Author's
Description:
South Dahshur was a change-of-pace for me. Instead of focusing on
money-making, I decided to complete it quickly. That meant importing mostly
plain stone from Meidum.
However, I decided to (as usual) also get good Prosperity and Culture
ratings. For Prosperity, most houses would be common residences, so some
clay and reeds would be imported from Meidum to support them. (I don't like
upgrading houses at the very end of a mission.)
No floodplain farms were built, so laborers would concentrate on the
pyramid. (Since meadow farms use a lot more workers, this might have been a
bad strategy.) I used the "trick" that a farm is irrigated when its
northern tile is within 4 tiles of an irrigation ditch. Just for fun, I
decided to exactly meet the Population requirement with 40 common residences
(in the main housing block) and 5 2x2 ordinary cottages (in three suburbs).
The starting funds and most of the "rescue" gift were spent in the first
year, but I (barely) managed to import 40 plain stone from Meidum each year
and make enough money to continue expansion (and, eventually, to build the
pyramid) without going into debt. All of Pharaoh's requests were satisfied
within the original time, but some (for money and for grain) had little time
to spare. The gift of plain stone arrived when it was no longer needed.
The only structures that were deleted (other than bits of road that
prevented residences from forming in the wrong places) were a plain stone
storage yard (that was eventually replaced with a work camp) and two shrines
(that were mistakenly built in places reserved for a dentist and a juggler
booth).
No salary was taken and no personal funds were given to the city or to
Egypt. The game is saved just before the bent pyramid completes. To see
the city as it was planned, dispatch the last burial provision and wait two
months (since it takes that long for the last 20 immigrants to move into two
houses), with these results:
Difficulty: Hard
Months: 88
Culture: 50
Prosperity: 57
Kingdom: 99
Funds: 18563
Population: 3500
Score: 12564
To see a faster completion, build 4 vacant lots on the Kingdom Road near the
entry point and dispatch the last burial provision. The results are the
same except for:
Months: 86
Funds: 16198
Score: 11764
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