ATLANTISv2 atl-design-digest #33

From: csd@microplex.com (Christian Daudt)

Date: Fri, 14 Jul 1995 00:00:00 +0000

This is kept by me (csd@microplex.com)
If there are any problems, please tell me 'cause I normally
don't have enough time to read them.
If you want previous versions, they are available via WWW at
http://www.microplex.com/~csd/atlantisv2/
----------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Who needs Food anyway?
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 19:19:22 -0700
From: Anson Winsor <apwinsor@span.CS.UNLV.EDU>

I appreciate the offer of support, but cannot take it now.
I will stay allied with my allies. They are good allies.

This what I have been talking about, the "need for support"
that Trade factions have. This offer is just another offer
to support poor old trade factions that can't make it on
their own.

The perception is, correctly I add, that trade factions NEED
support to get going.

Why correctly?
Because they cannot produce anything directly that will even
feed what units they have.
Only War factions can do that.
(Why should silver be enough to keep from starving)

If this were a real world, war factions would have a problem
with supply lines to keep their troops supplied with food.
Trade transactions would keep those doing trade readily supplied
with food. Food would be one of the items Trade factions work
with.

But NO, it is not war that has to worry about supply lines,
it is the trade factions. Just the opposite from real life.

I would like to see a common item, FOOD, be needed by all units.
Trade factions would make, produce, and transport this item
everywhere. Sure, anybody could transport it, but only trade could
make or produce it.

This would be a real item requiring war, and anybody else away from
the supply, to keep purchasing. This would make for real trade
going on. Not a trade that war can decide not to buy. Not a trade
that is only sometimes available in nearby cities or towns.
But an item that everyone in the game would require.

>Subject: Atlantis offer
>To: apwinsor@span.cs.unlv.edu
>Date: Fri, 14 Jul 1995 09:55:57 +1000 (EST)
>X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21]
>Content-Type: text
>Content-Length: 461
>
>Greetings
>                Are you Unsatisfied by your present alliance?
>        Feel that you need a change with room to be yourself?
>If the answer is yes then come join the <name deleted> alliance.
>        We do garantee that the war faction will provide you
>with all the support you need as will the magic factions, its that
>sort of co-operative alliance.
>        If you are interested you can contact me
>
<name deleted>
>
>(I'm the main war faction (well actually war/trade at the moment)).
----------------------
----------------------------------------------------------
From: yaj@cc.gatech.edu (Jay Luo)
Subject: Atlantis: Food
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 22:42:55 -0400 (EDT)

I'd like to argue in favor of food's sale value being less than the amount
of silver worth of maintenance the food can provide.  In my opinion buying
food and using it for maintenance should be more efficient than just using
silver; if not, what benefit is there for say, a War faction, to buy food?
Not much.  But, if I have an army with 100 soldiers in it burning 1000
silver in maintenance every turn, it might be worth shipping in food if it
saves the War faction money.

Since everyone needs maintenance, I think there would be sufficient player
interest in acquiring food to make it a worthwhile commodity to produce.

----------------------------------------------------------
From: yaj@cc.gatech.edu (Jay Luo)
Subject: Atlantis: Specialization
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 22:38:36 -0400 (EDT)

How about, instead of having war factions tax X regions, trade factions
tax Y regions, and magic factions have 5 mages....  have all factions be
somewhat "generic" factions that can produce in 1 hex, tax 1 hex, and have
up to 5 "super-leaders" (for want of a better term).  These 5 super-leaders
could study magic, to become mages, or else study some new skills,
"Rulership" and "Merchant".

A given super-leader can only learn one of Magic, Rulership or Merchant,
and non super-leaders cannot study any of those skills at all.  For each
level of Rulership your faction possesses, your faction can tax 4
additional hexes.  For each level of Merchant your faction possesses,
your faction can produce in 4 additional hexes.

Thus you can be a faction with 5 super-leaders with level 5 Rulership,
and tax 101 hexes, or 5 with level 5 Merchants and produce in 101 hexes,
or a faction with 5 mages, or various things in between.

This also gives non-magic factions important "King" type leaders which
are important to protect; as it is now, if my primary leader gets killed,
it's not that big a deal (I have lots of tacticians waiting to take over
if need be), but getting a super-leader killed could stop your taxation
or trade and throw a large sector of your faction into disorder.  This
would make assassination an actually worthwhile occupation, whereas now,
IMHO, the only units worth assassinating are mages.

Just some random thoughts.

----------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Food VS Silver
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 19:34:19 -0700
From: Anson Winsor <apwinsor@span.CS.UNLV.EDU>

Geoff is against trade factions being able to "PRODUCE SILVER"

Why?

Isn't exactly what War factions are doing right now?
Aren't they "PRODUCING SILVER" every time they tax?

So, war produces silver. Has no need for food. Has no supply lines.
Trade must sell swords, horses, armour to war to get some of the
silver the war "PRODUCED".

Makes being a trade faction all the more interesting and challenging.
I would like to see if trade can actually out "PRODUCE SILVER"
compared to what war can produce.

I am going to try.
---------------------

--Boundary-11499145-0-0

Many good points being made here. However, I still maintain that
the items should be worth more as trade items than as food.
Otherwise, we are basically giving the trade factions the
ability to "PRODUCE SILVER", and no reason to sell it. And
that it, after all, the point of a trade faction.

So, the food items will probably have a market value of something
like twice their food value. But I think allowing it to be used
as food makes sense.

Geoff

----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 21:45:16 -0500 (CDT)
From: Lazarus <llong@io.com>
Subject: Re: Atlantis 2.0: Faction comments

I agree about this.
My alliance has a war and a trade, lots of war/trade, lots of magic.
I am currently war/trade. I keep being asked to switch to pure magic
because "there are too few of them."

It seems that most alliances believe that 5 mages is too few to have.
They would like only 1 war, 1 trade, and the rest magic.

On Thu, 13 Jul 1995, Joshua Mosher (JE 1996) wrote:

> On Wed, 12 Jul 1995, GDUNBAR.US.ORACLE.COM wrote:
>
> > Looking at the 2 above, it's obvious that Trade is a poor
> > sister in this game to War.
> >
> > One person I spoke to said that a lot of the big alliances
> > pick 1 faction to be the War faction, one to be the Trade
> > faction, and everyone else is a magic faction. From my data
> > I can't tell whether this is true or not, but seems likely.
> > So, while it seems that Magic is very popular, I don't know
> > whether this is because people think magic faction are more
> > fun, or if it is a matter of necessity. Comments?
> >
> > Also, it's obvious from this that Trade is not important
> > enough. There are few trade factions, and even the ones that
> > are there, aren't producing very much.
>
> I have been thinking on this, and came up with one idea. Production is
> not very critical to a War faction's short-term success. Since you can
> quickly train large numbers in COM 1 and then start taxing, War factions
> quickly become self-sufficient. They don't ever _need_ a Trade faction's
> military production, although it may help later when competing with other
> strong alliances. Perhaps a partial solution would simply be to require
> swords (or bows as now) to tax, just as in Atlantis 1.1.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Josh Mosher
>
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 21:47:38 -0500 (CDT)
From: Lazarus <llong@io.com>
Subject: Re: Atlantis 2.0: Improvements for Trade

These things are great!

If only trade can produce them, then maybe trade is worth something
after all.

Keep magic and war the same but make more that trade can do.
Like these!

On Thu, 13 Jul 1995, GDUNBAR.US.ORACLE.COM wrote:

>
> Here are some of the things I have planned to make trade factions
> more interesting:
>
> 1) More plentiful trade items, and a reason to use them. There
> will be new skills Farming and Ranching, to produce the items
> grain and livestock. That makes the "Basic Trade Items" (as I
> am thinking of them) Furs, Grain, Livestock, and Fish. Basic,
> because they have no purpose other than trade, and will be
> very plentiful.
>
> Plains will be more plentiful in the next version, and will be
> the producers of grain and livestock. The population will depend
> on the production of these items. Also, villages/towns/cities
> (which will be locations, rather than region types) will have
> their populations be heavily dependent on the amount of basic
> items being sold there.
>
> When a village grows into a town, it will begin to have demand
> for other items (iron, stone, horses, etc), and will also begin
> to produce bows, swords, etc, for sale.
>
> When a town grows into a city, it will begin to sell, and demand,
> "Advanced Trade Items". These will be more exotic and rare items,
> that can be sold between cities for higher profits.
>
> 2) More things to build: Roads, mines, quarries, horse ranches,
> smithies, etc. These will _not_ be required for production (that
> was a bad idea), but will rather increase it. And roads, obviously,
> will speed movement.
>
>
> So, between these 2, hopefully trade factions will have a bit
> more to do, and also be more important. Woe to the War faction
> who drives the traders out; he'll be left with empty plains,
> and a bunch of low-tax villages.
>
> Geoff
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 22:02:21 -0500 (CDT)
From: Lazarus <llong@io.com>
Subject: Re: Atlantis 2.0: The Faction Type System

On Thu, 13 Jul 1995, GDUNBAR.US.ORACLE.COM wrote:

>
> OK, the last couple of posts have been to tell you what's in
> store. This one is to find out what you want. After we go
> through some discussion, I'll probably run a vote.
>
> The question at hand is the faction type system. The directions
> we can go are:
>
> 1) The current system.
No, need a better way for trade to take care of self.

>
> 2) Something like the current system, but a little more flexible,
> allowing factions to do more. What I had in mind was something
> like:
>
> You get 5 Faction Points. You can spend the points as follows:
>
> 1 point per mage.
>
> For trade or war, you get a number of regions according to the
> number of points you spend:
>
> points    regions
> ------    -------
> 1         2
> 2         5
> 3         10
> 4         25
> 5         100
Very good Idea. Like the current system, but much more
variablility in selecting your faction type.
I like this one.

>
> 3) Another, faction point for skills system. In this one, you
> get 10 faction points (or so). 1 faction point per mage. For
> all the rest of your units, you may learn skills at 1 skill
> per faction point.
Dont really understand this one. Does it mean you may have 10 mages?

>
> 4) "Screw it, I want it all." No limits, except a limit of
> 5 mages per faction. (This is the Atlantis 1 system).
Why the limit of 5 mages? Most alliances feel they have too few
as it is and want any new ally to become a pure magic faction.

>
> 5) OK, one last variation. This one's sorta like Olympia. No
> restrictions on trade or taxing. 5 mages per faction.
>
> However: leaders are no longer permitted to produce or tax
> (and possibly pay 0 maintenance?). Only regular units are
> allowed to do those. You are only allowed 10 regular units.
>
> At the same time, you can create a garrison, or a production
> unit. These do not count against your number of regular units.
> However, you don't have control over them; all they do is
> sit there and tax (or produce), and fight for you, if it comes
> to that.
Not really like this one. too hard to keep what units are which.
Want more than 10 regular units. Want more control over all my
units.
Leaders should cost more to maintain.

>
>
> (Note that Trade should have much more ability to produce and
> make money with the new economic system.)
It is not that trade needs more ability to produce and make money,
Trade needs a better way to turn that production into silver
to stay alive.

War can simply tax and stay alive and grow. Trade must produce,
move the goods to market, sell the goods, bring back the silver
to the producing units who might not even still be alive.

It would be fair if War had to do a similar thing in reguard to
having to obtain food to buy, bring back to the troops, and feed
them if they are still alive.

Why make it so difficult for trade, who should be actually shipping
food, to have to obtain silver to stay alive?
Why not give war the same problem with a supply line?

>
> Comments? Questions?
>
> Geoff
>
>
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 22:21:33 -0500 (CDT)
From: Lazarus <llong@io.com>
Subject: Re: Food VS Silver

On Thu, 13 Jul 1995, Anson Winsor wrote:

> Geoff is against trade factions being able to "PRODUCE SILVER"
>
> Why?
>
> Isn't exactly what War factions are doing right now?
> Aren't they "PRODUCING SILVER" every time they tax?
It isn't actually production of silver, but the effect is the same.
Nothing wrong with this. What is wrong is they don't have to spend it.

>
> So, war produces silver. Has no need for food. Has no supply lines.
> Trade must sell swords, horses, armour to war to get some of the
> silver the war "PRODUCED".
So, trade gets silver from War if War decides to buy something.
Since trade's only other choice is to try to find a town or city
that will buy their production, sometimes there is no demand,
they they will have to accept any reasonable price war wants to pay.

>
> Makes being a trade faction all the more interesting and challenging.
> I would like to see if trade can actually out "PRODUCE SILVER"
> compared to what war can produce.
They have a name for people that want this kind of challenge. :-)
Think of a good name quick!

Let's see: "A die-hard gamest"

>
> I am going to try.
Go for it, and good luck.

> ---------------------
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 22:31:40 -0500 (CDT)
From: Lazarus <llong@io.com>
Subject: Re: Atlantis: Food

A good idea here.
Not require food to be there, but if you set up a supply line to
obtain food then it would cost enough less to get the food, save
silver, and still pay enought for Trade to produce and sell it.
Trade, those that produce food, would not starve and could sell
it to other units for silver to cut their silver requirement
each turn.

What levels of food vs silver would be right?

On Thu, 13 Jul 1995, Jay Luo wrote:

> I'd like to argue in favor of food's sale value being less than the amount
> of silver worth of maintenance the food can provide.  In my opinion buying
> food and using it for maintenance should be more efficient than just using
> silver; if not, what benefit is there for say, a War faction, to buy food?
> Not much.  But, if I have an army with 100 soldiers in it burning 1000
> silver in maintenance every turn, it might be worth shipping in food if it
> saves the War faction money.
>
> Since everyone needs maintenance, I think there would be sufficient player
> interest in acquiring food to make it a worthwhile commodity to produce.
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 22:28:14 -0500 (CDT)
From: Lazarus <llong@io.com>
Subject: Re: Atlantis: Specialization

This sounds interesting.

Actually gives you a chance to go for a unit that will make a real
difference. A bit similar to Geoff's #3 choice too.

War cannot grow too fast to overcome all the other type factions
because it will take a while to train 5 superleaders up to
level 5.

Want to tax, then have a superleader in war.
Want pure magic, go for 5 super magic leaders.
This would be a special "leader skill" that all other units
cannot learn, similar to the ones Mages do now.

Gives you the 5 point system and keep too rapid growth from happening.

On Thu, 13 Jul 1995, Jay Luo wrote:

>
> How about, instead of having war factions tax X regions, trade factions
> tax Y regions, and magic factions have 5 mages....  have all factions be
> somewhat "generic" factions that can produce in 1 hex, tax 1 hex, and have
> up to 5 "super-leaders" (for want of a better term).  These 5 super-leaders
> could study magic, to become mages, or else study some new skills,
> "Rulership" and "Merchant".
>
> A given super-leader can only learn one of Magic, Rulership or Merchant,
> and non super-leaders cannot study any of those skills at all.  For each
> level of Rulership your faction possesses, your faction can tax 4
> additional hexes.  For each level of Merchant your faction possesses,
> your faction can produce in 4 additional hexes.
>
> Thus you can be a faction with 5 super-leaders with level 5 Rulership,
> and tax 101 hexes, or 5 with level 5 Merchants and produce in 101 hexes,
> or a faction with 5 mages, or various things in between.
>
> This also gives non-magic factions important "King" type leaders which
> are important to protect; as it is now, if my primary leader gets killed,
> it's not that big a deal (I have lots of tacticians waiting to take over
> if need be), but getting a super-leader killed could stop your taxation
> or trade and throw a large sector of your faction into disorder.  This
> would make assassination an actually worthwhile occupation, whereas now,
> IMHO, the only units worth assassinating are mages.
>
>
> Just some random thoughts.
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 22:50:20 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Robert A. Hayden" <hayden@krypton.mankato.msus.edu>
Subject: Re: Atlantis: Food

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

On Thu, 13 Jul 1995, Lazarus wrote:

> Not require food to be there, but if you set up a supply line to
> obtain food then it would cost enough less to get the food, save
> silver, and still pay enought for Trade to produce and sell it.
> Trade, those that produce food, would not starve and could sell
> it to other units for silver to cut their silver requirement
> each turn.
>
> What levels of food vs silver would be right?

How about, a unit that is producing food has no maintanence, and produces
one unit of food for each level of farming they have.  Food can be sold
outright in towns for around $15, but CANNOT BE BOUGHT ANYWHERE.  Food
can be carried with a wieght of .2.

This will lead to War factions needing to trade with a player to get some
food for their troops (or pay the $10 upkeep on their soldiers)

____        Robert A. Hayden      <=> Cthulhu Matata
\  /__          -=-=-=-=-         <=>          -=-=-=-=-
 \/  /  Finger for Geek Code Info <=> hayden@krypton.mankato.msus.edu
   \/   Finger for PGP Public Key <=> http://att2.cs.mankato.msus.edu/~hayden

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.2

iQCVAwUBMAXpdjokqlyVGmCFAQHgqgQApWYR3fOb6ZQBU9hKGH6wseUtNzKc8Ibd
+JMe/LtSobexbIx1jb8vAoTCfOkhJK/y59XuPDQC/k+ZH/Skq+18mh+6+eawxkbo
DtjYL3mBc1J9N8wzS7FArwnv6q7JJWsVSbLmm3h3MYt1gbj0z6ELALROp5uvYQeo
T3KyGmMSnh8=
=X83Y
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 22:52:50 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Robert A. Hayden" <hayden@krypton.mankato.msus.edu>
Subject: Re: Atlantis: Specialization

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

RE:  Superleaders

Now THIS is a great solution.  It maintains a perfect balance and allows
the player to define exactly what their faction is designed.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.2

iQCVAwUBMAXp/zokqlyVGmCFAQF/UAP6A2YYrzu/tDZdSuz4h+CNsoUs7unL3Q1N
2/91mOEC9DpxCc+gUnG5isQ+ybt77DTfRCbqGJPUcY2ZCdVSHv20j6fUYy+6BETP
S9vD1caWauC05J9d9UJRmV3cjpWQAgHe0DIcGoispk3p4G69Gjs55sTiUe0mUzff
KfrWE0G3/vw=
=UG/3
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 21:24:13 -0700 (PDT)
From: Tawnlin <winsort@nevada.edu>
Subject: Re: Atlantis 2.0: Magic Improvements

Geoff Wrote:
>
> Me again.
>
> Now, on to the magic system. The current magic system is pretty
> much a hodge podge, and not very good. The problem is that with
> 7 foundations, there are plenty of combinations of foundations.
> Too many, in fact, which makes it hard for me to fill in spells
> for all (or even many) of the combinations.
This is ok, not every combination has to have a spell available.
If you were to add a new spell and a Mage found a new area
to study, they would be glad to do that.
Even if it were one they thought they had already passes as
having no spell there.

Are many Magic factions with me on this?

I like the 7 foundations. The more complex the better. All the more
time taken to study, learn new spells, and harder to get my mages
all up to level 5.

What would I do if all of them were up to level 5?
Most of the fun I have is to learn new things coming up.
That is why I don't want anyone to tell me about spells.
I don't mind trading spells, but don't tell me where the
best ones are and what they do, please!

>
> So, here's a plan for the next system (which will be much better
> in design and at fitting into the game, I promise!):
>
> 4 foundations, based on the elements. Fire, which will encompass
> all sorts of energy type skills. Earth, dealing with physical
> strength and construction. Water, controlling life and nature.
> And Air, the foundation of thought and mind control.
This would mean 14 level 1 spells considering all possible combinations.
Could then have 14 level 2 spells, 14 level 3 spells.
If there are combinations of level 1 and 2 then there are many more
possible.
Pleanty of room for spells here.

>
> >From these skills, will be more skills to be studied. So, when
> you achieve Fire 3 and Water 3, perhaps you would be given the
> opportunity to study Weather Control. I don't think that there
> will be any 3 tiered skills, as that would be quite complex.
The More complex the better.
And if you want to add ones after the game starts, then that is
just another aspect of magic manifesting itself.
I would think that one of the first spells I would like is
one similar to the "Construct". In this magic foundations, it
might be a level 1 using all four foundations at level 1.

>
> Spells will still need to be researched, but areas & skills will
> now be the same. So you would study Fire, and then research Fire.
>
> Also, I'm considering the idea of requiring physical components
> for spells. Like, Fire spells need gemstones, Earth need, I don't
> know, bloodstone, or something, etc. These would be pretty
> common around the world, but in small quantities, thus making
> magic factions need to compete for resources as well.
No problem with requiring items. But if a Mage is getting higher skill
levels, then perhaps the level 1 spell learned long ago might not
need the physical item as the Mage is much better at it now.
Exception would be if the Mage would construct something. It should
require an item to produce and item. A magic sword might require
a sword and some other item to enchant it. A wand of curing might
require herbs and the curing spell. A fireflash wand might need
only the spell fireflash but perhaps a firely gem of sorts.
>
> Comments? Questions?
Like I said, I would prefer more foundations, but many role playing
games are set up with just the 4 basic foundations listed here.
The areas of study and spells are limitless if you require
certain levels of foundations and certain spells before you can
learn new spells.

My example of needing level one on all four foundations to learn
the construct spell is of this type.
Once you have learned the construct spell, then you can study
each of the 14 level 1 research areas again to learn how
to produce "Gadgets".

As you can tell, I am interested in many areas of study and research.
I would not want to get my mages at the top of the skill levels and
not have any more study for them to do.

After all, most of the fun is finding out new things the Mage is
capable of doing

Tawnlin

>
> Geoff
>
>
>
> ------- End of Forwarded Message
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------
From: tim.hruby@his.com
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 95 21:47:17
Subject: RE: ATLANTIS 2.0

> In the scenario suggested above, Trade could develop it's own massive
> armies, feed them with crops, and have no need of War at all. In fact War
> might be out in the cold, having no-one to produce for them.

Except for the question of where the money comes from to create these armies,
and War will always have a significant advantage over Trade in this regard.  A
War soldier costs about $80 on the starting turn (~60 + 10 to train + 10
maintenance) and then makes a profit of $50+ each turn thereafter, assuming an
adequate tax base and working.  That's better than a 60% return on the
investment, allowing the War faction to double his forces every two turns and
still pocket some spare cash.  A Trade soldier would cost the same $80, makes
no money, not even his support, for his faction (though he could work and
defray his maintenance).  Considering that that money could instead have
trained someone to produce something of value, that's a big waste of money, and
certainly makes no down-the-road contribution to the faction's resources, since
he can't tax and his only income source is working.  If he eats grain, that's
even more of a productive drain, since that grain [1] required an investment in
a additional producer unit, and [2] could have been sold at a profit.

I just don't see Trade factions creating fighting forces in numbers anywhere
near War factions -- it's just nowhere near as efficient as what War factions
can do, and thus they'll get trounced by serious War opposition.

There is also the fact that crops weigh something, while silver doesn't, thus
making transport an issue for marauding armies.

On the whole, I think that allowing food for maintenance isn't going to do much
except make life _a little_ easier for Trade factions and boats at sea.  Trade
factions will prefer to use silver for maintenance, since the food will be
worth more if sold at a market.  But in emergencies and other special
circumstances (including lack of player time to organize all the market trips),
one _can_ eat the grain or fish and survive.  It only makes sense that you
should be able to eat such things, after all.  But Geoff has indicated that it
will be more profitable to sell them and live off the proceeds, so there isn't
a great incentive to live off actual product if you can do better.

----------------------------------------------------------
From: Mark Keen <mark@keen.demon.co.uk>
Date:          Fri, 14 Jul 1995 11:55:14 +0000
Subject:       Re: ATLANTIS 2.0: THE FACTION T

> Here's a slight variation:  You are only allowed to issue x orders per turn
> (say, ten, or even better 15-# of mages).  But there would be a few new orders,
> standing orders, which act a lot like the current flags.  Once a unit has been
> given a standing order (autotax, autoproduce y, autostudy z, autogive surplus
> silver/product to another unit (need this one to allow production chains, like
> iron-sword)), it will continue to do that until it recieves a new order.  This
> allows you a little more flexibilty to activate, dismantle and/or move a
> garrison if the need arises.

I don't like this idea. If you are Taxing/Producing in many areas
you'll need more than 10 units just to run around gathering up the
silver/products. I use a system of "Runners" and I soon will have
rather a lot of them :)