Bazaar

The Bazaar is the final link in the food and goods distribution chain. It sends buyers to collect food from Granaries and goods from Storage Yards, then dispatches traders to roam nearby streets and supply whatever housing needs to evolve or avoid devolving.

Without a Bazaar within walking range, housing cannot receive food or goods regardless of how many Granaries and Storage Yards are nearby. Every residential cluster needs at least one Bazaar.

At high neighbourhood desirability (≥ 30) the Bazaar upgrades its appearance — one of its open-air stalls is replaced by a small enclosed building — and begins sending out two traders simultaneously instead of one.

Stats

2×2Size

5Workers

−2Desirability

---

Cost (Normal)

30 Db

Cost by difficulty

VE 8 · Easy 15 · Normal 30 · Hard 50 · VH 100

Inventory

4 food types + 4 goods

Search radius

40 tiles

Labor category

Infrastructure

Fire risk

Medium (4)

Damage risk

Low (2)

Overlay

Bazaar Access

Overview

Ancient Egyptian markets ranged from small neighbourhood stalls to busy trading centres on the Nile banks. Goods changed hands through barter — money as we know it did not exist in pharaonic Egypt — and market women were a common sight carrying baskets of bread, fish, and vegetables. Wall paintings and papyrus records document lively scenes of exchange, with traders haggling and tax collectors recording transactions.

In the game the Bazaar abstracts this into a two-stage operation: first, specialised buyers fetch bulk supplies from storage buildings, then traders disperse through the streets supplying individual houses with whatever they need at that moment.

Mechanics

Two buyers, two supply chains

Each Bazaar employs two buyers that work independently:

• Food buyer — travels exclusively to Granaries. She cannot collect food from a Storage Yard, even if food is stored there.
• Goods buyer — travels exclusively to Storage Yards. She collects non-food commodities such as pottery, linen, beer, and luxury goods.

Each buyer is a destination walker: she walks directly to a specific Granary or Storage Yard, loads up, and returns. A string of helpers carries the load back when the haul is large. She deals with at most three supply sources in her range — if you expect her to visit more, she will not go.

Both buyers share the same 40-tile search radius measured from the Bazaar's northern tile. A Granary or Storage Yard beyond 40 tiles is invisible to the buyers regardless of road connectivity.

Bazaar trader

The trader is a roaming walker: she has no fixed destination and chooses randomly at each intersection. As she passes within two tiles of housing, she supplies whatever that house needs from her current stock. She also notes unmet demands and reports them back to the buyer.

Priority is always to prevent devolution first — a house in danger of losing a tier gets resupplied before a house that wants to upgrade. Once basic needs are met, the trader supplies goods for evolution.

Because the trader chooses randomly at intersections, road layout strongly affects coverage. A long, straight road from the Bazaar gives good linear coverage. A grid gives unpredictable coverage. Use Roadblocks to steer traders away from streets you do not want served.

Walkers

Bazaar Buyer Destination walker
Fetches food from Granaries

Delivery Boy Destination walker
Carries loaded goods back to the Bazaar

Bazaar Trader Roaming walker
Distributes goods to nearby housing

Inventory

The Bazaar can hold up to 4 food types and 4 goods types simultaneously. Right-clicking shows current stock in two rows — food icons on top, goods icons below. Items shown in yellow are stocked but toggled off in Special Orders (the buyer will not replenish them).

Special Orders

Right-click the Bazaar and press Special Orders to toggle each commodity on or off. A toggled-off commodity is shown in yellow in the info panel — the Bazaar keeps whatever stock it has but the buyer will not go out to replenish it.

This is useful for:

• Specialising Bazaars. Give one Bazaar grain and pottery, another beer and linen. Housing blocks served by both stay well-supplied without either Bazaar competing for the same goods.
• Preventing unwanted evolution. Suppress luxury goods in a housing block you want to keep at a lower tier to avoid population surges.
• Stockpiling for trade. Turning off a commodity at the Bazaar keeps it in the Storage Yard where it can be exported instead of consumed.

Upgrade

When the desirability of the Bazaar's tile reaches 30 or above, the building automatically upgrades its appearance — one of the open-air stalls becomes a small enclosed structure. The upgraded Bazaar sends out two traders simultaneously instead of one, effectively doubling neighbourhood coverage.

The upgrade triggers automatically and costs nothing. It reverts if desirability drops back below the threshold. Placing Gardens, Statues, or other desirable buildings nearby is the easiest way to push a Bazaar over the threshold.

Placement

Place the Bazaar within 40 tiles of at least one Granary and one Storage Yard. Beyond 40 tiles the buyers simply cannot reach them.

Place the Bazaar close to housing. The trader is a roaming walker — the farther she has to travel before reaching houses, the less efficiently she distributes. Ideally the Bazaar sits at the entrance to or inside the housing block it serves.

The Bazaar has mild negative desirability (−2 at the tile, fading to neutral within 3 tiles). Because it needs to be close to housing anyway, offset the penalty with a few Gardens or Statues nearby. A high-desirability location also earns the Bazaar an upgrade and its second trader.

Road access is mandatory — all three walkers travel on roads.

Tips

• If a Bazaar's trader is not reaching certain houses, check the road layout. The trader will avoid dead-ends after the first visit and may never return to a side street. Try connecting it to a loop road so the trader can always find a path onward.
• A single Bazaar typically serves around 400–600 citizens adequately. Add a second Bazaar when housing demand outpaces supply, not when housing is first built.
• If the food buyer is idle (standing at the Bazaar), either the Granary is over 40 tiles away, the Granary is empty, or the relevant food type is toggled off in Special Orders.
• Fire risk is medium (4). An Firehouse patrol should cover the Bazaar — market stalls burn quickly.
• To push a Bazaar past desirability 30 for the free second trader: place two small Gardens adjacent to it. Gardens give +5 to +10 desirability each, often enough to cross the threshold.
• Use the Bazaar Access overlay (toggle button in the info panel, or via the Overlays menu) to see exactly which tiles the trader covers. Uncovered tiles appear dark.

In the original game

Screenshots from Cleopatra: Queen of the Nile (Impressions Games, 2000).

building_bazaar {
  animations {
    base        { pack:PACK_GENERAL, id:22 }          // standard appearance
    fancy       { pack:PACK_GENERAL, id:45 }          // upgraded appearance (des ≥ 30)
    base_work   { pack:PACK_GENERAL, id:22, offset:0 }
    fancy_work  { pack:PACK_GENERAL, id:45, offset:0 }
  }

  building_size               : 2
  meta                        { help_id: 2, text_id: 97 }
  cost                        [ 8, 15, 30, 50, 100 ]  // VE … VH
  laborers                    [5]
  fire_risk                   [4]
  damage_risk                 [2]
  desirability                { value[-2], step[1], step_size[1], range[6] }

  max_search_distance         : 40   // tiles buyer will travel
  fancy_treshold_desirability : 30   // upgrade threshold (note: typo in original)
  min_houses_coverage         : 50
  minimal_pick_food_amount    : 100  // min units per food pickup trip

  // Restock thresholds: buyer fetches food when stock drops below these levels
  pick_food_below [600, 400, 200, 100]
  pick_good_below [150, 100, 50,  25]

  overlay     : OVERLAY_BAZAAR_ACCESS
  flags { is_food: true }
}

struct runtime_data_t {
    resource_value inventory[8];   // slots 0–3 food, 4–7 goods
    short pottery_demand;
    short luxurygoods_demand;
    short linen_demand;
    short beer_demand;
    short fetch_inventory_id;
    sbitarray16 market_goods;       // bitmask of toggled-on goods
};

bazaar_info_window {
    related_buildings [BUILDING_BAZAAR, BUILDING_BAZAAR_UP]
    ui {
        background   : outer_panel({size[29, 17]})
        title        : text({font: FONT_LARGE_BLACK_ON_LIGHT, align:"center"})
        warning_text : text({pos[32, 36], wrap:px(27), multiline:true})

        food0_icon   : resource_icon({pos[32,  85]})    // food row y=85
        food1_icon   : resource_icon({pos[142, 85]})
        food2_icon   : resource_icon({pos[252, 85]})
        food3_icon   : resource_icon({pos[362, 85]})
        good0_icon   : resource_icon({pos[32,  110]})   // goods row y=110
        good1_icon   : resource_icon({pos[142, 110]})
        good2_icon   : resource_icon({pos[252, 110]})
        good3_icon   : resource_icon({pos[362, 110]})

        workers_panel: inner_panel({pos[16, 136], size[27, 4]})
        orders       : button({text:"${98.5}", onclick: show_window_by_id("bazaar_orders_window")})
    }
}