I am confused on how do I improve housing. I right clicked on houses and they were asking for items from the bazaar. I built few bazaars but the bazaars get grain only (no luxury , linen, etc) . So I built a storage yard next to the bazaar and it has all the items the bazaar needs but still the bazaaar will have 0 of all items except 800 grain. I added temples and statues and gardens but its not helping.

What am I supposed to do?


The funny thing is that there is another neighbourhood which I keep for farming only, it hardly has anything the bazaar is lacking on items just as much but the neighbourhood is more developed and housing are of higher statues.

Any one can explain this to me?

Did you give the bazaar ladies some time to actually get those items from storage? Check where the buyers are (overlays are super helpful for that, hiding the clutter). Maybe the buying lady is trecking to the other end of the map to get something and just hasn't returned yet to shop for something else. Upgrading your bazaars by prettyfying the surroundings helps with that, an improved bazaar has a shopper for food and one for the rest, basic bazaar only has one that does everything.

Houses store quite a lot of stuff, they might be hoovering up what the bazaar can bring petty fast if the good is newly available, "filling the pipe" needs time; they wont consume at this insane rate but want to have their cellars well stocked.

Rightclick those bazaars and check that they are actually allowed to buy the things you want them to buy. And the trade list that you're not stockpiling something you don't mean to.

Check this chart for the exact thing your houses need next. They won't get linen if they don't have beer yet for example. Its a good idea to work your way through the chart in order, only giving the good or service thats needed next, moving on to the next one once everything in the block got the previous, makes for much more predictable development.

Water, entertainment or a temple would be the things that prevent moving to the pottery stage, they're all there? Houses actually have access? Overlays are your friend again.

I waited a very long time, I have the game on speed 100%, even the pyramid is complete but those houses are not getting any better. I literally waited like 15-20 min .

I have also set storage yard close by so they do not have to travel to the other parts of the map.

The only thing I can think of is this:

1)The neighbourhood is set on a desert , not the green parts by the water. Actually there is not enough green parts on the map to build a complete neighbourhood . Water has to be fetched from far away.

2) I only have one palace and mansion which are far away. Am I supposed to have many? Any way they are only built on green lands which are scarce

3) Maybe I am setting the imports level too low? but all items the bazaar needs are stored in the storage yards already.

I have all the beautification , temples, dance schools, jugglers, library and everything else is already setup.

1) Do these houses have water at all? "Fetching from far away" isn't exactly feasable as the water carriers have rather short walks, 26 tiles. Use the water overlay to find out.

2) Nope, you can only have one each of those and they're not needed for housing develpment, they just provide some beautification but you can get that with other stuff.

3) If you have some it would get used, no need to waste money on more before you figure out that problem. With bad houses your tax income is probably quite limited and not many workers for exports... buy more when you start needing it.

4) What exact level are your troubling houses? Crude huts or elegant manors? Knowing this would make finding the cause much easier. If they're "yoyoing", evolving and devolving all the time, look at the lowest level they drop to, thats the one that is causing the problem.

I think flicas is right and your houses are struggling to get water. Without water, development of a housing area is very limited regardless of what facilities, beautification and goods are available.

I suspect a tough decision lies ahead. Either re-start the entire mission, or eradicate the housing area which isn't flourishing and build a new one elsewhere where access to fountain water is a simpler process.

One of the foibles of this game is the need to plan housing/water/farming/industrial areas at the commencement of each mission. It's an aspect I love, but it does mean the game can be very challenging.

You should play the tutorial missions at the beginning of the game. They teach you the basics, which you seem to be lacking. Also, make sure you aren't trying to play the game above Normal difficulty if you have never played this type of game before.

What mission are you actually playing? To me, it sounds vaguely like Saqqara, but can't be sure. Are you using a housing block of any description, or just building your housing well away from the water and having a water carrier walk the length of the road to your housing? Screenshots would be most useful...

One other thing, you list so much useless stuff you already have set up... you might be simply so short of workers that random services fail all the time even if you arranged everything in a way that would work given a full population.

thanks a lot for your help. It seems to be water is the issue. I am in the map North Dahshur. I really under-estimated water needs. So I built many water supplies in the nearest ground to this neighbourhood.

You see even after I built many water supplies, water carries will not pass the neighbourhood within the red rectangle shown in the pictures I provided. I am not sure how to fix that.

Also, you can see the bazaar marked in green and the stock yard marked in green. The stock yard has all the items the bazaar needs but still the bazaar will only stock grain and maybe some beer. all items are set to buy all.

Glad we finally found it. When you rightclick one of those houses it should say on the top of the window that pops up "doesn't even have access to the most primitive water source" You probably looked only at the bottom text.

The only way to really fix it, is planning ahead. It sounds worse than it is, one corner of a housing block must be on water, doesn't even have to be a corner actually. But how this area is laid out makes it quite suitable for industry, build a new residential area near water and repurpose this one. Water carriers walk randomly for 26 tiles, then return. Thats will never be enough to supply a block with so many intersections if the water source isn't right there.

Your bazaars are fine, there is simply no demand from those huts, don't worry about the bazaar and its goods.

As Shukatu suggested, play the first familiy missions, as they explain the basics, before you tackle another free play map.

Sorry to say, but that's a terrible housing design. In fact, your walkers are being sent all over the place because you are flooding the place in intersections. Intersections are bad and if you MUST have them, keep them to a minimum

You may want to explore this thread on Pharaoh Heaven to find a housing block that suits you:
http://caesar3.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/caeforumscgi/display.cgi?action=ct&f=25,2237,0,365

I would start from the beginning of the game and work through the early missions (aka: Predynastic Period and Archaic Period), as they teach you all the fundamentals of the game. Trying to play such a late mission of the Old Kingdom without having knowledge of how to play the game is imbecilic (to put it bluntly)

Thanks a lot for your help. After listening to your tips my houses improved a lot ...but, once I reached the prosperity level I needed to complete this level, the culture level dropped down. So I installed few band stands and booths around the city now I got the culture level right but the prosperity level has dropped for reasons I do not understand.

Houses would say that they have no bazaar items, but some how they did before I installed the booths around the city. I surrounded the neighbourhood with bazaars just to see whats going to happen. Nope, no bazaar items any more. They used to exist before the dance booths too.

I think I will just stop playing this game. I have put in at least 10 hours in this level by now, its a waste of life. I played it on very easy for 5 hours now. Looks like this game is more studying and researching than playing.

The huge issue of this game is that if you build houses near industrial areas they will not develop, if you build them far away farms and crafts shops will say no workers leave near buy.

@Shukaku

I read parts of the user manual, I did research, do not think this is the only time I discussed this game online with other players. This is probably the 3rd forum I discuss this game in. If there are specific templates of housing blocks that this game will only work with, whats the point of doing your own designs . They might as well have a copy-paste command of neighbourhoods.

When I played command and conquer you can design your army however you want and the outcome will be based on your design. It does not have to be designed in a specific way or it will not work.

Maybe you think I am an idiot, but if this game will not work for some one like me who spends hours each day playing games, discussing them, reading the manual, watching youtube videos and I still can not complete the level then this is work this is not gaming.

And I reached this level by playing from the start, right from the tutorials I didn't skip

I appreciate this approach to playing games. It's about planning your own solutions, that's the fun. But that is the main challenge of the game. Two revelations that helped me get more workable solutions:
1. You don't exactly need the same number of houses as there will be workers in the area. The industry's wandering "hirer" just needs to be able to get to houses quickly. So a few houses near the industry, while the bulk of your population is away, is more okay than you'd expect.
2. The hirer needs only to get within 2 squares of the houses. You can take advantage of this (and roadblocks) to help create streets that only hirers walk vs. streets that service houses (of the employees). Look at the picture I attached, its the dividing line between the industrial vs. residential zones in one of my cities

I did not say they were specific templates, but SUGGESTED housing blocks created by other players of the game that you could use. Nobody is forcing you to use them, but cities tend to work out better designed in blocks.
Pharaoh is a strategy game. If you can't play the game with a proper strategy in mind, don't expect to complete the later missions, which are much tougher than this.

I am trying Zues now. It looks better and the graphics are clearer. I will see how it goes in this game and maybe return back to Pharaoh later on.

@Fupes

are you saying that the living area will not be affected by the industrial area as long as it is two block or further away?

Yes the 2 block rule does work, but you need space to build temples, entertainment etc., so I tend to use a 5 blocks rather than 2. i.e.

RHHHHHHHHHH
RRRRRRRRRRR
R
R Temples, Magistrates, Libraries, Bazaars etc., in this 3R space.
R
R
R Potters, Papyrus makers etc., along this line
RRRRRRRRRRR
Clay, Reed gatherers, Storage yards etc., along this line

H = House
R = Road

I tend to bring the end of my industrial road back into my housing block, so the end road is a repeat of the starting road.

Naturally this isn't set in stone and you can tweak it to suit what ever design of road/pavement/housing block you like. But, the 5 block gap does allow plenty of space for your citizen's wants and requirements.