Merging of four 1x1 depends on a grid of random numbers in the map file . If the north tile of the four has the proper number , they merge , if not they never merge unless the houses reach the residence level . The average number of merging tiles in a grid seems to be 62% or 5/8 of the number of tiles .
So there are two ways to have only 2x2 , select only the proper spots or evolve houses to residences .
To select the proper spots , a way is to save , set the vacants , see the merging , and restart from save to set only in the good spots .

It depends on whether they are built at exactly the same time (eg, a click and drag) or one at a time. When they reach Common Residence level, they'll automatically become a 2x2 house.

I was just wondering if there are tile patterns which identify merging tiles like in C3? I know there are a lot more patterns and they are probably harder to find too but its just a thought.

Hi wanqiqi, welcome to Pharaoh Heaven.

Senseisan's explanation is correct, with the addition that in locations where merging is allowed, a square of four 1x1 houses will merge only if they are the same type (or are a mixture of vacant lots and crude huts, with the north house a crude hut).


Sajuuk,
No, the way that house tiles are placed does not affect whether merging is allowed in a given location. The way that house tiles are placed affects the order that they are settled, which can affect which of the possible 2x2 houses form in a 2xN row of house tiles.


evil_live_vile,
The different cover of grass that can appear on watered ground would complicate identification of merging-allowed tiles. Have you tried to do it?

Thank you guys for reply.

Hi Brugle,
Actually the first time I came here was 6 or 7 years agoThough this is my first post. I am glad you are still here since a lot of guys I know like VitruviusAIA already left. I am also surprised my post can be replied within one day time from so many guys.

I guess Senseisan's answer is good enough. But I have another two queries related to this. The process introduced to decide proper tile by Senseisan is quite exhausted, isn't it? Is there any editor can do me a favor? Another query is if I have a lot of squares of four 1x1 Spacious Apartment, they would evolve into 2x2 Residence randomly, which would be highly possbile to leave a lot of 1x1 in the middle of Residence, isn't it quite annoying?

Concerning tiles patterns , I lost a lot of time searching , never found any ...
In a block of 1x1 , merging begins by the northern corner of the block .
As I don't use blocks for housing ( but long walk loops ) , I never searched a tip to get a proper merging in twinned houses .

[This message has been edited by Senseisan (edited 12-14-2011 @ 05:40 AM).]

Quoted from Brugle:

Sajuuk,
No, the way that house tiles are placed does not affect whether merging is allowed in a given location. The way that house tiles are placed affects the order that they are settled, which can affect which of the possible 2x2 houses form in a 2xN row of house tiles.

Oh, I thought tile placement was a reason for houses becoming 2x2, rather than 1x1. You learn something new every day I guess :P

I'm still here wanqiqi.

You can download the “spoiler” version of Nero Would’s excel maps. These are located in Pharaoh Heaven’s Miscellaneous Downloads. The “non-merging” tile locations are shown on these maps.

Quoted from wanqiqi:

The process introduced to decide proper tile by Senseisan is quite exhausted, isn't it? Is there any editor can do me a favor?

I expect that a game file could be edited with a binary editor to make houses merge where you want them to. This wouldn't be easy, and it would be harder to edit a .sav file than a .map file. Also, it would probably affect some other things, such as behavior of random walkers in certain situations. Not much benefit for a lot of trouble, and I would enjoy playing a pseudo-Pharaoh less than the real thing.

In quite a few missions (both Pharaoh and Caesar III), I tested to find out where poor 2x2 houses would form, and then designed housing blocks appropriately. The testing became fairly easy, almost routine, with practice. After Nero Would's excel maps became available, I used them to design at least one city, Itjtawy. However, in general, I now prefer to build cities without knowing any "spoiler" information, including where house tiles will merge, as in my latest Pharaoh city, Sawu.

Quoted from wanqiqi:

if I have a lot of squares of four 1x1 Spacious Apartment, they would evolve into 2x2 Residence randomly, which would be highly possbile to leave a lot of 1x1 in the middle of Residence, isn't it quite annoying?

It might be annoying, if that's the only way to play. However, by playing a bit differently, it is possible to create rows of residences without any spacious apartments.

One method is to place squares of four vacant lots in alternating positions in a row of eventual residences. For example, if you intend to have 5 residences in a row, start with 3 squares of four vacant lots, separated by 2 2x2 squares of bare ground. After the residences form and are stable, place vacant lots in the squares of bare ground.

Another method is to use blocking objects. Using the same example as above, you might place squares of four vacant lots in the same places, but instead of bare ground, separate them with squares that have 2 vacant lots (by the road) and 2 small statues. After the residences form and are stable, delete the blocking objects to allow the spacious apartments to evolve into residences.

There are other methods, but that's enough for now.

wanqiqi

The Common Residence upgrade can be fixed by deleting the Residence next to the Apartments which will allow the Apartments to expand. Usually this is only useful when you have either 1 or 2 Common Residences separating the Apartments. Wider then that I either delete the Apartments and put Shrines or Firehouses in their place, or just leave them.

See SenetEr's 2nd reply in his Housing Block Essay for a visual representation:
http://caesar3.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/caeforumscgi/display.cgi?action=ct&f=25,447,0,all

Edit: This is one other method to Brugle's description above.


Also I tried to identify the tiles when I was trying to achieve the maximum possible population but I couldnt see any patterns. One of the reasons I gave up was that it was that space was essential so I wanted to optimise the merging. It was a little too hard to identify every merging tile for me. Especially if I made a stupid mistake and had to edit the map again.

[This message has been edited by evil_live_vile (edited 12-14-2011 @ 07:25 PM).]

If you build a rock stable housing block, you can make sure that all of the housing evolves to 2x2 residences at the right time. 2x2 are more stable and use less pottery and beer so I always want to evolve to 2x2s.

When I start a housing block I place 3 house down leaving the 4th vacant. If I have cash to spare I will put a small statue in the 4th space of the 2x2. When it is time to evolve to common residences I delete the statues 1 at a time so that the 3 apartments become a common residence.

This will cause housing availability to increase more than 25% so a plan to handle the eventual unemployment is in order. A starting benifit is that immigration is faster so starting up gets going faster.

If the block is not stable then it could messy when the residences devolve and then re-evolve.

Quoted from Brugle:

I expect that a game file could be edited with a binary editor to make houses merge where you want them to. This wouldn't be easy, and it would be harder to edit a .sav file than a .map file.

Since .sav files are compressed with the PKWare Compression Library it would be necessary to decompress before editing, then recompress afterwards. Although Caesar Jan's C3GameExplorer can be used to decompress Caesar 3 saves, it does not work with Pharaoh. Pecunia's Minimap series can decompress Pharaoh saves internally but do not allow exporting of the result. I have a home-made utility which can both compress and decompress, but I've never bothered honing it for public release since there's been little or no interest.

It's probably best to learn to play the game the way it was designed.

Interesting that nobody uses gardens to identify the underlying grid that effects 2x2 combining. It is something that can be done in-game. It can identify the 'never will' from the 'maybes' and 'rock solid' combinations. Some rock solid/maybe stretches can be split to avoid the row end 1x1 leftovers.

layout garden strip, take screen shot, undo, layout garden strips on the other side of road, take screen shot, undo. compare experienced 2x2 combining behaviors with the garden screenshot. Maybe an organized thinker can write a better article as this is from my archives of family players notes.

I see C3 now has a utility that does the same sorta thing, probably more reliable being it does the math for the user.

[This message has been edited by user3 (edited 02-08-2017 @ 02:28 PM).]

Quoted from user3:

Interesting that nobody uses gardens to identify the underlying grid that effects 2x2 combining.

My guess is that nobody uses gardens because gardens don't tell us which locations allow merging. (It would be nice if that guess was wrong.)

Quoted from user3:

It can identify the 'never will' from the 'maybes' and 'rock solid' combinations.

Don't keep us in suspense: tell us how!

lol, ill try.
I installed the current version (ca 2011) since I have not a clue how to compile old source code.
When releasing the vacant lot pull an overlay takes over. Vacant lots are color coded red and yellow(1x1's) and green 2x2's [beveled squares]. There is a checkbox for 'color blind grey scaling'[dark/medium and light grey].

For single lot placement the behavior is the same, annoying but probably necessary.

The pull can be stretched/shrunk by clicking the ends. a 'Add/Remove lot' toggle button can be used to switch mouse clicks between add/remove lots. Green 2x2s change to 3 yellow squares if a lot is removed.

When done making changes pressing the 'finished' button will initial a warning, if there are yellow or red squares. Overlay is removed with only the desired lots showing, treasury fund change indicates only the desired lots being deducted.

[This message has been edited by user3 (edited 02-09-2017 @ 08:29 AM).]

user3,

Now I'm really confused.

You install the current version of what? Pharaoh? I don't get an overlay to take over after pulling vacant lots on either my old Pharaoh or a newer one.

What source code? Pharaoh?

And, what does the last post have to do with gardens?

I, too, am totally confused.

Could you walk us through each step of the process, user3?

Henipatra

Here is a surefire way to evolve 2x2 houses.
X=vacant lot/1x1 house
R=roadblock
I=road
1. Place 3 vacant lots in each 2x2 location where you want a 2x2 house. Put a road tile with a roadblock in the 4th empty space. This is cheaper than small statues and has no affect on desirability.

XRXRXRXRXR
XXXXXXXXXX
IIIIIIIIII

2. When the houses are ready to evolve into a 2x2 common residence, simply delete the roadblocks/road tile one at a time and wait a few seconds for the house to evolve. Then do the next one. So on and so forth. Note that in the above example you would need to start on the right end.

Hope this makes sense.

Quoted from Phanatic:

Here is a surefire way to evolve 2x2 houses

It isn't "surefire", for 2 reasons.

If there isn't a path (that immigrants could take) to the roadblocks, the top of the screen will get a "Part of the city is isolated from the Kingdom road/Until you restore access, that section will stagnate" and some of the houses will not be settled.

If there is empty space above the roadblocks and top vacant lots, it is possible that the top 1x1 spacious apartment will evolve when the roadblock is removed, which may (depending on the orientation) expand upwards.

By the way, there is no need to use roadblocks as blocking objects: unroadblocked roads work just as well.

This topic wasn't about houses guaranteed to be 2x2s such as CRs. Instead it was more interested in creating 2x2s (or more technically, optimising the 2x2-1x1 pattern of houses) before they become CRs

[This message has been edited by evil_live_vile (edited 02-12-2017 @ 04:11 PM).]

In an off-topic Technical Forum thread, I asked user3 to answer our latest questions. From his reply, I got the impression that he wouldn't. So if there is a way to use gardens to determine where houses will merge, I don't think we'll learn about it from user3.