Walker distance

[b07]

I can't understand why no one is talking about this. I've tested it and walkers -don't- walk the same amount of tiles, it just seems random and unpredictable. The gameplay options for Unique walker distances also don't seem to be don't seem to be doing much and are abysmally confusing in their tooltips. Anyone else have some thoughts to this?

[Phobos548]

I've observed the water delivery guy. He spawns at the end of a long road. And sometimes he goes all the way, and delivers in the city.
Sometimes he inexplicably stops in the middle and turn around.
There are no housing along the road, so he didn't empty his bucket before arriving to the city....
I've placed 4 water wells on the end of the road to get water to my inhabitants... Most of the time...

I think it's a bug. Very annoying bugs everywhere, bad UI... I think I will stop playing for now, waiting for a patch.

[monsieurJean85]

I was curious about the Unique Walker Distances and tested these for a bit on a Normal difficulty Sandbox map. It appears walker distances aren't entirely random.
It looks like most walkers go through some kind of cycle where they do two short walks of 32-33 tiles in addition to their spawn point, followed by one medium walk of 42-45 tiles, then one long walk of 52-55 tiles, then repeated the cycle again with the exact same distances. Not sure if this has anything to do with the type of walker, or if the cycle is generated randomly upon placing the building. Either way, the same numbers kept popping up. It was always 32, 33, 42, 45, 52, 54 or 55 tiles.
Test subjects were:
Fire Marshall: 33-32-42-54
Physician: 32-45-55-33
Bast Priestess: 33-32-42-52
Architect: 52-33-32-42
I also did a quick, basic reliability test using a very long road with a water supply and a basar at opposite ends. It looks like you can reliably service houses at a distance of up to 40-45 tiles, which seems a lot more than the 26-ish range for most service walkers I remember from the original game. Forced Walkers aside, this might open up some new options for larger self-contained housing blocks. Results may vary depending on the Difficulty, though. I read that Hard Difficulty reduces overall walker range,
I'd be interested to know if anyone else can confirm these results.

[HermesDoo]

I didn’t test the walking distance/count the tiles, but definitely sometimes they would turn back midway.

One thing I did notice is that when I first built my residential bloc (circular path blocks instead of straight line blocks, the water carrier guy, physician, etc, didn’t have problems going around the whole bloc visiting every house. However, once the houses upgrade beyond certain level, ~spacious residence, they started to turn back midway. Only to make a full trip next time, which causes downgrade of some of the houses…

Not sure if this is a bug or intended - as there are more residents in each house, water gets emptied sooner/takes longer for physician to see patients/etc?

Anyone with any thought?

[Borgessa]

i went straight for global employment, i guess many others did to hence lack of discussion maybe?

[Emi]

Originally posted by Borgessa:

i went straight for global employment, i guess many others did to hence lack of discussion maybe?

That's not what this is about, this is about roaming walkers reaching all the buildings they need to service, such as patrolling fire marshals, rather than employers. I would like to try turning off the 'unique walker range' option, but I don't know what the 'global' walker range would be then, it's sort of annoying that the game doesn't inform you with some kind of tooltip.

[NathanSCN]

Originally posted by monsieurJean85:

I was curious about the Unique Walker Distances and tested these for a bit on a Normal difficulty Sandbox map. It appears walker distances aren't entirely random.
It looks like most walkers go through some kind of cycle where they do two short walks of 32-33 tiles in addition to their spawn point, followed by one medium walk of 42-45 tiles, then one long walk of 52-55 tiles, then repeated the cycle again with the exact same distances. Not sure if this has anything to do with the type of walker, or if the cycle is generated randomly upon placing the building. Either way, the same numbers kept popping up. It was always 32, 33, 42, 45, 52, 54 or 55 tiles.
Test subjects were:
Fire Marshall: 33-32-42-54
Physician: 32-45-55-33
Bast Priestess: 33-32-42-52
Architect: 52-33-32-42
I also did a quick, basic reliability test using a very long road with a water supply and a basar at opposite ends. It looks like you can reliably service houses at a distance of up to 40-45 tiles, which seems a lot more than the 26-ish range for most service walkers I remember from the original game. Forced Walkers aside, this might open up some new options for larger self-contained housing blocks. Results may vary depending on the Difficulty, though. I read that Hard Difficulty reduces overall walker range,
I'd be interested to know if anyone else can confirm these results.

Big shout-out for your dedication!
I never bothered and just placed those as I felt was right and doing a few tiral and error runs with the map overlay.
This should make it more comprehensible. Thanks a lot! :)

[monsieurJean85]

Originally posted by NathanSCN:

Originally posted by monsieurJean85:

I was curious about the Unique Walker Distances and tested these for a bit on a Normal difficulty Sandbox map. It appears walker distances aren't entirely random.
It looks like most walkers go through some kind of cycle where they do two short walks of 32-33 tiles in addition to their spawn point, followed by one medium walk of 42-45 tiles, then one long walk of 52-55 tiles, then repeated the cycle again with the exact same distances. Not sure if this has anything to do with the type of walker, or if the cycle is generated randomly upon placing the building. Either way, the same numbers kept popping up. It was always 32, 33, 42, 45, 52, 54 or 55 tiles.
Test subjects were:
Fire Marshall: 33-32-42-54
Physician: 32-45-55-33
Bast Priestess: 33-32-42-52
Architect: 52-33-32-42
I also did a quick, basic reliability test using a very long road with a water supply and a basar at opposite ends. It looks like you can reliably service houses at a distance of up to 40-45 tiles, which seems a lot more than the 26-ish range for most service walkers I remember from the original game. Forced Walkers aside, this might open up some new options for larger self-contained housing blocks. Results may vary depending on the Difficulty, though. I read that Hard Difficulty reduces overall walker range,
I'd be interested to know if anyone else can confirm these results.

Big shout-out for your dedication!
I never bothered and just placed those as I felt was right and doing a few tiral and error runs with the map overlay.
This should make it more comprehensible. Thanks a lot! :)

Thank you, and you're welcome.

I've decided to use my current campaign playthrough to field-test some of my layout ideas for housing blocks, with the Unique Walker Option set to "Yes".

On that particular note, I suspect that the currently unclear wording of the "Unique Walker" option is a translation issue. From what I heard, the developers seem to be french speakers, and in French, the word "Unique" can also mean "single", as in "a single distance or range of distances, that applies to every walker regardless of type, as opposed to different distances depending on the type of walker".

Anyway, for my first housing block at Buhen, I surrounded a simple rectangular 5x20 area with a road loop of 54 tiles circumference, adding a single extra tile of road on the outside corner to accomodate the Pavilion. As usual, service buildings inside, houses outside.
This setup seemed to very narrowly cross the upper coverage limit for a single Bazaar: the one house farthest from it was not as reliably supplied with food, and the ones next to it also had noticeably smaller supplies. Once I placed the second Bazaar near these houses, all was fine once again. I have yet to see how it is with other goods, though, since I only just set up Pottery production.

By the way, how about a general discussion thread on the topic of City Block design using the new options available in AnE? I remember many layouts from Pharaoh Heaven for the OG game, which should definitely work in AnE as well, but I feel that there might be potential for more ideas.

[NathanSCN]

I would pretty much always be up for new layout ideas! :)
But honestly after I set up the biggest layout at the start of the game (like a huge rectangled roadmap, 4 free squares wide in the middle, to put all the imprtant buildings down and all the houses around), I dont bother too much anymore once everyone moves in.
Only when I have to sadly realise that something doesnt reach, I have to change things. And the biggest limiting factor I noticed so far was the water range. Because you can only place the water delivery thingy on grasland.
And therefore comes the range discussion from here in handy. But because there are a few crossroads for the entertainment (I try holding them as short as possible) I could not build a huge house area into the dessert.
My dreams were crushed LOL. XD
I also dont know how long buildings can survive without water. Because they were occasionally without before the waterboy came again with the next delivery...

And how do you wanna exchange layouts? My mother language isn't english so my words to describe are limited. ^^°
Send pictures? Steam doesnt provide upload here afaik? :/
Or else I would love to see some ideas.

[monsieurJean85]

Originally posted by NathanSCN:

I would pretty much always be up for new layout ideas! :)
But honestly after I set up the biggest layout at the start of the game (like a huge rectangled roadmap, 4 free squares wide in the middle, to put all the imprtant buildings down and all the houses around), I dont bother too much anymore once everyone moves in.
Only when I have to sadly realise that something doesnt reach, I have to change things. And the biggest limiting factor I noticed so far was the water range. Because you can only place the water delivery thingy on grasland.
And therefore comes the range discussion from here in handy. But because there are a few crossroads for the entertainment (I try holding them as short as possible) I could not build a huge house area into the dessert.
My dreams were crushed LOL. XD
I also dont know how long buildings can survive without water. Because they were occasionally without before the waterboy came again with the next delivery...

And how do you wanna exchange layouts? My mother language isn't english so my words to describe are limited. ^^°
Send pictures? Steam doesnt provide upload here afaik? :/
Or else I would love to see some ideas.

Good point. It would be nice to be able to share pictures as well as descriptions, which is indeed not possible in the discussion itself. There's a screenshot option, but unfortunately, it's separated from the discussion threads.

By the way, I just finished Buhen. Got to the required population of 3000 with just the first housing block. There was plenty of room left in the inner part, so I filled it up with houses and upgraded as many as I could to Fancy Residences. It feels like supplying houses with non-food commodities is easier than I remember from the OG game, as the required and maximum amounts don't seem to scale with housing level,

[Trixi]

I testen also some walking distances and got 32 times for every building at the first run. Didn't test further runs. Also workers always takes the shortest route back.

So my residential block is 20 x 9 tiles, measured for roads. I'm using just 2x2 housed, so I can do entertaining with jugglers and senet House, and can avoid the hassle with the intersection for music and dance pavilion. Actually 1 type of each service is enough, except bazaars and temples. The infield is setup with houses and 3x3 statues. Outside is services and additional housing. Such a block can serve up to 4500 residents. It's also pretty flexible. You could squeeze such a block into a mountain gap and you can connect the entrance and exits anywhere. Just place some road blocks. You also could build your main road straight through the block, just don't forget to block the roads.

Or if there is not enough space, you also can cut some length (maybe 15x9 instead 20x9.

[Zaris]

In the original games the walkers were also fuzzy already. Best advice from my experience: build a 6x20 rectangle, service building in the inner 4x18 part and on the outside homes (this also prevents walkers from accidentically taking nearby other roads on the outside). The only downside: pavillions destroy the linear way with their crossings. For industry the same, rectangles in the size of ~6x10 to 6x20 with one architect / firestation.

[monsieurJean85]

Originally posted by Trixi:

I testen also some walking distances and got 32 times for every building at the first run. Didn't test further runs. Also workers always takes the shortest route back.

So my residential block is 20 x 9 tiles, measured for roads. I'm using just 2x2 housed, so I can do entertaining with jugglers and senet House, and can avoid the hassle with the intersection for music and dance pavilion. Actually 1 type of each service is enough, except bazaars and temples. The infield is setup with houses and 3x3 statues. Outside is services and additional housing. Such a block can serve up to 4500 residents. It's also pretty flexible. You could squeeze such a block into a mountain gap and you can connect the entrance and exits anywhere. Just place some road blocks. You also could build your main road straight through the block, just don't forget to block the roads.

Or if there is not enough space, you also can cut some length (maybe 15x9 instead 20x9.

Interesting!
I never thought of the Jugglers and Senet only approach for entertainment before. I guess I got so used to the Pavilion routine I mostly ignored Senet Houses once they became available, except for high-end housing.
Assuming entertainment points are calculated the same way as in the original, points from the walkers alone should amount to 50, more than enough to evolve housing up to Fancy Residences on Normal difficulty, while avoiding intersections completely.
I'll definitely try that out once I get the chance. Right now, I'm on North Dahshur and Senet Houses aren't available yet.

[Trixi]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2938109695

Originally posted by monsieurJean85:

Originally posted by Trixi:

I testen also some walking distances and got 32 times for every building at the first run. Didn't test further runs. Also workers always takes the shortest route back.

So my residential block is 20 x 9 tiles, measured for roads. I'm using just 2x2 housed, so I can do entertaining with jugglers and senet House, and can avoid the hassle with the intersection for music and dance pavilion. Actually 1 type of each service is enough, except bazaars and temples. The infield is setup with houses and 3x3 statues. Outside is services and additional housing. Such a block can serve up to 4500 residents. It's also pretty flexible. You could squeeze such a block into a mountain gap and you can connect the entrance and exits anywhere. Just place some road blocks. You also could build your main road straight through the block, just don't forget to block the roads.

Or if there is not enough space, you also can cut some length (maybe 15x9 instead 20x9.

Interesting!
I never thought of the Jugglers and Senet only approach for entertainment before. I guess I got so used to the Pavilion routine I mostly ignored Senet Houses once they became available, except for high-end housing.
Assuming entertainment points are calculated the same way as in the original, points from the walkers alone should amount to 50, more than enough to evolve housing up to Fancy Residences on Normal difficulty, while avoiding intersections completely.
I'll definitely try that out once I get the chance. Right now, I'm on North Dahshur and Senet Houses aren't available yet.

Here is an example:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2938641941

[monsieurJean85]

Nice!
So sharing screenshots in the discussion is possible, after all?
How do you do that, exactly?

[เทมส์ Phantom[TH]]

Originally posted by monsieurJean85:

I was curious about the Unique Walker Distances and tested these for a bit on a Normal difficulty Sandbox map. It appears walker distances aren't entirely random.
It looks like most walkers go through some kind of cycle where they do two short walks of 32-33 tiles in addition to their spawn point, followed by one medium walk of 42-45 tiles, then one long walk of 52-55 tiles, then repeated the cycle again with the exact same distances. Not sure if this has anything to do with the type of walker, or if the cycle is generated randomly upon placing the building. Either way, the same numbers kept popping up. It was always 32, 33, 42, 45, 52, 54 or 55 tiles.
Test subjects were:
Fire Marshall: 33-32-42-54
Physician: 32-45-55-33
Bast Priestess: 33-32-42-52
Architect: 52-33-32-42
I also did a quick, basic reliability test using a very long road with a water supply and a basar at opposite ends. It looks like you can reliably service houses at a distance of up to 40-45 tiles, which seems a lot more than the 26-ish range for most service walkers I remember from the original game. Forced Walkers aside, this might open up some new options for larger self-contained housing blocks. Results may vary depending on the Difficulty, though. I read that Hard Difficulty reduces overall walker range,
I'd be interested to know if anyone else can confirm these results.

OMG, I was confused about this before, never thought they have this kind of cycle. I can confirm that my water carrier sometimes walk long distance, sometimes shorter.

bug or what ?