Test of Magnificent Gardens

Summary (from T6)

Show off your building prowess by building a magnificent towering garden. Enlarge your garden, and maintain its flora to impress all of egypt. The largest blooming garden that stands in a region will become "magnificent", and after holding that status for an Egyptian week, it will pass the test.

This is a competitive test that combines some elements of the Obelisk test and cartouche test, but with some twists.

Flow of the test

First the main frame must be constructed. This houses the holding area for water and fertilizers, and has a limited amount of space for growing flowers. After it has been built, it will be in a state of "growing". This is to allow the flora to settle in and stabilize. After 24 Teppy hours, the state will change to "blooming".

Once in the blooming state, a garden must be maintained. The supply of water and flower fertilizer will slowly deplete. They can be refilled to max as often as desired (and permission to maintain can be set to allow others to help with this chore). If the garden runs out of fertilizer and water for over 24 consecutive Teppy hours, it will dry up! The flowers will die, and it will enter the "withered" state. If this happens, all the flora must be added again, and the state will enter back to the "growing" stage.

A garden in the blooming state can also be expanded. Choosing to expand it will allow room for more plants. Expansion costs scale with size, much like a enlarging a cartouche or obelisk, in that material cost grows fast as the size goes higher and higher. To expand, materials for more flower beds as well as the flowers themselves are added. Also, the garden can be expanded by 1 to 10 sizes at a time, but no more. (over expansion can stress the flora already planted).

Once the building expansion has finished, the garden re-enters the "growing" state, and will take 24 Teppy hours for the flora to stabilize. (thus, many small expansions will take much more time to complete than one larger expansion).

Scoring

All blooming gardens will have a score associated with their size. The largest score of a garden in a region will have the status of "Magnificent". At any point, if a garden in the same district blooms larger, the title of "magnificent" will be transfered to the new, larger garden. When a garden holds this title for one consecutive Egyptian week, it will pass the test.

Note: It is only during a blooming state that a garden is eligible to become "Magnificient". If a garden "withers" or is expanded (thus becoming "growing"), it will lose this title, and the next largest garden will gain that status.

The garden score will be displayed on the garden information for anyone to see. However, there will be no skill introduced to allow players to check the size of other gardens in their area (like meditation on obelisk sizes does currently). Thus, the only way to get a feel for the competition is to roam around and look, or simply build large enough to claim the status of "Magnificent".

Garden Maintenance

Each Garden only has a limited amount of storage for water and fertilizer for its plants, so the larger the garden is built, the faster these resources will be depleted! Thus, these stocks will need to be filled more frequently the larger the garden is built.

The maximum water and flower fertilizer storage will be 500 of each.

The size of the building determines the maximum amount of flora that can be grown and maintained. The option to refill these resources can be set to allow others to help with this chore. But if these resources run out for 24 Teppy hours, the garden will wither, and all of the plants will need to be replaced to get it back to growing status.

It is suggested that at size 1, the maximum flower and fertilizer stocks will last one real life week. At size 100, they will last one real life hour.

Construction Costs

These are suggestions, with aiming for this test to be available fairly early in the telling.
PLEASE NOTE: If this test is implemented much later in the game, the costs should probably be higher

Main Frame

• 300 bricks
• 30 cut stone
• 300 dirt
• 120 nails
• 200 boards (for trellising and bed construction)
• 30 rope (for trellising)
• 10 clay mortars (for bowls for papyrus flowers)
• 21 glass pipes (for irrigation) - (Wouldn't you use copper pipes for irrigation? - Darkfyre)
• 2 small barrels (for water and flower fertilizer storage)
• 7 sea lilies (any type)
• 14 papyrus seeds
• 14 grape vines (any type)
• 21 flax seeds (any type)

This will produce a size 1 garden. After building, the water and flower fertilizer levels will be zero, and must be filled withing 24 teppy hours to prevent withering.

Expansion

Expansion costs will depend on the size, but will be in this ratio:

• 7 sea lilies (any type)
• 14 papyrus seeds
• 14 grape vines (any type)
• 21 flax seeds (any type)
• 7 glass pipes (for irrigation)
• 100 dirt
• 5 clay mortars
• 50 boards
• 100 bricks

Remember, expansion steps can be anywhere from 1 size larger to 10 sizes larger.