Bradius’s Briefing: The Voyages of Jason

Heroics for People Less Than Heros

Jason’s adventures start in Iolcus. You must first begin building what will eventually become a grand city. But that is still a long way off and your budget will be tight for a long time to come. The immigrants will come from the west. You have lots of fishing available, which might be a nice easy target for your first food. You also have some fertile lands in two different places on the map. North on the main land area is some small fertile area in the hills. I suggest that be used for sheep and goats later on, but first you should set up some sheep industry and timber industry. You can sell fleece to Naxos and Lemnos will buy timber. Eretia will also buy some cheese, but I never really got into that.

For your first episode in Iolcus, you will need to do three things: a quest, slay a monster, and have a treasury of 3,000 drachmas. To fulfill the quest and slay the monster (Cerberus), you will need to build a Hero’s Hall for Hercules and call upon his services.

Hercules is pretty straightforward:

  1. The hall will need excellent culture access
  2. Iolcus will need to win a Pan-Hellenic Game
  3. Iolcus will need excellent city-wide gymnasium access
  4. 1,500 people in the city
  5. 32 amphorae of wine

You will need to get Hercules to visit quickly too as Cerberus visited me in just 4 short years. Maybe Cerberus will behave himself for a little while, but it would be a good idea to get Hercules to visit as quickly as possible. After you have slain Cerberus, you can proceed to sending Hercules to rescue Theseus from Hades (your quest), but I chose to stay a while and fix up my city a bit more.

I wanted to get Athena’s grove going quickly in the next challenge, so I already started begging for marble and sculptures early on. It is an important part of your economy, begging for stuff you need: money, marble and sculptures, so get out your knee pads! You need to give these cities stuff in return. If you have surplus timber, fish or whatever you have around, send it to them and keep them in the giving mood. Bartering and begging is the name of the game here. You can’t tax anyone, so it is just trade and begging that will keep you afloat.

After you have finished your first challenge, you will begin your second episode in Iolcus. You will have to another Quest, and another Monster. To accomplish both of these you will need the help of the Hero Theseus, which you used Hercules to rescue in the first episode. You will need to build him a hero’s hall. To get him to visit though there are a few things you need to do:

  1. Place his hall near the city Palace
  2. Have good appeal around the hall
  3. Have the hall protected by walls
  4. 32 slabs of marble
  5. 16 amphorae of wine

It was the 3rd item that had me dizzy. I didn’t plan my city to have walls around some or all of my city. It is important to plan this wall and gate arrangement as you first build your city so you do not have a real problem getting those walls around Theseus’ Hall. You will have do all of this quickly as the Calydonian Boar will not be long in arriving. When he visited me, he had a quite strong appetite for sheep and goats, which he enjoyed roasting. Once Theseus is around and he has slain the Calydonian Boar, you can then send him on his quest to retrieve the Horn of Amalthea. However, I stayed around a while begging for marble and sculptures so as to finish the Arbor of Athena and get some olives and oil!