Contest 139: Labors of Herculaneum (a Caesar 4 Speed Contest)

Welcome to the contest pages for Contest 139: Labors of Herculaneum . This is a Caesar 4 contest, and should only be played with Caesar 4 with the latest patch. Check the Sierra site for the latest version. Use the links below to download the starting positions:

Labors of Herculaneum (Insane Difficulty)
files are in .zip format

Labors of Herculaneum (Hard Difficulty)
files are in .zip format

Labors of Herculaneum (Easy Difficulty)
files are in .zip format

Labors of Herculaneum (Novice Difficulty)
files are in .zip format

Labors of Herculaneum (French Language files)
files are in .zip format

Labors of Herculaneum (German Language files)
files are in .zip format

Procedure for extracting files-

The zip file will contain a number of files (this can vary depending on the scenario). Firstly, the file with the extension C4s should be extracted to the directory Saved Games in your C4 installation

(Default location C:\Program Files\Sierra\Caesar4\Data\Saved Games).

The remaining files should be extracted to the directory Scenarios

(default location C:\Program Files\Sierra\Caesar4\Data\Scenarios). You start the save from the Main Menu in C4, selecting "Load Save." The save "Labors of Herculaneum Novice" or"Labors of Herculaneum Easy" or "Labors of Herculaneum Hard" or "Labors of Herculaneum Insane" should appear in the list. It is not necessary to alter game difficulty.

Story:

The gift of prophecy - is it a blessing? Or a curse? You may be excused for wondering. Your young daughter certainly seems to have the gift, judging by the many unnervingly correct predictions she has made in the recent past. When she predicts something will happen, you have learnt to sit up and take notice. But friends laugh at your fanciful tales, and even your standing in the Senate has suffered from this ridicule.

Fortunately, your reputation as an excellent governor means that Caesar at least is prepared to indulge you a little. But now, in January 72AD, he had informed you that you are now to be governor of Herculaneum - which your daughter proclaims, with a chilling certainty, will be destroyed in a terrible calamity in August 79AD. On hearing of your fears, Caesar smiles wickedly. "A terrible calamity you say? Well, I'm sure you have no need for fear. Just perform the tasks I have set you and you and your family will be able to safely move to the place of your next assignment."

And what precisely are those tasks to be? Clearly Caesar is in a whimsical (if slightly insane) mood when he declares that you are to perform "The Twelve Labors of Herculaneum" before your assignment here is complete. "Await my instructions" he tells you. "But two things you must note. One - I cannot let you build any warehouses in your city. I hate them, they are such ugly buildings! Whenever I see one I have an almost uncontrollable urge to set fire to it. I am actually thinking of banning them altogether from the Empire - your success here will prove to all that we can easily do without them. Two - if there really is to be a calamity, I don't want too many unfortunate souls on your conscience. You must therefore manage with a population of less than 5,000. But I am sure that a governor of your talents will have no trouble with these minor restrictions."

Rules

Completion Criteria:
Novice Difficulty
Culture rating of 60 or more
All 12 Labors completed
City is not in debt

Easy Difficulty
Culture rating of 75 or more
All 12 Labors completed
City is not in debt

Hard Difficulty
Culture rating of 90 or more
All 12 Labors completed
City is not in debt

Insane Difficulty
Culture rating of 95 or more
All 12 Labors completed
City is not in debt

Defeat Events:
Novice and Easy Difficulty
Debt of more than 10000dn
Population of 5000 or more.
City destroyed by Vesuvius
Caesar dismisses you. (normal game function)

Hard and Insane Difficulty
Debt of more than 2500dn
Population of 5000 or more.
City destroyed by Vesuvius
Caesar dismisses you. (normal game function)

Winning Criteria (All Difficulties):

1. Month of completion (earliest wins).

2. Points score, totalled as follows (highest wins):
   - 1 point for each point of Security.
   - 1 point for each point of Favor.
   - 2 points for each point of Prosperity.
   - 3 points for each point of Culture.
   - Additional 12 points for each point of Culture above 95.
   - Additional 40 points for 100 Culture.
   - 1 point for each 10 denarii of personal savings. Maximum 112 points.
   - 1 point for each load of exotic goods in the city (as reported by your Resource Advisor).

3. Peak population reached during game (lowest wins).

In the case of WC2 the contest designers will cap the score from savings if the savings reported shows that the player has benefited from the Salary Bug (#18 on this list (http://www.citybuildingcontests.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=891)), i.e. the number of monthly payments has exceeded the total number of months played.

Designer's Notes

A victory screen will appear when all completion criteria have been met. When this occurs, you should select 'Keep Playing' and save your game. Note that for a save to be valid, the Victory Screen must have been displayed.

A defeat screen will appear if any of the defeat events listed above occur. If this happens, you should revert to a recent saved game and correct the circumstance that caused defeat.

Not all buildings will be available at the start - most will unlock as you progress through the labors. Warehouses are not available at any level. Ship bridges are only available in the Novice level. Low bridges are only available in the Novice and Easy levels.

During the initial part of the scenario, the governor's salary may not be changed, and gifts may not be sent to Caesar. Gifts may be sent later in the scenario.

Labors of Herculaneum is a love story, and as such you should take note of any opportunities to honor Venus the Goddess of Love. It would not be a good idea to incur her wrath.

There is a small military element involving a few raiders, who serve as an annoyance rather than a threat. They will target only a specific type of building. They can be defeated without deploying any cohorts.

The tax/wage manipulation exploit (#16 on this list (http://www.citybuildingcontests.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=891)) is permitted, but do not expect your citizens to put up with such underhand tactics for long. (The only exploits that are explicitly banned are #3, #4 and #5 in the above list.)

Labors of Herculaneum will be maintaining the time-honored CBC tradition of requiring players to keep saves for December of each year. The scenario will issue a message each December to remind players to make their save. Only the final (completed) save is to be submitted, however. The contest designers may ask to see any or all of your December saves before validating your final save (but this would generally only be necessary if your submitted save exhibited any unusual characteristics that merited further investigation). *Once your save has been validated you do not need to keep these saves, unless they are used as a basis for generating further submissions.*

Novice Difficulty
This contest includes a novice difficulty level to attract new or inexperienced players to our contests. It particularly aimed at those who normally play Caesar 4 on 'Easy' level and/or feel they would benefit from a small amount of private assistance. Players may play novice difficulty only if:

o They have never placed in the top three in a CBC Caesar 4 contest at a higher difficulty level, and
o They have never earned a medal or placed in top 3 in Caesar 4 online, and
o They have not won two (or more) CBC Caesar 4 Novice difficulty contests.

Players in Novice difficulty will be permitted to obtain strategy assistance from the contest designer, but only on the CBC or French (Caesar IV) private message forums. You may participate on the German forum as well.

Insane Difficulty

This contest includes an "Insane" difficulty level, one that is set significantly harder than the hard difficulty version, where mere completion is an achievement itself. Any player can submit a competitive entry at this level and still compete at either the hard, easy or novice difficulty levels. There is one exception to this relaxtion of the normal CBC rules, however: the top two winners on the Insane level will have their entries on other levels declared as "non-competitive". In other words, the winner and runner-up of the insane difficulty level cannot win the contest at any other level.

Strategy Forum
This contest will have a strategy thread, started by the contest designers when the contest starts. Players in easy or novice difficulty may discuss strategy or ask strategy related questions in this thread but may not divulge their scores. It should be borne in mind that some players may not be prepared to share their strategies. Players entering hard difficulty are not permitted to post in this thread. The thread will be carefully moderated by the contest designers; they will remove posts not considered to be in the interests of the event.

Players in Novice difficulty will be permitted to obtain strategy assistance from the contest designer, but only on the CBC or French (Caesar IV) private message forum.

Very new players MAY be teamed up with veteran CBC and C4 players via private messaging ONLY at designers discretion. If this occurs ALL private messages between these players must be copied to one of the designers.

Labors of Herculaneum is based on an original concept and storyline co-written by Aramann and Hieronymus, with most of the design "work" being done by Hieronymus, and most of the testing "fun" by Cathy and Aramann.

Special thanks go to Schwartzhorse for the French translation of the XML files and to AndreasHauffe for the German translation.

Hieronymus and aramann would like to assure all players that no sheep were harmed during the production of this contest.

When forwarding entries to CBC, only the c4s file for the final save is required, not your other (interim) saves.

This contest will close at 11PM EST (US), on Sunday November 9, 2008. Please note the date!

This contest has ended.

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