Caesar Alan
Pleb
posted 12-21-21 08:47
ET (US)
4 / 24
Industry
Domestic consumption of goods is going to be relatively modest in Abedju: 54 elegant residences will consume 1,296 of each of pottery, beer and linen a year. Even under worse-case assumptions, four scribal schools should consume no more than 1,920 papyrus.
I'd like to produce enough beer, linen and papyrus to maximise exports, so that's another 5,000, 6,500 and 2,500 (respectively).
Provided I can keep them stocked with the appropriate raw materials, that means I'll need 3 potters, 12 brewers, 8 papyrus makers and 14 weavers. Allowing for a reasonably generous safety margin, I'll build 12 barley and 14 flax farms - filling the small floodplain on the west bank and the more accessible half of the floodplain on the east bank.
Factoring in the clay used by those 3 potters, there's enough left over from imports to supply 25 brickworks, which is what I'll aim for.
I'll also build 4 (possibly 5) weaponsmiths to keep my recruiter fully-supplied with weapons for infantry.
Given the sheer quantity of goods I need to import (12000 clay, just under 3000 straw, plus 2500 each of the 3 imported food types, and copper for weapons), maximising trade efficiency is going to be vital. I'll need to think very carefully about where I site my industrial areas.
Which is what I will now do!
smog
Pleb
posted 12-22-21 23:23
ET (US)
7 / 24
Could also swap the temple and courthouse. Not only is the courthouse more desirable to put next to the house, but temples are immune to fire and therefore should do fine farther away from the fire house.
Caesar Alan
Pleb
posted 01-16-22 02:32
ET (US)
11 / 24
A solution
After a lot of tinkering, I think I've finally come up with a redesign I'm happy with.
While I initially recycled quite a bit of my original design, in the end the only part that has survived completely unscathed is the small settlement on the east bank that supplies labour to the southern ferry (which allows access to the reed beds).
On the west bank, I've moved my papyrus industry slightly further south to accommodate my dock district (which also includes a single warship wharf and the shipwright, as well as five storage yards for waterborne imports and exports). Potters and weaponsmiths are located just outside the dock district, close to the storage yards that will hold imported clay and copper, respectively. The recruiter and academy sit just north of the dock district, near the weaponsmiths and 3 of my fishing wharves.
Speaking of which, one consequence of moving all those shoreline buildings is I will have 3 fewer fishing wharves. But some quick calculations suggest I should nonetheless have more than enough - both before and after I make the jump to spacious residences and begin consuming imported food.
Relocating the dock (and its associated storage yards) means I also need to rethink the placement of my linen and beer industries. In the end I relocate them to the space between the west bank floodplain and the rocks. To make room for all that industry, I shift my northern housing block further north to the area where I'd previously placed my dock.
But by far the biggest change is that I also need to relocate my brick industry, guilds and mastabas. With the dock far to the south, it's no longer practical to move imported clay and straw to the east bank. So I relocate my brickworks and bricklayers' guilds to a single industrial loop to the west of the rocks on the west bank. Labour access is provided by housing on the northern side of a redesigned southern housing block built around the festival square.
The southern housing block also provides labour to the dock district (via housing on its eastern edge), and a large loop with the papyrus industry, ferry landing, fishing wharves, performer schools and the main storage yards for beer, papyrus and pottery. This support zone also serves the ferry colony on the east bank.
Bazaar buyers from there and the southern block will get linen and the second food type (in their case, figs) directly from storage yards in the dock district.
Because consumption of non-food goods is going to be really quite low (just barely over 400 units a year in each of my 3 housing blocks), I decide to make some of the bazaar buyers in the northern and east bank housing blocks work pretty hard. The only storage yards in the city holding beer and linen will be in the dock district - greatly simplifying land trade. That means a looooong journey for buyers fetching those goods, but it's one they will only have to make every 10-11 months. Both housing blocks will have 2 bazaars: one will buy beer, the other linen. The bazaar buying linen will also buy pottery, which will be available in a nearby storage yard.
I also decide that the northern housing block will eat game meat. The bazaar buyer will ultimately get that directly from the dock district, but I may move some closer to speed up evolution to spacious residence.
Chickpeas will be deposited in storage yards on the west bank, next to the ferry that connects to the east bank housing block. Aside from some fishing wharves, warship wharves, work camps, farms and a couple of forts, only the 3rd housing block will be built there. Again, bazaar buyers will make the long journey to the dock district to fetch beer and linen, but pottery and food will be close at hand.
Caesar Alan
Pleb
posted 04-14-22 16:03
ET (US)
13 / 24
Finally, a build log!
I've now satisfactorily completed a run through Abedju. This post (and perhaps some subsequent ones) will detail how it went.
Industrial strategy
But I'll begin with a minor digression on my initial moneymaking strategy.
With the year 1 harvest coming at the beginning of July, and factoring in the time for immigrants to arrive, and work camps to generate farmers, there's only about 4 growing months in year 1. And even with the comparatively generous startup funds, developing the east bank floodplain in time for a year 1 harvest is just too costly.
That means beer/linen exports will initially be limited by the amount of barley/flax I can harvest from the west bank floodplain in year 1. There'll also only be a maximum of 2 production cycles between the year 2 harvest and the end of year 2.
All of which means the total amount of beer/linen I can sell across years 1+2 will be less than a single year's export quota. In turn, that means I'm better served building only flax farms on the west bank (and prioritising them when building out the east bank farms for the year 2 harvest), as linen is more lucrative than beer.
It also means that any linen sold in year 1 isn't true additional income: it simply reduces the amount of linen I will be able to sell in year two. I'm not saying bringing that income forward isn't helpful, but it's worth bearing in mind that it not as valuable as some other early income sources.
My which I, of course, mean papyrus exports. They are initially only limited by production capacity; with enough reed gatherers and papyrus makers, you can hit the full export quota in year 1. And in every other year after that. And that means every papyrus sold in year 1 is true additional income that is 'lost' if you miss out on it.
So my initial strategy is to focus hard on growing my papyrus industry. Migrants will need time to move to the right place and provide labour to buildings, and there will be a further delay once the reed gatherers must cross to the east bank for more reeds, so I'm going to need several extra papyrus makers in the early going.
Some rough back of the envelope calculations suggest I'll need about 10 papyrus makers and 4 reed gatherers to have a chance of hitting that all important year 1 quota (thereafter, I will have a happy surplus). I'll also need to try to ensure at least one trade caravan from Timna arrives close to the end of December.
Onward to describe how well this went...
Caesar Alan
Pleb
posted 04-15-22 11:47
ET (US)
18 / 24
Year 5
As soon as I have sufficient employees available, I add dancers, courthouses and schools (and additional beautification) to the southern and east bank blocks, and finally to the ferry village. I also remove the police stations, and begin distributing pottery and beer to them.
I also add 3 dentists - to the southern and east bank blocks and the ferry village. I don't add one to the northern block, as some houses there don't yet have game meat.
To ensure I can build out my army in time, I add the recruiter, academy and first archer fort. I also place my 10 brickworks, and two additional bricklayers guilds.
Over the course of the year, I export 4100 linen (over the quota) to Behdet, 2500 each of linen and papyrus, plus 2200 beer to Timna, and a further 1500 beer to Men-Nefer. I import 2400 figs, 2500 chickpeas, 2500 game meat, and a total of 3200 bricks.
Year-end summary
At the beginning of Year 6, I have the following ratings:
Culture: 35
Prosperity: 59
Monument: 0
Kingdom: 57
Population: 3774
Cash: 784 Db (I turn a net profit of 318 Db in year 5)
I now have 16 weavers, 12 breweries, 10 papyrus makers and 10 brickworks - all I intend to build.
All my housing is at common residence, except the ferry village which hasn't yet got beer.
The first small mastaba is 49% complete (with the last load of bricks for the 3rd course en route).
Caesar Alan
Pleb
posted 04-15-22 15:25
ET (US)
20 / 24
Final mission stats
Culture rating: 35 (maximum possible since mission has no mortuaries)
Prosperity rating: 70 (maximum possible since only Osiris is worshipped in Abedju)
Kingdom rating: 100 (thanks to a final boost as the mission completes!)
Monument rating: 17
Population: 4,737 (rising to 4,752 once the ferrymen's house fills up)
Final city funds: 21,686 Db
Completion time: 111 months on Very Hard difficulty
The city ran stably without any intervention for almost a year and half while I was waiting for the mastabas to finish building, so it's no surprise it can continue running just fine for another 5 years.
In that time frame, city funds rise by over 100,000 Db, aided by brick exports to Men-Nefer and Behdet. The city accumulates a small labour shortage over that time - which is absorbed by the military buildings with no impact on services. If guilds and monument-exclusive workcamps are removed, I'm sure the city could continue running for many years beyond that.
Caesar Alan
Pleb
posted 04-15-22 15:34
ET (US)
21 / 24
Post-mortem
This is a nice city I'm pretty proud of, with a number of features I may use more liberally in the future. The challenge of designing a 70 prosperity city was suitably tricky, and certainly kept me on my toes throughout.
I wasn't particularly focused on speed, and I think that shows. Some things I might do differently if I played this again:
1. Start beer production earlier.
2. Import more bricks - more beer sales would facilitate this in earlier years, but it will be trickier, and require more tedious micromanagement of trade ships, in later years (where clay and straw imports both potentially compete with brick imports).
3. In at least some years, I think brick imports were limited by storage space. Solving that requires more bricklayers guilds and/or work camps early on, and most likely tackling the two small mastabas together (adding the medium once the first completes).
I'll be uploading the completed city to the Downloads, and will post a link here when I have.