Pharaoh has given you a difficult assignment to establish a small but
prosperous and cultured city of 2800 souls at a small Oasis in the
Sinai Desert between Tyre, Serabit Khadim, and Men-nefer. You will
beset with frequent demands for goods under the threat of attack should
you fail to comply.
You must also build a substantial army in Qadesh, because you will be
under threat of attack by the strong Kushite Empire and you will be
asked to send troops to aid other cities that are set upon by your
enemies.
You must build a small pyramid, a large obelisk, and a small obelisk
and stock them with burial goods. The oasis is quite small so careful
placement and building should be paid close attention or you may find
yourself without room to build the monuments.
This city situation is a fantasy containing virtually every element of the game in a very small map. (First reality, the Sinai is a desert which averages 4-8 inches (10-20 cm) of rain per year.) This city has a small lake with adjacent flood plain farming, hippos, game birds, trees, and ore bearing rock. Virtually the entire map is thick grass with a small area of desert and sand dunes. The climate is humid and malaria abounds. Predictably you can import every raw material, manufacture and export every commodity. No way could the Sinai desert actually contain this quantity of lake, grass, trees, and hippos. The flood plain is way out of place here.
During actual game play, the hippos tend to jealously guard every available natural resource. I found it best to just put up with some loss of wood cutters, game hunters, and city walkers, rather than try to do anything about the hippos. In reality, this type of city would not exist. If most of the grassland was desert, the hippos were hyenas, the humid air was dry and the flood planes were gone, it would be a challenging and interesting little situation.
I found it best to import most of my food and use the available farm space for growing flax and then making linen for export. Most of my income was due to linen export, but hey, in this city you can export bricks, weapons, wood, game meat, pottery, beer, linen, papyrus, plain stone, and lime stone. It's a little like an explosion in a candy store, way too much of a good thing.
Building a small pyramid stocked with way more goods than the great pyramids of Giza was strange, too. The Egyptians may have built pyramids along the Nile and Obelisk's in outlying lands to mark their kingdom boundaries, but you should not find pyramids in the Sinai. Especially ones stocked with 5100 luxury goods. A several kings ransom if there ever was one.
My final comment is about the political situation. There are four cities you can trade with and these are the same four which constantly try to extort goods and invade your city. Even during the invasions these cities remained friendly and continued trading the maximum. What about diplomacy? I received extortion demands for 4100 game meat, 17 lime stone, 13 plain stone, 1100 wood, and on and on. Each demand was ignored and each time I got an invasion of "Kushites". The "Kushite" invasion from Tyre was a real laugher. Tyre actually was populated by "Phoenicians", a trading people notoriously sea faring and not inclined toward land invasions. Like I wrote, this city is a fantasy and if geography and political realities are ignored, it presents some interesting challenges.
Frankly, I prefer, somewhat more plausible situations, which this city entirely lacked. It took me 330 months to complete. I had 3 companies of archers and 3 of infantry at the end half of which were "Masters" and half "Veterans". They certainly got plenty of practice.
Qadesh was constructed entirely with the a beta copy of the mission editor that came with the beta copy of Pharaoh I helped test. There were no instructions on what to do, or how to do it.
Qadesh was basically an excercise in learning the mission editor on my own. I wasn't concerned with period, dynasty, location, or regional accuracy. I wanted to construct a challenging mission and learn the editor. I think it turned out well.
Jeese dude, do all missions have to be 100% accurate? There's nothing wrong with the mission, maybe a tad easy, but still. You must have WAY too much time on your hands, for all we know, the city of Tyre was populated by a race of little green aliens from Mexico. It's not that big a deal, next time, write him an email saying that kinda stuff, instead of insulting him in public. (laughs at loser who wrote a really long note about the maps incorrect history)
Jeese dude, do all missions have to be 100% accurate? There's nothing wrong with the mission, maybe a tad easy, but still. You must have WAY too much time on your hands, for all we know, the city of Tyre was populated by a race of little green aliens from Mexico. It's not that big a deal, next time, write him an email saying that kinda stuff, instead of insulting him in public. (laughs at loser who wrote a really long note about the maps incorrect history)
