FAQs

21. All of the sudden my houses disappeared and my people with them! What’s going on, is this a bug?

No. The reason your houses (or housing signs) disappeared was that immigrants lost access to your housing; somehow, you cut them off from access the housing. This could have happened a number of ways: A) You built a wall around your city with no gatehouse. You must have an entrance and an exit to your city; B) You built an aqueduct from a reservoir by a river, across to another reservoir at the other side of the map, but did not pave a road “arch-way” through the aqueduct. In this case, the aqueduct functions like a wall that your immigrants cannot pass through unless you pave an access road under the aqueduct; C) You’ve build housing out in the middle of the wilderness (which is fine), but with no road in front of it. This road need not connect to another “major” road, but housing must be build with in two tiles of a road.

22. How do I increase my Prosperity?

The manual lists the following as Prosperity influencing agents:

• Annual Profit (defined as income, non-construction expense)
• Unemployment (the lower the better)
• Loans from Rome (avoid them)
• Failure to pay Tribute (again, avoid)
• Wage Rate (higher is better)
• Housing levels (not only are tents bad, but villas are needed to be a positive)
• Food Variety (the more people eating a variety of food, the better)
• Active Hippodrome

Moreover, Profit is the key to raising the prosperity of your city. You will not meet the goals Caesar has set for you, however, simply by raising the tax rate. If you overtax your people, your prosperity rating will actually decline. The rating is based not only on your cash flow, but on the general sense of well-being within your city. At most, your taxes should cover the amount paid to city employees, with a few Denarii left over for the annual tribute to Rome. Increasing the wages you pay your citizens is also a sign of prosperity. Moreover, this will encourage immigration; people want to live where the taxes are low, and the wages are high. You probably want to pay your workers more than the thirty Denarii that they would ordinarily expect as wages in Rome. Consider a starting wage of $35 Denarii. It is enough to encourage newcomers, but not so much that you should be forced to drop wages later. The real money for your city has to come from trade. If you have developed your trade into a booming enterprise, you will not have to raise your taxes above 7-8%.

When you begin a new map, pause the game and conduct an inventory of your buildings and the land. Is farmland abundant? Check which type of farms and workshops you can build. Then check which kind raw materials you can gather. Then check your Trade Advisor. You will probably see some neighbors who are willing to trade with you. Trade ships can hold 12 units of goods, and caravans can hold 8. Compare what they are buying to what you can make. The best thing to sell is marble; it does not need a workshop to make, and is the most expensive thing to sell. You may be able to sell raw materials, such clay or timber, but the real money comes from finished goods, like pottery or furniture. You could easily sell iron for $600 Denarii, but finished weapons will fetch up to $4,000.

23. I’m trying to import food, but it’s just sitting in the warehouse rotting, while my people starve. How do I get it into the granaries? Will the dock workers take it directly to the granaries?

Imported food, whether from land or sea trade routes, is always taken to a warehouse. The only way to get food from a warehouse to a granary is with the cart-pusher of the warehouse. The warehouse cart pusher will automatically move it to the nearest granary that is set to “accept” that food type, provided that the granary is less than half full. Best to have it “not accept” any other food types so that it does not get flooded with something you are producing in bulk in your city. If the warehouse cart pusher is doing something else (getting requested goods or delivering raw materials), then the food will not be transferred to a granary.

Impressions has explained that a good way to import fruit, for example, is to put a granary set to “accept” fruit right next to a warehouse that is accepting nothing but fruit (cuts down on walking time). The cart pusher from the warehouse will then deliver the food from the warehouse to the granary. Put up additional granaries that are “getting” fruit where you want the fruit to go. The only way to get food to a market if with a market buyer. Market buyers will only get food from granaries, not warehouses. If you have a granary right next to the warehouse with fruit, the warehouse can empty out quickly into the granary. Remember: Set the granary by the warehouse receive imports to “accepting,” not “getting.” The only way food leaves a warehouse is if the warehouse worker takes it away. The “get” order for a granary can only get food from other granaries.

24. Is there a range limitation on granaries?

There is no range limitation for granaries; they just need road access to each other. You are only limited by the speed and capacity of the granary carts. In addition, if the requesting granary cart gets to a granary that has become low in food (due to market buyer or other granaries), you will not get as much food for the requesting granary. Each granary only has one cart, which can only get one food type at a time, so having multiple “Get” orders for the same granary does not really help much. Moreover, you should not have to daisy chain your granaries. You should have one or two granaries near your farms (“accepting” food) and then granaries (requesting food) near your markets for your houses. If the markets and houses are far from the farms, you probably need more than one granary (set to request) to serve the market. This way, you have two cart-pushers (one from each granary) going to get food from the granaries near the farms

25. One of my clay pits was flooded, but I the risk overlay said that it was in no danger of damage.

Impressions says that Engineers have no effect on whether or not a clay pit will become flooded. The same goes for iron mines collapsing. They are random events that only occur on some of the maps. You cannot do anything but rebuild if it happens.

26. What are all of the levels of promotion, and the cities you build with that promotion?

The promotions differ somewhat from the manual, since the manual was finalized before the actual game was.

M = Military Assignment

P = Peaceful Assignment

27. I’ve started trading, and I’m rolling in cash, but then the city I was trading with stopped buying from me. I went to the “Empire” screen, and it says “0-25 bought” on the item I was selling. Then, a few months later, they were buying again! What’s going on?

What happened was that once your trading partner hit their quota for the year, they stop buying/selling. Note which month of the year you are in when you check the Empire map. At the beginning of January, it will always show 0 of x, later in the year, you may already have traded their full supply/demand. Your trading partner will not buy an unlimited quantity from you, only what they need for the year.

28. I have another trading question. Sometimes my sea-trading partner only sells 1 or 2 units of the good I’m importing. How am I supposed to keep my markets stocked with pottery, for example, if they only sell me 2 units of it?

What happened was that it took too long for the ship to load/unload. Impressions has explained that there is a time limit for ships at a dock. If it takes too long to load/unload, the ship sails away after only partially unloading. Keep a warehouse *right* next to the dock to minimize walking distance for cart-pushers. That way you should get 4-8 clay and 4-8 wheat when the ship comes in.

29. One more trading question: Natives. Can you only trade goods with them that other Roman cites are willing to buy, or can you sell *anything* to the natives?

Check your trade advisor. You can only set goods to “export” if you have open trade routes for that good. Natives will only buy goods that you have set to “export,” thus, you must have an open trade route with another Roman city for that good. Impressions says that natives will buy any good that you are exporting, two cartloads at a time.

30. Sometimes when I try to “wall up” the wolves, they run straight through the walls while you’re building them. What’s up with these “ghost wolves”?

What happens here is that the wolves have a movement path already programmed, so they are following that path when you place the wall right in front of them. You either have to put the wall far enough in front of them so that their movement paths will be updated before they get to the wall, or build the walls when the wolves are lying down. Be careful! If you place the wall too close to the wolves, you may see wolves seemingly appear out of nowhere; always near, but on the wrong side of where you have walled them up. Impressions has said (with a wink) that the wolves are “breeding.” If a new wolf is “born,” and the walls are too close to the wolves, the new wolf may very well appear on the other side of the wall. When you wall them in, you need to create a small ‘buffer’ zone. If all of the wolves on the map are dead, no new wolves will be “born.”