So, last night, I replayed one of my missions because I thought I could get a better score (I did) then I had a choice of 2 missions (Oasis and something else) so I did one, and then the other, and then the follow up (Saqqare-build your first stepped pyramid) which comes regardless of chosen preceding mission.
Now, some 1999 era design reared it’s head, and not in a good way. The victory conditions could stand to be made considerably clearer, and a modern game would probably do so.
In Saqqara, one must build the pyramid, and fill it with a bunch of goods, but the bit about the goods isn’t stated in the victory screen.
Figuring this out took me about 3 in game years, and I thought the game had glitched lol.
Still, mostly my fault for having this be the 4th mission in a row and it being 0200 in the morning and restarting it about 3 or 4 times (messed up my imports and exports.)
My final city had 5500 population, 50000 debens in the bank, 5 full granaries (overproduced pomegranates, and was exporting game meat) a surplus of copper (and enough weapons to field 2 active Infantry companies, and enough stockpiled for 3 more) and a booming papyrus and linen industry.
One thing this mission really taught me is planning your residential blocks not too far away from your industry blocks. i did have empty industry and unemployment at the same time, simply because the available workers were too far away in distance, despite being connected by road.
There was a moment, that sort of golden aha moment I think all gamers hunt for and which all game designers want to have in the game, where things just kind of fell into place. I saw a tutorial for buildings blocks, and managed to adapt it for irregular shaped terrain, making a sort of zigzag instead of a rectangle, plus was able to deduce that if a = 2 then b = 3 etc.
One thing I haven’t been able to deduce is what effects the temple complex additions have.
Another weird UI thing is that when your troops are requested elsewhere, you must first visit the military overseer, allocate a troop for foreign adventure, then visit your political overseer to dispatch it.
2 mildly fiddly things that would be refined in a modern take on Pharaoh.
also, tool tips, because everyone loves tooltips, and a more detailed breakdown, although reducing a temple to + 5 favour might have made things too spreadhsheety lol.
Anyway, not since AoW3 (and D:OS2 at the beginning) has a game managed to get it’s hooks into me so deeply.
Design is pretty simple, but so many interlocking parts.
I can see why peeople get frustrated though. Like, “why is my granary burning even though there’s a fire house right next to it?” (answer, fire house might not even be manned, fireman might be going the wrong direction…)