Scenario - Syracuse

[defjam]

first off I'll apologize if i get any terms wrong. this is my first Caeser and I like it so far. Ok here it goes

I'm on Syracuse - the one where you have to gather enought resources to please ROME! that means grains, clothing etc etc etc. I figured some things out on my own - others I'm having trouble with.

First and foremost - I don't like the Prosperity rating - not sure how's it calculated but I know it invovles evolving Small Villas. Once i get my prosperity past what - 40 for this scenario to get to the next scenario. Now my question is does anyone know the calculations for determing Prosperity? also once a villa evolves - what does "will evolve with desirabilty" mean? like creating theaters and libraries near there? or does it mean my villa needs to be demolished and moved to a semi-urban locale? is that what that means?


also related to first question, anyone know the ratio from Plebs to Equites to Patricians for success? for example I'm thinking let's say 6 Plebs to 3 Equites to 1 Patrician? does that make sense?

also in same scenario - should i just concentrate on the resources and not bother with the other stuff like Basic Goods Market, Luxury Market, etc etc etc?

also probably a stupid question but regards to Pump House, Resevoir, and Aqueducts. My memory is a little foggy from lack of coffee at work - But if you have resevoir - the resevoir won't work w/o a pump house and in order ot get water you need an aqueduct to your fountain. Now the map of the scenario is too small in my opinion and you can practically only put 1 Resevoir near the water down the bottom. i've tried putting it in other places on the right side of the map on the scenario but can't do it. Now if your resevoir is within a distance of "your city' i don't think an aqueduct is required? is that right? Becuase i don't like the resevoir, pump house, aqueduct requirement. wish that can get changed.
once again if you reply, thanks

[vic_4]

Originally Posted by defjam

first off I'll apologize if i get any terms wrong. this is my first Caeser and I like it so far. Ok here it goes

I'm on Syracuse - the one where you have to gather enought resources to please ROME! that means grains, clothing etc etc etc. I figured some things out on my own - others I'm having trouble with.

First and foremost - I don't like the Prosperity rating - not sure how's it calculated but I know it invovles evolving Small Villas. Once i get my prosperity past what - 40 for this scenario to get to the next scenario. Now my question is does anyone know the calculations for determing Prosperity? also once a villa evolves - what does "will evolve with desirabilty" mean? like creating theaters and libraries near there? or does it mean my villa needs to be demolished and moved to a semi-urban locale? is that what that means?


also related to first question, anyone know the ratio from Plebs to Equites to Patricians for success? for example I'm thinking let's say 6 Plebs to 3 Equites to 1 Patrician? does that make sense?

also in same scenario - should i just concentrate on the resources and not bother with the other stuff like Basic Goods Market, Luxury Market, etc etc etc?

once again if you reply, thanks

Prosperity is calculated on the basis of the sum of the prosperity of each single house devided the number of houses, there is a thread from Grumpus with all calculations, but I cannot find the link.
Desirability is given by aesthetics, so inyour case it suffices to add plazas over the roads next to patrician houses, theaters, clinics, libraries are services and they are needed to evolve houses.
To my knowledge there is not a fixed ratio for plebs*equites*patricians, it depends on your scenario goals.
basic market is needed to sell basic goods wich you need to evolve pleb houses and to content equites and patricians, luxury markets sell luxury goods which you need to evolve equites and to content patricians.
So in conclusion, to rise prosperity you need to evolve house and to place patricians houses and evolve them.

[Afro Thunder]

"Will evolve with Desirability" means that the house will evolve when you make the region look pretty by adding hedgerows, gardens, statues, and plazas around the area. That's the best way to improve the desirability of an area. Oh, and don't put your houses right next to factories. That's a big no-no. To see how desirable an area is, simply go Overlays -> Desirability.

[greyhoundbus]

Originally Posted by defjam

First and foremost - I don't like the Prosperity rating - not sure how's it calculated but I know it invovles evolving Small Villas. Once i get my prosperity past what - 40 for this scenario to get to the next scenario. Now my question is does anyone know the calculations for determing Prosperity? also once a villa evolves - what does "will evolve with desirabilty" mean? like creating theaters and libraries near there? or does it mean my villa needs to be demolished and moved to a semi-urban locale? is that what that means?

The prosperity rating is determined primarily by the quality of your Patrician's housing. Everything else contributes a litte, I think (and not being in debt definitely helps), but when it's time to get my prosperity up (which is usually the last thing I work on), I start building villas and giving those Patricians everything they want. Like everybody said, "Evolve with desirability" means you need to pretty up the area around the Patrician's homes a bit. I personally like to leave just enough space between adjacent villas for single rows of large trees and then put plazas on all the surrounding roads. That's enough desirability to satisfy Patricians all the way to max level. After that all you need to do is provide them with services/goods as they demand.

You don't need a ton of Patricians to get the required prosperity rating as long as you work at evolving them.... 6-8 villas should be more than enough.

Originally Posted by defjam

also related to first question, anyone know the ratio from Plebs to Equites to Patricians for success? for example I'm thinking let's say 6 Plebs to 3 Equites to 1 Patrician? does that make sense?

That's a tough one to answer... I think it does depend on the scenario. That ratio doesn't sound too bad, though I think I typically have a higher ratio of Plebs and Equites than that. I think mine usually comes out at around 10-5-1.

Originally Posted by defjam

also in same scenario - should i just concentrate on the resources and not bother with the other stuff like Basic Goods Market, Luxury Market, etc etc etc?

NO. You need more plebs to get the resources to please Rome, and that means you ought to evolve your Plebs housing so you get more immigrants. That means they need Basic goods. You can get more than twice the number of plebs within the same amount of real estate if you evolve all the way up to large insula, so definitely direct some of the workforce to providing basic goods to your plebs. It's worth it.

The reason you don't want to build more housing to get more plebs is that you need to cover all that real estate with more Hygiene/Religion/Prefect/Engineer/etc providers (or people get sick/catch on fire/other hilarious things), and that means you need not just more Plebs but more Equites as well, and then you're gonna have to build more Domuses, which just sucks up more real estate and requires you to build MORE service providers to cover THOSE Domuses... it's a vicious cycle.

Evolving your housing is key to success, because it makes your service providers more efficient. They don't have to walk as many streets to cover everybody. So DEFINITELY provide basic goods and luxuries to your people whenever they need them to evolve. You might be able to get away with unevolved housing in the earlier levels, but you might as well start practising evolving them early on before the later missions start kicking your butt.

Originally Posted by defjam

also probably a stupid question but regards to Pump House, Resevoir, and Aqueducts. My memory is a little foggy from lack of coffee at work - But if you have resevoir - the resevoir won't work w/o a pump house and in order ot get water you need an aqueduct to your fountain.

I'm not sure what you meant by "you need an aqueduct to your fountain." You mean an aqueduct to the reservoir? Once you've placed a pump house somewhere, you can build an aqueduct that extends all the way to the reservoir, which can be anywhere on the map as long as it's not on elevated ground (aqueducts don't go up hills), so space should never be an issue. The area the reservoir covers is prety large, and any fountain within that area will provide clean water to the surrounding homes. You might also need only one reservoir, since if you place it in the middle of all your housing areas, it can provide water to everybody. The reservoir does not have to be right next to Pleb and Equite homes, just close enough to the fountains that provide those homes with water.

[C Franziskus]

Originally Posted by defjam

...

also related to first question, anyone know the ratio from Plebs to Equites to Patricians for success? for example I'm thinking let's say 6 Plebs to 3 Equites to 1 Patrician? does that make sense?

...

Hi,
I think 6-10/4-6 P/E is about right, as for the Partrians, I believe you can add as many as your 'coverage' of services will allow you. What I'm trying to say is, if you have an area where 1 villa is supported to evolve you can add 2,3, whatever more in that 'covered' area - I use the overlays for each service needed to determine additional placement without having to modify/add any more services.

[vic_4]

Originally Posted by greyhoundbus

You don't need a ton of Patricians to get the required prosperity rating as long as you work at evolving them.... 6-8 villas should be more than enough.


That's a tough one to answer... I think it does depend on the scenario. That ratio doesn't sound too bad, though I think I typically have a higher ratio of Plebs and Equites than that. I think mine usually comes out at around 10-5-1.

Number of patricians needed depends a lot on prosperity rquired and to what point you can evolve houses, evolution of plebs and equites influence strongly prosperity both since basic prosperity is 1 and you need more plebs and equites houses to fill positions.

[Zamolxes]

1st: of course prosperity is raported to villas. Humans live in villas, subhumans (plebs, equites, the scourge of civilized world) live in dirty houses! U should always follow this planning to build your city: plebs->maximize export->equites-> patrician services-> patricians. And prosperity relates to quality of housing not the quantity of inhabitants. U can have 10 small villas, 1 grand mansion will offer more prosperity than all those villas.

2nd: always build every single factory and resource that your map can accomodate. If u dont need it for your people, Caesar will generally ask for it anyway, and most of stuff u can export anyway. Generally 4 factories of each type is a good rule of thumb, if u build on grand scale of course, not minimalized. If u want tiny little comunities, i believe Grumpus posted what's the bare bones necesarry for a city.

3rd: that's how the reservoirs use to work in Caesar 3. In C4 they modified it a bit and added the pump house, that basically pumps the water from ground level to the top of aqueduct, and gravity will do the rest. Aqueducts are used to transport water, think of them as transport pipes, while a reservoir comes with DELIVERY pipes, that go from the reservoir all the way to the houses that supplies them.

On other note, I actually praise my reservoirs, which are the heart of the city, as they were in ancient Rome. No water , no population, no population, bye bye Rome. Check Caralis thread for a very nice example of reservoir centered city

[Mitts]

I've just started to play this game.

In this scenerio I need to have security at 10 to proceed. I cannot build any military buildings except walls, towers and gatehouses. I have a prefect building on nearly every corner and have a population of approx. 6000.

Where am I going wrong?

Regards,

[Kylie]

Originally Posted by Mitts

I cannot build any military buildings except walls, towers and gatehouses. I have a prefect building on nearly every corner and have a population of approx. 6000.

Where am I going wrong?

Check your crime level as recent crime reduces your security. High unemployment increases crime. Low education also encourages crime, I believe. If you enclose your city in walls, your security level will rise.

Hope this helps,
Kylie

[Grumpus]

You can find out how prosperity works by going to this site and punching the "city building button.

Once you know how prosperity works, city building becomes much easier because you can figure beforehand how many villas you are going to need in order to meet prosperity goals. Let's say that a scenario requires a population of 5000 and a prosperity rating of 60. Here's how we figure it out.

I start out with the premise that the population will be about 80% plebes and 20% Equites. A fully developed large insula will house 150 plebes and large domi will hold 80 Equites so we start out with

4000/150 = 26.6 = 27 large insula
1000/80 =12,5 = 13 large domi

Now to get a prosperity rating of 60, the 40 houses we have so far must have an average of 60 prosperity points for a total of 2400. If you look at the handy-dandy prosperity chart I've linked to above, you'll see that large insula have prosperity of 25, so 27 would have a total of 27x25 = 675, and large domi with a prosperity of 35 toal out at 13 x 35 = 455. We have a total of 675 + 455 = 1130 prosperity points and we need 2400. We are 1270 points short. 3 Grand Mansions, each with 500 prosperity, would be enough to do it.


Mitts: Syracusae is the first economic level scenario. It's designed to introduce you to the game. For the first few scenarios I suggest that you just concentrate on meeting the goals and then moving on. All you need to win Syracusae is about 8 large insula and 4 medium domiwith a total population of about 1500 . Add a Odeum and a library and you win.

[Recalcitrant Tuna]

I thought I'd piggyback on this thread rather than start another one.

I've just finished this level after using gifts to bribe Caesar as for some reason my trade routes wouldnt work. I had the trade ports laid down, connected to roads, filled with cloth and placed properly. I had them selling in the orders menu, the trade routes active on the empire map but yet there were no ships coming to buy the goods

In the end I finally managed to stay afloat from sales tax and property tax from 4 large villas. Has anyone else had this problem on Syracusae?

[Plebus]

Originally Posted by Recalcitrant Tuna

I thought I'd piggyback on this thread rather than start another one.

I've just finished this level after using gifts to bribe Caesar as for some reason my trade routes wouldnt work. I had the trade ports laid down, connected to roads, filled with cloth and placed properly. I had them selling in the orders menu, the trade routes active on the empire map but yet there were no ships coming to buy the goods

In the end I finally managed to stay afloat from sales tax and property tax from 4 large villas. Has anyone else had this problem on Syracusae?

I guess you loaded a savegame file after opening the trade route in which the trade ship was not on the map,I've met a similar problem in Syracusae,and the fix is to load a savegame before opening the trade route,or a savegame which already have the boat on the map.

That's a bug,very annoying.

[Mich7]

I have a problem completing the first mission of the Republic Campaign.
I already have all the required ratings to complete this mission:
Culture: 15 needed I have 19
Security: 10 needed I have 50
Prosperity: 25 needed I have 25
Favor: 40 needed I have 100
Population: 800 needed I have 3000+
But I still don't get a victory message of completing this mission.
So I can't go any further with the campaign and I hope someone has a solution...

[MarkDuffy]

Welcome to our family, Mich7!

Originally Posted by Mich7

Prosperity: 25 needed I have 25

Ratings displays are rounded & you probably only have something like 24.6 for Prosperity. Get one more Rating point & the Win Screen should follow.

[Mich7]

Originally Posted by MarkDuffy

Welcome to our family, Mich7!



Ratings displays are rounded & you probably only have something like 24.6 for Prosperity. Get one more Rating point & the Win Screen should follow.

thnx I will try to get one more point!

[Twigman]

Originally Posted by Grumpus

All you need to win Syracusae is about 8 large insula and 4 medium domiwith a total population of about 1500 . Add a Odeum and a library and you win.

Not true - well not here at least

[Hermann the Lombard]

Do you have all the other conditions? 8 Large Insulae = 200 points and 4 Medium Domi = 100 points, then 300/12 buildings = 25 Prosperity.