Branais
Pleb
posted 09-24-15 07:05 ET (US)
For instance, I'm currently playing Timnis. I have my main city block near the Kingdom Road, with roads branching off at the corners (to the mines, to the clay, to the ostrich grounds for hunting, to the eastern desert where I set up forts against the Bedouin) -- but if I block those corners with roadblocks, even after the industries are populated, the industries stagnate and unemployment skyrockets. But if I don't use roadblocks, half my distribution and service personnel spend their time trotting down roads that lead nowhere useful for them, and my ppopulation flees the city because they can't get supplies and protection.
Aaagg! How do you strike a balance?
I've saved a sample copy of at least one Timnis campaign, if anyone wants to/is willing to give it the once over, but I don't know how to attach it.
Any guidelines anywhere on how to make roadblocks work? I can't see what I'm doing wrong.
MrAntare
Pleb
posted 09-24-15 08:31
ET (US)
1 / 5
If all your industry has its needed workers, you could build redundant workshops. They help a lot with rampant unemployment (but cost wages).
To achieve population goals I often use this strategy.
You write something about industry stagnating, can you elaborate on that?
sylvant
Pleb
posted 09-24-15 09:37
ET (US)
2 / 5
Hello Branais,
it sounds like the labor seekers(which are sent by buildings to get work force) cant access any houses. In order for them to get access to your labor pool, they should be able to move at least 1 tile away by a house. You could either make your industrial road networks touch at least 1 tile from houses in your housing area, or build sloppy houses connected to the industrial networks
Branais
Pleb
posted 09-25-15 04:22
ET (US)
4 / 5
Hi folks,
Many thanks for the replies.
Sylvant, you're right. The roadblocks that stop the service people from wandering off around industrial estates (especially that ditzy delivery girl from the bazaar, who never seems to have her mind on the job!) also stop the recruiters from reaching the labour pool of the housing blocks. Even though I don't put the roadblocks in until the industry is up and running and fully-populated, the industries all grind to a halt over time and become inactive (as, I guess, the workers get older and sick and don't want to slog their lives out any more) and the recruiters can't manage to rustle up replacements.
And, for some reason, goods such as pottery stops getting delivered (even though there's plenty of it in accessible storage yards), people get fed up and decide to head off to other cities, and everything spirals down to disaster.
But I've looked at a couple of "Let's Play" uploads on YT, and was hit like a thunderclap with the realisation that not everything has to be connected. I was having the worst time trying to connect a housing block near the grassy area in Timna (not "Timnis", my bad) with either of the main ore-mining areas, and have people willing to commute the distance ... until I saw in those videos there actually didn't have to be a physical road between them. I thought there did for it all to be counted as part of the same city, but it seems not.
So I'm off to give it another go. MrAntare, thanks for the idea about the redundant workshops to handle unemployment (though, as you say, it increases the wages bill, but if I get my mines going at full chug then that shouldn't be such a problem), and Sylvant for the idea of the one-tile-away access. Brugle, I will read your Labo(u)r Access explanatory, thanks, and thanks also for the idea of a services road on one side of a strip of houses, and an industrial road on the other. I doubt I ever would have thought of it.
Okay. Thanks again, and I'm off to Egypt. ;-)