Roadblocks stop random walkers but not destination walkers. Random walkers are those that do not have a particular destination, they include architects, priests, bazaar sellers (the ones that take food and goods to houses) and the "labour seeking" citizens. Destination walkers are those that do have a particular destination, they include cart pushers and bazaar buyers going to a granary or storage yard.

One common use for roadblocks is to keep random walkers that provide services to houses from wandering away from the housing block. If you do this, there are two ways to get labour access to industial buildings. One is to build a few additional huts near the industry (people often do this for mines that are a long way out in the desert). Another way is to have the road from the industial area pass within 2 squares of some of the houses in the housing block. The labour seeker does not have to enter the housing block (the roadblock wouldn't let him), he just has to walk past the outside of the block.

al_wosaibi

Here are some examples for you. (I’ve added “tags” to the diagrams, so if you want to know what a building is, just move your cursor over it and wait a second or two to see the description.)

The first example below is what I think you are describing. You have some industries along a road (I used a couple of breweries and jewelers in this example but mines work the same way) that leads to your housing area. In the housing area, you have an architect, fire warden, temple, water supply, etc. When you placed a roadblock to keep the walkers from going into the industrial area, then the industries could no longer get workers.

In the second example, I added a road around the roadblock that passes by the “back” of the housing. The labor seekers from the industries will not pass through the roadblock, but now they have an access to the housing provided by this new road.

The labor seeker must pass within 2 squares of two occupied housing squares to get workers. The road in the third example would also pick up workers from the houses (if there is some city wide unemployment).



I like this last option because you can place gardens, small statues or shrines in the space between the road and the housing. This will help improve the desirability of the area, and can act as a shield against undesirable structures nearby.

The following is a post by Nero Would that I copied from another thread that puts it all together:

"One of the common ways of setting up housing is to place the houses around a loop (a rectangle of road) and place the buildings that provide services to the houses inside the loop. Place a roadblock on every road that connects to the loop. This prevents and of the service walkers wandering off. In fact, as long as the loop is not too big (48 tiles of road is usually safe) every walker is forced to walk past every house on each trip. The roadblocked connections to the rest of your city are required to allow the bazaar buyer (but not the seller) to leave the loop to get supplies, and (sometimes) to allow entertainers and cartpushers to get into the loop.

Obviously, the service buildings inside the loop have no trouble getting access to labour, but what about industrial buildings outside the loop? To give them access, place them on a road that passes within two tiles of the houses, this road does not have to connect to the loop (and if it does, it should be roadblocked).

Here is an example of a small housing block giving labour access to some potters. This block only has enough services to evolve to rough cottage, if you want to evolve further, you would need a bigger loop with more services. Let your mouse pointer hover over one of the gyphs below, and a description of the building should appear."



Note that in Nero Would’s example, the road from the industries doesn’t have to touch the back of the houses. There could be a one-tile wide gap between the road and the houses.

[This message has been edited by VitruviusAIA (edited 05-22-2007 @ 06:32 PM).]

Thanks for digging up that old post Vaia. You're much more organised than me.

Aahh! the penny has now dropped. And now I understand about how to have the labour seeker pass BY the houses.

On a similar topic, I have just battled with the ending for Abusir (spelling?), because of not having adequate culture (35, needed 40) and needing 4500 residents. Everytime the population got to 4300 or there abouts, my families living in the elegant reidences, who'd been there for like 5 years, suddenly upped and left. I tried the wages, taxes, festivals, beautification, different foods, luxury goods all without success, until I decided to build more worker level housing in apartments, took out all but one scribal school from other blocks, and attached a bunch of potters, jewellers without gems, workcamps without monuments or farms to go to, and brewers nearby to ensure that there was minimal unemployment. Now in the next scenario (Dunqal Oasis), still managing hard level, I will try the above strategy for my labout seekers.
Thanks again.

I got the whole idea...
Guys... you were of great help.
One more question though:
I saw one map with a similar loop and on the exit there were more than two roadblocks following each other!! :!

Would there be any case where I need to put 2 consecutive roadblocks??

Walkers and Labor Recruiters spawned by structures have a preferred starting tile. That is the tile that they will begin their walk on if the tile is available. (You can read all about it in Brugle’s thread Random walker start and finish points.)

Sometimes, a second roadblock (or even a third) is added to make the preferred tile unavailable so that the walker will exit in the direction that is desired. Note that this will not work for architects, fire marshals and magistrates (from courthouses) who will exit onto a road blocked tile.

SPLENDED...
the idea you gave is working perfectly. I have one more question....
do worker seekers have to have access to all houses within a housing block or part of the houses will be enough?

Regarsd,
Asad.

Workers are assigned from a citywide labor pool. Passing by two 1x1 or one 2x2 house that is occupied will provide labor. It doesn’t matter how many people are actually living in the house. If there is some unemployment in the city, you will get the workers you need.

Even a Manor or Estate will provide access to labors, even though people living in Manors and Estates don’t work.

There is an interesting difference between C3 labour seeker and those of Pharoah,In C3,no matter how many houses are on the route of a labour seeker,buildings will always sent out labour seekers,although only occasionally,but in Pharoah,a building won't sent out labour seekers whenever the buildings think they have passed sufficient number of houses--according StephAmon's investigation,it seems 6 1x1 houses or 4 2x2 houses are enough for that(if it is just for establishing labour access,that's like what VAIA said).

[This message has been edited by Plebus (edited 05-13-2002 @ 12:19 PM).]

Thank you Vitruvius AIA. I have just started using this
"backroad" method and it is great. Question though, If you put a backroad that touches a temple, architect, etc., will the serviceman start walking on your back road instead of the housing block road?

Nefertari: what road the serviceman takes depends on what tile of the building touches the road.

If you use a housing block that is a closed loop and you want to ensure that all the services are working, it is best to keep the service buildings inside the loop.

Nefertari,
If the roads are connected (through roadblocks is OK) then the tile that a walker will start in is described in the thread linked in VAIA's reply #6. If the roads are not connected then the walker may start on the road that is part of the road network with the most tiles, but I don't think that this has been conclusively demonstrated, so I don't let 2 unconnected roads touch a building if I care where its walker starts.