User Guide

Plan Specialized Storage Yards.
If you have built a
Storage Yard for the sole purpose of supplying
Bazaars with the goods they need, consider using
Special Orders to tell the Storage Yard to specialize
only in goods for the home. Set the Storage Yard’s
orders to “Don’t Accept” for goods citizens can’t
use, like weapons, wood, etc. This prevents the
Storage Yard from being clogged with items that
people deem useless.
Carefully Plan Roads.
If there are well-supplied
Granaries and Storage Yards near a given Bazaar, it
probably won’t have a problem keeping food and
goods on the shelves. The Bazaar may still have a
problem getting these supplies to housing, how-
ever, if the city’s roads are not laid out well.
The trader is responsible for bringing supplies from
the Bazaar to housing. The trader is a roamer (see
page 51), and does not follow a set path. Every
time she encounters an intersection, she must
choose which way to go, and she won’t choose the
same way every time. The more intersections she
comes across, the less predictable her path
becomes. And, as the trader is off wandering
around the city, housing that needs the goods and
foods she provides will go without, and they will
devolve.
To keep traders on the straight and narrow, try not
to build too many intersections in the city.
Another good tool for controlling traders is the
Roadblock (see page 109). When a trader — or
any other roamer — encounters a Roadblock, she
turns around and heads in the other direction.
The Roadblock helps prevent traders from wander-
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Commerce and Trade
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The Storage Yard, the Granary and the Bazaar are the
basic components of your city’s distribution system.
Understanding how these three structures interrelate
will help you keep your citizens supplied with the food
and goods they want. Meeting your citizens’ material
needs leads to better-quality housing, which leads to
an increased Prosperity Rating and allows you to col-
lect more taxes. Keep the following tips in mind as
you plan your city to ensure that housing receives a
steady supply of the food and goods they need.
Build Bazaars Near Storage Yards and Granaries.
Keeping your city’s Bazaars well supplied will go a
long way to keeping citizens’ material wants in
check. The best way to keep the city’s Bazaars
bustling with commodities is to place them near a
Granary and a Storage Yard so that buyers can
make frequent, short trips.
Use Special Orders to Keep Outlying Storage Yards
and Granaries Supplied.
As your city expands, you
should build Storage Yards and Granaries in outly-
ing areas to keep the Bazaars there stocked with
goods. These outlying Storage Yards and
Granaries will most likely have difficulty procuring
supplies unless you use Special Orders. If you tell
outlying Granaries and Storage Yards to “Get”
items, cart pushers will issue forth to retrieve the
stuff from storage facilities that have some.
Enabling the “Get” order does not prevent buyers
from taking commodities from Granaries or
Storage Yards.
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Commerce and Trade
Deliverymen always bring
goods to the closest
Storage Yard or Granary
that can accept their load.
Outlying Storage Yards and
Granaries may never have
supplies delivered to them
unless they have been given
special orders.