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Well, its been a few months, and I have played a lot more. I decided I'd update my evaluations:
This is how I would rate the provinces, and an estimated bid worth. This is for the first half. I nthe second half, income is much less important, and the number of pyramids on the provinces is such a huge factor that it overweigs other stuff.
In the 'bid I would make' category, If average province quality is high, I go on the low end of the given bid range, since there are more good things to get, so less need to pay to get it. If province quality is bad, especially where there is one or more particularly bad provinces like Dakhal, I go on the high end. So 6? on Buto means 6, unless very high province quality, then 3. 3 or 6 is a bit weaker than this, then 3, and so on. It choose to make a strong 3 bid before a 6? bid.
Round 1: (grade) (APPROXIMATE bid I would make)
(Best to worst: ) Abu: A+ (strong 6) Buto: A (6?) Avaris: B+ (6?) Berenike: B (3 or 6) Kharga: B- (strong 3) Thebes: B- (3) Memphis: C+ (1) Baharya: C (1?) Amarna: C (0) Buto: C (0) Mendes: C- (0) Edfu: D (0?) Damanhur: D- (-1) Abydos: D- (-1) Dakhla: F (-3)
The negative ratings on those really bad ones means that I will pay more just to avoid them, and it would increase the chance that I would make a strong bid on something (like 6 on somehting I might normally bid 3 on), just to avoid getting stuck with this, expecting that others will also bid strongly, and pay money, so I wont fall behind everyone much, except for the one person who takes the crap province for 0.
Modifications:
Two or more camel provinces increases the rating of all camel provinces by a grade level, and makes them all a strong 6. Also, Dakhla, Berenike make them a little bit better. Lots of heavy farmer provinces (4+ farmers), makes them a bit worse.
A province that is alone on its side of the river, ESPECIALLY if its the side without Memphis, is increased in value to due less competition for most pyramids on a side.
2nd round:
Berenike: A (strong 3) Memphis: B+ (3) Abu: B+ (3) Avaris: B (3?) Buto: B (3?) Kharga: B- (1 or 3) Damanhur: B- (1) Thebes: B- (1) Baharya: C (1?) Edfu: C- (0) Amarna: C- (0) Dakhla: D (0) Buto: D (0) Abydos: D (-1) Mendes: F (-3)
At this point, a bunch more things come into play:
Obviously, the total # camel provinces vs farmer provinces matters like before.
If the sacrifice was 1 in round 1, the farmers are money starved and wont be able to drive it up. This increases the value of non-farmer provinces, especially camels, decreases it for farmers. If the sacrifice was 3 in round 1, the farmers are rich and the camel players got screwed. This greatly increases the value of farming / decreases camels. It also increases temples.
If you have an '8' bonus card, it increases the value of non or low income provinces like Dakhla. If you have a +1 per farmer card, it increases the high farmer provinces value.
Depending on what scoring power cards you have, various provinces get metter or worse. Since the provinces values are closer together, this will play a bigger role in determining which province to get, in this round.
A province on the same side of the river as your previous province is slightly better, because it decreases competition for most pyramids on that side. (In addition to helping with the one side power card).
Having more than 1 card of purchase power already decreases the value of province with this ability.
A second camel province is bad.
Round 3:
Dakhla: A+ (strong 6, maybe 10) Damanhur: A (strong 3) Memphis: A (3) Berenike: B+ (3) Edfu: B (3) Amarna: C+ (1) Thebes: C+ (1) Abu: C+ (1) Avaris: C (1?) Buto: C (0) Kharga: C- (0) Baharya: D (-1) Abydos: D (-1) Buto: F (-3) Mendes: F (-3)
Having an 8 card eliminates the value of camel provinces, Abu, Baharya, and Berenike, since you want to have it give no income and play an 8 on it.
If you sense a bidding war in the sacrifice, to win most on a side, then farmers and esecially temples are better / camels worse. If you sense a push coming to drive up temple values, the same. Bonus point powercards will be a heavy factor in which province you want.
Baharya is significantly better if you sense a temple push, or if you have the '9 farmers' bonus point card. Thats the only province you will probably see get more than 2 farmers this round.
In the second half, income is less important, temples are more important, and pyramids on the provinces are EXTREMELY important.
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Re:UPDATED province evaluation
Alexfrog (#32558), Why does Buto appear twice, with different ratings?
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Re:UPDATED province evaluation
Because I screwed up. Delete the first one in the third round, its very bad. I copied the name list and then modified / reordered them each tie. And made a mistake there.
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Re:UPDATED province evaluation
Alexfrog (#36097), One of the Buto's is probably Sawu. You can figure out for yourself which one is which...
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Re:UPDATED province evaluation
zaiga (#39847), Yes. The higher ranked "Buto" is always the Sawu.
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Why not just edit it? Excellent article, by the way!
Last edited on 2006-06-22 13:56:53 CST (Total Number of Edits: 1)
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Very nice. Is there a higher resolution version of this? All I could find was the gif. Thanks Innovan wrote:
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Unfortunately that's the largest picture of the Amun-Re board I've been able to find on the internet. If you can point me to larger scanned flat picture, I'll photoshop the rest again. There have been several requests to make a larger version.
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Innovan wrote: The -3 on Sawu in C phase is a bug I think. Very interesting! I wonder what I'd change if I was to reevaluate them again now.
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Let me add my province evalution here for discussion. It's a very straight-forward method how I evaluate the provinces.
1) I estimate the expected total income each farmer will produce. From this I subtract the cost of buying the farmers. The first three farmers cost 1, 2 and 3 gold. And the farmers above that 2.5 gold each as you can get them as rewards.
2) Each card is worth 3 gold or a bit more. The first cards are more valuable than the last ones, since it's easier to make one card work effectively than ten cards.
3) Each temple is worth about 5 gold as they usually give 2 points and it costs about 3 gold to get 1 point with pyramids (1 set = 3 pyramids = 9 stones = about 20 gold = 6 points). Each extra stone is worth about 3 gold.
Let's estimate the value of Abu, for example. Let's assume that the water always stays at 2, as this is the most common case.
- The three farmers will give you a total of 3 farmers * 3 rounds * 2 gold/round = 18 gold. The farmers cost 6 gold, so you get a profit of 12 gold.
- You can buy 2 two cards. First of them is worth about 3.5 gold, the second a bit less. Since Abu allows you to buy 2 cards each round, I estimate the second card symbol to be worth 3.5 gold as well. Almost every province allows you to buy at least 1 power card, so I won't give much extra value for the first card in the future rounds. So the first card gives you a profit of 3.5-1=2.5 gold, and the second card is worth 3.5-2=1.5 each round. So the value of the card symbols is 2.5+3*1.5=7 gold.
- The additional income is 12 gold in the Old Age, so we get a total of 12+7+12=31 for the province value. This value should be compared with the values of other provinces to determine the correct price for the province.
Using this approach we will get the following province values: Damanhur 21.5 Buto 22.5 Mendes 22.5 Avaris 31.5 Baharya 23.5 Memphis 26 Amarna 23 Dakhla 22.5 Abydos 23 Thebes 28.5 Sawu 33 Kharga 31 Edfu 23 Abu 31 Berenike 26.5
The camels are expected to always stay alive. The high card buying limit of Memphis and Abydos has increased the value of the provinces by 1 gold compared to those with the ability of buying only 2 cards.
In my opinion, the worst province in the 1st round is Damanhur. So we set the price of Damanhur to be 0. From this we will get the following prices for the provinces.
Sawu 11.5 Avaris 10 Kharga 9.5 Abu 9.5 Thebes 7 Berenike 5 Memphis 4.5 Baharya 2 Amarna 1.5 Abydos 1.5 Edfu 1.5 Buto 1 Mendes 1 Dakhla 1 Damanhur 0
Of course, there has to be made some adjustments to the prices depending on which provinces came up for the auction. If there are lots of farmers coming up early in the game, then the camels are less valuable. If, on the other hand, there are not too many farmer provinces, then the value of camel provinces is even higher.
If you can easily get the most pyramids to one of the provinces on sale, then that province is definitely worth 3 gold more.
There are some significant differences between my and Alexfrog's evaluation. In my opinion, the best provinces are the three camel provinces. They give a high income, but what's important to notice, that you can buy 1 or 2 farmers there (unlike in Berenike). These farmers are the most cost-effective farmers you can get. Anyway, the 6 best provinces are the same for me and Alexfrog.
With the next provinces we also seem to agree. I've valued Abydos a bit higher, since the free stone can be very valuable. And the ability of buying a lot of cards can be very useful, if you can get some money. If you're unlucky with your cards in Abydos, then you're in trouble though.
The last interesting difference is where I consider Dakhla to be better than Damanhur whereas Alexfrog thinks the opposite. The are two reasons for this. I consider 12 gold profit to be high for one province. Probably you won't get the same income with Damanhur. And there's a good chance to get the 8 production card with Dakhla, as you get the bonus card and you can buy two cards each round. It's also good to notice that Dakhla suits better to bonus power cards than Damanhur. Sure, Damanhur has two temples, but the higher income and the possibility to buy more cards and hit your bonus power cards makes Dakhla slightly better, in my opinion.
The following auctions are highly situational. In general, the camel provinces are the still the best, as they give high income with low cost. Farmer provinces are a lot less effective, as you lose 1/3 of the profit compared to the 1st round, but the cost of buying the farmers is the same.
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