Contest 70: Urbs, a Caesar3 Golden Ages Contest

Welcome to the contest pages for Contest 70: Urbs. This is a Caesar 3 contest, and should only be played with Caesar 3 V1.0.1.0. Use the link below to download the starting positions:

Urbs (Normal Difficulty)
file is in .zip format

After downloading, PC players should open the archive with a suitable programme (e.g. Winzip), and then extract the contents to the directory in which which C3.exe is located (by default C:\Sierra\Caesar3). Macintosh players, for whom the procedure of installing contest files is a little more complicated, can find detailed instructions here. If you have any problems, please ask in the Forum.

Please take note that the CBC rules no longer allow free roads and material changes either. Competitors are reminded that the normal CBC General Rules apply to this contest. Competitors are also advised to peruse the list of Caesar3 Game Features. Please make sure you play the game from the start at the correct level of difficulty (Normal). Select Options, Difficulty and check it. If necessary adjust the difficulty, select new game and reselect Urbs saved game. Now you can play.

Story

750 years before the birth of Christ, starting on a path that would lead further than they could ever have imagined, farmers settled on a place near the river Tiber. They called it..... Rome. Once the most beautiful city of all, now nothing but empty land. The hills and the river Tiber are still there, the marble and gold have been taken away for use elsewhere. But here are you, the Emperors most favoured governor, you, the one who has been chosen to resurrect Rome and build a city that is beyond everyone's imagination. The Emperor has asked you to make sure that new immigrants will able to recognize something of the old Rome, the Curia, where the senate housed, the Circus Maximus, where the horses raced, the Amphitheatrum Flavium, where the gladiators fought and the Imperial Palace, where the Emperor lived. The people should be able to find these buildings, right there where the people of the old Rome would have found them.

Your main task, however, is to build a prosperous, cultural, large and above all, beautiful city. Use marble, gardens, plaza, statues, everything in your grasp, but don't create a mess, create a well-organized city. And don't forget, ancient Rome provided housing for the poor and rich, there is no need for changing that: build casae, insulae, vilae, yes, even palaces so everyone has a place to live.

Rules

In order to have a valid entry the following Completion Criteria have to be met:
CC1: Prosperity and Culture rating at 50 or higher
CC2: Population of 7500 or higher
CC3: One (1) Patrician dwelling (villa and up)
CC4: You must provide a short .txt file in which you explain why you built your city like you built it.

The winner will be decided by using the following Win Criteria:
WC1: Total scoring (out of 100; for details see below)
WC2: Prosperity, Culture and Population ((Prosperity Rating + Culture Rating)*(Population/100))

There is no time limit, but your entry must be saved in January, the map will be scored one year later. (The judges will let the game run until next January).

Urbs Beauty Contest: Contest Scoring
Total score: Total score: Maximum of 100. Player with the highest score wins, WC2 will be used in case of a tie. Beauty is very personal, but below you can find some general guidelines. If there's a tie, WC2 will come into effect and the following formula is used: (Prosperity Rating + Culture Rating)*(Population/100).

You can get 40 points for the beauty of your city. Beauty is something that is very personal, it depends a lot on the judge whether your city is considered beautiful or not. So, here are some general points the judges will look at:

Decoration - Upgraded baths, markets and Senate, large temples and oracles, statues and gardens and plaza. Do not use those sparsely, decorate! Of course, there is no need for plaza or gardens near the farms, but decorate your living areas.

Lay-out - Rome was, above all, a mess. However, you are building a new Rome. That means that you don't have to use nicely laid out housing blocks per se, but don't leave any open gaps where you could have placed statues or gardens. Don't have any open gaps where service buildings could have been. Try to create a continuous city and avoid too large areas filled with just gardens.

Housing - Anything not made of stone looks ugly. Anything below Small Casa will decrease your score.
You can get 60 points for historical accuracy. There were 4 major buildings in Ancient Rome, as described in the story above (Curia, Colloseum, Circus Maximus and Imperial Palace). Placing them all correctly will earn you 20 points, placing 3 correctly earns you 10, placing 2 correctly earns you 5, placing just one correctly is worth nothing.
An additional 10 points can be earned by having housing diversity. The overall look of the city has to be diverse (avoid more than 2 blocks -or parts of the city- of a certain housing type) and also the Society Graph should reflect some of the diversity.

An additional 15 points in this category will be awarded for even more historical accuracy. Apart from placing the 4 buildings, listed in the introduction, correctly, you can score additional points by building other buildings or structures where you think they belong. The judges have several, detailed maps of the building placement in ancient Rome. You can explain these in a text file added to your entry. It's your decision which ones you want to build, but you should really show some effort. Just having an (undeveloped) bathhouse on an elevated level and stating that "the baths where on the hill" is not sufficient.

The last 15 points can be earned by using the terrain like the Romans did: the vast majority living on the hilly bank of the Tiber (the larger part of the map, NW), using the hills for housing and/or industry. I.e. if 90% of the city is near the hills and you actually use the hills will earn you 10 points. If approximately a quarter of the city is built near the vast farmland area and you don't use the hills you get 3 points. Using the hills for either housing or industry will increase this score a lot.
If you are in doubt or unsure whether something is allowed, please contact the contest designers through e-mail and ask them. We will try to respond in 24 hours.

If you have any technical questions / problems with the map, you can use the CBC forum.

Designer's Notes

I can understand that the rules are hard to interpret, what do I want? So, in addition to the scoring above, let me make a note. I do not ask from you to recreate ancient Rome. However, alongside the beauty aspect, I wanted to add something else. That was the historical accuracy, but because I did not want the player to have to research ancient Rome for hours and hours I kept it relatively simple. Because of being part of the Golden Ages Series, I emphasised on historical accuracy a bit more than intended at first. So, in short: Build a beautiful city with some elements from ancient Rome.

I know there are people around who do not fancy doing an in-depth research. Don't worry, here are 3 links that might get you started, but feel free to find your own sources! Roman Empire.net, Caesar3 HeavenGames Senate and of course, Google.

The judges will let your map run for one year before scoring. Any buildings you have claimed to be historically accurate must be staffed by then to be valid. Of course, a staffed but not correctly placed building won't be valid either.
Regular soldiers weren't allowed inside the city of Rome, however the Emperor will ask you to send some of the Praetorian Guard (which was allowed to be within the city) to assist him in any distant battles.

The Emperor wants you to rebuild some buildings, yet Rome has a history of almost 2750 years. The Rome the Emperor is looking for is the Rome during its high time, 100 AD. (But don't limit yourself to that period entirely)
There is no time limit, if you feel ready, submit the file. (It has to meet the CC before it's valid though).
The mini-map in the top right corner will be used to determine the score for beauty. If you aren't close to the sprite limit yet, keep in mind that gardens don't show up on the mini-map while statues do.

I expect a certain level of historical accuracy from the contestants, yet I've made Rome a northern climate. I took some poetic liberty here for gameplay causes. Let's just assume the climate has changed :-).

When you are trying to raise culture, do not use the so called "culture parks" when they serve no purpose. If you do build a large area with libraries, academies, theatres and such as a personal thouch, you should include an explanation with your entry in *.txt format. Culture parks without purpose decrease the score for beauty.

Although multiple hippodromes and senates are an allowed feature, Rome really had only 1 senate and 1 Circus Maximus. Multiple will decrease score for historical accuracy.
You are allowed to ignore any requests if you wish to.

Urbs was created by EmperorJay and was beta-tested by Theo and Joshofet. The concept of Golden Ages series) is historical approach to citybuilding, which has beens organized by Aditya.

This contest ends Monday September 6th, at 11PM, EST

This contest has ended.

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