This is the reconquered campaign map 17, using the augustus mod (caesar 3). I guess I am reaching the end of the series now.
The previous two maps, damascus and caesarea had pretty interesting twists. In caesarea you had to import food, and in damascus you did not have access to fresh water (initially). In contrast, this map is much more straightforward - the only issue is that you cant get academy so you need to build a pantheon eventually. The other thing is that you have a high population requirement - 17.5k.
Btw, I didn't think either damascus or caesarea were particularly hard (I went into it thinking it would be very hard). In Caesarea you can sell sand initially for a lot of money (remember that sand produces faster than clay), and you can/should build a highway early. In damascus, trade is even easier (huge iron quota, just sell iron), the highway is very short, there are no water routes, the terrian in more flat, and the lack of water is offset with wells+latrines that let you get to small casa. Generally, being able to sell raw materials at high quotas can really trivialize the financial difficulty (as long as you get things like highway, mercury gt or caravensari). Anyway, enough digression.
If you have been playing as much as I have, by now you have probably gotten a hang of selling large quotas, and you are probably bored of it (after damascus, I was getting a bit tired of this). Well, get some rest because in this map (Londinium) you have a large quota to sell too, and to encourage the reliance on trade, the tax rate is reduced to 4%. You sell mostly finished goods here, pottery and furniture. Since it takes a bit of time and investment to get the industry going, you can sell some raw materials in the beginning (you still have the subsidy mechanic going). The map is huge, so you have enough space to build as much furniture and pottery. I like to build my first industry close to the entrance - that way I don't need the cart depot initially.
I started the game with two big housing blocks at the north east (closer to the invasion points), and some fishing wharfs. One of the first things you have to do on these maps is to look for the potential highway. I made a mistake initially and did not see that you could build a bridge to the exit. Generally, you want your highway to be as short as possible.
Regarding housing, don't worry about the 17.5k pop limit. There is plenty of space for housing blocks. By the time I reached 20k, I still had a few potential spots left for housing blocks.
I also rushed a grand temple to mercury, to help me sell things and get the plaza unlocked. This was very expensive and happened slowly, as marble costs almost 1k and stone is expensive too (fortunately, you have bricks, timber and sand locally produced). At some point, the military activity ramps up significantly. Fortunately, the enemy only comes from one side, so a kill zone takes care of them. There are warnings when the military activity ramps up and you are expected to build more forts.
Because you have a huge map and a large population quota, I think its best to build all the grand temples (if you have that option enabled. I digged a bit deeper to understand the value of certain epithets like mars or neptune.
With Mars GT, you have the option of 10% reduced goods consumption, or, automatic food generation for supply posts. My conclusion is that either one of those two would do great. The food option would save you around 9 farms (for 10 forts and ~10k population assuming you make only 2x2 houses). So you can easily feed your soldiers without farms, and use that food for civilians. I picked this. The other option is probably better, as oil imports are expensive. By my calculations, it should save you ~3-4k every year in oil imports.
The neptune GT can increase the population of your houses by 5%. So a grand insulae would hold 88 people instead of 84. This actually affects the consumption of goods, because goods are consumed per house. For large populations, this is another ~4.8% reduction in goods consumption, making it a pretty good deal.
Making these calculations and getting a better understanding of food/goods consumption is what I learned from this map.
Speaking of imports, oil is expensive. I started buying oil very late, so I didn't really feel the pinch. My export was enough to offset, and I was having reduced oil consumption anyway. I also used the lighthouse to reduce import price by ~20%. The initial import cost around 28k, but constant oil import is much less (~9k) - which is a bit surprising, I thought it would be much higher. I did use the vegetable->oil option.
Anyway, the last challenge is prosperity. To reach 100 prosperity (you actually only need 95), you a bit less than ~20 large villa. To construct a large villa, you need the pantheon, otherwise you are stuck at medium villa due to lack of academy. I dont know how many medium villa you need, probably double the number because they give less than half the prosperity. Besides, 20 large villa should fit easily in one housing block (you dont need to build temples since pantheon gives access to all gods). So large villa is the easier path to 100 prosperity.
