Caesar 3 : Syracusae

Tips:

The biggest problem is there isn't enough places to build enough farm to feed 4000 people. (Try to salvage as much as possible, even at the edges.)

Since there are only three types of food available (wheat, vegetable and meat), the solution is to build three major residential locations with each having one granary accepting only 1 type of the foods available. Meats have to be imported. Vegetable can grow faster than wheat.

The economy can be prosperous, start trading early, selling weapons and oil will give you plenty of fortunes. However, be sure to be the first mover to import something first before traders will buy something from you.

The biggest challenge is to get enough food in order to attract 4000 people to the city. Build as large a residential area as possible (to make food distribution efficient). Don't try to build more than 2 residential area. Check out this scenario which can only hold up to 3400 people (fall short of 600). Check out the scenario here.

One backup plan is to increase wages as high as possible and decrease tax at the same time. (This will be the last resort when your city has a lot of funds and just waiting for people to come in).

Build enough armies to defend your cities. For this scenario, you only need one fort legion with two forts of Javelins. This will be an effective military tactics. Two teams of Javelins will support the legion as the front-runner in each batter. Always take note that legion is good at confrontation while Javelin is effective to throw Javelin from behind. However, legion is not effective against elephant.

Make your warehouse distribution efficient.

1. Keep one warehouse for each item to be imported near to the dock area.
   
2. Keep one warehouse for each item to be exported or used internally in between docks and factory.
   

Sierra Pharaoh Tips - Dakha

Following the spirit of previous tips...

Now we have tips for Dakha scenario.

This scenario is even more easier than Bahariya Oasis.

Basically there is not military attack, unless you failed to fulfill the requests from Pharaoh and the tribute (annual fees to be paid).

Just take note a few things:

1. Use policemen to deal with Hyenas (which would kill people).
2. Bricks can make faster money than any other things, however remember to stockpile(one full load of storage yard will do and replenish it as required) it once in a while for Pharaoh requests. Other things which can contribute to good income are wood and grain (also need to stockpile it once in a while; one full load of storage yard will do).
3. Initially, without buying anything from others, people won't want to buy from you either. Thus, you have to buy something from the traders (maybe 1 unit of plain stone and etc) and they will reciprocate.

Keep everybody happy and as soon as you fulfill all the requirements. Victory will come.

Sierra Pharaoh Tips - Bahariya Oasis

Following the tips for Giza, On and North Dashur.

Now we have the tips for Bahariya Oasis scenario.

This scenario is pretty easy, since all trading are done one land which is more efficient than with dock(for sea). And the abundance of wood supplies make economy really easy. So, I only have four tips.

1. Must buy something only can sell something.
2. Never clear off tree areas, otherwise you will run out of supply for woods.
3. Build two infantries and one archer. Beware of massive Bedoiun attack during year 2450BC.
4. Optimizing storage yard. Never let a storage yard to be completely filled up with just one item such as wood or sandstone.

This would make the storage yard workers really boring because they have so little things to do. It is best to fill up storage yard with a majority item (such as woods and sandstone) and minor with barley, flax, reeds and etc (so that these raw materials can be delivered to factories immediately since workers are not too pre-occupied with other things.) Never have a storage yard to be filled up with more than four items, otherwise the workers will be overworked.

If you made it through North Dashur, On and Giza, this scenario will be sure win.

Sierra Pharaoh Tips - Giza

Continuing from previous efforts for On, we now look at the winning strategy for scenario Giza.

Giza:

Challenges:

This scenario may looks easy because you are only required to have two ratings (kingdom and monument), however it will be

harder than you think. You still have to pay your tribute even though you are not require to have any prosperity rating.

Otherwise, Pharaoh army will attack as soon as your kingdom drops to zero.

Beer will be available from a new route to Dendera, after you have deployed Army to help with foreign attack.

The key to wining this scenario is to never ran out of debens. You will have to use your personal savings in the initial

stage.

Once you are able to create an economy which is self sustaining, everything will pretty easy.

As you are expected to play for certain amount of time (since you have to build three monuments), thus this scenario is good

for you to build your personal savings.

Tips:

1. Quickly setup exporting activities for gems and luxury goods. Once you are able to generate income, things should be

pretty easy. Just play in moderation, do not over import things especially limestone in the initial stage. Build more docks

to facilitate the export import capabilities. (at least 2 and even 4)
2. Keep storage for gems, luxury goods, game meat as Pharoah will request for them ocassionally. He will reward you with

copper, limestone, linen (just once) and grain (just once).
3. Have to build at least one fort of archers and infantries because you will need to deploy them to other city for backup.

Thus you should build probably another fort of infantries to backup the city.
4. Funds are limited, you have to import huge amount of limestones, certain amount of woods, clays and weapons. The reliefs

are that you don't have to import beer because the houses are not expected to evolve pass the stage of beer and you get to

export gems and jewellers (Pharaoh will be asking for these too). Don't use up the fund so fast and quickly build a family

mansion as well as a town place.
5. Build as much workcamps as possible to speed up the process of pyramid building.

It took me 882 months to win this scenario.

Mortals - what is the best bet ?

According to the movie "Elizabeth the golden age".

"we mortals have many weaknesses, we fear too much, hurt too much, or too soon we die, but we have the chance of love."

Check it out.

Sierra Pharaoh TIps - On

Continuing from previous efforts for North Dashur, we will now take a look at winning strategy for the scenario called "On"

This is how I win the scenario.

On:

Quite a honey moon scenario compared to North Dashur. There will be no army attack (from Pharaoh) as well. There is no need to build any army fortress. This is a fun scenario with many food options (grain, meat and game meat). You need to build three similar medium mastabas which requires a lot of bricks. (Make sure you reserve ample spaces for this purpose).

Challenges:

1. No option to grow barley farm. Has to import either barley or beer.
2. Without buidling a Senet, the culture will never reach 40 (maximum). However, senet should only be built at the end of the game, when you are ready to win which otherwise it will suck in a lot of beers. And since you do not have the capacity to grow barley, it is not good idea to have senets sucking in too much beer.
3. Pharaoh will only ask for two things; limestone and game meat (from hunting)
4. Hipotamus kill people. Build towers on the bank of the river closed to where hipotamus breading ground is to kill of the hipos. This is the most effective way to kill of the hipotamus where two spears from the tower will get one hipo killed.
5. Each island doesn't allow the landscape of housing estate to cater for 4000 people, that would be about 50 units of residences.

Tips:
1. No need to build senet (since it is sucking beer), just need to make sure you build dentist to push up the culture.
2. Import everything as early as possible, which includes clay, pottery, reeds, paprypus, flax, linen, bricks and limestone (generates the most income).
3. No need to over build the temples as at least one each and with more focus on the patron god Ra.
4. Build a personal mansion as early as possible to collect savings. And get rid of crimes minimize the risk of money stolen. You can't get salary when you decided to rule longer after victory!!
5. Straws (Grows from grain farm simultaneously) are required for cattle ranch and also bricks making. Try to have a storage yard of straws.
6. Continuously perform festival to make sure that people don't leave your city. More that 20 months without festival will risk people leaving the city.

It took around 600 months to win the scenario.

More tips to come, stay tuned!

Sierra Pharaoh Tips - North Dashur

I have been playing this game called Pharaoh by Sierra.



It is an old game, but you may buy it from Amazon.

To play this game, you need to have some skills and techniques. And this website offers much insights. But the walkthroughs isn't comprehensive enough.

I was stuck particularly at the stage of old-kingdom: North Dashur, it took me a few months. But I finally victor after going through some trial and errors.

Here are my tips.

North Dashur:

Challenges:

1. 4 gods. One year can only have 3 celebrations 3 months apart.
2. Need to spend a lot of money in the early stage.

Tips:

1. Increase wages to 31 deben (at least)

2. Start trading early. Serambit will buy a lot of beer. Build the storage yard close to each other and make sure it is easily accesible.

3. Build things slowly, do not rush to build all temples together. Ideally you should have two temples for Ptah (patron) and Osiris (agriculture). Build shrines even things out.
No need to have lavish festival, just make sure that to hold common festival non-stop, every three months. (switch between gods)

4. Keep a storage full of grain. (for pharaoh request).

5. Quickly sell barley and beer. No need to sell other things.

6. Do not let the the kingdom rate fallen completely. Otherwise, Pharaoh army will keep attacking you.
The most important thing is to pay yearly attribute. (This is done automatically, make sure your deben is not negative)
Send gift occassionally to keep Pharaoh happy. Build a personal mansion to collect salary so that you have the money to send gift.

7. It is alright to have tax rate of 8%.

8. Email me (brandonteohno1@yahoo.com) for saved games.

9. Setting priorities is important.

1 - Food & distribution- Granary
2 - Infrastructure - Firehouse, transportation,
3 - Health
4 - Religion
5 - Industry & commerce- Pottery, brewery, labor & peasant
6 - Entertainment
7 - Government - tax
8 - Education (No priority)
9 - Military (No priority)

** Priority 1 - 6 mustn't be changed because you will risk people moving away. Setting government as priority is important so that the taxes are collected.
** Whenever foreign army, set the priority to 7.
** Once you have build up a fort of infantry and archer, military can become the last priority, otherwise no one will go and become archer and infantry.

Sometimes you have may to release all priorities if you don't have enough workers. Priority is used at the beginning and ad-hoc (emergency) basis.

The game suggest that the first priority be set to "Food and distribution" while second is "Industry & commerce"

10. Do not over import things. set to minimum import of 200 units.
Once your deben starts to deficit, stop importing especially copper.
The only thing to keep inporting is clay which is very low cost and keep at 200 units.
Import paprypus directly, manufacturing it from reeds is a waste of time and resources.

11. Building a large pyramid doesn't require deben.

The process of building the pyramid.
I. Peasants from work-camp will build the foundation.
II. Once the foundation is done, construction guilds will start to pull stoens (plain stones and lime stones) layer on the foudation.
III. As the first layer of stones are laid, carpenter guilds will need to build wooden staircase to bring construnction guilds to the lext level.
* Only need to have 1 carpenter guild and stonmaster guild.

13. Only need to build one fort of archers and infantries and train them with academy (u also need recruiter and preferrably two units of weapon smith).
Foreign army attacks are of weak nature, except for Pharaoh army which cannot be defeated. Make sure the kingdom rating don't fall to zero.
Pharoah will request for military service. Thus have to build another fort of infantry to fight off one small team of bedouin army attack.

14. How to make sure kingdom rating don't fall to zero ?

I. Make sure you fulfill Pharaoh request on time. Keep a storage yard full of Grains, Straws and Barley at all time. (three main things it will request)
It will also request for 24 blocks of limestone at later stage.
II. Don't let you kingdom rating fall by paying annual attributes. This is done automatically every March should your deben is not zero or negative.
III. Keep Pharaoh happy by sending gifts to Egypt occassionally. (Similar to having festivals). You need to build a personal mansion to have savings to send gifts.
IV. Build enough storage yards to accept gifts from Pharaoh. Everytime you fulfill Pharaoh request on time, you will be rewarded with plain stones and coopers (at later stage).
You probably need 4 storage yards just to reserve for Pharaoh's gifts.

Falling either one of these might result in Pharaoh's army attack which will comes in two legions.

15. No need to spend too much money building defensives structures, just setup some towers perhaps.
16. Never let the houses run out of food and pottery. This will drive people away. When this happens, the power priority industry will suffer such as goverment and entertainment.
When there is no enough entertainment, more people will leave. Build more grain farms and pottery makers.
17. You need at least 3000 ppl, thus at least 50 blocks of the largest house. Try to accomodate these 50 blocks in a single area, so that you only have to build just one magistrate court, tax collector and health care.
18. When people started to leave the city due to inadequate food, pottery and entertainment. Setting "entertainment" to a higher priority and increasing the wages will bring people back.
19. Build the limestone quarry and storage yards (for storage of limestone) closest to the pyramid building site.

It took me 886 months to victory.

More tips to come.

The Humanity Of Leaders

Contents copied from somewhere

When we recognize someone as a leader, we often place our faith in that person to a degree that exceeds what is humanly possible. In other words, we expect them to be beyond fault and to not make mistakes. This, of course, is neither realistic nor fair. Just like us, these people are living human lives, and part of the deal is learning through experience and working out our individual karmas. There will always be missteps and things they would do differently given a second chance. If we are to be fair, we must grant our leaders the same forgiveness, compassion, and understanding that we grant our closest friends as they navigate the complex challenges of this human life.

Leaders are special people in that they have the ability to guide and represent large groups of people. In this calling, they agree, to some degree, to be responsible for the well-being of others. Because of this, we hold them up to a higher standard of behavior, and in some ways this is fair. However, we will only be disappointed and disillusioned time and time again if we expect them to be perfect. If they were perfect, they would not be here on earth. Perhaps the most we can expect of our leaders is that they make it a practice to acknowledge their shortcomings and learn from their experiences. Beyond this, when our leaders let us down, it is up to us to forgive and move on. Dwelling on disappointment and negativity creates more of the same.

People who choose to lead are often extraordinary individuals blessed with vision, energy, and charisma. It is their path to inspire, guide, and represent us, but it is not possible for them to never let us down. Leaders are on a path of growth just as we are. Perhaps this is something to remember when we have the opportunity to choose somebody in a leadership role, or perhaps you are ready to step into a role of leadership yourself.

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Something interesting.. I like to do this one day

Let's go bowling..



See that :)

Raining may be good sometimes

Yesterday, I planned to go to MPBJ to purchase monthly pass early in the morning so to avoid jam and crowds. As I was leaving the house, the sky suddenly turned on me, it became black.

I thought, wow…. Why you treat me like this. If it were to rain, convenience would be robbed from me because I have to make use of umbrella and etc. So I decided not to proceed and wait till noon.

As soon as I walked into my office, the sun came out roaring. I thought… oh gosh, this is my bad day.

Then came noon, I quickly jumped into my car and went ahead. And the sky turned dark and darker again. I said to myself .. “God is really against me today, I must have done something wrong.”

Then without doubt, it rained.

I went on…. There were some traffic congestions along the highway, but was okay.

As I was reaching the destination, things were totally out of my expectation.

Rains were slowing down and the best part is that due to the rain, there was no crowd and parking was easy.

So, then I thought “wow!, this is good actually.”

So… this experience improves my IQ (which is that rain does scare away the crowd because everybody was thinking about the same thing …) and definitely … Haha. Great!

Real Jesus..

Real Jesus book...

And this very interesting take..

and ...

God the Creator - refers to our minds, the centre of all creation, as we think and believe so shall it be

God the Son - refers to our body Flesh & Blood just as Jesus was the Flesh & Blood. So are we with all the capabilities, to create and enjoy all things

God the Holy Spirit - refers also to our Spirit, the light that dwells within each of us, yet comes from the same source that the light of the Universe came from.

I know it is tough. I am more bitter than you.

Quotes

Try to see beyond prejudice..

"Science must confine its inquiry only to things belonging to the human senses, while spiritualism transcends the senses. If you want to understand the nature of spiritual power you can do so only through the path of spirituality and not science. What science has been able to unravel is merely a fraction of the cosmic phenomena " - Sai Baba

"by understanding the past, we can do a better job of dealing with problems today; and by anticipating what might be on the horizon tomorrow, we can help prepare for a better world" - Waitt Foundation

"I personally think that society is responsible for a very significant percentage of what I've earned. If you stick me down in the middle of Bangladesh or Peru or someplace, you find out how much this talent is going to produce in the wrong kind of soil... I work in a market system that happens to reward what I do very well - disproportionately well. Mike Tyson, too. If you can knock a guy out in 10 seconds and earn $10 million for it, this world will pay a lot for that. If you can bat .360, this world will pay a lot for that. If you're a marvelous teacher, this world won't pay a lot for it. If you are a terrific nurse, this world will not pay a lot for it. Now, am I going to try to come up with some comparable worth system that somehow (re)distributes that? No, I don't think you can do that. But I do think that when you're treated enormously well by this market system, where in effect the market system showers the ability to buy goods and services on you because of some peculiar talent - maybe your adenoids are a certain way, so you can sing and everybody will pay you enormous sums to be on television or whatever -I think society has a big claim on that." - Warren Buffet

It is better not to say anything.. just pray

As I was at the KL Sentral bus stop, I saw people wasting their time. But I can’t blame them because they don’t have many opportunities as I do.

So, my conclusion is that even though I can say to their faces “hey, you are wasting your time and energy….” But at the same time, it is not fair for me to say that because I got nothing to offer. I am not Bill Gates to tell that “hello, why don’t u come to work for me in the R & D department… I give you one year to prove yourself…”

This is like when atheists complain about the significance of religion. But I want to tell atheists this one thing… if you have nothing to offer, then it is not fair to say it. For my case, I believe that true love can cure all sickness, but I can only love one woman. So, I can’t go about curing so many people. And therefore, when other people needed light (out of darkness) and I can’t be there, better let God do the job. If one is an atheist, pray that there is a God so that other people can be loved like you too.

So, I feel that sometimes it is better not to say anything (comments) even though you are convinced that you are right. But just pray for people. Pray that they have more opportunities in life.

People believe what is right and wrong according to their own standards (how they are brought up). You can’t tell them what is right and wrong not until you took responsibilities in them. And "responsibility" is a big word.