To avoid discussing them individually, here are some "personal rules" I've used in my recent cities and intend to use in Waset:
* Very Hard difficulty (and, accordingly, very good fire protection).
* A stable city, consuming no more of anything than it produces and imports.
* Schools, libraries, mortuaries, and senet houses are well supplied.
* All houses are evolved to a fairly high level.
* Good defense--6 academy-trained forts and (if possible) several warships.
* Lots of income from trade, taxes, and (if possible) gold.
* Decent Culture.
* Prosperity 100.
* All roads (including the Kingdom Road) are connected.
* A city center has most of the best buildings and houses.
The first 7 of those rules have an immediate impact on the design.
First, look at goods consumption by buildings. Each time a walker leaves at Very Hard difficulty (without Thoth's oracle or Anubis's altar), a senet house consumes 60 beer, a mortuary consumes 60 linen, a library consumes 60 papyrus, and a school consumes 40 papyrus. I've assumed that such walkers will make at most 12 walks per year, but thought it best to check walk frequency. I intend to use 42-tile intersection-free housing block loop roads (with 2 firehouses) in Waset, so I ran some tests in my last 3 cities (which also used 42-tile housing loop roads). The results surprised me a bit.
With tests on 2 senet houses, walk frequency was 9/year for one and a bit less than 10/year for the other. I don't consider these numbers too reliable, since senet players sometimes disappear instead of returning to the senet house, and the large size of the senet house (and therefore the potential separation of entry and exit points) makes the round-trip walk distance more dependent on orientation.
With tests on 3 mortuaries, walk frequency ranged from a bit under 12/year to perhaps 12.7 per year. In some cases, higher than I had assumed! Fortunately, each city had some spare linen production.
With tests on 4 libraries, walk frequency ranged from a bit over 10/year to a bit under 11/year. With tests on 6 schools, walk frequency ranged from somewhat under 11/year to about 11/year. Very good, as we shall see!
How do these figures on goods consumption affect the design?
Waset can import 4000 beer/year from Thinis. 1 senet house will be enough for the Culture rating, since papyrus imports (discussed later) will be more limiting. Assuming that the senet player takes 12 walks/year, 136 beer-using houses can be supported. That's more than enough, so beer consumption won't be a factor.
However, linen consumption will be important. Waset can import 2500 linen/year from Khmun. I'll assume that a mortician takes 12.8 walks/year. If 1 mortuary is built then 72 linen-using houses can be supported. If 2 mortuaries are built then 40 linen-using houses can be supported. It would have been nice to be able to build a few more linen-using houses (as would have been the case if a mortician took 12 walks/year), but I don't want to endanger the city's stability.
Waset can import 2500 papyrus/year from Men-nefer. The assumed walk frequency for both teachers and librarians will be lowered from 12/year to 11.3/year. There's no effect if 0 libraries are built, since 5 schools would be allowed in either case. There's no effect if 2 libraries are built, since 2 schools would be allowed in either case. However, if 1 library is built, then the new walk frequency allows 4 schools (instead of 3), which can help a lot.
The next post will discuss housing.
[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 06-30-2002 @ 04:07 AM).]