Thanks for the screenshots xenxander. I have added them to the gallery, starting here.

If you do take shots of your city burning down, we can include those in our 'Disasters' album.

The good thing about having a city with 12 grand mansions is the tax income. Everything becomes a lot easier when you have all that money rolling in.

For performance reasons I play with most graphics settings turned down or off. It's good to be reminded how awesome a C4 city can look - those are great shots, xenxander

I'd guess that your problems with fires aren't helped by having so many prefects. There are eight in the first shot alone. Apparently the game allocates only a proportion of processing time to prefect AI and that has to be shared among them. Too many means too little time devoted to each one individually. Also, if you're playing with all those graphic effects turned on, you might be hogging processing time and leaving prefects with an inadequate time-slice.

I notice you appear to be using the gridlines overlay. I downloaded it ages ago but never used it. Do you find this helpful? I don't know how many times I've come to put a building in a space I left for it only to find it won't fit because I've misjudged the space.

[This message has been edited by Trium (edited 03-22-2010 @ 09:27 AM).]

The prefectures were added in during the fire tragedy (again I lament not taking photos - paused of course! - of the city while it was roasting).

The addition of the Prefectures actually quelled the fire, so they worked just dandy.

I never used the grid myself until recently and I find it very useful. Knowing that your fountain is four tiles wide and deciding you want to place it 'there' only to find you can't is a chore. but seeing that the space is only three squares wide allows me to either adjust the roads or find alternate locations.. so yes it's useful.

I do admit the game gets kind of laggy when I have things up so high - I upped my resolution (after these pictures) but removed shadows. I actually would like to remove weather effects - IE rain, sandstorms, or snow, because they take up the most power and I don't really need them anyway - the are merely aesthetics.

I actually would like to remove weather effects - IE rain, sandstorms, or snow, because they take up the most power and I don't really need them anyway - the are merely aesthetics.

Yes, they're aesthetics, but they affect gameplay too. As you say, they take up 'power' and a thunderbolt strike is something you could well do without. You can turn weather off by editing CaesarIV.ini. The last line is the weather setting. Change the 1 to 0 and save (if you're on Vista you may have to go into Virtual Store to find the copy the game is actually using)

I didn't want to start a new thread for this, so in the off chance people look into here again, they will find an Easter Egg.

This is my completion of Empire Tier 7 - Nicomedia (And beneath these are Colonia Agrippina).
I never before tried this map, so when I started I had two impressions. First was, 'oh god, it's a huge map, this will be easy. Second was, goddammit, half the map isn't usable!

So it's much more challenging than it appears at first glance. When I first finished the City, it was 18yrs. I had to zone two places separately; they are here:


caption:
I hated how, even with 100% everything, this section looked. The left side looks like a cancerous tumor budding from the main city.


The second aristocrat town looks alright - the budding left side Mansions were added because without them, Prosperity was only 98. This section wasn't large enough to group the mansions in four blocks of four - sections north and south were unusable due to hills.

I got upset with this 'completion'. So I spent four more game years and reorganized the upper segment to look more pretty. In doing so I had to expand the southern aristocrat town as well. So here are the snapshots of the final, more 'pretty' product (ending victory in 22yrs):




Quite a difference isn't there? The northern settlement looks far superior, yet it doesn't have as many houses, so the southern Aristocrat had to be expanded as well. While I was building more, I figured I would squeeze in more wealthy to boot, for a 'sectioned' off approach. Here's the southern 'city' viewed down the main boulevard:


I'd love to stroll down this street.

Here is the South, in detailed two frames:





This city's industry was quite painful to add:

The armor and furniture is what you mostly see near the bottom, plus the warehouses for weapons and armor. I didn't bother making military on this map, due to both land restrictions and that the money you get is enough to pay off the 10,000 they want each time.

A lot of even seemingly 'flat' land had many areas you just couldn't build in, so compromises were made. Also the resources were in very specific places (IE the gold only in one patch, clay and sand in two, and the forests only in three, plus they were really spaced out. Crunching everything together was very optimal though rather spaced out, so warehouses were essential:


Yes you counted right, 12 gold mines.. 13 actually, one is to the far right, next to the gold deposit. This place had three marble quarries, but I moved them because gold is more valuable to sell (both in raw bullion and in jewelry, plus Caesar wants lots of Jewelry from time to time)


Ahh the marble and ore. Timber was also up here to the left, so this was a good place for weapons and utensils. You can also see my amazing glass industry - you need to over produce based on how long it can take warehouses to get full with travel time, plus Caesar wants glass, Weapons, and Armor every other year it seems.


One of the few sand pits and clay pits in the map. While there was also a clay pit next to my first 'city' block, this one was important to over produce, as sometimes Caesar wants upwards of 120 units, plus you can sell some, which is why that trader was in the previous picture.

Between the two cities rests the Hippodrome (Circus), my Governor's Mansion ^-^, and the two stripes of warehouses as 'go betweens' for the upper industry and the demand in the south:


It's nice to see the entire picture at times, just to get a scope:


Edit 2:
This is the Tier 7 Military side victory.
Completion time: 11yrs, 11months. It would have been slightly sooner, but I enjoy looking at the people walk around and got distracted for half a game year. The major conflict was rather easy to quell - I had all 5 legions ready, given blessings by Mars, and used them wisely.

This map has lower requirements and isn't as large, so there's less to show:


The main city was formatted in a 24 x 24 mini-tile grid. This is large enough to put four Patrician housing in a square. I zoned off 8 of them, 2x3, with a 1x2 connected to the left (or down, as this picture is rotated facing 'west').


These Patricians were still upgrading when victory was met. You only need 75 Prosperity, and what you see earns you that much, though I could have waited until they fully evolved before taking the shot - oh well.


Mm once again it's good to over produce. Pottery is sold to two trading partners, plus it is one of the few items Casar requests for favor.


Wine is the other item he really wants (other than requesting your help with troops). Plus you get one trading partner for grapes and they want a lot, so a good wine production with over production of grapes earns a decent amount.


The City itself is not that large, nor did I have to wall the entire map - just what I needed.

[This message has been edited by xenxander (edited 03-23-2010 @ 03:49 PM).]

Thanks for the screenshots xenxander. I've added some to the gallery. I didn't include the shots from before the reconstruction.

Would you like to submit a saved game to the downloads?

Alright I've added both save files for your enjoyment.

One problem though (in the chance you read this new comment of mine):

You can't hit backspace if you submit the wrong file and be able to submit the right one.

Explanation through example:
I filled out everything, but accidentally chose the *.c4s file instead of the *.zip file. It said "submission failure" and gave the reason (obviously, only *.zip files).

Fine, so I go back one page via hitting backspace (which is the very same as hitting the 'back' button) and change the file to the *.zip... however, the 'submit file' button is now grayed out.. and won't un-gray. It just won't re-darken and thus I cannot resubmit.

Refreshing the page does nothing. I had to re-open a new page and fill in all info over again (bugged me, because I didn't want to type in the short description nor the details a second time).

So I think that that part of this site needs to be looked at and the htm or java code (whichever you're using) needs to be fixed.

Anyway, gripe aside, I hope you enjoy the files - not much, but I gave it my best

Thanks xenxander. Very nice!

I tested that backspace problem you mention, but it worked fine for me in Opera. Could it be your browser, or security software? Maybe Pecunia will be able to identify the problem.

As long as you're discussing it here...
I had a similar problem with submitting a file to the Pharaoh Heaven Downloads. When entering something, I accidentally hit the 'enter' key which apparently was interpreted as "submit", so I got an error message saying that some required fields were blank. Following directions, I hit the "go back" (probably not the right name, I forget) button on that page and entered the correct information, but the "submit" button was grayed out. A minor hassle: I brought up a new submit file page, moved the information over, submitted it, and forgot about it until I read about xenxander's experience.

Well I'm using firefox. Maybe you can try it with this browser and see if you get the same problem.. if so, I suppose it's just the way firefox is written.

xenxander,
I was using Firefox during the problem described in reply #9. Perhaps it is browser-specific.