Housing and Culture Options

To keep things simple, I decided that every house will be either a palatial estate or a common residence. To have Prosperity 100 and more people than in the original, there will be at least 2 palatial estates.

Since all roads will be connected, no beer will be imported (to prevent dockers from delivering very far). Dahshur can send 3 ships (although I don't expect more than 2 on the map at once) and Buhen can send 3 caravans, so each city should (if necessary) sell at least 2400 barley/year on average. Assuming that the senet player averages no more than 5.5 walks/year (compared to less than 4.5 walks/year in the original), there should be enough beer for 186 houses (over 15000 people).

The original has 25 palatial estates and Culture 60. It is not possible to have both in Improved Iunet, according to tests I made in the Sandbox mission on a smaller city. In each test, for a given level of physician coverage, I determined formulas for palatial estates (PE), common residences with mortuary but not physician coverage (CRM), and common residences with physician but not mortuary coverage (CRP) that allow Average city health. (I assume that city health depends only on the fraction of people in each type of house with given physician and mortuary coverage.) The formulas are sometimes more restrictive than necessary. Importantly, if CRM is sufficiently greater than the specified minimum, CRP can be somewhat greater than the specified maximum (or some common residences can have both physician and mortuary coverage). If taking advantage of that would make design or construction easier, I'll test those specific conditions.

There are 3 basic Culture and Housing Options.

[Edit--the following paragraph is not entirely correct, since Culture 60 or 65 also requires the city to have 40% mortuary coverage.]
Culture 60 or 65 requires 80% of the people to have physician coverage.
CRM >= 9*PE
CRP <= 4*CRM - 2*PE
CRP >= 4*CRM - 2.5*PE
For an example that has city health very close to Good, PE=4 and CRM=36 and CRP=136, for a total of 14560 people. For an example with safer city health but pushing barley imports close to the limit, PE=3 and CRM=38 and CRP=145, for a total of 15240 people. Culture 60 requires extra schools (probably 6 total). Culture 65 requires even more schools (probably 9 total), which should be possible to keep supplied but I doubt I'd want to build that many.

Culture 50 or 55 requires 60% of the people to have physician coverage.
CRM >= 4.4*PE
CRP <= 1.5*CRM - 2.2*PE
CRP >= 1.5*CRM - 2.5*PE
For an example that has city health very close to Good, PE=17 and CRM=75 and CRP=75, for a total of 15400 people. For an example with safer city health but pushing barley imports close to the limit, PE=10 and CRM=80 and CRP=95, for a total of 16000 people. Culture 55 requires the same extra schools as Culture 60 (probably 6 total). There is no reason to have Culture 45.

Culture 40 (10 over the requirement) requires 40% of the people to have physician coverage.
CRM >= 3.8*PE
CRP <= (2/3)*CRM - (7/3)*PE
CRP >= (2/3)*CRM - 2.5*PE
For example, PE=25 and CRM=112 and CRP=13, for a total of 15000 people. There is no reason to have Culture 35 or lower.

I don't have a strong preference among the 3 options. Opinions are solicited.

[Edited to fix the Culture numbers.]

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 10-03-2013 @ 02:08 PM).]

Well if you want, I'm willing to give my 2 cents. Personally I'd make the close to Good health, Culture 60 city, but that's just because a fresh design like that would be daunting enough for me. I know you can top me so just go for broke and max out barley too.

I was wondering though is there a combination of PEs and CRs that would allow below average health? It may only allow for a 35 culture but will produce less ghosts, even with 12000 people.

Finally, I cannot say I saw any faults in your original Iunet. That 1/1500 year event is just a bug that cannot be helped. If you double the amount of bazaars that might mean a collapse happens 1/100000 years but still "technically" that's not forever . Also I've made a 25000 person city on the Custom Alexandria map with average health and still 2 ghosts managed to form. One was before the demographics smoothed out but the other formed afterwards. You can reduce their rate but again, its not something you can stop permanently.

evil_live_vile,

Thanks for the comments. That's what I was looking for.

Personally I'd make the close to Good health, Culture 60 city, but that's just because a fresh design like that would be daunting enough for me. I know you can top me so just go for broke and max out barley too.

I'm a little concerned about being "close to Good health", since the tests I made were entirely empirical. I could have missed something, and I wonder if the game handles deletes of houses (which I did extensively during testing) properly. So if I choose the Culture 60 option, I'm likely to push the barley import limits (and perhaps build fewer than 4 palatial estates) to get somewhat farther from Good city health.

is there a combination of PEs and CRs that would allow below average health? It may only allow for a 35 culture but will produce less ghosts,

I ran a quick test, and below average health (along with Properity 100 and Culture 35) is possible, but I didn't try to quantify the conditions.

Are you sure that Below Average health will produce ghosts less rapidly? One reason I'm using Average city health is that Trurl (aka lemmus) suggested that it would produce ghosts more slowly than either Below Average or Good city health, in reply #3 of my Timeless Tarraco C3 thread.

I cannot say I saw any faults in your original Iunet.

I do not agree. Even if you think the rate of ghost formation and the risk of bazaar-buyer caused devolution to be very low, you cannot ignore all those huts. I am (obviously) willing to build lots of sturdy huts (or large tents in C3) in special situations, but I don't like them and will try to avoid them.

a collapse happens 1/100000 years but still "technically" that's not forever

10000 years is pretty close to forever. To run for 100000 years, the yearly net profit would have to be greatly reduced to avoid having the funds (which I assume is stored as a 32-bit integer) "wrap around" to a negative number.

I've made a 25000 person city on the Custom Alexandria map with average health and still 2 ghosts managed to form. One was before the demographics smoothed out but the other formed afterwards.

How long did it take for the demographics to "smooth out"? The original Immortal Iunet had minor but noticeable deviations from steady-state 240 years after the last housing vacancy filled.

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 03-02-2012 @ 00:09 AM).]

Are you sure that Below Average health will produce ghosts less rapidly? One reason I'm using Average city health is that Trurl (aka lemmus) suggested that it would produce ghosts more slowly than either Below Average or Good city health, in reply #3 of my Timeless Tarraco C3 thread.

Ahh, ok. When I read that, I thought Trurl was recommending average health because of the higher workforce % and less children.

I ran many sandbox tests in preparation for my Alexandria and below average produced less ghosts then average did. I cant remember the exact numbers but it was something like 2 below average ghosts compared with 20 average ones over the same time period. The ridiculous amount of schoolchildren though stopped me from looking at it further. It could be another option for you though.

I'm a little concerned about being "close to Good health", since the tests I made were entirely empirical.

Again I think my tests can help. I'm just finishing up a worker-shortage free Hetep that i'll put in the downloads soon. There I was able to produce a ratio of PE/Sturdy Huts that was exactly on the line between Good and Average health. A single crude hut would change the health and I replicated this on different maps, many deletions, changing the numbers and types of food consumed and it always stayed the same.

Whichever way you go, as long as you keep the same numbers as the test map, it should be fine.

you cannot ignore all those huts.

Well I never thought of using anything higher then huts to keep health low so to me, they were a necessary evil.

How long did it take for the demographics to "smooth out"?

It was the 225th year and now I look closer there are slight deviations.

The Culture numbers in reply #1 were slightly off. I'll edit them straightaway. I apologize to all.

Quoted from evil_live_vile:

I ran many sandbox tests in preparation for my Alexandria and below average produced less ghosts then average did. I cant remember the exact numbers but it was something like 2 below average ghosts compared with 20 average ones over the same time period.

Were the Sandbox tests on a city of at least 12000 people (so that about 0.01 ghosts/year would have formed at Average city health)? If so, you must have run the Sandbox tests (at each city health) for around 2000 years after the demographics stabilized. I don't have that much patience.

I appreciate the thought, and considered investigating Below Average city health. However, I expect that increasing the population by at least 20% will at least slow down ghost formation at Average city health. I doubt I'd want to lower city health even further (affecting Culture and/or the number of palatial estates) just to reduce ghost formation more.

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 03-02-2012 @ 09:55 PM).]

the yearly net profit would have to be greatly reduced to avoid having the funds (which I assume is stored as a 32-bit integer) "wrap around" to a negative number

how long a number is that? I know nada about integers.

maydayp,
32-bit integers typically range from -2147483648 to 2147483647. If left running and nothing else had gone wrong, my Immortal Iunet would exceed that amount of funds in less than 45000 years.

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 03-02-2012 @ 11:59 PM).]

Were the Sandbox tests on a city of at least 12000 people (so that about 0.01 ghosts/year would have formed at Average city health)?

I cant remember the size but it was only a 150 year test. I maximized ghost production by having as many newborns as possible produced in one year and tracking them. The ghosts then formed 100 years later. I assumed that the results can be translated to a city without a mass amount of newborns.

Quoted from evil_live_vile:

I maximized ghost production by having as many newborns as possible produced in one year and tracking them. The ghosts then formed 100 years later. I assumed that the results can be translated to a city without a mass amount of newborns.

I'd expect that the higher death rates of Below Average city health would cut down such a peak faster than Average city health. However, I don't think that situation is comparable to a near steady-state city.

Quoted from evil_live_vile:

A single crude hut would change the health and I replicated this on different maps, many deletions, changing the numbers and types of food consumed and it always stayed the same.

That's reassuring. For a given Culture, maybe cramming in the maximum palatial estates (or close to it) is the way to go. (I'd guess that make-work jobs would be required to keep unemployment low.)

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 03-03-2012 @ 09:07 AM).]

I made an incorrect assumption in the opening post: that my Immortal Iunet (if it had been stable) would have continued to make ghosts (slowly) until it collapsed. Thanks to work by Trium and equi in Are there any truly eternal cities in Caesar 3?, we now know that some people who reach 100 years old die instead of turning into ghosts. A population may eventually reach a steady-state where everyone who reaches 100 years old dies, so no more ghosts form. My Immortal Iunet (if it had been stable) would have created 291 more ghosts (in 27063 more years) and then would have had a constant population. There would be a small workforce shortage in the military.

I thought it likely that increasing the population by 20% (to 14400) would prevent people from reaching 80 years old once the demographics stabilized, but that was also incorrect. To do that, the population should increase to around 16200 (or greater). Of course, whether a few people reach their 80s and 90s before dying doesn't matter.

I made a more blatant mistake in reply #1: forgetting that Culture 60 requires at least 40% mortuary coverage. I edited the reply.

At average health, fewer than 11000 people should be enough to make a city immortal. But at either below average health or good health, fewer than 5000 people should be enough. I definitely prefer good health, so am thinking about designing an Improved Immortal Iunet with good health, at least Culture 60, and probably a lower population and fewer estates. This could be fun.

Brugle,

This might not be the correct thread to ask in but it's sort of related - do you know if there is a definitive % of pop that are workers for a demographically stable, "old" city?

I've seen a few guesses on other threads, usually along the "just less than 30%" line - is there a number that should apply to any city, or would it depend on city health?

Cheers!

Quoted from gazzaj :

there is a definitive % of pop that are workers for a demographically stable, "old" city? ... would it depend on city health?

It depends on city health. See reply #96 in the thread I linked in my previous reply (which is for large cities but is pretty close for smaller cities). If there are manors or estates, the fraction of workers is multiplied by the fraction of people living in houses that aren't manors or estates (rounded down to a multiple of 0.01).

Thanks, that was exactly what I was after.

Personally I'd love to see an Almost Perfect health, high culture, all-FR + scribes eternal city (just because I'd like to build cities that are theoretically immortal but I probably wouldn't bother if it meant using lower-level housing).

Quoted from gazzaj:

I'd love to see an Almost Perfect health, high culture, all-FR + scribes eternal city

That could be fun. Someday I might build such a city, if I found a mission where it was possible but wasn't too easy.

At the moment I'm starting to design a small Improved Immortal Iunet with good health, perhaps with 4800 people (before ghosts) in 6 palatial estates and 45 common residences.

Doing some quick calculation 11,040 pop in 120 FR with almost perfect health would be 2600 workers, and food/services/palace/TC might need 1800-2000 workers, leaving 500 or so for a manor block and one or two industries. Not sure which mission would work, it would need a lot of imports. Keeping libraries stocked with papyrus might be the biggest challenge, papyrus makers would use a lot of workers while imported papyrus could be tricky to distribute.

I look forward to (eventually) seeing the new Iunet

Brugle, I sincerely hope with all my heart that someday you will find an acceptable way to prevent ghosts

I agree that "flushing" is a hack

I love Pharaoh, and will never believe that an "Eternal City" is impossible

Quoted from Peregrine01:

I sincerely hope with all my heart that someday you will find an acceptable way to prevent ghosts

With a large enough population, poor health, and some luck, it may be possible to prevent all ghosts. But that doesn't interest me--I don't care if a modest number of ghosts form, as long as the city eventually becomes stable.

If the problem with bazaar buyers hadn't occurred, Immortal Iunet would eventually have become stable after losing 320 ghosts. I don't know if it is stable enough to run for a long time without any problems, but if it is then evil_live_vile's Custom Alexandria would become a stable city after creating only 2 ghosts (with 1 in the Downloads).

I generally don't build a city with just one goal (such as being stable). At the moment I'm trying to fit the Iunet described in reply #15 into just the northern and northeastern land masses without using any statues (and with several other goals). Max used no statues in a few of his cities, and this seemed like a good occasion to try it. The design is tedious so I may give it up for a while.

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 08-29-2013 @ 07:32 AM).]

I am starting another design, with 5616 people (before ghosts) in 6 palatial estates and 48 fancy residences (12 with mortuary but no physician coverage and 36 with physician but no mortuary coverage), good health, and Culture 65 or 70. (I did some checking in the Sandbox mission and found that good health is just barely possible--if one of the fancy residences has both physician and mortuary coverage, health is very good.) The Improved Immortal Iunet will have fewer people and make less money than the original, but fancy residences will be the poorest houses, health will be better, Culture will be higher, and (hopefully) it will be more stable.

The only food or raw materials produced will be fish (for less than half of the food), clay, and copper. No gold will be mined. Granite and limestone will be imported instead of quarried.

Everyone will eat fish and meat (raised by 11 cattle ranches), with the estate dwellers also eating chickpeas. With 1 brickworks, straw imports will average just over 6261/year. Dahshur should sell close to its quota of 4000 straw/year plus much of the barley, but Abu might have trouble selling the rest of the straw, almost as much flax, and a few gems. With the dock in the same place as in the original Immortal Iunet, the tests I ran (over 4 years ago) with Cleopatra show that Abu should be able to sell that much. (With Men-nefer selling chickpeas and a fair amount of papyrus, there will be a lot of river imports.)

I won't know the required workers until more of the design is done. There may be a slight worker shortage in Military, but it would be kept small to keep people from complaining. I might eliminate the academy or reduce the number of copper mines, warships, or tax collectors. The brickworks, jeweler, or copper mine(s) could be turned off. (If necessary, I could replace a palatial estate with 2 fancy residences that have both physician and mortuary coverage.)

Unlike the original Immortal Iunet, teachers, librarians, embalmers, and senet players will not take long walks. Some fire marshals will take short long walks to improve fire protection. The bazaars will exist in pairs to improve stability, and some or all of their traders will take long walks.

Many of the other features of the original Immortal Iunet will be kept. All roads (including the original Kingdom Road) will be connected. The temple complex, palace, mansion, festival square, and best houses will be together. No festivals will be thrown. Every venue will have a show part of the time. No deletions will be made except after programmed events. Other than investigating trade, no "future knowledge" will be used.

Put in a bunch of small cat statues around the Festival Square

will never believe that an "Eternal City" is impossible

As often mentioned here, I could let run one of my finished cities for 4-5 years without any incident, but when another player was downloading and watching one of my city, the city could run chaotically mad within minutes.
I assume that it is because these people use computers made in China, and that it is not related to my cities per se.

Here are a few more details of the design in reply #19. Culture will be 65.

As in Immortal Iunet, people in the game should give their best comments (such as "This city earns top marks!" from a teacher). Among other things, this requires that unemployment or a worker shortage be less than 5% and that there be at least 2 months food stored in granaries. Monthly food consumption appears to be calculated by taking the population (or the number of residents) and dividing by 5 (if Bast's temple complex or Sebek's altar exists) or 4 (otherwise).

Defense must be good, since the title of the mission briefing is "The defense of Egypt". At a bare minimum, a recruiter, copper mine, weaponsmith, transport wharf, and several warship wharves will be required. It would be better to also have the academy and all 6 warship wharves. (To save workers, there will be no towers and only 1 copper mine.)

I do not like turning Off some buildings or eliminating some tax collectors. I would rather have a moderate shortage of employees in the military and (if necessary) eliminate a warship wharf or two.

I do not expect to replace a palatial estate with 2 fancy residences, although it would add about 66 workers. (It might require another brewery and possibly another cattle ranch, but that still leaves a significant worker increase.) Trade changes would be small, probably not enough to create a problem. But since Improved Immortal Iunet will make less money than the original, I'd rather keep all 6 palatial estates.

It would save workers to import pottery, beer, or linen instead of manufacturing it. But that would reduce income, make water trade more complicated, and perhaps slow down the dock slightly. I do not expect to do this either.

Years ago, I came up with the beginning of a design. The north land mass has the north block (24 or perhaps fewer fancy residences), shipwright, recruiter, academy, entire navy, and a small entertainment complex. The northeast land mass has the northeast block (12 or perhaps more fancy residences), copper mine, weaponsmith, 3 fishing wharves, and a granary. The southwest land mass has the estate block (6 palatial estates in the city center), industrial block (12 fancy residences without physician coverage), mastaba, work camp, bricklayer guild, senet house, dock (in the same place as Immortal Iunet), jeweler, brickworks, 3 clay pits, 3 potters, 4 breweries, 4 weavers, 11 cattle ranches, another granary, and another entertainment complex. (Possible changes: 3 breweries might be enough, the shipwright might be moved, and a fishing wharf might be moved to the southwestern land mass.) I estimated the numbers of storage yards, firehouses, and architect posts, and the city was short about 25 workers. That would work (if my estimates were reasonably accurate).

I recently discovered a bug (where a food buyer may lose some food when the goods buyer returns to the bazaar), as described in reply #7 of Food Bazaar Buyers Disappearing. I could assume that the bug would be rare or absent in Improved Immortal Iunet, so a modest increase of straw and chickpea imports and another cattle ranch are the only changes required. I think that's fairly likely, but it might be wrong, and even a moderate increase in imports is troublesome.

I would prefer to avoid that bug. My current plan is to arrange granaries and storage yards so that food buyers from the northeast and industrial blocks will never disappear when they have food, and add an only-food-buying bazaar to the estate block and to the north block (so the other bazaars in those blocks will not buy food). An alternative is to build a third granary on the north land mass, so the north block will not need another bazaar (and which should guarantee that enough food is stored in granaries). These rearrangements may require another building or two. The estimated worker shortage is getting worse!

[Changed "about 12" to "24 or perhaps fewer" and "about 24" to "12 or perhaps more".]

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 09-17-2016 @ 10:03 AM).]

I completed the design of the NE land mass. It includes everything planned (in reply #22) and also has the recruiter, academy, work camp (which could be built anywhere), and 2nd copper mine (although I'll only build 1 mine unless there are 10 spare workers). There are 20 fancy residences, so the N block will have 16. The only entertainment building is a pavilion.

Only 1 architect post and 3 firehouses were used--that's good. I checked labor access and service coverage for many buildings, and often revised the design. I have never used the knowledge from Ambulomancy as much as in the past several days.

There are only the originally planned 2 bazaars, each getting food and goods. The distances to the granary and storage yards ensure that food buyers will not be carrying food when a goods buyer returns to the bazaar (to avoid the bug described in the last paragraph of reply #22).

The only "long walkers" (or "forced walkers") are 2 fire marshals (taking short long walks for good fire protection) and bazaar traders (taking slightly longer long walks).

Entertainment will be provided by walkers going from entertainer schools (on other land masses) to the pavilion. Unfortunately, an entertainer coming from a school on the N land mass will not pass all of the houses--I couldn't avoid that with 1 architect post. Therefore, only the SW land mass will have a dance school and conservatory. The N and SW land masses will each have a juggle school, so some NE block houses might not have juggle coverage, but the city should have the required 5 city-wide entertainment "points" before those houses are evolved to fancy residences.

Assuming that the teacher doesn't reverse direction at the intersection in the pavilion, the school will consume less than 350 papyrus/year. (Even if the teacher does reverse direction at the intersection, it should be OK, since Men-nefer can sell enough papyrus.)

The bazaars and water supply will upgrade. It might be fun to upgrade all bazaars and water supplies in the city. That would probably mean that the estate food bazaar buyer would occasionally teleport and deliver chickpeas to fancy residences, but it shouldn't happen often (and Men-nefer can sell enough chickpeas).

Improved Immortal Iunet will be built with Cleopatra (which I had thought about doing anyway, since trade ships would go farther). The granary obtains labor access on 1 out of 4 of its citizen's walks. (This is often OK in a granary, since its citizen is sent out when the labor access level is twice that of most buildings.) However, when playing without Cleopatra, the granary will not send out its citizen when both cart pushers are being used. I expect both granary cart pushers to be sent out at times, so losing labor access is a possibility. Therefore, Cleopatra.

[Changed "warehouses" to "storage yards".]

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 09-26-2016 @ 10:30 PM).]

can you summ up some "magic" formula, or at least an average one, which lists the basics of how to make a long living city, without the need of constant care, after the initial period of making it stable. Im talking about things like growth per year, or how much vacant space for new population should be made. As i understand, the state of health is also of significant importance. What other factors should be measured?

There isn't a 'magic formula' but several factors are important in both having a long lasting city and making a long lasting city possible. In my opinion, I've listed them in order of most important factors for an eternal city but in reverse order for most devastating consequences for the city.

Health
Health should be between Below Average and Good. At any lower level, not only is there risk of plague but you will have more of your population die then are born so every year immigrants will come in making your demographics variable. Any higher health and a significant number of people will reach 100 years old and become 'ghosts' who do not die and do not work. The more ghosts in your city, the less workers you have and eventually if enough ghosts form, your city faces unemployment and falls apart.

The way health works is the main reason long lasting cities are possible.

Employment
A long lasting city will have significantly less workers than you experience in a regular mission. For example, the usual estimate for worker/immigrant ratio is 38-40%. For long lasting cities where the demographics eventually flatten out, it's closer to 30%. So possibly needing to be more efficient than usual is another factor.

Walkers
You need to make sure your walkers throughout the city behave consistently and predictably. For almost all walkers that's easy, they can follow the same 4 walks for eternity. You can also use the long (or forced) walk technique to precisely control a predictable loop. Some walkers however don't behave rationally. You might have to account for teleporting bazaars and entertainers or a magistrate may take some crazy cross-country walk because of a certain road network.

Bugs
Sometimes your city can just fall apart because of a bug, like Brugle's original Immortal Iunet. There are dozens of these, some more predictable than others. Off the top of my head, and this isn't anywhere near a comprehensive list, there can be disappearing bazaar workers, unexpected imported goods, random fires when loading a city and bugged custom orders in Storage Yards and Granaries. All of these can be managed to different extents but it's the kind of issues that you wouldn't even notice in regular missions but are important considerations for an eternal city.

[This message has been edited by evil_live_vile (edited 09-22-2016 @ 08:09 AM).]