- While housing initially doesn't require a 2 by 2 square house, higher quality housing requires it so best to start planning early.
Be patient and wait for a house to be 2 by 2 before placing new housing next to it. You can create a design to get more people while you wait as you can always add housing after they've been established.


- If workers are out of reach for buildings that need workers, place a single house nearby (just make sure people want to come to your city, otherwise it will be a vacant lot and the problem persists).


- If require more population or workers, you can build a second or third city.
Housing quality doesn't need to be high, a lot of housing plus Water Supply should help out the shortfall.


- Food is only required to upgrade housing, you can easily get more people with the basic house style (have a Water Supply NOT Well to maximise growth and don't forget to build a Firehouse, Architect, Police Station and Clinic).

- Trade will be your main income over Taxes. Try to establish a healthy trade income early (may require a lot of money to setup which you have when you first start).
Familiarise yourself with what buildings you have available to produce goods (raw and processed) and also what each city is willing to buy.
Sometimes you may need to import a raw resource to produce a processed one for export.


- A healthy Trade income means Tax Collectors are not required (so residents are not taxed) and having no one getting taxed means people ALWAYS want to come to your city (City Sentient is very high and having high % of unemployment has no effect on Immigration).
You do not need to build the Palace either since it's to collect Taxes, you may still want to build it to increase Desirability, Aesthetics or mine gold in some maps.


- Some missions require you to give resources to Egypt that you might normally sell as a export. When a request comes in, note the amount and set that to the minimum amount before you sell it off to reduce the stress of having to try to make it in time if the request comes again.

NOTE: You also have the option to Stockpile Resource using the Overseer Of Commerce, to prevent the city using it while you work to the request.


Here I want to stockpile Beer, so I click on the pot with the red X to prevent it being sold or used by the city.


The red X is gone and the option to Import/Export is faded along with the amount and cannot be changed while stockpiling.

- When more confident in building (usually after the tutorial stages are done), you can pause the game while building the layout of your city. Simply unpause when ready.


- Too much unemployment and little room? Firehouses, Architects, Dentists, Police Stations, Apothecary, all can help.


- Single Storage Yard per resource (you may prefer to include the raw resource and its processed form. Make sure to export over 200 of the processed form so it can still hold resources if it gets full of the raw type otherwise it may lock production).


- The Kingdom Road can be changed to suit your purpose If it's winding and you prefer or need it to be straight. Simply pause and build the road you desire then remove the old version.
WARNING: Make sure it's complete otherwise a gap causes the game to fix it and may destroy any buildings in the way.


- You are NOT required to build your city or cities on the Kingdom Road. You can build anywhere you see suitable, people and trade merchants still come to your city by walking across the land.


- A plaza can only be built on a road upgraded with high desirability, but once built it remains. If the desirability drops, it still provides a small increase to desirability.


- To build certain Entertainment squares requires the following road formations:
Booth
(Jugglers only)
Built on a corner of a road.

Bandstand
(Jugglers + Musicians)
Built on a T intersection of road.


Pavilion
(Jugglers + Musicians + Dancers)
Built on a slightly longer T intersection with 2 bits of road length along the top from the centre, 3 bits of road down the middle. One side requires 2 squares of room while the other is only one. You can alter which side you want the double size to appear if you have enough space on either side.




- A Personal Mansion is required to give yourself a salary separate to city money that carries across to next missions. Once the mission objectives are completed however, you can't simply keep collecting salary while still playing the mission.
So if you wish to earn a lot before the mission completes, make sure it's something easy to increase while putting your salary up high and letting the game run for months and months.


- The monuments like Mastaba (especially Pyramids) take a long LONG time to build. It's recommend to have AT LEAST 20 Plain Stone Quarries / Brickworks if not more depending on the size to try to quicken the build process.
Make sure you have a healthy trade income to even import the resources as a bonus amount (import value set high in case you produce before the merchant can sell any).
At least 2 Storage Yards just for monument resources near the monument/s should also help speed up the build.


- You can build Irrigation Ditches in the meadow area without needing a Water Lift (won't allow to be built on the border anyway).
Once you get close to the water's edge (or possibly at the edge), the ditch should fill up with water and increase the fertility of the farm by 20%.

The following are the levels of happiness (in descending order) a god can be:

Positive:
1. Benevolent
2. Approving
3. Sympathetic
4. Congenial
5. Amiable

Neutral:
6. Apathetic

Negative:
7. Displeased
8. Resentful
9. Angry
10. Furious
11. Enraged


Common Festival: +1 Happiness Level
Lavish Festival: +2 Happiness Level
Grand Festival: +3 Happiness Level


As a rough guide for God Happiness, have 1 Temple per 500 population per god. 1,000 population = 2 Temples per God, 1,500 population = 3 Temples per God and so on.
Build an additional Temple for your patron God and a couple of Shrines per God doesn't hurt either.
The above guide means the Gods are unlikely to punish if neglect Festivals for months or even years.

- Military Forts can be built anywhere where you have space for it. It doesn't require a road, workers or even maintenance (like visits from an Architect or Firehouse).
It's easy just to build a few Archer Forts so you have at least an army that's quick to build up while you work on the other types.
Early game you can just have 4 Archer Forts and 2 Infantry Forts or possibly 6 Archer Forts to deal with any invading armies (Having the god Seth happy can help defend too).


- In order for your Archers to use Composite Bows, you need to build a Bowyer (building) and Wood.
This building isn't available in the early stages of the game and appears in the Middle Kingdom era onwards.


- In order for your Infantry to use Shields, you need to build a Shield Maker (building) and Hides (gathered from Hunting Lodges later in the game).
This building isn't available in the early stages of the game and appears in the Middle Kingdom era onwards.

Just mentioning ones that may require a little more insight to what sounds obvious. More may be added.

This one is easy but time consuming, it takes several game years. Just build it behind some housing (so it doesn't get workers) to help speed up the chance.
You can do it without housing but Houses raise quicker in Fire Risk and can spread to neighbouring buildings.





This one is easy but time consuming, it takes SEVERAL game years. Just build it somewhere out of the way by itself at the start of the map.




MEIDUM map is good for this but will need to alter the Kingdom Road.
ROSTJA is another good map without needing to alter anything.



Must have a complete square border of houses around the Pyramid (don't forget to add where the Staging Platform was since it disappears on completion).


SAQQARA is a nice early map to get this achievement.



Easiest way is to make a small area that's cut off from your city and only have essential buildings (see picture below for a basic layout).
The house/s only additionally need water to be a Meager Shanty and Food which comes naturally trying to get this achievement.
Import food from a merchant and only have this Storage Yard be the only one to accept these foods. Make sure your other Bazaars don't buy this imported food (they ignore roadblocks) so that this Bazaar is only the one to collect this food.

DUNQUL is one of the maps where you can get this achievement.

(Simple set up secluded from all cities)



MEIDUM map is good for this as Bast is your patron god.
ITJTAWY is another available map much later in the campaign.

Cost breakdown:
100 Shrines x 100 gold = 10,000 gold
30 Temples x 150 gold = 4,500 gold
1 Temple Complex = 2,000 gold

Total cost: 16,500 gold to construct all required buildings
Total staff needed: 290

The following are what the houses need to upgrade, as long it meets the additional requirements for the next type (desirability is always a requirement)

The following are what the houses need to upgrade, as long it meets the additional requirements for the next type (desirability is always a requirement)


Crude Hut - Water (Well or Water Supply)


Sturdy Hut - 1 Food Type


Meager Shanty - 1 God


Common Shanty - Water (must be from Water Supply)


Rough Cottage - 1 form of Entertainment


Ordinary Cottage - Pottery


Modest Homestead - Physician or Mortuary + 2nd form of Entertainment


Spacious Homestead - Beer


Modest Apartment - Courthouse


Spacious Apartment - School or Library


Common Residence - Dentist + 2nd Food type


Spacious Residence - Linen


Elegant Residence - 2 Gods


Fancy Residence - 3rd form of Entertainment + 1 type of luxury goods (like Jewelry)


Common Manor - Mortuary


Spacious Manor - Library + 3 Gods


Elegant Manor - Just desirability?


Stately Manor - 4th form of Entertainment + 2nd type of luxury goods (like Ebony)


Modest Estate - 3 types of Food


Palatial Estate (Maximum)