Well, basically, Boulevards have a very high appeal...

I tend to want to cram as many estates as possible on a small surface and have a couple of monuments in the middle to keep the appeal up...

For my 16 house elite strip I will use the boulevard and a row of hedge mazes until I gradually replace the hedge mazes with monuments. It is all I need, even on Olympian. I will back the elite houses in my mixed concentric blocks with a row of gazebos.

I love all the cool blocks in the thread, you've all done a good job, keep it up!

And SenetEr, did you notice the Block of yours that I re-glyphed? My first go with the ZH Glyphs, and only one mistake!

Estates need 80 points.

The highest appeal of boulevard is 52(straight line,if it is at the corner of a L-shape,the inner tile has 70,and at a cross even higher,that's the reason why "freeflow block" can work),52 points means it is just enough to lay down a empty elite house.

Mansions,manors and estates all have apppeal points of their own(mansion 3,3,2,2;manor 4,4,3,3,estate 6,6,5,5),so it is possible to setup a kind of chain reaction(in SenetEr's mixed block,3 of the 4 elite house in the middle need estates on the oppsite side of the street(boulevard),so it is a bit slow when evloving these houses(especailly when concerned with horses),but definately doable.

Olympian level makes no difference with elite houses,the evolving the devolving threshold are the same,but I noticed that at Olympian level,the damage increment is bigger than titan level,especially for those buildings at the corner of the block and had only one tile touching the avenue/boulevard(sometimes the overlay shows a red column for them).IMHO,for those "extreme style" blocks,maybe need one more mo.o.when doing at Olympian level(or put it on the outside road which has one-tile space to the building.

Oh,almost forget to mention:tax income varies according to the appealing points (average?)of houses,the difference could be 3%-10% so,have more appeal pints than neccessary is not completely a waste.

[This message has been edited by Plebus (edited 01-12-2001).]

Good comments on appeal and the use of boulevards. Plebus, I cannot follow your comment on "a bit slow on evolving" could you please clarify.

I have personnally not noticed any slowness on evoling of housing using only boulevards (free flow block) as appeal items. I have not done any actual measurements but experience seems to indicate no difference comparing it to say a Grampus the Elder block which I've used in the past. My thoughts are the rate of evolving is strictly dependent on the supply and distribution of materials, ... and agoras are cheap

I enjoy this posting as it gives me lots of ideas. Especially interesting is Nero Woulds block. I was wondering if it would be possible to even double it's size by add more roads to the water source. Maybe 4 roads instead of two. Wondering if Nero Would gave it a try?

SenetEr's blocks are a study in planning, very efficent and very modular. Looking at his cities and blocks combined it is easy to see their efficency in food and goods distribution.

Also enjoy the distribution centers, especially the one by homegrown. Gets me thinging about setting up a "distribution and trade center" that would include trading posts as well as graineries, and SYs.

Lots of good ideas in a good thread

Good gaming,
Vriesea

Vriesea, I think what Plebus means is that you might get into the situation that one house needs the next house to evolve into an Estate before it can evolve itself (by getting higher appeal from that Estate)... This would be a problem if the vendor gave horses to the lower-appeal house first...

[This message has been edited by Moquel (edited 01-12-2001).]

Thanks for the comment about the Distribution center, Vriesea. I've done exactly what you're describing in my latest Sparta. Because the 4 major trade routes are all by land, i've combined a large "distribution center" with the trading posts instead of the granaries, then the industries to convert the raw materials lie behind an outer row of storage yards.

It's REAL efficient as my housing all feeds off this one huge "Commerce Center". I don't have the pier in my Sparta, i put it in to show that if you can find the space, water routes could be incorporated as well.

Legend

Kudos to Nero Would for the 54 Townhouse block. All the other blocks I've seen that exceeded
42 (lots of designs have 40 with 2 more if the theater is removed) needed additional water carriers.
Nero's only extension beyond one building per type is the maintenance office, and extra firemen
could probably be provided from outside the block.

After posting my elite blocks, I noticed I had made an error as to their length. In my post
I said each "wing" could hold 7 pairs of mansions. This can actually be extended to 9 pairs,
resulting in 38 mainsions for my U-shaped configuration. This was so close to the 40 max
(20 companies is the maximum, right?) that I started tweaking it trying to get another
2 mansions in. It looks like the only way I could do so included an extra gymnasium, which
is somewhat unsatisfying because the block alreay looks like two 20 mansion blocks sharing an agora.

Anyway, I also liked Vriesea's free flowing elite block, quite creative. My question is,
does anyone have any ingenious elite blocks that hold the full 40 mansions to maximize military?

I suppose, my straight elite block could do so by making each common agora a grand one
and adding a gym between them, but that doesn't seem very elegant.

Again with the numbers...

Several of y'all keep posting "points" for structures, or distances on how far away they'll work. Darned if I know where you're getting them, and darned if I really care, either - it works for you, and I'll use what works for me.

Oddly enough, it seems that Gazebos have higher appeal than Fish Ponds. Note a lot of the Elite housing blocks... basically a Boulevard down the middle (very high appeal), Elite Res. on either side, all surrounded by Gazebos - and it all works.

"Circular" or "rectangular" housing blocks work well because of walker limits... each type of walker has its own limit on distance that it can travel (darned if I know what those are either), and by having a block that puts the walkers in a circle, they get to the end of their journey which turns out to be just a little more than halfway around the block... so it's shorter for them to continue on to get back home than it is for them to turn around and double back.

Various of the housing blocks I've seen posted require Avenues... but a lot of the time in the beginning of an adventure there are no Avenues available (barely any Aesthetics items at all), which is why I did my latest housing block the way I did - no Avenue required. Even if Gazebos aren't available at first, I can still use 2x Parks or Gardens, and replace them with Gazebos later (which generally become available before Avenues do).

I'm still gonna try SenetEr's big "mixed concentric" block one of these days, probably in the Sandbox...

Wolfie.

Dodec
If you see this, congrats! 58 houses is no mean feat. I have a question about the frequency of the alternation of the water carriers. They are such the weak link in designing blocks. I think they go 4 points of the compass and when there are only two directions to go, 3 of the four cardinal points default one way giving a 3:1 split. Do you see this? Does the intermittent coverage I'm suspecting happens for half your block cause any stability problems?

SenetEr: I should really let Dodecahedron answer since I haven't tried to build that block, but I had the same question as you.

According to Kraken, random walkers always choose the path that was least recently taken by a walker of the same type. Most walkers enter and exit the building at the same spot, so if you put them on a very long loop road, they should alternate their starting direction. But walkers from fountains and infirmaries do not always re-enter their building at the same spot as they exit. This means that most of the time when you place them on a very long loop, they should set off in the same direction (away from the re-entry point) every time except possibly the first time. The only way I have been able to get these walkers to alternate is to force them to use the same tile to re-enter as they do to exit. This usually means placing them at the corner of a loop road.

Maybe the roadblocked road that touches the fountain and infirmary in Dodecahedron's block affect the walkers behaviour.

That is a really interesting strategy. I never thought to restrict the fountain to a single tile. You could do the same with an avenue if you take away one of the avenue tiles and replace it with a bench. The roadblocks shouldn't interfere with re-entering the building, should they?

SenetEr Thank you! Yes, having avenue touching only one square of a fountain or infirmary should force the walkers to alternate directions. That part hadn't occurred to me

Note that in some configurations, the prefered re-entry point to the building is at a corner rather than adjacent to a side, so you have to be careful which avenue tiles you leave out. The following glyphs show the arrangements that I think should force a fountain walker to alternate. This assumes that the walker returns the same way he set out (does not make it all the way round the loop). North is at the top left of the diagram.

North

Legend

As far as the roadblocks are concerned, I'm uncertain about their effects when they are on the building's prefered entry or exit point, I haven't studied that.

Wow! I missed this, although I knew about the way walkers are supposed to choose their routes . Thanks...!

Cherub Baltic

Thanks SenetEr

The roadblocked lanes' purpose is just to provide a shortcut back to the short walkers' building (after they walked their max distance.) They are roadblocked to prevent the fountain/tax/healer from picking them as an enter/exit point as well as keep the mo/peddler from using them.

I have observed that random walkers seem to remember which way they were going when reentering their building. They will reemerge and keep going in that direction. Nero's post on Kraken's insight seem to confirm this.

The fountain's (healers/culture/tax) route is basicly a P loop. Start at the bottom, head north, then east, then south, run out of gas, go through the roadblocked lane (middle bar of P, upper roadblocked lane on the glyph,) and then south back to the building.

Since they were going south when they entered, they will go south when they reemerge and go on and do the bottom loop (upside down, mirrored P or a small b) On their return trip they will be going north so they'll redo the first loop on their 3rd round.

The culture/tax services will run out of gas just after they pass the roadblocked road but should turn back and go through it.

That avenue idea! I think I can use it to lengthen the block and wipe that turn back quirk on the culture/tax services.

I had to type that twice. When I hit submit it didn't accept and cleared everything.

[This message has been edited by Dodecahedron (edited 01-16-2001).]

Ignore this. I'll have something here later. Maybe. And it may be a 73 house block.

[This message has been edited by SenetEr (edited 01-16-2001).]

73??

Better post it lengthwise hehe.

Only 71
And you can't tax it unless you put 2 collectors in and drop the number of houses to 69
Stays stable for long time with all townhouses and no stadium but over time the corner houses catch fire

It's late. I'll post it in the morning. Yawn!

Okay Here is a 70 house common block, only one set of services for the block. The glyph is too long for the reply so imagine 7 houses on the top and 7 houses on the bottom. The only drawback is that the corner houses will eventually catch fire but it takes a long time. Nobody's perfect!

Thanks to Dodecahedron for the inspiration and NeroWould for the explanation. And me for the perspiration I was up all night.

Legend

I've posted an improved (no fire) version in Maximum # of Houses but it's only 68 houses. It also needs no perimeter road.

[This message has been edited by SenetEr (edited 01-17-2001).]

SenetEr, can you move the tax office one space so you can fit in another house, or does that cause too many problems with fire, etcetera?

Hi Jag. I actually screwed up. It's only 68. If you move the tax office so it is centred, the m.o. misses it and it burns Tried it.

That's what I thought, I just wanted to make sure. I suppose if you really want the etra house, you can center the tax office and add an m.o. across the street in the little cut through.

I can't remember Jag, but I think I tried that somewhere around 3 a.m. Maybe I didn't It may be worth a shot putting the m.o and the tax office opposite each other and centred in the crosswalk.

I'll have to try it when I get home. The walkers are so finicky when you're going for complete control, that you never know what's going to happen till you try it. It'd gain 2 houses I think.

This is what it would look like and it should work as long as long as the m.o. walker alternates at the T. The short loops may be too short for him and overshooting the crosswalk may screw up his alternation.

Legend

[This message has been edited by SenetEr (edited 01-17-2001).]

This may work too. It's 71 houses. Untested though. Maybe later.

Legend