Forum Novum - a market centre in the Sabine Hills

[DoctorG]

For your consideration: 'Forum Novum'.

I worked there on excavation once, and I've always been fascinated by the place. It is located up in the Sabine Hills, north of Rome. More about Forum Novum here, and a google map centred on the ancient site here.

The reason I built this scenario is to help in my teaching. I want to use Caesar IV as a simulation to explore Roman economics. The idea is, I'll get the students to play this scenario, and in playing it, it will highlight/contrast game mechanics with the current understanding of how the Roman economy work (if you think regular economics are dry, you ain't seen nuthin' till you've the ancient version... gaming economics ought to be way more fun for my students!)

The snapshot below shows one of my trial runs of the scenario, trying to play from the start with buildings that are known archaeologically to have existed: an amphitheatre, a forum, a basilica, a temple complex, a largish villa, and a water pool at the end of an aqueduct arriving from the mountains. Notice the lack of houses - it seems that, in real life, the people of Forum Novum lived up in the hills and only came down on market days.

The task for the student is to try to make a faithful recreation of Forum Novum work in the game - and so highlight the contrasts between the game's economics and actual Roman economics... or to reject that entirely and make a town that works from the game's point of view - and so highlighting the same contrasts, which ultimately will help the student's grasp of Roman economic history.

Ideally.

postscript, March 3rd: word to the wise, keep your folders sorted. I mistakenly uploaded the wrong version of this scenario. The current version should work without any crashes. Apologies to those who downloaded the buggy version.

[Tinkerbell]

No replies, but a lot of downloads here, DoctorG. So I thought I'd give your Forum Novum a go & a post in your lonely thread...

I loved the difficult terrain & all the HUGE Requests/Demands from Caesar. Only four Exotic Goods available, so Prosperity isn't 100, and I ran outta room to do more with Culture w/o ripping down a bunch of buildings.

These images are from later on Continue Play. The Win was at 4y3m.

I Loved it. Thank You!

and thankx also for the You Cheated Win Screen

[Jahzoo]

Thank you DoctorG!
I took many anthropology/archeology courses in University – my major was Biology, and I did think that anth and arch were a great complement to that. I have always wanted to design or at least play a scenario that is true to the real life of the locals. I have just downloaded your scenario and look forward to playing it

[Jahzoo]

I did restart once I realized that I wasn't set up to meet Rome's massive requests. But think I did well...Thanks for the fun