I just completed Rostja in 304 months. I handled things a little different than Baltic did. Here is a synopsis of how it went for me...
First thing I did was lay out 3 housing blocks, just roads, no buildings yet. Next I layed out connecting roads some bridges (for game hunters to get to game), worked out where mines would be and dock and monuments would go. I chose to put all housing along the stream leaving all Nile front clear for dock and monument.
I then laid out a small block for hunting lodges with some support houses with medical and fire/police. For me, priority #1 was food. Without food, there would be few employees so I planned for immediate housing advancement. Mines and jewelers require lots of staff.
Once the lodges started sending hunters out, house plots were placed in 2 of the 3 housing blocks. Water, bazars and a grainery as well as temple and support services. Entertainment followed shortly so all housing advanced to common homestead, its max level for the rest of the mission.
Once there was a substantial unemployment, large ammounts of gem mines went in to one section (Debt soon followed but its ok, profits are close). Support huts, fire, police and architects on a single road. This road was then roadblocked and then connected across the river bridges.
When the first mine was nearing the first completion, a single dock and 2 SY's went in. The dock area was connected to the KR and on to the housing block so there was a complete connection between mines and dock area. In my solution, I intend to have large numbers of mines delivering directly to the dock area rather than have a "GETTER" doing the work. I also differed from Baltic's solution by having all 6 jewelers in the dock area. It seemed more effecient having a dozen or more mines delivering than to have just a couple CP's moving goods.
As soon as profits began to stabilize, I filled in the 3rd housing block with all services for common homestead. At this point, city palace and taxing begain and remained constant for the rest of the mission at 12% with wages at Kingdom+2.
The construction guilds went in and a set of work camps. The complex went down, festival square and sphynx. Carpenters/masons got busy on the sphynx and peasents began work on the complex base. The sphynx was about 94% done when the base was complete. Lots of festivals for Ra who got trippy with the 150% good price gift.
Finally the temple complex went in, plain stone quaries and a SY. The quaries and SY are a disconnected area and the construction sleds will do the hauling to the monument area. Additional gem mines went in around the stone cluster to the north with a couple extra hunting lodges. Money not an issue any longer. Personal mansion goes in to start personal savings going. First couple years were gifted to pharaoh to jack the KR. After KR was high enough, no more gifts, RA took care of it past that point.
Import of limestone began just before the base was complete and I imported only 24 blocks at a time and never ran out.
At about 50% complete on the complex, the smaller pyramid was laid. At one point I had 8 work camps, 4 masons and 2 carpenters.
As work progressed, I started shipping in burial goods and dispatching them. I held the 600 beer for the final item. I also imported 3/4 yard of pottery in anticipation of a pharaoh request (indicated by walkthrough). The request never came so I ended the mission with a SY load of pottery rotting away.
During my run, I only had one Lybian attack. I satisfied all requests including the 1600 gem extortion. I built 4 archers and 2 infantry forts. I used the copper gift to produce weapons for the first fort and imported to complete the second fort. For the troop request, I dispatched 2 infantry and 2 archers. They were victorious and returned nearly 100% (think they were only 2-3 troops lost out of 4 companies).
The only problem I had was aging population. I deleted all houses in one block. As soon as they all left the map, new plots went right back. A year later I did the same to the second block. Before doing this, I was short about 50 workers and after the block rebuilds, I was back with 20+ unemployed and the worker shortages only lasted 2 years. During the rebuilds, I shut down the plain stone quaries because I had a SY full of stone anyway. They were re-enabled as soon as the second block had mostly refilled.
I assume Baltic was playing at hard for 317 months but I am not the caliber of player he is so I was playing at normal. By the end of the mission I had more than 19,000db in personal savings as well as a very healthy city treasury. When I get home tonight, I will zip up and make available my set of saves and will edit this message with the file link and final stats.
----Edited 11/19/2001-Wolfie
Here were my final stats:
Culture: 10
Prosparity: 29
Kingdom: 100
Ppoulation: 3250
Cash: 83,423db city
Cash: 19,014db personal
Completion: 304 months
Score: 15,922
ZIP of sequential saves: (827kb) http://www.wolfiesden.com/pharaoh/Wolfie-RostJa.zip
[This message has been edited by wolfie (edited 11-19-2001 @ 08:19 PM).]