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This game is starting to make me tear my hair out. My houses keep devolving and preventing my city from growing, Why? Because my idiot peddlers from the market square keep going in the wrong direction. They keep going off out in the nowhere instead of to where my houses are. As a result, my houses don't get a consistent supply of food and keep devolving. It doesn't matter how many market squares I build, the problem is still the same. The peddler's still go the exact opposite direction from my residential areas. Is there anything I can do to solve this?
The houses need to be in a closed loop so the walkers have no choice but to go the right way.
Also use roadblocks to stop them going the wrong way.

Here is an example of a closed loop housing block:
http://emperor.heavengames.com/strategy/blockessay03
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Ohio9: Is there anything I can do to solve this?
https://imgur.com/sBAkvqo

See the above screenshot for just one example I tend to use in my games. Note the access settings for the three Residential Gates, which only allows peddlers to enter the housing loop. When possible, I try to keep my inspectors limited to patrolling the housing loop. In those situations, I'll use a separate Inspector's Tower (also shown, to the right) to maintain my Market Square and Mill by way of an outer road. As you can see, the rightmost Residential Gate serves to keep the peddlers from leaving the housing loop whilst keeping the outside inspectors from wandering in.
Post edited April 21, 2019 by lanipcga
I'm honestly very close to rage-quitting the game now. I'm in the later levels and the problem has only gotten worse. Not just with my peddlers, but with everyone. My guards, inspectors., shrine maidens, etc, etc, etc. They never go where I need them. Buildings collapse right next to inspector towers. Houses right next to shrines keep loosing shrine access. Vandals keep burning my Admistrative city because guards won't go to houses suffering under unrest.

I never had this problem with other city builder games made by Sierra like Rome and Pharoah, and I've beaten those games multiple times.

If the only way to beat this game is to micromanage everyone so it's physically impossible for them to go the wrong way, then it might not be worth playing. The main fun point of the game is to be constantly expanding and connecting parts of the city so that it keeps getting better and better access, yet this game seems to want me to do the opposite. I shouldn't have to run my town like a prison.
Post edited April 21, 2019 by Ohio9
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Ohio9: I'm honestly very close to rage-quitting the game now. I'm in the later levels and the problem has only gotten worse. Not just with my peddlers, but with everyone. My guards, inspectors., shrine maidens, etc, etc, etc. They never go where I need them.
If all those things are going wrong, that usually means your city layouts may need improving. Oftentimes, it boils down to designing an effective housing loop that doesn't overreach beyond your walkers' limits. Once you figure out how to design a stable, self-sustaining block, the rest of the game becomes much easier to master.

Are you able to post/link screenshots of your cities? It's difficult to advise you unless I can see potential flaws in your roads and housing layouts.
Well things are going a little better now. It's just such a pain to have to micromanage where everyone walks. That really shouldn't be a part of the game. And I still have the occasional incident of a building collapsing within spitting distance of an inspector tower.
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Ohio9: It's just such a pain to have to micromanage where everyone walks. That really shouldn't be a part of the game. And I still have the occasional incident of a building collapsing within spitting distance of an inspector tower.
It still sounds like you could use some guidance. Once you understand walker behavior, creating housing blocks should be a breeze. Thanks to Residential Gates, it's actually easier to control walker movement in Emperor than in Caesar III and Pharaoh. It just takes time and familiarity with the game mechanics. It's nowhere near as frustrating as you're making it out to be. Please consider linking some screenshots so I can help you nip this problem in the bud.
But in Caesar and Pharaoh you really didn't have to control walkers. You just put a building down and could trust the people going from it would cover a decent sized zone around it on their own. I beat those games easily enough without ever really managing the walkers at all.

I'm afraid I don't know how to take or post screen shots on games that aren't on Steam.
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Ohio9: But in Caesar and Pharaoh you really didn't have to control walkers. You just put a building down and could trust the people going from it would cover a decent sized zone around it on their own. I beat those games easily enough without ever really managing the walkers at all.
I guess you're one of the lucky few who didn't have problems with market ladies and whatnot. What's perplexing is that you're having problems in Emperor, where the game mechanics for labor access and walker control have been dumbed down significantly to benefit the player. For a veteran of the older games to have such a hard time probably means your strategy needs to be fine-tuned a bit.
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Ohio9: I'm afraid I don't know how to take or post screen shots on games that aren't on Steam.
If you're using Windows, try capturing your game screen with the PrtScn key. Paste the image into a Paint program, and save it as a jpg file. If your jpg is too large to be uploaded to GOG or Imgur, it may need to be compressed. Sites like tinyjpg.com can do this for you.
Post edited April 22, 2019 by lanipcga
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Ohio9: But in Caesar and Pharaoh you really didn't have to control walkers. You just put a building down and could trust the people going from it would cover a decent sized zone around it on their own. I beat those games easily enough without ever really managing the walkers at all.
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lanipcga: I guess you're one of the lucky few who didn't have problems with market ladies and whatnot. What's perplexing is that you're having problems in Emperor, where the game mechanics for labor access and walker control have been dumbed down significantly to benefit the player. For a veteran of the older games to have such a hard time probably means your strategy needs to be fine-tuned a bit.
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Ohio9: I'm afraid I don't know how to take or post screen shots on games that aren't on Steam.
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lanipcga: If you're using Windows, try capturing your game screen with the PrtScn key. Paste the image into a Paint program, and save it as a jpg file. If your jpg is too large to be uploaded to GOG or Imgur, it may need to be compressed. Sites like tinyjpg.com can do this for you.
It seemed like in the older games, walker patterns were more random, meaning as long a your building was placed in the right spot, the walker from it would get to where he was needed eventually, usually before anything went wrong. With Emperor, it's not just that walkers occasionally go in the wrong direction, it's that without your direction they always do. It's like they are fixed on a set pattern which is somehow always the wrong way from where they are needed.

In the other games, I had a great time connecting all the parts of my cities with as many different roadways as possible, so everyone had full access to everything. Now in order to beat this game I have to do the opposite. It's starting to feel more like I'm running a prison then a city.

The Print scan key doesn't seem to do anything when I press it in game.
Post edited April 23, 2019 by Ohio9
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Ohio9: It seemed like in the older games, walker patterns were more random, meaning as long a your building was placed in the right spot, the walker from it would get to where he was needed eventually, usually before anything went wrong. With Emperor, it's not just that walkers occasionally go in the wrong direction, it's that without your direction they always do. It's like they are fixed on a set pattern which is somehow always the wrong way from where they are needed.
I think a lot of it depends on how you set up your residential areas. For the most part, keeping intersections to a bare minimum prevents walkers from wandering off. In both Emperor and its predecessors, the trick is to learn strategies for controlling where your walkers go. I'd say it's as much about road layouts as it is about building placement. While I haven't studied walker behavior as closely as other players have, I personally don't find Emperor to be more problematic in this regard. The only times I tend to struggle is when I get a little too ambitious with my housing loops. Otherwise, it's fairly easy to set up a stable block once you've become familiar enough with the game.

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Ohio9: In the other games, I had a great time connecting all the parts of my cities with as many different roadways as possible, so everyone had full access to everything. Now in order to beat this game I have to do the opposite. It's starting to feel more like I'm running a prison then a city.
The bolded part caught my eye, as it may be a clue as to why you're having problems. Are you saying you try to have your entire city connected by as many roads as possible? Somehow I doubt that, as you would've struggled in Caesar III and Pharaoh unless you spammed Bazaars and Libraries everywhere. All I can say for Emperor is that it's better to keep your housing sectors separated and avoid too much road connectivity. You'll want your walkers to be restricted to a small enough road loop so they'll be forced to complete the circle on their return trips. Whether they go in one direction or the other upon spawning shouldn't matter much, as they'd be traversing the same loop and covering all your housing. If you're relying on walkers to randomly choose a favorable direction, there will always be some risk of poor coverage and housing devolution.

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Ohio9: The Print scan key doesn't seem to do anything when I press it in game.
So after pressing it, you can't paste anything in your Paint program? In that case, I recommend reading up on how to take screenshots on your particular system. Another more time-consuming alternative would be to record your game footage and upload a video, which is obviously better than providing screenshots. I hope you can figure something out, because I'd really like to lend you feedback.
Post edited April 23, 2019 by lanipcga
i also want to see your cities :D i have the same basic build for all the games(changes based on what each game demands) and with some roadblocks it solves everything.

if all else fails just set the game to window mode and use puush to take a picture of the screen then post the link it provides. you will need to make an account and download puush but its a free program that provides storage and links to the images youve taken.

https://puush.me/

without actually seeing the set up youre using theres mot much the community can suggest. based on what youve said theyve given the best advise they can. i agree with Ianipcga, its weird youve not gotten this issue before now.

recording your set up and explaining things to us is also an option. either from twitch or on youtube.
Post edited April 23, 2019 by Aranwen1
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lanipcga: All I can say for Emperor is that it's better to keep your housing sectors separated and avoid too much road connectivity. You'll want your walkers to be restricted to a small enough road loop so they'll be forced to complete the circle on their return trips. Whether they go in one direction or the other upon spawning shouldn't matter much, as they'd be traversing the same loop and covering all your housing. If you're relying on walkers to randomly choose a favorable direction, there will always be some risk of poor coverage and housing devolution.
Yeah now that I realize that, I'm not having the same problems I was having when I posted this thread. Your advice did help solve the problem, so thanks for that.

But I'm telling you, this really wasn't the case for Pharoah or Ceasar. That's why I was so baffled by it. It in the older games, providing maximum road access to your entire city was a good thing (which it should be, as it is in real life)

One lingering problem I'm still having in the game though is watchtower guards and tax collectors. There doesn't seem to be any way to allow them to go through residential gates. They always turn around whenever they run into them. This means I can't effectively wall their buildings off from my residential districts. So I'm forced to either place in residential areas and lower the desirability, or place them far away from residential areas, which reduces their effectiveness.
Post edited April 25, 2019 by Ohio9
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Ohio9: But I'm telling you, this really wasn't the case for Pharoah or Ceasar. That's why I was so baffled by it. It in the older games, providing maximum road access to your entire city was a good thing (which it should be, as it is in real life)
It's a real shame that the one person who claims to have pulled that off in Caesar III and Pharaoh is unable to post screenshots or videos. Almost every other player on this planet would have gone mad trying to keep their houses from devolving under those circumstances. Whatever your secret for keeping those cities afloat is, you're certainly being very cryptic about it.

The problem with modeling cities after real life is that most walkers don't behave like we do in RL. The majority of them wander around aimlessly, only taking the most direct route when they return to their spawn points. It's only the destination walkers (e.g., market buyers heading to and from Granaries) that more or less function like people do in RL. Apart from spamming service buildings everywhere, I have no idea how you managed 10,000+ populations with such chaotic road networks.

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Ohio9: One lingering problem I'm still having in the game though is watchtower guards and tax collectors. There doesn't seem to be any way to allow them to go through residential gates. They always turn around whenever they run into them. This means I can't effectively wall their buildings off from my residential districts. So I'm forced to either place in residential areas and lower the desirability, or place them far away from residential areas, which reduces their effectiveness.
That's one unfortunate limitation of the otherwise useful Residential Gates. Fortunately, it's not a massive pain to incorporate Watchtowers and Tax Offices in your housing blocks. With careful planning, you can situate them where they won't drag down the area's appeal too noticeably. I tend to use Grand Ways in my Common blocks to keep the surrounding appeal as high as possible. And since I aim for perfect Feng Shui, I make sure there's always a patch of rocks near one of my Common blocks (for my Inspector's Towers and Watchtowers).
Even if I could post screenshots, I couldn't post any from Pharaoh and Caesar, since I played those games years ago. They aren't even on my current computer. Perhaps I'll have to go back to them once I'm done with emperor. But anyway, the way I played them was I simply put a building reasonably close to where I wanted walker coverage and that was it. There was nothing else to it. I probably ended up putting down more buildings then the average player (I remember having to put down a ton of Architect's Posts and Fire Stations), but I'd certainly rather do that then micromanage where people walk. Managing where people walked in those games just wasn't a thing.

What's Feng Shui? I've seen that term in the game, but no explanation for what it is. Also have does having patches of rocks near your towers help?
Post edited April 25, 2019 by Ohio9