Town and markets

The town of Harrison grows by settlers. Settlers create demand. Demand, split among sellers, sets what a player’s business earns. The player’s work is to find a market with few sellers and open a business in it.

Settlers and milestones

settlers(t) = min( SETTLER_MAX, SETTLER_START + floor( (t - founded) / SETTLER_EVERY ) )
level(n)    = the highest milestone whose "at" is <= n

The town is founded when the claim is created. The constants are SETTLER_START = 8, SETTLER_MAX = 60, and one new settler every 40 minutes.

Milestones. Hours is the real time after founding at which the settler count first reaches the milestone.

Level	Name	Settlers	Hours after founding	Markets opened
0	Founding	0	0	Saw filing, Freight hauling
1	A town of 15 settlers	15	4.7	Cedar shakes, Seedlings
2	A real town of 30	30	14.7	General goods
3	The steamboat stops here	45	24.7	Room and board

The count reaches its cap of 60 about 34.7 hours after founding. When the level rises, the ledger records “Town milestone” and lists the markets that opened. Every level up is recorded, including levels skipped over while the player was away.

Markets

Markets. K is the capacity of one seller in units per hour. D is demand per settler per hour. P is the base price in bd ft per unit. Upkeep is bd ft per hour. Cogs is the share of each sale spent on goods. Comp is the number of simulated competitors at founding. Unlock is the milestone level.

Market	Business	Unit	Cost	Upkeep	K	D	P	Cogs	Comp	Unlock	Needs building
Saw filing	Filing shop	saw	600	45	4	0.25	30	10%	1	0	–
Freight hauling	Teamster stable	load	1,200	100	3	0.12	90	25%	2	0	barn
Cedar shakes	Shake shed	bundle	900	60	6	0.35	28	0%	0	1	–
Seedlings	Tree nursery	bundle	800	60	3	0.1	60	20%	0	1	–
General goods	General store	order	2,500	40	10	0.6	20	60%	1	2	–
Room and board	Boarding house	night	3,000	70	8	0.25	35	40%	0	3	cabin

Shake shed has no cost of goods share. It consumes redcedar logs instead: 0.25 of a log per bundle sold, taken first from the landing deck and then from the sawmill yard. Each market grants one perk to its owner.

Perks.

Business	Perk
Filing shop	Your own saws are filed free.
Teamster stable	Your own hauling to town mills costs half.
Shake shed	Splits redcedar logs from your landing or mill. No cedar, no shakes.
Tree nursery	Your own replanting is free.
General store	The busiest trade in a growing town.
Boarding house	Your crew rests 25% faster.

The filing shop waives the saw filer’s fee, the stable halves hauling shares and Mercantile freight, the nursery waives replanting cost, and the boarding house multiplies crew rest by 0.75. The shake shed and the general store have no perk beyond their sales.

Demand, price and income

demand  = settlers * d                                  units per hour
sellers = competitors + (1 if the player owns the business)
ratio   = demand / max( sellers * k, 0.5 * k )
price   = round( p * clamp( ratio, 0.5, 1.8 ) ^ 0.7 )

yourSales = min( k, demand / sellers )                   if you own it, else 0
            then min( yourSales, cedarOnHand / 0.25 )    for the shake shed
net per hour = yourSales * price * (1 - cogs) - upkeep   (upkeep only if you own it)

status = locked        if town level < unlock
         underserved   if ratio > 1.3
         balanced      if ratio >= 0.8
         crowded       otherwise

Income is integrated over time. Over each interval, lumber += net * hours, and lumber never drops below zero, so upkeep cannot make it negative. The amount is also added to earned[market], which is allowed to go negative and is not floored.

When the player has no cedar, yourSales is zero and the shake shed pays only its upkeep.

Competitors

Competitors are a count per market. They change in steps of at most 30 minutes, and only for markets the town has unlocked.

roll = hash01( floor(t / 30 minutes), len(id) * 7 + k )          a fixed pseudo-random number in [0,1)
h    = step length in hours
if ratio > 1.25 and roll < 0.10 * h * 2:                         competitors += 1
else if ratio < 0.70 and competitors > 0 and roll > 1 - 0.12 * h * 2:   competitors -= 1

hash01(a, b) = fractionalPart( sin( a * 12.9898 + b * 78.233 ) * 43758.5453 )

For a full 30-minute step, h is 0.5, so entry has probability 0.10 and exit 0.12. For a shorter step the probability shrinks in proportion. The roll depends only on the clock and the market, not on the player, so two players at the same moment see the same roll.

Implementation note: while the page stays open a competitor almost never enters or leaves. Changes show up when the player returns after being away, because the update then runs in full 30-minute steps. The competitor rate depends on how often the page runs the update.

Opening a business

requires: the market is unlocked (town level >= unlock)
          the player does not already own it
          the selected parcel is cleared, has no building, is not meadow, is not the landing
          the required building exists, if the market names one
          lumber >= cost
effect:   the town is brought up to date, lumber -= cost,
          parcel.building = "biz:" + id,
          town.biz[id] = { r, c, since: now }

The placement check does not look for a field, so a business can be opened on a parcel that has one. There is no way to close or sell a business, and upkeep runs for as long as the claim exists. A business adds its cost to the appraisal.

Inputs, outputs and state

Inputs are the clock, the founding time, the player’s businesses, the landing deck and sawmill yard (for cedar) and the selected parcel. Outputs are lumber over time, the earned figures (read by the Merchant board), competitor counts and ledger lines. State: S.town = { founded, at, comp, earned, biz, level }, where at is the last update time.

For the shared game

The prototype fakes a market economy from settler count: demand per settler, a hash standing in for other players’ decisions, and a count of competitors. In a shared game “sellers” should be the real businesses that exist, and “settlers” should be the real population or the server’s schedule of arrivals. A server must own the business registry (one record per player business), the pricing function, and one fixed update step for everyone, so that outcomes do not depend on how often a client polls. Milestones are the unlock schedule for the whole world, so they should be a world setting and not a per-player clock. If every player has a private founding date, as in the prototype, the milestone gates do not coordinate anyone.

Source: prototype/index.html · constants MARKETS, MILESTONES, SETTLER_EVERY, SETTLER_START, SETTLER_MAX in rules.json · logic settlers, townLevel, marketNow, updateTown, hash01, openBiz, takeCedar