vitruvius...

you guys must be really good!

i'm still at the normal level, and i'm having a tough time!

i'm able to complete, but at your level, not compete.

i have world class scores in civ. but i'm still in the fun and learning mode in pharaoh.

and there are some things i've learned here that i will not use. some cheats go beyond the norm... a viable city is what i work for.

well, crapola... i'm rambling... time for monday night football... i'm off to the nearest local bar with the biggest screen!!!

Flatulous Maximus

Interesting post, Vitruvius AIA. I like your list. Everybody has their own version of these kinds of strictures, but you make interesting suggestions. Personally, I'm usually satisfied by a culture rating of around 80% -- any higher and it seems like I have to artificially add unnnecessary services (or use more, and smaller, blocks than I usually prefer). I also prefer not to throw festivals, but I realize that many will disagree with me on this point (I want my cities to be stable without needing any interventions by the gods...). Finally, Grumpus rules (no debt allowed, ever, and by implication, no bailouts) can make the opening couple of years of many cities much more challenging and interesting.

Of course, I don't play the game very much these days, so I really shouldn't be advising anybody else on how to play...

[This message has been edited by JWorth (edited 12-13-2000).]

Among the ratings , i care for only prosperity , i like to build cities with the possible maximum . I do not like culture rating , i prefer to minimize services and so build more patrician houses , i like it more to have a perfectly functioning block with 5K people with only 1 booth than 13 .
Stability /if possible/ and the city's self supportance is very important for me , i like food and goods overproduced .
Concentrating on time makes me tired , i enjoy it to play slower with time given to solve problems and redesign . If not contest time , i do not use tricks - but i do not consider the temporary desirability boost a trick . I try to avoid of using 1*1 houses for many purpose , brought this habit from my C3 time . "Beauty" of city means functionality and stability for me . I use festival benefits , my pipl' like it so i give it them .

This is a nice set of rules. Please allow me to question/comment on some of them (I agree on the ones that I don't).

Since I don't 'understand' the purpose of difficulty levels bejond normal, this is the level I have chosen to play on.

ad4: In another post, I asked which city in the missions is the starting point for such 'rule play'- since I never passed bejond 'archaic period'.

ad5: Why? - doesn't seem 'natural' - and like Tomek says, pacing shouldn't be of essence.

ad8: So should a personal mansion and city palace ( shouldn't be next to gold mines just to make money faster, but where the 'center' of your bustling city is considered to be).

ad10: to use your example, why would you put a scribal school into a block that doesn't require it? - if needed to fulfill other rules, 'deal' with it.

I like Tomeks 'no 1x1 housing' rule - don't ask me why, just do, those pescy 1bys disrupted me plenty of times even in the early missions

JWorth, no debt ever also doesn't seem 'natural' (where would the world be with such rule ?) What are a couple of years in the beginning vs. 20, 30, or even 50 years in a city? If you 'overdue' your debt, I believe the game itself will 'punish' you.

I'll probably come back and edit here as I get 'wiser'.

Looking forward to try out your 'extended set of rules' and see which city will 'fall' to be the first to succeed in.

Nice list, Vitruvius, though I agree with the debt and speed issues C Franziskus mentions.

Angel Jayhawk
Eyrie, Pharaoh Heaven, Caesar 3 Heaven, Zeus Heaven

Interesting ... it took me a while to think what I do. Basically I do anything the game will allow when played properly, so I carry over funds etc. But no culture parks - the city has to look like a city and never cheats.

I must confess, I do like the hippo Side Show cheat, but then again it doesn't affect the actual gameplay - it's just a bit of fun . As for the other cheats, it's not really worth playing if you have to depend on them to get through.

For sorting out the wild animals, I like to set up towers with soldiers and let them deal with the problem. Hippos can be kept completely at bay with a well placed tower or two.

VitruviusAIA:

Interesting list. You're a lot more disciplined then I am.

Don't really need to add more rules. The game has enough of them built in.

But,

1) I don't use cheats.

2) I don't wall in animals or the enemy.

3) I don't duplicate recruiters.

4) Enjoy the game

Good gaming,
Vriesea

For me, my style of play depends on what goals i've set. For instance, if it's a competition, i will take advantage of every "feature" i can think of... it only makes sense.

As to "No Debt", i know of some who take "Grumpus Rules" to mean No Bailout Loan... that's a little extreme for my tastes.

I don't do culture parks, unless it's some kind of "Theater District" near the city center (with the Palace and Pavilion in close proximity).

The Culture rating starts to irritate me around 85 where it's Religion that's keeping me from going up. Placing 80 shrines between housing and industry is usually not a problem, but with the very high culture rating i almost always have to build some kind of "religious community" with all the extra temples and shrines i need.

I'll be back to Pharaoh soon as i'm almost thru with my 2nd run thru of Zeus already. I'm hoping the Cleo patch comes soon because i'd like to do Pharaoh campaign with the extra Cleo stuff... that's where i've left off on my 3rd run of Pharaoh anyhow.

C Franziskus,

4) I’m really not sure what the first city is where you could achieve CR, KR and PR of 100%. I’ve done it in Sawu, Bubastis, Sauty and Baki. It could probably be done in some earlier missions as well. I just wasn’t good enough when I played them.

5) I like having some way to evaluate my performance at the end of a mission. The “score” that the game gives you is not a good measure of how well you have done. You can make a lot of mistakes and still accomplish all of the mission goals given enough time. The challenge for me is to see how quickly all of the mission goals can be achieved.

If your ratings are all “perfect” or 100%, and all the mission goals are met, what’s left? What could you possibly do better if you played the mission again? The only answer that I see that can actually be measured is how many game months it took to complete.

8) This is an excellent observation and comment. I was speaking specifically about the Festival Pavilion, but the same holds true for the Mansion and Palace. It is of course more efficient if you place the Palace adjacent to your goal mines. I try to develop a “center city” plan. The estates are at the heart of the city. Manors surround the estates. Worker Housing is in the “suburbs”. The Palace “belongs” in the center city, not in the suburbs next to the gold mines.

I try to locate the Palace so that the cart-pusher from the mines can make it to the Palace and back to the mine before the next load is produced. I loose a few days on the first load from each mine, but after that, production is the same either way.

10) The Culture Rating for education is based on how many Libraries and Scribe Schools you have in your city with respect to the total population of the city. To achieve a 100% Culture Rating takes a lot of both. “Culture Parks” are one way to achieve this goal, but rule #7 forbids their use. I have already planed for 2 Libraries and 2 Scribe Schools in every block that requires even one of either. To prevent these blocks from becoming Culture Parks, I had to put Libraries and/or Scribe Schools in blocks that did not require them.

Tomek,

When you refer to 1x1 housing, are you suggesting that all housing should be Common Residence or above? Or are you saying that all housing that has both 1x1 and 2x2 versions should be developed to its 2x2 form?

When I mentioned this in an earlier thread, Brugle commented that he didn’t think that all housing that has both versions could be maintained as 2x2 structures. (And Brugle is usually correct.) I plan on giving it a try though. I like the rule, if it is possible.

JWorth,

“No debt allowed, ever” isn’t a rule that I have been playing by. Like C Franziskus, I think the game punishes you enough if you stay there to long. I suspect that the reason for the rule is to avoid the “bailout loan” that you receive the first time it happens. (Will you receive a bailout loan in every mission? I try so hard to stay out of debt that I’m really not sure.)

Is there a list of "Grumpus rules" somewhere?

[This message has been edited by VitruviusAIA (edited 03-09-2001).]

C Franziskus,
On and Iunet are the first cities with senet houses, so they are the first where Culture 100 is possible (but only without Cleopatra). Prosperity 100 is possible in On. At the start of Iunet, linen is not obtainable (preventing Prosperity 100), but I haven't played Iunet yet so I don't know if other trade routes (that supply linen or flax) become available.

VitruviusAIA,
I first got the idea of adding rules to my own play from Grumpus the Elder's Caesar III website "Which Way to Rome?". His rules include what I'd call beautification, but when people refer to "Grumpus rules" they typically mean his economic ones--no debt and no "bailout". He says similar things on his Pharaoh website "Which Way to Thebes?", and I wouldn't be surprised if his Zeus website "Which Way to Troy?" does the same.

It is possible for a mission to not have a "bailout", but I don't know if any "family history" city is that way.

As far as I know (and I've investigated in both Caesar III and Pharaoh), the possible merging of four 1x1 houses of the same type into a 2x2 house depends only on location. In those locations where it is allowed, four 1x1 houses of the same type always merge within a few moments. In those locations where it isn't allowed, a 2x2 house below common residence can never form. I don't know what determines which locations allow merging and which don't.

Since you wanted my input for this thread, I've prepared a few words. They'll be posted in a few minutes.

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 12-13-2000).]

As VitruviusAIA said, we all have our own "rules". I don't consider my rules better than others, and I don't even recommend them--they are simply a way that I enjoy playing.

Like Gill, it took me a long time to think of what I do, and more to write it down.

I like to build different cities differently. I would be bored always striving for the fastest finish, or a huge amount of export income, or massive defenses, or all houses at a high level, or the best possible Prosperity and Culture ratings. I have enjoyed striving for each of these things (sometimes more than one) in particular cities.

These are some rules that are simple, not too restrictive, and add enough to the game that I always follow them (except in competitions):
A) No cheats. No taking advantage of developer errors, such as multiple barracks, gardens that block invaders, or building anything for free. "Tricks" that are clearly not based on errors, such as walling in animals, are allowed.
B) Hard difficulty. Some interesting problems, such as getting 100 Culture (with all buildings functional) in On, would be rather easy at Normal. (On the other hand, some things can be attempted at Normal that wouldn't be possible at Hard.) I might try Very Hard difficulty at some point, but haven't felt the urge yet.
C) No personal funds. Kingdom rating is trivial if funds can be donated to Egypt. Might as well have it mean something.
D) No future knowledge. I'd rather not know what's coming, except for the "mission briefing". If I happen to know a future event (from reading a post or having started the city before), then I'll take care not to be influenced. If multiple goods will be sold, all are equally lucrative, and I happen to know that one will be requested early, then I'll start making another one first. If both sides of the river are equally important and I happen to know that the first invasion will be on one side, then the first fort will be built on the other side.
E) If the city is defended at all, it is defended against attacks from any location. (This could be considered a subset of the preceding rule.) Sometimes I build up to the edge of the city, but (assuming that the city is defended) a fort of soldiers will be close enough to engage invaders in that spot before much can be destroyed.
F) The final city is stable without interventions except in response to external events (such as invasions, requests, and wage hikes). Since it is easy (with sufficient money) to keep gods and citizens happy without festivals, why not do it? (A city that requires frequent blessings to be stable could be interesting, but building one doesn't appeal to me.)
G) All houses are at least ordinary cottages. If clay and pottery can be locally produced, all houses are at least spacious homesteads.
H) All schools, libraries, mortuaries, and senet houses are functional. So far I've kept them stocked with plenty of material, but it'd be OK for some to occasionally run out as long as they were always resupplied within a few months.
I) All juggler, music, and dance stages have shows much of the time.
J) If a festival square is built, then priests, entertainers, or scribes (preferably all three) are able to attend festivals.
K) Small settlements can support only a few entertainment, education, or religious buildings. Concentrations of such buildings near large settlements are OK, if the rest of the city has reasonable coverage. (To avoid using an undefined term like "culture park", I used ambiguous words like small, few, large, and reasonable. )

For extra fun, I typically add one or more temporary rules for each mission:
AA) No debt, usually. Sometimes also no "bailout" (Grumpus rules).
BB) Good city defenses, depends. When they're available, I usually build 6 scattered forts and often build 6 warships (if the coast is suitable). Now and then, lots of towers (covering all approaches) are built too.
CC) All houses residences, occasionally. The poorest houses have been spacious residences in one city and fancy residences in a few, but (surprisingly, now that I think about it) never common residences.
DD) Lots of scribal houses, sometimes. Like Tomek, I just enjoy them.
EE) High Prosperity, usually. So far (through On) I've gotten Prosperity 100 whenever it's possible, but I expect that that won't always be the case.
FF) High Culture, sometimes (if it seems either fun or easy).
GG) "Perfect" health, education, and entertainment ratings, rarely.
HH) Fastest possible completion, rarely. Fairly fast completion, much more often.
II) Maximum (ignoring gods' blessings) expensive exports, sometimes. But I often try to make far more money from trade than is needed, as long as it doesn't interfere with other goals.
JJ) Housing supplies approximately the number of workers required by supported buildings, rarely. A lot of trouble.
KK) Beautification, rarely. Very subjective.
LL) Don't kick people out to rejuvenate the work force? I haven't yet done a mission where aging is a problem, but I like the idea of taking care of people. (But one could argue that that isn't a realistic attitude for a governor.)
MM) Something else, I expect so. Future missions should suggest new fun challenges.

Now, comments on a few suggested rules that I violate.

Unconnected roads make some strategies possible. Often, several plausible strategies require different road connections. My favorite part of the game is considering the advantages and disadvantages of different strategies, selecting the one that appears to best achieve my goals, and designing the city appropriately. (Better results could be achieved if the game had more micromanagement, but I prefer strategic thinking to detail work.)

I don't know what makes an entertainment venue "integrated" into a housing block, perhaps that entertainers generated by the venue cover all houses in the block? I don't think that entertainers walking from a school to the venue are inferior. In fact, I especially like blocks that have some houses covered by each type of entertainer. And I like housing and the surrounding city to merge seamlessly--if entertainment venues can bridge the interface, I think it's great.

I find it hard enough to decide what would make a city attractive to me. I definitely don't know what would make a city attractive to someone else. (Many real people prefer to live in areas that others consider "ugly" or "poorly organized".) So I "beautify" a city if I get the urge, and don't worry about it otherwise.

While in some cities I put the festival square, palace, mansion, and (at least some of) the best houses close together, I don't think it would be realistic to do that in all cities. In some real cities, the best amenities are spread out. Certainly, some governors would prefer a palace in the boondocks if it meant more debens for them to spend. And some governors would want a mansion far from the taxpaying riffraff.

Brugle,

Thank you very much for your reply. I know that it was very time consuming putting that all into words. I really admire your understanding of the game and wanted to know how you, and the others who responded, played it.

To All,

I think that I have mislabeled the heading of this post. “Rules” seems to imply that I believe the game should be played this way, and no other. That certainly was not my intent. The only “rule” that I am sure of is that you should play the game the way that is the most enjoyable for you. One should never forget that Pharaoh is, after all, just a game.

The word “game” has a couple of interesting definitions. One definition is “activity engaged in for diversion or amusement.” That is a good definition. Another is “a physical or mental competition conducted according to rules with the participants in direct opposition to each other.” That last part, “in direct opposition to each other” doesn’t apply here. I would revise the definition to read “a mental competition conducted to rules where the participant attempts to overcome a challenge that he/she has presented himself/herself with.”

By adding more “rules” to my game play, I have increased the challenge and made the competition (playing of the game) more exciting for me. Too many rules, or goals that are too difficult to achieve, would only make the game frustrating and no longer fun to play. One nice thing about making up your own rules is that you can change them whenever you want to. I have just started a new mission. Right now I am still going for “shortest possible completion time”. This is proving to be a tremendous challenge and creating a terrible cash-flow problem. For now it is still an enjoyable challenge. If it becomes frustrating, and I am no longer enjoying the game, I will simply drop the “requirement” and continue (or restart) the mission.

To quote Vriesea, “good gaming”, to which I’ll add, “have fun”.

Guess that just leaves to pop in the disk and get going with the 'click and place'.

Thanks for some interesting insights and restoring my confidence in trying Pharaoh again

*bump*

great threads like this one need to be bumped up once every couple of months

Good post Vaia!

Other than a little basic planning of the mission at hand, which I think everyone does, I do not set any strict rules of completion; Ofcourse more planning goes into competition, but I'm not so good at number crunching! I just enjoy playing!

I also like to make a city which is practical as well as beautiful. No disconnected areas as much as possible; Road blocks help a great deal. Once you get to master the basics everything falls into place and you do not need any cheats or tricks to build a successful City.

Basically I just love and enjoy the game like Vriesea!

Cheers!

I missed this thread when it was new, so I will join at least now... although it is a long time since I played career, and I'm not sure I remember all so well. Everything I will mention applies to career, not competition missions. In competition I use everything that is allowed by rules .

I don't have many additional rules:
- always hard difficulty
- no cheat codes, no building for free (including TC additions... but I did wall hyenas with gardens on breeding grounds for free in Sawu)
- always go for highest possible prosperity; city must be stable at this prosperity
- upgrade most houses to the highest possible (non-scribal) level (depends on resources, I prefer stable Apartments before unstable Fancy residences)
- always only one recruiter, soldiers are main defense force, towers only supporting (no towers in missions with easy battles, many in Byblos )

My standard tactics are
- disconnected parts of the city
- wall in predators, if they are dangerous (preferably with small statues - don't know why...) and let them live free if I can avoid them
- using bailout and going into debt if necessary
- save the game at 1 month notice, look where invasion point is; if I lose the battle, I reload and move the troops towards invasion point (it is strange that everybody knows when the invasion will come, but no one says "enemy approaching from northwest" - with better scouts, I wouldn't do that)
- ignore culture rating, try to give *access* to health, entertainment and education to almost all people; if mission requires high culture (above 50), it always is the last requirement I meet
- although I prefer to draw labor from developed blocks, I'm often using lone huts, too (always watered and mostly with police, physician and apothecary though; I even spend money on statues, shrines and plazas to evolve them to Sturdy huts near mines and quarries)

If I can find some untraditional way of winning the mission, I'm a lot more happy than with just build-and-watch; sometimes I concentrate on speed, sometimes on transport effectivity or maximizing of exports, sometimes I simply try to build a city I would like...

Cherub Baltic

[This message has been edited by Baltic (edited 03-11-2001).]

Hail VitruviusAIA!

I agree with all your points and appear to be playing by the same rules you do. I still consider myself a beginner at the game (just starting Abu-Elaphatine) so I know I haven't been through what some of the other gamers have but I don't think I'll resort to some of the tactics I've read about.

If you don't win the game the way it was designed to be played, you haven't won the game.

I also agree on connecting the entire city.... With the proper use of roadblocks this should present no problem.

"So let it be written... so let it be 'attempted.'"

Chazsi

chazsi,
I don't doubt anybodys right to play by any additional rules, but I wonder... how do you know which way the game was designed to be played ?
IMHO, if the game allows something, it can be played that way... with one exception - cheat codes. I could discuss about other things that appear to be mistakes, although one never knows whether it is a mistake or "Easter egg" left behind on purpose for those who like to look for loopholes. This could include multiple barracks, roads and gardens for free, TC add-ons for free, gardens blocking invaders (changed in Cleo) and probably a few other 'bugs'. I didn't use them in the career, but I wouldn't be above using some of them if necessary.

On the other hand, e.g. Storage Yards have a special routine for disconnected mode, so I'm sure the game is designed specifically to allow disconnection. It was in Caesar, and it is in Zeus.

To make sure you don't misunderstand me, I admire your decision to play by more strict rules. I'm only arguing with your statement that the game should be played the way it was designed . The greatest problem of such viewpoint is, that nobody knows what designers had in mind when creating it, and everybody has a different meaning about what can be used and what can't as a result... not that it matters much, at least if they don't try to compare their results .
Happy building!

Cherub Baltic

Baltic,

I understand your argument and certainly don't claim to be clairvoyant. I would also certainly agree that anyone can play any way they please. It just seems to be common sense that the designers intended we "deal" with animal threats in ways they promote in the manual rather than such things as "sanctuaries." That's all I was saying.

Surely hope I didn't offend. That was not my intent.

Thanks

Of course not, chazsi!
Your post was perfectly OK, I merely used the opportunity to explain what is my personal opinion about this issue.

I, too, hope that my post wasn't offending in any way.

Gardens for free!!!

Geez, all this time I had been paying for them.

Well, this is certainly a fun thread to read, I always say you learn something every day. But what really is funny is the way we will strickly adhere and even defend certain "Advanced Rules".

But!!!

It terms of a competition it's "No Holds Bar" or "All fair in Love and War"

Well, now I got to go back to my competitions and see if the gardens for free makes a difference.

Good gaming,
Vriesea

They sure do, Vriesea. It's like a free tech upgrade in AoK.

I didn’t finish the last contest we had (and I’m not going to make it this time either), but one of the “tricks” that I used in my layout is the fact that you can always build clay pits at the edge of a map. I had my pyramid in the northeast corner, a row of clay pits down the east edge of the map, and my brickworks in front of the clay pits just southeast of the pyramid. It worked great. To bad I didn’t have time to finish. I was also building roads and clearing trees for free, but that was a contest and I don’t do it for missions.

Gardens weren't available on that map, but you can bet I would have been building them for free if they were. (Along with any other trick that I could think of.) I think that it is admirable that any time someone discovers a new “trick”, the first thing they do is post it in these forums so that we all know about it (as opposed to keeping the secret to themselves for the advantage that it would give them).

[This message has been edited by VitruviusAIA (edited 03-13-2001).]

Great thread! I do play by some of these rules, but not all. I'm too pragmatic (time is limited, after all).

Here's another "rule" or "challenge" if you prefer: Don't exceed the requirements given by the scenario (by a large amount).

Most of the early missions have much lower CR, PR and KR requirements than I tend to end up with. In fact, I have found it difficult to get ratings as low as those required in many of them. So, in my current mission (Meidum) I'm going to try to keep my PR as close to the requirement of 25 as possible while still providing water, food, religion, medical aid and some entertainment to everybody. I'll make a decent, well organised provincial city (with an out-of-place stepped pyramid complex )