| Land & Resources |
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* Essentials * The Four Plant Types * The Weather System * Cultivating, Growing, Planting & Harvesting * Making Money * Getting More Land |
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Essentials:
Land is extremely important to the success or failure of your company - you need land to grow your plants on, and the more land you have, the more plants you can plant, ultimately leading to a greater income which you will need to expand your company further. You need "Gardener" and "Harvester" units to handle your land, plants and seeds, and the more land you have, the more gardener and harvester units you will need to handle the ever increasing workload. They will also work far less efficiently at night time than they will at day time (at a mere 5% usual efficiency in fact), so for maximum efficiency both day and night you will eventually need a huge amount of them both - though the figures you will have to learn for yourself through experience (see "Staff/Units" for a list of all units in the game, where you can look up the different types of Gardener and Harvester units and see just how many plants or seeds each one can handle). You first start the game with 5 acres of land, and this land is "Uncultivated" - that is, it has not been prepared for any of the 4 types of plants in the game which are Trees, Bushes, Flowers, Grass. The first thing you will want to do is to prepare your land. But how do you decide what type of plants to go for? The Four Plant Types: * Trees: An "Autumn & Winter Bloomer" - they generate the most seeds throughout the seasons of Autumn & Winter, you can plant up to 180 Trees on a single acre of land, they generate a low to medium amount of seeds depending on season, have a high success rate in growing them from seeds to plants, and sell for a very high value. They require the least maintenance from your gardeners and harvesters per acre. * Bushes: An "all rounder" - they have a fairly steady success rate year in year out, you can plant up to 360 Bushes on a single acre of land, they generate a medium amount of seeds, have a medium success rate in growing them from seeds to plants, and sell for a medium to high value. They require a low to medium number of gardeners and harvesters per acre to maintain. * Flowers: A "Summer Bloomer" - they generate the most seeds throughout the Summer season, you can plant up to 800 Flowers on a single acre of land, they generate a medium to high amount of seeds depending on season, have a medium success rate in growing them from seeds to plants, and sell for low value. They require quite a lot of maintenance from your gardeners and harvesters per acre. * Grass: A "Spring Bloomer" - they generate the most seeds throughout Spring, you can plant up to 1600 Grass on a single acre of land, they generate a high to very high amount of seeds depending on season, have a low to medium success rate in growing them from seeds to plants, and sell for a very low value. They require the most maintenance from your gardeners and harvesters due to the huge number of seeds and plants involved per acre. The Weather System: Bushtarion has its own day/night and weather system. The weather affects the success rate of your gardeners and harvesters, and can do so dramatically in the worst weather conditions. The most ideal weather in Bushtarion is a clear blue sky and bright sunshine, and it's in this weather you should always try to grow your seeds to plants for the highest success rate. At night-time, your gardeners and harvesters will work at around 5% of their normal efficiency. Note that "A Clear Starry Night" is not the same as a day-time Sunny tick no matter how many gardeners and harvesters you have - you will never have a better success rate than in a day-time Sunny tick. The weather is generated pseudo-randomly each tick, based on a fantasy weather system (which in itself was based loosely on British weather) - with in-game Summer seasons giving overall better weather and in-game Winter seasons giving overall worse weather. Also like the British seasons, there is more daylight hours in Summer than Winter. The weather "changes" at the start of each tick - before seeds and plants are dealt with - this means that the weather you see may change before your gardeners and harvesters get to deal with your seeds and plants, so you are never guaranteed sunshine even if it looks sunny when you head to your maintenance page... by the time your gardeners and harvesters get around to dealing with things, the weather could have changed! The game season not only affects the weather conditions and likelihoods of good or bad weather, but also affects some of the plant types and how many seeds they produce (see "The Four Plant Types"). The 4 seasons in Bushtarion are: * Spring: March, April and May. Average to good weather. 3 ticks of daylight per day (3/6). * Summer: June, July and August. Good weather. 4 ticks of daylight per day (4/6). * Autumn: September, October and November. Average to poor weather. 3 ticks of daylight per day (3/6). * Winter: December, January and February. Poor to bad weather. 2 ticks of daylight per day (2/6). Cultivating, Growing, Planting & Harvesting: Now you have a brief summary of the four types of plants in the game, have a quick glance at what the current game date is (visible near the far top-right of every page in the game when you are logged in) and thus what season it is, and decide for yourself what type of plants you want on your initial land. Many people prefer Bush and Tree when they start out, simply because they require the least number of gardeners and harvesters which can make things cheaper and easier in the beginning. Head to the "Land Management" page in game and in the "Prepare Land" section, enter the amount of acres you wish to cultivate in to the correct boxes and hit the "Submit" button below. If done correctly, your land is now ready, but empty. Head to the "Maintenance" page and under "Plant Plants", plant as many plants as you have in to the correct boxes. If the weather looks good (as seen in the top-right of every page), you may also wish to start growing any seeds you have in to plants under the "Grow Plants" section. These two jobs - "planting plants" and "growing plants" are carried out by your Gardener units. Now wait for the next tick (you can see the current time and the time the next tick is due at the top of each page). Now that the game is ticked, have another look at the "Maintenance" page and you should see from looking at the various numbers here that not only has some of your cultivated land now started to fill up, but some of the seeds your told your gardeners to "Grow" last tick will have now grown in to fully fledged plants, and you have also gained yet more seeds! The seeds you have gained will include a basic 10 of all 4 types which you get each and every tick no matter what (incase of emergency you will always have these few seeds coming in which you can grow or sell directly for money), as well as some seeds which your newly planted plants have already started to produce. The job of harvesting the seeds your planted plants can produce each tick is carried out by your "Harvester" units, and bad weather and the season can effect just how many seeds each plant churns out each tick. If you do not have enough Harvester units to harvest all of these seeds each tick, then the remainder of the seeds will simply disappear, so try and ensure you have enough Harvesters to cover all of your planted plants each tick (practise and experience will help you to eventually work out just how many harvesters you do or don't need). Making Money: Using the above information, you will slowly start to fill your 5 acres of land with plants, be gaining more and more seeds each tick, and also before long be getting a surplus of plants which you have no room to plant on your land. So what do you do with these "Spare Plants"? Sell them! Head to the "Supply Depot" page and here you can both buy and sell any of the 4 types of plants, as well as seeds. The biggest profit of course comes from harvesting your own seeds, growing them in to plants yourself and then selling these final products. Getting More Land: By now you will no doubt be wanting more land as you see the money racking up and seeds coming in each and every tick... so head back to the "Land Management" page again, and at the bottom of this page you will be able to purchase land directly - be aware that the more land you have, the more expensive each new acre of land becomes... so pay attention to the costs. Once land is bought, it is "uncultivated", so you will need to use the techniques you learned earlier to again prepare it for any of the 4 types of plants, and go through the phase of planting plants on that land again. As you start getting more land, and more and more plants filling that land, thus leading to larger and larger quantities of seeds coming in each tick, you will need to ensure you have enough gardeners and harvesters to deal with all this work each tick - hiring more gardeners or harvesters is a simple case of going to the "Hiring" page, entering the quantity of staff you wish to hire in to the respective boxes, and clicking the "Order" button at the top of the page - as long as you had enough money to cover the costs, you will have gained these new members of staff instantly. Note that once you have hired the staff, you need never pay them a penny again - they are yours until they die. Simply living at and working for your company is more than enough to keep them happy. Land isn't just gained through buying it though - land can be stolen from people you attack, or even stolen from you by people that may eventually come to attack you! Land is stolen by units that have the "Land Stealing" abilities, such as the "Wheelbarrower" units you can currently hire. More information on attacks, defence and generally waging war can be found in the "Combat and Units" section of this manual. |