Housing, Roads & Building Walkers

These are general answers to the most Frequently Asked Questions. For more information on the finer points of game play and strategy, please consult the Game Help Forum rather than e-mailing Angels and Cherubs directly for help as they will direct you back to the Forum.  Click on a question below to read the answer or return to the Index.

(1) What the heck is a housing block and how do I make one?

(2) What exactly does a roadblock block?

(3) Pharaoh's engineers are blowing up my city! What should I do?

(4) Why won't the firemen put out the fires?

(5) What about these danged water carriers?

(6) Should I make the roads pretty with those nice plazas? How do I do it?

(1) What the heck is a housing block and how do I make one?

If you have played for a while you know your walkers will just wander off in the flood plains and places you don't want them to go. Housing placed in a block will give you more control over your distributing your goods and services. Blocks can be of many different designs -- from a long rectangle with the houses 2 squares deep facing the road and service buildings on the inside, or houses on the inside of the block with gardens or statues behind them and the services outside. Some people build square blocks, some build long straight roads with the services interspersed or at one end. Concentric blocks are also very effective. Good sources to check out are the Strategy Section of Pharaoh Heaven and Grampus' site. You can also download zipped files at the Pharaoh Heaven Downloads Section of other player’s maps. One picture is worth a thousand words.

(2) What exactly does a roadblock block?

Walkers in Pharaoh are of two types. Destination walkers have a target picked out and will pass through the roadblocks. These are all listed in the Big Manual that came with the game, but examples are deliverymen such as cart pushers, entertainment walkers, and buyers from the bazaar, hunters, soldiers, and immigrants. These folks will ignore roadblocks.

The roaming walkers can be controlled and stopped by encountering a roadblock. These folks bring benefit to the city by passing the housing. Examples are the bazaar traders, firemen, policemen, magistrates, and water carriers. Also in this group is the citizen looking for labor. He will not pass through the roadblock.

(3) Pharaoh's engineers are blowing up my city! What should I do?

The Road to Egypt is blocked! That is the road that enters and leaves the map. The game will shift to the spot where the blockage is; that's the first place blown up by Pharaoh's engineers. Until the rubble is cleared they will continue to blow up your city. So slow the game down and the clear the rubble, don't block that spot again. They are helping you to have a clear path of road or vacant land through the city for immigrants and traders to pass.

The Road to Egypt is the original road showing on your map when you start. You can delete the road, move it, and/or build on it. In fact, if you do use the road to start your city, delete a tile of the road on both ends to keep your walkers from making a long detour away from the housing and industry.

(4) Why won't the firemen put out the fires?

Well, if a fire has been burning for a long enough time (due to a Fire Marshal being too far to reach it in time) then the fire will not be put out and will just have to burn out on its own. If you right-click on a burning building under these conditions it should reveal a pop-up message saying: "Fire marshals could not get here in time to save the building. When the fires burn themselves out, only rubble will be left on this site."

Also, Fire Marshals have a limited supply of water with which to prevent and put out fires. At some point they need to return to their Firehouse to refill, so it may be that the Fire Marshals that are walking by a burning building simply do not have any water at the moment and are on their way back for a refill, after which they may or may not be able to reach a burning building in time.

If a house in the back row catches fire and there is a garden they won't put out the fire until you remove the garden. That's true for anything without direct access. If there is a house in the back row that starts burning and the only way for a fireman to get to the fire is through another structure (gardens included), that structure has to be deleted first before the fireman can get there. This happen frequently when there is a row of housing that is 2 deep and the one which isn't adjacent to the road begins burning. If you just delete the house in front of it, the firemen will put out the fire.

(5) What about these danged water carriers?

The water supply has to be placed on land that has ground water. You can check this by turning on your Water Overlay (hot key: W). The water carriers will pass by your houses taking fresh water in a random walker path. He will turn around at a roadblock, and has been know to vary his route. If you see houses suddenly devolve, right-click the house to see if he has decided to walk a different route this year.

Water carriers can be upgraded like bazaars by adding gardens or statues. The upgraded water carrier has a different graphic and is reported to spawn walkers more often. As a rule of thumb, a water carrier will walk about 27 tiles before turning around.

(6) Should I make the roads pretty with those nice plazas? How do I do it?

Your citizens will pave dirt roads with stone tiles in the areas that have good desirability such as near Temples and Temple Complexes. Only after they pave the roads can you add the pricey plaza tiles. You can find them under the Municipal Structures icon on your Control Panel, Beautification sub-menu with the statues and gardens. Plazas increase desirability and can help upgrade bazaars and water carriers as well as houses.

 
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