Welcome to this guide on Housing, Desirability, and Housing Evolution in Pharaoh: A New Era. In this tutorial, we will explore the mechanics of housing in the game and address some of the most frequently asked questions.
Housing, Desirability, & Housing Evolution
Housing is a crucial aspect of Pharaoh, as your people need a place to reside while they build monuments and contribute to the city’s growth. Your residents won’t settle for filthy shacks, as they seek comfortable homes that meet their needs. To attract immigrants, you must lay out building sites and ensure that the city sentiment is strong enough.
As you progress through the game, housing will consume resources, with better homes requiring more resources. However, better housing provides greater capacity, resulting in a larger labor market and more lucrative tax revenue. The resources and desirability needed to evolve housing further depend on the difficulty setting you choose. Fortunately, the in-game assistance is incredibly helpful, providing you with all the information you need by left-clicking on a structure.
Desirability
Desirability is another crucial factor in housing development. Certain structures or facilities are considered desirable or undesirable, influencing the worth of nearby homes and attracting or repelling wealthy residents. The Desirability OverlayA can show you which areas are most and least desirable to your people, with green indicating desirable areas and red indicating unattractive ones. Industrial, amusement, and military structures are generally undesirable, while religious buildings such as temples, shrines, plazas, and the municipal palace make a place more desirable. Some living options are also undesirable, but you can increase proximity detachability by choosing scribal dwellings and other housing choices.
As houses develop, they will take up more space, requiring a space of 2×2, 3×3, and 4×4 spaces to continue evolving beyond the first ten levels. The estate is the pinnacle of Egyptian home ownership, but houses must be within 2 tiles of a street to be eligible for service walkers. For a detailed breakdown of housing requirements, please refer to the Pharaoh Heaven Housing Chart.
If houses have the right goods and services, they will develop into better quality housing. However, losing access to key goods or services will cause the house to devolve, shrinking in size and potentially evicting tenants. Housing devolution is not an immediate effect, but you have a grace period before any redevelopment occurs.
We hope you found this guide helpful in understanding housing, desirability, and housing evolution in Pharaoh: A New Era.
Troubleshooting and Frequently Asked Queries: Housing
Q: How can I improve my housing further?
A: To improve your housing, left-click on the house to see what it needs. It may require new services or goods, or you may need to enhance the overall appeal of the location.
Q: What is the difference between regular housing and scribal housing?
A: Regular housing provides workers, while scribal housing is for the upper cla*s who are too educated and wealthy to do manual labor. Once a house is upgraded to a Common Manor or better, it becomes a Scribal House and is withdrawn from the labor pool, paying much higher taxes. Note that this only happens if the Workers Population setting is set to “Age Simulation.”
Quick visual shorthand: Regular residences are 2×2 inches or smaller, while scribal houses are 3×3 to 4×4 inches.
Q: My city sentiment is suffering. What’s happening, and how can I fix it?
A: Negative city sentiment can occur when a section of your city has luxurious housing while others are struggling to make ends meet. Even if a portion of your housing is aristocratic or better, city sentiment can suffer if there are too many slums. City sentiment should not be negatively affected if there are no huts or very few. However, the lookup for maluses in city sentiment from housing equality is incorrect. Therefore, having any type of scribal accommodation in your city can lead to negative city sentiment. To counteract this, you can raise your city sentiment through other means, such as lowering taxes and raising wages or cozying up in Bast.
Q: Why aren’t people immigrating to my city even though I’ve placed housing plots?
A: Negative city sentiment can deter people from immigrating to your city. Check the Overseer and Granaries to see how much housing space you have.
Q: What’s happening to my housing plots, and how can I fix it?
A: A bug may cause a house to lock into a waiting state while a new citizen is moving in, resulting in no additional citizens being sent in. You can try saving and reloading the game, resetting the manor’s behavior by compelling devolution, or waiting for your Fancy Residence to become a Common Manor before allowing it to develop into a Modest Estate. Additionally, some players claim that immigrants living in scribal housing are pickier than typical immigrants and may require more enticing offers such as cutting taxes and increasing salaries to draw them in.
