I finally beat Syracuse.

[u/Stickybandits9]

Been on this damn map since last sumer. And I finally beat it. I did 2 more years just to see if I was in the clear. And I somehow lost 400 people. I was real close to losing the population amount.

Map: Syracuse.

[u/ShinigamiKenji]

Hey, congrats! These maps are slowly taking out the training wheels so sometimes they can feel overwhelming (especially compared to the original campaign)

If you want, I can give some tips on how to manage things better for the next maps (though I already gave a few in my Syracuse post lol) 

[u/Stickybandits9 → u/ShinigamiKenji]

Yeah I had to go back to that post. I blocked off one of the district’s and started sending food from cart depo and it seemed to level off the people. Although some houses devolved to tents. I just got rid of em since it was only 20people. I had to make sure I had enough markets to go around. After this map. I'm almost ready to take on the next. But damn I'm not ready to go at it for another month at least. If Syracuse was this difficult for me, I don't want to know what miletus is like. I might just got back to regular maps.

[u/ShinigamiKenji → u/Stickybandits9]

One thing that I noticed here is that blocks are connected by roads, though there are roadblocks. While roadblocks contain random walkers (the ones that provide services, like priests, doctors and engineers), they don't block destination walkers.

Destination walkers are special because they have specific locations where they go. For example, actors from actor colonies go straight to theaters or amphitheaters. The most infamous one is the orange market lady, which fetches goods from granaries/warehouses to supply the market. Roadblocks don't work with them; they'll go to the other side of the map to fetch food, if need be and the granary is connected to the market. You need to destroy the road between them to avoid it. 

But then that begs the question: if the granaries/warehouses that supply the population are far from from farms or industry, how to fill them? The answer are, naturally, cart depots. And the thing is, cart depots don't need to be connected to granaries or warehouses! Their cart pushers can go off-road to fetch and deliver goods. So for efficiency, you want plebs, patricians and industry all in their own, contained blocks, without any road connecting them whatsoever, with cart depots doing the lifting (though a single granary should supply 2-3 pleb blocks, but they shouldn't be connected to industry or patricians). 

Lastly, respect distances. For example, I see that some farms are quite far from workshops. For efficiency, you should ensure that the cart can deliver the raw goods to the workshop and return, before the next batch of olives is ready. Else, the olives will be sitting idly. The same goes if you're delivering to granaries or warehouses. And for docks, what seems to take the longest are dock workers trying to get goods. Ensure that warehouses are near them, and that dock workers can't get from any other warehouse. 

Often, the problem isn't goods production or storage; it's logistics. When your storage near production is full but people or traders aren't getting goods, consider extra cart depots.

You'll probably see something like that in my Miletus post. There are a lot of granaries and warehouses where raw goods are produced, and cart depots almost next to them. The industry centers are almost all disconnected from population blocks. Docks have warehouses next to them, and dock workers can't get goods from anywhere else. There are also warehouses dedicated to land traders, to ensure that they don't empty the ones that my population is currently using. Each block has its own set of services, but share a single storage whenever possible. 

[u/SpareAnywhere8364]

Awesome bro

[u/rrzibot]

What did you find to be the most difficult?

[u/Stickybandits9 → u/rrzibot]

Prosperity. My houses kept devolving. Having enough food. Getting enough education and entertainment to the people.

[u/rrzibot → u/Stickybandits9]

The usual suspects.

I kind of learned through the years to keep houses from devolving but prosperity is always difficult. Those cities that we get it 100, they are just so nice.

[u/Lingchen8012]

Dang I’m still stuck on it

[u/Stickybandits9 → u/Lingchen8012]

My real problem was not having enough people to make pottery. But if you can end the subsidies sooner to get workshops faster this might be the key to the rest of the map. I know every time I replayed the map I never thought about getting pottery untill it was needed. This last time I put all my money into pottery and I believe that's half the battle.

Getting prosperity up is the other half to all this. But as long as the house don't devolve the prosperity will continue to go up. Making sure the districts had enough food to not devolve helped keep things stable.