Just from Download descriptions, it is clear that luxury goods can become available in Iken. In fact, multiple types can become available, since Tryhard's Iken has palatial estates. I don't know whether the required trade route(s) always become available.

Every Iken in the Downloads has some huts. This isn't surprising, given how the map encourages development in widely-separated areas, some requiring multiple ferry crossings.

Every Iken in the Downloads has defenses oriented toward attacks from certain directions (mainly south) but not from other directions. Players may have built defenses based on "future knowledge" (perhaps from replaying the mission), or considered that parts of their cities were expendable, or simply hoped that attacks would all come from Nubia's direction, or a combination.

A common defense was walls with gaps (to lure the enemy) and lots of towers near those gaps. I had read about this defense long ago, and Iken seems a good mission to try it. I enjoyed enclosing Bahariya Oasis and Kebet with walls and towers, but concentrating towers around gaps may work better. (Being a mediocre general, I'm willing to build an uglier but more effective defense.) I'll probably also use defensive policemen, as in Dunqul Oasis and Thinis.

An unusual Iken

Just by following two of my usual "personal rules", no "future knowledge" and all houses evolved to a decent level, my Iken will be significantly different from those in the Downloads. (My Iken should be fairly normal in most other ways, such as exploiting the large SE gold deposit.)

There will extensive defenses against attacks from any direction. Those facing south (toward Nubia) may be slightly better (if all early attacks come from that direction), but the others will be almost as good.

All houses will be at least residences. A significant design question is whether to make the poorest houses common residences or fancy residences. My current plan is to make them fancy residences, giving the maximum Prosperity (75 at Very Hard difficulty) if luxury goods are not available. (In either case, Prosperity will be 100 if luxury goods are available.)

Another design question is whether to hunt both antelope herds. I decided to hunt only the SE herd, for 2 reasons: there isn't enough space to extensively defend a settlement near the NE herd, and hunting both herds would complicate game meat production and distribution. Game meat from the SE herd (over 7000/year) and chickpea imports (2500/year) will be half the food for somewhat over 6000 people (also eating figs). Men-nefer ships will have to trade 4 times/year to sell enough papyrus and chickpeas, but that shouldn't be a problem.

As usual, the final city will consume no more than it produces and imports, so the population will be just slightly over 6000. Festivals will be thrown, since I want help from Seth. (I won't use Bast's or Osiris's blessings to support more people, but will be glad to get them.) I'm a little concerned about workers. If the design requires more workers than would come from 6000 people in fancy residences, then I'll change the design to also have common residences (supplied only figs) and a higher population.

Since the palace will be near the SE gold deposit, the mansion and best houses will also be there. However, the temple complex, obelisk, and festival square may be elsewhere.

I'll use some other "personal rules", including no debt (although I'll take the "rescue" gift), stability for many years, all roads connected, and limited deletions.

I hope to design and build Iken faster than Sawu, but I might not.

I don't recall having had huts in my final Iken, but I definitely didn't have high level housing, only going for the mission goals as stated. I did IkenVH without the resue gift, and used no "future knowledge". It's tight but possible. It's an option. I hope you can forget the recent discussion about the invasions, so I won't remind you any further. Good luck!

[This message has been edited by joshofet (edited 11-27-2005 @ 03:30 PM).]

Glad to hear that you're continuing your "glacial" progress through the family history, Brugle! I (and, I'm sure, a large number of other forum members) have been following your career with great interest!

joshofet & WinterPharaoh,

Thanks for your encouragement.

I will take the rescue gift, since the described "rules" are enough of a challenge for me. I may take the "rescue" gift in every future "more military" mission, since I spend a lot of time designing "nice" cities and would hate to see any of them destroyed. Also, it's nice to have never restarted a Pharaoh "family history" mission after beginning "for real" (although I can't say the same about Caesar III "career" missions). [Edit: this is wrong--see reply #7.]

On the other hand, a desperate struggle for survival, perhaps ending in failure, might make a good story. (It'll probably be years before I play the Cleopatra military missions where defeat is most likely.) Maybe I should rethink this...

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 12-16-2005 @ 12:55 PM).]

Hi Brugle,
went through your review. Here is a Paste of my file memo.

Quote:
I did not remember IKEN in details. So I wanted to make it a « no replay ». I lost : not completely as I had set various parts of the city on different islands, so I cannot be totally defeated, but I was too confident about my capacity to use ground troops against the Kushites ; my line of defence was eradicated by the first attack. I had invested too much money in defending my gold mines first, what is a bad choice : it costs less to replace mines than a whole city of residences. This failure is included into the upload to show what should never have been done in Iken : arrogance was paid in full.

I started again with another mapping for the city to be surrounded with walls. I had not yet known the availability of a second luxury route opening. As my city was pretty dense, I could not make many manors evolve to estate status.
In the following games, the first Kushite attack occurred near the mines meanwhile I was ready on the western bank. Bad luck. I lost one year each time waiting for the Kushites to withdraw and took 10,000 more debens to rebuild everything.

I sank all enemy warships leading them over the floodplain in october, though later I could defeat their invasions without much trouble : their warships are tough in attack but weak in defence. No troop could ever land.

During the Kushite attacks, I attract them along the walls using the archers and charge when the enemy is weakened, just to gain experience. I have even set the walls such a way that they have to walk between two rows of fire. Nonetheless, they always manage to crush some towers. I could set my first troops with the bonus of the academy and the Seth temple Complex, making them level 3 since the beginning.

The cities :
First try : Pop 10,000 ; Score 78,000 ; 171 months, CR 45, PR 100, KR 96.
Second : Pop 11,300 ; Score 102,000 ; 168 months ; CR 45, PR 100, KR 100, treasury 312,640, 100 towers. People are aging fast but there is a huge potential reserve for workforce. This city is fully stable : no accident of any kind ever happened. Please note that the 19 palatial estates block works perfectly.

My first city did not please me as Iken has many specificities, including several factors that may spoil the game, that I wanted to show to less experienced players, so I did it again to submit a file that suits accurately the scenario :

1. Invasion points : the enemy always comes from the South, but it is irrationnal to build walls South only. It corresponds to the game design but not the logics of reality. So my city is surrounded with walls.

2. Defending the mines : it is dangerous to have isolated towers here and there as they tend to lose their lancers and archers. Therefore you can be surprised that no ground troop is ever reaching the forts : the recruitment camp is always staffing these isolated towers. So I have set only a small wall of towers in the extreme South East, to stick the invaders there for minutes while my archers concentrate on them and attract them further away, to a well constructed fort. Note that the Kushites are ordered to ‘attack the troops’. So, they will concentrate their energy on your troops until they get eradicated or discouraged. You will lose some mines only.
The defence of the mines was the last to be set and was completed in one go. In fact, it is dangerous to set a fort there without strong defences : the infantry will be killed one by one, while reaching the fort, making the morale of all your troops drop to panic although you need them badly for the next attack.

3. Sea defences : as said, the Kushite warships are weak enough. Some ambushed warships and towers along the way will forbid any Kushite success.

4. Game hunting : the flocks were not properly set by the designers, antelopes roam on the floodplain and get stuck there with hunters. I fenced the floodplain to avoid this, destroying the small statues from time to time when 3-4 antelopes were ‘born’ behind the wall of statues. I did it when the flooding was good or excellent, for the roaming antelopes to disappear with the floods.
Similarly, I have set a ferry East and not a bridge. Antelopes tend to use a bridge to go North and get stuck here and there. It is important to have this connection North-East for the hunters who give up North to have a shorter distance to walk to the second flock South-East.
A tower is necessary to kill the crocodile. Take care that the drawback is that this tower would rather fire at the crocodile rather than the enemy passing along.

5. Food deliveries : palatial estates need the third kind of food, imported peas. The import has to start early as the game should not last more than 15 years. I forced the Bast Best Blessings to make my city evolve in the game time frame, otherwise the same result would be reached but in 25 more years.
The logistics headache comes from the hunters : my last settings proved to work. Setting a granary less than 34 tiles away from the manors block on the island : the bazaar ladies lose some time fetching them but less than every hunter lodge delivering game on the mainland, altogether with the farm deliveries that jam the ferry.
Before, I had set the granary on the mainland. The difference is that, with the same blocks in two years less, I reach now 1,500 more people, nearly all of them in fancy residences.
The manors block needed 4 bazaars to evolve properly : the forth one was fetching food only. I made all my houses evolve to palatial estates in one go, so used all the game in the bazaars. Otherwise, my bazaars were at 3,000+ game and waiting for one more BBB would have guaranteed a 20,000 in each bazaar. One again, I chose to play with the time.

6. The obelisk : building the obelisk is always a bit risky and must be made a clean way. It often appears that the workers lose their task, and it is impossible then to make them remember it, even through destrying/replacing the guilds. So, it is risky to set the obelisk on an island : I tried it and lost it.
The obelisk was finished in 12 years, without any rush, then I took one more year to finish my city and get the benefits of it in tax collection, as I spent the whole game spending heavily on infrastructure (from 8,000 to 30,000 a year). Yearly profit is now 80,000.
One guild of each is enough : it is even risky to set two carpenters’ guilds : the game tends to lose the obelisk even more, what happened to me twice in Enkomi.

7. Entertainers in the desert : whenever there are tiles of desert in the city, you have to be carefull, your road network has to be very clean otherwise you will watch entertainers walking non sense everywhere. It can even make your game bug (what happened to me once on the first try here). You probably noticed that the display of actions happening on desert tiles is often messy.
The best is to have your have entertainment places in dead ends and even surrounded with statues, for the game to have a cleaner understanding of the entertainment pattern.
For this reason, I also advise scenario designers to avoid having isolated desert tiles right in the middle of the map.
Similarly, I had to be very cautious during the fights : some towers were destoyed but stayed displayed. It would have led to bugs or blackholes ; I had to reload several times to avoid this, and ensured I had erased the rubble before saving. Please note that it is not advised to erase any rubble meanwhile smoke is still visible over it : substrate for black holes.

[This message has been edited by Tryhard (edited 12-01-2005 @ 01:45 AM).]

Hi Tryhard,

I only read a few sentences of your reply, since it appears to reveal some of Iken's "future history", which I do not want to know. (I think I've read something like it in other posts, but I don't remember the details.) I'll read your reply after finishing Iken.

After reading a very old post of mine, I realized that reply #4 is wrong--I did restart at least 1 early "family history" mission (Abedju). However, I trust my memory enough to say that I haven't restarted any "family history" missions after beginning "for real" since I switched to Very Hard difficulty (with Djedu and Bahariya Oasis).

I haven't made much progress with Iken, since I quickly get bored when designing defenses. Perhaps I'll get past that phase of the design some night when I want a break from Christmas stuff.

Good title. I HATE Iken.

I'm wondering what you do when you design your citys. do you right stuff down on paper or do you keep it all in your head. Do you lay out all your roads first and then add buldings as required. My design abilitys are not very good so any tips would be good

Hi doctamozz, welcome to Pharaoh Heaven.

I usually design using the game itself, storing the layout of pieces of the city in temporary saved games. Sometimes, when I'm done, I'll draw a tricky part of the design on paper, which I find easier to use when I'm building the city "for real".

Before starting the design, I try to determine the constraints of the mission and decide on some "personal rules". For example, in Itjtawy (beside my usual "rules") I decided on a large population and all houses at least fancy residences, which made constraints of farm production, reed production, papyrus imports, barley imports, and ferry traffic. In Iken, one constraint is papyrus imports, and some "rules" are good defenses against attacks from any direction and all houses at least residences (probably fancy residences, which would make constraints of game meat production and chickpea imports).

The actual design starts with things that won't change much, which depends on the mission and often include ferry crossings, the dock, other waterfront buildings, industries near the dock or using limited resources, and (when constrained by the terrain) housing blocks for all of them. Roads are designed along with the buildings that use them. In Itjtawy, after deciding on locations for all waterfront buildings, I designed the farms for maximum production (including irrigation ditches and required roads). In Iken, I've decided on ferry locations, designed 13 gold mines that are close enough to the palace for full efficiency (including connecting roads), and started designing defenses for them (and for the nearby hunting lodges and "best" housing block).

Note that many good players do not design as much as I do. During the design phase, they'll locate some key buildings (ferry crossings, dock, etc.), decide approximate locations for key industries and at least some housing blocks, and leave spare room in case something turns out to be larger than expected. Occasionally I'll play that way, delaying the design of part of the city that won't be developed early in the mission.

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 12-23-2005 @ 02:44 PM).]

Have you made any progress on Iken yet? After having finally finished with no debt, no gift, no gods, all housing at FR (plus one PE), etc., I'm really curious to see how you do it.

Hi GORD, thanks for your interest.

About a year ago, I switched to Caesar III (in my limited playing time). I started designing a "Large Lindum" but then stopped designing it too! I built Lugdunum at Very Hard without trade or debt or the rescue gift, which was perhaps the hardest and most enjoyable economic mission I've ever played. Finally, I tried making "Timeless Tarraco" (designed to run for thousands of years) and failed (from inadequate fire protection ). My next city should be a successful "Timeless Tarraco" (with lots more luxury housing, better fire protection, and a few other improvements). After that, I'll probably return to either Lindum or Iken.

Your Iken sounds great. I see that you didn't take the rescue gift. Perhaps, when I get back to Iken, I'll do the same (as suggested in reply #3).

Did you use any of my other "rules", such as no gifts (to Egypt or the city), palace and mansion and best houses close together, no "future knowledge", good defense against an invasion from anywhere, all roads connected, limited deletions (probably just parts of the original road plus rubble from invasion damage), buildings that use goods always well-supplied, consumption no greater than production plus imports, and stability for many years?

It's tempting to build a palatial estate, but I don't think I'd design the city to have one without "future knowledge". (I don't mind planning manors when luxury goods are not initially available, since nearby buildings could obtain good labor access with roads around planned manors even if the houses remained fancy residences.) I might not design any houses better than spacious manors (to avoid needing a library) and be satisfied with Culture 60.

I still wonder whether there will be enough workers to man all of the towers, and whether I might need to add some people living in common residences (as suggested in reply #1).

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 12-10-2006 @ 06:07 PM).]

Quoted from Brugle:

I don't think my city was very good, mostly because I built to avoid fighting until I knew the Kushites wouldn't invade anymore. Things probably would have gone better for me if I was willing to take the gift, but that's one of the rules I'm least willing to give up for the time being.

Quoted from Brugle:

As usual, I just used my own, some of which overlap with yours, like all roads connected and a self-supporting city. There are some rules that you have that I don't find enjoyable, and I'm sure I've got a few that you wouldn't find enjoyable.

Quoted from Brugle:

Given how efficiently you build your cities, I suspect you will have enough, but you won't have the large amount of unemployment that your cities normally do when you're finished. While I did manage to get all of my housing up to FR and the one PE, I'm not sure it was worth the distribution hassles it gave me. If you do go with all FR, I would really like to see how it works in the end.

Quoted from GodOfRandomDeath:

Besides the limited work force, if my Iken had fancy residences as the poorest houses then there would be very little spare game meat production or chickpea imports, and I don't like to cut it that close. But if it seems that I could have good defenses (with lots of towers) covering all possible approaches, then I'll probably do it that way (but not for quite a while).

[With 3 full spacious manors and 63 full fancy residences, the population would be 6120 and the prosperity cap would be just barely 100 at Very Hard difficulty. If 17 fancy residences were supplied imported chickpeas, food consumption would be 8784 figs/year, 6540 game meat/year, and 2244 chickpeas/year. I'm beginning to like the idea.]

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 12-12-2006 @ 02:16 AM).]

Quoted from Brugle:

I hope to design and build Iken faster than Sawu, but I might not.

That’ll be “not” then will it, Brugle?

Since its been more than a year since this thread had an airing, I thought I would dust it off to see whether I could rekindle your interest in this project.

Iken just happens to be the next mission in my military career (but I don’t expect to be able to start it for a good few weeks yet…too much work). From a purely selfish point of view, I know I’d love to read about your progress with this mission.

It has become something of a habit of mine to read through your “mission reports” once I have completed the planning phase of my own city. It is fun to see how another player interprets the same map (and also useful to check that I haven’t missed anything obvious). I shall miss not being able to do that for the remainder of this career.

Any chance of you getting your teeth stuck into Iken once again?

Since its been more than a year since this thread had an airing

Better, last month, by reopening an old thread, Brugle allowed me to set a HG record: 56 months between two posts from the same forummer in one thread.

note that all our threads here have a "never" expiry date, what is rare on other fora

Quoted from ReggieMcFly:

That’ll be “not” then will it, Brugle?

Looks like it.

Quoted from ReggieMcFly:

I thought I would dust it off to see whether I could rekindle your interest in this project.

It's possible. As mentioned in reply #12, after I got part way through designing Lindum, I became more interested in various Caesar III projects. However, in the last year, while I've enjoyed reading and commenting on this forum (and the Caesar III: Game Help forum), I haven't felt much like actual designing or building.

I've tended to stay away from Iken's design, since defenses aren't my passion. But it's been long enough--the next time I feel like designing a city I'll look at Iken.

Don't count on me. Enjoy your Iken, and it's barely possible that I might join you.


Hi Tryhard,
I've enjoy reading your recent posts, but I haven't had anything to contribute.

Thanks for the response, Brugle.

In all honesty I didn't expect my post to influence your intentions in the slightest. I was just wondering whether your sabbatical from Pharaoh showed any signs of ending.

Its nice to hear that you are at least contemplating making a return.

I am entirely sympathetic of your reluctance to get stuck into Iken. In military missions, an effective defence and an aesthetically-pleasing defence are often two different things. It would seem that the military threat in Iken makes the latter a dangerous choice.

I am expecting Iken to be a stern test. Personally, I am not averse to reloading - but only normally do so when I have done something stupid (like forget to place an architect's post and so lose a temple complex I had scrimped and saved for). Aside from that I tend to live with my mistakes and pay the consequences. Despite this, I am proud to say that I have not yet failed a mission. I had a hairy moment in Thinis when I was down to my last handful of "panicked" soldiers - and still had a dozen or so Libyans wandering around my city. Thankfully, it seemed they couldn't quite decide what to attack first and ended up just walking to-and-fro between a couple of my housing blocks. They eventually destroyed a granary full of food, but I had enough time to cobble together some reserves to finish them off. I still can't quite believe that I got away with it. The experience left me sweating for days!

I'm hoping that I can get through Iken in one piece. I'm looking forward to giving it a shot anyway!

Reggie

Brugle,

This is what I wrote about Icken that deals what you posted in a recent thread about an unstaffed tower.

Defending the mines : it is dangerous to have isolated towers here and there as they tend to lose their lancers and archers. Therefore you can be surprised that no ground troop is ever reaching the forts : the recruitment camp is always staffing these isolated towers

Note that it applies to well connected towers too, but more rarely. It happens quite often if a ferry is involved (Hetep).
As I used dozens of towers in many games, I was unhappily familiar with the problem.

Tryhard,
Are you aware that rotating the map can cause some towers to lose their soldiers? I don't know why some towers are affected and others are not. I never rotate the game once towers are staffed (or if it is necessary to observe something, I'll save the game, rotate the map, make the observation, load the (unrotated) saved game, and continue).

If you have no staffed towers, is there any danger in rotating?

Quoted from street:

If you have no staffed towers, is there any danger in rotating?

No (as far as I know).

Interesting, Brugle.
I think I may rotate the map once and for all at the beginning of the game.

On the other hand, I am scrolling so much and so often that it might have consequences.

I've had a brain stroke. It might help me repair parts of my brain by discussing complex topics, such as city-building. Anyone, who has anything they'd like me to discuss (either Caesar III or Pharaoh) can simply suggest them and I'll try.

But I also decided that I should complete at least one of the cities I've discussed building over the years. There are at least 2 from Caesar III (Large Lindum and Timeless Tarraco) and at least 4 from Pharaoh (Icky Iken, Improved Immortal Iunet, Island Abu (without trade), and Super Saqqara). In checking out those cities, I realized that the oldest, Icky Iken, has now been delayed (well over 6 years) longer than I owned Pharaoh when I started designing it (about 6 years). I guess it's time to go back to it.

I had thought that long walks would help build it effectively, and I still think so. Maybe something new will occur, but even if I follow the old plan, it should still be fun!

That'll be an interested thread to follow then, Brugle.

Good luck to you!