The 'Slightly Cheating' Housing Blocks
Ok, I'm not going to print a graphic of this because there isn't really a definative version of it, and I'm not very good at it anyway. I have included some basic text diagrams, but when I previewed it I saw that the type font and the display font are different. You could copy this into notepad and read it there.
Firstly I'm going to go a bit into the way Pharoah works. You can skip this bit, it's not actually all that important.
To find labour for a building firstly the building sends out a labour seeker. Once the labour seeking has found a non-scribal house then the Overseer of The Workers checks to see if there are enough workers in the city. BUT the labour seeker doesn't check to see if the workers that the Overseer of The Workers has assigned to the building actually exist in the neighborhood that the labour seeker found the non-scibal house in the neigborhood. SO all you need for a building to have labour is the workers in the city, and a non-scribal house in the vicinity. These two disperate elements don't have to be in the same place. This leads me on to my own worker blocks.
You build a loop of road 52 squares in length, pointing away from a source of water. (you can have more but 52 is for 100% stability, in actualy fact I find the problem that causes unstability in my blocks is that the harvest is seasonal, so nearer the harvest some houses further away from the bazzar run out of food, and there isn't any in the granary)
The width of the housing block depends on three factors:
1. The ammount of money of you have (I'll explain why later)
2. The ammount of desirability you want the houses to have (Again, I'll explain laters)
3. The ammount of space you have
Next you fill the inside of the loop of road with housing, obviously allowing for the fact the housing has to be withing two squares of a road.
If you made your housing block four squares wide you ignore this section. The problem with only four squares wide is that houses can develop unattached to the road, then if you get a fire your firemen can't reach the house, as the diagram below shows:
|HHHH|
|HFFH|
|HFFH|
|HHHH|H=Non-buring house
F=Fire
|=RoadIf you made the block five squares wide then you can fill the inside of the houses with small statues (which is just as expensive as gardens), or leave it clear.
If you made the block six squares wide then you can fill the inside of the houses with medium statues (which is just as expensive as gardens), or leave it clear.
If you made the block seven squares wide then you have a choice:
Skint option: Leave it clear.
First Cheapish option: Fill it with gardens.
Second Cheapish option: Fill it with small statues.
Slightly less cheap option: Fill it with large statues.
Highly expensive option: Fill it with shrines*.
*To do this you need to have a road in the middle of the block and an architech's post, as this diagram shows:
+-------...-------+
|HHHHHHH...HHHHHHH|
|HHHHHHH...HHHHHHH|
|HHASSSS...SSSSSHH|
|HH-----...-----==|
|HH*SSSS...SSSSSHH|
|HHHHHHH...HHHHHHH|
|HHHHHHH...HHHHHHH|
+-------...-------+... As before
+ Corner
-
and Road
|
S Shrine
A Architech's post
= Road block (to stop roaming walkers going in, but to allow kinddom road access)
H House
* Architech's post or shrine, the only problem with a shrine is that it would mean you could have problems making sure every god has the same number of shrines.If you made your block eight squares wide then your options are pretty much the same as seven wide. The only problem is balencing the number of shrines should you do that.
If you made your block nine squares wide then your options are pretty much the same as seven squares wide.
If you made your block eleven squares wide then you have even more options:
Skint option: Leave it clear.
First Cheapish option: Fill it with gardens.
Second Cheapish option: Fill it with small statues.
Slightly less cheap option: Fill it with a mixture of large statues and small statues.
Highly expensive option: Fill it with shrines and gardens or statues.
Fantastically expensive option: Fill it with temples*.
*You also need lots of workers. You also need to follow the above diagram for shrines, obviously editing it.
With all of these blocks you put the service buildings round the edge. I would also advise you put granaries and storage yards round the edge, just putting desirable buildings round them. Three granaries is a good idea. One for one food type, the second for a second food type, and the third, for a third food type, OR half for the first food type, half for the second.
All of this allows you to have enough workers in your city, BUT you still need the houses close to the industries, I call it an idustrial outpost.
I normally build 3 houses in a corner shape. This means that they are all seperate, and if one catches mararia, burns down etc at least you still have two others. I normally have a police station, a fire house, a physician and an apothacary (if required).
Obviously this is slightly cheating, and some players may not like it.