ZEUS
                       Elite Housing

                       by Bev Truter

Creating road loops, or rectangles, of elite housing for 1, 2 or
even 4 companies of horsemen seemed easy enough in theory, but the
trick is to maintain the housing at the highest level (Estates)
needed for horsemen to remain living there. Your soldiers are a
picky bunch, and as soon as supplies of armour, wine or horses run
out, they will leave in droves.  Hoplites (foot-soldiers) will
live quite happily in Manors and Mansions, requiring just the
extras of wine and armour to produce Hoplite companies of 16
soldiers per company. Manors require wine, armour and horses to
evolve into Estates in which horsemen reside - the most powerful
of your armed forces.

Fortunately even abandoned residences retain their supplies of
food, fleece, olive oil etc., so as soon as you can provide all
the necessary goodies to lure another bunch of residents back, the
houses will rapidly evolve again. However, it's irritating to see
your carefully- planned roads of elite housing evolve and devolve
like yo-yos, so to keep your residents happy and make sure your
elite housing stays at the level you want it to, take some time to
plan the layout of roads and essential supplies, long before you
place site markers for the elite houses. Learn to be a landscape
gardener and have fun with the design and maintenance of elite
neighbourhoods!

One of the easist ways to create the 'great appeal' needed for an
elite neighbourhood is to save up your commemorative monuments,
and only place them in areas where great appeal is needed, eg,
behind rows of elite housing, or to boost the appeal of Theseus's
Hall (very difficult to get the appeal needed for him, I found in
later games, unless you spend lavishly on huge gardens).

First of all, about a year before you intend laying out any roads,
place at least 2 horse ranches within walking distance of your
future grand agora. You cannot order a storage yard to 'get'
horses, as you can with other commodities, so horse-traders from
an agora must be within walking distance to reach horse ranches.
Then either import or grow a small but regular supply of wheat and
store it in a storage yard close to the ranches, and soon you'll
have horses (6 per ranch, I think) snorting and prancing about the
ranches' corrals. When the horse vendor's stall begins operating,
the horse trader will rapidly buy up a staggering amount of horses
for your soldiers, so be prepared well in advance with plenty of
horses.

Before you start building an elite neighbourhood, make sure you
have a fairly large number of people unemployed (about 8%-10%).
Elite residents don't work, but instead generate 8 soldiers per
household, and you'll need a sizeable workforce to run the
hospital, stadium, theatre etc. in each elite neighbourhood. Also
make sure that you have a plentiful and regular supply of oil,
fleece, armour and wine arriving in your city, either by producing
the goodies yourself, or by importing what is necessary from
trading partners.

Although elite residents don't work, they DO pay huge amounts in
tax, so it might be worth putting in a smallish elite
neighbourhood as soon as you can comfortably afford to, and not
scramble around in a rush at the last minute trying to put in
elite housing because you have to. I always try for the wimpy way
out of fighting - bribing the enemy to go away rather than face
them with few or no soldiers at the ready.  So it can be an
amazing morale booster to know you have 4 or 5 companies of
horsemen lurking in estates, even if you're not required to use
them.

After choosing a suitable site for elite housing place a road loop
(either a rectangle or L-shape works best) in a large cleared
area, fairly close to a food supply or granary. If available on
your 'aesthetics' menu put an avenue, or grander still a
boulevard, over the road loop. Place a grand agora at one end of
your loop, or 2 common agoras, one at each side or end of the
loop. Two common agoras are often more useful, as you can place
one with (eg) a food, fleece and armour vendor at one end of the
loop, and another agora (horses, wine and olives, often arriving
from the same direction/area) at the further side of the road
loop. I try to keep any nasty buildings, ie, those reducing appeal
in an area, close to the agora. So a watchtower, tax collector's
office and gymnasium can go on both sides of the road close to the
agora/s, and some high-appeal buildings near the far end of the
road loop - eg, theatre and podium. Build drama schools and
philosophers' colleges far away from the elite loop - as long as
you have plenty of schools and colleges, walkers will soon fill
your entertainment venues.

I always try to place the hospital on a corner of the loop, with
only a small area of hospital touching the road; and the same goes
for a stadium - only 1 or 2 tiles of the stadium needs to touch
the road loop, the rest of the stadium can project out elsewhere.
In case you need to build more elite housing at a later stage,
leave space for another road loop to pass and touch the stadium at
some point.  Remember to block off any roads leading away from
your elite loop, especially roads that also touch large buildings
like the hospital or stadium, or you will find your competitors
(stadium) and healers (hospital) happily ambling off down roads
that don't contain any elite housing.

Next, about midway around the loop, construct an ordinary road
that leads directly to the nearest supply of wine, oil, fleece and
armour, and place a storage yard with 'get' orders for (8 of each)
wine, fleece, oil and armour on this road, behind your planned
elite housing.

Then finally, when all the above is in place, put down the site
markers for 4 to 8 elite houses, on both sides of the
avenue/boulevard. Leave space for a 'garden' of park (the smallest
tile on the aesthetics menu) down the side of each house to
separate it from its neighbours, and put in a larger flower garden
between any elite house and the agora, tax collector or
watchtower. Also surround your hospital, gymnasium and theatre
with flowers/parks. Make sure your housing rectangles are wide
enough to place a row of flowerbeds behind each house, and put a
row of commemorative monuments, or a row of maze squares (same
size as monuments) down the centre of your housing rectangles to
create neighbourhoods that are very appealing. For houses placed
on the outer side of a rectangle, a row of fishponds and/or mazes
placed behind them does wonders for appeal.

You might need to put in 2 podiums, and possibly 2 gymnasiums, but
there's no need for overkill. If your elite residents still moan
at a later stage about there not being 'enough access to culture',
it's because they want a stadium, and no amount of theatres,
podiums or gymnasiums will make up for the lack of a stadium.

Before you start tweaking about with the final touches to your
houses and gardens, remember to place vendors' shops on the
agora/s - then sit back and watch your people flock in to take up
residence in the elite part of town!







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