Basics of City Building

Learn the essential city building strategies for Pharaoh, including housing, services, and early industry placement to ensure a thriving Egyptian metropolis.

Building your city in Pharaoh is a multi-part process. To begin, slow the game speed to 10% using the '[' key. This allows for easier farming before the harvest and gives you time to plan.

Identify the Kingdom Road, where immigrants and traders will arrive. A trick to determine the best side of the road to build on is to save, build housing near a road, set the speed to 100% to observe where people come from, then load your save and build accordingly.

Before construction, check for wild animals like Hyenas, Hippos, and Crocodiles. Hyenas and Crocodiles can be contained by building walls around them (and ponds for Crocodiles), then eliminating them with a tower. Once all hyenas are dead, they won't reappear. Crocodiles will respawn indefinitely.

When deciding where to build your first housing area, consider proximity to the immigration point and farmland (floodplains or meadows). Ensure enough space between housing and farmland for a granary (a 4x4 structure), placing it at least 3 squares away from housing. Housing needs to be adjacent to Green to receive Water.

Before building housing, check the Overseer of Commerce to assess available food sources and necessary imports. This informs how large your housing can be; limited food sources mean smaller housing blocks as they won't fully evolve.

The ideal housing block layout is detailed below, with gardens increasing property value and allowing housing to evolve. A 4-square garden section supports the largest 4x4 housing structures. When roads are paved over, consider placing plazas over them for later use.

Housing Block Legend:

• HH - one square of housing
• = - road
• . - garden
• WWWW - Water Supply
• BBBB - Bazaar
• TTTT - Tax Collector
• FF - Firehouse
• AA - Architect's Post
• PP - Police Station

Place Water Supplies across the road from housing; use two for large blocks. Build a road down from a corner, then place a bazaar two squares down. Across from the bazaar, build a firehouse, architect's post, and police station. A tax collector's office can be placed between housing and the bazaar to maintain desirability. Consider a second bazaar at the other end of the housing block.

Tip: If building directly on the Kingdom Road, use a roadblock to keep walkers from wandering off.

Add basic sanitation structures like a Physician and Apothecary along the housing, avoiding corners needed for entertainment. Dentists can be built later.

Industry, Slums, and Food Production

Food and Farming:

To begin food production and exports, place a granary between your city and food sources (farmland, hunting grounds, fishing docks). Position it to balance accessibility for bazaars with desirability for housing. Next, build work camps, hunting lodges, or fishing wharves depending on the food source.