Taverns (hic)

So taverns have been out a few weeks now...  Perhaps I should've wrote something on them earlier but I've been extra busy drinking.  Is it all worth it?  Erm, maybe...

The benefits of taverning to the rest of your game:

• Up to an 8% chance of getting a FP from visiting your friend's tavern depending on their tablecloth (neat!)
• Buffs from the tavern shop (can be nice)
• Not losing active friends who care about the tavern more than you do (ouch)

So the buffs:

• +% coin productivityy, +% supply productivity - these aren't too bad.  If you don't have a Lighthouse or St Mark's Basilica yet they're pretty darn good.  If you do have those Great Buildings they're not as significant as they just add with all your other productivity bonuses
• Extra Turn - if you negotiate expedition this is amazing.  2 15 minute buffs is enough for me to finish difficulty 3 weekly by negotiate alone.  I usually pop the first one around the halfway mark of difficulty 2.  I do use some medals to buy extra attempts during the buff's duration.
• Enthusiastic - an interesting buff.  It makes your city instantly enthusiastic regardless of happiness provided.  If you were confident about being able to keep this buff up whenever you need it you could use this to escape all need for cultural buildings or GBs that provide happiness.  I'm already committed to happiness GBs on my main worlds, so I won't be making much use of this right now, but maybe one day if I start another new world.
• Merchants - You know those ripoff merchants that offer you 1 good for 10 in the market?  These let them rip you off a bit less.  I have thought about using this one to get rid of paper gluts but haven't sunk to that yet.  Overall I do not recommend this buff and it costs a big chunk of silver to boot.
• Attack Bonus - A bit pricy and doesn't help your attacking troops' defense (like the barracks bonus, not the GB bonus), but it could occasionally give you the kick you need to get by some tough fights that you're not already two-shotting the enemy on.
• Defense Bonus - Temporary watchfires, not at all recommended.
• City Shield - Very pricy and if you have the silver to afford keeping it up you probably should be able to collect on time and avoid the need for it
• Construction Boost - A neat and occasionally useful boost, you can cut the time to rebuild to a different ages barracks or a new ages housing/supplies by up to 75%
• Recruitment Boost - Unlike the guild recruitment boost, it does not help your recruitment time from your Alcatraz which makes what could've been the most exciting boost decidedly less so.  It's also a big chunk of silver.  Still, if you have an army mostly based on attached troops using this boost can enable you to have a ready to go attached army available daily for GvG action.

You can only have one of the above buffs on the go for free at a time.  You may pay 50 diamonds to unlock a slot for a second buff but you have to do so everytime you want to use that second slot - it's not a onetime cost.  If your first slot buff expires while the second slot buff is still going you can continue to pick first slot buffs for free so if you are going to run two buffs it's recommended that you put the longer one in the second slot.  You cannot cancel a buff once it's started - so if you're going to run the 75% construction boost it'll be occupying that buff slot for the full 3 days.

My personal choices atm: 

• I'm running Supply Boost on L because I'm trying to save up supplies for leaping to Arctic Future finally and rebuilding once there.  I have ran Recruitment Boost on one day to get an extra DA or two up.  Longterm I'd like to have a city that can make better use of Recruitment Boost but will need some modifications to do so.
• I'm using 2 'Extra Turn' buffs a week on V to complete guild expedition there (I'm Progressive Era with only 30% attack boost so fighting the whole thing is out of the question).  These are short buffs so I don't have difficulty combining them with Coin Boost which I also run there in order to complete more quests daily.
• I'm considering getting my taverns on worlds I don't play much to a point where I can do the 2 'Extra Turn' buffs a week there too.  I figure an 8 person table cleared once a day should suffice for that purpose.

Now about upgrades:

• Table Size and Chairs increase your income especially in the periods when you're working or sleeping and likely to fill up.  Visitors may only try to sit once a day so the bigger the table the less you're likely to miss out on in those periods when you just can't be online.  They also unlock which levels of buff are available to you in the tavern shop.
• Collection Plate increases income per visitor.  If your table isn't full often, it's efficient to get 2 to 3 levels of this before going back to finishing up your table size upgrades (say at 10 to 12 chairs)
• Floor increases income you may get by visiting others.  If you only clear your table a few times a day but do manage to sit at other peoples taverns frequently then you should focus on this upgrade earlier rather than later (say at 8 to 10 chairs).
• Tablecloth gives your visitors a chance to earn a FP for sitting at your tavern.  It's a nice way to thank your guests and eventually may become necessary to keep some of your more active friends.

Overall I'm less than impressed with the feature, but it's here and I feel I have to embrace it.  At least some of the buffs are interesting and the prospect of having 140 friends with burgundy tablecloths is appealing as that'd be worth an average of 11 FP a day - but that's a longterm thought.  For now, I'm going through the motions and hoping someone will hold my hair because all this pubcrawling is causing me to vomit!