Guilds/The Wanderers/SA Proposed Research Order

As this wiki is about to be closed... a final note. I went and calculated the total amount of resources needed to follow our tech tree up to metallurgy, NOT counting the resources for the pens and the like, and this is what I ended up with... ~90k debens of materials! I've attached my figuring to the bottom of the page as an xls file. ~TP

A page to think about research order for guild focus in T4.

This content is 'brainstorming' and not set in stone. We're looking for input! - Aperio

If you have MS Project, check out the 'Network Diagram' from T4MSProject.mpp. It reflects the tech tree but not the material constraints - Aperio So: Techs to be focused on - Techs that give greater efficiency.

LOW PRIORITY: Things like science of color: Fun, but not quite as useful as blacksmithing. Same with chariot repair. Needs to happen, but we can hoof it for a while.

HIGH PRIORITY: Things that improve efficiency of flax and wood gathering, as nothing escapes these two core needs. Food is going to be important too. Also grass... can never have enough straw. We also, obviously, want to improve the processing of these into boards and flax-products

So, we muse...

FIRST: Guildhall construction... gotta have a guild!

Flax: the first and foremost thing that needs to be done is be able to get more jars so we can switch to growing nile green instead of old egypt and double our yields. This means that agriculture (for onions), animal husbandry (for sheep/leather) and stonecutting (for the flystones) are vital first steps.

After this... the next big step up comes with crossbreeding, which requires... a whole slough of other things to be researched: advanced glassblowing for the thermometer, gardening for the greenhouse, horticulture in at least 4 regions, and whatever level of metal tech is needed for gold wire. By this point, we're likely past the point of having one set drive for guild-wide research efforts... perhaps we'll branch off into tree branches with subsets of the guild.

Grass: Easier... just have to get advanced glassblowing and gardening. Quite possibly worth pushing in that direction

Wood: Wood needs hatchets and for that we need to get up in the metal tree till advanced blacksmithing. This also will net us carp blades, which will be very, very nice. It'll also get us good shovels. I think pushing for advanced blacksmithing is a good project to focus on initially, as it will end up netting us not only hatchets and shovels, but also hackling rakes and improved brick racks, which will make thorn collecting obsolete and make brick creation simple as pie.

So, With all that said, my proposed research order:

IMPORTANT ACTIVITIES THAT SHOULD BE DONE AT ALL POINTS

We might want to have a daily/whenever possible dig early in the tale. Stonecutting/masonry and metallurgy both take LARGE numbers of stones.

LEATHER is a priority. This means multiple sheep and camel pens if at all possible.

We want to drive towards a goal of 2 breeding pairs of camels and upwards to 6 sheep pens. Leather is a huge bottleneck... not just research, but mine deployment. - Aperio

This is something that we can ALL work on early in tale... we'll need lots of boards and bricks, and everyone can chip in for those! -TP

Limestone is crucial for burn/glassblowing/advanced glassblowing and glass items become important. We need people to mine.

FLAX is never unneeded... we should endeavor to have a good stockpile of it lying around at all times (power-flax it)

Jzalae, ThePheonix, and Aperio all have experience with multi-user flaxing techniques (requires a common primary guild) that make flaxing a breeze. We were managing 1500 flax/hour in Beta - Aperio

Right. We're going to need a team to do that, and a team to actually process the stuff. This shouldnt be too hard, assuming ecology concerns dont become even more pressing -TP

Research Order

Guild Construction - GET THE GUILD TOGETHER!

Agriculture - Cheap and easy to get seeds... and we'll need seeds for cooking!

I'd like to propose that Animal Husbandry take priority over Agriculture. We might get cheap camels being first and we'll want pens for the free and roaming sheep that are available. Moreover, we can breed camels without Agriculture, but cannot breed sheep without it. Also, both Agriculture and Flax will benefit with jugs which need some leather to produce (rocksaws and pottery wheels). AH can be developed with flax, boards, and straw; whereas Agriculture requires more complex mats like rope and LOTS of clay - Aperio

Animal Husbandry/Stonecutting. Stonecutting is HIGHLY dependent on getting enough people together to actually do the digs. I propose as this point we split the guild's direction in two. When enough people are together, we dig for stones. When not enough people are together, we do a push on Animal Husbandry. This makes sure that there is never an unused moment, and finishing this off gets us some big benefits.

I agree that Digs should take priority and we should consider 2 daily windows for 1 hour digs. Grass should probably be offlined throughout Launch for straw; we should probably do flax as a team task (even with OE only), pool jugs for Nile Green processing, and when solo - collect wood and slate for boards - Aperio

BENEFITS AT THIS POINT:

1. JUGS! This will increase the rate of flint generation and be the first step to improving flax generation... A VITAL step.

2. LEATHER! As we're seeing in Beta, the limiting factor later on down the line is pure and simple the slow generation of leather by our animals. It is VITAL that we start this early in my opinion so we dont get bogged down later on down the line (ore extraction, I'm looking at you!)

Stonemasonry - should be quite easily done with the medium stones from stonecutting.

Controlled Burn - Oh my contolled burn. At this point, I'd like to set up a group of people who are willing to limestone/flint gather nearly full time. As I see it, we'll need three groups

1. Limestone quarriers (we need it for this AND glassblowing, no reason to stop.)

2. Wood Gatherers. (the more wood we have when glassblowing becomes researchable, the quicker the lime/cc gets made)

3. Other resource gatherers (to finish off the rest of the mats)

Glassblowing - Same groups. We'll just need people willing to actually make the lime and stoke :) Once a group finishes, it should start on either ore extraction OR (leaning towards this one as ore extraction will be simple) getting cuttables for crucibles for metalurgy.

Ore Extraction - at this point, there will be a pause as we work to get leather. We should put the cut stone together for Metallurgy, and start work on other types of research... dousing would be a good idea.

Metallurgy - This will be a SLOW one as we need to get multiple types of ores. At this point we can start to focus on other research, like chariot repair and beekeeping and horticulture...

I've done some independent analysis of the tech tree and this is what I'm thinking. Let's review and reconcile - Aperio

Made a note or two... more tomorrow after I give my major big huge presentation. ~TP

SArt for Flax Processing (Carpentry req?) -Drying Rack needs Boards Guild Construction needs Boards, Bricks, Canvas, Rope -Opens up Guilds Animal Husbandry needs Boards, Dried Flax, Straw -1) Camel Pen STRAW 200 Boards, 400 Bricks -Opens up UNLIMITED straw storage (probably) for bricks and so forth -Also, opens up leather manufacture without finding and transporting a sheep. -OTOH - many players will have FREE sheep from pre-order. -2) Sheep Pen ONIONS (Agri) 100 Boards, 1200 Bricks, 60 Dried Flax SThought for Jug (Pottery), use the jug for 10 clay for Pottery Stonecutting needs Cuttable Stone, Flint, Rope -Opens up Rock Saw needing Boards, Flint, Leather*, Oil, Rope, Bricks -Opens up Flystone SArch - Stonecutting, 10 flint (can't recall the meaning of this note) -Opens up Pottery Wheel needing Boards, Bricks, Flystone*, Leather*, Oil, Rope Agriculture needs Clay, Rope, Stone Blades <-- Only problem here: Sheep want onions, so might need to move this back a tiny bit. -Opens up seeds for Leeks SWorship for Cooking to make Kitchen for Oil Stonemasonry needs Flint, Medium Stones, Oil, Rope -Opens up Flint Hammer/Chisel for Limestone Controlled Burn needs Dried Flax, DriedPayrus*, Leeks*, Limestone*, Sharpened Stick, Tinder, Wood -Opens up Firebuilding skill at SLead for Charcoal and Lime Glassblowing needs Charcoal*, Firebricks, Lime*, Sand, Soda* Ore Extraction needs Boards, Bricks, Leather*, Slate, Water in Jugs* After this, we should keep following up the tech tree to get... but more about that soon.

Casting Improved brick rack construction Blacksmithing Advanced Blacksmithing Gardening Advanced Glassblowing Crossbreeding