Freshly built cities
Fires and fleeing citizens
Tips and tricks.
I'm probably not the only one who pauses a fresh scenario,
lays out a massive city, and then hits "play".
I know. Shameful behavior. I can live with it. ;-)
You probably also noticed that in some scenarios,
fires start to break out one after another.
Or, citizens may start to flee because they're unhappy.
Whenever I drop an entire city
onto an unsuspecting new landscape,
I typically do a few things first.
In the labor menu, I set water as highest priority.
This ensures that the fountains, bathhouses, and mansions
are up and running as quickly as possible, and keeps the
equites and patricians happy. Or at least happier.
I also set prefects & engineers as highest priority.
This will ensure that all of your prefect offices are
filled first, so that they can handle fires as they arise.
This is especially important in fire-prone areas.
You can always adjust these back to normal levels later,
once your city's population has stabilized.
If you choose to make a large city in a fire-prone area,
multiple fires may break out shortly after you hit "play".
At that point, there aren't enough plebs in the city
to staff the prefect offices, and the fires don't get
put out in a timely manner. So, you sit back and watch
your newly-built city burn down to the ground around you.
Here's my down-and-dirty fix for that -
I look at the Labor tab, and see how many plebs
arerequired to staff prefects & engineers.
I then divide that by 100, and round up.
So, if you need 750 plebs for prefects & engineers,
750 / 100 = 7.5, and then round that up to 8.
Then, I go to the main entrance of the city, and drop down
8 new insulae as temporary housing for plebs.
I also drop down a prefect, engineer, and a well nearby.
(You may have to do a bit of landscaping nearby as well,
to increase desirability in some scenarios.)
Then I hit "play".
Plebs will flock into the city, and straight into
that housing, and your pleb population will quickly rise;
fast enough to ensure that prefect offices get staffed
right away, so they can fight the fires as they break out.
In this example, you'd have 560 plebs that move in
to the temporary housing by the city gates, or about
75% staffing of your prefects and engineers.
That initial boost is usually enough to prevent
fires from rapidly spreading. Your mileage may vary.
Once your pleb population reaches a point to where your
prefects and engineers are fully staffed, you can start
tearing down the temporary housing. I usually wait
a short period of time in between each one,
so that my pleb population has time to recover.
Don't leave the temporary housing in place too long;
you don't want them using up resources and evolving.
Enjoy!
Fires and fleeing citizens
Tips and tricks.
I'm probably not the only one who pauses a fresh scenario,
lays out a massive city, and then hits "play".
I know. Shameful behavior. I can live with it. ;-)
You probably also noticed that in some scenarios,
fires start to break out one after another.
Or, citizens may start to flee because they're unhappy.
Whenever I drop an entire city
onto an unsuspecting new landscape,
I typically do a few things first.
In the labor menu, I set water as highest priority.
This ensures that the fountains, bathhouses, and mansions
are up and running as quickly as possible, and keeps the
equites and patricians happy. Or at least happier.
I also set prefects & engineers as highest priority.
This will ensure that all of your prefect offices are
filled first, so that they can handle fires as they arise.
This is especially important in fire-prone areas.
You can always adjust these back to normal levels later,
once your city's population has stabilized.
If you choose to make a large city in a fire-prone area,
multiple fires may break out shortly after you hit "play".
At that point, there aren't enough plebs in the city
to staff the prefect offices, and the fires don't get
put out in a timely manner. So, you sit back and watch
your newly-built city burn down to the ground around you.
Here's my down-and-dirty fix for that -
I look at the Labor tab, and see how many plebs
are
I then divide that by 100, and round up.
So, if you need 750 plebs for prefects & engineers,
750 / 100 = 7.5, and then round that up to 8.
Then, I go to the main entrance of the city, and drop down
8 new insulae as temporary housing for plebs.
I also drop down a prefect, engineer, and a well nearby.
(You may have to do a bit of landscaping nearby as well,
to increase desirability in some scenarios.)
Then I hit "play".
Plebs will flock into the city, and straight into
that housing, and your pleb population will quickly rise;
fast enough to ensure that prefect offices get staffed
right away, so they can fight the fires as they break out.
In this example, you'd have 560 plebs that move in
to the temporary housing by the city gates, or about
75% staffing of your prefects and engineers.
That initial boost is usually enough to prevent
fires from rapidly spreading. Your mileage may vary.
Once your pleb population reaches a point to where your
prefects and engineers are fully staffed, you can start
tearing down the temporary housing. I usually wait
a short period of time in between each one,
so that my pleb population has time to recover.
Don't leave the temporary housing in place too long;
you don't want them using up resources and evolving.
Enjoy!
[This message has been edited by TiggerLAS (edited 04-12-2019 @ 02:37 AM).]