Pharaoh Frequently Asked Questions(FAQs) Note: A number of these were taken from pharaoh.heavengames.com for particular reasons.
Q: Pharaoh just requested (something) that I don't have, neither can I produce it, nor import it. What gives? A: Not every request can be fulfilled, unfortunately. You'll just have to take the hit in Kingdom Rating and try to fulfill the next request. Remember that you have a LOT of time to get that Kingdom rating up, so don't sweat it if you miss a request.
Q: I have bricks, and bricklayers are waiting on the monument; so, why aren't they getting delivered? A: You either don't have enough laborers, or the laborer is on the way there, and simply has too far to walk. Try building a work camp closer to the Storage Yard, or if you need to, build several. Another problem is that unemployment could impact monument production, if that is the case, try to get more people into the city.
Q: Why are my deliverymen just standing around? A: Could be several things (they're all related, but a little different). It is usually because they don't have anywhere to put the goods. Maybe your storage yard is full, or maybe your storage yard does not have enough employees to accept any more goods. Another thing that could be wrong is that two deliverymen were going to the same place (say one is taking clay from the clay pit, and the other was taking it from a storage yard, both going to a potter), and one got there first (or the computer just computes that he'll get there first), so the other one waits for another potter to need clay before leaving. In the mean time he'll just stand there, waiting.
Q: I need limestone to complete a pyramid, but I don't have any, and no one is selling it. A: You need to complete an "event" before a new trade route will open up allowing you to buy limestone. Some events are giving them a requested good, or sending them your army to fight off an invader. Don't worry if you fail with the "event" the first time, it will come up again. Although if your troops fail in the field, your city will be invaded.
Q: I have finished all the requirements for the city, but it won't let me on to the next city. A: Victory conditions are checked monthly, so you can only Proceed to the next scenario at the beginning of the month. Also be sure that you don't have a population requirement that you are missing, as that can be easily missed. Finally check with the Overseer of the Monuments (press the = button) for any "Burial Provisions" that need to be stuffed into the Pyramid. Burial Provisions are usually such things as Papyrus, Luxury Goods, Linen, and Weapons.
Q: What exactly does a Roadblock do?
A: There are two different types of walkers in Pharaoh. Destination walkers have a target picked out and will pass through the roadblocks. These are all listed in the Big Manual that came with the game, but examples are deliverymen such as cart pushers, entertainment walkers, and buyers from the bazaar, hunters, soldiers, and immigrants. These folks will ignore roadblocks. The roaming walkers can be controlled and stopped by encountering a roadblock. These folks bring benefit to the city by passing the housing. Examples are the bazaar traders, firemen, policemen, magistrates, and water carriers. Also in this group is the citizen looking for labor. He will not pass through the roadblock.
Q: Why do they keep asking for debens in Waset?
A: This is the parallel city to Thinis during the Civil War. Your loyalty to the Inyotef family is being tested. If you give in to the demands for money, you will find yourself in a heap of trouble. You must be prepared to fight the exporting cities and supporters of the Hene-nesw to prove you are worthy. And you must honor the requests for food and goods and troops from the supporters of the Inyotef to defeat the Hene-nesw.
Q: Why can’t I import papyrus in Thinis? A: There is an event at the end of April, 11 years into Thinis, where Men-nefer, as a trade city, comes under siege. At the same time, there is a request for troops at Men-nefer. You have 6 months to dispatch troops. If you win the battle, trade with Men-nefer becomes available, and so does Papyrus. If you lose the battle, your kingdom rating falls and the troop request is called again until you either refuse it or win. If you refuse it, you will lose access to papyrus and Men-nefer trade will not open again. Hint: You can send land based troops or water-borne troops to aid Men-Nefer.
Q: Why does my Kingdom rating fall in Iunet when I fulfill requests from Abu? A: It's a bug. Just after you start Iunet, a request comes through for fish. If you send the fish, thus opening a trade route with Abu, roughly 2 years into the game you may start getting messages like - "even though trade has opened with Abu, the people are displeased and your kingdom rating falls." It continues to fall until Pharoahs army comes and wipes you out. Impressions had this to say: "Our QA department is looking at the problem with Iunet and evaluating possible remedies. Meanwhile, we recommend that you either play the alternate city of On, or use the Pharaohs Tomb cheat to skip to the next mission. We apologize for disrupting your campaigns."
Q: Why can’t I import wood at Saqqara? A: Selima Oasis will offer you a gift of 1600 pomegranates in the early part of the mission. This gift must be accepted, or you will offend them and they will respond by "cutting back" and severing your sole supply of wood forever.
Q: Why can’t I import Granite in Dakhla Oasis? A: There is a request for 15-20 wood or bricks at the end of April, 4-5 years into the mission. (These are variable). The request is from Dunqul Oasis. If you fill the request late, the trade route to Dunqul Oasis will open. If you fill it on time, you will be offered a gift of meat. Basically, to make things simple, do not refuse or forfeit the gift of meat. Accept the gift of meat. Then the trade route to Dunqul Oasis will open and granite will be available. If you do not comply with the request for wood/bricks (in other words, if you refuse it) then your Kingdom Rating will drop and Dunqul Oasis will never open as a trade city, you will never get granite, and you will have to restart the mission in order to win.
Q: Can enemy soldiers be drowned by the Nile flooding? A: Yes, and some players swear by the following strategy: If the attack comes just before the inundation (Nile flooding) you can use a troop of archers to lure enemy troops out to the flood plain (keep your infantry back). The floods will wipe out all the soldiers. This tactic is not always possible depending on timing and geography, but some have found it useful in tough situations. Some may say this is cruel to order archers to their death. I haven't found them good for much else though.
Q: How do the Ratings affect my score? A: All of the ratings factor into your score, along with length of time it took you to complete the mission, the amount of money you have, and the experience of your armies.
Q: How do I improving my Culture rating? A: Culture rating is pretty straightforward. Click on the advisor and add whatever he tells you need to raise the rating. What he won't do is tell you how many of whatever you need to add. You can add them blindly until the rating climbs or look at the advisor for that item. See how many people are served by one of the services you need, then based on that, add per your population. Health effect (physician, dentist, mortuary) is calculated based on proportion of people that have access to their services. Other structures use the ratio of working buildings per population ("working" means that it simply has labor; papyrus, beer or entertainers are not necessary for this sole purpose).
Q: How do I improve my Prosperity rating? A: Prosperity is a little trickier cause it has more parts to it. It consists of income for the city, employment, and the quality of the housing. The more people living in high class housing the better but high unemployment or high shortage of workers will be bad for prosperity. The city has to make money to have a high prosperity rating. Also it's better if your exports make more money than your imports cost. Since taxes can add to city income the prosperity advisor will warn you if exports cost more than imports. Quality of the housing sets an upper limit to prosperity, while other factors influence whether it will grow if it is below this limit, and how fast. For example, if the highest level of housing in your city is Common Residence, your prosperity will be "capped" until you reach a higher level of housing. In many missions, due to limited housing upgrade possibilities, maximum achievable prosperity can be a lot lower than 100%.
Q: How do I improve my Monument rating? A: Monument rating is set for the mission and can't be exceeded. You reach it when you complete your monument. Don't forget to deliver your "grave goods" to do so! '------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: How do I improve my Kingdom rating? A: Kingdom ratings can be influenced by meeting all of Pharaoh's requests in a timely manner, the god RA can increase your kingdom rating if you keep him very happy by enough temples, shrines and festivals. The third way is to give Pharaoh gifts. Now the gift giving comes from personal saving and is a percentage of savings. If your going to give gifts, make it early when you don't have much savings, it's cheaper. Don't give more than one gift a year to get the most out of a gift. Lavish gifts give the most points but are also the most expensive.
Q: I just built a Fort, but I don't have any soldiers. Where are they?!? A: You need to build a Recruiter building to train the soldiers, one by one. From the Recruiter, they will all go to their fort cross-country. They will ride the ferry across the Nile to get to their fort. The Archers have their homemade spears, but Infantry men will need Weapons. You will need to have a Weaponsmith with road access to the Recruiter. And of course the Weaponsmith will need Copper in a nearby Storage Yard from either a mine or imports. Building an army in ancient times was just as complicated as today. And, an Academy will make your soldiers more efficient fighters.
Q: I have a website, and I want to put a screenshot of my game, but I don't know how to take a screenshot. Can you help? A: Sure! - Center your screen over the desired area. - Press the "Print Screen" key on keyboard. - Your screenshot is now saved to the Clipboard. - Open MS Paint or some image editing program. - Start a new image and select "Paste." - Your huge screen shot will appear that can be edited or printed. - You can save it as a BMP (Bitmap image) or a JPEG file.
Q: In Caesar III, I was able to rotate the map, but I can't in Pharaoh. Did Impressions forget this...is it a bug? A: No, no. Impressions did a wonderful job with Pharaoh. They didn't forget to include that feature, and no, there's no bug. There is a Pyramid icon in the upper right corner of the game interface; pressing it will face the map to North. Clicking just to the right or left of it will rotate the map right or left (notice the arrows that appear over the directional pyramid when you move your cursor to the right and left of it).
Q: My Mausoleum is stuck at 99% completion! Help! A: Well, I've never encountered this. However, I did find an answer at the Heaven Games site for Pharaoh: "With the Mausoleum stuck at 99%, I noticed that there was a single square of the base that had been skipped by the laborers (it was on the far side of the building, so I hadn't noticed it originally). Following Baltic's tip, I figured that that particular square had been assigned to a laborer that was stuck, lost, or on holiday. So (the short story) I deleted all of the work camps, rebuilt one and, voila! the new work camp spawned a laborer, who promptly went to the mausoleum and finished it. After several re-starts I tracked down the offending work camp, but I never could find the specific laborer. Since the work camp was on the far side of the river, I suspect that the ferry ride had something to do with it, but I can't say for sure. Conclusion: Once the game assigns a particular worker to work on a particular part of a monument, it (the game) assumes that the worker will complete the assignment. If the worker - for whatever reason - is unable to complete the assignment, then the assignment is simply never completed. Hmmm... I wonder if a time-out mechanism is in order? I would think that the same phenomenon is probably responsible for a lot of the "frozen" monument construction that has been reported by others in the forums. The moral of the story: If monument construction stops for no apparent reason, try deleting and rebuilding all of the supporting industries - the construction guilds, work camps and any suppliers of materials, if applicable. You might be able to get away with the ol' delete/undo routine, to save some money. But be prepared to delete and rebuild. I hope this helps anyone else who experiences this phenomenon. Good luck and may the gods smile upon you! - Max"
Q: Why won't the firemen put out the fires? A: Well, if a fire has been burning for a long enough time (due to a Fireman being too far to reach it in time) then the fire will not be put out and will just have to burn out on its own. If you right-click on a burning building under these conditions it should reveal a pop-up message saying: "Fire marshals could not get here in time to save the building. When the fires burn themselves out, only rubble will be left on this site." Also, Fire Marshals have a limited supply of water with which to prevent and put out fires. At some point they need to return to their Firehouse to refill, so it may be that the Fire Marshals that are walking by a burning building simply do not have any water at the moment and are on their way back for a refill, after which they may or may not be able to reach a burning building in time. If a house in the back row catches fire and there is a garden they won't put out the fire until you remove the garden. That's true for anything without direct access. If there is a house in the back row that starts burning and the only way for a fireman to get to the fire is through another structure (gardens included), that structure has to be deleted first before the fireman can get there. This happen frequently when there is a row of housing that is 2 deep and the one which isn't adjacent to the road begins burning. If you just delete the house in front of it, the firemen will put out the fire.
Q: Pharaoh's engineers are blowing up my city! What should I do? A: The Road to Egypt is blocked! That is the road that enters and leaves the map. The game will shift to the spot where the blockage is; that's the first place blown up by Pharaoh's engineers. Until the rubble is cleared they will continue to blow up your city. So slow the game down and the clear the rubble, don't block that spot again. They are helping you to have a clear path of road or vacant land through the city for immigrants and traders to pass. The Road to Egypt is the original road showing on your map when you start. You can delete the road, move it, and/or build on it. In fact, if you do use the road to start your city, delete a tile of the road on both ends to keep your walkers from making a long detour away from the housing and industry.
Q: Should I make the roads pretty with those nice plazas? How do I do it? A: Your citizens will pave dirt roads with stone tiles in the areas that have good desirability such as near Temples and Temple Complexes. Only after they pave the roads can you add the pricey plaza tiles. You can find them under the Municipal Structures icon on your Control Panel, Beautification sub-menu with the statues and gardens. Plazas increase desirability and can help upgrade bazaars and water carriers as well as houses.
Q: Are festivals necessary? A: Festivals can help appease the gods and increase your chances for blessings. Remember it takes time to plan and throw the festival, so an angry god might be appeased quicker by a temple or couple of shrines.
Q: What are all those little blue symbols by the god’s names? A: The Blue Ankhs symbolize how happy a god is with you. Lightening bolts are letting you know something very bad may happen...soon!
Q: What kind of blessings, or curses, can I get? A: Osiris can improve the Inundation to boost fertility of your growing crops, and can double your harvests if especially pleased. He can also send stop your crops from growing or with hold the annual flooding. Ra’s blessing can boost your Kingdom Rating, cause cities to trade more with you and can provide a 12 month bonus of your trading partners paying 1 ½ times the going rate. If he is not pleased with you, your Kingdom Rating will suffer and he can stop traders from coming to your city. Ptah can fill a storage yard with goods or raw materials for industry. He can give your weavers, jewelers or shipwrights raw materials to work with. He can destroy storage yards of raw materials or goods if he is ignored. Seth can protect your soldiers sent to distant battles and smite your enemies at home. Ignore him and he will not be on your side the next time you are attacked. Bast can fill your bazaar with goods and make your population happy and content. Incur her wrath and she can send plagues and illness to your city.
Q: What is the difference between a Bazaar Buyer and a Bazaar Trader, and how can I tell them apart? A: A Bazaar Buyers has a basket on top of her head. She goes to the granary to get food and will also pick up imported food from a storage yard. She goes to the storage yards and picks up beer, pottery and other goods. You can control what she buys through the special instructions for the bazaar. Regular bazaars will often send out two buyers, but Impressions has explained that these buyers are non-specific for either food or goods. Upgraded bazaars (ones that are close to areas with high desirability such as temples and gardens--you can recognize them by a fancier graphic) will send out two buyers--one dedicated to buying food, one for goods. Each buyer can pick up more than one kind of food or goods on a shopping trip. When she returns to the bazaar, you will see a trail of little basket boys following behind her. She will ride ferries to find items for her bazaar. The Bazaar Trader will stay within the confines of roadblocks distributing food and goods to the houses she passes by. If you see her outside the roadblock, it could be she is out of goods and taking a short cut home to the bazaar.
Q: What about these danged water carriers? A: The water supply has to be placed on land that has ground water. You can check this by turning on your Water Overlay (hot key: W). The water carriers will pass by your houses taking fresh water in a random walker path. He will turn around at a roadblock, and has been know to vary his route. If you see houses suddenly devolve, right-click the house to see if he has decided to walk a different route this year. Water carriers can be upgraded like bazaars by adding gardens or statues. The upgraded water carrier has a different graphic and is reported to spawn walkers more often. As a rule of thumb, a water carrier will walk about 27 tiles before turning around.
Q: People keep talking about check your advisor or overseer. Where do I find them? A: Check the control panel on the right of the screen for a little guy in a boat. Click on him and you see will the advisors and overseers. Chief Overseer: The name says it all. Works with your other overseers to provide a summary of the city status in a number of areas. Overseer of the Workers: Reports employment figures in each employment sector. It will show any employment shortages and allow you to adjust priorities by changing labor allocation. This screen will also show the wages for workers. Overseer of the Military: Keeps track of all military. The overseers show the number and types of companies in the army. He also tracks morale and experience level. This screen is also used to send troops on Kingdom service. The Overseer tracks if invaders are approaching and if anyone has requested military aid. Political Overseer: Helps maintain good relations with others in Egypt. Here you can view any outstanding requests for goods or food and he will let you know when you have enough in storage to meet the request. The Political Overseer also tracks your family savings and your personal salary. You can adjust your salary level or spend some of your personal saving for gifts to the city or for gifts to Pharaoh. Ratings Overseer: Charts current ratings and provide advice on how to improve them. Click on each rating for advice. Overseer of Commerce: Monitors the city's industries and storage yards. Keeps track of supply, demand and prices for goods through out the world. This is where you open trade routes and set import/export amounts. You have a choice of setting the amounts yourself or letting the advisor set them. Word of caution: if you set the amounts they will stay fixed at that amount, if you let the advisor set the amounts they will rise if the number of workshops using a good increases. Overseer of Granaries: Provides information about the city's population and its eating habits. There are three different charts: population history, population by age and population by dwelling type. It reports the number of immigrants that arrived in the previous month. Also tells you how many more people the current vacant housing can hold. Note of caution: these numbers are always for the previous month. Overseer of Public Health: Reports on the overall health of the city. He tracks the number of apothecaries, physician’s offices, dentist’s offices, and mortuaries working in the city. Will also advise you of any particular health problems facing the city. Overseer of Learning: Advises you of the status of education in your city. Reports the number of active Scribal schools and libraries and how many people can benefit from the existing educational structures. Overseer of Diversions: Knows how many juggler's booths, musician's stages and dancer’s stages are working in the city. He also reports the number of Senet houses that are entertaining the public. Overseer of the Temples: Knows which gods are worshiped and weather or not the city has a patron god. It's also where you plan and give festivals to the gods. Overseer of the Treasury: Keeps a ledger of the city's income and expenses. There is also the previous years ledger to compare against. This is where you can adjust the tax rate and see the percentage of the population registered to pay taxes. Overseer of Monuments: Provides a list of monuments required to win the mission and general status report on monument construction projects. This screen is also where you will see a list of burial goods required and where you will be able to dispatch them.
Q: What are the Map Overlays and how do I use them? A: If you want to learn more about your city than the advisor can tell you click on the overlay button. Then select the topic and sub-topic you want to know more about, such as where are the high crime rates, what buildings are likely to catch fire or collapse or which areas of your city have access to water. Use the HOT KEYS for faster access.
Q: What's the point of Low Fertility Grain Farming? A: Oh the joys of low fertility grain farming! A low fertility grain farm produces maximum straw output which is essential to feed your Cattle Farms and build Mastabas! Take Itjtawy for example. Make use of the few tiny patches of meadow that are available. You can fit about 9 grain farms sitting on that tiny strip of land, with about half the farms under 10% fertility (no room for irrigation). These farms do a great service. Even though they produce under 2000 grain per year, each farm produces a full load of straw with every harvest, regardless of the fertility or staffing. With 18 loads of stray every year, you have more than enough for several cattle ranches (which produce more food than the farms themselves) and to keep your brickwork's fully stocked at all times, while leaving the floodplains open for the other varieties of food that keeps your people happy and healthy. They also provide a good source of employment.
Q: Do Storage Yards take priority over Granaries? A: Nixon of Impressions says: "Yes, Storage Yards take priority over Granaries. This was done to help you when you needed to stockpile food for a request. So if you allow a Storage Yard to accept food then your cart pushers will want to bring food to the Storage Yard until there is no more room. Basically, you should just set the Storage Yard to fill up to 1/4 (or 1/2 or 3/4), however much room is needed to store your extra food. That way your cart pushers will only bring the required amount to the Storage Yard and then concentrate on the Granary."
Q: Do Market Buyers go to Storage Yards like Granaries? A: The short answer is "Yes," but.... Grumpus (a Pharaoh Heaven Board Member) explains: "Market Buyers will only take food from a storage yard if that food is being imported. Once you start importing a food, you can also grow it at home,(if that is possible) and you will not need granaries for that food." Ironrodiken of Impressions further explains: "As Grumpus said, in most missions, your people will need Granaries if they're to eat homegrown food at all. Bazaar buyers will only get imported food types from Storage Yards. Even in those missions where you can supply your Bazaars from SYs, though, remember that Bazaars employ a Granary buyer, who sits idle if there aren't any Granaries to buy from. While the Granary buyer probably enjoys her early retirement very much, her sister the SY buyer now has to get all the food, and has correspondingly less time to shop for pottery, beer, etc. (p. 86 of the US manual) Bazaars work most efficiently when the food comes from a Granary, and the SYs supply only non-food items."
Q: How do I build irrigation ditches and is there a limit on how far the water will go? A: Like roads you just drag the irrigation ditch as far and whatever direction you want. Be sure that it's connected to the water lift, you can tell because you will see water in the ditch. The ditch will go under roads without doing anything special. There is no limit on far the water will go. If you build the water lift on the edge of a flood plain you will have to put an irrigation ditch from the river to the water lift. Water lifts required direct labor access and a road.
Q: What are the different types of farms and how do they work? A: Flood Plain Farms: The first type of farming you will come across is the flood plain farms. The way they work is with indirect labor from work camps. Work camps train farmers and provide labor for monument building. Flood plain farmers only work for part of the year during non-flood times. They require roads that are connected to the work camps for the laborers to reach the farms. The closer the work camps are to the flood plain the quicker the farmers can get to the farms. Also building the work camps close to the flood plain allows them to train more labor. Work camps require direct access to labor. Flood plain farms can be irrigated to increase productivity. Meadow Farms: The second type of farm is the meadow farm. They can only be put in areas with little yellow flowers. Usually you can click on the ground and it will say it's meadow but if that doesn't work just hold a farm over an area you believe to be meadow. If it turns green then you can build a meadow farm. Meado farms require direct labor access like any other building and work camps don't provide it. This type of farm is not usually as productive as flood plain farms but has the advantage of different harvest times from the flood plain farms. To make meadow farms more productive you can irrigate the land. To irrigate the land you need a couple of things. A straight piece of coast or edge of flood plain, build a water lift and irrigation ditches a meadow farm only has to have one corner touching an irrigation ditch or to be with 2 squares of a ditch to be irrigated. If you click on the farm it will say if it's irrigated.
Q: Why do my cart pushers keep drowning in the flood? A: When the harvest comes, the cart pushers must have a place to deposit the goods. This means they have to have a road from the flood plain to a granary or storage yard that is set to accept the goods. And the building must have full employment to accept the goods. The cart pushers will ignore roadblocks, as they are destination walkers. Barley and flax must be taken to a storage yard, it won’t go in a granary. Cart pushers will choose an accepting Storage Yard for food before going to an accepting granary. If there is no place accepting the goods, the cart pushers drown. Check your storage yards by right clicking and see if they are set to accept the goods you want. You can adjust the amounts by clicking on the arrows by the name of the goods.
Q: What do the "get," fill" and the other commands in the special instructions for the granaries and storage yards do? How do I use them? A: "Accept all" means the facility will accept all of a food or goods until it reaches capacity. "Fill" can be set to 1/4, 1/2 or 3/4 and will allow those proportions of a food/good to be accepted. "Get" has the same quantities plus "get maximum" which is full capacity. All these commands are very useful to move food/goods around the city. When "Getting" food for a granary, the cart pushers use roads, but when using "getting" goods for a storage yard, they can go cross-country. The granary or storage yard will send two cart pushers out, and they will even across ferries to get the food/goods instructed. Be careful sending cart pushers on long journeys, if they are gone for a very long time, the home building forgets to send out a labor citizen and it sometimes looses labor access. Then when the cart pushers get back, there is no one to accept the goods, so they return to the place where they got them.... In this case, you might consider an intermediate storage yard stop, or an extra storage yard accepting the goods you were trying to "get". But, remember too, with storage yards, while they are out "getting" goods, no cart pusher is available to deliver from that storage yard to a workshop or other building. Generally speaking, when placing mixed items in storage yards, you should carefully consider how it would be used. Having beer and pottery delivered to a storage yard from the work shops for a bazaar buyer to pick up and sending the storage yard cart pushers off to "get" luxury goods to export would work. But storing clay in a storage yard that needs to be delivered to the brickyards and trying to "get" beer from across the Nile is not going to work out. They won't get back for a long time, and the brickyards will be idle waiting on clay.
Q: How do I keep the gods happy? A: When you start a city, check your Overseer of the Temples. Note who is your patron god and plan to have at least one more temple for that god than the others-at all times. The non-patron gods won’t mind having fewer temples than the Big Cheese, but they do get jealous of each other! So, treat them fairly. Shines do not provide walkers for Religious access to your houses, but do improve your overall Religion rating. They can be set behind architects or fire marshals to save space, as they only need to be within 2 tiles of a road. Temple Complexes make your Patron god very happy. These structures also send out a priest to walk through the neighborhood and increase the desirability of the area. They are very expensive and require 50 employees. The add-on altars and oracles for the Temple Complexes can increase benefits for your city. The Strategy Section of Pharaoh Heaven is a good place to get familiar with each of the gods, as well as the Religion section of the manual. The general rules are: Keep the total coverage for each god equal to or above your current population. Treat the local gods equally. Equal numbers of shrines and temples for each. Treat the patron god preferentially. Have more temples and shrines to this god than any of the local gods. Throw a common festival every six months dedicated to the god that's gone the longest without one. Follow these rules and you'll be continuously showered with divine blessings. It's really not hard to find room for shrines, they aren't overly costly, and they don't require any employees.
Q: How many people can be served by a temple or a shrine? A: 1 Temple to the patron god covers 375 people. 1 Shrine to the patron god covers 187 people. 1 Temple to a local god covers 750 people. 1 Shrine to a local god covers 375 people.
Q: Do I need a festival plaza? How do I make one? Does it have to be connected to the city? A: Festival Plazas are 5-tile squares that have to be placed over a crossroad. They do increase desirability, but can wreck havoc with your walkers doing a promenade each time they enter the plaza. You can place it off in the boon-docks if you want, it doesn’t have to be connected to the city. Another possibility is to leave one road tile between the plaza and the rest of the city and use a roadblock to keep the wandering walkers under control.
Q: What are the moods of the gods? A: The God moods, from worst to best, are: Enraged; Furious;Angry; Resentful; Displeased; Apathetic; Amiable; Congenial; Sympathetic; Approving; Benevolent
Q: I have disease all over my city and people are dying right and left, what can I do? A: Egyptians were pretty picky about their health care. Areas close by the reed gathering areas are prone to malaria and must be provided with Apothecaries. All housing will benefit from regular access by a Physician, and will not evolve past Spacious Homestead without it. Additionally, Dentists are needed to evolve past Spacious Residences and Morticians (with a supply of linen) are needed to evolve houses past the Spacious Manor level. (Remember all those "Spacious" words and you will be fine). Your best bet is to provide water and food to all of your houses and check your overlays for trouble spots. Plague can break out in the city due to overall city health and it is not a pretty sight. You can see plague victims walking around the city, spreading the disease on the Risks: Disease Overlay. Every house he passes will become infected and the residents die. Wandering Plague Victims can be confined by deleting road tiles in their path, or by encountering an Apothecary walker, but the best course is prevention. The houses will remain vacant for a while, and then new residents will move in and use the food and goods left behind. Plagues break out when a city's overall health is poor. The two main contributors to good health are access to plenty of food and to a physician. Providing these two things to all (or just about all) of your citizens should prevent plague from breaking out. You can find out which areas of your city might be lacking in physician coverage by using the Physician overlay. Mortuaries also contribute to the good health of a city, as does providing your citizens with more than one food type. Dentists don't affect city health at all, but they do count for Culture points.
Q: How do I place the entertainment stages? A: All entertainment stages will fit on t-intersections. You will know if they fit because they will turn green. You can create a t-intersection in the middle of a housing block by adding to the road. Entertainment is a part of your cultural rating and allows your housing to upgrade to the next level provided it has the right goods and food for the next level. Variety is the key to happy people so try to provide you people with as many types of entertainment as you can.
Q: Why are my citizens complaining about a 9% tax rate? A: Taxation can have a negative effect, even at the default 9% rate, if tax coverage is very unequal. People will complain about taxes when you're collecting from roughly 50% of the populace. For a quick fix, lower taxes to 5% for a month or two...but for a long-term solution, build more Tax Collectors to ensure that your collection rate remains comfortably above 50%.
Q: My tax collectors keep getting robbed! A: You are probably spawning criminals from several of your houses. Check your Crime Overlay. You are going to have to supply police coverage to one or more of your housing areas. Crime is usually a result of unemployment and people generally unhappy because of taxes, no food, no festivals, etc...If your crime is really intermittment, you may have to wait a while for your crime risk columns to lower. It is likely that you are missing a police station or a courthouse in one of your blocks or in an industrial housing area.
Q: How can I get troops loaded onto transport ships? A: 1. Find a section of non-floodplain coastline that's not hemmed in with buildings. Straight sections work better than convoluted sections, although this isn't absolutely necessary. 2. Move your soldiers near your desired loading point. They don't need to be right on the coast, just close. 3. Move your transport near the rally point -- again, not right on the shoreline, just close to it. 4. Right-click the transport, choose Embark, then click on the company to load. Before you click, make sure the cursor shows the Embark order, which looks like a little guy with an arrow. The cursor looks like this when it hovers directly over a soldier or the company standard. 5. WAIT A COUPLE OF SECONDS. This could be where you're running into trouble. Give them time to get aboard before you repeat the Embark order. 6. Note that all members of a company need to be present before the company can embark. If you've got 14 soldiers at the rally point, and a 15th is on his way from the Recruiter to the Fort, the company won't embark until Pvt. 15 reaches the rally point. He has orders to report to the Fort first, which can bollux up your embarkation plans. You can override his standing order by moving the company's standard by a tile or two; this tells the tardy guy to go directly to the rally point. Along these same lines, if a 16th soldier is produced while you're cajoling Pvt. 15, then the whole company will wait for Pvt. 16 to show up, too. The easiest way to avoid this is to transport only full companies. Don’t attempt to partial companies. 7. If you select your ship and get any other icon besides Embark (due to it being on Move or some other mode) just hit the "K" button and that will automatically bring up the Embark icon. Just click on your available troops with this icon and they will board the Transport Ship. I still don’t get it! Can you explain it again? 1. Right-click on the transport ship to open the command window. 2. Click on the 'embark' icon. The window will close and you will notice that the ship's flag will appear. You should also notice that a ship-like cursor appears. Along with the ship the cursor also has directional arrows (you have look closely). Well, when you move the cursor over the company of troops the cursor will change. The ship will remain, but instead of the directional arrows there will now be a human figure. When the cursor changes like that - from arrow to human figure-- that is when you should left-click on the company. 3. Left-click on the company of troops you wish to board the ship. Make sure you click in the vicinity of their standard. 4. Having done that they will disappear, i.e. they will have boarded the ship. Note: the company does not need to be next to the shore to do this. It should work from various places and various distances from the shoreline. To disembark, right-click on the transport ship to open the command window and then click the 'disembark' icon. The window will close and a ship-like(?) cursor will appear. Go to the spot you want to move your troops to and click. The transport ship will go there and drop off your company.
Q: I keep going broke in Perwadjyt, why? A: During these first few "training" missions, try to learn the concepts being introduced, meet the immediate goals, and win the scenario quickly. Build only what you need to achieve victory. Making money is not the point, and is indeed impossible. However, the cash provided to you is roughly double what you'll need to win if you build wisely. Tax Collectors are introduced in the next mission, Nekhen. Even then, taxes merely slow the rate of your treasury's decline. You won't earn profits until you learn trade in the following mission, Men-nefer. From that point on, profitability is important.
Q: General Monument building tips! A: Certain types of monuments (for example, the Obelisk and Sun Temple) have a requirement for a minimum amount of stone before you can even start. That means you must have enough stone in your storage yards before you can start the monument. Usually it's 240 blocks, which means you need 8 storage yards accepting that type of stone. In some missions you can quarry the stone yourself, in others you have to import the stone. The initial blocks of stone will start the monument but you will have to provide additional stone to finish. But stone haulers won't be needed to deliver the initial stone to the monument, but you will need them for the balance of the stone.
Q: The bricklayers are waiting at the mastaba! Why aren't my bricks delivered? A: Be sure you have built work camps they train workers for flood plain farms and monument building. Without work camps there is no one to deliver the bricks. There has to be at least 400 bricks in a storage yard (the bricks all have to be in the same storage yard) before they will be delivered. If you have flood plain farms, workers go first to the farms then to build monuments. If you have enough unemployed workers for the work camps, they will work on monuments all year round. Check that you aren't stockpiling bricks. If you are they will not be delivered.
Q: Why are my stone pullers stuck at the side of the pyramid? A: That usually means that either you don't have any carpenters, they don't have wood to build ramps needed for the stone pullers or they haven't finished the ramps. If you right click on the monument the construction supervisor should tell you what is wrong.
Q: Nothing is happening. I have stone and brick in my storage yards, stonemasons, bricklayers and carpenters guilds. What's wrong? A: If none of the construction people have reported to the pyramid you might have to delete the guilds and rebuild them. This has happened in a few missions but be sure to wait a year before deleting the guilds. Be sure that they are fully staffed and that you have unemployed people to work on the pyramid. It also helps to build extra work camps near the monument you are trying to build. Check that the brown mat that is the entrance to the monument is not blocked. And, be sure you have a supply of wood in a storage yard close by the Carpenters Guild to build the scaffolds and/or ramps!
Q: All the monuments are finished but my score doesn't reflect that. What's wrong? A: Check your Monument Overseer to see if "grave goods" are needed. To complete the monuments you need to stockpile and deliver grave goods.
Q: The grave goods are in the storage yards. Why aren't they being delivered? A: You have to click on each grave good in the monument advisor screen and select all to dispatch the grave goods. You don't have to dispatch the grave goods all at one time. You can deliver the goods a little at time all the while the monuments are being built.
Q: What is a good ratio of Stonemason Guilds to Work Camps for building the monuments? A: A good rule of thumb is 2 work camps per Stonemason Guild. Allow extra work camps for the flood plain farming, as you can’t assign the laborers a specific job.
Q: I need step-by-step monument- building instructions! A: Nuthinenkamhen from Impressions: Monument construction is probably the single most extensive activity in the game, so this is where people run into a lot of problems. I've compiled (and will continue to update) the following list. You've probably checked most of these, but just to be thorough, here are the most common things to look if your monument construction is not progressing: Employment: Make sure your guilds and work camps are fully staffed. If either of these are short on labor, it will affect how fast your monument is built. Materials: Check your supply of building materials. Sometimes trade conditions will change during a game, which can change how much you're allowed to import each year. If you are providing your own building materials, make sure your industries are fully staffed. Wood is crucial to most monuments - so always make sure your carpenters have enough. Without wooden ramps/scaffolding to facilitate the workers and materials, construction will cease. Storage: Make sure you've got some yards to store the construction materials! Stockpiling: Make sure you're not stockpiling the materials you need to build the monument. If you are (check your Overseer of Commerce screen), it puts a freeze on the material(s) in question, stopping construction completely. Proximity: Keeping your storage yards, work camps, guilds, and construction site as close together as possible. Reducing distances reduces travel time, which will speed up construction. Build the necessary structures right across the street from your monument site if you can! Season: If you have floodplain farms in the particular mission you are playing, the season will affect your monument. Laborers from work camps are diverted from construction to tend the floodplain farms during harvest time. This pause in construction can be offset somewhat by providing more (fully staffed) work camps. Access: Make sure all the guilds, work camps, and storage yards have roads access. The construction site does not need to be connected to a road, but there must be a path (unobstructed by buildings or terrain) from the road to the monument. Grave Goods: Some monuments require burial gifts. If construction seems complete, but you haven't reached your monument rating, check your Overseer of Monuments screen to see if you need to dispatch some grave goods.
Q: My ferry will only carry people one way. What's wrong? Is this a bug? A: It's not a bug. To work in both directions a ferry must have access to labor on both sides and be fully staffed. Without labor only immigrants can cross, in some cases that maybe all you need. In other cases, if you want things to go both ways-- the ferries have to be staffed.
Q: Why won't ships stop at my dock? A: The first thing to check is whether the dock is fully staffed and connected by a road to a storage yard that has the goods you want to trade. If your importing, you need to have a storage yard set to accept the goods your importing. Be sure that the accepting storage yard is fully staffed, too.
Q: What are "industries" and where do I put them? A: Industries are things you can make or mine. It's best to build your water trade import/export industries close to the docks if possible. Or build a dock near the industries. If it's not possible, for example, if you are exporting stone and the stone mines are far from any possible dock, then be sure to have a storage yard set to accept the export goods close to the dock. This will allow your dockworkers to service the ships quicker, quicker service means more trade is possible. There are several different ways to do industries. Some industrial areas can be placed near housing blocks for the consumer goods the blocks will need. But sure to leave space because you will have to put up statues and gardens to make the area desirable for housing. Another way is to make one central industrial area for manufacturing. In that case you need to be sure you have labor access for the industrial area. This can consist of a very small housing block since any labor will draw from the entire city's unemployed labor pool. There will have to storage yards placed near to your housing blocks to hold the goods that the houses need to upgrade. List of goods needed to upgrade houses in order of use: Pottery Beer Linen Luxury goods (Luxury goods turns the citizens living in those houses into "Scribes" who don't contribute to your workforce, but pay very high taxes).
Q: My clay pits won't deliver to the pottery workshops. Why? A: There are a couple of reasons this could happen. Check to be sure your pottery workshops are fully staffed and have a road connecting the clay pits to pottery workshops. Another cause could be a disconnected piece of road touching the clay pit. The cart puller is exiting on the disconnected piece of road thus not delivering the clay. The final thing would be if the pottery workshop already has a full supply of clay --until they need more clay none will be delivered.
Q: My clay pits are delivering to a storage yard but the storage yard won't deliver to the pottery workshops. A: This problem is much the same as the question above with much the same solution. Be sure of labor and road access. One other thing if the storage yard is accepting other goods that needs to be taken to other workshops the cart pusher maybe busy delivering those goods. Be sure the finished pottery has a storage yard accepting it.
Q: How come the traders just pass by my storage yards and don’t buy anything? Or worse, they won’t even come on to the map, I can see them stuck right on the edge! A: Traders must have a clear path to a storage yard with full labor before they will even come on to the map. If the storage yard with linen is across the Nile and the ferry they have to ride doesn’t have labor, he won't trade. When the trade caravan does enter the map, he has a storage yard picked out to visit. If it doesn’t have goods in excess of what you have set to export with the Overseer of Commerce, at that moment, then he considers the trip a waste and passes on by. It doesn’t matter that you filled it up with 3 cartloads before he got to the area of the storage yard. Traders can buy 800 units maximum each trip. They can buy more than one kind of item on each trip. The number of caravans allowed on the map at one time is limited, so it is more profitable to design your city so as to maximize the number of trips the caravans will make a year. Each city has a trade quota that can be determined from the World Map. Cities that have met that quota will stop trading with you until the New Year.
Q: What kind of animals can I hunt? A: Ostriches, waterfowl and antelope. You have to build hunting lodges to train hunters who then take the meat to storage yards or granaries. You only have one type of game in a mission.
Q: Are there any other kinds of meat available to feed people? A: There sure are! Other types are fish but not all rivers support fish and you can build cattle ranches. Fishing has some special requirements. You need to build a shipwright to build fishing boats and you have to build fishing wharves for the boats to bring the fish. The fishing wharves need direct labor access to work. The fishing boats don’t need wood like your military ships; the shipwrights build them from materials on hand. Cattle ranches, where available, require direct labor access and plenty of straw to feed the cattle.
Q: Will transport ships pick up less than of 16 soldiers? A: Yes, but... If the company you're trying to load is actively receiving replacements, it will not board a transport while the new soldiers are en route to their fort or to the rally location. Whenever the Barracks or Military Academy spits out a new soldier, the rest of his company has to wait for him to arrive. For this reason, it's best not to transport partial companies. If you must do so, don't try to transport one that is actively being replenished.
Q: Can Hyksos Chariots be defeated on Very-Hard setting? A: Elder Pharaoh and Forum regular Grumps sent out three full-strength, academy trained companies (2 chariots, 1 infantry) to do battle with, perhaps three Hyksos chariots and maybe a water boy. His force was utterly destroyed The following is part of the reply from Nixon at Impressions: Chariots are the toughest of all troop types and the Hyksos are the toughest of all of the enemy armies. Put together, they are very formidable. Increasing the difficulty with make then tougher still. But it is possible to defeat Hyksos Chariots on Hard and even Very Hard. When I saw people having this problem I tested it on a map using the Very Hard difficulty setting. Now, admittedly, I played this just to test this one particular question. I had six legions of Chariots, all of which were experienced and had high morale. Plus, I spent a lot of my time trying to get on Seth's good side (with a good amount of success). When a group of Hyksos chariots attacked my city, all six of my Chariots swarmed on them and Seth bestowed one of his gifts (killing an attacking army). Most of my troops died but I did win the battle. Remember, this is on Very Hard. Now, like I said, all of this was done just to test this one issue. Things might have been different if I had been concentrating on other goals. In the midst of a campaign with other things going on and conditions not being optimal I'm not sure if I could have pulled it off. But I wanted to make sure that is was possible for it to happen at all and not a bug. NEW: If you've downloaded the recently released "Enhancement Pack" from Impressions, Hyksos Chariots and Hittite Chariots have had their hit points reduced to 262 on Very Hard and 260 on Hard (that should be good news to those of us who have yet to face them). Hyksos Chariots used to be 375 on Very Hard and 315 on Hard. Hittite Chariots were 330 on Very Hard and 275 on Hard.
Q: Trouble-Shooting & Pyramid Causeway Problems A: That covers most basic problems with monument construction. If none of the above applies, but construction on your monument has still ceased, here are some workarounds you can try: Deleting and undoing: Try deleting (then immediately select 'undo' so they reappear) your guilds, work camps, or even the monument itself. Some players have found that this 'jumpstarts' construction. Causeway: Some players have reported encountering a problem with the causeway in their pyramid complexes. Specifically, the section where the causeway meets the water is not being completed. In this case, placing gardens on the tiles from the end of the causeway to the water should continue construction.
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