Expanded Primer

## Overview

Nile Online is, at its heart, a resource trading game; you will engage in Trading with other players for the goods and materials you need to build your empire and become Pharaoh. Trading with other players can happen in two ways: through the Marketplace in your encampment, or by building Ships at the exchange to dispatch your goods when you have arranged a direct trade with another player.

However, when you first enter the game, you will be several hours away from being able to trade. Your first goal is to build your basic buildings and start production so that you can expand your encampment and accumulate enough goods or materials to begin trading.

## Starting Game Play

After signing up to a Nile Online world and logging in, you receive ownership of a basic Egyptian city called Djedu. It consists of a rudimentary palace, a marketplace (you can't do much with it yet), and several empty plots of land with various pre-designated purposes. You also begin with a basic amount of goods and some workers to help you on your way:

* 18 labourers
* 60 loaves of bread
* 40 bricks

You will also find that you have a special "luxury" (lux) item on your encampment: a tannery, bronze mine, cedar farm, henna farm, kohl deposit, oil farm, gold mine or emerald mine. All are equally valuable - no lux item is better than another. The random distribution of luxury resources is a key part of the game construction, forcing players to trade in order to advance game play.

## Labourers

Your labourers are the people who farm raw materials for your encampment, and use them in various buildings to produce goods for trade and consumption. Your labourers can (and should) begin work before any buildings are built; put the full allotment to work in the wheat fields (preparing to make bread), and the full allotment to work harvesting reeds (preparing to make bricks) as soon as your game starts.

This will leave extra labourers. You can use them for any purpose you like but they following guidelines may be helpful:

* Your wheat field needs to be fully staffed (5 workers at Level 1.)
* You will probably find that after production starts, you do not need your Reed Marsh to be fully staffed.
* Just 1 labourer in the Pottery Shop and 1 labourer in the Basket Shop will provide you with the 6 baskets and 6 pottery you need by the time you are ready to upgrade your Palace for the first time.

Upgrading your Palace will give you additional workers for your workforce.

## Primary Buildings

The Bakery is critical because it is where bread is produced. You must consistently produce enough bread to feed your ever-expanding labour force or production in your encampment will stop. To build a Bakery, click on an empty shop plot, and choose the Bakery from the list of available structures. Building a bakery will use 10 of the bricks on your initial inventory.

The Brickwork is also critical. In the same way bread is the foundation of your workforce, bricks are the foundation of your encampment's expansion. You cannot build new buildings or upgrade existing ones without bricks. In other words, if you want to upgrade your bakery to make more bread, you will first need more bricks to pay for the upgrade. Bricks are so important, in fact, that you can build your first Brickworks for free - it costs 0 bricks to build one. So build it!

## Secondary Buildings

While the pottery shop and basket shop are not necessary to sustain your encampment in the same way bread or bricks are, they will be important in the very short term. You will need 6 baskets and 6 pottery items to upgrade your palace, in addition to a bunch of bricks and bread.

Since the level of your Palace dictates how many labourers you can have, you will want to upgrade it soon to allow more labourers into your encampment to increase your production. (Remember, you need excess goods to be able to trade, so peak production is important.) So, build your pottery shop and basket shop early, with the free bricks provided.

**TIP:** Building all of these buildings will cost 30 of your first 40 bricks, leaving 10 left over even before you begin to make your own bricks. It is a good idea to use these bricks to upgrade your bakery before expanding your palace, as you will need enough bread to feed your additional labourers.

NOTE: Your encampment has a limited number of plots available for shops! After building the above, your best move is to use your remaining shop plot for a shop that uses the lux material your city can produce (i.e., oil, cedar, emeralds, gold, henna, kohl, leather). You can then trade to obtain other goods and materials.

## Managing Labourers

Your labourers are your most important resources. Efficient distribution of labourers will keep your encampment running without running out of any single item. When figuring out the best distribution of labourers, it is essential that you look at your total production capacity.

**Example:**

A Level 2 Wheat Field with 11 workers (the maximum) produces **88 wheat per hour**. A Level 2 Bakery with only 6 labourers consumes 72 wheat per hour (and makes 34 loaves of bread). Adding one more labourer means the Bakery consumes **84 wheat per hour** and produces 42 loaves of bread.

Therefore, 7 labourers in the Bakery consuming 84 wheat is the most efficient when your wheat production is capped at 88. If you add additional bakers to the Bakery, you will make bread and consume wheat *faster* than the crew in your wheat field can supply you with. The extra workers are essentially idle, and a wasted resource. Re-deploy them somewhere else where production is not already maximised. (However, if you have a lot of extra wheat, there is no problem; the bakery will simply consume the extra wheat and run at top efficiency. It's only when you run out of wheat that the bakery loses efficiency.)

## Administration

Your Palace is also the administrative centre for your city. Clicking it will let you upgrade it, as with other buildings, but also displays some additional features:

* Re-name your city.
* See statistics on your growth rate and productivity
* Select a Specialisation. You can only add specialisation bonuses at a few levels, and happily Level 1 is one of them. Bread is not an option, but consider Bricks or your Lux item.

## Achieving Exchange

When you have successfully upgraded your buildings, kept your labour force fed and accumulated enough bricks to build your Exchange, you are officially a graduate of the Expanded Primer. Congratulations! Your next step is to read Basic Trade for Beginners and begin trading. You will also want to know how to get cedar for your First Ship.