2 ms·

Well, the key to these games is to "not solve every problem" for the players, but only to "solve the tedious problems" for the players. You could build very go

Well, the key to these games is to "not solve every problem" for the players, but only to "solve the tedious problems" for the players. You could build very good blocks in Caesar III with consistent services. However, it meant that you couldn't have _ANY_ forks in the road at all, and that all of your blocks would be giant loops. By adding roadblocks (ie: Pharaoh), you can suddenly have as many forks in the road as you like. For different sized blocks. Expanding the kinds of "block designs" that are optimal for the game is probably a good thing. Base CaesarIII is too restrictive IMO. -------- "Running out of resources" locally is solved through warehouse management. I'd argue that this is the "fun" part of the game. Each warehouse + marketplace only can serve as many homes / houses as they can reliably pull supplies. For something like pottery, that is: 1. Clay Pits 2. Pottery furnace 3. Warehouse 4. + Additional Warehouses throughout the city for a good distribution network. Possibly augmented with foreign trade / docks. 5. Marketplaces 6. The final delivery to the house. Yes, the Marketplaces, and even warehouses, have limited "throughput" and can only serve a finite number of houses. After that, you must expand by building "parallel marketplaces". Eventually, you build too many marketplaces and the Warehouse cart-pusher is overloaded with work, so you need additional warehouses to expand that bottleneck. Etc. etc. IE: This problem is "reserved for the player to solve". The game shouldn't solve it for you, otherwise it wouldn't be a game anymore. Deciding "which bits" of the game to solve vs leave to the player to solve is the fundamental question of game design: what is fun anyway?

YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
You're saying it's part of the challenge to build an efficient neihgbourhood, and I agree but it detracts from the charm of the game to see a neighbourhood oscillating wildly between house levels. At that point, for me anyway, the game's behaviour goes beyond "a challenge" to "an annoyance". Now that I remember it, my solution was rather to keep some neighbourhoods deliberately low-level so that my city had enough working hands, even if some of them weren't living in luxury. It meant I could keep their houses provisioned much more easily to stay at a middle level, even if I had to build more of them. So I created an underclass, in short. In Emperor, the distinction between citizen class was part of the rules of the game. Another solution is to do more or less what you and ufo below say: break up the city in small enough blocks with enough close-by service buildings that they won't run out. But that takes up a lot of space and the need for warehouses in close proximity tends to depress the land value of plots, which again hampers development. But that's OK, I agree that overcoming that sort of challenge is part of the fun of the game. Although I mainly played those games because I loved seeing a pretty ancient city filled with simulated people going about their life run on my machine :) If you like that sort of challenge in a game (where to place distinct production units in a predetermined space with limited options) then you might enjoy the game Slipways: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1264280/Slipways/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1264280/Slipways/ Nothing to do with ancient cities, or city building, but for me at least it scratches the same itch of micromanaging as playing Cesar III sometimes did.

YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago

You're saying it's part of the challenge to build an efficient neihgbourhood, and I agree but it detracts from the charm of the game to see a neighbourhood oscillating wildly between house levels. At that point, for me anyway, the game's behaviour goes beyond "a challenge" to "an annoyance". Now that I remember it, my solution was rather to keep some neighbourhoods deliberately low-level so that my city had enough working hands, even if some of them weren't living in luxury. It meant I could keep their houses provisioned much more easily to stay at a middle level, even if I had to build more of them. So I created an underclass, in short. In Emperor, the distinction between citizen class was part of the rules of the game. Another solution is to do more or less what you and ufo below say: break up the city in small enough blocks with enough close-by service buildings that they won't run out. But that takes up a lot of space and the need for warehouses in close proximity tends to depress the land value of plots, which again hampers development. But that's OK, I agree that overcoming that sort of challenge is part of the fun of the game. Although I mainly played those games because I loved seeing a pretty ancient city filled with simulated people going about their life run on my machine :) If you like that sort of challenge in a game (where to place distinct production units in a predetermined space with limited options) then you might enjoy the game Slipways: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1264280/Slipways/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1264280/Slipways/ Nothing to do with ancient cities, or city building, but for me at least it scratches the same itch of micromanaging as playing Cesar III sometimes did.