Nice challenge goonsquad. It will be a lot of work to check the population size of the entries over four years.

One question: should the mission be disallowed completely, thereby effectively disabling native trade, or must it not appear in the final map? I assume you mean to disable both well and mission at editor level.

Joshofet I have in mind that mission posts would be disabled at editor level. Mind you, I've been working on a rough sort of a city where I don't have mission posts disabled, but there are no native huts on the map anyway, that would be just as good. If a map has no native huts or centres on it, then the requirement will have been met. The idea, as you correctly point out, is to prevent a player putting multiple native centres close to an industrial centre and making profit this way. I'd hope most players would make their money from taxes.

I'm thinking most serious attempts will be able to achieve stable population anyway. However, I'm not finding this all that easy at this stage. It just means I need a better layout and more markets. I don't think it will be all that hard to get 50 prosperity, but getting it with 15,000+ might be another matter.

It doesn't take long to run a city at 100% and just watch population.

Hi goonsquad. Thats a great challange. I especially like your idea for considering the lowest value of population during 4 years.
Assuming I have send an entry saved at Dec9AD. You will run the map till Jan14AD right?
I think the PR requirement will make this a very interesting challange. I have a strategy in mind and am eager to see whether it works.

What's the next step? Can it be the highest number of stable luxury palaces on a tiny map?

Yes, Philon, 4 years starting January 10 and ending December 13.

That is slightly different from what Philon says, if you run only until Dec 13, you accept a possible PR drop as the year turns over to Jan 14, but the population and financial balance is monitored till the end of the year 13. OK?

Just to clarify this, and being inexperienced in this sort of thing, I've just completed a valid city.

The save is at Dec 17, population 10099 PR 51. Final profit/loss for the year (checked Jan 18) +2244, Previous Year 16 (checked at save)+1821.

Final Population (Jan 22) 10231
Lowest Population in the 4 yrs 10087.

PR each January- Jan 19- 53; Jan 20- 55; Jan 21- 54, Jan 22- 55.

Since the 4 years ends in December, I suppose the final PR should be 54, but I'm showing my city's prosperity as 51.

To answer your question Joshofet, in the unlikely event that a player's city dips below 50 PR at the start of the 5th year, after remaining above it untouched for 4 years, if the PR has remained at or above 50 until December of the 4th year, that entry will be valid, since PR needs to be 50 or more at the save, this being calculated the previous January. The profit/loss for the 4th year will be checked in January of the 5th year.

About the city, its a forced walker city using fishing for food (32 wharves), and importing a small amount of wheat (40/yr). Not sure this imported wheat is a great idea due to the way it makes market ladies behave. The highest housing level is Medium Insulae. I was not able to get PR above 2 or 3 until my city started making money, about the 5th year. Only income is from taxes, although some pottery and marble was exported in the middle years. I had to delete all single houses to save import costs in order to get PR to start rising. Rebuilt most of them in the 2 years before the save. Also ran for several years with minimal doctor coverage, to save on furniture.

The only raw material produced is marble, and this is stopped when there are enough oracles. 18 has them pleased. Oracles are about the only desirability structures used. Pottery is produced locally from imported clay, and I had to top this up by importing some pottery at the finish. Furniture is imported. I could have bought timber but space was at a premium.

I used the Tarsus empire map, which has exceptional importing possibilities.

With unemployment always horrendous, it is a struggle to keep city mood good, especially when you need to impose high taxes. My tax rate is 11%, wages 36 (Rome 30).

I'll post the city tomorrow. I plan on doing better.

[This message has been edited by goonsquad (edited 06-09-2004 @ 08:48 AM).]

Well I have finally finished a valid entry for this fustrating contest. I have had about 15 attempts and am on my forth map design. I will never get anywhere near 10,000 at 50PR so will setle for this pathetic attempt. I ran my city for 7 years without the PR of 50 changing and making a profir every year easily enough. I however had onr large insulae that went up and down each year and so my population was between 5210 and 5218. I am finally happy to get to 5210. Tis was very hard and I don't want to see another tiny map for a while. Does anyone want to see this or not as its not really any good compared to a 10,000 map but at least its only the second entry.

Hmm, 50 PR seems to make it hard. I havent even started yet. I hope planning the city on an excel file as I do usually will help when I start. Congratulations Cliff for having an entry on this hard challange.
By the way, the reason for the delay is that I'm building all career missions again for the French site and I cant just stop now. I'm in Valentia now and it's going to be very exciting after such a long break. For sure I'll be back to this challange in a free time.
CP

[This message has been edited by philon (edited 06-20-2004 @ 06:06 AM).]

Congratulations on getting a valid entry Clifford. I was starting to think no-one was going to respond but it is quite difficult.

Looking forward to seeing what you can do with this size map Philon.

Clifford or goonsquad, can you two provide your examples?

I had some attempts but I can hardly get to 5000, with tremendous unemployment( 25% ), I really don't think 10000+ is possible even the map is nothing but houses. And even so, the population won't stay steady since it can't be happy with no works.

I'm just putting a link to my first effort up now. It should appear in the original post. It's not perfectly stable and I'm working on a better effort, although I don't think I can exceed 11,000 or so.

Clifford if you send your city to me I'll put it up. You might still have my address from Century of Palaces.

[This message has been edited by goonsquad (edited 06-21-2004 @ 08:49 PM).]

Aqua I'm able to keep my population happy with 52% unemployment and 10% tax by paying 38dn wages (Rome pays 30). It's best not to have slum areas if possible, as these can lead to crime outbreaks, even if the population is happy.

I've just put up my second effort. Waiting patiently until Philon or someone else gets the time to overwhelm it.

Population 10,203. Varies during the 4 years between 10,203 and 10,211. Prosperity 50. Turning a small profit. There are 8 or 9 Large Casa which won't upgrade (one of them a 2x2), 11 Large Insulae, 3 single medium insulae and the rest are small insulae. I think I'll call it Clothes Line City. Not much more population than before but big improvement in stability, which is very satisfying.

Furniture is supplied to only the Large Insulae down a separate road along the very edge of the map. This road also accesses imported wheat/fruit and a completely unneeded dock. Pottery and Oil is delivered by the main bank of markets in a forced walker layout, since all but a very few houses are looking for furniture, not oil, this works fine. The main food supply is fish, of course. The imported food is only to take pressure off the fish granaries. At earlier attempts I've hit food shortages at around 10,000.

I have 11 markets, 8 granaries, including a bank of 6 set to getting fish near my markets, 5 warehouses, 2 marble quarries (unneeded in latter years but made some income), 16 oracles, a single small temple to Neptune that covers every house on the map, 8 pottery workshops (imported clay)and all the other usual suspects. It took just a few hours, but add in previous efforts, making the map (which is really a very simple one) and planning, theres been a fair bit of time spent. Once you're under way, you can run at 100% really.

[This message has been edited by goonsquad (edited 06-22-2004 @ 05:36 AM).]

Clifford I have looked at your city and you deserve credit for the effort you've put in. It all works very very well. You have a number of unneeded libraries and academies, perhaps to reduce unemployment, and a lot of the tiles are taken by the central lake, you may have been able to save a few there. Having villas is of course not very effective in a population density assignment like this, but I understand that you needed them for the PR. But not a tile on the map is unuse (except perhaps some of the lake).

I put my fishing around the outside and used forced walkers, and tried to keep my highest housing level as low as possible, and my lowest as high as possible, to reduce the number of service buildings needed and meet the PR requirement. As a result, my city is 90% small insulae and just enough large insulae to bring PR up to 50 (there are a few large casa that just would not go up). This meant I only needed one food (although I used imported wheat and fruit to take some pressure off the fish granaries) and one finished good (pottery) in large quantity.

My fishing is much more spread than yours, and this leads to inefficiency in fishing, but I managed ok using a single granary for the wharves that were farthest from the markets, with a large bank of getting granaries near markets, some with multiple cartpushers, all getting from this one granary. I managed to feed 9000 from about 33 wharves (not sure the exact number).

I'll put a link to your city up, it certainly shows a lot of skill and effort in building a conventional (non-forced walkers)city with a greatly limited resource (space). You've given me an idea to try putting the fishing fair up the centre, a longer and thinner lake than yours.

You give me too much credit. I think its a very poor effort compared to what most of you can achieve. It was a hard efort to reach the valid entry. I keep thinking I can do a lot better so I won't look at your city yet in case I get some time. However we have a contest at CBC next month.

I have given the challenge a serious try and managed to come up with a city of about 8700. It starts at 8705 and PR=50 and drops to 8670, but after a year or so stabilises at 8746-8750 and PR=51-52. It's making a profit and it's completely self-supporting. All pottery and furniture is locally produced from local clay and wood, my people wouldn't have it otherwise. The city makes a fair profit on taxes only, in the early years there even was some export of pottery and furniture.

The design is two double G blocks with forced (or should I say forced detour) walkers; one small, the other med insula, and a few huts to provide labour to the 36 fishing wharves. Depriving the MI block from clinic coverage keeps it from developing and having the whole city become unstable because of all market ladies running after furniture in short supply. I tried that approach in a single double G city, but failed for that reason. There is food enough for more people, but there is little room left, mainly because of the temples to Neptune, Mercury and Venus. Mars and Ceres keep destroying my legions and farms, but fortunately there is nothing to destroy. Closing the curse messages is the only user interference needed. Of course oracles would be better, but I like to tease the gods, and in this city it won't get me much further in population size. Anyhow, I can neither buy nor produce marble, so it would call for a new map.

I call the city Gstad, stad is Dutch for city.

[This message has been edited by joshofet (edited 07-02-2004 @ 07:42 AM).]

To continue on the challenge, I investigated how far my food supply would reach, and built a fully SC city. That won't meet the CC, but it will give an indication where the actual bottleneck is.

I used exactly the same map as in Gstad, with the same setup for the wharves, but with three rectangular three fountain blocks with a 7x25 road. You need only one building for a RW to cover the whole block. In practice I had four markets for each block, but only one temple, engineer, library and theatre, leaving room for houses. One granary for each block, and blocks separated by gatehouses from each other and the rest of the city. When my city was filled up I had just a bit over 10,000 people, and my overseer was telling me I was producing just enough. More importantly, my three granaries were always almost completely filled, with cartpushers running between them to rapidly replace the fish removed by the market ladies. The city ran stable without interference, but my PR didn't move much beyond 32 or so.

I tried to develop one block to LI and one to SI, but there were too many houses lagging back, and my people didn't like the pottery from imported clay. PR didn't reach beyond 47, and my population went down to 9700. Even when I get everything fixed, I don't expect this design to provide for a substantially larger population than Goonsquad's Clothes Line city. I haven't looked at his design, but judging on his description and my preliminary results apparantly something quite different is needed to improve on that.

Back to the drawing board it is, I haven't given up yet, my single G city was not quite stable at about 7000 people, but with less than half the number of wharves in Gstad. That indicates I may have enough food for about 12,000, if only I can squeeze them in. Maybe using oracles gives enough room to put in enough potteries to evolve all SC to SI or above, which would get me to 76*10,000/68=11,200. That is not really substantial, but still it needs a new map. I'll miss the curses.

[This message has been edited by joshofet (edited 07-02-2004 @ 08:57 AM).]

I have been trying to find out why this challenge is not attracting the number of people as the single fountain challenge by Philon. Of course there may be all kinds of RL issues involved, such as the season, or other contests, but my guess is it is also because of the fact that this challenge is less clear cut, and with more restrictions.

If I would have beta-tested this for say a contest, I would have suggested of dropping the PR requirement alltogether. My SC city shows it is possible to reach about 10,000 there, but at that point there was little room for more. Evolving to SI, and having a higher PR in the process, might improve on the WC, so why the CC?

Moreover stability can also be defined as finding the city in the same state (population, ratings and supplies) just one year after the save. There is no need for a prolongued period, and any period could lead to specific planning, without really providing long term stability. Small fluctuations can be accepted, and I guess most players will understand the concept of long term stability intuitively. The only problem in C3 is favour, which I have solved by a request for zero whatever with +99 favour increase every ten years.

The same can be said about the other restrictions, with RSW you are restricted to SC, and I expect someone can do better with higher developed housing, did you test how many SC can be queezed in a tiny map? Why no mission posts, why no wells, I guess there were good reasons for putting those in, but the more rules, the less open the contest. I didn't use free roads or plaza, why should I?

Finally I think the attractive part of the single fountain challenge was that it was likely to have a single optimal solution, or a (small) set of nearly identical ones. It turned out to be the latter, although it hasn't been proven yet, but I doubt whether anyone can come up with a better result. If such a single optimum exists for this challenge, it will be substantially more difficult to find it, and the extra rules do not make it easier, on the contrary I guess. Optimisation under additional constraints is generically more difficult than free optimisation.

For an open challenge like this one, I would suggest having as little rules as necessary. For the 50k+ challenge, it turned out we needed to distinguish between RSW and NRSW cities, if necessary we could do the same here. Still it is your challenge Goonsquad and I think it is an interesting one, I'm just trying to make it attract a larger audience.

The idea of a large population on a tiny map under more restricted conditions still is an interesting concept, which might be worked out into a contest map. The map then would have the restrictions built in, and you could run with just CC stable city, WC highest population. A load of the initial configuration would provide a valid entry, be it not very competitive with no population. If you would like to (co)develop such a map for CBC, I'll be happy to contribute.

Expanding on the idea of Philon's single fountain challenge, maybe a simpler challenge would be the largest stable city with a single reservoir, though I doubt whether the optimal solution can be found. Gstad has only one reservoir.

Hi joshofet,
Smillarly to your explaination I think the one fountain challange was an interesting one since by definition it was sounding like a basic concept of this game. Actually when thinking back I realise that I might have gone beyond the aim when setting the rules. There wasnt a need to forbid other houses or other fountains somewhere else on the map since "highest population with one fountain" is very clear to understand and obviously doesnt require more restrictions.
Actually the players who have joined that challange not only have build the highest population around one fountain but they have build the biggest and stable city with houses only around one fountain and thats different and harder. Luckily this made no difference to the best possible score since the insuleas were providing enough workforce but if I had the chance to go back on time I would allow houses on other parts and this would make things easier for less experienced players and would allow to focus on the main aim. Maybe more players would join but certainly the optimal solution wich is shown by Brugle wouldnt change.

Going back to the tiny map challange I think I would like to go for the "biggest stable city on a tiny map" but as you mentioned the aim is different with the current settings. Maybe removing the PR and profit requirements and a more clear definition about how population will be count might be considered. For instance the player should save in any January and the score will be the population of January after 5 years.

Goonsquad,
Though I agreed with Joshofet on PR making things too hard I see now that you have put this rule considering some details. In my current city I have only small insulaes and therefore PR is 50. I have a little more space but since food is produced just enough I cant add more insulaes. I want to add a few tents on the empty places here and there but I cant because PR will drop. If PR requirement will be removed I will start searching the whole map for one more tile wich can be also tedious work. So I'm completely unsure about what I said before. Actually in any case its fine for me.

Joshofet,
I think dropping the test run to one year will allow some dirty strategies wich can be an advenatage for the more experienced players. A large Insulae consumes 5.04 cartloads food per year and usually the stocks will be more than this for one kind food. If they stock a few kinds food than it will be possible to maintain the large Insulaes for a few years without giving them more food.
Another strategy could be filling the map with many full granaries and than adding houses one by one each time when the last granary gets empty. I agree with you and Clifford that its tiring to run the map for a few years. But maybe scoring could be made at the end of the test run and not during the run so you dont have to watch it continuously.

[This message has been edited by philon (edited 07-03-2004 @ 02:49 AM).]

goonsquad,
I dont know about PR but if you decide to change the scoring maybe a more simple way could be considered. What about this: Say, you save on Jan25 and scoring will be made on Jan29 whether its population only or population and PR.

Hi,
after a long night I have completed my first attempt: CP-TinyCity1.
Final save: Dec32AD
Population: 11.362 PR:50
During the test run until Jan37 population or PR hasn't changed. The city makes a profit each year.

All houses are small insulae. I'm not sure if it was the best desicion but I have choosen that housing level because less desirability requirement and no need for furniture. But it came out that desirability wasnt going to be a problem since there are 17 oracles. I have used Empire 35, Caesarea2 where two land trade routes are ready to sell 80 pottery a year.
There is only one library, bath house, temple and theatre in the city.
As food certainly I have used fish. There are 19 wharves and according the food consumption production is around 35.88 cartloads per year per wharf wich isnt bad I think. But I should build 3 or 4 more wharves since I had to delete some houses for making the city stable.

Caesar Philon

Edit:
Goonsquad,
I have just looked at your city and the smillarity is very very surprising. Market, granary, wharf and warehouse placements are almost the same. Its very interesting that we came to the same layout. You certainly are an expert on forced walkers. I even have an actor colony, gladiator school and an amphitheatre near where you have located them. As a small difference I have used one more line for the lake.

[This message has been edited by philon (edited 07-03-2004 @ 04:30 AM).]

Joshofet

I put in the 50PR requirement because I felt that it would be too easy to just build a small casa city, needing only 1 food type and no finished products. With small casa holding 17 per tile, and Grand Insulae 21 per tile, this isn't a big difference for the amount of space saved by not needing pottery, furniture, entertainment, etc. You could still do mostly SC's but you'd need some villas to bring PR up.

It was Philon's suggestion to do a four year stability run, and he's given his reasons for this. If there are more entries I'll just compare the population after 4 years to that at the save.

It isn't outrageously difficult to build a 10,000 city with 50PR on this size map. It's disappointing more haven't attempted it but thats the way it goes.

Congratulations Philon on achieving the highest population so far. I haven't looked at your city just yet, will do so shortly.

Deleted.

I rushed it way too much, the entry is invalid on so many points never mind, I'll see if I can do something later.

[This message has been edited by EmperorJay (edited 07-04-2004 @ 08:16 AM).]

Joshofet,
I think your idea about the highest population with one reservoir was a good one. Designing could be very interesting in such a challange. If you will start that challange I will join for sure.

I did an upgrade of the 3Block city now with oracles and I also used Caesarea with pottery (and furniture) imports. The city is not very stable, but fluctuates at about 10,000, with prosperity 51-52. One block MI, two SI. I'll have to do a rerun of the last four years, or continue, it seems the city stabilises over the years. Gardens and small statues were used for desirability, the oracles are on the outskirts. I call the city Ringling.

I had a quick look at Goonsquad's city, to see where we differ. The main difference between my city and his is in the wharves, I have them along a river with wharves on two sides, and low (!) bridges crossing the river. There are only three granaries, and I think that is one of the problems. On the other hand, Gstad has only one granary. Maybe if I squeeze in one more, it will enhance stability. BTW, I could squeeze some more people in clothesline, there are a few statues that can be exchanged for houses, but maybe that causes instability in the long run.

Another difference is the distance between roads. My first tests were about a city with three row housing, as most of the unused tiles in any city will be road tiles. It turned out to be difficult to have all houses in the 2nd and 3rd row LI, but I did have 2x2's in the central part of all my cities with roads five tiles apart and fountains in between. The tiles I couldn't cover with houses were used for statues. In Clothesline the roads are four tiles apart.

With the similar wharve setup I tested a double G loop city with oracles. At SC level there are about 10,000 people, and when I upgrade to MI+SI level it increases to 11,800, but not stable and PR fluctuates between 47 and 52. It needs some tinkering. I wonder how Philon could get enough food with only 19 wharves, where I seem to be having food problems with twice that number, maybe many of my wharves are not working most of the time, labour access at the other side of the river is a problem, indicating that a waterfront only at the border of the map, combined with forced detour walkers is the best solution. As Philon said, a bit more should be possible, I doubt whether that will be much above 12,000. It hasn't been done yet!

[This message has been edited by joshofet (edited 07-05-2004 @ 06:28 AM).]