This really belongs split between the Housing Blocks and questions about the Housing Blocks threads, but since I can't follow my own posts I am putting it in a new one for right now. I want to get this down now while I have the time and energy, because by the way it looks it could be months to years before someone else posts in either of those threads, and by that time I may no longer feel like making the glyphs for these blocks.

After dozens of different designs I have finally created a mixed housing block and a mixed double block that I am happy with. The goal was to fit as many elite houses using as few duplicate services as possible, while allowing use of the agora back door for rapid rearming.

For the single block, I give a lot of credit to SenetEr's mixed block design, for showing me that boulevards, gazebos, and other estates are all you need to get an inside row of elite housing to evolve to estates. As a result, this block is very reminiscent of his design. It holds 17 estates, 32 townhouses, and runs off one set of services plus an extra maintenance officer.

North needs to be on the left, the block is designed to handle it in either the top or bottom left. The exit road on the upper left needs to connect to a college, drama school, and stadium. Even though the placement of supplies can be done however you like, I am including my preferred placement as well because it allows for extremely fast rearming. The wheat farm/elite house represents a horse ranch. The storehouse next to it is set to get armor. The other three hold fleece, olive oil, and wine in any order.


Legend

The maintenance office on the bottom is in that odd position because the MO that circles the block doesn't give enough coverage to the theater on high difficulty levels to keep it from collapsing. Since the fountain and infirmary needed a MO anyway, I decided to stretch that one back to cover the theater as well. The fish pond is necessary to evolve the estate next to the podium. You will need to surround the elite houses on the outside with enough appeal, a line of hedge mazes will do the job on Olympian.

With regards to stability, I ran this block for a long time and did not have any problems. There is, however, a possibility houses will devolve from time to time. If the athletes decide to go right several times in a row, the estates could devolve for a short while. If two of the three culture walkers both go left several times in a row (this is highly unlikely), the townhouses could devolve for a little while.

If you run into problems with stability, you can knock out two rows of elite houses in the middle, removing 4 estates and 8 townhouses, to get a guaranteed stable block of 13 estates and 24 townhouses.

Now we get to the part I was really excited about. If we are a little careful it is completely possible to build two of these, back to back, run off a single fountain and infirmary. Doing this lets you double up usage on some storeyards too. This double block holds 33 estates and 64 townhouses, runs off two sets of services, except you have only one fountain and infirmary and one extra MO.


Legend

As before, north needs to be on the left. Unfortunately, I couldn't get full coverage by the tax office on the right hand block - the farthest estate in the lower right is missed. Same comments as before about stability, I ran into no problems running this for a long time in Olympian, but the possibility is there. Cutting out two rows of estates will guarantee stability, and leave 25 estates and 48 townhouses.

If you find that the elite houses on one of the sides are not evolving, you should check to be sure that the shortest path for the culture walkers on that side is to go through the elite houses on that side, instead of going through the other side, by way of going over the townhouses in the middle.

Doubling the block also lets us use our storehouses more efficiently. Here is how I supply the blocks.


Legend

The road going up is attached to a stadium. The storehouses in the middle supply fleece and olive oil to both sides. The other two on the bottom row supply armor, and the storehouse in the top right is wine. The order of the vendors is important in both the single and double blocks, since the arms and horse vendors are positioned to exit on the exact tile for getting their supplies from the other side. With fully stocked supplies, this setup allows for the rearming of up to 72 hoplites or 52 hoplites and 20 horsemen in a very short amount of time.