Competition: Prospector

by Granite Q

Introduction
The competition closed at 2am Monday 30th December, 2002, US Eastern Time – ET(US) – that’s Heaven Games forum time, should you wish to calculate the closing time in your own time zone.

This game was designed by Granite Q. The beta testers were Henrium and Marc5, their patience and helpful suggestions are very much appreciated.

The Story
Pharaoh has heard there is area near Timna which, although apparently barren, may contain valuable raw materials. He is therefore in great need of a first class prospector.

Fortunately he has you on his staff, one whose reputation for discovering even the most hidden away treasures are renowned throughout the land.

Pharaoh wants you to go to Timna, establish a substantial settlement and achieve full production as soon as you can.

Competition Criteria
The two minimum criteria that your entry should have are:

  1. 2000 people in the city (as recorded by the Ratings Overseer)
  2. 3000 db in the city vaults (as shown by the Overseer of Treasury)

On the Overseer of Ratings page there is a Culture Rating requirement of 100. This is to prevent premature completion of the game. You should ignore this requirement.

It is the competitor’s own responsibility to ensure their entry is valid.

Winning Criteria

  1. The earliest date achieving the Competition Criteria.
  2. The most money in the city vaults at the time of your save.

The second criterion will only be used to separate two entries which are tied in criterion 1.

Designer’s Advice

The game starts in January AD0. This game is a speed mission. You should save your game for your entry as soon as you achieve the competition criteria.

There are two requests from Rowarty for granite. Meeting either of them makes the trade route to Rowarty available.

Even if you are late meeting a request (other than the second request for granite from Rowarty) you will still receive some benefit. Your game entry may have unfulfilled requests.

You may receive gifts of gold during the game. These will be deposited in a Storage Yard if you have set the SY instructions to ‘accept’ gold.

During testing, it was found that if you are playing with Cleopatra, the storage yard cartpusher should automatically take the gold to the palace without any instruction.

However if you are playing with Pharaoh it was found necessary to set the storage yard instructions to ’empty’ gold to move the gold to the palace via a road link. You may have to as well.

Rules for this game

You should save your game every December. You will get a message indicating a rise in the price of sandstone (which plays no part in this game) as a reminder. Do not submit the December saves with your entry, but have them available should they be requested during judging.

You may not delete any of the messages you receive during the game, irrespective of their content.

You may not use cheat codes, modify starting files with any programme other than the relevant game, or edit the model files.

The contest is in two difficulty divisions, Easy and Hard. You may not change the difficulty level during the game, nor may you compete in both divisions of the competition.

You may not discuss your results or any aspect of your strategy (by any medium) until the competition has closed and the designer has opened the ‘official discussion thread’.

Use of features

You MAY NOT use the extra goods bug/feature to enhance the amount of goods, food or raw materials deposited in a storage yard following a partial delivery by a cart pusher.

You MAY utilise the free delete and roads feature (by dragging the tool outside the map to the top or right, you don’t have to pay for the item)

You MAY NOT use the feature which allows players to avoid the effects of a gold mine collapse, by deleting a gold mine immediately prior to collapse and then undoing the action after the turn of the month.

And Finally

Have fun!!

Easy

Winner: Koppi
Date Finished: April AD1
Money: 3383Db

Download this file here

Runner-up: TNT
Date Finished: JuneAD1
Money: 3819Db

Hard

Winner: Elf
Date Finished: April AD1
Money: 3007Db

Download this file here

Runner-up: Joshofet
Date Finished: May AD1
Money: 3267Db

Links
Official Announcement Thread
Results Thread
Discussion Thread