How do avenues and boulevards work?

[Rephath]

I never use them. I assume they're like two roads together. But the pros online seem to use them in housing blocks where I never would. So, what's the deal? Is their appeal much better than using a park or somesuch? Don't they mess up your walkers so they don't get to destinations as efficiently and waste their movement?

[Jarwanator]

Avenues/boulevards does help with increasing appeal. Avenues are slightly better than boulevards since they have flowers on either side of the road but agoras or grand agoras cannot be built on roads that have avenues/boulevards.

Depending on your city building technique, its a good idea to incorporate them. If you build houses on either side of an avenue, your walkers can still service the houses. Even though avenues are 3 grid spaces wide.

I tend to build my housing blocks in a long straight line comprising of either 10 or 12 houses on either side of a long avenue. Depending on location, I also add 4 noble houses at the top. This allows for Athletes and competitors to service all houses.

The problem with competitors is they walk in a straight line towards the Stadium. So I build the stadium far away to ensure when a Competitor walks from the gym to the stadium, they walk past every noble house and also normal residence.

[jennybojeryd]

Originally posted by Jarwan:

Avenues/boulevards does help with increasing appeal. Avenues are slightly better than boulevards since they have flowers on either side of the road but agoras or grand agoras cannot be built on roads that have avenues/boulevards.

It's the other way around. Boulevards are 3 wide! At least in the English version.

[jennybojeryd]

Boulevards and Avenues up the appeal. So much that you can build a road, decorate it with boulevard and immediately place elite houses along it. Likewise, if you set down boulevards in the housing blocks beforehand you don't have to worry about decorating around everything to upgrade the houses. It's great!

[SeattleSun]

Key point, they function less like two roads next to each other and more like a single road that is two or three wide. This means that they don't confuse walkers or reduce the distance they walk, or restrict access to a building (sometimes a blessing and a curse).

Appeal-wise, an avenue is roughly the same as a road with a park, with the difference being that it doesn't limit your ability to build on both sides of the road as connecting a building to any part of an avenue/boulevard counts as being connected to a road. Boulevards are strictly better when compared to parks as they have +1 range.

If you plan on using an avenue or boulevard, but don't have access/funds, you can substitute by leaving a gap space between housing units and the road and using occasional parks/benches temporarily (walker buildings will still need to touch the road). Just place a disconnected road (or road tiles) along the backside of the housing for their 'road access'. Housing Units can benefit from any walker that comes within 2 blocks of them, regardless of if the road the walker is on is connected to the housing unit. You may have to slightly adjust the placement of fountains, maintenance, etc. once you are able to place the avenues/boulevards, but it is still less hassle then trying to redo the entire block.

[chris-t6290]

Avenues more so boulevards are needed for elite housing appeal along with other items on the aesthetics tab. They are also used in the same way for common housing. Having said that, not all of the main Zeus Adventures have avenues from the first episode.

Incidentally, walkers walk along the road and not the decorated part of the avenue/boulevard.

It is best to keep common and elite housing blocks separate from one another. Do not, as someone has suggested, have both types of housing in the same block.

[Tohtori Leka]

Originally posted by SeattleSun:

If you plan on using an avenue or boulevard, but don't have access/funds, you can substitute by leaving a gap space between housing units and the road and using occasional parks/benches temporarily (walker buildings will still need to touch the road). Just place a disconnected road (or road tiles) along the backside of the housing for their 'road access'. Housing Units can benefit from any walker that comes within 2 blocks of them, regardless of if the road the walker is on is connected to the housing unit. You may have to slightly adjust the placement of fountains, maintenance, etc. once you are able to place the avenues/boulevards, but it is still less hassle then trying to redo the entire block.

This sounds overly complicated. I just build my housing blocks half empty in the early episodes where you still don't have access to avenues or boulevards. Build a straight road that fits 10-12 houses per side and then leave every other house spot empty and build the houses right next to the road. For beautification build parks behind the houses. Then later when you have access to boulevards build them in the empty spots along the road and houses on the boulevards. The boulevards on every other house and parks on the other ones combined are enough for elite housing and it also makes a nicer looking city when your houses aren't all in a straight line.

[chris-t6290]

Oh dear. In Adventures where you don't have avenues in the early episodes add another straight road where the avenue overlap goes. Then, when the avenues becomes available, you simply pause the game, delete the additional length of road and lay avenues along the road, no need, therefore, for half empty housing blocks.

The best housing layout, especially for the parent city, is a straight road. Loops are mostly used in colony episodes where the area is constrained. Ithaca and Taras in the 'Peloponnesian war' adventure.

You can easily get a loop with 34 houses in it in the Ithaca episode.

[chris-t6290]

Talking of the Taras episode, has anyone ever completed that optional colony episode?