While pondering how best to improve my Immortal Iunet, I decided to take a break and build a simpler city. How about a Pharaoh city without trade? (I enjoyed building a few no-trade C3 cities.) Most missions require trade to win. Of the "family history" missions that are winnable without trade, Abu appealed to me the most. Then I thought, how about building the entire city on the two islands? That sounded so good that I (for now) gave up the idea of no trade!
To make the city more interesting, I adopted these "personal rules":
* Only (unstaffed) ferry terminals on either bank.
* Very Hard difficulty.
* No "rescue" loan.
* No personal funds (so no gifts) and no "cheats".
* Highest Prosperity (100 with trade).
* All worker houses houses the best (fancy residences with trade).
* Highest Culture (35 without mortuaries).
* All roads connected (except for the Kingdom Road).
* No festivals.
* Regular traffic through the festival square.
* A "city center" (see below).
* Local goods stored to meet requests (see below).
* At least 1 fort of soldiers.
* Every venue has shows at least part of the time.
* All scribal schools kept supplied with papyrus.
* Everyone registered for taxation all of the time.
* No mid-month tax and wage rate manipulation.
* No "future knowledge".
* No deletes.
The last rule can be abandoned if a mistake is discovered, but it's fun to shoot for.
The city center (which is not necessarily near the center of the city) should have all of the "nice" buildings: the palace, mansion (with salary set to 0), temple complex, festival square, and at least some of the best houses.
All goods that can be produced locally (without using imported raw materials) should be available to meet requests, except perhaps after a series of terrible floods. This includes grain, straw, lettuce, chickpeas, barley, beer, flax, linen, gems, jewelry, granite, and sandstone. (Other goods might be requested, but this rule can be satisfied even with no trade.) By "available" I mean that a significant fraction of a storage yard should always be stored, with more than a full storage yard possible within a year (by player action, such as turning off the beer industry (and consuming stored beer) to accumulate extra barley).
This sounds so good that I've already started designing. I'll describe the design process after I get farther along.
Someday, I may go back and try a No Trade Island Abu. (Very Hard difficulty is even more important in that version.) But for now, I'm thinking about Island Abu with water trade.
[Edited to add two personal goals involving taxation.]
[Edited to add the No future knowledge personal rule.]
[Edit mistake removed.]
To make the city more interesting, I adopted these "personal rules":
* Only (unstaffed) ferry terminals on either bank.
* Very Hard difficulty.
* No "rescue" loan.
* No personal funds (so no gifts) and no "cheats".
* Highest Prosperity (100 with trade).
* All worker houses houses the best (fancy residences with trade).
* Highest Culture (35 without mortuaries).
* All roads connected (except for the Kingdom Road).
* No festivals.
* Regular traffic through the festival square.
* A "city center" (see below).
* Local goods stored to meet requests (see below).
* At least 1 fort of soldiers.
* Every venue has shows at least part of the time.
* All scribal schools kept supplied with papyrus.
* Everyone registered for taxation all of the time.
* No mid-month tax and wage rate manipulation.
* No "future knowledge".
* No deletes.
The last rule can be abandoned if a mistake is discovered, but it's fun to shoot for.
The city center (which is not necessarily near the center of the city) should have all of the "nice" buildings: the palace, mansion (with salary set to 0), temple complex, festival square, and at least some of the best houses.
All goods that can be produced locally (without using imported raw materials) should be available to meet requests, except perhaps after a series of terrible floods. This includes grain, straw, lettuce, chickpeas, barley, beer, flax, linen, gems, jewelry, granite, and sandstone. (Other goods might be requested, but this rule can be satisfied even with no trade.) By "available" I mean that a significant fraction of a storage yard should always be stored, with more than a full storage yard possible within a year (by player action, such as turning off the beer industry (and consuming stored beer) to accumulate extra barley).
This sounds so good that I've already started designing. I'll describe the design process after I get farther along.
Someday, I may go back and try a No Trade Island Abu. (Very Hard difficulty is even more important in that version.) But for now, I'm thinking about Island Abu with water trade.
[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 04-02-2012 @ 04:33 PM).]