From: duelge@schaefer.math.wisc.edu (Jason Duelge)
Newsgroups: rec.games.empire
Subject: Temukula's QUICK guide to DISTRIBUTION (cut and save)
Keywords: You saved the box tops, now here's the prize
Date: 8 Nov 92 14:36:27 GMT
Reply-To: duelge@schaefer.UUCP (Jason Duelge)
Organization: Univ. of Wisconsin Dept. of Mathematics

Its Sunday morning, and i'm feeling nice.

Distribute.  Push and Pull.  How it works :

It all depends on dist paths.  Say we dist sector 0,0 to sector
2,0.  You type 'dist 0,0 jh'.
Now 0,0 is disting TO 2,0, and 2,0 acts as the dist center for
0,0.  (maybe other sectors too)
Ok.  Now, if you want to pull things to 0,0 from 2,0, you set
dist threshholds on 0,0.  Say you want 50 food in 0,0.  You type
'thresh f 0,0 50'.  The food will move from 2,0 to 0,0 at the
update (assuming required food and mobility are present), so that
after the update you will have 50 food in 0,0.  This type of
movement is called 'pulling', and since it is coming from a 'dist
center', the movement of the food is cheap mobility-wise.
Say 0,0 is a mine, and you want to move iron out of it into 2,0.
You type 'thresh i 0,0 1'.  This means that any iron over 1 will
move out to 2,0 (assuming you have enough mob...)  Why 2,0?  It
is the dist center for 0,0.  This is called 'pushing', and it
doesn't get the mobility bonus that 'pulling' gets.
Now, if 2,0 is a 100% road, the 'pushing' is free anyway.
Some additional comments :
'Tree' distribution.  Each sector can both pull and push.  You could
have -2,0 disting to 0,0.  0,0 disting to 2,0.
What a tree distribution attempts to do is maximize the amount of
'pulling', and minimize the amount of pushing.
A quick example :
Your country looks like this :
. . . . . . .
 . a m j p .
. . . . . . .
We'll call the a 0,0; the m 2,0; etc.
A tree dist would require the following commands :
dist 2,0 0,0.  dist 4,0 2,0.  dist 6,0 4,0.
thresh f 2,0 600.  thresh f 4,0 400.  thresh f 2,0 200.
thresh i 4,0 1000.  thresh l 6,0 1000.

What would this do?  It would pull food from 0,0 to 2,0.  It
would then pull food and iron from 2,0 to 4,0.  It would pull
lcms and food from 4,0 to 6,0.  In each case, the mobility cost
would be almost negligible.  (ie, you would get much more mob
from the update than you lost).  Net result?  The distribution
runs smoothly, and your sectors all have 127 mob.

An obvious advantage to this system of distribution is that
you don't really need any roads.  A *major* disadvantage is
the time required to tweak things.  What if you want to start
taking gold or oil out of some of the sectors in a tree?  You
have to redo parts of the tree.

Possible problems :
A problem you might run into with any distribution is the deity
0,0.  Updates start here, and move right and down.  A country that
finds itself cut by the deity 0,0 may find production and distribution
not working out the way you expected.  How can you spot this?  Watch
the production reports.  If you see sector 6,4 BEFORE sector 5,-3 in
the production report ... well, you can figure it out.

Suggestion :
If you really don't have distribution down, try this.  Next game
just practice distribution.  In fact, if your island is big enough,
you can try a few trees and even a 'traditional' road distribution.
Hell, if your country is REAL big, throw in a warehouse distribution.
The important thing is that you need to sit down and practice, and once
you see things working, your games of empire will be far easier in the
future.


Hope this helps.  Mistakes, of course, should be overlooked, and written
off to my being tired.  Flames will be returned, of course.  :)

Jason -- Temekula

ps  Lord Yupa and Queen Kushana, in their retiree jobs as merchants, have
each cashed in trade goods worth over $6629!  If you are interested in
a visit by their blossoming trade enterprise (They have accounted for
over 60% of the trade in their world to date), please inquire within. 

-- 
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| Jason Duelge                                                              |
| 141 Lakewood                                                              |
|  Gardens ln                                                               |