I’m at work. I got a call from my supervisor last night asking that I get into work early, due to system problems. I’ve been here since about 06:45. The system has definitely fallen over again, but the phones have yet to go berserk. The fun part is that I don’t get to go home until 17:00, because I’m working the late shift. Mo has it worse, since he only leaves at 17:30.

So here I am killing some time, because I really don’t feel like doing anything productive so early in the morning.

Last night, I finally won that scenario on Caesar IV – the city Carthago. My aggressive approach worked and I won it with over a year in the game’s time to spare. Without going into huge specifics about how I did it, here are a few guidelines. Maybe I’ll play it again and will need to remember how I did it, or maybe someone will do a search for a walkthrough or something. Anyhow …

  • Keep a rolling cash balance of around 7k.

  • Build several homes for patricians to move in right from the beginning. I also started with a tax office, to get their taxes right from the start.

  • My residential area was in the north, to the left of the lake. Farming went in the bottom left corner below the residential area. Sheep and olives were farmed in the extreme south, just below my industrial area.

  • Make specific stock items go to specific warehouses – ie, build separate granaries for wheat and vegetables. Build separate warehouses for raw materials and finished products and yet another for imported goods.

  • It is very important to import wine, so that the equites homes can upgrade.

  • Use the existing roads where ever possible and just extend the roads you need. Keep your city blocks small and build many prefect offices.

  • Also build religious shrines. These keep the population happy. Well, that’s what I think. That way, if you accidentally get a negative cash balance, they won’t complain for a couple months.

  • Also, start trading from the moment you get stock in the warehouse. Start with the cheaper locationsa and work up.

  • Do not send any gifts to Rome until you have achieved your other goals. Your status with Rome will decrease, even with fulfilling the demands. Just hang in there, the game will not end.

  • Last suggestion: Make sure you win before the fires ravage the city. This happens sometime after 30BC, so there is plenty of time.

Ok, so more suggestions than I expected. Just shows how I enjoyed the game. Now, I’m on the Empire campaign, but haven’t started a scenario yet. Marc was tired last night, so I barely had time to check my messages on Facebook before heading to bed. Today, I know I’ll be tired, so I won’t be playing much. I may leave Caesar for a while and play one of my other games.

I must take some pictures of my African Violets. The first flower has opened completely now and the second flower is almost there. I can only imagine what it’s going to look like when most of the flowers have opened.

TJ and Pumba have an annoying habit of wanting to play just when Marc and I intend to go to bed. On Sunday night, TJ had a squeeky little rugby ball. Pumba did not want it to start with, but saw how much fun TJ and I were having and joined in the fun. After a while, he really wanted that ball and TJ still did not want to give it up. Both had hold of it and were growling at each other. Marc and I were laughing so hard. Marc wanted to tell them to knock it off, but it’s a bit hard to sound harsh while laughing.

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