Jayhawk’s Londinium Walkthrough
A foggy day in Londinium town
So today I moved to Brittania.
The map is huge-ish, withan interesting layout. Particularly that bit of farming land that is locked behind the forest. There’s abotu 3-4 wolfpacks roaming the maps.
Raw materials are restricted clay, wood. Wheat, pigs and veggies are the foodstaple. I can import iron ore olive oil and wine though.
There’s a general health hazard here, no, not BSE, it’s Celts.
As usual I started fencing in those wolves as I wasn’t looking forward to chasing them round the map. I located 3 packs and stared my housing.
A small, 6×6, block was added to the farm-island and a larger 9×9 was build off to the side, next to the Road to Rome.
Caesar’s bailout helped me start wood and pottery industry and open a trade route to Lindum. (Now where have I heard that name before…) It’s not much, but it was 2000Dn more than I had at the time.
People got upset with me, the gods stopped liking me and Venus put a spell on me. Time for a few temples methinks.
Warnings for contaminated water showed up and I decided to start importing iron. The people are still disgruntled so I up their salary to two above Rome.
The battle warning pops up and I realise it’s short warning again. No distant battle, but an enemies closing warning.
I need money fast and start up a little arms trade. This has me popping in and out of debt for a few months.
A large festival to the God of War, nets me his spirit to take care of the next invasion.
Caesar want’s pottery, which is okay, as I have plenty, it does harm my export so I add a few more pits and workshops.
A new 9×9 block is laid just north of the first one and I add an academy to my settlement.
The first invading force shows up Celtic foot and chariots. Mars’ spirit takes them out in one blast.
I fall into debt again, sell some more pottery, wood and weapons to get out of it.
The second invasion warning comes in and I build fort of peltasts and one of heavy infantry close to the invasion point. The heavy infantry hurts my arms export and fall into debt again.
The javelins are ready and the enemy is still a year out, so I decide to let them do some pest control and have them get rid of the wolves. After that they take out the Celts while the infantry catches them head on.
In the meantime I build an extra bridge so the traders won’t have to go all the way around the inland lake.
I increase my pottery production and face the third invasion. A slightly changed tactic this time, with the square of heavy infatry in front and the peltasts sticking into them in a straightline poing away from the enemy.
Works like the proverbial charm.
Money is flowing out of my coffers and I can import some marble to add a few oracles.
Another fortess is added, this one for cavalry. Meanwhile I let my housing upgrade to small insulae and start the furniture industry.
A midsized, fourth invasion meets my heavy infantry head on and the cavalry sweeps in from behind. I loose 5 horses and 2 infantry.
Crunching sounds lead me to take a closer look at the map and I find a stray wolf pack. I dispatch my peltasts and loose another 4 soldiers. The wolf pelts look good on my signifers, though.
Year 10 ends and the price of pottery drops, I decide it’s time for a break.
So ten years into the game I have 3000 people in medium insulae and some 10,000 cash.
A 9×9 block (and a half) were added to the Northwestern shore area. These blocks are disconnected (sofar) from the other blocks and were given their own pottery and furniture industry, together with a large are of farmland.
Caesar has gotten interested in requesting furniture. No problem, I have more than enough.
A fifth invasion, a large one of 3 units of foot and 8!(?) chariots appears just North of my forts (as paultheo suggested) I take some serious losses, 13 cavalry, 5 peltasts and 1 heavy infantry, but manage to massacre the Celts.
I think I want more heavy infantry.
So, it’s 3 years later and I’ve got 4500 citizens.
Hmmm, it seems clay pits like to flood in Londinium as well…
Steadily growing the city I added a 9×9 block, also on the opposite shore. This was given resources to grow to medium insulae as well.
Another heavy infantry fort was added as well, close to the others.
To my surprise I get a local uprising, which is easily squashed, but I loose half a cavalry unit to a mystery wolfpack that appeared out of nowhere.
It seems like a good time to get somemore tax income and getthat old prosperity rising, so I place a small (8) villa block on the Northern shore. This gets fed from the small farming community I put down on the island.
I put the dock on the square marked in pink on the next maplet. Not the best place too put it, as the ships have along way to go to get there. It also needs a couple of high bridges to be build, something that isn’t cheap.
The only other place (the ideal place) is close to the entry, on a little flat piece of land. I should have built it there, but the blocks there were a little to dangerously close to needing all but wine to evolve. Better luck next time…
A stupid setting on my dockside warehouse (Empty warehouse) also caused no goods to be bought during the couple of months it took before the penny dropped.
Oh, well, at least the villas popped up, and the hosuing south of that area improve to grand insulae as I supply them with some extra oil.
A large invasion, 3 foot and 12 chariots hits me from the NE. They kill all my cavalry and a silly click costs me half my peltasts.
Needing more people I open up the Northen farmland and put in first one then another block. My villa’s devovle as I wait for enough people to flow in and at one time I’m 170 short, so even my dock falls dry…
The housing there is currently up to medium insulae, but not completely filled. I’m planning another block in that area.
So far 25 years have gone by and all my stats are high enough, except for my population which is currently at 8500, two more blocks should do the trick…especially if I can get somemore oil.
Well, another block was added to the Northern settlement and slowly grown to a higher level.
Caesar keeps asking for small amounts of pottery, 15 odd units or so.
The plebs in the Southern settlements wants a a colloseum, which I give them. (I need to look up if they actually need it to go grand insulae)
Another invasion strikes 50 foot soldiers and 10 chariots. My troops beat them off with losses of 3 cav, 2 peltasts and 4 heavy infantry. One chariot escapes.
Looking at my stock levels, 192 pottery and 132 furniture units I decide to remove some of the relevant industry.
Warnings pop up my water is contaminated, doctor coverage seems fine, though.
Intermezzo:
This is the bit that went wrong…I added another block down south and that’s when problems started, the workers went down, the food distribution went down, I had 3000! kids that wanted to go to school. That’s 30% of my population!!
I ran at highspeed for another 20 years, but it didn’t really pull itself together, so I went back to a previous save.
Back to the save:
Natives started to get ugly and 2 score of them invaded my map, but were beaten off with zero losses.
Then my villas took a dive as I found out, one of my warehouses wasn’t getting any more pottery. A full warehouse was 3 squares away…
I spent two or three more years tweaking my distribution, removing unnecessary farms and some more pottry/furniture industry, even halved my weapons industry.
Culture seemed the biggest problem, so I added some more buildings, a school here, a library there.
Meanwhile most of my housing went up to grand insulae and my population slowly dragged itself over the finish line.
Caesar congratulated me and packed me off to the Mediterranean, off to Massillia.
Final score (after 30 odd years)
- Culture – 80
- Prosperity – 86
- Peace – 100
- Favour – 87
- Population – 10,000
- Denarii – 22,723
I was about a 100 workers short, something I don’t like, however, there were still people coming to the city, so I think I may have pulled it through.
If I had to do it again, I would have build two settlement and a villa block close to the entry point. The Northern settlement I would have made 4-5 blocks big, the Southewestern one 2 blocks, mainly providing resources for the villa-block.