Contest 47: Sacred City: A Cleopatra Beauty Contest

Welcome to the contest pages for Contest 47: Sacred City
This is a Cleopatra game.

Use the links below to download the starting positions:

Sacred City (Easy Difficulty)
Sacred City (Hard Difficulty)
files are in zip format

To download the mission, simply click the appropriate link. The file you receive will be in a zipped format. After downloading, decompress the file (using, e.g. PowerArchiver or Winzip). You can get Winzip free from their website at www.winzip.com.

Then place the unzipped file in your family save directory (in the Pharaoh root directory, Save, [YourFamilyName]; by default C:\Sierra\Cleopatra\Save\[YourFamilyName]\).

To play the game, start Pharaoh/Cleopatra, go to your family, and select "Load Saved Game". You will find Sacred City Easy or Sacred City Hard as a saved game. It should be preset at the correct difficulty level, which is Normal or Hard.

Please make sure you play the game from the start at the correct level of difficulty. Select Options, Difficulty and check it. If necessary adjust the difficulty, select new game and reselect the Sacred City saved game. Now you can play.

All players are advised to peruse the remainder of the contest pages (links to which can be found at the foot of the page), as well as the General Rules and Pharaoh/Cleopatra game features.

The Story

Pharaoh Pepi has just come to power and he wants to show his divinity to the people of Egypt. Therefore he has summoned you, his most talented architect, to build a beautiful sacred city along the borders of the Nile. Here he wants to live now and in his afterlife, thus you must include a pyramid in your design.

Waset should become a monument, which will be visited by people thousands of years from now. Of course, money is no problem. The Pharaoh has granted you access to his personal vault and you can take as much as you want (as long as you spend it wisely).

Now, there is a small catch. The Pharaoh believes that there should be a strict separation between the sacred world of gods and the ordinary existence of the mortals. Therefore, you must build all religious buildings inside a walled area "the Sacred City", bordered by the holy Nile. In this area no other type of buildings are allowed, except beautification structures, of course. This also implies that outside the walls no religious buildings may be built.

Now, go along and build this sanctuary and a beautiful city around it. Note that time is not so important, but it should be finished in 25 years as a celebration for the silver jubilee of the Pharaoh. As it should stand for eternity, the Pharaoh will test this upon his arrival.

Rules

CC1: You may not be in debt
CC2: You must have a finished Pyramid
CC3: Save in December 101 at the latest

WC1: Beauty of your city/sanctuary:
you can get a maximum of 100 points; they are awarded for the following categories:

• Size of the sanctuary (number of squares inside the walls; largest entry will be awarded 20 points, the rest will be ranked relative to this score - number of squares*20/maximum squares).
• Number of religious workers (as reported by the overseer, highest entry will be awarded 20 points, the other entries will be ranked relative to this maximum - number of workers*20/maximum workers)
• Layout of the sacred city inside the walls, use of beautification structures, etc.: maximum 20 points.
• The layout of the surrounding city, use of landscape and beautification structures: maximum 20 points.
• Stability of your city; the difference between your save and the city after a 1 year free run should be minimal (check on stability of number of religious workers, amount of housing that devolves, number of buildings that collapse or burn down, etc.): maximum 20 points.

Designers' Advice

This is a Cleopatra game.
Competitors are reminded that the normal CBC General Rules apply to this contest. Competitors are also advised to peruse the list of Pharaoh/Cleopatra game features.

The separation between religion and the rest is strict. Your sacred area must be completely walled (walls may include gatehouses of course) or bordered by water. Inside this area only buildings from the religion tab may be built, like shrines, temples, temple complex, festival square, monuments and beautification structures like gardens, statues, plaza's (roads are also allowed of course!). In order to staff the buildings you can build housing on the other side of the wall so the labour seekers can find workers or you can use the forced walker loops. (Information on this phenomenon can for instance be found on the Heaven Games Game Help Forum.).

Note that it isn't allowed to build architect posts inside the walls. To keep your buildings from destruction you need to send architects through the walled area or along the walls. Here the forced walker loops can also be used. Another option could be to let the walker go for a long walk and let him return to his building via a shorter route through the sanctuary.

A similar problem occurs outside the walls; to evolve the housing religious walkers are needed, but you may not build temples in this area. So, build housing along the walls and let the priests walk by on the other side or use forced walker loops.

Note that in the easy version, it is allowed to build a maximum of 10 non-religious buildings (like houses, architect posts and firehouses) inside the walls and a maximum of 5 religious buildings outside the walls.

As this should not become an impossible hurdle, any entries not fulfilling this requirement will be accepted. However, for every "illegal" building 3 points will be subtracted from your score.

In order to check the stability the jury will let your save run free for 1 year (so if you send in a March year 24 save, the jury will let it run until it turns over to April year 25). They will look for buildings collapsing, change in employment for the religious buildings and variations in level of housing development.

Each year in November you will be getting a request from the Pharaoh to hold a festival for one of the gods (reminder for your December save). Complying will result in a gift of limestone; not complying will result in a disaster provoked by the gods.

If your favor drops to zero, Pepi will send an army to throw you out of his city. Don't let it come to that.

It is allowed to use the monument speed-up blessing to make the building of the monuments easier.

Henrium

Sacred City was designed by Henrium and tested by Joshofet and Dillon Blake.

This contest will close at 11PM EST (US), on Tuesday, November 30th. Please note the date!!!!

This contest has ended.

General Rules|Pharaoh/Cleopatra game features|Results

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