Emperor Rise of the Middle Kingdom and Zeus/Poseidon have the same walker mechanics. They both represent an upgrade from Caesar III due to the addition of roadblocks. I cannot recall if Pharaoh had roadblocks on release or not. I vaguely recall roadblocks being patched into Pharaoh later but not being very accessible in the UI.
I consider Zeus/Poseidon the peak of the series b/c of the integration of the city building with the goals and scenarios, giving it a better “game” element than most of the series. Also, Emperor would be its equal but for the festivals that the player had to remember to click on every few weeks. With my ADHD that was a game-killer for me. If you don’t have ADHD, Emperor may be the best of the series.
As for getting mileage out of Zeus/Poseidon, here is the key tip for building your cities: for the areas where you need walkers to go in a certain path, be very careful in your roadbuilding. The best way to manage walkers is simply to NOT give the walkers bad choices. If the walkers have no choice but to go on the path you want, it’s all good.
For example, for residential areas, you want your service/market/support buildings and your houses all on a connected road (line, square, whatever works) with a long dimension (or half circumference) of 27 tiles (that’s as far as the shortest range walkers will go), linked to your main city road network by roads that are limited by roadblocks. (For example my residential blocks with an inner “square/ring” that links everything inside the block and is in turn linked via roadblocks to the main city.)
For everything else, the main thing to worry about is maintenance walkers, who have a distances of 43 tiles. You can set up loops or lines, where the maintenance walker is constrained to follow the path.
Note: if you can manage a loop, you can get twice the distance. For example in my residential blocks, I use a “square/ring” of 8X16 - the total circumfurence is 52 tiles (which includes the 4 corner tiles) and so a walker going 27 tiles will make it just around the corner before it turns back - since the shortest path home at that point is the “far” side of the loop, the walker will smoothly walker all the way around a 52 tile loop, even though it’s “walk distance” is only 27 tiles. In theory, with the longer distance maintenance walkers (distance 43) you could could make a loop of 84 tiles. Be sure to count the corners when counting out your loops!
Basically, the “patrolling” walkers will follow the roadblocks until they hit their distance limit and then they will run home the fastest way. It’s possible to set up “P” shapes and other shapes where the walkers will come home through roadblocks if they hit the turn around point at the right spot.
Eh, that got too complicated.
Here’s the basic deal: for bourgie housing your short walker distance is 27 tiles - try to make loops that make use of that. For elite housing, it’s more but I forget exactly. I typically just setup elites in long lines b/c you need a lot of space around the elite housing for beatification (parks and such).