Gustavia’s Gazette: Hercules Labors

In Which We Meet Many Mythical Monsters

The name of the city you must establish is Tiryns. Remember that, and know right away you will be returning to this map again and again. It has shoreline on 3 sides, a swamp in the middle, beaches and some meadows for the naked sheep. Medium sized, and you will have to fit several Sanctuaries on the map before the adventure is done.

Tiryns-1 sets some small goals for you to start out. The immigrants arrive from the NW part of the map. It doesn’t matter much where you set up your housing, you can feed them with urchins and boar almost anywhere. Get some sheep in the meadows, as soon as you can, it takes time for the wooly coats to develop. The shepherds don’t mind walking out and back to tend them. You will have to have some folks in tenements (houses with water, two cultures and fleece) and meet the yearly production rate of 30 fleece. Strongly resist the urge to get a high population. It isn’t needed, and you will regret it when you come back. Just do enough to meet the goals and move on. If you have any extra time, store up some food for when you come back. In fact, it might be a good idea if you do.

Cyme is going to whine that you wont help them, but they will get over it.

Once you meet the goals, you can choose from one of three colonies- Lemnos, Ephesus or Lerna. Each one has advantages and disadvantages; I have played all the possibilities. Just pick one 🙂 The most important part is to make some money in the colony and bring it back with you to Tiryns each time.

Lemnos has the immigrants entering the map and then crossing a chain of large islands to the main building space. Just put some bridges in and they will travel over to the largest island. The good news is you can gather urchins and mine marble, plus establish some mints to make money. You can sell your marble by sea to your ally Eleusis. You can import olive oil from them, and import fleece from your parent city, Tiryns. Or you can ask. You should receive some gifts of wood. The bronze can be imported or requested, you can make your own statues. Or you can buy or request the statues. Since you can mine marble, guess what your parent city wants you to send back to them? Try to meet the requests on time, if you are counting on them to send you fleece.

The bad news is the island is cursed. Haphaestus is not a friendly guy, and he comes early and often. He likes to destroy things, and usually it is something you really care about. Poseidon also makes appearances to curse your water related industries. He can shut your trade down completely, but thankfully, he will leave after a while. And then, there are the tidal waves. Get started on Aphrodite’s Sanctuary as soon as you can. It looks nice up on the elevated part, and it would be a good idea to keep your population as small as practical. Once her Sanctuary is finished, she will make short work of Hephaestus and will help you fill your houses with the required 2000 population. I deliberately held my population back so I could increase my bank account before returning to Tiryns.

Tiryns-the third mission. This one is tough, no matter which colony you establish first. Get a little more population, but not much more. Watch your food, and don’t let yourself run out. Plague can strike if your houses aren’t fed and don’t have health worker access. If you decide to increase the population to take advantage of taxes, you may have trouble feeding them.

Kraken is going to show up pretty quick and disrupt your water trade and will attack the urchin gathers. You can’t get rid of him without calling the Hero, Perseus, and that will require both the Athena and Hermes Sanctuaries. I know, the episode goal states “sanctuary to any god” but it also says, “slay the monster” and that requires a Hero who has his own requirements. There are any numbers of strategies to deal with the situation. If you build Athena’s Sanctuary first, you can take advantage of the Sacred Grove and produce your own olive oil for your population. She is pretty helpful when Apollo comes to visit. Hermes Sanctuary goes faster, and he is often helpful in meeting requests the allies make of you. Requesting goods from your colonies is possible, (Ephesus can give you bronze, Lerna can give you olive oil or wine and Lemnos can give you marble and maybe food) but be sure to send them back gifts in return. If they don’t feel you are appreciative of their sacrifices, they will refuse your demands and may get ugly. You are going to have to barter and beg for the materials; there is one land trade route available to sell 12 fleece a year. It isn’t even enough to pay the worker salaries.

Oh, and be nice to Cyme. If you gift them with fleece, you might be able to get wood from them. If they aren’t happy with you, they may threaten to attack. They can be bribed, but if you don’t have any money, it could be very bad. If you have a Palace, you can always muster up your Rock Throwing Rabble and take a chance. Or even request defensive aid from one of your allies.

Once both the Sanctuaries are done, you can send for Perseus to rid the seas Kraken, the monster you will learn to hate.