assuming avarage 500 for food and production, 250 for science and 100 for gold and culture you should come up with a total of 323 resources leading to 69/343*100=21% of the resources gathered.
I believe this IS game breaking, 20% is quite a lot! It wouldn't be that bad if only wouldn't be so easy to use a macro application to record a quick spin of your mouse on your screen and play it over and over again without even be at the PC.
I still think you are underestimating bubbling, however.
First of all you are comparing total number of resource gathered, which lead by default to wrong results. You should have bubbled either food or productions, which are usually the most expensive resources on the market. Then you should have convereted the trickled resources gathered to the same resource through the market and compare the values.
Since culture, gold and science produced were most likely worth a lot less you should have a quite smaller number than 543. Assuming avarage 500 for food and production, 250 for science and 100 for gold and culture you should come up with a total of 323 resources leading to 69/343*100=21% of the resources gathered.
I believe this IS game breaking, 20% is quite a lot! It wouldn't be that bad if only wouldn't be so easy to use a macro application to record a quick spin of your mouse on your screen and play it over and over again without even be at the PC.
punctuator
Ginger Snap
You're making things much too complicated. What about the extra Science and Culture generated from the maze moves/puzzle swaps you get from your trickle Science and Culture? Shouldn't that get factored in? In other words, you have to consider that 1 Culture generated through trickle is worth more than 1 Culture bought at Market, as the former but not the latter gives you puzzle swaps which generate more Culture. Science and maze moves works the same way, of course. Moreover, prices fluctuate (in the game that I took my data from, Science has become much more valuable at the market than hammers, and is trading about as high as food, for example, and Culture has consistently been trading somewhat above the 100 gold price point).
So your number doesn't any more accurately reflect the "true value" of trickle income vs. bubble popping. It's true that you can choose which resource bubbles you get. A full comparison would also include Harvest income + Trickle income per hour vs. Bubble-popping income, and Harvest income is similarly specializable.
In sum, treating 1 resource as 1 resource for purposes of this comparison is somewhat oversimplifying, I admit. But your number is no more accurate, and my oversimplification has the virtue of making fewer questionable assumptions---it's much easier to know exactly what it means (oversimplification is not necessarily distorting as long as you're clear about what the model does and doesn't show).
So your number doesn't any more accurately reflect the "true value" of trickle income vs. bubble popping. It's true that you can choose which resource bubbles you get. A full comparison would also include Harvest income + Trickle income per hour vs. Bubble-popping income, and Harvest income is similarly specializable.
In sum, treating 1 resource as 1 resource for purposes of this comparison is somewhat oversimplifying, I admit. But your number is no more accurate, and my oversimplification has the virtue of making fewer questionable assumptions---it's much easier to know exactly what it means (oversimplification is not necessarily distorting as long as you're clear about what the model does and doesn't show).
punctuator
Ginger Snap
P.S. I agree that the potential for macro exploiting bubble-popping is problematic. This is a distinct issue from whether a human player diligently popping bubbles would have a huge advantage over players who don't play the bubble-popping game.
repeatoffender
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2006
- Messages
- 19
It blows my mind that worker productivity does not impact trickle income.
GREAT guide btw!
GREAT guide btw!
zbgayumn
Emperor
I think your ROI formula is currently undervaluing Great People because it only accounts for trickle income. It should include the boost to harvest income.
i.e. [Cost of GP]/[Total Income Boost*Resource Ratio]= ROI hours,
where Total Income Boost = ((2+pop)*.05*12 trickles/hr)+(base harvest value*0.05*1.053 harvests/hr)
So, the original formula would work for any resource you're not actively producing, but for the ones that you are, GPs have higher value.
Base Harvest Value can obviously vary widely. In my current game, Food base value is 95.8/hr, while trickle food is 156/hr. That would make the Total Income Boost 61% higher than the value you used, and therefore ROI would be much sooner.
Minor Annoyance
Deity
I was surprised at that too but it does have some good effects. More than once, while sleeping, several ages have passed by without me being there, and it's good to know I wasn't losing out on the bonuses those ages give by not gearing by setup to take advantage of it. I only have to arrange my buildings when I plan to harvest.
Zbgayumn: You're absolutely correct, I didn't take that into account so yes - it would be much sooner. I should have explained my context, too - my personal question was just whether or not a great person was worth buying if the user was away for an extended period of time. The thought in my head was: "If I'm away for the weekend, and I currently have the cash, should I purchase a GP as an investment of my money? Then followup question: at what price point would it be worth it?"
So thanks, I'll take that into account why buying GP's. ... ... ... I think I'll buy some now ;-)
Minor Annoyance
Deity
I've noticed there is usually a big difference in the buy and sell price of great people. It seems that they would have to be very low prise and they extremely expensive for you to make a profit.
