Building a housing block can be VERY easy, if you just answer a few questions, and stick to a few rules.

Questions:
What level does this block need to improve too?
How much space do I have to build it?
Do I need worker access on all sides?

Rules:
1.Almost all buildings that supply and provide for your block will be built in the center area, unless you have tons of space in which case extra houses could be build (see rule #3).
2.The inside road loop can only be 52 tiles long. I prefer 50 for safe measure. (from other threads you should know this is the max safe distance for a water carrier)
3. Only build what you need, don't over do it.

Let's explain rule #3 a bit. Don't go laying down the roads, putting in some basic services, and then put in all your housing. This does 2 things to you. Can create massive unemployment, and not all of your houses will develop 2x2 (which is optimal). When laying houses down i will alway's leave a 2x2 space, for later expansion.

IE.

What this acomplishes, is of course, you get all 2x2 housing, and it will help keep the medium age range (the working age) of your population, to a more average number. Your unemployment won't be peaking, and falling all the time, when you haven't added or removed any housing. *** very important in those LOOOOOONG missions ***

So now that's covered, let's jump into it.

Okay, You've started the mission, and you need to get some housing in to provide workers for your farms. (With my method, if you want to plan out how many workers you'll need for x number of farms, be my guest. I'll just stick to winging this part. I'm not a big number cruncher) These houses don't need to evole all that far, and you decide your going to only give them pottery, and no beer. Also, your space to build this housing is is limited by 2 factors. Access to water, and a small building space.

Step 1: Figure out how many squares (i think in terms of square meters, dunno why, but 1 meter = 1 square) You need in your middle loop. For our example, we would need 1 temple, 1 bazzar, 1 water carrier, a firehouse, architect, and because I belive in good health, a dentist, apocethary, and physician. Of course, gotta get taxes, so you'll need a tax collecter, and they will want some entertainment, so a jugglers booth or 2 would be important. A police man could be prudent in some cases, but I usually omit him. I believe that any housing that isn't brown, won't generate any thieves. So this works out to 31, with 2 jugglers. I need to have a 31 square meters in my inner loop. I find that inner loops work well with 4 5 or 6 squares. 31 being a prime number, has some problems, but ohwell. More statues/gardens is alway's nice, or well, i guess I didn't really need a dentist here. Which ever will fit best into your space. So let's assume that you have very little space, (remember, you need to have some work camps here as well, eh) enough for a block, but it has to be a 4 space block, but can have 3 sides to be worker access. Let me just illustrate for a second.

4 space block:

6 space block:

Neeless to say, these can be oriented east-west, or north-south, whatever you need.

So here's the final product:

As you can see, all the required industries fit very snugly, with 1 left over square. Whee! There's no set way to do it, just make them fit properly. With practice, you should have no problem. The #1 thing to remember here tho, is that your bazzar needs to be facing the, or one of the, exits (which is roadblocked of course). In the example, say the farmland is to the right side, and there's some mountains on the left (no worker access road there), and your docks are a ways to the south, say, oh.. 30-40 "squares". Now that you kind of have a mental picture, we need to add roads. We know that the employment walkers only need to pass within 2 squares of some housing, to be able to get workers from it. This is why we build all the services on the inside of our loop, that way, the houses can be nicely on the outside, and provide excellent access to your industries! So using our example, and the described scenario, our housing block would now look like this:

Now, true, this isn't much housing at the moment. But you don't need much either. As it get's filled up, hopefully developing into 2x2 housing, you add more housing into it. Of course, that nasty dirty work camp there is going to affect those houses, so definatly build something in that 1 blank spot, to help shield the house. Note: some buildings are worse than others. Housing should alway's be kept futher away from graneries, conservatories, shipwrights, all the construction guilds, dance schools. Probably some others, please check here for the effect on desirability of the different buildings. Eventually, your housing block will look something like this:

And will continue upgrading. ** Remember ** Set your bazzaar to only buy what you want it to buy. Don't let your houses just get what they want, try and control them, for some stability.

That's it for this first installment. I've found this message is huge (sorry for all the glyphy), and it's time for me to go sleep. I will Finish up what i was going to say tommorrow, in the next installment of the 5 minute guide to housing blocks

Zorkk

[This message has been edited by Zorkk (edited 05-12-2001 @ 01:36 AM).]

I'm very impressed about the well-known housing blocks that I've seen, and I've been thinking of designing my own (someday). Maybe with a help like your posts, I can get it done.

Now begins the 2nd installment:

So now you've learned how to setup a quick and simple block. No frills, no strings, just good functionality. Let's just do a quick recap here.

-All supply buildings for your housing must be on the inside
-All the housing should be on the outside
-Your entrance/exit to the block can be anywhere, or you can have more than 1. (I prefer more than 1, I'll explain why later)
-Inner road loop can not be any more than 52 tiles.
-Industry can get labour from up to 4 sides.

Today, I'd like to show you how to build a housing block, which will provide access to workers from all 4 sides. Here's the scenario. Your on the same map as the previous example, tho now we're going to build up our dock area and import/export industry(remember I said the docks were like 30-40 squares to the south). For this example, space is not an issue, there is tons available, and there is plenty of water supply. I've decided, that this block will be a major worker supply to my industries, and I'm going to upgrade it as far as possible. Up to fancy residence. To get there we need to have: Water Supply, Market, access to 2 gods, Physician, Courthouse, Scribal School, Dentist and we need to supply our people with 2 types of food, pottery, beer, and linen. WOW. Until you type it out, you don't really realize that that's just about everything in the game. Of course, to get up there, you also need to have good access to entertainment. (45 points worth) All of this information I grabbed from the Housing Levels page here on PH.

To start, I throw down the roads, and then put in some housing. Now, when I throw down roads, I don't actually just put them down. Our main concern here is the coast, and access to the dock, and having enuf space between that and the houses for some storage yards, perhaps even some industry. Other industries can be to the north or south, or west of your block. So what I do is start off with the dock. Ya know your gonna need it, it can only be in certain locations, so put it down first. Now, to have effect trade, you need a large number of storage yards around that dock. I prefer (especially on missions with Ptah) to have 1 storage yard by the dock for each type of good that your importing and exporting. The reason for this, especially if you have to import a raw material to make a finished good, is it helps keep all your industries busy. I have been able to supply, and keep running abut 8-9 industries off of 1 storage yard supplying the raw materials. Any more than that, and you start seeing industries without any raw materials. (even with 8 or 9, you will sometimes have some problems suppling the raw materials damn I love Ptah!) Let's say, for our example, that we need to import barley for our beer, and reeds for papyrus (we need some for the scibal school, to get FR, and also an export). So now that we have a basic plan, and idea on what's happening, let's start building. I would start this block like this:

As you can see, the inner road loop is 52 tiles long, a bit longer than I like, but You can go up to that. If you wanted too, you could make it longer, but would have to provide a 2nd water carrier, and a 2nd baazar, and they would have to be placed at opposite ends of your loops. As it is tho, I have found that you don't need a loop bigger than 52. If you think you need to do it, to get more housing, try first off, evolving other housing blocks, if you can. Or thinking about building another housing block somewhere else, that needs access to workers. So after laying down some roads roads like that, I'd go and add in the houses, and industries. With a configuartion like this, it's very easy to add industries, have them supplied with labour with no troubles. I'm going to add in the pottery industry on top, and the beer industry underneath.
Of course before adding the industries in, you'll want to put in some beginning housing like the first example, and put more in as it fills up to 2x2. So when your done, your block should look similar to this: