The following comments are based on a “Normal” difficulty setting.
The inner loop of this block contains 52 road tiles. This is the largest loop that I have been able to develop which is 100% stable. (This inner loop should be covered with “plazas” to increase desirability. I have used plaza glyphs to indicate the layout of the entertainment venues, so I left these tiles as road glyphs.)
I typically develop this block to “Common Residence” which will hold a maximum population of 2,800. To achieve this level, the houses must be provided with one type of food, pottery and beer. Set the Bazaar to buy these items only.
If food is plentiful, I will sometimes provide a second type of food to the block which will evolve it to “Spacious Residence”, with a maximum population of 2,940.
I set the Bazaar to “Don’t Buy Linen”, because I want to reserve the linen for the Manor and Estate blocks.
For Common Residences, the Mortuary and Dentist are not required. (Dentist is required for Spacious Residence.) They are provided for this block because one of my mission goals is “Perfect” coverage for health.
Another of my mission goals is “Perfect” coverage for entertainment. The entertanment venues in this block are to increase citywide coverage. Only the Bandstand would be required to evolve this block to Common Residence. The Bandstand and Booth together would evolve the block to Spacious Residence. The Pavilion is not required for block evolution.
Additional Comments:
The outer road is provided for labor recruiters from farms and industries. Any recruiter walking along this road will pick up workers as he passes by a house (as long as there isn’t a citywide labor shortage).
This block pays annual taxes of 4,536 debens at full occupancy and a 9% tax rate.
I set one Storage Yard to accept (or get) ¾ pottery and ¼ linen. The second Storage Yard is set to ¾ beer and ¼ papyrus.
The Large Statue is provided to upgrade the Bazaar and Water Supply. This is necessary for full coverage.
Initially, there is a Police Station in the block where the Courthouse is located. After the block is supplied with beer, I delete the Police Station and replace it with the Courthouse. A housing block must have a Police Station or a Courthouse, but both are not required.
Important: Don’t forget to provide a Fire House and Architects Post for the Storage Yards and the Granary. I left them off the diagram but they are, of course, very important.
Worker Housing Block – Updated Sep. 12, 2002(I have been meaning to revise this post for a long time. Having this old thread revived yesterday prompted me to do so.)
The original housing block in this thread served me very well. At the time, I was playing on “Normal” difficulty and never had any problems with it. I now know more about walker behavior than I did back then, and I am amazed that it worked at all. The two dead-end roads created by the Pavilion and Bandstand are simply not a good idea. Try the original version on Hard or Very Hard difficulty and you will find out why.
The updated version has eliminated all of the dead-end roads except for a one-tile dead-end at the Pavilion. The interior road loop has been reduced to 50 tiles in lieu of the original 52. The number of houses and service buildings are the same as the original, except that I omitted the Bandstand. The Bandstand helped with the overall entertainment requirement of the Culture Rating, but did nothing for the block.
The services and desirability of the updated block are adequate for all difficulty levels up to Spacious Residences.
Edited 01-12-03:
The block posted above worked the first time I used it (playing on Very Hard). I tried it again today and had problems. I thought that the solution would be do simply reduce the size of the block. Not so. Even with a 44 tile loop, service walkers would sometimes walk into the intersection at the pavilion, and then reverse direction going back the way they came.
Edited 01-13-05
I recommend a block design without intersections (similar to those posted in Replies 42 & 80 of this thread). A block with an intersection may sometimes cause problems.
[This message has been edited by VitruviusAIA (edited 01-13-2005 @ 10:35 PM).]