Zeus Walkthroughs: Zeus and Europa
» Episode 1: Founding of Thebes
Goals- Population of 1000
Hints & Tips
Zeus and Europa is a good transition for beginning players from the tutorials to more challenging adventures. With that in mind, feel free to spend as much time as needed in the "Z&E" episodes. There are few times when you may be rushed, and those are in later episodes.
The first thing to notice about Thebes is a very large playing area with a lot of room to build. Place your housing block near the river towards the bottom of the playing area. You can bridge the river and use the island's meadow for agriculture. Don't worry when the Hydra appears - it will linger in the quarries until you are able to summon Hercules in the next episode. Avoid building over near the meadow to the left of the playing area. This area may look appealing now, but you won't be enjoying it as much when the huge lava eruption burns a big hole in your city, or when the Maenads come tearing into town.
For food, wheat is your best option. It feeds your people and can be exported for profit. In later episodes, it can be used to feed the horses needed to supply the army. You may also wish to build a few Dairies to provide a more steady food supply. Next, build plenty of Carding Sheds for supplying fleece to your people and for exporting it abroad.
Be ready to defend your city against any of your rivals. Who knows when they may decide to swing by for a visit?
With food, fleece, and some culture, you should be able to evolve your houses enough to reach the population goal of 1,000 people. If your houses aren't evolving, right click on them to see what it is that they lack. When you reach your population goal, you will be finished with the first episode.
» Episode 2: The Serpent
Goals- Produce 48 slabs of marble in one year
Hints & Tips
This episode involves more than just producing marble? and all because of that pesky Hydra. You need to summon Hercules to kill the Hydra before you can even dream about collecting marble, so find a suitable spot for Hercules' Hall and place it in your city. Make sure that it has road access. Right-click on Hercules' Hall and notice that there is a list of requirements. Hercules is a picky hero and requires the following:
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- Hercules Hall has excellent culture access
- Win any Pan-Hellenic game
- Excellent city wide Gymnasium access
- 1500 people in the city
- 32 amphorae of wine
As for culture, every type of culture walker needs to pass Hercules' Hall in order for it to have "excellent" culture access. You will need to build a Podium, Theater, Gymnasium and a Stadium all in the same block as Hercules' Hall. Make sure that a Philosopher, an Actor, an Athlete, and a Competitor frequently pass the hall. Use the culture overlays in the culture control panel tab to see which he is lacking, if any.
To achieve "excellent city wide Gymnasium access" make sure that an Athlete from a Gymnasium passes every house in your city. Don't forget that Roadblocks can be used to control where the walkers go. And since you are building Gymnasiums? the best way to "win any Pan-Hellenic game" is to make sure that all types of culture walkers pass all of your houses.
All of this points to one thing: avoid building a sprawling city and you will not have to build tons of culture buildings! Rather than covering the playing area with houses, focus instead on evolving the houses you have to their highest level. Since Thebes can produce food, fleece, and olive oil, you should attempt to evolve your housing to the Townhouse level. This will help you avoid sprawl while increasing your housing capacity.
Monitor the status of the requirements for Hercules by frequently right-clicking on his Hall. When all of the requirements are filled, click the button on the Hercules' Hall right-click panel to summon him. After a short while, the burly hero will appear, walk to his Hall, and then walk (or surf!) over to the Hydra to kill it. Keep an eye on him so that you don't miss the combat!
When the Hydra is dead, build six or seven Masonry Shops to quarry marble and meet your marble production goal. Try to minimize the distance that the Stonecutters have to walk to get the marble. Near your Masonry Shops, build a few Storehouses, set to accept only marble. You can also begin exporting marble to Calydon.
When trading goods, keep the following in mind. Trading buildings act like "getting" storehouses. Therefore, provide marble-accepting storehouses near the Masonry Shops and then let the trading post get the marble from there. If you force the cart-pusher from the Masonry Shop to deliver directly to a distant trading building, you can slow down production at the Shop. Play around with storehouse settings to find the best ways to get goods moving to where you want them.
When you have produced 48 slabs of marble in one year, you will win the episode!
» Episode 3: Ares' City
Goals- Sanctuary to Ares
- 50 people in Residence or better
- 30 sheaves of wheat for colony
- 25 jugs of olive oil for colony
Hints & Tips
By this time, you should have ample marble stored in your city. Consider exporting some of it if you are short on money. Make sure that you keep enough to complete your first goal, though!
Ares' Fortress, as his Sanctuary is known, is not too large of a building. However, it provides wonderful benefits. Two companies of Mythical Warriors will join your military arsenal, and if you pray to Ares, he may accompany you on a distant battle. You're going to need marble, wood, and sculptures to build the sanctuary.
Import wood from Libya. To get it, build a Pier to Libya and set wood to importing. To avoid overbuying wood, place the foundation of Ares' Fortress and right-click on it to see how much wood you will need. (Hint: you'll need 14 Loads of Wood!)
Finally, you need sculptures. There are three ways to get them. First, you can import them from Calydon, though this is a very expensive option. Second, you can import bronze from Mt. Pelion and produce your own sculptures at a Sculpture Studio. This option is more labor-intensive, but it's also less expensive and can even be profitable since you can sell excess sculptures to Argos. Perhaps the best way to acquire sculptures is to request them from your ally Calydon. You can send them gifts of marble to increase their favor level if necessary.
When you have at least 13 slabs of marble in a Storehouse, place Ares' Fortress. Where you place it is up to you, though make sure that it has road access to your stored marble, wood, and sculpture. And stay away from the left-hand side of the playing area!
With everything in place, build an Artisans' Guild or two, and artisans will construct the Sanctuary! Again, it is good to build the Artisans' Guilds as close to the Sanctuary as possible. Keep in mind that the completed Sanctuary will require 50 employees to function and will deplete some of your sheep to perform sacrifices.
As for the wheat and olive oil goals: when you have enough of those goods in stock, return to the goals panel and click to set them aside for your upcoming colony.
Several things are needed in order to place Elite Houses and meet the final episode goal. First, the house has to be built in an area of high appeal. If you are in doubt as to the appeal of a certain area, check the Appeal overlay, accessed through the Aesthetics tab. Building Aesthetics and Recreational facilities raises the appeal of the area surrounding them. Second, you need to have some goods in storage. More specifically, for each Elite House you need 1 Skein of Fleece, 1 Jug of Oil, and 2 Crates of Food. Finally, after placement, you need to provide the houses with a constant supply of goods and culture.
Grand Agoras are designed specifically for Elite Housing. They can hold up to six vendors. Build a Grand Agora to service your Elite Housing neighborhood. Then, build vendors for food, fleece, olive oil (and eventually armor, horses, and wine), and make sure that the vendors have access to a supply of goods.
Elite Housing will devolve quickly if it does not have enough culture access. Use the overlays on the Culture Tab to make sure that philosophers, actors, athletes, and competitors are constantly passing your Elite Housing. It is a good idea to have the support network for the Elite Houses set up before you place the houses themselves. That way you avoid quick housing devolution. You will probably want to delete the stadium from its existing location and rebuild it amongst your Elite Housing. Common Housing does not need access to competitors to be fully-evolved. Right-click on Elite Houses to determine how many people they hold and what goods and services they require.
When you have 50 people or more in a Residence, you are ready to build your colony!
» Episode 4: The Cretan Princess (Cydonia Colony)
Goals- 30 Planks of wood for parent city
- 30 Amphorae of wine for parent city
Hints & Tips
Cydonia is what you make of it. You will find Talos pacing around just waiting to maul any of your buildings or people that get to close. However, if you avoid him, he will not venture far from his stomping grounds over on the right side of the playing area. Since killing Talos is not a requirement in the episode, and since he will return to haunt you regardless of what you do now, just give him a wide berth and focus on meeting your set-aside goals for wood and wine. If you are unsure as to whether you are building too close to Talos, try placing a single building (house, wall, etc?) and see if he attacks it. You can meet the hero requirements to slay Talos in Cydonia if you wish to do so, but it will lengthen this episode considerably without any particular benefit.
Build your housing block on the lower plateau to the far right of Talos. Wood is easy to come by here. Just build a few Timber Mills and a Storehouse set to accept wood. When you have 30 planks of wood, return to the goals panel and set it aside for your parent city.
Wine is only slightly more difficult to produce. First, place some Grapevines on meadow tiles. A small patch of 20 or so should suffice. Then, build a few Growers' Lodges. The Growers will emerge and tend the vines. Finally, build some Wine Presses (where the grapes are converted to wine) and a Storehouse set to accept wine. Be prepared for some requests for wine from other cities in Greece. You can ignore these if you want, although those cities might find that somewhat irritating.
When you have 30 Amphorae of wine in storage, return to the goals panel and set it aside for your parent city, and get ready to head back home the Thebes.
» Episode 5: The Wedding Present
Goals- Slay a monster (Talos)
- 2 Sanctuaries
Hints & Tips
Talos is angry that you took Europa and is on your trail. If you chose to slay him in Cydonia, that did nothing to improve his mood. There is no easy way around him this time - you are going to have to summon Jason! Let's have a gander at what Jason requires to come to your city:
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- 3 triremes
- 2 horsemen companies
- 64 crates of food
- 8 horses
- 16 amphorae of wine
First, provide armor and horses to your Elite Houses. There are three ways to get armor: import it, request it, or manufacture it. Phoenicia offers it for sale, if you choose that route. If you want to make it, import bronze from Mt. Pelion and build Armories. If you are nice to Mt. Pelion, you can request that they send you bronze, which helps ease the financial burden of providing armor to your Elite Houses. Fortunately, unlike food, fleece, or olive oil, armor is not consumable; once an Elite House has some, it will not require more until the soldiers wearing it have been killed. Make sure that you have an armor vendor at your Grand Agora and that the Storehouse where you are keeping your armor is close enough that it can be purchased and distributed.
Next, build at least two Horse Ranches within easy reach of your horse vendor. You should allow these to be distributed to your elite housing until you have two horsemen companies. At that point, you can stockpile horses until you have the eight required to summon Jason.
You don't have to fully develop your Elite Houses in order to reach Jason's requirement of 2 Horsemen Companies, but doing so will save you space and strengthen your military. To reach Estate-level, you will need armor, horses, and wine, in addition to everything else. You can buy wine from Cydonia and distribute it via a wine vendor at the Grand Agora. (You will also need to have 8 wine in storage to bring Jason to the city.) Each Elite House with armor, horses, wine, and appropriate appeal and culture access can support four horsemen. Therefore, four fully-developed Elite Houses (Estates) will get you to your goal of two horsemen companies. Feel free to develop more, however, to aid you in defense and conquest.
Your food infrastructure should be well developed by now. If you find that you do not have enough, build more Wheat Farms and/or Dairies. You will need 2 full Granaries of food to summon Jason.
Finally, you need three triremes in the city. This is the most ambitious aspect of summoning Jason, but it needn't be difficult. Place three Trireme Wharves along the river. If you are having labor problems, follow these tips in building your triremes. First, as soon as you place the Wharves, right-click on them and send the workers home. You need to make certain that you have everything you need to build the boats before you employ 100 people at each Wharf. Each Wharf needs wood and armor to produce and arm a ship. When the goods are stored nearby, right-click on one of the wharves and staff it with workers. When the trireme is finished, send that crew home, and then build the second one. Repeat this again to build the third. By building them one at a time, you can reduce the impact they have on your city's workforce. (Hints: Raising the wage rate increases participation in your workforce, and you can temporarily mothball industries from the Industry Full Report).
Right-clicking on Jason's Hall will tell you where you stand with respect to his summoning requirements. When all of the requirements are met, click on the button and bring Jason to the city. When he arrives, he will fight Talos!
Your final goal here is to build another Sanctuary. While they all provide benefits, the Arbor of Athena is probably your best bet. (Hint: You'll need it later!) With Talos out of the way, getting marble should not be a problem.
» Episode 6: The Wine Crisis
Goals- Rule Mt. Cithaeron
- 3 Sanctuaries
Hints & Tips
Several diplomatic events will occur at the outset of this episode to cloud the situation. Mount Pelion will go into isolation, and Argos will cease trading. The Maenads are mauling Mount Cithaeron.
Both of the goals in this episode were achievable in episode five. The Elite Housing you built should provide enough firepower to conquer Mount Cithaeron. If you are highly favored enough, you can enlist the help of an ally as well. Also, if you pray to Ares, he might just join your forces, virtually assuring your victory. Keep sending attack forces until you succeed in your conquest.
At the same time, you should begin building your third Sanctuary. You can choose between three gorgeous Goddesses: Demeter, Artemis, or Aphrodite. Each one provides her own special benefits and blessings, so choose carefully.
A nearby volcano may decide to erupt at some point along the left-hand side of the playing area. Don't say you weren't warned! See what the lava destroys, and then rebuild the structures you need in a new spot.
During the course of this episode, you may receive a request from Cydonia to help them fight off the still-enraged Talos. You can try to help them with troops, or you can again attempt to summon Jason. Since this is not an episode goal, you don't need to go to the trouble of summoning Jason unless you really want to. (Hint: Talos is no match for Ares).
When you have finished the Sanctuary and conquered Mount Cithaeron, you will be ready to move on to the next episode.
» Episode 7: The Maenads' Rampage
Goals- 11 Trading Partners
- Slay a Monster (Maenad)
- Yearly Profit of 2000
- Population of 4000
Hints & Tips
In this episode, you will experience the wrath of the Maenads, women driven insane by partying too much with Dionysus. To slay the Maenads, you will need to enlist the help of the hero Achilles. While his Hero's Hall will not become available until the Maenads approach the city, you can still begin preparing in advance. The Hero's Hall to Achilles requires the following:
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- 32 suits of armor
- 3 hoplite companies or better
- A sanctuary to Athena
- No unrest in the city
- 16 amphorae of wine
Build up your Common Housing until you have a population of 4,000 and tax and trade to meet your profit goal. The final goal to achieve is to get eleven trading partners. Early in the episode, you will have ten allies and/or vassals. When Achilles kills the Maenad(s), the city of Elyusis will blossom into a rival, which you will have to conquer. Argos, however, is an ally who initially won't trade with you. Eventually, Argos will opt to open up trade with you, giving you eleven trade partners. If you're feeling impatient, however, you may find it difficult to resist the urge to just go ahead and conquer them. Keep in mind that conquering your own ally can have predictably negative consequences on international relations.
» Episode 8: The Pretender to the Throne
Goals- Rule Calydon
- Rule Argos
- Rule Orchomenos
- 4 Sanctuaries
- 100 People in Estate or Better
Hints & Tips
In this final episode, you will make Thebes into the most dominant city in all of Greece. Hopefully, you will have laid the groundwork to easily meet the goals set out.
If you haven't already, you will need to evolve five Elite Houses to Estate level to get 100 people in Estates. Remember to right-click on a house to find out what it needs next to evolve.
You have been successfully conquering up to this point, so your military should already be strong enough to finish the job by taking over Calydon, Argos, and Orchomenos. Those cities might invade you, too, making you hesitant to send your forces out to conquer. Bribery is fairly inexpensive, and with a couple of strong gods on your side, the invaders aren't as tough as they look. You should also have access to all the materials you need to build a fourth Sanctuary. When all the goals have been met, you will have won the episode and the entire adventure. Congratulations!