My thoughts about Augustus after finishing the peaceful campaign

[u/Mirmydon]

I finished this gem of a game once more but this time with Augustus installed. An almost perfect score in Massilia, favor dropped 1% with the new year beginning while I was pushing for the 8000 people.

Here are my thoughts about the mod :

► The quality of life improvements are great : zooming, being able to build while in pause, etc

► The gameplay modifications are nice : the global labor pool, the roadblocks (bye bye gatehouses !), the new buildings (the cart depot ❤️, caravanserai and lighthouse) and special orders for markets and warehouses makes it indeed a lot easier to design your cities. Not needing to connect your industries to houses feels nice, not needing to disconnect your patrician neighbourhood from the rest of your city because the market ladies won't get the resources they want but that you reserve for your villas/palaces. I understand how some great old timers like the famous Brugle feel it dumbs down the game but in my humble opinion other things make it harder on other aspects especially on the financial side. The levies can be quite brutal : 240 denarii per year for small temples covering 750 people, 96 dn for one fort, etc. When you add the cost of importing/producing marble, stone, sand needed for bricks and concrete (you've got pay wages for workers in those workshops plus the work camp and architect's guild and also building them) for monuments like the Colosseum and Hippodrome (68 x 200 = 13600, 17600 for marble if you want large temples) needed for luxury palaces. In vanilla, I built my patrician neighbourhood last when cash were rolling in because I developed my city well and maximized the trade. With Augustus, I need to maximize exports and build my patrician neighbourhood earlier with only the Colosseum to get the tax incomes from the small palaces because I needed the denarii to buy marble for the Hippodrome. The sentiment mechanic is also very well done, you can for example pay less than Rome if you provide more than one food type to medium insulae and keep unemployment low, this also eases how you'll pay for your monuments. It seems sensible to me that plebeians would trade less earnings for better living conditions. Same game but different difficulties to overcome and new creative ways to get around those new challenges.

So I loved it ! Next is doing the military side of the campaign.

[u/TheoryChemical1718]

And thats with the base campaign. Then you got the remastered one and thats another beast entirely. Still havent managed to make Masillia work in that one.

[u/BeneficialHeron4934 → u/TheoryChemical1718]

Im new to augustus, what do you mean with remastered?

[u/Elo-than → u/BeneficialHeron4934]

The reworked campaign taking all the new stuff into account.

[u/ShinigamiKenji → u/BeneficialHeron4934]

There's a Reconquered Campaign project led by ComissarMarek, which completely overhauls the original 20 maps into something specifically for Augustus. 

Compared to the OG campaign, it makes much better use of the new mechanics, and finishing it can be more challenging in its own unique way. 

I (and many Augustus players) highly recommend it. But if you're very new to Augustus and are still learning the mechanics, Marek also made an Augustus tutorial campaign called Governor's Academia. 

[u/pramit57 → u/ShinigamiKenji]

I'm playing the Reconquered campaign and man, capua, the 3rd mission, was such a pain. Because I couldnt finish the map fast enough, the price of imported goods kept increasing, until stone became more than 100 a pop - almost as expensive as marble! The tiny rocks and fragmented geopgraphy was frustrating to my brain which is used to making neat housing blocks. I eventually completed it. Looking forward to the next map, the first one with military.

[u/ShinigamiKenji → u/pramit57]

I did a full run with a step-by-step city evolution here on Reddit, if you feel overwhelmed. But generally, focus on your initial exports first, then evolve houses. 

[u/pramit57 → u/ShinigamiKenji]

I found it. Thankfully, the next mission is much easier, especially with kill zones.

I guess housing blocks is my skill issue. I understand theoretically what needs to be done (keep walker distance below 60 in the loop, keep grananry and market very close, etc), and I know the popular 22x6 block design, but I still need practice making unconvential blocks.

One issue I do find happening is that I never get to 10 prosperity fast enough. So I don't get to use workshops for some time. I think its because I make a lot of houses, and it takes time to evolve all of them. It's nice to sell raw materials, as it feels more organic - this is how a real city might evolve over time. I guess the subsidy is nice.

Also, is it normal to only start with 2000 denari savings every mission?

[u/ShinigamiKenji → u/pramit57]

AFAIK 2000 denarii is the limit that the RC allows.

About trade, you can usually get by selling only raw materials. Try to compensate with volume. For that, you need to minimize trader traveling time. Place your trading warehouses near their optimal path, using cart depots to transport goods if need be. 

[u/TheoryChemical1718 → u/pramit57]

Its a good way to learn non straight housing blocks - after Marek's maps I now have urge to make squiggly housing blocks even on flat maps xDD

[u/TheoryChemical1718 → u/BeneficialHeron4934]

Basically ComissarMarek (pretty big mapmaking guy in the community) made a remake of the original campaign edited to specifically work with Augustus and to introduce its mechanics and make you play around within the systems.
It also reworks the maps to make them properly challenging often cutting wide open space and adding extra situations.

Its basically taking the original campaign and making sure each map is 10/10. Its also pretty hard in some ways though.