I’m still playing one of my childhood games, Caesar III. It is one of those rare games that doesn’t seem to die. It was even resurrected by fans quite recently, who are now making an open source follow up to it, Augustus.

A great deal of Caesar III gameplay hinges around designing and adapting city blocks. I won’t get into that here, but if you’re a bit intrigued, you should go read about it because it’s fascinating.

For the Caesar III nuts out there, I’m experimenting with a 18×5 rectangular block. Here are the details:

• 18×5, plus the borders, which gives a rectangle of 48 long. If I remember correctly, the short walkers did 26 tiles one way, so they should always go around the block.
• At the center, on each of the roads, put houses at 8×2. This will give you 32 house tiles in the center, but on the roads.
• On the main axis, put a fountain behind the third house from each side. Then, put gardens on the main axis next to the fountains, extending also behind the houses, and even on two more tiles on each side.
• Put four temples next to each of the houses on the inner ring, as a buffer. Put a fifth temple outside of the ring, in front of one of the houses.
• The rest of the frontage in front of the houses will be covered with services, to be placed gradually. Already 2 frontage is taken by the fifth temple. Then, the rest will be taken up by: doctor, barber, baths (2 + 4 = 6 frontage). Then, a school (already 8 frontage, full on one side). On the other side, library (2 frontage), theater, amphiteater (7 frontage), then forum (9 frontage). All the services are there. We won’t put an academy, or a hospital. The only services with negative desirability are doctor and amphitheater, but the hit is small and everything else next to the houses just increases desirability. Definitely enough for plebeian housing.
• At both ends, we still have 5×5 on each end inside the ring, plus the outside. These are for industry. The population needs a market. The block also needs engineering post and prefecture. The granary is best put at one side end on the outer part of the ring, so it can be shared with the next ring, particularly if there are no gatehouses to separate the rings in peaceful missions.
• The maximum population for these 32 tiles of housing, which are 8 big houses, is 544 as small casa (no pottery) and 672 as large insulae (pottery, furniture and oil). Already at small casa, this block should generate a decent surplus of workers on top of all the workers needed to provide its services.
• The stability is good but not great. Sometimes I need a second school per block.
• My goal is to be able to avoid having those little shacks to provide employment, and instead house the entire city in these long blocks.