How do you handle the worker shortage? If it's by labor priority micromanagement, what are the juggled priorities and how often are changes made?

I have removed a lot of my work camps and now I have military as 9th priority. The rest of the labor shortage is ate industry. Does it change anything if I juggle the priorities?

With a labor shortage in Industry and Commerce, some buildings will not be fully staffed. If you'd rather give those buildings more employees, you could micromanage labor priorities. For example, if you have determined that priests give houses that need religious coverage on every one of their walks, you could give Religion workers only every few months (for just long enough to generate the priests) and the rest of the time give those workers to Industry and Commerce. Micromanaging labor priorities is a pain--I generally do it at the start of a mission, but am always eager to get enough workers to stop.

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 03-27-2013 @ 02:56 PM).]

I must have been stoned when I played that mission

Culture: 80
Prosperity: 88
Kingdom: 100
Pop: 13360
Funds: 1232863 (!)
Time: 60 years (LMAO)
Score: 61102

I've just started this scenario, having played all the other economic ones to personal rules, namely
Hard
No Bail out or credit
No use of savings for city funds.
Meet all requests.

***SPOILER ALERT***

But Hetepsenusret has start up funds of 2000 debens, no trade routes buying anything available, only Baki which sells only, and no gold mines. ie No income

I can see how the start will go, namely collect wood for request and then sell bricks to Menat when that opens. But it looks to be impossible without either a bail out and credit or use of savings.

So I ask if anyone currently posting here did it on just 2000 debens or am I missing something?

[This message has been edited by Serrataur (edited 05-13-2013 @ 10:48 AM).]

Aren't you forgetting the trade route of Dakhla Oasis ? They buy papyrus so easy money making tool.

Also, it is absolutely impossible to not need rescue funds in Hetep, as the starting funds allow you to just build a couple of things and open a trade route. Your personal rule of "no bailout" won't work on Hetep.

[This message has been edited by Sajuuk (edited 05-13-2013 @ 11:00 AM).]

Quoted from Sajuuk:

it is absolutely impossible to not need rescue funds in Hetep, as the starting funds allow you to just build a couple of things and open a trade route. Your personal rule of "no bailout" won't work on Hetep.

I would have no trouble starting Hetepsenusret with 2000 Db and no rescue funds, and I suspect that Serrataur could do the same. With a little work at training yourself to play at Hard difficulty, you might even manage it.

At Very Hard difficulty Hetepsenusret starts with 1500 Db, which would make it difficult to sell some papyrus without rescue funds, but I think it would be possible.

Well, the Dakhla trade route requires 650db, so you'd be down to about 1350db straight away. Some housing, reed gatherers, papyrus makers, firehouse, architect's post, a physician, an apothecary and a wood cutting industry (for the request) would use up all that money pretty easily. It might be possible, but it'd be hard and you'd be very close to needing bailout funds.

Quoted from Sajuuk:

It might be possible, but it'd be hard

For me, it would be very easy. For Serrataur, I don't know, but it might be easy. For you, it might be impossible (unless you learn to play Pharaoh better).

Quoted from Sajuuk:

you'd be very close to needing bailout funds

Of course I would. When money is tight, any decent player will know how much is available and will use most of it. It would be possible to keep funds above several hundred Db at Hard difficulty, but doing that deliberately would be stupid.

Quoted from Sajuuk:

Some housing, reed gatherers, papyrus makers, firehouse, architect's post, a physician, an apothecary and a wood cutting industry (for the request) would use up all that money pretty easily.

Yes, it would (especially if you include a storage yard), which is why a good player would not build like that. A good player would build some housing, a single reed gatherer, some papyrus makers, a storage yard, and probably a firehouse. An apothecary and an architect post would not be built until papyrus had been sold. A physician and a wood industry would not be built for a while.

Aren't you forgetting the trade route of Dakhla Oasis

Well I did ask if I'd missed something, and this was it, thanks. For some reason I did not see it and could only see Baki.
And now there is no problem I hope, and thanks to Brugle for his confidence in my abilities

Now it becomes a hypothetical question instead. Could it be done without Dakhla on 2000 debens only. I'm guessing but it looks like 3000 or 4000 is probably needed, and that doesn't take into account any subsequent requests or invasions. No answer needed to this, thanks.


Edit:
Since Apothecaries have been mentioned, it seems to me that the requirement is scenario specific. I don't know precisely how it works, but for about 2 out of 3 scenarios I don't need apothecaries at all. Possibly it depends on how near I have houses to reed marsh or floodplain or maybe they aren't required at all. For Physicians, they can wait until maybe after a year or two but then I make sure every house is covered. However I have noticed that in some scenarios houses seem to want more frequent coverage so maybe frequency of disease is a scenario specified item. I know nothing about scenario design.

[This message has been edited by Serrataur (edited 05-13-2013 @ 01:48 PM).]

Malaria is specific only to missions with reeds in them. Houses built near to reed fields develop malaria and require apothecaries to keep the level low. If you build quite a bit away from a reed field or have a mission with no reeds at all, you don't need to bother with apothecaries (don't quote me on the former point though, as I think a mission where reeds are present develop malaria regardless of where the houses are placed)

Disease, on the other hand, happens in every single level and will happen if you don't provide Physician access or access to food and water.

[This message has been edited by Sajuuk (edited 05-13-2013 @ 02:23 PM).]

Quoted from Sajuuk:

Disease ... will happen if you don't provide Physician access or access to food and water

No, houses can avoid disease simply with adequate physician coverage. Giving enough people food typically keeps city health good enough to avoid plague (which is not the same as disease).

No, houses can avoid disease simply with adequate physician coverage.

See quote below:

Quoted from Pharaoh Manual:

Disease occurs in homes that do not have good access to a physician and a steady supply of food.

Physician access simply lowers the risk: if a house doesn't have food and water, it will still have a risk of contracting disease.

Sajuuk,
The Pharaoh manual isn't too bad, but there are some mistakes including that one.

Quoted from Brugle:

At Very Hard difficulty Hetepsenusret starts with 1500 Db, which would make it difficult to sell some papyrus without rescue funds, but I think it would be possible.

Yes it is. Well at least I tested it at hard difficulty but with a budget of 1500 debens

Trade route + 20 huts + 1 reed cutter + 2 papyrus makers + SY + firehouse and as much of existing road as I could and I had about 80 debens left over which was enough until I sold the first 200 papyrus.

Quoted from Serrataur:

20 huts + 1 reed cutter + 2 papyrus makers + SY + firehouse

Those would cost about 165 Db more at Very Hard difficulty. But building only 1 papyrus maker and a few less huts should do it.

You are right, I'd forgotten things cost more, so I tested it again.
But you can still do it at Very hard with 2 Papyrus makers and 16 huts if you do not build any new road at all. I did not place a firehouse until after the first sale, and as long as I waited to place the SY until papyrus was nearly ready I could get away without a fire, but I had about 100 Db left at the time of the first sale so I could have spent the 45 Db on the firehouse anyway.

But I'm not a Very Hard Player, so back to Hard. It'll take me about 3 weeks to finish this one anyway.

Cfilorvy1,
Are you the Pharaoh player Cfilorvy who was with us ten years ago?

20 huts + 1 reed cutter + 2 papyrus makers + SY + firehouse

My uploads generally contain the file for the first year. Quite often, I go as far as I can into debt in order to boost te start of my cities. So you may check my uploads at Very Hard (I do not even have the game anymore).

[This message has been edited by Tryhard (edited 05-15-2013 @ 08:59 PM).]

Hi Tryhard,
Cfilorvy, Cfilorvy666, and Cfilorvy1 all appear to be the same person.

I just finished Hetep on Very Hard level and what a rush it was. But someone ought to change or rather delete the information that contaminated water event will occur. I finished in 52 years and had no such event. If it occurs later in the game then maybe that should be mentioned. I had several mortuaries up and running in vain, bad memories of Itjtawy haunting me the entire play through. Those guys handling the dead could have been more useful at the brick works. I know there are some errors in the walkthrough section, mostly minor ones , and maybe no one work with changes in the walkthrough section anymore, but this was very misleading.

@lucculus maximus: Most of the information provided on the Pharaoh Heaven front website pages is out of date, especially the walkthroughs and I believe the front end pages are pretty much abandoned and nobody works on them now.

[This message has been edited by Sajuuk (edited 02-27-2016 @ 02:12 PM).]

lucculus maximus,

Yes, that is a little misleading. Nero Would's spoiler spreadsheet shows 1 contaminated water event, in the 61st year. I'd guess that many people playing Hetepsenusret (especially those who look at walkthroughs first) would take that long to finish. I'd guess that that walkthrough was based on Pharaoh's beta version which might have had more contaminated water events.

Looking at the messages in a couple of Hetepsenusrets, a trade route for a city that sells linen or flax wasn't available until the 8th year. My Itjtawy already had 2 contaminated water events at that time. If I had been playing Hetepsenusret and expecting contaminated water events, I would have built one mortuary at that point (especially if I wanted to evolve houses past common manors), but as the years went by I would have lost most of my concern since the contaminated water events did not occur (until the 61st year).

Thank you Sajuuk and Brugle.

I've learned to be somewhat cautious about the information given in the walkthrough section, only to take it as minor hints of what to expect. And it's good to know that there is only one contaminated water event. I have to remember that next time around. My previous encounter with Hetep is several years back in time and the only thing I remembered clearly was that there were no invasions, only military requests. Other than that I was expecting Hetep to throw everything at me including a contaminated water fest like Itjtawy. Except for the low starting fund nothing really stood out that much and I am glad it didn't. The monuments alone are challenging enough. Just have to remember, finish the city within 61 years.

Quoted from lucculus maximus:

Except for the low starting fund nothing really stood out that much and I am glad it didn't. The monuments alone are challenging enough.

To me, the time required for the monuments is what stands out. All other family history missions can be completed in less than 20 years, but I'd expect to spend over twice that long in Hetepsenusret (at least if the Cleopatra pyramid speedup option is not used) even if trying for speed.

Quoted from lucculus maximus:

Just have to remember, finish the city within 61 years.

Since the contaminated water event should happen early in the 61st year, you'd better finish in 60 years.