In scanning the discussion board, I didn't see anyone approach the subject too in-depth of the economics of the game's towns. In trying to understand what constituted a heathy town with potential for positive growth, I charted out the productions of each food/water commodity building and found the following results.
First, I must emphasize that just because your town screen may show you taking in more than you use, this is not an indication of definite success. What is essential is the timing of the commodity's flow. A building's production of an asset happens every 30 seconds, a farm is built and manned before a well is built then the farm will call for the water before the well has produced it. The town screen will not show the deficiency but you will struggle to support your townsfolk.
Farms. 1 worker = 3 food. 2 workers = 5 food (+1). 3 workers = 8 food (+2). 4 workers = 10 food (+2). The benefits of windmills is shown in the parenthesis. Note that at four workers, your farm now requires more water than a single well can produce. For each unit of food produced, one water is consumed. This is not true for the production bonus granted by the windmill.
Wells. Produces +10 every 30 seconds but only holds 8. Water towers increase storage but not production. I hit a point in the first main town where the production of all my wells dropped to +5 but building more wells corrected this to +10 for each. This happened when my food production dropped due to a lack of water production.
Ranch. 1 worker = 4 food (+2) for -4 water. 2 workers = 8 food (+2) for -6 water. 3 workers = 10 food (+3) for -8 water. 4 workers = 12 food (+4) for -10 water. The boost provided by the smokehouse requires one worker but grants the bonus in parenthesis above for each worker. Note that ranches seem to be more cost effective in terms of water.
Wood Hut. 1 worker = 12 wood. 2 workers = 17 wood. 3 workers = 22 wood. Lumber mills produce a different bonus depending on whether one or two workers work the mill and how many workers are in the wood hut. With one worker in the mill, they will produce a bonus of +3, +4, and +5 for 1, 2, and 3 workers in the hut, respectively. With two workers in the mill, there is no bonus for one worker in the hut but +4 and +5 for 2 and 3 workers in the hut, respectively.
Gold Mine. 1 worker = 10 gold. 2 workers = 15 gold. 3 workers = 20 gold. 4 workers = 25 gold. The blacksmith produces a bonus of +1, +2, +3, and +4 for 1, 2, 3, and 4 workers in the mine, respectively, regardless of 1 or 2 workers in the blacksmith shop.
Tim
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Economics of Westward II
Report as InappropriatePosted on 06/12/08, 07:24pm