For missions 3 and 4 of this campaign Gweilo gives us a ruined fort with a plateau riddled by streams. It's a flexible map with several options for placing the housing block, trade and farms, but there's little room to spare.
I chose to put the trading centre south of the plateau near the entrance to the map, with my housing block on the south-east side of the plateau. I put religion outside the block to maximise housing. Farming went on the NW side of the plateau, with industry to the west. Getting perfect FS was not too difficult but I had to be careful to do all the work in the right order.
This layout is good for trade, and workers were reasonably quick to arrive (especially early in the game, when they could take a short cut where I later put the acupuncturist). The price paid is having the administrative city a long way from the entrance, which slowed down diplomacy.
In mission 3 everything was inside the walls. I made a few small adjustments to the walls to achieve this In mission 4 the grand pagoda and supporting infrastructure had to be outside. I also moved the trading post with Ningbo outside the walls, to make room for a trading post with Jiangzhou.
My strategy in mission 3 was to start fast, quickly grow the population and evolve my city. This was expensive and I needed bailouts from my allies - both Feng and (later) Ningbo. It was only in the last year that my treasury went into profit, once all the profitable trades were in operation.
In mission 3 I fought off Jiaozhou's first two invasions with ease, but was repeatedly defeated by the third. I finally solved the problem by not fighting! I planted a field of residential gates outside the walls, which was enough to keep the invaders busy until the clock ran out and I won the mission.
Mission 4 was easier. With the profitable trades already established, I had no trouble making money. I did not have to fight, because I bribed the Mongols' three initial invasions and made sure I was allied with them after that.
The minimap shows Yulin at the end of mission 4. The zip file shows it at the end of both mission 3 and 4.
Congratulations on a nice build on this map, which is a little tricky (but not for veteran puzzle-solvers like you, though).
Yours is the second build I've seen for this city that placed the trade stations near the map entry point, to maximize trade flow. I missed that idea during my playtesting!
Posted on 03/02/22 @ 09:41 AM 