Author's
Description:
The save file was made just after victory had been achieved. It's
set to run another two years. My family's name is Tahrqa.
Well, a quick glance at the local map and world map made it clear revenue would have to
come more from gold mining than from trade. Saqarra had no raw materials at all for
manufacturing, and could only import very limited amounts of reeds, clay, barley and flax.
Jewelry's profit margin above imported gems was too thin, bricks would require clay
already needed for pottery, and the city would be using a lot of what linen, beer, papyrus
and pottery could be produced.
So, I set out with the twin goals of mining every last bit of gold possible, and pleasing
Ptah in the hope of receiving numerous storage-yard-stuffing blessings. Toward this latter
goal, I aimed to establish a bunch of semi-empty storage yards to harvest Ptah's bounty.
Although it turned out that Ptah was not all that beneficent, preferring to top up
non-existent jewelers, weavers and shipwrights over storage yards. By the time my priests
were able to coax a major blessing from him, the gold was pouring in so quickly it didn't
matter. Still, it was the first time I'd actively incorporated the gods in my plan.
Since gold mines produce so quickly, they're only as good as their distance from the
palace. Thus, placement of the palace was the key, and the whole structure of the city
developed around that.
I had no idea just how productive meadow farms would be. My initial planning made room for
far more farms than I ended up building, and even the ones I did create grew an
embarrassing surplus of pomegranates. So much so that I rejected a gift of more food from
Selima Oasis, which inexplicitly proved to be a fatal mistake. They must have been
insulted, because a month later I was informed they were "cutting back"; namely,
severing the supply of wood needed to finish the pyramid and win the mission.
Bah. I played on for several years before realizing the supply wasn't going to be
restored. Maddening.
Okay, fine, I went back to a save file dated a couple of months before the diplomatic
blunder, and carried on. At least doing that eliminated a couple of dumbass ostriches that
somehow became embedded in the partially complete pyramid.
Development went smoothly for the most part from there. Hyenas were an annoyance for about
two years straight, then withdrew. I refused to use cheap tactics such as penning them in
with statues or building a police encampment nearby their breeding grounds. Instead, I
tried to use my buildings as a kind of defensive wall, with only a few access points
guarded by police and hunters. Which sort of worked, although sometimes a hyena would
beeline for a street and police would walk *right past* as one was killing walker after
walker. Must have been time for donuts or something.
Also, I was under the impression that hunters would actively track hyenas down and shoot
arrows at them, but they'd only defend themselves. Still, they served as a sort of
defensive screen.
Watching the workers preparing the pyramid construction site and building the pyramid was
awesome.
Toward the end of the mission, I decided to create a colony on the island in order to
replace workers about to be lost by the evolution of housing into manors, as well as to
establish game meat exports on the side. Building a second dock, though, resulted a
distribution nightmare, even though it wasn't connected to the main road (and therefore
wasn't causing cart-pushers to fling themselves across the map). The trade ships from
Abedju became totally confused, often failing to sell barley at the first dock even when I
shut down all water exports and imports except for that one commodity. The capper was when
one such ship sailed all the way to the mainland dock, parked itself in waiting mode
nearby (even though there was no other trade ship on the map), then did an about face and
sailed off even though my storage yard was begging for barley, barley imports were on
full, and Abedju had plenty left to sell that year! Finally I just tore down the second
dock for a part of each year, rebuilding it when Abedju had sold its yearly quota of
barley.
One other glitch. Bazaar sellers with access to pottery and beer would occasionally
somehow leak through road blocks and cause some cottages to temporarily evolve. Being
uncertain how much pottery housing consumes each month, I tend to leave satellite villages
in the cottage stage. Too bad Impressions didn't include an executioner as one of the
forms of justice buildings, allowing you to click on such mischief makers and send them
off to their doom. Their death screams would be so satisfying, hehe. Not that I could be
that mean.
http://www.geocities.com/~taerin/
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