1.09p thoughts on merchants, markets and schools

There's another tech that appears now, where your Studies are upgraded to Libraries which produce 2 Tech points each.  Plus, there is another structure found down the education tech tree that provides a 50% bonus and occupies 4 squares.  No idea if this replaces the School one or not.  Finally, Hosten's Library provides a 100% bonus to Tech (only one allowed ingame). 

If I remember the weird Stardock jujitsu correctly, these bonuses are multipled by each other (not added together beforehand).  So a 50% bonus plus a 100% bonus is really worth 300%, and that 'meager' 25% with Hosten's Library nets a 250% increase.  And if you keep both the School and The University in play (i.e. University doesn't replace the School), that's your Library points x 1.25 x 1.5 (or Library points x 1.875), and perhaps double that (3.75) for Hosten's Library if you ended up being able to build it first.

With 50 squares, and specializing in one area (tech), I definitely could see you having 16 Libraries in place when you max out.  Plus, if you attach a Lost Library to that city (which produces 5 tech?), that 25% would also apply to the LL (so another 1.25 tech points).

So 16 squares x 1.875 = 30 squares worth, occupying 24 squares. 

And if the University replaces the school (instead of being built separately), that's still 16 x 1.5 = 24 square's worth occupying 20 squares.

With Hosten's in place, that's either 60 square's worth occupying 28 squares, or 48 square's worth occupying 24 squares.

So your break even points, square-wise, are:

16 Libraries plus School (20 squares) = 20 Libraries

9 Libraries plus University (only) (13 squares) = 13.5 Libraries

10 Libraries plus School AND University (18 squares) = 18.75 Libraries

5 Libraries plus School AND University AND Hosten's Library (17 squares) = 18.75 Libraries

Or something like that.

I think xStarfirex has a point and it's not just for Libraries/Studies.  Without going into specifics it seems that in some cases it's worth spamming a lot of low level buildings rather than going for the higher level ones (have to consider the trade-offs of city space, pop used, labour to build, material cost and maintenance).  Here's hoping these will get balanced later to ensure clear advantages of higher level buildings.

Why would the merchants and markets thing be a mistake? It's a good bonus (or it would be if it wasn't broken at the moment) and they become available at different levels.

And there was a huge thread explaining why merchants giving a static +1 was a less than ideal situation. It's probably in the Ideas forum, if you want to go find it.

I can understand why just having them produce a static +1 is less than ideal.. considering I like the way we get taxes off of our pop nyhow... however surely It make no sense for them to have exactly the same bonus of 25%. The market I think costs more mats and you can only build one in a city. the bonuses might stack as someone is sure the tech bonuses do but even if thats the case I am pretty sure you can keep building merchants as long as you have space and pop. So I guess my point is it must be a mistake because if you can keep building merchants why would you ever build a market?.

I understand the bonuses of the multipliers but, to me, it just makes a bit more sense to add a +1 (or whatever) gold or research in addition to a small % bonus multiplier. Merchants, for example, really need this because the only income I'm receiving from my cities appears to be via taxes (which I like), however, there should also be capitalism and industry producing some wealth.

Also, quick question, are the Adventurer Merchants functioning right now?

Ah ok if they are both one per city it makes abit more sense. I still think that one of them should provide a higher percentage.