Special Projects (Non-TR related)
Seattle Sleuths
Cost: 5 gold/machine (4 gold to MS and 1 gold to the game) You must contact Microsoft through me or directly if allied, to buy a machine and work out whatever deal you want with him for maintainence of the machines. Erection Enhancers
Cost: 5gold/machine + 1gold shipping to game(6 gold total) The Erection Enhancer (EE) will allow you to increase a holding 2 levels at a time. The cost is still the same as it would be normally except it does not require 2 build actions and you only pay the base cost once. For example, Harmony decides to increase Disease of Harmony from level 5 to level 7 this turn. They pay a base cost of 1 gold (50% success) + the target levels 6 and 7 = 13 gold. Total gold spent is 14 gold. Total actions used=1. This will decrease the time it takes to rule your holdings up to level 10. The erection enhancers can only be used on one holding per turn and require 1 gold to move 1 province. They may not be used on the same turn they are moved or delivered. You may have as many erection enhancers as you like but you are limited to 1 EE per holding at any given time. You may not move an EE into a province you do not own without permission of the province owner, unless you declare war. C.Y.A. Mines (Greystoke WaterGrenades)
Cost: 4gold/sea zone (payable to Greystoke) + 1 gold maint/turn (payable to the game) The "Cap Your Arse" Mine. These mines can be deployed into any sea zone and act to block raids on your coasts. The mines float just below the surface of the water and when a ship or creature comes into contact with it, the mine will explode sinking the ship or killing the creature. They work by the same magic as is used in Fireworks. If you fail to maintain the mines they sink and become useless. You must then purchase more or go without them. Azumi's Acupuncture
Cost: 3gold/holding (payable to Boramar) Azumi's Acupuncture. Yuri Azumi has a large group of herbalists headed by Miko and trained in the ancient arts of acupuncture. This art is known to relieve stress, cure headaches and many other malaises. Acupuncture may be used to calm a rebellion or to prevent agitate actions against a province/holding. In order to calm a rebellion Miko's group must be hired to go to the rebellious holding and perform the procedure. This will nullify the rebellion peacefully. Relaxed men aren't very good at swinging swords. In order to prevent agitate actions against your province or holding Miko's group must perform the procedure at the province or holding of choice. The affect will last for 2 months(2 turns.) You may then choose to hire Miko again. Also no false rumors may be spread during this time in the province in question.(See Boramar's ad in the classified section) Ionic Inflator
Cost: 5gold(4 gold to S. Hope/1 gold to game) The Ionic Inflator is a device that can be attached to ships giving them a bonus 2 sea zone movement per turn. The II does have a disadvantage however. A ship with an II cannot slip by another ship using espionage as the II gives off a brilliant glow due to the nature of the magic that provides its power. Contact Spirit's Hope to purchase an Ionic Inflator (see ad in Gazette)
Any holding which has a Seattle Sleuth (guild, temple, source, or law) will generate an amount of gold equal to 1/2 its level rounded down in addition to its normal taxes collected. For example if let's say there is a province with level 7 guild, level4 temple, level 10 law, and level 1 source holdings and each holding has a Seattle Sleuth (this would be four machines). Just to make matters more realistic we'll say that these four holdings belong to four different players. This means in addition to any other gold that these holdings produce they would respectively produce the following amounts of gold from the Seattle Sleuth : Guild = L7 x 1/2 = 3.5 rounded down = 3 gold, Temple = L4 x 1/2 = 2 gold, Law = 10 x 1/2 = 5 gold, Source = L1 x 1/2 = .5 rounded down = 0 gold. This additional gold would represent the money savings that holdings would gain from streamlining of book keeping, quicker census taking, time savings on labor costs, less labor intensive work, and any number of factors that the users may think up. Note that you would only get gold for the holdings that were part of your victory conditions. This means a Guilder would only get gold for his guild holdings with the Seattle Sleuth, a Wizard his sources, etc.
In addition to the above benefit, the mines can prevent sea-going traffick through a sea zone. If mines are laid in a sea zone and a ship attempts to pass through that sea zone without knoweledge of the mines his ships may be sunk. A ship passing through a sea zone with mines has a 50% chance of missing the mines altogether. Mines can be avoided through prior knowledge (the mine's owner tells you they are there or a successful espionage action of the sea zone at a cost of 1 gold (following normal espionage rules)
In order to place mines in a sea zone you must use a transport ship to carry the mines to the specified sea zone. Mines can be transported over land free of charge but must be loaded onto a transport before they can be deployed in the ocean. Please contact Greystoke if you wish to purchase a mine for your province. (See also Greystoke's ad in the classified section)
Special projects can be thought of as Wonders of the World. Owning a Special Project brings in tourists increasing one Trade Route by 1 gold per turn. Each Special Project has to be unique otherwise it loses its interest to the populous and you lose your 1 gold/turn. This means if one domain builds a Pyramid and another copies it or builds something similar then neither domain would collect gold because it is no longer a Wonder of the World. Special Projects require research and development. This is usually a cost of 1 gold to research and 1 gold to build. Each action has a success chance of 50%. The cost is low because each time a domain sets out to create a Wonder, the people flock to help out. Its called national pride.
