Wandering Priest

[ReedOfAmun]

I have noticed something strange with priest who are set to provide all services in a large town. The priest's apartment is at one end of the town, near common and luxury goods (which are well stocked). In addition, to his apartment's right is a hospital and to this left is a school. Across the street from his apartment is a baker (who is baking bread and has it in stock).

The priest, goes out for bread, marches right past the local bakery and travels to the other side of town, where he wanders around looking for a bakery. :eek: While he is out, he stops into several other facilities ( a hospital, a mortuary, and a shrine) in that order to provide services. The hospital and the shrine have a priest on duty, while the mortuary's attendant has gone home. All the while this wandering priest is working, his satisfaction is getting lower because he has no bread or goods. In addition, the nobles near his apartment are protesting the fact the hospital is not open and generally shaking their fists at my palace.

I have seen this priest do this several times. He comes home, walks right past the bakery and empty facilities, sits at home reading his paper, then goes back out and does it all over again.

Very weird. Any one else seeing this? I have applied the patch.

[magnum]

I believe this is normal, if they want to shop baskets and the only shop with it is on the other side of the city they walk to it even if a closer shop gets baskets before they pass it.
This make it’s better to have all shops in the center of the city at least until you get enough shops so they don’t run empty often.

One other thing is that if someone wants to shop something and the shop run out, they often start going home and then turn again then the shop is filled up.

How many common shops are right for a population and how many is supportable?

It doesn’t look like distance to raw materials mater much, I have only played the demo but it looked like the distance has to be long to make problems?

Is there some info about this?

[Heresy]

Seen it happen. Usually I put the priest at the end of a row of buildings. It doesnt matter whether they are temples, healthcare, or the school and mortuary. He stops to help whatever is closet to him most of the time. Atleast he seems to. But I also have several others set to specific tasks.
But yeah... I have seen the wondering. But he always fixes his issues.

[Gordon Farrell]

Check his family history, cuz it sounds like his mother was a market lady from Caesar III!

[ReedOfAmun]

The city is pretty mature (the scenario is Men-nefer and the great pyramid is at 62% complete). I think you are right about the placement of the shops.

I have started this game with a cluster of shops (one set of common and one set of luxury) in the center of town, with space to add a second row. The nobles and support buildings go around that cluster. It seems to work pretty well when you start off. The second addition of shops went ok or maybe I just missed this behaviour since I was concentrating on the pyramid. But when I added the third row of shops, the wandering priest stuff started! :(

It does seem to straighten itself out for the priest, but the nobles at his end of town are still unhappy about the lack of health care. As a result of this, the two closes town houses to the priest go vacant, which results in a loss of farmers, which then leads to a loss of food, and then rampant illness, and then .... :eek: well... you get the picture.

For the right quantity of shops I have not seen any thing written, just what others are saying and what I have seen in playing. What I have seen is that at first the shops have little goods, but as time goes on they pick up steam and have lots of goods. It also seems to be that the close ratio of 2 sets of common shops to 1 luxury near your nobles works pretty good. I guess the way to tell which shops are doing best is see which shop keepers are the wealthest. I also add a merchant center between the first and second group of shops, so the merchants can sell off surplus goods.

And yeah... I bet his momma is the market lady in Ceaser III!

[Maatkaamun]

This make it’s better to have all shops in the center of the city at least until you get enough shops so they don’t run empty often.

Well, I always distribute my shops (in clusters) around the city, but it's my priests that I place very close to the center of my town, between the nobles and the farmers/craftmen.

Also, I find that my priests make poor decisions when I allow them to "work all jobs".

Across the street from his apartment is a baker (who is baking bread and has it in stock).

The priest, goes out for bread, marches right past the local bakery and travels to the other side of town, where he wanders around looking for a bakery.

If the bakery has fewer than 10 food, I recall the devs saying that people won't go there, but will try elsewhere. If your bakery is constantly low on bread (1st number in the pair), then you may need another bakery. Did the priest head towards another bakery at the far end of town, or did he want bread, not be able to get it, get disatisfied, then go back to work?

[Maatkaamun]

How many common shops are right for a population and how many is supportable?

It doesn’t look like distance to raw materials mater much, I have only played the demo but it looked like the distance has to be long to make problems?

Is there some info about this?

The number of common shops depends very much on the structure of your city, how far they are from natural resources, and how much other stuff the shopkeepers are occupied with (walking to healthcare, walking to worship, etc). As a *very general* rule of thumb, I have one 4-cluster of common shops per 30 farmers (roughly), and one 4-cluster per 8-10 nobles/elite. I rarely need more than 2 6-clusters of luxury shops in a 16-20 noble/elite city. If I have more than 4 merchants regularly visiting, I may add a few more single luxury shops to puck up the slack.

Distance from resources certainly makes some difference, but not nearly as much as distance from facilities (worship, healthcare, etc). Distance from resources makes a little bit more difference for lux shopkeepers, since they have to gather their own resources, but that's when you add servants.

Hope these two posts help. :D

[ReedOfAmun]

Well, I always distribute my shops (in clusters) around the city, but it's my priests that I place very close to the center of my town, between the nobles and the farmers/craftmen.

Also, I find that my priests make poor decisions when I allow them to "work all jobs".



If the bakery has fewer than 10 food, I recall the devs saying that people won't go there, but will try elsewhere. If your bakery is constantly low on bread (1st number in the pair), then you may need another bakery. Did the priest head towards another bakery at the far end of town, or did he want bread, not be able to get it, get disatisfied, then go back to work?


I would have to say that he probably went looking for bread, could not find it, then went to work. I wasn't aware that if a bakery had less than 10 loaves that it would not be used.

The only bakery that has a low volume of usuage is the one at the labourer's camp near the pyramid site. But that is showing 30 loaves and climbing as it should. People are dropping by to pick up bread, though as they should.

Generally speaking I cluster the shops in the center, with the priests and facilities on the outer edge with nobles in between the shops and priests. I will have to try it the way you described and see how it works. Thanks! :D