*Includes shown optional watchposts and market vendors. Workers come from common homes. Training, industry, distribution and wages need a citywide budget.
What an estate actually needs
Common housing ends at Townhouse. Elite housing is a separate 4×4 plot; the Palace is a civic building, not a house level. Requirements below accumulate.
| Elite level | New goods / service | Score | Appeal to enter* | People |
|---|
Water: elite homes have their own supply. The worker block needs a staffed Fountain. Decorative ponds are not water service. Health: the Infirmary and Maintenance Office remain part of both plans.
Goods “1” in the model means a requirement, not one crate per month. One food type is sufficient for housing evolution. Do not mistake a variety of foods for a missing service.
One street. No internal junctions.
- Build the full street first.
Lay every road tile shown, including those through the Agora. Keep the two end roadblocks. The eastern exit connects to the city; leave the western exit closed or connect it beyond its roadblock.
- Keep the planted boulevard verges.
In the elite district, columns 11–29 form a 19-tile boulevard. Its road is on row 11; rows 10 and 12 are planted verges. The houses touch those verges and have road access through the boulevard.
- Protect the service route.
No shortcut roads through gardens, behind houses, or around the end roadblocks. Place city intersections outside the roadblocks. Delivery buyers and trained specialists can cross them; roaming service walkers turn back.
- Check actual visits.
The geometry puts every home within the listed service ranges along the street. Staffing, dispatch direction, training delays and stocks still control how often visits happen. Inspect the overlays after construction.
Connect the three modules
16 homes · up to 960 residents
Storage · trainers · Palace
8 estates · up to 160 residents
Both arrows meet the housing streets on the city side of their eastern roadblocks. These are functional connections, not a prescribed map arrangement. Keep granaries, universities and industry away from the elite beauty reserves; place negative-appeal structures at least seven tile steps from the nearest elite plot as a conservative separation.
| Supply | Chain to keep working | Practical starting rule |
|---|---|---|
| Food | Farm / fishery / hunting / imports → Granary → Food stall → homes | Stock food before opening housing. Expand production using the food report; map yield and staffing determine the number of producers. |
| Fleece & olive oil | Carding Shed / Olive Press / imports → Storehouse → corresponding stalls | Keep dedicated bay space and continuous arrivals. Both common and elite housing consume these goods. |
| Armor & wine | Bronze → Armory; grapes → Winery; or imports → Storehouse → elite stalls | Reserve for the elite district. Add armor for Mansions and wine for Manors. |
| Training | The supply yard has two of each trainer as a starting allowance for two districts. Increase capacity if a staffed venue waits for a specialist. | |
| Workforce & taxes | Common homes → available workers; Palace + Tax Office → revenue |
Build in this order
- Start with common homes and basic services.
Reserve the worker footprint. Place roads, roadblocks, a Fountain, Maintenance Office, food stall and enough food supply. Fill the homes gradually; avoid opening every staffed building at once.
- Stabilize the workforce and supply network.
Add fleece, oil, health and the three common culture/science services. Build their trainers. Target Townhouses, check employment, then build the Palace and collect taxes.
- Prepare the elite grounds.
Lay the elite road and Agora, then the boulevard, ponds and park tiles. Finish the beauty reserves before placing elite housing. No earned monuments or divine bonuses are assumed.
- Staff all elite services.
Keep the Infirmary and Maintenance Office operating. Supply all four culture/science visits and the Museum or Stadium. Check that specialists reach their venues from the yard.
- Place elite plots with goods available.
Eight plots require 16 crates of food, 8 fleece and 8 olive oil for initial placement, in addition to their drachma cost. Keep replenishing through the Agora afterward.
- Advance through Mansion, Manor, Estate.
Add armor, wine and the final mount supply. Read each house’s right-click explanation. Aim for appeal above the entry threshold, rather than depending on the lower devolution threshold.
- Observe a full game year.
With trainer service/goods boosts off, follow the farthest houses and the supply chain for 12 game months. Check seasonal food, service columns, health, hazards, employment and upgrades.
Ready for eight estates?
Saved in this browser when local storage is available. Checking these boxes records your observations; it does not change the game.
Coordinates for the selected district
Columns increase left to right, rows top to bottom. Coordinates are the upper-left tile of each footprint. Rotate the entire plan as one unit if the map demands it. Every park square is one tile; detailed park coordinates are in the CSV export.
| Label | Building | Column, row | Footprint | Jobs |
|---|
Find the missing link
“The neighborhood is not attractive enough.”
Confirm that the boulevard includes both planted verges and that every shown park and pond was built. Remove nearby negative-appeal buildings. The numeric entry thresholds are verified from the installed model; the final desirability field of this proposed layout has not been measured in a running city. Use the house message and appeal overlay as the final check. The rear 4×4 plots can be replaced with a stronger available decoration, such as a Stone Circle in Atlantis or an earned monument. If you need more space, expand the rear beauty buffer without adding roads. Preserve the house street.
“Needs more culture / science.”
Check each individual service overlay at the house. A building can be staffed yet waiting for a specialist. Atlantis needs scholars, astronomers, inventors and curators for a dependable 80 points. Greece needs philosophers, athletes, actors and competitors. A distant Museum or Stadium by itself is not a replacement for visits. There is only one Museum or Stadium per city; this plan places it in the elite district. If yours already exists elsewhere, adapt its specialist route before copying this plan.
The Agora is empty, but the city owns goods.
Check the specific stall, its employees, the buyer’s walk and the storage orders. Buyers need road access to the correct stock source. Keep the Agora on the house side of the roadblock. In Atlantis, finished chariots cannot be imported; the local factory needs wood and horses. Greek horse trainers need access to a Horse Ranch.
Water, health or maintenance coverage fades.
Common homes need water bearers from a staffed Fountain. Both districts have an Infirmary and Maintenance Office. Look for road branches, missing staff, a misplaced boulevard verge, changed entry roads or a stretched street. The listed distances are geometric checks, not a simulation of repeat visits. If the problem persists, add a duplicate service on the same street near the affected homes and recheck coverage; do not attach an unblocked side road.
Can I tile this elite module across the map?
Not unchanged: the Museum and Stadium are unique city buildings. For later elite districts, route destination curators from Universities, or competitors from Gymnasiums, through their homes toward the existing unique venue. That requires a fresh route check. Build and stabilize this first eight-estate district before extending it. Extra houses also increase goods demand and worker requirements.
What was researched and verified
The installed game contains editable model data and a compiled executable, rather than the original engine source. This guide uses those models, the local trainer’s documented structure offsets, selected disassembly from this exact executable, the official manuals, and community footprint / walker reference tables. It does not patch game rules or require the trainer.
- Installed Hero difficulty model (local research; not bundled), plus all four other difficulty files: housing capacities, cumulative requirements, appeal thresholds, costs, jobs and desirability parameters.
- Executable house-scoring disassembly (local research; not bundled) and local science research (local research; not bundled): the installed Atlantis weights are 15 scholar + 20 astronomer + 25 inventor + 20 curator. Greek weights are 15 philosopher + 20 athlete + 25 actor + 20 competitor.
- Official Zeus manual, local PDF — printed pp. 25–27, 29–34, 71–77, 83–97, 105–110, 154–156. Also available from Sierra Help. Covers walker behavior, separate housing classes, elite water, hygiene, markets, culture and boulevards.
- Official Poseidon manual, local PDF — printed pp. 10–13 and 18–19; Steam copy. Covers science training, Museum uniqueness, horses, wood and chariots.
- Citadel of Poseidon: building footprints and walker distances. The checker uses the community-reported 27-tile healer / water range, 35-tile culture / science / tax range and 44-tile peddler / maintenance / watch range; these distance limits were not reverse-engineered independently.
- Research and validation notes, geometry-check results, machine-readable design, and quick build guide.