Posted June 08, 2015
Heyo,
Never heard of or played this game before, GOG's marketing and pricing made it appealing and just lost my sunday afternoon/evening to it. Verdict is : enormous fun but atrociously documented.
The most basic problem is the economy model itself is never explained, and the manual blatantly indicates that the game guide (separately published) holds the details. Consequently, to prevent frustration in others who are googling to no avail, here is the missing piece of info that may greatly improve your enjoyment of the game.
Penies, the game currency are *not* rent, they are *entry fees*.
This can be proven as follows:
1. go to the world view, inspire belief in permanent afterlife (and possibly demonic lust and angelic peace to make the population explode). This was to disprove my theaory that you're rewarded based on what the people believe will happen to them i.e. permanent afterlife, which would have been a neat mechanism.
2. create a cheap gate, heaven or hell it doesn't matter, fill in basic zones until they're full, and add the cheapest reincarnation facility to clear the backlog of reincarnators.
3. fast forward until you start getting lost souls, check your income graph showing pennies per soul.
4. immediately delete your only gate, wait one year, and check your income again - it will be 0
This can further be proven by multiplying your soul rate by the number of entrants/year when totalling up all the gates in your realms with some gracious rounding and comparing the number to your income graph. Knowing this, the game can be approached as you would Theme Park with all attractions free but contributing to the entry fee instead of, say, Sim City.
Therefore, the most 'efficient afterlife' (and belief system) is to maximise your temporary residents after getting the home-grown angels/demons ratio to 90% as discussed in the tutorial.
The soul rate itself is affected by the quality of your buildings which fortunately *IS* accurately discussed in the in-game tutorials and walkthroughs that can be found, so I won't cover it.
Hope this helps :)
M.
Never heard of or played this game before, GOG's marketing and pricing made it appealing and just lost my sunday afternoon/evening to it. Verdict is : enormous fun but atrociously documented.
The most basic problem is the economy model itself is never explained, and the manual blatantly indicates that the game guide (separately published) holds the details. Consequently, to prevent frustration in others who are googling to no avail, here is the missing piece of info that may greatly improve your enjoyment of the game.
Penies, the game currency are *not* rent, they are *entry fees*.
This can be proven as follows:
1. go to the world view, inspire belief in permanent afterlife (and possibly demonic lust and angelic peace to make the population explode). This was to disprove my theaory that you're rewarded based on what the people believe will happen to them i.e. permanent afterlife, which would have been a neat mechanism.
2. create a cheap gate, heaven or hell it doesn't matter, fill in basic zones until they're full, and add the cheapest reincarnation facility to clear the backlog of reincarnators.
3. fast forward until you start getting lost souls, check your income graph showing pennies per soul.
4. immediately delete your only gate, wait one year, and check your income again - it will be 0
This can further be proven by multiplying your soul rate by the number of entrants/year when totalling up all the gates in your realms with some gracious rounding and comparing the number to your income graph. Knowing this, the game can be approached as you would Theme Park with all attractions free but contributing to the entry fee instead of, say, Sim City.
Therefore, the most 'efficient afterlife' (and belief system) is to maximise your temporary residents after getting the home-grown angels/demons ratio to 90% as discussed in the tutorial.
The soul rate itself is affected by the quality of your buildings which fortunately *IS* accurately discussed in the in-game tutorials and walkthroughs that can be found, so I won't cover it.
Hope this helps :)
M.
