I started by assuming that there will be a "city center" with regular traffic through the festival square, no festivals (so no blessings after the first few years), stability for years (without consuming more than is produced and imported), no houses poorer than residences, some spacious manors, Prosperity 100, Culture 50 (the highest without senet houses), all roads connected (including the rerouted Kingdom Road), a dock located in the SE corner of the "island" (close to the ship entry and exit points), and Very Hard difficulty.

Housing Mix, Population, and Consumption in Houses

I considered making the poorest houses fancy residences, with at least 15000 people. I wouldn't want to try to have many more people than that eating 2 foods, since getting close to the maximum production from widely separated ostrich (or antelope) herds can be problematic (especially, it seems to me, when separated by a ferry crossing). Also, I've built several cities with the poorest houses fancy residences (including Island Abu), and sometimes a different challenge (in this case, more people) appeals to me.

25000 people may be impossible. With many of them living in common residences, too much beer would be consumed.

A minimum population of 21000 (six times the requirement), with over half of them scribes, seemed about right. Tentatively, there will be 50 spacious manors, 52 common manors, and 130 common residences, for 21000 people including 10600 scribes.

Assuming that everyone eats pomegranates, those houses would consume 46488 pomegranates/year, 15288 other food/year (mostly or entirely game meat), 5568 pottery/year, 5568 beer/year, 2448 linen/year, and 2448 luxury goods/year (not counting linen and papyrus consumed by mortuaries and schools).

I am considering making more of the manors spacious manors (without adding another mortuary). If 10 or more common manors are so evolved, 1 or more houses could be eliminated. There may be small increases in population and food consumption but not in non-food consumption.

Hunting and Importing Food

A lot of game meat is required, so all 4 herds will be hunted. There will be a single hunting lodge near (but not too near) each herd, with a storage yard very close to each lodge. (Plebus describes this technique in reply #1 of 3 new speed record and 3 new blocks, which discusses hunting in Saqqara but should apply to other cities.) I expect that each lodge could produce over 4000 game meat/year on average.

There will be a game meat distribution system for each hunting lodge, with a granary getting game meat from the storage yard near the lodge and at least one bazaar getting game meat from the granary. To prevent the lodge cart pusher from going a very long distance when the close game meat storage yard is full, there will be space for game meat in a somewhat more distant storage yard. If a granary empties game meat from nearby storage yards, it will get game meat from another, but I don't expect that to happen once the city stabilizes.

Hunting can probably supply all of the second food consumed, but is inherently variable. To help a bit, a few manors may be supplied with imported food.

City Center and Gold Mining

Super Saqqara will mine gold, not so much to increase early income (since Saqqara can make significant debens selling manufactured goods made from imported raw materials and game meat), but to design a city center that handles gold mining well.

Like many players, I originally built Saqqara with gold mines in the far N desert, which makes the palace too far away for full production. But gold mines can also be built in the far E. With the palace nearby, 4 mines in the E should produce over 3/4 as much gold as 10 mines in the N desert when Ptah's temple complex exists. I like that.

Can a city center be built near 4 E bank gold mines? There is a place on the E bank where a temple complex can be built without blocking all possible ferry locations. Fitting in a game meat granary near the ferry crossing was a tight squeeze, but I found a city center design with only a minor flaw: it has only 1 spacious residence. Gold mine cart pushers and many service-providing walkers will go through the center of the festival square. It looked so good that I immediately stopped considering other designs.

I dislike that a second mortuary will be built to support only a few spacious manors. (If the city center wasn't there, the E bank would have common residences and/or common manors.) But a "personal rule" is a rule, and the extra linen consumption can be handled.

Farming

There is very fertile meadow on both banks, but much of the space on the E bank will be occupied by the city center, gold mines, a hunting lodge, and various support buildings. A few high-fertility E bank farms could be built, but are they necessary?

I worked hours on getting the most pomegranate production from the W bank meadow and eventually found a design with 65 farms, all but 1 of them irrigated (and that 1 has 94% fertility). If my counting and calculations are correct, they could produce 50904 pomegranates/year. (A farm would show "WARNING: Poor access to workers" occasionally, but should not lose labor access.) I'd guess that that's close to the optimum.

50904 pomegranates/year is 9% overproduction, less than I prefer but enough. I like freeing up E bank space and not dealing with widely separated farms. (Workers are not a concern--there should be high unemployment.) So all farms will be on the W bank.

At least 10 pomegranate storage yards, enough to hold the larger (Jun) harvest, will be close together and located so that the cart pusher from the most distant farm of at least 69% fertility (the lowest-fertility farm to require 2 harvests for maximum production) will have time to visit several storage yards to deposit his load and return to his farm before the smaller (Nov) harvest. Various granaries will get pomegranates from the storage yards.

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 04-05-2012 @ 09:05 PM).]

A lot of details remain to be worked out, including the locations (within large areas) of various buildings and which bazaars will supply which non-food goods.

Housing Arrangement and Consumption in Buildings

Areas of the city will be supplied food and services, mostly using "long walks". Note: "bazaars" below means one or more bazaars.

On the E bank, a school and a mortuary should send a teacher and an embalmer on perhaps 6 walks/year each, covering a few spacious manors. Bazaars will supply pomegranates and game meat produced nearby.

On the N end of the "island", a school should send a teacher on perhaps 4.5 walks/year, covering houses that are on or E of the (rerouted) Kingdom Road and S of the farms (including on the "island"). Bazaars will supply game meat obtained from the E bank granary just across the river. Closer to the dock, bazaars will supply pomegranates to "island" houses and other bazaars will supply pomegranates to nearby W bank houses.

On the W bank (probably close to the farms), a school should send a teacher on perhaps 5 walks/year, covering houses that are on or E of the Kingdom Road and W of the farms. Bazaars will supply pomegranates, and game meat from the NW herd will be supplied either by those bazaars or (to a subset of the houses) by other bazaars.

Elsewhere on the W bank (probably farther W), a school and a mortuary should send a teacher and an embalmer on perhaps 3 walks/year each, covering houses that are on or W of the Kingdom Road. Bazaars will supply pomegranates to houses that are close to the S edge of the map, and game meat from the "island" herd will be supplied either by those bazaars or (to a subset of the houses) by other bazaars. Another group of bazaars will supply pomegranates to houses that are somewhat farther N, and game meat from the SW herd will be supplied either by those bazaars or (to a subset of the houses) by other bazaars. A few houses near the SW corner and some support buildings (such as shrines) will enclose the hyena pack.

Somewhere, bazaars may supply imported food to a couple of manors, in place of or in addition to game meat. Their residents will eat only pomegranates and the imported food.

Common residences that receive game meat will be prevented from evolving by not giving them dentist coverage (or possibly, in a few cases, by limiting desirability). Their residents will eat only pomegranates.

By these estimates, on average, 4 schools should consume 666 papyrus/year (with Thoth's oracle) and 2 mortuaries should consume 540 linen/year. I'll add a fudge factor of 0.5 extra walks/year for each teacher and embalmer (raising total building consumption by over 10%) and assume that the city (including houses) will consume 738 papyrus/year and 3048 linen/year on average.

Entertainment

For Culture 50, a city of exactly 21000 people needs 7 dance stages and 18 music stages and 32 juggle stages, as would be provided by 7 pavilions, 11 bandstands, and 14 booths. There would be enough city-wide entertainment for spacious manors (along with juggler, musician, and dancer coverage), even with Cleopatra (which I won't use in Saqqara). A slightly larger city, up to 21333 people, needs 1 more dance stage and 1 more music stage.

Some entertainers going to venues from their "schools" will follow the routes of bazaar trader "long walks". I haven't decided whether they will usually walk toward or away from the Kingdom Road.

Workshops and Trade

There will be 2 potters (or perhaps 3--see the 2nd to last paragraph), 4 breweries, 2 or more weavers (making sure that flax consumption averages between 716/year and 1998/year), 2 jewelers, and 3 or more papyrus makers (enough to keep schools supplied). Annual non-food imports will average 1129 clay (or perhaps more), 4439 pottery (or perhaps less), 2259 barley, 3309 beer, 716 to 1998 flax, 1050 to 2332 linen (so the sum of flax and linen imports is 3048), 1670 gems, 778 luxury goods, and 738 reeds (or perhaps more--see the last paragraph). Can Super Saqqara import that much?

The dock should be highly efficient. All water trade cities can have at least 2 ships on the map at once, although they better trade faster than that! Ships should visit 6 times in most years if there are no tempests or other problems. I'll assume that tempests occur no more than once in 3 years and that ships visit 6 times in 1/2 of the years, 5 times in 1/3 of the years, and 4 times in 1/6 of the years. I'll also assume that any good might never import over quota or might do so half of the time (whichever makes that part of the analysis worse), that 100 and 200 and 300 over quota are equally likely, and that dockers don't prefer one good over another.

The rerouted Kingdom Road should connect the entry and exit points in the shortest possible distance, as the original Kingdom Road does. A caravan should repeat its trade cycle (entering the city, trading at a few storage yards including some in the dock area, and leaving the city) about 2.5 times/year if there are no sandstorms or other problems. All land trade cities can have 3 caravans on the map at once. I'll assume that sandstorms occur no more than once in 3 years and that caravans visit 9 times in 1/3 of the years, 6 times in 1/2 of the years, and 3 times in 1/6 of the years.

Abu caravans will visit the dock area to sell linen. The dock area should be farther from the entry point than the flax and gem storage yards, which helps--if caravans sell more flax and gems than linen in 3-visit and 6-visit years, they can sell a lot of linen in 9-visit years since linen has a high import quota. If close to the maximum flax is imported, the flax storage yard should be closer to the entry point than the gem storage yard. But in this analysis, I'll ignore those matters and assume that Abu caravans don't prefer one good over another (and also that Abu caravans sell 3/4 of total linen imports). The largest load on Abu caravans occurs when importing the maximum flax, when they should average selling around 788 linen and 806 gems and 806 flax in 3-visit years, 788 linen and 1951 gems and 2061 flax in 6-visit years, and 788 linen and 1951 gems and the quota of 2500 flax in 9-visit years, which is barely enough (since I chose the maximum flax imports to make it so).

Selima Oasis caravans should very easily sell enough luxury goods.

Men-nefer caravans should easily sell enough pottery (in addition to whatever Behdet ships sell).

Abedju ships should always sell at least the quota of 1500 beer/year when it is in short supply. When barley is in short supply, if they average selling 1750 linen/year (over 3/4 of total linen imports), they should average selling over 1650 barley in 4-visit years, over 2350 barley in 5-visit years, and close to the quota of 2500 barley in 6-visit years, which is enough.

When clay and reeds are in short supply, Behdet ships should sell at least 400 clay or reeds on each visit, which is enough. When beer is in short supply, they should average selling over 1466 beer in 4-visit years, over 2066 beer in 5-visit years, and close to the quota of 2500 beer in 6-visit years, which is enough.

If there are no sandstorms, a small amount of grain may be imported and supplied to a few manors. If so, the grain storage yard should be farther from the entry point than the flax and gem storage yards.

If there are no tempests, a small amount of fish may be imported and supplied to a few manors. Also, another potter may be built, making 3 potters and increasing clay imports to 1694/year and decreasing pottery imports to 3874/year on average.

Excess papyrus will be exported during development and may be in the final city. If so, reed imports will be higher. If exports or extra reed imports appear to be causing problems for ships or caravans, exports will be stopped.

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 04-05-2012 @ 09:15 PM).]

A little more of the design:

Houses Consuming Water Imports

Of my cities that have all roads connected and at least 10000 people, only in Waset do houses consume a good (linen) that is imported from ships (and both linen storage yards are fairly close to the dock). I might be able to do something similar in Super Saqqara, with all pottery, beer, and linen storage yards close to the dock, but that would be messy.

Therefore, I will try something new for me: storage yards containing water imports that are consumed by houses and are far from (but connected to) the dock, in a city that depends on lots of water trade. Near the dock, there will be 2 storage yards each for pottery, beer, and linen that should have lots of empty space almost all of the time. Other storage yards, some fairly distant, will get pottery, beer, or linen. I hope that will keep dockers from going far.

Over 12 years after starting to play Pharaoh, it's about time.

Entertainment Update

Many venues will be fairly close to the Kingdom Road, but many entertainment schools will be farther away. Entertainers will tend to walk toward the Kingdom Road.

If it isn't too much trouble, I may build an entertainment complex around the pyramid. That may not be realistic but it should be fun. Question: does anyone know a city with something similar?

East Bank

Balancing competing interests was surprisingly difficult on the E bank. I have a design with a few minor flaws: a gold mine is too far from the palace (reducing that mine's production by 8% when Ptah's temple complex exists), the arrangement of buildings near the ostrich herd is not optimal, and there will be only 2 houses (both spacious manors) including 1 in the city center.

On the bright side, the E bank teacher and librarian should each take only about 5.5 walks/year. Lots of walkers (including 3 types of priests and a bazaar buyer with her boys) should go through the center of the festival square.

Hunting and Importing Food Update

2 of my cities with hunting lodges, Dakhla Oasis and Baki, produce a fair amount of ostrich and antelope meat even with not very good arrangements of hunting lodges and nearby buildings. Therefore, I expect Super Saqqara to produce plenty of game meat.

There should be no need to import food.

Housing Update

Game meat from the NW herd will be distributed to houses that are on or W of the Kingdom Road (like game meat from the SW and island herds), instead of to houses on or E of the Kingdom road. This will make it easier to have more spacious manors without building another mortuary.

I now plan to have 90 spacious manors, 12 common manors, and 126 common residences, still 21000 people but scribes increased to 10920 (52%).

The new plan will have house consumption of linen and luxury goods unchanged at 2448/year each, pottery and beer decreased to 5472/year each, pomegranates decreased to 46008/year, and game meat increased to 15768/year.

Dock Island

5 main water import storage yards will require dockers to travel 0 to 3 tiles each way, accepting 3/4 linen and 1/4 papyrus, beer, pottery, 1/2 clay and 1/2 reeds, and barley. 3 alternate import storage yards will require dockers to travel 6 to 10 tiles each way, accepting beer, pottery, and linen. (If having a little papyrus in the main linen water import storage yard causes dockers to frequently deliver to the alternate linen import storage yard, papyrus exports may be stopped and papyrus stored elsewhere.)

Near the dock will be 4 breweries, 3 (or possibly 4) papyrus makers, 3 (or possibly 2) potters, and a storage yard to deliver clay and reeds. I'm pretty sure that 3 papyrus makers will keep the schools supplied. If not, a 4th papyrus maker will be built in place of the 3rd potter.

Dock island will have 21 common residences and their support buildings. It will also have bazaars supplying game meat (from the E bank), linen, and luxury goods to nearby manors on the W bank.

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 04-15-2012 @ 10:05 PM).]

Hmm.
Normally you do not look at others' uploads.

And I see (post 2) that you have set the standards pretty high.

This sounds cool. Hope you will be able to build it

Quoted from Tryhard:

Normally you do not look at others' uploads.

When I build a family history city for the first time, I generally don't look at other players' cities, but there are exceptions--in Kebet I looked at quite a few and tried to build mine differently. I generally won't rebuild a city unless the rebuild would be special in some way. I doubt that I would have built Immortal Iunet or Island Abu if someone else had already built a very similar city.

If an idea seems fun enough, I will rebuild a city using it even if another player has already done something similar (or is doing something similar). I've done that at least 4 times for C3 "career" cities: Valentia, Lugdunum twice, and Tarsus.

Quoted from Cfilorvy1:

This sounds cool.

That's partly why I haven't designed more. It would have been hard enough to design and build a city satisfying the conditions in replies #1 and #2. Instead, I've thought of more "cool" stuff (manors will be mostly spacious, an entertainment center around the pyramid) which make the rest of the design harder and more tedious.

By the way, if you are not the same person as Cfilorvy666 (or Cfilorvy), welcome to Pharaoh Heaven.

Yes, I'm Cfilorvy and Cfilorvy666. There's errors occurring when I try to get my old password, so I just created a new account.
Looking forward to your Saqqara, and hope I will find time to play some myself.

Posted in wrong thread. Sorry.

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 08-16-2012 @ 09:29 PM).]

I have a general question about Saqqara. I've done a search and can't find the answer, and don't really want to start a new topic since there are already 2 about this level. Thanks to your post and the other post about the city, I got through the level with few problems. Now I am at the end and have met or exceeded all the goals, but the game won't end and take me to the next stage - its been 2 years since I met the goals. This hasn't happened at any of the earlier levels. I am running Pharaoh with the patch.

Daar,

There are many more than 2 threads on Saqqara! Log in, and use the search facility (bottom of the page) to find them. This one should help you out: http://caesar3.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/caeforumscgi/display.cgi?action=ct&f=25,7512,0,all

To summarise, go to the Advisor of the Monuments, and dispatch burial provisions.

All the best!

Thanks so much, I searched on finish or end level and got nothing as a result. *sigh* It would have been nice if one of my advisors had told me!

Hi Daar,
The Overseer of Monuments ('=' hot key) tells you to deliver burial provisions.

After my previous reply in this thread, I've built 2 new family history missions (Iken and Bubastis), but I haven't thought of something fun to do with Heh. So Super Saqqara will probably be my next Pharaoh city.

A preliminary design suggested that 2 papyrus makers should keep the 4 schools supplied. Naturally, this will be carefully checked when the design is finished.

I was not conservative enough when discussing trade in reply #2. The most important trade issue is obtaining enough beer (either directly or made from barley), since there is plenty of extra trade capacity for pottery, linen, and luxury goods. Since Abedju is only selling 3 goods, I expect that it will sell 2259 barley/year on average (enough to keep 4 breweries running) and close to its quota of 1500 beer/year. The difficulty is obtaining about 1800 beer/year from Behdet, since Behdet sells 4 goods.

As described in reply #10 of What Storage Yard is Chosen by a Docker or Trade Caravan?, goods offered as imports by dockers are affected by the last good offered for sale by the previous ship. The issue is too complicated for me to analyze, but it is clear that if Behdet sells more clay then it is less likely to sell enough beer. I suspect that 3 potters could be kept running and still import enough beer from Behdet, but I will build only 2 potters to be a little safer.

With only 2 potters and 2 papyrus makers, a storage yard (that was intended to distribute clay and reeds) is no longer needed. The extra space allows 23 common residences on dock island.

The bazaar on the E bank gets its food (especially pomegranates) from fairly distant granaries. I originally planned for it to get goods from fairly distant storage yards, but it will upgrade and its teleporting trader might distribute enough goods to let the bazaar run out. (I don't think that's likely, but why take chances?) I moved a temple on the E bank to make room for another storage yard (which will hold all 4 goods), but that means that the festival square will only have 2 types of priests walking through it.

I used non-Cleopatra Pharaoh for all of my missions except for Bubastis (which looked like it would be more fun with a zoo), so people could look at my cities either with or without Cleopatra. Without Cleopatra, granaries can lose labor access if they frequently send out both cart pushers to obtain food, which can be handled either by getting food slowly (so that 1 cart pusher can do it) or by putting a storage yard nearby to accept the food if the granary has no employees (which is good when the granary gets a lot of labor access from one walk by its citizen). I could restrict the granary on the E bank to getting less than 2953 game meat/year (the limit of 1 getting cart pusher) and put a storage yard accepting pomegranates close to the granary on the dock island, but the limitations are annoying and there's a lot more designing to do. Should I avoid this problem by planning to build Super Saqqara with Cleopatra?

Should I avoid this problem by planning to build Super Saqqara with Cleopatra?

I'd play with Cleopatra, it adds other challenges to a mission like this (eg burial goods being robbed and more extreme "curses").

How many docks do you plan on using? I found that trade was by far the most efficient if you use the single wide point on the central island in the river near the southern end of the map, with all trade conducted around that point, as this is where the dockers enter and leave (assuming you use Cleo, in Pharaoh it's likely they'd sail in that bit and leave in the north).

Quoted from Sajuuk:

I'd play with Cleopatra, it adds other challenges to a mission like this (eg burial goods being robbed and more extreme "curses").

Additional challenges can be fun. However, stealing burial goods wouldn't affect my play, since I wouldn't dispatch any burial goods as long as houses might generate thieves.

What are the more extreme curses that occur with Cleopatra? (I wouldn't expect this to matter, since I don't get curses.)

I am tempted to play with Cleopatra, to avoid the challenge of granaries losing labor access when both cart pushers are sent out. (I have enjoyed handling this problem in some other missions, but it does not seem to be fun in Super Saqqara.)

Quoted from Sajuuk:

How many docks do you plan on using?

Just one. With only 2 river trace routes, one dock is plenty (unless it is far from the river entry point).

Quoted from Sajuuk:

I found that trade was by far the most efficient if you use the single wide point on the central island in the river near the southern end of the map,

That is the plan, as described in the first paragraph of reply #1.

Quoted from Sajuuk:

this is where the dockers enter and leave (assuming you use Cleo, in Pharaoh it's likely they'd sail in that bit and leave in the north)

It's the other way around. Non-Cleopatra Pharaoh (like Caesar III) has a bug where ships leave at the river entrance point. The bug was fixed in Cleopatra. (In Saqqara, the river exit point is close to the river entrance point, so it doesn't matter much.)

Obviously, I've used the spoilers of knowing the land and river entry and exit points and the details of farm fertility. I don't intend to use any other spoiler information, including where sub-residence 2x2 houses will form.

What are the more extreme curses that occur with Cleopatra?

According to the manual, there are four curses: Plague of Locusts, River of Blood, Plague of Frogs and Sandstorm. However, it does not appear these are specific to a god and are randomised.

River of Blood causes all the water to turn red and disease risks go up very quickly. Locusts just devours all the crops on the farms (both floodplain and meadow, this only tends to trigger just before the harvest). Sandstorm turns the screen to a black background with white dots and kills random citizens (though I very rarely notice any deaths). Plague of Frogs just diseases houses immediately, causing plague carriers to spawn all over the place (and there's no real way to contain the frogs either).

Apart from the Cleo missions where these curses are scripted, I've only ever encountered the Sandstorm curse due to an angry god. It is likely that these curses are unique to certain gods (eg Locusts being sent by Osiris), but I cannot confirm that.

It's the other way around. Non-Cleopatra Pharaoh (like Caesar III) has a bug where ships leave at the river entrance point. The bug was fixed in Cleopatra. (In Saqqara, the river exit point is close to the river entrance point, so it doesn't matter much.)

Ah right, I knew it fixed something, but just got it a little upside down. :P

[This message has been edited by Sajuuk (edited 03-06-2016 @ 03:56 AM).]

Sajuuk,
Plague of locusts, plague of frogs, hailstorm, and river of blood are new events that (along with crime wave) were added in Cleopatra. If one of those could occur because of an angry god, it wouldn't affect my play (unless I really screw up).

I am currently playing Ramses campaign and this is what I noticed about the plagues.

River of blood: Shuts down water distribution. Water carriers still run around the streets but no water is delivered and eventually houses start to devolve. Wells don't work either.

Hailstorm: Destroys military units. A hailstorm struck me in Ramses in the Valley and I checked my city afterwards. No houses or services were effected, but my archer and infantry units each lost 5-7 men and one transport ship was sunk. If this could happen in Saqqara it would't have any effect, no military units present.

Frogs: Houses infected with frogs were emptied instantly. If you click on an infested house you get a notification that the house is abandoned due to frog infestation and that it lasts 5 months. I didn't notice any plague carriers. Houses were simply abandoned with devastating worker shortage for several months.

They all seemed to be scripted and this is only my observations of the plagues. They may vary from time to time.

[This message has been edited by lucculus maximus (edited 03-07-2016 @ 03:27 AM).]

Plague of locusts, plague of frogs, hailstorm, and river of blood are new events that (along with crime wave) were added in Cleopatra. If one of those could occur because of an angry god, it wouldn't affect my play (unless I really screw up).

They are events that can be scripted into missions, but are also curses by a god. It's unlikely you'd screw up, but having the presence of these type of curses striking a city makes it more important to keep the gods happy all the time. :P

@lucculus: The events mentioned are scripted into several Cleopatra missions, but they are also curses that can be sent by the gods in any mission at all if they get really really angry. I had it happen in Timna when I ignored Seth (hailstorm).

[This message has been edited by Sajuuk (edited 03-07-2016 @ 04:20 AM).]

Quoted from lucculus maximus:

Hailstorm: Destroys military units... No houses or services were effected

Hailstorm affects all walkers. Not all walkers die, as you noted only part of your military was affected. But all walkers (cartpushers, service walkers, traders and military units) have the potential to die. Most of the time the effect will be felt greatest on your military but depending on how you play, a dead water carrier halfway during a long-walk may have an equally noticeable effect.

I have read elsewhere frogs affect your highest level housing first but havent experienced them enough to say whether that's true or not. Intuitively I think it's just the houses closest to the water point where they spawn.

Tomb robbers would have the biggest impact but you've already described a simple solution and it will be pointless in the long run anyway as all roads being connected will require full police/magistrate coverage eventually.

Otherwise it'd just come down to the granaries. I've never played just Pharaoh without Cleo so I cant say how annoying it is to deal with. [Edit] Actually that's not true, I do vaguely recall something like this happening before but my memory fails me. It might have been in C3. With less control over custom orders, my C3 distributions tend to be a lot messier anyway. It was more something I made adjustments to as I played rather than factoring it into my planning.

[This message has been edited by evil_live_vile (edited 03-07-2016 @ 07:07 AM).]

@ evil_live_vile

Aha, good to know. I don't use long walks so the affect on my city was was negligible. Almost the same as if a couple of scorpions had been nibbling at my walkers. The hailstorm only lasted for a month or so. I guess the biggest impact on services in my city was the fact that cart pushers delivering precious goods were killed.

The hailstorm only lasted for a month or so.

The actual effect lasts even shorter. All units who are selected to die fall at the same time as soon as the curse is activated. The animation continues but the effect is instantaneous and one-off throughout the duration of the animation.

Quoted from evil_live_vile:

it'd just come down to the granaries. I've never played just Pharaoh without Cleo so I cant say how annoying it is to deal with.

For me, dealing with challenges like this can be fun. (I discuss trying to handle this problem in reply #5 of Many complications in Menat Khufu.)

But I'm pretty sure I will build Super Saqqara with Cleopatra. So far in the design, most of the granaries could have this problem (without Cleopatra), which quickly becomes very tedious. Some other challenges do seem like fun, although I haven't even started designing some of them (such as the entertainment complex around the pyramid).

And I expect that most players use Cleopatra nowadays. (However, if I ever do build Heh, it'll probably be without Cleopatra.)

How is this going, Brugle?

Hi Cfilorvy666, we haven't heard from you for a while.

I haven't done much more designing. Maybe it's an effect of age--my interest flags pretty quickly on a large project.