Caesar Alan
Pleb
posted 04-26-22 01:39 ET (US)
Having dispatched Selima Oasis in reasonably short order, it's time for me to tackle Abu before I move on to Saqqara.
As with the rest of this playthrough, I'll be employing the following 'personal rules':
1. Very Hard difficulty
2. No debt, and no bailout gift
3. Beginning no later than year 2, net positive cashflow every year
4. No personal salary (and therefore no gifts)
5. Maximum possible Prosperity rating
6. Maximum possible Culture rating, with 'Perfect' coverage of all religion, entertainment, and - wherever papyrus and linen availability allows - education and healthcare buildings
Subsequent posts will describe the planning and execution of the city.
Caesar Alan
Pleb
posted 12-10-22 07:23
ET (US)
16 / 32
I have now resumed work on Abu, and have finally come up with a design I'm content with. For now at least.
In post #4 I rather flippantly said:
it shouldn't be too tricky to ... provide the food and goods necessary to evolve all other housing to fancy residence
Wrong! Very wrong.
It turns out that one of the biggest headaches is getting non-food goods to the houses on the western bank of the Nile.
Because my plans to maximise trade require very efficient turnaround of both ships and land traders from Timna, there need to be storage yards for beer and linen close to both the entry point for the large island and the docks. And ideally nowhere else, lest traders or, worse, dockers waste time visiting them. And that creates a problem, because both of those locations are a long way from anywhere you can site a bazaar on the western bank. In the first iteration of this city design, "a long way" meant "so far that buyers from the western bank bazaar won't even make the trip".
But eventually I stumble upon a minor redesign of the land trade area that places beer and linen just within reach of that bazaar. Crisis averted!
With this redesign, all 6 bazaars in the city are within range of the storage yards in the land trade area. 2 are also within range of the storage yards at the docks.
Some more details on the city design to follow. But first, I need to check just how dire my employment situation will be. I have a sneaking suspicion I may be rather short of workers...
Caesar Alan
Pleb
posted 12-21-22 16:09
ET (US)
22 / 32
More food for thought
Luckily, the fix to my east bank farming village is straightforward. There's just enough room to squeeze in a pavilion in a position where it will get labour access. Of course, this necessitates shuffling a few buildings around, but nothing too major.
A rather more drastic problem, I realise, is that I've given no real thought as to how I will prevent premature victory.
With modest ratings targets across the board, the only certain way to avoid victory is by keeping my population under 4,000.
In turn, that means I'll have a working population of no more than 3,699 to play with (as I'll need 300 in common manors to hit my personal prosperity goal). That's not going to be enough for all the industry I'd hoped to build. Something is going to have to give...
Caesar Alan
Pleb
posted 12-24-22 17:08
ET (US)
25 / 32
My Abu is now complete. A build log will follow over the next few posts.
Year 1
I begin by laying out the roads for:
1. The dock district
2. The 'land trade area' (where my papyrus, and later pottery and weapons, industries will be sited)
3. The east bank village and the access road which will supply labour to the ferry to the main island
4. The larger, southern housing block detailed in post #17, including the roads for the quarries just to the south of it.
I then place housing - first in the dock district (where houses will eventually be incorporated into my northern housing block), then the whole of the southern housing block (beginning with the houses that will supply labour to the 'land trade area' and quarries), and finally the houses in the east bank village that supply labour to the ferry.
As soon as immigrants reach the dock district, I place the dock and a storage yard for imported reeds (and, later, linen for export), and a storage yard to fetch those reeds in the 'land trade area'. This will ultimately be a BSY set to 'get maximum' reeds, but until I can fill it with straw and imported plain stone, I will micromanage special orders so it alternates between fetching and distributing reeds as efficiently as possible. This will be tedious. I open the trade route to Behdet, and begin importing reeds.
Next, with a steady stream of immigrants hitting the southern housing block, I add the 3 planned stone quarries (2 granite, 1 sandstone) and a further storage yard which will - for now - hold all exports to Abedju. With the first shipment of reeds now en route from the dock to the 'land trade area', I add 5 papyrus makers.
Before everything goes up in flames, I add firehouses across the city. I also add a water carrier to the main housing block.
With exportable stone beginning to stack up in the storage yard, I open the trade route to Abedju and begin exporting everything I can - papyrus, granite and sandstone. So I don't forget later, I also set linen to exporting.
I then add a temple to Ptah and shrine to Osiris to keep them at least moderately appeased; both are in places which will get coverage from architects I will need to place in my industrial areas. I place those architects, as well as one by the quarries.
By this point, I have exhausted almost all of my startup funds, so the first round of sales to Abedju comes just in the nick of time.
I use the proceeds to begin building out floodplain farms on the main island. I build the first two work camps in the dock district, and add the first 6 grain and 4 flax farms as the flood recedes in September.
Proceeds of the next round of papyrus/stone sales fund a further work camp, 4 grain and 2 flax farms, and the remaining 12 tiles of housing on the east bank.
Proceeds of a final round of sales in late December allow me to place the roads for the western half of my industrial quarter (plus those that connect it to the dock district), and the housing in the northern block that will support it.
By this point, crime rates are getting a little racy. While criminals spawning would cause no immediate harm, Abu will be a crime-free city. So I place police stations in the dock district and east bank village, and a courthouse in the southern housing block.
I end year 1 / begin year 2 with 236 Db in the bank, and 621 people.