The new year brings tribute!
All for me! All for meeee!
Er, I mean, all for the city!
Our current problem is unemployment. Even with low wage rates, it's staggering(I don't want to set them to 'Very Low' because I'm pretty sure that causes discontent).
I build two more dairies, but the west meadow is absolutely chock-full of goats. We need to get rid of the minotaur to utilize the east meadow properly. Also, we have a lot of cheese, so I sent some of it to Thermopylai, as well as requesting some fleece.
Another Thermopylaic merchant arrived. We now have enough fish and fleece to meet our goals!
I promptly ordered fish and fleece to stop being stockpiled so that our people could use them, as well as building a fleece vendor at the agora.
The fleece vendor picks up some fleece and returns to the agora...
The peddler delivers the fleece.
WHAT'S THIS? HOVEL IS EVOLVING!
CONGRATULATIONS! YOUR HOVEL HAS EVOLVED TO A HOMESTEAD!
WHAT'S THIS? HOMESTEAD IS EVOLVING!
CONGRATULATIONS! YOUR HOMESTEAD HAS EVOLVED TO A TENEMENT!
Pulled that from memory, so the format might be wrong. Anyway, the fleece lets us upgrade our hovels to homsteads, and a second culture venue upgrades homesteads to tenements. The two unevolved shacks aren't evolving because the neighborhood is unappealing. It's just ugly. I put some gardens in that little space between them and the road and that was enough.
I fixed the nonevolving shacks to the left later with a few gardens. But our last remaining goal is to have '500 people in homestead or better', correct?
Oh yeah. What's our next mission?
As you can see, the minotaur is the bastard child of Minos' queen and a bull. And that's why we don't allow the women near our goats: We'd be swamped by satyrs.
We can build Theseus' Hall. This building alone is not enough to get him to bugger over here, though.
There are several heroes in this game and each has different requirement. These aren't too difficult, except possibly for marble. We can import wine from Marathon but I don't think any of our allies trades for marble right now.
Speaking of allies, another one has appeared on the map. Plataia sells carrots. In Zeus, all food is condensed into "crates of food" when requesting/demanding/requisitioning/ordering, but there can be up to four different kinds of foodstuff. In this game, we have wheat, fish, carrots and glorious cheese.
Anyway, we need to build elite housing. See that button with the red-white house on it? That's the elite housing button. Just to build elite housing, we need a stock of food, fleece and olive oil. Nobles expect you to provide at least those goods as well as three entertainment venues just so that they'll stay there. And of course, the neighborhood must be very aesthetically appealing. If you want them to fight for you, they need armor, too.
We also need to build a trireme wharf, both to complete one of our goals and also just so we can sail to Knossos. A trireme requires a hundred stout men to crew it, as well as wood and armor to build it.
Of course, in order to raise an army we'll need a palace. We can build one now, as well as tax offices to collect taxes from the people. The palace is very important: If it is destroyed, we are conquered. It's not an instant game over, we're just vassalized, but it's still a bitch. It also increases the appeal around it and we need to build Theseus' Hall near it.
Finally, we can also build Hermes' Refuge, although we don't need to. Hermes' Refuge is a Sanctuary, which is basically a big temple. Sanctuaries are something we'll definitely be building later on. I mean, we're building Athens, so of course we'll build the Arbor of Athena. To build a Sanctuary, you need a stock of marble, wood and bronze statues, some drachmas(money) and an artisans' guild. Furthermore, you can never build more than three Sanctuaries in a city; sometimes even less than that.
Oh yeah, and we can build gymnasiums now. Kinda wish I could build a labyrinth for the minotaur, bu it'd just knock down the walls.