Kohaku's Hoe House: How To Play

--- Getting Started -------------------------------------------

- What is Hoe House?
Hoe House is a basic management game very similar to whore house. The goal of the game is to get a better score than the other players, which is mainly determined by your number of bux (the game currency).

- How long does a round last?
2 weeks. Used to be 4.

- Does it give crowns?
Yup. +10 for the first, and everyone else gets crowns depending on their score provided it is at least 10% of the score of the top player.

- Okay, I've just joined. What do I do?
You start with 1 house and nothing else. First, go to the Work page, select 100%, and click on work. Congratulation, you have earned your first hoe and your first bro! Hoes determine your income when you work, and bros help you to attack other players, and defend against them as well.

- What's next?
Your chances of getting new hoes by working is also determined by your number of houses, so you will need more of them. Your number of houses should always be higher than your number of hoes divided by 50, and if you can have twice this amount of houses, it's even better. You can buy houses at the shop, two at a time. The cost of a house is 50,000 times your current number of houses, so better buy them 2 by 2.
That said, you understand now that your next objective is to get 2 more houses, ie getting 100k bux to buy them. Get back to work, select a high payout to get hoes more easily and lower it progressively to 50%. Buy two houses with the bux earned. (Note: since they have the lower price at this point of the game, you may want to sell some houses on the market.)

- So all I have to do to grow is to work to get hoes and bux. Hoes give me more bux, bux let me buy more houses, and houses help me to get more hoes.
It's not that simple, because the other players can steal your bux, hoes, and burn your houses. This is where bros and manure are useful.
Both can be bought at the shop. Bros cost 1000 + your current number of bros each, and you can buy 1000 of them in one go. Manure has a constant price of 100 per unit.
Buy 1 manure, it's a cheap minimum protection, at least against the first attack on your hoes. It's worth buying it with your first 100 bux actually.
The next step is to get 1000 bros (cost: roughly 1M bux). Be sure to get the bux in one go, as a player with few bros and many bux is an ideal target for robbery. Recover some EN if needed. The EN cap is at 300, which is reached in a bit more than a day. Don't get more than 1000 bros for now as it would raise the EN cost of an attack. Buy at least 5000~10000 sticks, which are consumed by bros when attacking/defending. Your number of sticks should be at all times about 5 times your number of bros. A bro without a stick is twice less effective.

--- Robbery ---------------------------------------------------

- Seems like a good start. Can I steal other players now?
Stealing can be a very effective way to get a particular ressource (bux or hoes), but has a high cost.
The Fight page gives you your chances of success of a Robbery (R), Arson (A) and Party (P) (See below) against other players.
To steal from another player, go on his profile by clicking on his name in the List or Fight page, then click on the Fight button.
You can see here your success rates against that player and can try to steal from him.
* Stealing bux:
EN cost: 1 (+1 per 1000 bros), capped at 20
You lose some bros and sticks as well.
The amount stolen is about 10% of your target's bux in case of success.
At twice the number of bros, you have roughly 50% chance, and at about 4 times the number of bros, 90% chance (cap).
If the defender doesn't have enough sticks, your chances can increase (x2 if no sticks at all).
The more houses your target has, the easier it is to rob. With 2 houses, the defense is 75% effective, and with an infinite number of houses, it's 50% effective.
*Barn Arson (burning a house):
EN cost: same as the cost of stealing bux
You lose some bros and 10 times the number of sticks you would lose by stealing bux.
The more houses the target has, the higher the chances of success.
Arson has a chance of burning all of your opponent's sticks. (About 23% or so.)
You don't gain anything directly, but arson can be used as a tactical move to rob hoes easily.
*Party (stealing hoes):
EN cost: 1 (+1 per house)
manure cost: 1000 times your number of houses if you have enough, all of your manure if you have less. Having 1 manure instead of 0 greatly increases the chances of success of your attacks.
The more houses you have, the higher your chances of success. Also, a low hoes/houses ratio helps, as well as a high hoes/houses ratio for the defender.
Having 1000 times your number of houses in manure doubles your chances (relatively to an attack with 0 manure).
Note that the chances of success are always capped at 90%.

- Manure is expensive. Do I really have to buy it?
If you feel confident that the other players won't try to steal your hoes (low hoes/houses ratio, less than 500 hoes), you may forget about manure. Have at least 1 manure, though.

- OMG! This player stole from me!
It means there is a flaw in your defense. Not enough bros? Not enough manure? Too few houses? If the attacks are in progress and are likely to continue, you may use the market (or the shop) to quickly sell the resource being stolen.

--- Market ----------------------------------------------------

- what is the market?
The market is a place where you can trade resources with other players. You can have a maximum of 10 offers at any given time on the market. Only the offers with the best ratio are available (I would say "best offers", but such offers can actually be more expensive than the shop). Your offer isn't available right after you make it, but after a random time of 1~6 hour(s).
As you know, the prices at the shop grow very fast, so you'll probably have to use it often.
Making a few offers at the beginning of the game may be a good idea as the cost is the lowest.
If someone made a really interesting offer recently, you can regularly check the offers to grab it before anyone does.
Trading can also be used to transfer resources between alts.

--- Points ----------------------------------------------------

- How are the points calculated?
50k points per house
1k points per hoe
100 points per bro
1 point per bux
1 point per manure

--- Other -----------------------------------------------------

Buy your second house ASAP. Then buy your houses by 1 or 2 at a time, it doesn't make much difference.

- What are gloves?
They are useless for the moment.

- And Booki?
Who knows? It's under development.

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There are more to say, but that is all for today.

Here are the formulas used in Hoe House.

--- Work ------------------------------------------------------

For 1 EN:

- How much you earn:
rand: random number between 0 and 1
(50 + 450*rand) * hoes * (1 - payout)

Example:
With 120 hoes and a payout of 70%, and supposing that rand = 0.5, you will earn:
(50 + 450*0.5) * 120 * (1 - 0.7) = 9900 bux

- Chance of getting a new hoe (negative values are set to 0):
(1 - hoes/(houses*50*2)) * payout

Examples:
Your chance is 0% if the payout is 0%. Same if you have 100 hoes per house or more.

With 12 houses, 240 hoes, and a payout of 70%, your chance is:
(1 - (240/(12*50*2))) * 0.7 = 0.8 * 0.7 = 0.56 = 56%

It is actually a bit less, see below for details.

- Chance of getting a new bro:
If you gain a new hoe, you have the same chance of getting a new bro afterwards.

Example:
With 12 houses, 240 hoes, and a payout of 70%:
Chance of getting a new hoe: 56%
Chance of getting a new bro when you gain a new hoe: 56%
Actual chance of getting a new bro: 0.56 * 0.56 = 0.3136 = 31.36%

Note: The chance is low and you gain only one bro at a time, so the amount of bros gained by working is very small. Don't bother trying to get many bros by working and just buy them.

- Chance of losing a hoe:
(hoes/(houses*50)) * (1 - payout)

Example:
With 12 houses, 240 hoes, and a payout of 70%, your chance is:
(240/(12*50)) * (1 - 0.7) = 0.4 * 0.3 = 0.12 = 12%

Note: this formula is applied even if you gain a new hoe, so the chance of getting a new hoe is actually less than previously calculated. (I would have just put that in a else case if you ask me.)

Example:
With 12 houses, 240 hoes, and a payout of 70%:
Chance of getting a new hoe: 56%
Chance of losing a hoe: 12%
Actual chance of getting a new hoe: 0.56 * (1 - 0.12) = 0.4928 = 49.28%
Actual chance of losing a hoe: 0.12 * (1 - 0.56) = 0.0528 = 5.28%

--- Shop ------------------------------------------------------

Price of a house:
50000 * your number of houses

Price of a bro:
1000 + your number of bros

--- Fight -----------------------------------------------------

Robbery, Arson and Party share the same power formula:
if (attpow <= defpow/2) then 0% chance to win
if (attpow >= 4*defpow) then 90% chance to win (cap)
else the probability of winning is:
p = 90*(attpow - defpow/2)/(defpow*3.5)

Robbery:
power = bros + sticks (1 stick per bro)
en cost = 1 en per 1000 bros (1 for 999 bros, 2 for 1999 bros, etc.)
success: rob 5~15% of the bux of the defender
att loses 0~100% sticks used and 0~2% bros
def loses 0~100% sticks used and 0~2% bros
failure:
att loses 0~100% sticks used and 0~5% bros
def loses 0~100% sticks used (but no more than the sticks used by attack)

Arson:
power = bros + sticks (sticks per bro = number of houses)
en cost = pow/2000
success: burn a house of the defender
att loses 0~100% sticks used and 0~5% bros
def loses 0~100% sticks used and 5~15% bros
failure:
att loses 0~100% sticks used and 0~5% bros
def loses 0~100% sticks used (but no more than the sticks used by attack)

Party:
pow = bros (max = houses*hoes) + manure (max = houses*hoes)
success: 5~15% hoes stolen from the defender
att loses all manure used
def loses all manure used
failure:
att loses all manure used
def loses all manure used (but no more than the manure used by attack)


--- Gloves -----------------------------------------------------

What they do:
- when you DON'T use them: +25% income
- when you use them: -20% chance of losing a hoe

THEY ARE USELESS, DON'T BUY THEM.


--- Trade -----------------------------------------------------

An offer appears between 30min and 6h after submission (with a 5 min timestep) (for a round of 2 weeks).

Remember that only the best available offers in each category appear on the trade page.

--- Points ----------------------------------------------------

1 point per bux
1 point per manure
100 points per bro
1000 points per hoe
50000 points per house


I've made a calculator for Hoe House using javascript. You can check it here: http://esantirulod.appspot.com/hoehouse/hoecalc2

Even though you now know your mean bux gain and chances of gaining/losing hoes, you still have to define an optimum growth strategy.

I was going to keep it for myself at the start, but I think it is better to just share it. The new crown system allows more cooperation after all.


Just to make things clear regarding the trades:

- You can have up to 11 active offers at the same time;

- The amount of time an offer stays in limbo is now between 2 and 24 hours with a 5 min timestep (uniformally randomized);

- Only the offer with the best ratio (resource given)/(resource asked) in each category will show up;

- If there are several offers with the same best ratio, the one with the smallest amount of resources will show up;

- If there are several identical offers with the best ratio, the oldest one will show up.

The limits are as follow:
- houses for hoes: 1~1000 houses, 5~50 hoes each
- hoes for houses: 5~50000 hoes, 5~50 hoes each
- hoes for bros: 1~1000 hoes, 40~1000 bros each
- bros for hoes: 40~1M bros, 40~1000 bros each
- bros for bux: 1~1000 bros, 1000~10000 bux each
- bux for bros: 1000~10M bux, 1000~10000 bux each