Caesar 3: Victory, and a really nice block of housing

[mark edward hardwidge]

Whee! I just finished the eleventh peaceful mission! This
game was simply -excellent- for so many reasons.

Here's the nicest block of housing I've yet produced. I'm sure I
could get it a little better, but it would have hurt my nearby areas
to do so.

I know it's a little hard to read, but it looks like;

RRRRRRRRRRR
R1111G1111R
R1111G1111R
R1111G1111R
R1111G1111R
ROOGSSGFOOR
ROOFSSGGOOR
R222222222R
R222222222R
R222222222R
RRRRRRRRRRR

R = road
F = fountain
G = garden
O = oracle
S = medium statue
(obviously there are effects from non-shown buildings)

and, the best part:

1 = part of a luxury palace
2 = part of a medium palace

Yeah, I'm sure people have done better, but seeing two luxury palaces
and three medium palaces, on the same 640x480 screen, on the same
block, was mighty satisfying after all the learning and all the
planning that it took! (almost as satisfying is when people are
-finally- happy with the city...at least they are willing to tell me
"This city is great!")

My thanks and praise to everyone whose hard work went into Caesar 3!

--
Mark E. Hardwidge
hard...@uiuc.edu

[JackyO]

Interesting. I never thought to put more than 4x4 housing, yet you have
9 squares surrounded by 2 roads. Did the innermost parts of the palace
start out as gardens?

[Scott N Fitz]

>Interesting. I never thought to put more than 4x4 housing, yet you have
>9 squares surrounded by 2 roads. Did the innermost parts of the palace
>start out as gardens?

>Interesting. I never thought to put more than 4x4 housing, yet you have
>9 squares surrounded by 2 roads. Did the innermost parts of the palace
>start out as gardens?

I like to put in housing blocks that are 6x9:
(R = road G= garden F = fountain H = housing)

RRRRRRRR
RHHHHHHR
RHHHHHHR
RHHGGHHR
RHHGGHHR
RHHGFHHR
RHHGGHHR
RHHGGHHR
RHHHHHHR
RHHHHHHR
RRRRRRRR

These blocks tile together very nicely, and the gardens help the land
value. If your housing is in big blocks like this, there are fewer
intersections in your city, which makes Market Lady behavior more
predictable.
When I'm planning out my grand city layout at the beginning, I count each
block like this being able to hold 800 people (once they're all Insulae of
any type). I
usually have all the housing blocks that I will eventually need to reach
the winning population all laid out while they are still only hovels.

Scott

[Scott B. Drummonds]

Scott N Fitz wrote:
> RRRRRRRR
> RHHHHHHR
> RHHHHHHR
> RHHGGHHR
> RHHGGHHR
> RHHGFHHR
> RHHGGHHR
> RHHGGHHR
> RHHHHHHR
> RHHHHHHR
> RRRRRRRR

Both of you guys posted these maps that have a fountain covering a lot
more range than mine do. My fountains extend in 3 squares in each
direction, making a 7x7 covered block. The above requires more
fountains to be correctly watered.

mark edward hardwidge said:
> RRRRRRRRRRR
> R1111G1111R
> R1111G1111R
> R1111G1111R
> R1111G1111R
> ROOGSSGFOOR
> ROOFSSGGOOR
> R222222222R
> R222222222R
> R222222222R
> RRRRRRRRRRR

And I thought housing had to be within 2 of a road! how is did that
middle housing (near the statue) ever develop? Or did it not? Did you
leave it open so your large housing could expand into it?

(Ha, funny. I just discovered that my news server won't allow me to
post a message with 'more included text than new text.' Yet, as an
experienced USENET'er, I don't think the above is in any way in
violation of the reason for the addition of that law. Consider this
parenthetical comment the requisite crap required to avoid the
dumbed-down laws of my sysadmins.)

Scott

--
Scott Brady Drummonds | Phone: (408)765-8093 | I got soul,
sdru...@mipos3.intel.com | Location: SC9-2C7 | I'm super-bad.
If I just said something about Intel, I was just kidding.

[mark edward hardwidge]

Scott B. Drummonds <sdru...@mipos3.intel.com> wrote:
> Both of you guys posted these maps that have a fountain covering a lot
> more range than mine do. My fountains extend in 3 squares in each
> direction, making a 7x7 covered block. The above requires more
> fountains to be correctly watered.

Are you in a dry area? I think fountains go further in more
northern climates. Anyway, a building only needs one corner to be on
pipes, not the whole thing.

> > RRRRRRRRRRR
> > R1111G1111R
> > R1111G1111R
> > R1111G1111R
> > R1111G1111R
> > ROOGSSGFOOR
> > ROOFSSGGOOR
> > R222222222R
> > R222222222R
> > R222222222R
> > RRRRRRRRRRR

> And I thought housing had to be within 2 of a road! how is did that
> middle housing (near the statue) ever develop? Or did it not? Did you
> leave it open so your large housing could expand into it?

Well, it developed....the 16 1's is all one building, so right
now it's right next to the road (plus it's easy to get water).
As for how it grew, I originally had this block (one of my
current favorite was to start, but I think it could be considerably
improved).

RRRRRRRRRRR
RHHHHHHHHHR
RHHHHHHHHHR
RHHgggggHHR
RHHgSSSgHHR
RHHfSSSfHHR
RHHgSSSgHHR
RHHgggggHHR
RHHHHHHHHHR
RHHHHHHHHHR
RRRRRRRRRRR

At least, it looked mostly like that (I'm not sure where the
fountains were). This time, S=large statue.
This is a nice block, because it gives pretty good land value
fairly cheaply).
At first, you only have 2x2 buildings around the edge.
Eventually, you'll get a large villa, and that pushes into the
gardens. It's all one building though, so it's fine for everything.
When you need to get past villas (well, just to large 4x4
palaces), you need to destroy the statue so you have room. That
involves squeezing in some buildings to make up for the lost statue.
The best part about having those 4x4 buildings on the corners
is that they get a -ton- of access...from either the SN or the EW
road.

If anyone is interested, I have a few time slices of my level
7(?) through 11 cities, which I can put on my web page.

[The Ghost who Admins]

Rememmber, in Desert climes, the fountains and resevoirs have reduce
radii.

Mike Evans

[Alan Way]

Scott B. Drummonds wrote in message <363645...@mipos3.intel.com>...

>Both of you guys posted these maps that have a fountain covering a lot
>more range than mine do. My fountains extend in 3 squares in each
>direction, making a 7x7 covered block. The above requires more
>fountains to be correctly watered.
>

Fountains work 4 squares in european maps (green), 3 squares in the desert
maps.

>And I thought housing had to be within 2 of a road! how is did that
>middle housing (near the statue) ever develop? Or did it not? Did you
>leave it open so your large housing could expand into it?

Houses do need to be within 2 of a road, however ANY part of a house will
do. So when you design your area use gardens for the squares that are too
far from a road. When the house grows it will expand into the garden. btw I
usually leave those squares as dirt until I'm ready for them to expand. i.e.
have all the oil//wine and crap they need. Conversely, when those big
houses devolve because the market bitch went the wrong way, those squares
revert to dirt BUT the house can still expand into them when you kick her in
the right direction again.

>(Ha, funny. I just discovered that my news server won't allow me to
>post a message with 'more included text than new text.' Yet, as an

<snip>
Yah, dont you hate that.

Alan

[rcja...@gmail.com]

In case someone else lands here, I've translated the original block into characters that can be fed into AngelHawk's "Housing Block Generator" (https://caesar3.heavengames.com/strategy/housing/glyphy.shtml):

RRRRRRRRRRR
R$$$$G$$$$R
R$$$$G$$$$R
R$$$$G$$$$R
R$$$$G$$$$R
R@@G::GF@@R
R@@F::GG@@R
RdddddddddR
RdddddddddR
RdddddddddR
RRRRRRRRRRR