Children of the Nile

**frogbeastegg** · 09-02-2005, 16:58

Big fat pay checks from my new job + the announcement of Caesar IV making me want to play a city builder = one frog now playing CotN. Anyone else played it? It's a bit old now; been out in Europe since February, and the US since a bit before that.

So far it's not bad, though I'm loving the tweak I found to increase the maximum game speed to 5.0 instead of 2.5. That really does help out in those quiet years, and I've been wishing for such inanely crazy speed settings in all the other city building games.

But two things make me frown like a mildly perturbed amphibian. Firstly, is it me or are the individual scenarios exactly the same as the ones in the campaign? Same maps, same goals, identical. Seems worse than pointless - it's stupid, and means that there is really only one game mode, not two. That's half the game missing ...

Secondly, my common shops are always struggling to keep up with demand; whenever I check they either have 'none' or 'barely any', and all sections of society are frequently complaining that they 'wanted more' or 'couldn't get'. They have tonnes of raw materials, loads of food, their other needs are met, and yet they barely ever have anything to sell. This is the case even when I build many more such shops than I need, right up to 4 sets of each type in a small, compact city. I understand the 'people' concept of the game, and how it differs from the old Impressions games, but in this case I can't see why the shop owners would be away from home and/or unable to work; they have everything they need either in large quantities in the house, or right nearby. On the other hand, my single set of 6 luxury shops are all stocked to the rafters, and they have almost the same needs as the common shops, although the clientele is different and much smaller. I would say that the demand is too great for my common shops to keep up with, but this happens even when I replicate a city plan (here) used by many others which requires only the 2 sets of shops.

Anyone able to suggest what’s wrong? I can post screenshots if that will help …

Otherwise, I'm enjoying myself quite a bit.

**Kekvit Irae** · 09-02-2005, 19:04

Bleh. The makers of Pharaoh decided to make a Pharaoh-like game with more realism, but instead screwed up everything. I'd much rather play the original than CotN.

**phred** · 09-02-2005, 22:03

maybe your shops are too far away from the necessary resources?
check you shops and see if they have any food. If they have a lot of food then that means they're selling their wares and making money (demand issue). If they don't have any food then the shopowners are probably having to forage for food and they won't be producing wares (you may want to use the edict to open your graneries to everyone).
hope that helps.

otherwise try the main forum here http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/
they're very helpful

**frogbeastegg** · 09-04-2005, 18:00

It's different to Pharaoh, but I expected that and am enjoying the difference. I played Caesar III, Pharaoh, Cleopatra, Zeus, Poseidon, and Emperor to death over a several year period, and a change is good. That's not to say I don't want any more games in the Impressions mould, just that I like to see other approaches to the same subject too. It's nice not to need to worry about market ladies, and I'm really hoping they keep the pull economy in Caesar IV, instead of the old push economy. But to balance, there are also things I miss or preferred from the Impressions games too.

So far the main attraction with CotN is that it’s not such a numbers and resource based game. I don’t plop down a clay pit, know that it will support precisely 2 pottery shops, which in turn will support exactly 50 houses. I also like the way the focus is on people, not on resource numbers and funneling walkers.

My shops all have plenty of food, plus plenty of resources, so I suppose they must be too much demand. Oh well, I'll just have to try plopping down another set of 4, bringing the total to 5 sets, and see if that helps. I don't want to build too many, and then have some shops fail and the owners turn into vagrants.

I answered my own question on the campaign - yes, all of the campaign mode scenarios are available as freeplay scenarios, identical in every way. So I'll drop campaign mode and mutter about the game now not having many scenarios at all, plus having a very deceptive set of playing modes. Gah!

**AntiochusIII** · 09-04-2005, 22:37

Strangely, anyone who ever played Tropico will notice a striking similarity between the two games. The way the focus is on people (I, personally, hate it. That sounds good in papers, but Thebes is a city of tens of thousands and not a few hundred, which the game forces it to be); the way you can't directly intervene in many parts; the way farming is done; the way how your city will be crowded with ugly, un-upgradable shacks. Brrr...

I want more of the same, but upgraded. Emperor includes many new enhancement from its old predecessors. They could've go on this route and made better games, slowly incorporating the concept of people (and how they walked to the markets and not the other way around) rather than changing the game's focus radically.

It also lacks the old grandeur of Pharoah. Remember the REAL pyramids and shining cities decorating the deserts of Egypt?

How the world map, trade, and other such things are managed is a BIG step back from Emperor.

**frogbeastegg** · 09-05-2005, 19:12

I've never played Tropico. Is it any good? I've got the urge to build cities, but I've played the Impressions ones to exhaustion. NB: I prefer historical city builders, not modern ones like Sim City; modern settings bore me.

I've only played CotN for about 5 hours, long enough to do the tutorial and two easy scenarios. Whereas I played the old Impressions series since the days of Caesar II, not Caesar II as I stated before. I just never got very far with number II, because I was a young frog with no idea of what I was meant to be doing.

So far I've only build one very small pyramid, but I am saddened by the vastly curtailed list of monuments you can build compared to what was around in Pharaoh/Cleopatra. The mastabas do look better now though; less like unstable, messy piles of bricks.

The way the world map is handled is one of the disappointing things I've found so far in CotN. I also miss the wider range of buildings full stop, not just the larger selection of monuments. Comedy seems to be lacking when compared to, say, Zeus/Poseidon. I definitely miss being able to tell what is going on in my city with ease - I just don't seem to be able to keep up with demand for common wares, no matter how satisfied and well stocked my shops are. I build what feels like far too many and it's still not enough ... I think. I don't know, because the game won't tell you these things. I miss the upgrading homes from the old games quite badly, just as I miss beautification having some effect. I hate the way people whinge about things you can't do anything about, such as not having a yacht when there is no wood available to you in that scenario. The army system feels disappointingly dull, but that's because I liked Zeus' citizen soldier approach so much, and Egypt didn't use that system so it can't appear here. I can't stand the way the birthday announcements are so out of whack! Why should your pharaoh be past his prime at 16?! People lived for shorter spans back then, but come on - this isn't a peasant muck-grubber, it's a king. 16 is entering your prime, not leaving it. 30-35 is getting past it by Egyptian noble's standards, but by that point the game assumes your king is a zombie almost.

I do like the way food is used for currency, and the way bricks are made and used. Needing to educate your future priests, scribes, overseers and commanders is great, as is the need to keep a reserve of graduates to cover for retiring elites. I like the feudal structure which means you need more nobles to farm more land, and then take your cut as taxes, and I like the way more farm income results in upgraded noble homes, then more farmers. I like being able to follow people and families through life and about your city; it makes the place feel that little bit more alive. I love watching my farmers stream out down the streets in huge crowds towards their fields on dawn of the planting season, and again when the harvest starts. The way houses never devolve is nice too, although it removes one big area of challenge ... but I hardly ever encountered devolution anyway, once I understood housing blocks. Upgrading your palace is nice too.

My main frowning point so far is the lack of challenge. Alright, I have been playing easy scenarios, but I am drifting through them with so little idea of what to do and without any problems barring my perennial common wares shortage. I don't want challenge from things I class as annoying, such as poorly designed maps so building space is rare, but I want something more than 6 noble homes and 60 prestige, to be gathered whenever I feel like it. I still grin in almost-horror when I remember a certain level of Zeus where I had to gather the resources to summon a hero as a monster laid waste to my city, or that scenario (heh, many scenarios, actually) in Pharaoh/Cleo when I was so strapped for cash for the first 3 years I could hardly build anything, or the time when …

Hmm. Now I get the feeling CotN won’t rise above ‘fun but not great’ level, and will be played through once and dropped for good. Unlike the Impressions games, which made it back on my hard drive oh … 3 times apiece, on average. Yes, it’s fun, and yes there is much I like, but something is missing. I don’t feel the real need to play until 2AM.

**AntiochusIII** · 09-05-2005, 20:14

Well, Tropico is about modern world (save the pathetic pirate-something expansion pack. Which sucks.) as you're the ruler of a small island in the Caribbean during the cold war. Of course, your diplomacy includes only the Yankees and the Soviets. City management is worse than CoTN (though farming is easier, as they can do it anywhere, and money takes precedence) though it's fun in its own way. You probably won't like it. I just notice another similarity, in fact, as Tropico's workers often needs extra education - just like CoTN - to work in more complex duties. And you can either get some immigrants with education, hire foreign specialists, or establish schools and a college to educate your workers.

I pretty much agree with everything you said about CoTN, though the fact that gold takes the backseat now really irritates me. And CoTN, in many ways, is a pure city-building game. It has no dynamic characteristics of Zeus, or the expansive diplomacy of Emperor. There is also a loss of pattern, and your city will be a mess, despite best attempts at city-planning, later on. I'd think that the game's military should be much better if it's like pharoah, where you use forts and armies actually fought battles, or even better if it follows Emperor's way of limiting forces with nobles. Since food is already based on the size/number of nobles' estates, why can't the military?

**Kekvit Irae** · 09-06-2005, 03:12

The one with the pirates was the sequal, not the expansion. Topico: Muchu Macho was the expansion to the original, with Spring Break tourists and other things.
I love Tropico, if only because it reminds me of SimIsle

**FesterShinetop** · 09-06-2005, 18:05

Actually, Mucho Macho is the original AND the expansion. The loose expansion name is Paradise Island. Part 2 is called Pirate Cove.

CotN is a nice game, I didn't quite gotten into it (yet) but my GF seems to like it a lot. She also had to get used to the way this game works (she's also a big Caesar/Zeus etc. fan) but now that she got the hang of it she is enjoying it a lot I think. Also check the official site BTW, there's also a lot of user made scenario's available.

I really loved Tropico BTW, very fun game and quite original for it's time I think, so if you come across it I think it might be worth to pick up!!

**Kralizec** · 09-07-2005, 15:24

Tropico: Paradise Island is great, just thinking about it makes me want to reinstall it again- if only the CD was still readable

For a guy who hasn't played Pharaoh or any of the other games mentioned here (me), is CotN worth giving a try?

**frogbeastegg** · 09-11-2005, 18:16

Try the demo. It's the tutorial levels, so a bit slow and limited, but it should give a reasonable idea. Tip: use + and - to alter the game speed while waiting for the next instruction. Unlike most tutorials CotN's gives you the next lot of instructions when the game is ready, not when you are, and sitting about twiddling your thumbs for a year or more of game time is rather dull.