Initiation Walkthrough
By Martinu

Although I was not of course eligible to compete in the Initiation contest, I tried it for fun, and (as usual with a Granite Q map), I found it very enjoyable. Given the substantial number of newcomers who have taken part in a CBC Pharaoh contest for the first time, I thought it might be helpful to describe how I set about the planning and playing of the mission.

Step 1: Preparation.
First a good look around the map, then start my data sheet. On this I record all the available resources (raw materials and industries), types of food and which gods. Then each trade route opened in turn (noting beforehand the cost and whether water/land route) and all available export/import goods and quantities logged.

Step 2: Reconnaissance runthrough.
A rapid run right through to the end of the mission, solely for data gathering purposes. Just a single housing block, some food to evolve it to Cottage level, a bit of production of every industry, and a dock to enable some export income. It is important to fulfill every request during this run, so I save frequently. Then if I can't meet a request on time, I am able to revert to a previous save and try again. I didn't bother with constructing the monument on this run.

The key information gathered from this run was:

· The events schedule, all noted

· Additional land trade routes (Bahariya and Serabit) become available, trade quantities noted

· Jewelers become available when Serabit is opened. This is a designer's trick, to catch the unwary! If a new trade route appears during the game and makes a new raw material available (in this case gems), always check whether the corresponding industry has now appeared on your list of industries you can build. (GQ caught me nicely with this trick in a recent contest!)

· Immigrants enter the map from the NE

· Ships enter the map from the S, so ideally I want the dock down there as well

· A bailout of 1000db is available if needed

· The floods are mostly good, which will help grain production

· The Kingdom Rating was above 80 at the end, way above the mission goal of 45, so certainly won't be a constraint

Step 3: Reread the instructions!
Before going any further, another read of all the instructions, particularly the designer's advice. Also a particular check of the completion criteria (mission goals) - more than one experienced competitor has overlooked one of these before now, and had an otherwise good entry rendered invalid.

Step 4: Decide overall strategy
The designer's advice has already made it clear that the monument can easily be finished in the time allotted. Therefore the leading places in the contest will almost certainly be determined by WC2 (winning criteria 2), and the strategy must therefore be to maximize cash all the way through. There are a lot of export opportunities, which will generate substantial income, and will be the major earner in the early years. However after that taxation has the potential to be the biggest contributor.

Once jewelry becomes available, I can evolve up to Stately Manor. Playing at Easy, a tax rate of at least 20%, and probably up to 25%, can be maintained. A single fully occupied Stately Manor generates tax income of 2790 per year at 25% (Easy level). A block of 17 manors would therefore produce 47,430 per year. I can also take my normal housing up to Fancy Residence, each of which (fully occupied) would generate tax of 690 per year at 25%. A block of 30 of them would therefore produce 20,700.

In comparison, some quick calculations suggest that the most I can get out of exports will be in the 25,000-30,000 region per year.

My overall strategy is now clear. Maximize exports, then push to evolve as many Stately Manors as possible. To achieve this will require packing as many people as possible onto the map.

Time now to reach for the calculator and get down to some detailed planning.

Step 5: Food plan
Map resaved as Initiation_Food, and as many farms and fishing wharves as possible positioned. Since the floods are generally good (and I can go for Osiris blessings if necessary), no need to bother with irrigation ditches. In total I could place about 40 farms and 30 wharves.

With good floods, the farms should feed about 9,000 people. Wharf output depends on the distance to the fishing ground; here most of them are close to the fish and should give me enough to feed at least 500 people per wharf, or 15,000 in total. From my initial study of the map, I reckon I am unlikely to get much above 10,000 people (4 standard housing blocks), so no problem on the food front (I was already planning to give both foods to everyone), and not all the wharves will be needed.

Step 6: Plan export strategy
On paper the export potential is massive: once Bahariya opens, in theory I can sell 8000 wood, 9000 pottery and 5000 papyrus per year. In practice, this clearly isn't going to be possible, for two reasons. Firstly, there doesn't appear to be enough area of wood and particularly reeds to meet this demand once the initial harvest has been stripped. Secondly, one can get only 6 ships per year from each city, so it would be impossible to ship the full amounts to Abedju.

Since wood is the most profitable commodity, as well as giving the quickest payback, I'll start with a large number of woodcutters (number to be decided during the next runthrough) to do a fast strip of the woodland, then delete the unwanted cutters.

Papyrus is the next most profitable, so I'll follow with that. However I expect that the limited area of reeds, plus requests and domestic consumption, will substantially curtail papyrus exports after the early years.

After that, pottery, which requires a bit more thought. I want to fill all land exports to Bahariya (2500 per year), but I don't want to sell the full 4000 units to Abedju, since this would block out some of the more profitable wood and papyrus exports. Also, I don't want Bahariya land traders taking pottery exports intended for Abedju. On top of this, it doesn't look as though I have the space to concentrate all my pottery production in one centre, as I would prefer. I therefore decide to have my major pottery production for domestic consumption and land exports near to the map entrance in the NE, and a subsidiary pottery production in the dock complex, which will be further S. Provided the SY's are adequately stocked, this should ensure that the Bahariya traders go to the intended SY. I tentatively decide to size the dockside pottery production for Abedju at 2500 units, and see how that works out in the game.

Exporting bricks should be straightforward as soon as Serabit opens, particularly as it's by land - the dock is already going to be handling a lot of traffic.

I decide grain exports aren't worth bothering with for a total income of just over 300db per year. I want to give as much food as possible to housing to evolve it as fast as possible

Step 7: Tentative layout plan
Before I can size my industry, I need to decide how much housing to allow for. So resave map as Initiation_Trialplan, and start trying some road layouts. After some juggling around with the positioning of the monument, it looks like I can squeeze in 4 standard-sized 16x6 housing blocks (1 on W bank, 3 on E), but I won't know for sure until I've finished my detailed layout plan. I will now do my industry planning on the basis of 2 housing blocks of 30 Fancy Residences each, and 2 manor blocks of 17 manors each, giving a total of 94 houses/manors when fully evolved.

Step 8: Calculate industry required

Clay/Pottery: Annual domestic consumption will be 94x24=2256 units when fully evolved. However in the early stages there will be a lot more than 94 houses since some of them will be 1x1s. Since I want to evolve all my housing as fast as possible, I decide to size my pottery for 4000 annual domestic consumption. Add on 2500 units of land export sales gives 6500 units. This requires 9 claypits and 12 potters. The 2500 units planned for water exports requires 4 clay / 5 potters.

Beer: As for pottery, fully evolved domestic consumption will be 2256 units, rather more at the start. 2500 barley imports are available, which will supply 5 brewers. In addition there are beer gifts. I want to avoid importing beer if possible to maximize cash.

Linen: Likewise, domestic linen consumption of 2256 units, plus a further 200 units for the 2 mortuaries. 2500 flax imports are available, which will supply 5 weavers. This looks a bit tight, so will need to keep a careful eye on linen stocks. As with beer, can also import linen if necessary, but will try to avoid.

Wood: Will provisionally aim for 8 woodcutters on E bank to start (probably delete 4 later), and 4 more on W bank. One woodcutter building situated an average of 10 squares away from wood will produce 1200 units per year from the original harvest, so this should be more than enough to meet the initial export demand.

Reeds/Papyrus: Reed gatherers are immensely productive when close to the reeds. At an average of 10 squares away, one gatherer building will produce 4000 units per year. Even allowing for the hippos, 2 gatherers in the SE and one in the NE should be sufficient. I will squeeze in as many papyrus makers as possible, aiming for 8 in the SE and 4 in the NE. After the initial harvest, this is certain to be too many and some will be deleted. Domestic consumption of papyrus is likely to be about 400 units per year (2 libraries plus 4 scribe schools).

Bricks: 4 years of limestone imports are needed for the monument construction. I'll aim for brick supplies at the same rate, equivalent to 1200 bricks per year for the monument. In practice, bricks will be needed more quickly than this for the lower levels, but I'll aim to stockpile in advance. Add on 4000 export demand, giving a total requirement of 5200. Ideally I should have 8 clay/10 brickworks for this. However I have already got my eye on using the large island for my brick industry, and I can only fit 7 clay/9 brickworks on it, so that will have to do.

Luxury goods: 34 manors require 34x24= 816 units per year. I therefore planned to meet this with 2 jewelers close to the E bank manor block. In practice this was a mistake, because it delayed the evolution of the W manor block for many months. In my final run I therefore added 2 more jewelers to the W bank (with their own gem imports) to kickstart its evolution to manors. One on each bank can be deleted later if necessary.

Step 9: Monument requirements
Normally for efficient pyramid construction I would position the monument as close to the floodplain farms as possible, have bricks and stone storage close by, and place all the work camps next to the materials storage. However, in this case I'm quite happy to place the monument in a convenient corner where it won't get in the way of my housing blocks or industry, and put most of the work camps near the farms. That will slow the monument construction time, but since there is ample time to spare, no problem. 2 stonemason guilds, 2 bricklayers' guilds and 1 carpenters' guild should be sufficient.

Step 10: Religion
Having Bast as the patron god is useful, since Bast's minor blessing will help to keep the other gods happy as well. Plus if I can obtain Bast's major blessing, it will accelerate my housing development. I won't build a Temple Complex though, since this takes up far too much valuable real estate, which I can more profitably use for housing/manors.

Step 11: Detailed layout plan
I'm now ready to start my detailed plan, on another resave of the starting map, as Initiation_Plan_A. I will now use this to plan the full road layout and exact positioning of all structures.

I usually start by placing the dock. In this case the optimum position looks to be towards the S end of the E bank, on the little inlet. This is as close to the ship entrance as possible, and it fits in nicely with a long thin block running parallel to the coast down to the SE. The dock and adjacent Storage Yards (SY's) fit at the top end, the woodcutters and reed gatherers at the bottom end close to the woodland and reeds, with papyrus, beer, linen and export pottery production in between. The 5 brewers are placed next to the SY receiving barley, and the 5 weavers likewise next to the flax SY, so there should be no problem with barley and flax distribution. The papyrus makers have to be alongside the reed gatherers, or delivery times will slow down initial reed production. I decide to have the wood cutters deliver straight to the dockside SY, rather than an intermediate SY. This means a 30-square delivery distance, which is a bit borderline and might constrain initial wood production. But if that does occur, I can easily overcome it with an extra wood cutter or two for the duration of the initial harvest.

This dock/industry block must be disconnected from the rest of the city. I will have SY's storing wood, papyrus and pottery elsewhere, and if the dock were connected to these, I would soon find dockers chasing across the city to access them, with disastrous consequences for my export trade. (On this general topic, in the earlier days of Pharaoh there seemed to be more forum posts devoted to the discussion of disconnected vs. connected docks than any other topic, with sometimes quite heated views expressed. There are occasions when it can be more efficient to connect the dock to the city. However, my own view is that you should probably only do this if you are confident in your handling of goods distribution. For less experienced players, it's generally much safer to put all the water export industry, plus the water import-based industry, in a block with the dock, and keep it disconnected - as in this case).

Before placing the remaining industry, its now time to firm up on the housing layout. After quite a bit of juggling with various plans, I find that (as I had hoped) I can just squeeze in a 16x6 manor block on the W bank, and 3 16x6 blocks on the E bank, one of which has space for statues around to evolve it to manors. I'll draw up the exact configuration of these blocks when I've completed the rest of the plan. It's much more efficient to have one central storage area for food/goods for the housing, so I locate this on the E bank, close to the ferry terminals so that the bazaar buyers from the W bank block can access it. This leaves just enough space for the monument and construction guilds over by the E edge of the map (not the most efficient place for rapid construction, but - as discussed - no problem).

The food/housing goods storage area contains a granary for fish (wharves delivering straight to it), a granary and 4 SY's for grain (using more granaries for grain instead of SY's would have taken up too much space). Plus SY's for pottery (delivered direct from the potters) with linen (getting), beer (getting) with overflow pottery, and papyrus (delivered from NE papyrus makers).

I've also allowed space for 2 granaries and an SY outside the W bank manor block, and I'll decide whether to use these when I have a final review of the distribution set-up at the end of the planning stage.

I now firm up on the layout of the brick industry on the island, delivering to an SY on the E bank. The shipwright will also go at the top end of the island. The main pottery industry fits nicely onto the coastal area at the N end of the W bank, delivering straight to the SY next to the ferry terminal on the E bank.

Finally the 2 E bank jewelers plus SY squeeze in a small gap outside one of the housing blocks.

Step 12: Design housing blocks
Unlike most contests, where space tends to be very limited, this map provides the relative luxury of being able to use a fairly standard housing block layout. I normally much prefer to use a 16x6 or 17x5 configuration with a pair of pavilions or bandstands situated outside the far end of the block from the entrance and connected to it through roadblocks. This allows a continuous 48 square loop without any intersections, with entertainer coverage provided by the entertainers from the schools (which are destination, not random, walkers) walking through the block to the venues. In my experience, this layout is exceptionally stable, and will normally run hands-off for many years without problems.

Unfortunately, I don't quite have the room for this! I could use cut-down 14x6 versions of my favorite block, but this means losing some housing and manors. I therefore go for 16x6's with an integral pavilion, which means incorporating a 1-square stub road. Many players seem to use this configuration, apparently quite successfully, but I have often encountered walker coverage problems (particular entertainers) with it. I'll need to keep a wary eye on the coverage overlays.

I design and store my housing block designs using Excel. I already had one with this configuration in the 'library' which was suitable for the housing blocks with a little adaptation. However the manor blocks had to be designed from scratch

Step 13: Review distribution logistics
As the final step in the planning process, I always take another close look at the whole distribution setup. Many of the problems which crop up while playing the game tend to be distribution-related, and spotting these now can prevent much wailing and gnashing of teeth later on! At one stage I used to make myself click on every SY on the map plan, and check whether it was actually capable of doing the job it was intended to. In particular, was I asking the deliverymen to do 2 jobs at once (such as getting papyrus and delivering it to libraries/schools) - often a recipe for disaster.

In this case, I've already noted from the layout plan stage that I've got two potential distribution problems - grain and papyrus. Ideally, I would like to have a single grain granary, permanently set to get from the adjacent SY's. However, the bazaar buyers from the W bank manor block would have to travel about 40 squares (including across a ferry) to access it. In theory, this would be OK so long as the granary was always well stocked (2 bazaar buyers with a 40 square road journey can still deliver enough food to feed almost 3000 people). However, real problems arise if the granary isn't well-stocked when they arrive, so they return with just small amounts of food. I decide not to take this chance, and place a second grain granary on my plan on the W bank.

Unfortunately, this immediately raises another problem: there is a bug in Pharaoh which causes granaries getting over long distances to stop sending out a labour recruiter, and ultimately to lose all labour access. This bug will almost certainly prevent me from setting the W bank granary to get the grain from the E bank SY's. I will have to check in the next run-through whether this occurs. Assuming it does, I can get round it by micro-managing the grain SY's, setting them to accept immediately before the harvest, then to empty after they have been filled (the granaries are set to accept the whole time).

For papyrus, the original plan has a single SY accepting papyrus in the housing distribution block, which is then required to distribute papyrus to 2 libraries and 4 scribe schools, two of which are almost 50 squares away and across a ferry. This seems unlikely to work, so I will get round this with one of the 'advanced' techniques - a 'Brugle Storage Yard (BSY)' to supply the library and school on the W bank. This involves placing an SY outside the W bank manor block, filling it full of an otherwise unused material (in this case straw), then setting it to get maximum papyrus. Even though there is no room in the SY, it still sends out 2 delivery carts, which return with papyrus, Since they can't then deliver to the SY they look for the nearest available takers of papyrus - which are the library and the school - and deliver there instead. An extremely neat and powerful solution to what used to be a major distribution headache before Brugle discovered it.

One last check - is there a clear path for the land caravans through the map without too many detours. I noticed that on my plan I was blocking off a direct route with statues, so made a minor adjustment to leave a gap for the traders to pass through.

After about 15-20 hours of planning and skull-sweat, it's now actually time to start playing the game!

Step 14: Game attempt A
The first serious attempt confirmed that the W bank getting granary did indeed lose labour access. So it's going to be necessary to micro-manage the grain SY's. One of the manor blocks lost water coverage on one side after several years and suddenly devolved - cured by switching the water supply with the mortuary. Also some minor redesign of both manor blocks was needed to improve desirability, as a number were stuck at Common/Spacious manor. After that I completed the run, but without pushing too hard, to at least establish a yardstick score - cash of about 500k at the end.

Step 15: Game attempt B
This run went much more smoothly, until the W bank manor block started devolving in the final year, due to slow arrival of musicians and dancers. Plan therefore revised to include additional entertainer schools on the W bank. (I had suspected this might be necessary, but thought I'd try to get away without them.)

This run also showed up my error in relying on just 2 jewelers on the E bank, which delayed the evolution of the W bank block. So a further plan revision needed to incorporate 2 more jewelers on the W bank, which required the deletion of one of the woodcutters (no problem, since the first harvest had been stripped by that stage). Final cash of 797k.

Step 16: Game attempt C
This was my final attempt and gave me my best score, so I'll describe its progress in some detail. In addition some of the intermediate saves should be available.

Start: Speed set to 10%, tax to 0%, wages to 32db

Labour priorities set to:
1 Industry
2 Health
3 Religion
4 Government
5 Food
6 Entertainment
7 Education
No priority Infrastructure
The thinking behind this order is that maximizing exports is the key priority for the first 2 years, hence industry must be 1. Much of the remaining labour over this period will go into infrastructure, which I will use as a labour 'buffer'. I'm going to be aggressive with my rate of industry buildup, which will mean running with labour shortages for an extended period. All these shortages will therefore be in the infrastructure sector. I will check the fire risk overlay frequently, and as soon as some yellow risk bars appear, set infrastructure to top priority for a few moments. This is sufficient for all the infrastructure buildings to spawn walkers, and as soon as they appear, return to the previous labour priorities with virtually no loss of industry production.

Most of the road layout is now put in place, requiring a lot of referring back to the original plan (keep speed at 10% and game paused as much as possible to avoid losing too much game time). I would normally use the 'free roads' feature at this point. However, since GQ has been very generous with starting funds, I don't bother this time (I note I could have saved about 1500db by using it). However I will use the free gardens and plazas, since this is almost second nature by now! Monument and ferries also placed.

Now to place housing. Two key things to remember at this point: Firstly, immigrants are pathed towards housing in the order that the housing is laid down. Before starting mass filling of the first housing block, it is therefore vital to place the feeder huts for industries needed in the early months. There is absolutely nothing more aggravating than having all the labour you need, then having to wait 6 months for the feeder labour for your first export industry to arrive. Secondly, each house can attract only one immigrant arrival onto the map at any time. Therefore at this stage place housing on only 3 out of the 4 squares of each 2x2 housing - if you put down all 4 which immediately form a single 2x2, it will take much longer to increase its population.

After my feeder huts are down, I start filling the housing block nearest the entrance (since this will fill fastest), then the E manor block.

(Download save Initiation_Walkthrough_Jan00)

Now speed to 70% and wagons roll!

AD0 Mar-Apr: As population rises, progressively add 8 woodcutters, then 2 reed gatherers, 4 papyrus makers in SE, SY's for wood and papyrus, and dock. Abedju route opened, export only wood at this stage. First export (100 wood) at end April.

AD0 May-Jun: Water and religion to housing blocks, firehouses to cover all occupied buildings. 2 more papyrus in SE, reed gatherer in NE. Festival square and festival to Bast (I didn't use the free festival feature since I want the festival square to add desirability to the E manor block).

AD0 Jun-Jul: 7th papyrus in SE. 4 papyrus in NE, plus SY. Begin food production with shipwright and wharf. Dockside papyrus set to get, Dahshur route opened, start exporting papyrus. Architects to cover all necessary buildings, more temples. Granary for fish and 2nd wharf (from now on wharves added progressively as soon as boat for previous one nears completion).

AD0 Aug-Sep: Housing placed in NW manor block. Meidum route opened. Festival to Bast (from now on festivals held about every 4 months, mostly to Bast but occasionally to Osiris and Ptah).

AD0 Oct: 4 work camps and 23 farms (you can never have too much food in the early stages). Final (8th) papyrus in SE. Start wood cutting on W bank with 4 wood cutters plus SY in NW. Malaria risk rising so apothecaries added in high risk areas. Export pottery industry started with 4 clay and 4 potters in SE, plus SY.

AD0 Nov-Dec: Water and religion to W manor block. Infill remaining housing in NE and E blocks. Bazaars and food to E block. Total recorded exports for the year: 4700 wood, 2300 papyrus, value 12,295 (if you haven't already noticed it, trade ships and the world map under-record the number of units you have sold. In fact the correct amounts are removed from the SY's, and you are paid correctly - just one of those program glitches). Year end popn 1,688.

(Download save Initiation_Walkthrough_Dec00)

AD1 Jan-Mar: Final potter added in SE, export industry now maxed until land routes open. Export pottery>0. 3 wharves and granary (fish) on NW bank to feed NW block. Jugglers in SE block. Food to NE block. Palace added behind NW block, tax collectors in all occupied housing blocks, tax set to 20% and wages to 38db. The push to evolve housing as fast as possible to maximize tax income now starts.

AD1 Apr-Jun: Food to NW block. Pottery industry started on NW bank with 4 clay and 4 potters, for domestic use. Some additional housing in final housing block (but not filled yet, otherwise will soon have excessive unemployment), plus water, food and religion. Jugglers to all housing blocks. Before harvest, granary and 4 SY's in central distribution area, all set to accept grain, plus grain granary on NW bank. SY on NW bank to accept straw (for later use as the papyrus BSY). Initial wood harvest in SE completed, 4 surplus woodcutters deleted. Barley and flax imports started (dockside SY's for each).

AD1 Jul-Sep: First grain harvest in. As soon as all grain SY's filled, set to empty. Physicians added. NW pottery industry increased progressively to 9 clay and 12 potters, delivering to SY on E bank, pottery now maxed. 5 brewers and 3 weavers put in dockside block. Initial reed harvest stripped in SE, 2 surplus papyrus makers deleted. Pottery to E housing block.

AD1 Oct-Dec: 4 more farms (27 total). Checked enough wood in stock in Dec to meet request at end of month. Exports for year: 4700 wood, 4700 papyrus, 1900 pottery, value 18,650. Year end popn 3323, majority of housing evolved to Ord Cottage.

AD2 Jan-Mar: Wood request met immediately. Another 11 farms (total 38) and 2 more workcamps. Pottery to all housing, beer to E block. Pavilions to NW and E blocks (the ultimate manor blocks), plus entertainer schools. 2 more weavers (total 5).

AD2 Apr-Jun: Stop dockside papyrus getting papyrus, stop papyrus exports, stockpile reeds (to meet the later request). Bahariya route available and opened immediately, set pottery exports>1600. Linen and dentist to NW and E blocks. Add desirability features (shrines, gardens or statues) to upgrade all bazaars (since all are now buying goods as well as 2 types of food). Pavilions to remaining 2 housing blocks. Mortuaries in NW and E blocks. Unemployment beginning to rise, 2 work camps added near monument. Remember to reset grain SY's to accept before harvest.

AD2 Jul-Sep: Get 800 reeds to a disconnected SY to hold for the forthcoming request. Restart using reeds. Scribe schools in NW and E blocks. Beer and dentists to other blocks. Start brick industry on island with 7 clay and 7 brickworks. Start limestone imports.

AD2 Oct-Dec: Monument base finished. Construction guilds added next to monument, get wood for carpenters. Library to NW block, plus statues. Export income for year 23,865. Year end popn 5291, unemployment 13%, NW block evolved to Fancy Residences.

AD3 Jan-Jun: Last 2 brickworks added. Library to SE block. Reed request dispatched immediately (very important to meet this request at once, since it triggers the opening of Serabit route and the resultant availability of lux goods). Scribe schools to remaining blocks.

AD3 Jul-Dec: Serabit route available and opened in Aug, import gems, 2 jewelers plus SY near E block. Export bricks >1200. Restart papyrus exports >1000. Linen to remaining housing. Gems and 2 more jewelers on NW bank. Lux goods to E block in Nov., unemployment 32% at this point. First manors evolve in Dec. Export income for year 20,480, tax income 31,920, popn 7196.

(Download save Initiation_Walkthrough_Dec03)

AD4 Jan-Jun: Most of E manor block evolved to Stately Manors in Jan (a few houses still needed second food). Unemployment now down to 20%, filled remaining housing in the last housing block. The 'straightforward' way now would have been to wait for this block to fill, then evolve the NW block to manors. However I chose the aggressive course, and started evolving it in Jun.

AD4 Jul-Dec: The NW block fully evolved to manors in Jul, triggering a labour shortfall of c.300 workers. The rest of the year was spent juggling the labour priorities to minimize the impact on industry production (with hindsight I could have temporarily closed down wood and reed/papyrus production at this point, which would have allowed some regeneration of the wood/reeds). Without the hit to sentiment cause by high unemployment, I was now able to raise the tax rate to 25%, without problems. Export income for year 24,540, tax income was beginning to motor at 81,010, popn 7786.

AD5: Labour shortages continued throughout the year, although steadily reducing as the final housing block filled. I let infrastructure take the labour hit most of the time. However just before grain harvest time I gave infrastructure high priority to ensure that all the ferry terminals were manned - otherwise most of the harvest remains stuck in the fields and drowns in the flood. The monument completed its offtake of bricks in Jun, after which I could delete 1 clay / 1 brickworks / 1 bricklayers guild. 1 stonemason and a workcamp was also deleted. Export income for year 19,780 (somehow I must have lost some exports, but didn't have time to go back and investigate), tax income 118,888, popn 8885.

(Download save Initiation_Walkthrough_Dec05)

AD6: Labour shortage finally eliminated in Jan. All housing fully evolved. Limestone imports stopped in May. Export income for year 25,755, tax income 127,170, popn 9266.

AD7: Monument completed in Sep, remaining guilds deleted. Export/tax income remained around AD6 levels for rest of game.

AD8-end: Basically coasting to the end. 2 bandstands and booths added to get the required culture rating. Only problem to emerge was dancers deciding to ignore one side of the E manor block for a while, which threatened to cause these manors to devolve. Averted by temporarily deleting a section of road on the other side of the block to force the dancers the other way. After that they behaved themselves (must be the artistic temperament…).

AD11 Dec: Final numbers at the end of the mission:
Cash 875,809
Popn 9261
CR 40
PR 100
KR 94
(Download save Initiation_Walkthrough_Dec11)

Step 17: Scope for improvement
Finally, could I improve this? No matter how good the result just achieved, the answer is always yes! The real question is; how much time and effort am I prepared to put into improving it, before terminal boredom or pressures of Real Life set in?

In this case, I could squeeze a little more cash out of my existing plan. However the real potential for further improvement is to increase the number of manors. If playing again, my next step would be to put some ordinary housing on the unused coastal strip on the S edge, to give more labour. Then evolve some of the fancy residences in the existing 2 housing blocks to manors (some redesign would be needed to enhance desirability). Converting 9 residences to 6 manors would give an additional annual tax income of over 8000 (depending on what level of manor could be achieved), giving an additional 50,000db by the end.

After that it would be worth investigating deleting some of the export industry, importing beer and linen and deleting the brewers and weavers, and using the space freed up for further manors. A quick calculation suggests that this strategy could add another 50,000db by the end. So with some more effort, it looks as though a nice round million debens could be achievable - I might try it when I have more time….

And finally:
A lot of this walkthrough has been concerned with the planning stage rather than the gameplaying itself. For that I make no apologies! The more effort you put into the planning, the easier the actual gameplay becomes. Simply 'winging it' might seem preferable to all that preparation work, but it is unlikely to gain you a good result at the end of the day. Ultimately it's the plan which will determine your end-result, and the gameplay ideally becomes simply the implementation and fine-tuning. In practice, of course, it seldom works out quite like that, and frequently it's a case of 'back to the drawing board' to overcome some horrible snag that rears its head just when you think you've got a good result in sight! Just analyze what went wrong, adjust the plan, and try again. It also helps to take plenty of notes all the way through, so you can recreate the bits you did right as well as avoid what you did wrong. And, of course, save frequently!!!

Walkthrough prepared by Martinu

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