My Favorite Housing Blocks - City Builders Forums

Moquel
Pleb

posted 02-03-01 17:42 ET (US) 51 / 186

[NOTE: Due to some complaints on this block, I've decided to print out exactly how the houses can be put to achieve the maximum of 22 Houses]

*Moquel Designs Announces: A new Elite Block*

Again, I do try and have the block as compact as possible, yet use the services efficiently... Anyway, here it goes:

Legend

This block contains 22 Houses which in turn can produce 88 Hoplites/Cavaleriers fully evolved.

The Reason for the 3 road blocks at the bottom is because that in some orientations of this block, the competitors from the Stadium will spawn outside the block if you have only one roadblock. The same goes for the 2 in the left of the sealed-off road, as the MO. might spawn into that piece of road without it.

If you are having issues with the Agora distributor not going all the way around, the road going out to the left of the agora is not long enough, making the distributor always start his round by going left, turn around at the end, then walking through the agora and out into the block. If the road is long enough, you do not have this problem as he will then alternate the directions he walks.

The MO is the only building ther has to be two of.

Hm... yes... no Infirmary access in this block, though you can add it if you wish. You will not see any disease in this block, even without the infirmary if, I believe 85% of your city has coverage. No health problems occur above that level of coverage, as far as I know.

More Desirability is also needed for this block to flourish, but some commemorative monuments outside the ring (even if you have Elite housing all the way around) is sufficient.
[NOTE: THIS IS ENOUGH. THE COM. MONUMENTS DESIRABILITY REACHES 6 TILES. THE INNER HOUSES ARE ON THAT EXACT DISTANCE IF THE MONUMENTS ARE PLACED DIRECTLY OUTSIDE THE OUTER RING.]

Also, you can replace the Monuments and Gardens in the middle for Large God-statues if you have any available.

I have discovered a truly marvellous signature, which this margin is too narrow to contain.

[This message has been edited by Moquel (edited 02-05-2001).]

Eraserhead
Pleb

posted 02-04-01 08:25 ET (US) 52 / 186

Well, here are my first attempts at Zeus block-building.

Legend

This one holds 39 townhouses, 40 if you remove one of the gazebos. It's within the 52-tile road length so no problems for the short distance walkers. It's a bit uneven though as it's not a pure rectangular shape.

Eraserhead
Pleb

posted 02-04-01 08:35 ET (US) 53 / 186

Legend

This is a more uniform look for a common block. It has 36 housing units and measures 21x7 tiles.

That's it for now.

Caesar Alan
Pleb

posted 02-04-01 09:29 ET (US) 54 / 186

I've been working on my own modifications of SenetEr's excellent 8xN blocks (as featured in his Athens). The best I've come up with thus far is probably this effort:

Legend

Anyway, this holds 36 houses, all of which should evolve to townhouse at Olympian difficulty. That I haven't tested yet, and you do have to be careful about putting too many undesirable buildings near the exterior of the block. The two houses at the extreme top and bottom left require external road access.

[EDIT]Can I count to 36? Of course not, I run out of fingers![/EDIT]

Alan

[This message has been edited by Caesar Alan (edited 02-05-2001).]

Caesar Alan
Pleb

posted 02-05-01 16:01 ET (US) 55 / 186

My current favoured elite block:

This is an adaption of another of SenetEr's blocks. It's currently being used in my Thebes, and should give 20 Estates at Olympian difficulty. The two agoras near the entrance to the block work extra efficiently, since they make use of the 'back door' allowing vendors to appear outside the block. The stadium is located outside the block, and it is always possible to arrange the two entrances to ensure that all houses get competitor access. This would typically be paired with a second block, containing a drama school instead of a college. The extra podium is just there to fill up space.

Caesar AlanThe Appian WayThe Trojan H0rse
"Don't be frightened little sheep. I won't hurt you... much."

[This message has been edited by Caesar Alan (edited 02-05-2001).]

Eraserhead
Pleb

posted 02-06-01 10:09 ET (US) 56 / 186

Legend

The idea for this one came from Baltic's cloverleaf block (posts #33 and #39). I cut out a portion of that block and expanded it to its present size. It currently holds 36 townhouses but can still accomodate a few more with a little building re-arrangement.

Plebus
Pharaolympics 2000 Competitor

posted 02-06-01 14:17 ET (US) 57 / 186

As promised in the question thread,I'll begin to post a series of elite blocks(the War is over...)

This is the most impractical one(to me),as it needs so many commemoratives to work(8 initially,and you can replace some of the commemoratives with fishponds or hedgemazes),but it really can provide 22 estates for your city,and two of them will over the 20 companies per city's limit.The benches are not neccessarily there,just for the one extra space for the second gym if you want to evolve all houses to estates,remove all the benches and one gym,you'll get 11 estates and 11 manors(the cost is,you'll waste several dozens of horses).

Legend

[This message has been edited by Plebus (edited 02-06-2001).]

Plebus
Pharaolympics 2000 Competitor

posted 02-08-01 13:57 ET (US) 58 / 186

This is the glymph of Manor blocks I used in Aulis,actually,there are 3 blocks:two symmetric 20 houses block on the right(a variation I developed specifically for Aulis,and a "p"-shaped loop 10 house block.Due to the limit of 40 charactors,you can't see all 50 houses,there are 5 houses at the bottom(a mirror image of the 5 houses on the top),and one more to the left.

Please notice that I used very few Monumnets here:as there are no monuments available from pan-Hellentic games in Aulis and all conquests except Troy are finished in Tenedos,I have only 3 Monuments available in building these elite houses,so I have to use interaction of elite houses to its full extent.

There are 2 the pishponds at the middle of the inner ring of the 2 blocks on the right,one of them is actually large statue of Poseidon,and the other is a replacemnet of Odysseus' hall.They are neccessary here since the house at the center are beyond the reach of agora's range(6).

This combined block works great,and I have all 20 companies ready in about 3 years.They are very compact,and fits into the terrain very well(the non-meadow plateau,see the 45 degree at the top-left corner).

Legend

[This message has been edited by Plebus (edited 02-08-2001).]

Eraserhead
Pleb

posted 02-16-01 11:29 ET (US) 59 / 186

Another 36-townhouse block. This one's just a variation on the previous block I posted.

Legend

Eraserhead
Pleb

posted 02-16-01 11:45 ET (US) 60 / 186

Legend

A 17x16 configuration which yields a total of 18 estates. Just remember it's the shorter side fronting the block, if you ever decide to use it. You'll need some more appeal structures to complete the block. I've used a combination of hedgemazes and monuments here, but you can always add more monuments as you get them.

MarvL
Pleb

posted 02-19-01 13:22 ET (US) 61 / 186

Extreme Diamond with 60 healthy houses.

Legend

All the stairstepping allows for a lot of diagonal service. In a rectangular arrangement, you only see this type of service to the corner houses.

The design is incredibly fussy, but it could be quite interesting as a theatre complex, or a park. Note that the open space in the interior isn't required for services, in fact it's behind a roadblock, but rather you can't cut the area off from Greece. Similarly, the pieces of road sprinkled around the exterior are required to keep those houses alive.

The design will actually work if you leave the interior open, but the design has much better traffic control if you roadblock the interior. The Infirmary and Water Carrier never get to that turnoff. Still the MO isn't needed in the park as all the houses are serviced from the loop, but I don't like the occasional fire. The MO has a lot of industrial area to cover as well, and one MO is stretched pretty thin.

Any design this extreme is pretty fragile, of course, but 61 of the 68 houses in the pattern are fully serviced. In a real design, I'd knock out a few of the house for artistic effect. For instance, I'd rather have a fountain at each point of the star. I'll be posting some diagnostic screenshots at Serpentineum.

Extend your grasp of the Empire at Serpentineum

[This message has been edited by MarvL (edited 02-19-2001).]

grapedog
Pleb

posted 02-19-01 23:07 ET (US) 62 / 186

Just a comment on Vriesea's Free Flowing Block on page 2(16 elites houses). I tried this block recently in my game and it is very appealling, but I was having trouble getting a few of the houses on one edge to evolve. I had to add in a another gymnasium and podium to try and pull in cultural traffic to the corner house, but it was still tough to do. Only 2 or 3 of the houses had any problems. Its very appealing overall though.

graywolf
Pleb

posted 02-21-01 09:26 ET (US) 63 / 186

This is my first block so if I made a mistake, I appologize in advance.

Credit for inspiration on this block goes to MarvL and his diamond block. This is a 45 house block in a rough triangle shape. The true benefit of this block is gained by rotating them 180 degrees and placing them next to each other, so they slightly overlap. I tested this block on normal difficulty so don't know how it will work on the harder levels. The agora does need to fairly close to the storehouses and grainary so you don't run out of supplies (about 20 squares). Also the appeal for the corner houses on the inner ring is slightly off (I never was able to figure it out). The road for the houses on the bottom row should be an avenue.

Legend

grapedog
Pleb

posted 02-21-01 13:06 ET (US) 64 / 186

seeing as I'm getting ready for work, I cant test it now, but could you double space all the roads and turn them into avenues to provide the nice scenery?

MarvL
Pleb

posted 02-21-01 20:37 ET (US) 65 / 186

On long rectangular layouts you only have the radius phenomena at the four corners, with the "Untouchable pushcart". If you widen your interior loop in the diamond, you're going to lose your ENTIRE outer ring of houses that don't actually touch the road.

Also, if you widen the avenues, you are adding one or two squares of radius for the outer houses. Because it's essentially a circle, you're up against P = piR, so an increase of 1 unit of radius makes your perimeter walkers path 3 units longer. You can't win with those kind of odds.

I'm working with my Extreme Diamond, modifying it for actual livability. I'll be done tinkering with it in a couple of days, but just for starters I moved the hospitals into the interior space, and dropped in a couple of monuments. I'm pretty happy with it, but it still needs some tuning before I post it.

Extend your grasp of the Empire at Serpentineum

[This message has been edited by MarvL (edited 02-23-2001).]

MarvL
Pleb

posted 02-23-01 06:54 ET (US) 66 / 186

Diamonds are Forever

This is a livable version of my Extreme Diamond. It "only" has 49 houses, but now most of them (all but three) are Very Appealing or better.

Legend

Although I don't indicate it in the Housing Block, there's Boulevard all the way around the place, and the Parks near the Theatre Complex are quite elaborate, but too far away from the houses to have any direct influence on Appeal. A snapshot is available at [GIF, (357KB)].

The related article, at http://www.marvl.com/Serpentineum/Diamond.htm, is a comprehensive discussion of Appeal. Here's an excerpt from the article, just to tempt you.

Consider that Elite housing is generally deployed with a Boulevard on both sides, and if you add 47, 37, 18, 9 and 9, 18, 37, 47 coming from the other side, all of the units of the Elite housing block would get a boost of 56, 55, 55, 56 Appeal points. If you have Boulevards on all four sides, the boost is about an additional 50%. Adjacent parks and gardens count about the same as nice streets, although you can do some optimizing between locally intense and broadly helpful structures.

Extend your grasp of the Empire at Serpentineum

[This message has been edited by MarvL (edited 03-16-2001 @ 06:54 PM).]

MarvL
Pleb

posted 03-01-01 00:02 ET (US) 67 / 186

Serpentineum Mixed Housing Block
(Two blocks, actually, with different housing mixes)

Legend

This block, actually two blocks with different housing mixes, has several interesting features:

1) The basic layout is one long serpentine, \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ rather than a series of loops.
Boulevard - Double (or Elite) Houses - Boulevard
in columns of 10 houses, repeated to either the left or the right as often as you wish and joined alternately with an Agora at the top or the bottom.

2) 42 Common Houses, 15 Estates, or any desired mix.

3) Very robust. The Water Carriers are fully redundant, the Maintenance Officers even more so, and any interior Agora can be lost or converted to Wine, Armor, and Horses.

If the outer housing rows are all Elite Housing, or you've razed the cheap housing neighborhood once the city has matured, then all Agoras are redundant. The only real restraint is that any pair of adjacent Agoras must provide Fleece, Food, and Oil, and you can even cheat on that for a couple of years if you are careful. This allows you to double up your Armor and Horse vendors after a battle, and recover very quickly.

Early in the life of a city, every house (except the outermost sides of the outermost columns) is served from two Agoras, so the city can evolve at a remarkable rate, basically twice to three times faster than any other design I've see, so keep a firm grip on the reins. You'll find that you have to partially fill the housing blocks, so that you can keep up financially, during the early phases of an episode.

4) The block can be built in any of the four orientations, or even mirror imaged. Getting the Walkers and Gods to go where you wish is dead easy. There's only one choice, because the Main Housing Street is continuous and linear.

5) In practice, you can mix the housing however you wish so long as you know what you're doing with the Agoras. The stuff on the outside edges is actually the right and left halves of a split block, so that the outermost sides of the outermost columns will receive all the same services that they would get in the interior of the block. Again, if the outmost columns are Elite Housing, they get served from the next in Boulevard, and the Gingerbread on the outer Boulevards is not needed.

6) You need a Palace and a Stadium early in the build of your city, so I've simply included them. In practice they can go anywhere, as can the College and Drama School. If you want to kickstart the Theatres and Podiums, and have 250 drachmas to spare, you can delete the Gymnasium for a moment, and drop in an extra College or Drama School to get things rolling.

7) Notice that the site for the College and Drama School is exactly the right size for a Horse Farm, when you get to that phase in the building of your city.

A detailed article is available at http://www.marvl.com/Serpentineum/MixedHousing.htm

Extend your grasp of the Empire at Serpentineum

[This message has been edited by MarvL (edited 03-04-2001).]

MarvL
Pleb

posted 03-07-01 16:02 ET (US) 68 / 186

I've put together a Housing Block worksheet that does wonderful things like:

There's a related article at http://www.Marvl.com/Serpentineum/Appeal.htm and the associate worksheet can be downloaded from my site at ftp://www.MarvL.com/AppealAnalysis.xls or from the Heaven Games download site.

Extend your grasp of the Empire at Serpentineum

[This message has been edited by MarvL (edited 03-16-2001 @ 11:47 AM).]

MarvL
Pleb

posted 03-16-01 11:58 ET (US) 69 / 186

I finally have a Housing Block that meets all of my objectives. Serpentineum Appeal demonstrates the following concepts, and there's a related article at http://www.MarvL.com/Serpentineum/Excruciating.htm, an Excel workbook at ftp://www.MarvL.com/AppealAnalysis.xls, and the city itself is at ftp://www.MarvL.com/Serpentineum Appeal.sav. The worksheet and city are also posted in the Download section of the Heaven Games site.

** An Elite House in a Most Appealing Area will evolve into an Estate.

** Our serpentine Housing Block \/\/\/\/ utilizes double columns of 10 Common Houses, or 5 Elite Houses, bridged alternately by Agoras at the top and bottom.

** The design is robust, with double service from Fountains and Agoras. Growth rates can be incredible, so watch your finances. Likewise, recovery after a battle can really be pushed.

** The form factor is identical for Common and Elite Housing.

*** A staggered double Monument, in lieu of one Elite House, provides the required appeal boost for Elite Housing.

*** Non-adjacent Agoras can be converted to Military use

*** A needed Winery can be substituted for a Fountain

*** The unneeded Infirmary can be replaced by a Fishpond to provide a needed appeal boost at the bottom of the outer row.

** An overall pitchfork layout eliminates loops, and simplifies the Competitor Venue.

** Backdoor Agoras are used to isolate the Housing Block.

The entire city is much too big for the Glyphy program, so I've included a zoomed snapshot that focuses attention on the overall layout of the city, rather than the details.

[GIF, (58KB)]

Extend your grasp of the Empire at Serpentineum

[This message has been edited by MarvL (edited 03-16-2001 @ 12:55 PM).]

MarvL
Pleb

posted 03-17-01 20:12 ET (US) 70 / 186

Itty Bitty City

Growth rate and scalability are two major attributes of a good Housing Block Design.
Can you match 4 Estates and 20 Townhouses in 10 years?

This is the entire city, although the Fisheries are further away and more spread out, That's a Horse Ranch, not a Flower Garden, next to the Military Agora.

A related article is available at http://www.MarvL.com/Serpentineum/IttyBittyCity.htm, and there's a Tenth Anniversary Snapshot at [GIF, (402KB)]

This design proves that you can evolve Townhouses with just Gymnasiums and a Stadium. Theatres and Podiums are required only for Elite Housing.

Legend

Extend your grasp of the Empire at Serpentineum

[This message has been edited by MarvL (edited 03-18-2001 @ 01:20 AM).]

aegius
Pleb

posted 03-17-01 22:24 ET (US) 71 / 186

This is my first common housing block. It has 42 townhouses, all of which will evolve to townhouses (assuming that everything is availible) in 2-3 months but it is very expensive. I have a lot of cities based on them, like my Thebes, which has 5 similar to this blocks (one of them is smaller because it is at the edge of the map). If you want to see it, send me an e-mail. It is self-sufficient and it only needs occasional deliveries of food, fleece and olive oil to sustain itself.

Legend

aegius
Pleb

posted 03-17-01 22:34 ET (US) 72 / 186

And this is 32 Estate block. Takes very long time to distribute horses because of only 2 ranches and only one agora. Also, Taxmen at the top can be removed, I think but then not all houses might be taxed. If you don't mind several houses not having access to healers, you can place two more houses. Don't forget to add neccessery gazeboes/hedge mazes at the sides. Trade posts with S/Y's are actually horse ranches.

Legend

[This message has been edited by aegius (edited 03-17-2001 @ 10:35 PM).]

MarvL
Pleb

posted 03-20-01 01:29 ET (US) 73 / 186

Serpentineum Gymnasiums (Post 1 of 2)

* 80 Townhouses - 4800 occupants
* 15 Estates - 280 occupants - 60 Horsemen
* Boulevards and 2 Monuments are the only required appeal elements
* 7 Gymnasiums - One for each column
* 2 Podiums - None in the Common Housing
* 1 Theatre - None in the Common Housing

Need I say more?? Of course you know I will , at http://www.MarvL.com/Serpentineum/Gymnasiums.htm.

Serpentineum Common Housing Block (One Palace Complex, Two repetitions)

Legend

Extend your grasp of the Empire at Serpentineum

[This message has been edited by MarvL (edited 03-20-2001 @ 01:49 AM).]

MarvL
Pleb

posted 03-20-01 01:40 ET (US) 74 / 186

Serpentineum Elite Housing (One transition, One repetition) (Post 2 of 2)
(Overlay the Common Housing Boulevard, Tax Office, and Storehouse.)
(The Fishpond is really a Horse Ranch.)

Legend

Extend your grasp of the Empire at Serpentineum

[This message has been edited by MarvL (edited 03-20-2001 @ 01:50 AM).]

Gilgamesh
Pleb

posted 03-22-01 17:03 ET (US) 75 / 186

Legend

Hi all. first time poster, long time reader, yadda yadda. :P

This is my standard housing block. i like it because it's very simple, and stacks really well. with room for four 3x3 structures, it's versitile as well. i don't like to put theaters in my common housing blocks, so put them at prominent intersections and such, and will stick a drama school where the colledge is every 3rd or 4th block. you can take out the corner houses from where 4 blocks meet and put in a granery, altho the nearby houses don't always evolve to townhouses w/o some adjusting of desirability.

the second maintanence building is actually a.... police building, the name of which i forget, and the glyph for which i couldn't find. :P you can of course leave that out and fill the top with avenue, but i like the look of four buildings at the top, and i kinda like using the police guy, and it eats up a bit of the uneployment.

[This message has been edited by Gilgamesh (edited 03-22-2001 @ 05:25 PM).]