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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!hammy
From: hammy@mit-eddie.UUCP (J. Scott Hamilton)
Newsgroups: net.games.emp
Subject: Re: survey of worlds
Message-ID: <877@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 31-Oct-83 17:57:23 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.877
Posted: Mon Oct 31 17:57:23 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 3-Nov-83 07:35:04 EST
References: <250@eosp1.UUCP> <2281@alice.UUCP>
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 47

>Another thing, you can't tell people not to go into debt in
>the beginning.  There is almost no way around it.  In every
>game I've played, I've been $10000 in debt for the first two
>weeks before picking up.  It doesn't bother me, it's normal.

I have found that going into debt is very easy to do, but with a little
work, you can avoid it.  Mainly, my starting strategy is the following:

o	Designate 2,0 as an urban area, and after my capital has become 
	efficient, move as many civilians as I can into it.

o	Start up an agribusiness with some food, all my military, and
	some civilians.  When it becomes efficient, contract if for
	whatever price is offered, and place a deliver route on it to 
	move some food out.

After that, I carefully balance how much food is produced to how much is
sold.  You can do that by moving the food back into the agribusiness,
and doing something to kill the mobility in those sectors so that it
isn't delivered out again.  On the next update, the food gets sold.  It
seems best to have the food delivered to some type of intermediate
storage sector, like your capitol.  The following system works pretty
well:

            a > c > +

All sectors are assumed to be 100% efficient.  A threshold of 9xx is set
on the capitol, so that not too much food is produced.  If it looks like
more food could be used, you move what is in the capitol onto the road,
at no mobility cost.  If you need more money, you move the food from the
capitol (leaving enough to feed the masses) back into the agribusiness,
where the next update will sell it.

These types of schemes have worked well for me in the past three games,
and only in the earlier games did I go broke once or twice, mostly
because of neglect.  I found that it helps to get about 4 or 5
agribusinesses going as soon as possible, to make enough bucks.  Also,
my education level is the first thing to work on, since with a high
education you start making more food (and thus more money) than you know
what to do with.  Most of the players here have their first million in
about 4 to 6 weeks.

I'm looking forward to seeing more tips.

-- 
						J. Scott Hamilton
						!genrad!mit-eddie!hammy