Pharaoh

[Jubal]

Did anyone ever play this? City-building game set in ancient Egypt.

I just revisited it - I suck at it btw - and had the most bizarre game.

The mission I was on was founding the first Egyptian fleet at Apollinopolis. Built a city up, eventually rescued it from debt etc, so far so good. But then I fell back into a bit of debt - and THEN I remembered that even debt of like a tenner can have massively negative effects on your Kingdom Rating (aka how much other cities like you). Pretty shortly, I had news that a Pharonic army was on its way. I threw my family fortune etc at trying to persuade turn them round, buuuuut no dice whatsoever. So I also built a bunch of forts as a precaution.

The trouble was, when they got here, they started sacking the place - being hardened vets compared to my raw recruits. And so my ability to make money and get out of debt was being destroyed by the very people who were asking for repayment. Cue about an hour's struggle against increasingly zerg-like waves of troops - I had police stations covering the whole city to provide a rapid response militia, my troops occasionally sallying out of the forts. They were kept away from the all-important docks for a long while by two warships stationed there shooting at them; the first wave, after defeating my army, mostly ended up occupying the middle of town whilst the police fought running street battles with them to keep them out of downtown (the gold mining zone) and the north of town where the storage yards for trade were located. Wave 1 was actually fully defeated; then the waves started speeding up, and the "city builder" game turned into a sort of bloodbath tower defence, desperately trying to hang on.

I think it was Wave 5 arriving that finally cracked it.

[Tom]

That sounds awesome, where can I buy this game?

[Mars]

That sounds awesome, where can I buy this game?

You may buy the game at GOG.com and luckily enough, it is currently on sale until 2PM GMT.

[Clockwork]

I think I've still got this game actually. On disc even. You start with tents and build your way up to houses and things iirc? I think there is a Rome one as well. If not then I'm thinking of something else.

+1 for mentioning Zerg.

[TTG4]

I think there is a Rome one as well.

Ceaser 3 I believe. Still got that lying around. If I remember rightly the main annoyance I had with that was people weren't willing to commute to work, so I had huge houses with huge unemployment and then loads of vaccancies claiming they couldn't find workers! Think they fixed that in Pharaoh, played it once and for some reason it wouldn't accept that I'd beautified the city enough despite practically filling it with decorations. Ah the good old days.

[Jubal]

Done a few more missions, got invaded by Pharaoh in one again and had to re-start, but I'm getting the hang of it more now (at least on normal difficulty, not even tried the harder settings).

The main thing seems to be finding a really effective way of making money. Gold mines are great if you have them, then you just literally mint the coins, but usually you need some sort of trading, and many places have frankly shoddy natural resources. My last city basically set itself up as a flax processing centre, I had two docks, a bunch of storage yards, and about six weavers along the banks of the Nile, importing flax and exporting linen (occasionally also exporting beer, which was literally the only local thing I could produce and export from the raw materials).

My other problem was that it turned out I was too nice. It turns out that it actually pays off in many missions not to bother with housing quality until the late game - focussing on concrete mission objectives first (usually, building a monument of some kind, and supplying the rest of Egypt with whatever Pharaoh has decided on a whim that you ought to send them, even if it's something you have no way to produce) then only once that's complete bothering to supply pottery or beer to your poor starving townsfolk to get your culture/prosperity ratings high enough to win.

Next mission is building the first true (aka non-stepped) pyramid

[amusingthebrood]

I played a lot of C3 and a bit of Pharaoh back in the day; C3 in particular was one of my favourite games at the time. I enjoyed the challenges of putting a working economy together, even on the maps with limited high value resources. A well oiled city felt a great achievement.

Lethis looks to be an interesting work in progress. the team openly admit they are heavily influenced by the Impressions Games series (it shows), and the steampunk setting looks fun.

[Jubal]

A well oiled city on those games *is* a great achievement

It always interested me how you had to get the scale right, too; you couldn't outgrow your export markets on Pharaoh, but you also had to overproduce to satisfy other cities' demands.

Lethis looks interesting - I've not come across it before

[amusingthebrood]

Not forgetting of course to keep your own citizens supplied and somehow managing to keep suitable stock levels in your warehouses, granaries, and markets.

I'm feeling the urge to play again.

[Jubal]

Just watched the Lethis gameplay trailer - it looks VERY reminiscent of pharaoh, and I like the look of it a lot. 

[Lizard]

Just jumping in to say I had a SERIOUS Pharaoh problem back in, like, 2000. Then I discovered the Sims, and the rest is history!