GamePLay Issues

[tar-palantir]

I just got this game and have been having a lot of fun with it, however I had a couple of questions:

Once you load the game I attached hit "HOME" to make sure your orientation is the same as mine.

1) In the Northeast where there is one barge landing (almost next to the Kherutefen estate) there is 1 ship (Merchant ship Rudamon Istnofret) that has spent the entire game just sitting there. I have another by the same name plying the river and docking here or there but this one refuses to move, unload or go away. Why?

2) Just south of the Cult Temple of Horus are some cliffs. Upon these cliffs I constantly find merchant ships running themselves ashore. I am not sure if they actually ever take on cargo or unload, but my quays are rarely used there.

3) Across from there on the other side of the river almost dead center of the map is another small village. Next to the shrine of Osiris I set up a Stellae to be raised and once the base was built I set the overseer to construction but no one ever brought the granite over from the quarry. It would sit there until another project used what was excavated. The overseer went multiple times across the river but I cannot get anyone to build a Stellae over there.

Can someone explain what I am doing wrong or are these bugs and if there is a workaround?

Thanks!

[Schmophit]

Not sure how to answer points 1 + 2, may be someone else can help with those, sorry :(

But as to point 3, for your labourers to move stele/obelisks or statues from one side of the river to the other, you need to be importing cedar so that your shipwright (if you have one) can build a barge for the labourers to use for transporting said items and barge landings on both sides of the river too. Hope that goes some of the way to helping :)

[Keith]

Without actually looking at the file, there are a couple of posibiities that come to mind.

1. It could be a glitch or bug hanging up your ships.

2. Merchants expect something in return for what they bring. To get them away from the quays and off the map quickly keep shops, bakeries, and cargo drop off points somewhere in the vicinity of the landings. Keep them supplied with the goods that the merchants expect to take with them. The merchant from those ships could be wandering around your city waiting for a supply of the desired item to become available so he can return to his ship and go home. Find out what it is your trade partners desire and try to have that item on hand. If they need food, have a bakery nearby and a good supply from a granary to keep the bakery functioning.

[Keith]

I took a look at your city. It is very spread out, which makes for problems in food and services access. Long travel times and access problems because by the time they get there it may be out of the desired item or the service (shrine, apothecary, hospital) might not be able to provide the desired service due the the lack of a priest.

Your houses show quite a few have disatisfaction levels in the yellow or red. You have a lot of red religious icons. Your people are not well served by your shrines because they are very few and very spread out requiring long periods of travel from some areas.

You current number of shops don't seem to be able to keep pace with the demand. You have a large number of yellow wares icons. You might try increasing the number of common & luxury shops in each area of your city to improve the supply of goods.

Some people in your city are complaining about food. You have a number of red food icons on someo of the houses I checked. The level of stored food you have in reserve is only fair for the number of farms you have. I think the problems your scribes are having obtaining food and wares is keeping them from doing a better job. Having more shops producing wares should help.

Your luxury shops and noble houses might benefit from a few more servants. Not too many.

I think your main problem is just supply and distance.

[Keith]

You have a number of family waiting for funerals. You have a dead scribe. There is no adult male in one of your scribe's homes that are assigned to assessing taxes so no one is doing the job and your share of the harvest is less. Delete that scribes hous and rebuild it to encourage a new scribe to move in.

Build more mastabas for those waiting for burial. Make sure the priest servicing the mortuary is functioning and has all he needs.

[tar-palantir]

Thank you for the suggestions. This is my first city after doing the tutorials and I have been playing around with things to see how they tick.

What you are seeing are the results of too much rapid expansion, I think. The shortages did not exist at the time that the merchant vessel came to the city - it's just sat there forever all the same. I will have to verify if what it is looking for is available - I did not think of that.

I do still wonder why some ships seem to beach themselves rather than dock at the quays?

Thanks for looking at the saved game and your comments. This is a fabulous game!

[Keith]

Your people need food and you are not producing enough at the present time to keep a steady supply. Close down the trade with all the quarries and quarry sites. You have enough basalt and limestone for now. When the situation improves you can reopen them, but you should close down routes that require food when you don't really need their goods. This will give your city a little more food in reserve to make it through the year.

[Keith]

Thank you for the suggestions. This is my first city after doing the tutorials and I have been playing around with things to see how they tick.

What you are seeing are the results of too much rapid expansion, I think. The shortages did not exist at the time that the merchant vessel came to the city - it's just sat there forever all the same. I will have to verify if what it is looking for is available - I did not think of that.

I do still wonder why some ships seem to beach themselves rather than dock at the quays?

Thanks for looking at the saved game and your comments. This is a fabulous game!

Merchant ships don't require a landing. They can simply beach themselves wherever they choose. Only the trading barges and local need the landings.

BTW, it's "landings" (barge landings) and not "quays". There is a trading quay for ships in some scenarios but not this one. The trading quay serves like an "exchange" for ships. It quickens the distribution of goods when you have one.

[Keith]

You want to get your noble town houses evolved into luxury townhouses. This will allow you to have more farms than at present.

They need all the basic goods in ample (food, wares, luxury wares) and services (entertainers, gardners, religion, healthcare) in steady supply.

Having happy nobles will also keep your scribes, priests, and commanders happy. Because once the nobles start throwing feasts those elite governent workers will attend and have some of their entertainment needs met.

[tar-palantir]

Interesting distinction regarding the landing vs quay. So in some scenarios we have to place quays?

At least now I understand why the ships are beaching themselves where they do - likely they see that place as the nearest to the resources they wish to acquire/sell. If I moved the merchant center likely the ships would beach at a more appropriate location for the new center.

Thanks again.

[Keith]

Interesting distinction regarding the landing vs quay. So in some scenarios we have to place quays?

At least now I understand why the ships are beaching themselves where they do - likely they see that place as the nearest to the resources they wish to acquire/sell. If I moved the merchant center likely the ships would beach at a more appropriate location for the new center.

Thanks again.

You dont HAVE to use exchanges or quays (when you have quays available.) They do make the distribution of goods much quicker.

I'm playing your save file.

For now I have all your food exporting trade routes shut down. Your food stocks are lasting longer and your people are getting fed on a year-round basis now. Those complaints are disappearing.

I have increased the number of shops throughout your city, both common and luxury. I've increased the number of servants slightly. I built about six more brickmakers and two more bricklayers to increase supply and speed the construction of mastabas. I have just built four new ones and have six more placed.

I have added a couple of gardeners to your city in the more remote ends of your city to provide the nobles there with their services. I also added a few more entertainers so your nobles will have those services as well.

I've also place a few large statues to get them underway. They will help raise your prestige level and allow you to have more priests and scribes than you have now. Some of your priest and scribe homes are empty because of falling prestige and lack of food and services. This is now in the process of changing.

[Keith]

I notice that some of your statues all face the same way...south. You know you can rotate them before you place them. Pressing the "R" key on your keyboard will rotate them before you click to place them.

Also, you can drag the statue to the correct facing. Move the cursor to the correct location, click and drag the direction you want it to face.

The same holds true for your buildings and monuments.

[MarkDuffy]

Welcome to our family, Tar-palantir :)

You have done quite well!

1) In the Northeast where there is one barge landing (almost next to the Kherutefen estate) there is 1 ship (Merchant ship Rudamon Istnofret) that has spent the entire game just sitting there. I have another by the same name plying the river and docking here or there but this one refuses to move, unload or go away. Why?

The Merchant ships have grounded themselves as close to the Merchant Center as possible. This is normal cuz they don't need Barge Landings. They are waiting to do their business.

2) Just south of the Cult Temple of Horus are some cliffs. Upon these cliffs I constantly find merchant ships running themselves ashore. I am not sure if they actually ever take on cargo or unload, but my quays are rarely used there.

Same answer. Barge Landings & not quays. Landings are used mainly for Cargo ships.

3) Across from there on the other side of the river almost dead center of the map is another small village. Next to the shrine of Osiris I set up a Stellae to be raised and once the base was built I set the overseer to construction but no one ever brought the granite over from the quarry. It would sit there until another project used what was excavated. The overseer went multiple times across the river but I cannot get anyone to build a Stellae over there.

You only have 12 laborers (2/12 unpopulated when I loaded your save) & two of the three Overseers are quarying basalt & granite. Place more laborers.

Your city is spread out. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but you should try to keep your farmers & Scribes assessing taxes close together for maximum harvest.

FOOD is your only problem. Produce more food & all problems will go away. Even your laborers will do better! :)

~ ~ ~

OK, my look at your city was too fast, Tar-palantir. You ARE producing food, just exporting it all. ;)

I went back to your stuck Merchant ship & investigated. Rudamon Istnofret. I could not find your Merchant on the map. It looks dead & you will not be able to do anything about it. The good news is that another has come to replace it & he is trading at your Merchant Center (two images attached).

Some of your shops in the northeast are not turned properly (probably the early buildings you placed ;) ) & their doors are blocked. Keep a road/space in front of ALL buildings like you did with the rest of the map. Still works, but not as well.

PS I hope you have patched the game! :)

Keith is telling you to do a bunch of stuff. It might help, but you are doing fine. Nice map! :) There are a zillion ways to play this game! :D

[Keith]

I got your city to the "Success!" message.

Your city needs more religious coverage. The cult temple and shrines you have are not enough. More gods need to be worshipped to satisfy your people. Osiris, Hathor, Isis, Horus, and Bast are usually good ones to have in every city.

[tar-palantir]

I notice that some of your statues all face the same way...south. You know you can rotate them before you place them. Pressing the "R" key on your keyboard will rotate them before you click to place them.

Also, you can drag the statue to the correct facing. Move the cursor to the correct location, click and drag the direction you want it to face.

The same holds true for your buildings and monuments.

When I started placing statues I didn't look to see which way they face. You'll see both Sphinxes actually do not face the same as the rest of the statues. However, I did not know one could change building facing once things are constructed. I'll have to give that a try.

[tar-palantir]

Welcome to our family, Tar-palantir :)

You have done quite well!

1) In the Northeast where there is one barge landing (almost next to the Kherutefen estate) there is 1 ship (Merchant ship Rudamon Istnofret) that has spent the entire game just sitting there. I have another by the same name plying the river and docking here or there but this one refuses to move, unload or go away. Why?

The Merchant ships have grounded themselves as close to the Merchant Center as possible. This is normal cuz they don't need Barge Landings. They are waiting to do their business.

2) Just south of the Cult Temple of Horus are some cliffs. Upon these cliffs I constantly find merchant ships running themselves ashore. I am not sure if they actually ever take on cargo or unload, but my quays are rarely used there.

Same answer. Barge Landings & not quays. Landings are used mainly for Cargo ships.

3) Across from there on the other side of the river almost dead center of the map is another small village. Next to the shrine of Osiris I set up a Stellae to be raised and once the base was built I set the overseer to construction but no one ever brought the granite over from the quarry. It would sit there until another project used what was excavated. The overseer went multiple times across the river but I cannot get anyone to build a Stellae over there.

You only have 12 laborers (2/12 unpopulated when I loaded your save) & two of the three Overseers are quarying basalt & granite. Place more laborers.

Your city is spread out. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but you should try to keep your farmers & Scribes assessing taxes close together for maximum harvest.

FOOD is your only problem. Produce more food & all problems will go away. Even your laborers will do better! :)

~ ~ ~

OK, my look at your city was too fast, Tar-palantir. You ARE producing food, just exporting it all. ;)

I went back to your stuck Merchant ship & investigated. Rudamon Istnofret. I could not find your Merchant on the map. It looks dead & you will not be able to do anything about it. The good news is that another has come to replace it & he is trading at your Merchant Center (two images attached).

Some of your shops in the northeast are not turned properly (probably the early buildings you placed ;) ) & their doors are blocked. Keep a road/space in front of ALL buildings like you did with the rest of the map. Still works, but not as well.

PS I hope you have patched the game! :)

Keith is telling you to do a bunch of stuff. It might help, but you are doing fine. Nice map! :) There are a zillion ways to play this game! :D


I think I screwed up Rudamon because the ship was beached and when my dock was built it popped up right onto the ship. I destroyed the dock because the ship appeared to be stuck and wanting to move, but since then it has not been ok. D'oh!

As for the shops I'll have to take a look. I tried to set the buildings so that they would not have the same orientation to avoid monotony but I'll have to be more careful.

I have patched the game to verson 1.2. Works flawlessly too - no crashes so far. I'm running this on a PIV 3.2 GHZ with 512 MB RAM and a 128 MB Geforce 6600 GT. No slowdowns except when it autosaves. Nice product.

[MarkDuffy]

Well, Tar-palantir, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to eat some of my words.

I tried everything in my little bag of tricks to get that stele built, but couldn't do it. It will build on the East side of the river, but not the West. Clicking on the stele gives the message "deciding what to do" & that usually means it has a triggered assignment. Perhaps it is the bricklayer & Overseer built too close & interfering with the quary exit (I deleted them both & moved them). You should stay away from the front quary areas & leave that small area for sled exit. I tried deleting/rebuilding the stele base on the West side, deleting/rebuilding your barge landing to get the barges to move & added a second shipwright on the West side (three ships at the shipwright & he stops building until some leave).

I have to say that I didn't let your save run long enough for the disaster that Keith noticed to occur. I also had to totally shut down your food exports to give your people some happiness. Military needs food or they become vagrants. I could not get your city working better until I took drastic action.

FOOD action.

I upped your Nobles to 12 & placed a second bakery next to every bakery you had. I added 40 farmers (to start) in the upper northeast along with two sets of lux shops & four sets of common. I did all of this in the same area.

You don't really have enough Nobles/lux shops & these are the ones who supply students for your school. You were in a graduate crisis all the time.

As Keith noticed, you also don't have enough brickmaker/layers. I didn't really notice the problem until I tried to up your prestige with statues (one of each) near your basalt quary. Then I noticed you were building a mastaba & a hospital. Build your brickmakers/layers in the same place.

Basically, you need to place complete sets of all shops in every section of your city. 4/3:1 common:lux is a good number for your overall city. Your educated workers need lux shops.

Since you spread out your city, you need more of everything than a tight single-location city needs.

Some people like to just do the minimum to win a mission & do things in turn. I like to be able to do everything at once, complete everything on the World Map & do it quckly. This means lots of Nobles/farms/Assessing Scribes & a HUGE military. :D

[MarkDuffy]

Howdy again, Tar-palantir!

Well, I just had an Oh-MY-God moment! :eek:

I usually approach a player's game save trying to change as little as I can. After my last post, I went back to your original save & did my thing to your city with no holds barred.

Weeeeell...

Along the way, I did what I usually do ... lots of Barge Landings ... after bricks & food.

Guess what?

Yup, your stele disappeared!

I forgot the thing I usually check!

Barge Landings are very weird thingies. They work for some of the things they are supposed to, but to get them to TOTALLY work, they must stick out into DEEP water. Especially barge transport of statues, obelisks & steles within your city across the river.

First image is yours. Second is the one I added. Change nothing but add the second landing & your stele will get built. Note the laborer in the display hauling a stele. Sorry! :eek:

I am attaching my save of the changes I made to your city. The siege of Baris is underway (note reserve amounts). I have moved all your farmers to two locations, built 2 large mastabas for Pharaoh death, added a bunch of hospitals, 6 Nobles plus a bunch of shops, doubled your bakeries & upped your military (but not done yet). I have two schools/educate Priests working to get you outta the graduate crisis. I am building statues for more prestige next to the basalt quary. I also added a LOT of brickmakers/papyrus makers. Probably some other stuff, but I can't remember.

Continuing the Siege upkeep will defeat the Baris Fort (so I've been told). I've always done it with brute force directly (with some Siege). ;)

I really wanted to totally destroy your satellite camps, but left them cuz you wanted them. ;)

I have not done anything to religion. Many (or wuz it moderate?) Red Alert; ignore it. Oh, this is after the victory screen. Victory happened as soon as I added more Nobles.

PS You have no villagers left! :D

This is my first game save upload. Hope it works!

[tar-palantir]

Ok, I tried the barge landing in the place you suggested and it worked! The Stele was built quite shortly afterward. I guess the deep water issue is important.

I also followed everyone's advice and killed all the foreign adventures I was financing and it worked. Food! :D

I put a few more nobles but did nothing else really and it worked, I got the victory screen. Thanks everyone!

[MarkDuffy]

I put a few more nobles but did nothing else really and it worked, I got the victory screen. Thanks everyone!

You had one Noble stuck on less than max evolution. You needed 6 at max. Adding more was what got you your 6th.

The mission called for 6 & you placed only 6. There will always be a straggler. ;)

Congratulations! :)

[tar-palantir]

The pity is that I started this a little late - it seems that all the enthusiasts have gone on to greener pastures as there is little new scenario development for the game. Too bad - I really like this little game.

[tar-palantir]

Hi Mark;

I looked at the save you made. From what I see you are someone who likes to build fast! ;)

You put a lot of little easy to build prestige items near the quarries (at least the west one IIRC) and are building effectively a city near each quarry for better services. I tried to avoid doing this but it seems that your approach will lead to a lot better health and other dissatisfaction ratings.

What you said about needing more labourers seems to be proven correct in the next game I started, Akhetaten - I was trying to quarry regular and fine limestone, build a pyramid and mine gold. No luck with 4 overseers and 26 labourers - they simply ignored the command to build a pyramid until I cut things down a lot in terms of simultaneous projects. Took a few years (game time!:rolleyes: ) to figure out what was wrong.

My style of play is usually slow going and I have a feeling you probably get better results with the way you play.

Thanks for the save!

[MarkDuffy]

lol. Yeah, Tar-palantir, I DO like to build fast! :D

You get a lot of prestige from the first of each statue & less for the second of each. Placing one of each is one of my tricks for a prestige boost, along with mastabas for Pharaoh death. It means you need a lotta bricks. My standard is 20 brickmakers & 10 layers.

Remote sites need health & shops. Health means apothecary AND hospital. An apothecary by itself is NOT enough. Take care of health & you can almost ignore religion, cuz health is more important. You get momentary religion Red Alerts on your Administration Report, but you can ignore them. Priests need papyrus. This is why I usually don't build remote sites. They need too much.

When you put an Overseer on quary limestone, everything changes. The game just loves to quary limestone! :D Remember to count the blocks INSIDE the quary. Only the ones outside the quary on sleds show in the Resource Report count, but your laborers will still wanna haul the rest out before you will be able to do other stuff, effectively.

Naw, slow play works just as well. It just takes longer & you don't run outta villagers! ;) By the time I run outta villagers, my city is pretty well done. Lots of food & farmers. Childbirth comes mainly from farmers & I can still keep populating my new-builds. The only thing left will be military & you don't need villagers to populate soldier's tents. It happenz by COTN magic! :D :eek: :D

Happy gaming, my friend! :)

[tar-palantir]

lol. Yeah, Tar-palantir, I DO like to build fast! :D

You get a lot of prestige from the first of each statue & less for the second of each. Placing one of each is one of my tricks for a prestige boost, along with mastabas for Pharaoh death. It means you need a lotta bricks. My standard is 20 brickmakers & 10 layers.

Remote sites need health & shops. Health means apothecary AND hospital. An apothecary by itself is NOT enough. Take care of health & you can almost ignore religion, cuz health is more important. You get momentary religion Red Alerts on your Administration Report, but you can ignore them. Priests need papyrus. This is why I usually don't build remote sites. They need too much.

When you put an Overseer on quary limestone, everything changes. The game just loves to quary limestone! :D Remember to count the blocks INSIDE the quary. Only the ones outside the quary on sleds show in the Resource Report count, but your laborers will still wanna haul the rest out before you will be able to do other stuff, effectively.

Naw, slow play works just as well. It just takes longer & you don't run outta villagers! ;) By the time I run outta villagers, my city is pretty well done. Lots of food & farmers. Childbirth comes mainly from farmers & I can still keep populating my new-builds. The only thing left will be military & you don't need villagers to populate soldier's tents. It happenz by COTN magic! :D :eek: :D

Happy gaming, my friend! :)

Your posts are filled with hidden gems!:D

I had no idea that duplicate statues would have less prestige. Shows how much I should be paying attention to certain things. :rolleyes:

I just discovered yesterday that issue with the resource report not showing the limestone blocks in the quarry. You confirmed it now. Cool - I'm not totally oblivious.

And I had no idea that soldiers were beamed from the USS Enterprise NCC 1701 :D

I'm used to playing SimCity 4 (by no means an expert). There if you go postal and plop lots, buildings and roads like mad you will have no money and things simply will not all "grow" at once. In CotN it seems like at the get go I could put 10 nobles and all the farmers and other infrastructure and it would at least to some degree be workable. So I'm used to taking it very slowly. In Akhetaten there is probably no reason why I should be limiting myself to 12 nobles right now - especially since I want to get the 5000 food I need to open a World Level site and still be able to feed my CotNites. I have to drop some preconceptions from other games.

On the other hand, while I find other players make much more beautiful cities, I am deliberately trying to avoid the master-plan designs that have everything worked out and planned ahead of time. I am trying to grow my cities as (I believe) they would - slowly, with gradual adding on over time of all aspects of the culture. Here I think my SimCity 4 experience is standing me in good stead as I think while my cities are not particularly pretty, they might look fairly believable as a place where real people have been living for several generations.

This game offers so much and it's neat that it can be satisfying for the slow-growers as well as the quick-to-the-megapolis builders and not break down for either.