Things are not always what they seem! Valentia is quite enjoyable, but I don't think I could play it without importing wine to build lots of Luxury Palaces!! They are so nice.......

Villas are nice too...

Speaking of which, I could use a good large villa loop block. The one I used in tarsus is stable with no redundant services, but only has 12 villas on it.

Hiya Wedsaz. I doubt you can even get patrician housing with the amount of money you get. You need to build industries and plenty of housing (for the labour), not forgetting the very expensive military structures.

I'm not so sure that even with a very heavy debt, you're able to get things right in your city before Caesar sacks it with his legions.

Now there's a nice challenge DX, Valentia career map without trade income. If anyone wants to import vines or wine, that's OK, but no exports, no cheats, no free meals, roads or gardens, and no tax manipulation. Difficulty level very hard of course and max ratings, no gifts, gods on, would that be feasible? Fastest player wins, money as tie-brake. I'm game, thanks wedsaz. Any other rules needed to level the playing field?

Duan Xuan:

Quote:

Valentia starts with 8k.

I don't need a hippodrome for villas, so that's 2500 less.

No trade, so minimal industries for local use.

If I can get mars to wipe out the first invasion, I should be safe for 6 years.

I can build some 24 grand insulae loop blocks for plebian housing when the time comes, but I'd populate my future patrician block first so it's ready to tax when I let the wine loose.

joshofet:

Quote:

I wasn't going to open any trade routes at all... which also means no 2nd wine (no palaces), no marble, no weapons.

No debts. I'm doing it on starting money or not at all.

Dunno if there's enough farmland to house everyone in grand insulae or higher, but you're welcome to try. You only need two food types for large villas, so you could make it all wheat and fish.

I use gatehouses, detached industry blocks, culture and temple farms, tents for labour access. I do house most of my plebians in large insulae or better however.

I'm leaving it on hard, and just trying to meet the level requirements. Promotion often catches me by surprise.

I don't expect to win any contests with this, I'm just curious to see if I can even do it. I think so, but it'll be interesting one way or the other.

Maybe I'll try that challenge when I have a little spare time. I am reasonably sure it can be done with the 8k in starting funds. It is just going to take patience and well-planned growth.

Valentia with no exports certainly sounds like a manageable challenge to me.

The level of starting funds should probably be just about sufficient to enable you to get over the hump to the stage where your taxes are substantial enough to keep you in business.

With no export industries, you may have trouble in the early stages of development with unemployment. At the end, you'll obviously have a high proportion of patricians, which takes care of that, but you may have to juggle things quite carefully near the beginning of the game to avoid having too many unemployed...

Just a thought,

Well, on my first attempt I ate through my starting funds within a year. Looking at where all that money went, here is what I found.

Wages weren't a big problem, nor did I have much unemployment. Getting farms and basic industry take up a lot of labour when all your plebians live in tents.

Farms and industries do add up to a hefty sum, but what surprised me was that aqueducts and tents were just about as expensive. I'll need a good lump for a hospital and various entertainment venues. Temples, prefects and engineers make up most of the rest.

Possible solutions...
- farming - pray to mercury... mars and farms can wait
- industry - aim for small insulas first?
- aqueducts - shorten the pipes, I guess
- tents - fish to evolve to large shacks?
- patrician services - unless I go for grand insulas...

Comments?

With no export income, I'd start taxation very early. When almost all houses are hovels (or better), taxes could slightly exceed wages. When houses get up to insulae, taxes should be significantly greater than wages. Eventually, patricians will pay a lot more tax, but you may need to start more modestly.

Joshofet I'll give this challenge a try. We're talking very hard difficulty here (6000 starting money, 2000 top-up).

A couple of things. You have allowed wine imports, but what about other imports (such as marble and fruit). Also, it will take 25+ years to reach 100 peace, this rather negates the first to finish thing. I'd suggest leave peace requirement as is (or even better have no peace requirement, this then makes it a race for prosperity). I'm not too sure 100 favour could be attained without gifts to Caesar, especially starting from 40. I'd suggest that a zero personal balance at the start might be in order.

Perhaps 100 prosperity and culture, no peace requirement and favour as set by the game, that's my suggestion anyway.

One other thing, would you allow "unconventional" defensive methods, like lions? Not that this is a heavy military campaign anyway.

You should maybe also start this challenge in a new thread so that it can be easily found down the track.

Minor update.

First partial success was a small insulae plebian block near the entrance that barely paid its own wages. I could afford no new construction, unemployment was high (limiting taxes), the gods were angry, and I had no defenses.

A few attempts and many temples later, I now have a town with a few large villas, profitable enough to continue building. A small labour shortage will soon be resolved by a new plebian block. I was hoping to do it with just the starting money, but got impatient and used caesar's emergency loan to grow faster. I worked too hard to just start over right now, I want to finish this one first.

I've not been able to reach a point where taxes cover wages in Very Hard, but still trying. I suspect it will prove too difficult. Doing it without going into debt is completely out of the question.

A modest block of small insulas near the coast isn't too expensive to set up.

After that, city mood is key.

- high wages (40)
- lots of temples (happy gods = happy taxpayers)
- food for all
- lower unemployment (academies)

That got city mood so high I had taxes at 25% for a while, so you should be able to cover wages on very hard. If you can get a large villa block going, money will come in so suddenly you won't know what hit you.

Next I'll try on very hard, with grand insulas ("working patricians") near the bottom of the farmland between the two lakes. I can have all the industries I need down there, including oil, and be near enough to feed my industry and military labour too, but unlike villas I won't also need a plebian block.

It's possible goonsquad, the hardest problem is getting over the 200-300 bug. I managed by opening a block far from the entry point, and supplying both blocks with water, but wound up with too many people to provide work for. Deleting is no option, I later deleted houses when upgrading. I had to work hard to keep unemployment below 10% so I could tax at 18%, pay 38Dn and still keep people pleased. Finally managed. I didn't do tax/wage manipulation, only feature used is multiple blessings (Mars), but I guess you can do without them.

Once you're past that, it's no big deal, with unemployment below 5% I can tax at 24%, which gives a net income at med insula (maybe even small). All pleb housing is raised to large insula eating fish, and I have a few (large) villa parks eating wheat and vegetables. Population at 6000 now, prosperity and peace at 100, favor still at 80 or so, there are simply not enough requests. No trade period, javelins suffice, I have one arch in my city (hint). Steady income of 10kDn+, it's just a matter of time now, hence the speed challenge. Favor seems to be the bottleneck, so maybe it's better to allow gifts.

Money is tight in the beginning, mainly because of the bug, it took me three tries to do that properly, and I may have missed a few favor points in the process. It's easier if you ignore the bug by setting difficulty to hard when the population is in the danger zone, problem is that affects taxing. It's more fun to beat the bug and play it straight.

I did go into debt, but the backup loan isn't very impressive. Not sure whether you can do without, I mainly went into debt to make expensive investments (fort, colloseum) when they were needed, and made sure to get in the black before the end of the year, often at the turn of the year, and straight back into the red because of the money going to the pockets of the emperor.

I used mood manipulation of Mars to get multiple blessings, had one with each invasion, but also got an extra local raid when he got too angry. Nice target practice for my javelins, Mars isn't such a bad guy even when he says he's mad at you. As stated, one blessing might suffice, I needed two, but maybe could have done without the second with better planning.

[This message has been edited by joshofet (edited 04-18-2005 @ 04:58 AM).]

Joshofet did you start with 8,000 (which you get no matter what difficulty from opening a save of the mission made in hard) or 6,000 (from restarting in very hard). I am finding there just isn't enough money. The bug is easy to overcome. The hard part for me is getting to a point where a profit is being made on a mere 7,500 (including the top up).

6000 of course, 8000 would be cheating, and of course I paid for all my roads, gardens, plaza and what have you. No tricks, nothing up my sleeve. I'm not saying it's easy, as stated, it took me three tries just to come out with my pants on! The bug itself, as I explained, is easily overcome, the consquences of not being able to have a population between 200 and 300 for this particular map are troublesome. I won't give you the details on how I did it, further than I already did, as I'm afraid it would give away spoilers, but if you keep getting stuck, I can help you out if needed.

I didn't finish the map, nor by the CC of the career map itself, since I don't have a population of 10,000 (yet), nor by the CC I proposed (perfect ratings instead of the career level), and I don't intend to finish it for the moment. Maybe if someone sets a benchmark I will try to beat it. The main reason I played was to check whether the challenge as I phrased it would be feasible. It is.

So let me restate the challenge:

Valentia career map at Very hard, set difficulty to VH and replay map, then save. Starting position with 6000 Dn, gods on. (In principle we should all have the same starting position, but I don't expect the exact timing of the requests and other events depending on the reload will have a substantial bearing on the map as such. This is just being practical.)

Completion Criteria:
- all ratings at 100
- population 10,000 or more

Winning Criteria:
- speed
- money

The second WC only applies in case of a tie on the first.

Additional rules:
- no exports
- no free builds or deletes
- no change of materials
- all requests should be complied with

Notes:

1. I don't recall whether in CIII personal savings from one mission carry over to the next, in case they do, none should be used here.

2. In the original proposal it said no trade, implying you are missing weapons, marble and a second wine. I don't think importing any of these would help you improve on the WC, but we could discuss the issue if someone finds out they do make a substantial difference.

3. If gifts are not allowed, favor may be the bottleneck. As the delay period in favor increase after complying with a request is (pseudo)random, that would introduce an unwanted element of chance. If everyone is aware of it, that is not a real problem, as randomness can be avoided. Again we can discuss the issue, and allow gifts. (See Notes added in editing, #9, gifts are allowed now)

4. If gifts are allowed, my guess is peace will be the ultimate bottleneck, in which case WC2 applies. Increase in peace is not subject to randomness as far as I know, but the details are far from trivial. You may check the forum for details.

5. As respect to what can be called a feature, there is no final consensus. Free roads, gardens, aquaducts and such are, use of forced walkers in open-jaw blocks IMHO is not, but it's a matter of taste entirely. In case of doubt, please discuss the issue here, so we can reach an agreement. No messing with text files, hex-editing of saves, or any other tricks, just play the game as straight as possible. I'm uncertain about the multiple blessings, I would like to ban them, but I haven't checked whether the map is feasible. If anyone has feedback, it would be appreciated. For now, multiple blessings are allowed. One other feature that might come in handy eg is the lion king defense, I don't think it would matter, but let's ban it for now. Tax/wage manipulation is banned. (See notes added in editing, #6, most features are allowed now)

The additional rules are specified to level the playing field, and make the challenge a proper one indeed. In case anyone disagrees, feel free to discuss them.

Notes added in editing:

I have modified the challenge above to comply with the discussion below, and results from my own benchmark test.

6. All features are now allowed with the exception of free Roads, Aqueducts, Plazas, Walls, Gardens and Delete (if you drag the cursor over to one of the control panel buttons, you don't pay for the action), and changing materials; eg oil from clay (if you replace a potter with an oil workshop when the clay delivery is on its way, oil will be produced as if olives were delivered, same with any two other primary and secondary products).

7. I'm still uncertain about tax/wage manipulation. I haven't tested whether it makes a crucial difference on the challenge. Frankly I guess it doesn't, so I'll allow it, but if anyone can show it does, we might agree to ban it. Just make sure we play an even match.

8. Any feature used unintentionally is allowed, if you happen to place some gardens for free, which can occur when you're building close to the edge of the screen, you do not have to replay the mission. If a wood delivery occurs to a wine workshop, let's just assume they needed it to fix a broken barrel. Cheers!

9. Gifts are allowed, you will need one to finish at least. I used just this single last gift, and made sure to max favour increase and minimize decrease. I have changed the requirement to meeting all requests, including the request for an army, though you may be late, or unsuccessful. Again if anyone proves it makes a crucial difference for the challenge, we might ban all but the final gift.

10. For clarification: speed is measured in months, and decided by the date of the save in which all CC are met, or the occurence of the victory screen, whichever comes last. Money is measured as the treasury as reported by the overseer in the save or just after the victory screen, whichever is lower. Note that meeting the population requirement and the career rating requirements will give you the victory screen, after which you have a maximum of another five years to meet the CC and save. You can withhold victory eg by keeping your population below 10,000, or culture rating below the required level. Note that an update of the latter may occur only in the month after the actual requirements have been met.

The benchmark so far is set by myself at April 41BC, I'll keep an updated list at this post of other entries. Anybody interested in the final saves should check the download section, or contact the player directly.

Ranking:

1. Brugle Jan 48 BC, 754669 Dn, perfect ratings, no debt, no rescue gift
2. Naghite Feb 48 BC, 108 kDn, perfect ratings, no debt, no rescue gift
3. Goonsquad, March 48BC, Money ? (perfect ratings, no debt, no rescue gift)
4. Joshofet, April 41BC, Money 100kDn+ (perfect ratings, no debt, rescue gift taken)

[This message has been edited by joshofet (edited 07-10-2005 @ 08:48 AM).]

I think it'd be fair to present the original challenge as well. As far as I can tell (from the original post and reply #5), these are the original rules:

Hard difficulty, starting with 8000 Dn (no using previously-accumulated personal funds).
No debt and no "rescue" gift. (wedsaz broke his rules and took the "rescue" gift.)
God effects on.
No trade.
No "cheats" (such as "free stuff").
(I don't know if wedsaz allows gift-giving.)
No "winning conditions"--just the pleasure of building with some interesting "personal rules".

I'd guess that playing at Hard difficulty without the rescue "gift" and without debt would be considerably easier than playing at Very Hard with the "rescue" gift and with debt. (I assume that a Very Hard player wouldn't go very far into debt, but that could be wrong.) However, either set of rules sounds challenging. Perhaps I'll try one of them some day.

wedsaz,
Regarding reply #13:
Tax multipliers at Very Hard difficulty are considerably lower than at Hard. For residents to pay roughly as much in taxes as they collect in wages, Hard difficulty requires hovels but Very Hard requires insulae. (For considerably more tax income, Hard requires insulae but Very Hard requires grand insulae.) Villas and palaces pay lots of tax at either difficulty (2/3 to 3/4 as much at Very Hard).

joshofet,
I'm curious about your preferences for banning certain things. It seems strange to allow a player 1 blessing per god but not 2, especially since a player can obtain multiple blessings without even trying. If you want to limit the number of blessings, then simply banning festivals seems more logical to me.

Not that it matters much in an informal contest like this, but how would you determine (in a marginal case) whether a city uses the Lion King defense? For example, without considering defense, I often put a lion pit a long distance from a colosseum just for fun, and those lions might turn out to be quite helpful in defense (if the road they take happens to lie along an invasion route).

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 04-18-2005 @ 06:19 PM).]

I have just managed to get my city out of debt (in the Joshofet challenge) in the 4th year, in the last possible month before Caesar put my favour down to 10 (it is only 14 anyway). Immediately went into debt again building a fort (invasion coming up), but I'm making approx 400dn a month, and the worst is over. No trade routes have been opened. I'm using conventional 20x7 blocks with the patrician housing down one side of each block. The plebs (in large insulae) are eating fish.

Update: I've now reached the start of the 7th year with things running smoothly. 4183 pop, 43 prosperity, 19 favour, 20 peace. Wages 38, Tax 17%. Short of a few workers at the moment. I haven't had more than one blessing from any god and no trade routes open. Grand Villa is the highest I can go.

No reason I couldn't get prosperity to 100 in another 6 years but it may take longer to reach 10,000, and 100 peace will take almost forever (I don't agree with 100 peace for this challenge by the way, it and favour will certainly be the things that take longest to get). I don't have a hippodrome but could soon build one out of the way somewhere to get 10PR per year. Money not now much of a problem although it limits how quickly I can increase population.

[This message has been edited by goonsquad (edited 04-20-2005 @ 06:05 AM).]

You're right Brugle, it doesn't make sense to ban multiple blessings. Banning festivals won't help either, gods don't need them to become exalted. In testing I found no way to do without Mars helping me out on the first (and second) invasion, and stay out of debt, but maybe someone proves me wrong. Other blessings are not that interesting, without exports Neptune is out, Mercury is only interesting in the beginning, Ceres is not interesting with all the fishing, and the later invasions are so feeble, Mars doesn't even come in the picture even if he wants to. As a matter of fact I did play the map to its end and mismanaged Mars at least twice, and got him exalted again without explicitly trying. I got, and used two of his blessings, but as stated the third one never came into effect, my javelins killed of the invaders before the God noticed something was stirring. It's forgivable.

I must admit I had overlooked Wedsaz' reply to my statement of the challenge at VH, and somewhat over-enthousiastically went into the detailed description of it. You're right the original challenge is at Hard, should be done without the backup loan, and just uses the standard career requirements for the ratings. That means, provided Wedsaz agrees, we now have the challenge at two levels, Wedsaz one at Hard, and the one I stole from him at VH.

I completed Valentia at Very Hard in April 41 BC, with 100 for all ratings and a population of 10004. So there you have your benchmark. Money was a bit over 100 kDn, can check it if we have a draw. I took the backup loan, couldn't manage without it, but never went into debt afterwards. With unemployment strictly kept below 5%, and wages at 38, I managed to maintain taxes at 24% throughout most of the mission. No need for villae, the break-even point lies at small insula, but higher levels help. Almost all pleb housing at LI, eating fish and producing pottery and furniture, and a large and med villa park eating wheat and vegetables, producing oil and wine. I got multiple blessings, but didn't use them on purpose, two from Mars, and two from Mercury, maybe even more. I also used gatehouses for roadblocks, which could be called a feature. I needed one gift to get favor (back) to 100, because of the annual drop. The final bottleneck was the population, peace reached 100 in 47BC, favor already in 51BC, and prosperity about the same time, I didn't check that. Culture reached 100 just one month before the finish, but could have been obtained at any point.

I'll modify the challenge, and edit the post above to reflect it. Only features not allowed are free roads, aquaducts, gardens etc, and oil from clay, for the rest I tend to allow them. Multiple blessings are hardly avoidable, so they are allowed. Gatehouses as roadblocks, OK, lion king defense, go ahead. None of these will IMHO make a crucial difference in completing the challenge. Tax/wage manipulation might, I'm not sure. I hate it, too much micromanagement, and I didn't need it. Nor did I need build/undo or delete/undo features, but I did replay several years, and I did delete a few huts in a block that ran out of fish just before the turn of the year. I needed one final gift to get favor back to 100 just before population reached 10000. More gifts would have let me reach me max favour even earlier than I did, but it doesn't matter, population was the bottleneck for the speed challenge, and if you manage that better than I did, peace will be the issue. Watch out for protestors!

In terms of a speed challenge you seem to be ahead of me in population size Goonsquad. I only got into debt once, but I took more blessings, so I saved some money that you needed for the fort to defend against the second attack. On the other hand it took me longer to get my city running, and make profit from taxes. Hence the favour requirement, the optimal strategy must strike a balance between the two. I have the disturbing feeling you made the better choice, seeing how early I maxed on favour. I agree more or less on peace, it seems you can finish well before 50BC, which is about the earliest date you can have peace reaching the ceiling. On the other hand you will have a hard time getting favour to 100 by the same time, relying only on requests. I don't know what you mean by the 7th year, in 64BC I had peace at 21, peace=26 in 63BC. Beat you on that one, and worked hard for it. Still room for improvement. I ignored prosperity, as favour, ie not getting into debt, and peace, low crime level, were more difficult. Valentia with prosperity=100 in ten years is a different challenge, in the twenty years you need for peace to reach that level it's no issue at all. I wouldn't have expected you could get population to 10,000 so fast, based on some test play, but with proper planning an annual increase of 2000 theoretically is possible, even a little more if you include births.

Maybe Brugle is right, and there is little point in strictly outlining the challenge rules of this particular map, but simply having each player interested play the map at either hard or very hard with Wedsaz' original (and creative) idea of no trade, and his or her own additional set of rules. I would be interested to hear about their results.

[This message has been edited by joshofet (edited 04-20-2005 @ 10:07 AM).]

These posts make the "Valentia no trade" challenge sound like so much fun that I might try it as soon as I get some free time (which might not be soon). (I had planned to finish designing and then build the Pharaoh city Sawu next.)

I apologize for suggesting that blessings could be limited by eliminating festivals. Up to a few months ago, I had some mistaken ideas about getting gods exalted (goonsquad helped reveal my errors), and I didn't consider all of the implications.

For forumers not used to the term, joshofet is using the term "feature" in a satirical sense (probably related to the old (and lame) joke "It's not a bug, it's a feature!"), meaning an aspect of the game that is considered at least a little improper and which might be banned in a contest. (I have no idea why anyone would consider multiple blessings to be such a "feature", since they were obviously intended by the game designers and shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who's played the game much.) Of course, I have no objection to any aspect of the game (such as trade) being banned if it makes a better contest.

I also dislike the tedium involved in tax/wage manipulation (and "free stuff") and am glad that it isn't allowed here.

As far as I know, at least for missions that begin without an existing settlement, Peace can increase at most 2 at the end of each of the first 2 years, and at most 5 at the end of each following year. This means that Peace could be at most 24 during the 7th year (64 BC). At that point, both joshofet and goonsquad were on track to achieve the original Peace requirement in the minimum 14 years (at the end of 57 BC) and Peace 100 in the minimum 22 years (at the end of 49BC).

I usually dislike a high Peace requirement, since it usually means playing a few extra years simply waiting for Peace to rise. However, it might not matter in this case, if another requirement takes longer to achieve.

I prefer to play without gifts. Therefore, I also dislike a Favor 100 requirement since (as joshofet indicated) Favor may get to 100 then fall a little below 100 for several years (until the next request is satisfied). However, if there is a trade-off between rapidly meeting the Favor and population requirements, then perhaps having a high Favor requirement would make a better contest.

Out of curiosity, would players please tell us when you met the original Favor and Peace requirements (both 60), and your population at those times?

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 04-20-2005 @ 02:34 PM).]

Brugle/Joshofet I only got 1 peace in each of the first two years, and also lost 1 in a later year and don't pretend know the reason for it. I've fended off the first 2 invasions which even in very hard are quite minor. I used to think that any building destroyed (even by fire or collapse or programmed event) caused a loss of 1 point but this doesn't appear to be correct. The only thing I can possibly think of is the appearance of protestors, even if they don't destroy anything. Maybe this makes you lose 1 point.

Joshofet I had the spirit of Mars for the first two invasions, but it hasn't been awakened yet. I suppose it depends of getting out of debt early enough to build a fort and barracks in time. I won't need any more blessings to complete it now I shouldn't think.

At Jan61bc (9 years elapsed) I've got 6470 population, 71 prosperity, 35 peace, 24 favour. Like Joshofet I'm rolling in cash now but still taxing mercilessly. Will reach 100 prosperity after 12 years. Should reach 60 peace in 5 years, and even 60 favour will take ages without gifts.

2000 population in a year (first year) is barely possible in easy difficulty, but I think in very hard it would be well short of this.

Update: There must be one of the progress towards goals checks at the end of the 10th year, because my favour has climbed to 38. There was a request in the previous year but there has been an extra 5 favour gained.

[This message has been edited by goonsquad (edited 04-21-2005 @ 04:50 AM).]

As far as I am aware, goonsquad, protesters have always lost peace points for that year. I recall many years ago finding out about this from a non military scenario I was doing that I never got the peace points I should have. The following is from Caesar Alan's site and hopefully he won't mind the information from this page being printed here

Peace Rating
My fourth and final article on the in-game ratings concerns the peace rating. Although most of the information contained herein is fairly old stuff, there is one new piece of information: the effect of protestors on the peace rating. The relationship outlined below was first suggested by wolf, a frequent contributor to all the Caesar 3 forums. Subsequent additional tests by myself have verified his original theory.

In many respects, peace is the simplest of the in-game ratings: it rises steadily with time, unless buildings in the city are damaged by invasions or riots. For those of you who prefer cold, hard numbers to general descriptions, a more detailed discussion now follows.

The Numbers
For the first two years of a scenario, peace rises by two points per year. Thereafter, your citizens feel more secure, and the peace rating rises by five points per year.

These basic rises are then subject to the following modifiers:

-1 If any house in the city spawns a protestor during the year (there are no further penalties for the second and subsequent protesters spawned).
-1 For each of the first twelve buildings destroyed by invaders or rioters
Certain buildings are classified as defensive (or defensive support) structures, and may be lost without penalty. These are:

Walls
Gatehouses
Towers
Prefectures
Aqueducts
Engineers' Posts
Tents
Wells
Invasion and riot damage carries a further penalty. For two years following damage by riots or an invasion, the peace rating rises by at most two points (just like in the first two years of the scenario). presumably this is intended to reflect your citizens' renewed concerns for their safety.

Worked Examples
#1 Consider a city where an invasion in year 4 destroys one building, and a second invasion in year 8 destroys eight buildings. The peace rating would change with time as follows:

Date Peace Rating Date Peace Rating
January, Year 1 2 January, Year 7 22
January, Year 2 4 January, Year 8 27
January, Year 3 9 January, Year 9 24
January, Year 4 14 January, Year 10 26
January, Year 5 18 January, Year 11 28
January, Year 6 20 January, Year 12 33

#2 Now consider a city in which a criminal is spawned in years 1 and 4. The Peace rating would change as follows

Date Peace Rating Date Peace Rating
January, Year 1 2 January, Year 4 13
January, Year 2 3 January, Year 5 17
January, Year 3 8 January, Year 6 22

It's the protestors, as CC points out above. I lost one point in 1 and 2, couldn't be avoided because of the 200-300 bug, and one in 62BC and 61BC, when I built a block too rapidly. Your peace level equals mine, and if you manage well the next years, you can beat me on that.

It is quite difficult keeping crime level low enough to prevent the protestors, and I don't really know the ins and outs exactly. Even if protestors are killed quickly, they put a dent in your peace increase. In an earlier try I had a block producing oil and wine at the elevated level, with labour pool access provided by a large tent. It spawned protestors regularly, so yes, getting a max peace level at max speed does have implications on city design and city management. If I had handled my population increase better, peace might have been the bottleneck, but my guess is that it will be near the max before you can reach the 10,000.

My favour reached 60 (62 actually) in 60BC, which is optimal without gifts, peace reached 64 in 55BC, which could optimally have been 63 one year earlier. I'm not sure I got the bonus points for the milestone (see CC's post below), there is a 9 point increase in favour from 62BC to 61BC, and 5 point increase from 61BC to 60BC, but I would have to check whether my population was above 2500 in that year. Immigration was very slow in the beginning. Peace at 60 will not be a bottleneck, but favour at 60 without gifts might be a problem in Goonsquad's strategy.

Blessings in Pharaoh can be eliminated (almost) by not having a festival square, as gods in Pharaoh will only give a blessing within 12 months after a festival. Because the games have so much in common, it's hard to keep remembering the differences.

[This message has been edited by joshofet (edited 04-21-2005 @ 05:12 AM).]

Just reread your post, goonsquad and as you may be aware the 3 progress points are set at 10,20 and 30 years in the map editor. In my experience very few designers ever touch these progress points. I always look at my scenario and if I think it should be finished in less time I adjust them accordingly. This in a very short scenario or contest can have an unexpected impact on how players score at certain times. It's actually a very interesting part of making up a map. I wish I had more (make that any) time and I also would have a go at this map without trade routes. Very interesting concept indeed.

Thanks Clifford and Joshofet for all the above information. I'm clearly still a rank newcomer to this game when in the company of you guys.

Armed with this information, I think I will go back to the very start and relive those agonising first three years, and maybe I can do a little better, especially in peace and maybe favour too. Maybe I won't be able to, in which case I can resume where I left off.