EMPEROR - Rise of the Humble Compound

                       by Bev Truter

When playing the second dynasty (Shang) of Emperor, I had great
difficulty in the last mission with my elite housing - getting my
lavish siheyuans to improve up to the next level (humble
compounds) seemed well nigh impossible. What was I doing wrong? To
automatically upgrade, my residents in their lavish siheyuans
needed access to an acupuncturist (I gave them TWO), bronzeware
(yes, my bronzeware shop was stuffed to overflowing with
bronzeware), and tasty food. Aha! Therein lay the problem.
Although I had 4 different food types available for the mill to
produce tasty food, and although my market buyer in the food shop
had orders to purchase only 'tasty food', the food shop in my
market square was filled to the eyeballs with appetizing food.
This meant the market buyer wasn't bothering to purchase any more
food at the mill until the appetizing food had been carted off for
distribution to the houses by the peddlar.

With 786 (kilos? Bushels? Barrels?) of appetizing food in stock at
the market, I waited patiently for 7 months for the changeover to
tasty food to occur, but it didn't. Crikey! How long does it take
for a peddlar to distribute all the stored food in a market shop?
Obviously a lot longer than I'd assumed. In the meantime, I'd
wasted 7 months' worth of bronzeware on my resdidents of lavish
siheyuans, with no hope of them improving their housing, as there
wasn't any tasty food being distributed by the peddlar. It would
have been far better to export my bronzeware for profit, while
waiting for the tasty food to appear in the market. The problem
is, though, if you need to improve your elite housing in a hurry
up to the humble compound level (eg, to fulfill the current goal
quickly, and avoid an imminent attack by an enemy), you really
need to start distributing that tasty food *immediately*, so that
as soon as your elite residents have their required food, they
will upgrade their houses, and new residents will pour in the
following month - assuming they have bronzeware and access to
acupuncture.

I eventually found the quickest solution was to ruthlessly
demolish the current food shop and immediately put in a new food
shop in the same place. This way, assuming your mill is producing
tasty food, your new market buyer will wander out to the mill
straight away to buy up an initial stock of tasty food, and your
pedlar from the food shop will begin distributing it.

I suppose another solution to this upgrading problem would be to
ensure there is just sufficient quantities of food in the food
shop of a market to force the market buyer to make frequent trips
to the mill to buy new supplies of food at regular intervals. When
I checked my Agricultural Ministry, I discovered I had enough food
stored up to feed several thousand people for 10 months; so
there's a moral in there somewhere - don't provide an
over-abundance of appetising meals, or you'll have problems
switching to tasty meals.




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