Caralis completed

[Keith]

I just completed playing Caralis successfully. I made two attempts at it. The first time I built too many pleb housing units and not enough patrician domus. This time I made a conscious effort to keep the entire population lower than my prvevous 7,000 and made sure that patrician housing was the largest majority of housing types. This wasn't easy and I used almost all buildable space. However I managed to win this one this afternoon. Below are the screenshots I made of my successful build of Caralis. I hope you find them useful.

[Keith]

more pics

[ZiRo]

Nice screenshots...

[Zamolxes]

Man oh man, u squeeze 11 estates, i managed only 9. Wow and towers all around the city. That will suck some pleb workforce hehe. Very nice pics!

[bexgames]

Keith, that's a smooth looking city, It looks like you've done this so many times before. Most posted cities look like we're still experimenting (especially mine...lol) but yours looks very nice, like you've had the game for years.
Well done Keith.

[Keith]

There's actually 15 Large Estates, and 11 Large Domus at maximum level.

It was my second attempt at Caralis. I had another city that I got up around 7,000 in population but the layout was wrong and there were too many insulae and not enough equites and patrician housing. I could never get the prosperity in that one above 42. I was happy with the way this turned out.

I'm just about to wrap up Corinth. I only need two more prosperity points to finish that one up.

[cerulean blue]

I have done everything including give myself 100,000 dn to start..i cannot keep up with Rome's demands and my peoples happiness...im gonna throw the towel in...

unless people have suggestions?


How do you do it?

[Keith]

You have to get your industry up soon with enough workers. Pottery, clothes making, wine making, etc. You also want get some farms for food in place. I started making a lot of pottery so I could export it and import some iron for weapons to fight off the barbarian attacks and build some walls.

When a request or demand comes in go to the resource advisor menu and click on the trade/storge button and put a check mark in the box next to the requested or demanded item to put it on stockpile. Have at least one or two warehouse setup and make sure it accepts enough of the item you'll need to send.

I usually haver several warehouses just accepting the output of my factories to build up a ready supply for the demands and requests as they come in.

Once you have enough dispatch the item and then uncheck the box on the resource advisor trade/storage menu.

[PhilL]

WOW lots of pretty 7000 population guess you needed lots of trade to pay for all that pretty. I c you use the disconnected tower kinda defeats the requirement though. roads shouldnt be a requirement anyway they can walk the walls to get there from the gate house.

[Plebus]

Hi Keith,Nice city!

You forgot one thing:forum.Without law survice your villa will stuck at small estate level.Large estate is the highest possible level in this city,and you can reach about 70 prosperity with 8 or 9 large estates.

[Keith]

Phil, the pics are from my second city which has a smaller population of 4860. The first attempt I made at Caralis had 7000. It was too big, and unable to feed itself. I could never get the prosperity up over 42 because of the constant food shortages.

Plebus, yeah, I know. I decided I didn't need it and it's a large building that takes up a lot of space. So I decided to do it with just small estates. There is a big enough spot behind the governors home if I delete the hedgerow and statue there. You definitely need it in cities with higher prosperity rating requirements though. I just tried putting the forum in that spot and all the small estates evolved raising the prosperity rating to 63.

[kentv999]

This is the great thing about this game. So many different approach possiblities. disclaimer: I haven't won this level yet! But I decided *not* to build military (mainly because of the **stupid** message at the beginning saying you didn't need it..) and with the export/import balance was able to keep very good cash flow coming in and was able to just buy off @ 1500/intrusion.

Questions:
1) But I am having problem with Prosperity. I've built 25 villas, but STILL can't get there... granted due to my poor planning most have not fully evolved. 37 has been the highest Prosperity rating I've achieved (my first try).

2) Security: Mine finally got above the goal with some "pieces" of wall scattered about. Has anyone figured out the strategy regarding Walls? Seems very expensive & takes up valuable land. I didn't do the math, but I've played this scenario for ~380 months, but I think I've only paid off the barbarians maybe 4 times... so maybe 6000 total. Is the trade off worth it? In particular considering the land lost on this small map?

3) Forum: Ouch. This bad boy is just too big. I ended up doing some major renovations to make space for these around my two clusters of Villa's, but due to my positioning it had minor impact. I would have rather have left the space for equite housing.

So this have been a critical learning level for me... I've got to sit down and play with some layouts so I can better plan for the Villas sections.

KentV999

[Keith]

The trick is to use enough housing to fill the jobs by making that housing evolve to higher levels. Equite and Patrician housing won't evolved to the highest and higher levels unless you complete a wall around your city, this will help with the prosperity rating and allow more people to move into equties domus. Having a forum, as pointed out, will allow the patrician housing to evolve to large estates and that will also help raise your prosperity rating.

[Keith]

This is my second pass through the Republic campaign and Caralis. I've learned a few things since my first attempt at the top of the thread. Although walls are not really required I built them anyway. I managed to complete Caralis with a much smaller population and fewer patricial level houses this time through.

[Bestia Preclarus]

Originally Posted by Keith

I started making a lot of pottery so I could export it and import some iron for weapons to fight off the barbarian attacks and build some walls.

Originally Posted by kentv999

I haven't won this level yet! But I decided *not* to build military (mainly because of the **stupid** message at the beginning saying you didn't need it..)

I'm just about to start this one. Do the above quotes mean that we were lied to, and barbarian trouble is assured?

[Keith]

The barbarian attacks in Caralis can be easily handled by one cohort of heavy infantry, so walls really aren't needed.

Or you can build some fortress of walls and towers in the area in which they arrive and hope that the the barbarians get wiped out before they start to move and leave the mopping up to prefects.

[AEster]

Originally Posted by Keith

Equite and Patrician housing won't evolved to the highest and higher levels unless you complete a wall around your city, this will help with the prosperity rating

I've used this almost at the end of the game and......................won
My city's doest look so nice as yours. I find it difficult to plan a city in the beginning.

[LadyCrimson]

I replayed this one on-line a bit ago. Was kind of fun to try something different than before - I certainly did a better job than the first time, as well. This is one of those cases where the ratings requirements are low enough I can be fairly tidy for my style, but nowhere near as cool as Keith's city. Keith always has the neatest screenshots. Me, when I take screens, I think it looks cool in-game and but then I open it up and it looks terrible...lol. I wish the camera would top-down zoom out more...

P.S. you can also bribe the weak enemy if you don't like military stuff.

[Keith]

Originally Posted by AEster

I've used this almost at the end of the game and......................won
My city's doest look so nice as yours. I find it difficult to plan a city in the beginning.

I don't plan cities out beforehand. I just start building and follow a basic outline, but it's not rigid. None of my cities is a duplicate of any of the others.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Mine aren't either...when I try, I screw it up.