Booth

The Booth is the smallest and cheapest entertainment venue. It hosts jugglers trained at a Juggler School and, once visited, sends a juggler out to roam the surrounding streets and entertain nearby houses.

Entertainment is one of the services basic houses need to evolve, and the Booth is the most space- and cost-efficient way to provide it. It is enough to lift the simplest housing, but for more sophisticated dwellings — and a higher Culture rating — you will also need Bandstands and Pavilions.

A Booth is a 2×2 structure laid down over a small plaza. It must touch a road, and like the Bandstand and Pavilion it may be placed directly on a road bend or intersection.

Booth

2×2Size

8Workers

+2Desirability

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Cost (Normal)

40 Db

Cost by difficulty

VE 10 · Easy 20 · Normal 40 · Hard 80 · VH 150

Labor category

Entertainment

Entertainer

Juggler

Requires

A staffed Juggler School

Fire / Damage risk

Low / Low

Desirability profile

Peak value

+2 at the building

Falloff

−1 per step, over 2 tiles

Range

2 tiles

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A Booth slightly raises the desirability of the tiles immediately around it — a small bonus compared with the entertainment access it grants to nearby housing.

Overview

Street performers were a familiar sight in the towns of ancient Egypt. Jugglers, acrobats and tumblers entertained crowds at markets and festivals, tossing balls, clubs and knives to the delight of onlookers. In the game, the Booth captures the humblest form of this entertainment: a simple stage where a passing juggler stops to put on a show.

Entertainment in Akhenaten works as a chain of buildings. A school trains a performer, the performer walks to a venue, and the venue then sends entertainers out into the surrounding streets so that houses with road access receive the service. The Booth sits at the bottom of that chain — small, cheap, and limited to jugglers — but it is the workhorse that keeps the entertainment requirement satisfied across most residential districts.

Mechanics

What the Booth does

A Booth on its own does nothing. It must first be visited by a juggler walking from a Juggler School. Each visit tops up the Booth's internal juggler counter. While that counter is above zero the Booth:

• runs a show (a juggler animation plays on the stage), and
• spawns its own roaming juggler who walks the nearby roads, delivering the entertainment service to every house she passes.

The counter ticks down over time, so a Booth needs a steady supply of jugglers from its school to keep performing. If the school stops sending jugglers — because it lost workers, lost road access, or was demolished — the Booth eventually goes quiet and stops serving houses.

Coverage and housing evolution

The entertainment a Booth provides is enough to evolve basic housing. Higher housing tiers demand richer entertainment (musicians and dancers), which only Bandstands and Pavilions can supply. Plan a city so that humble neighbourhoods are covered by Booths, while you reserve the larger, more expensive venues for the districts you want to grow into elite housing.

Info window

Right-clicking a Booth opens its info window, which shows the number of workers employed, whether a juggler is currently performing, and the entertainment it is providing to the surrounding area. Use it to confirm a Booth is staffed and actively serving houses.

Entertainment chain

Both legs of this journey are on foot and on roads, so road layout matters twice: once for the school's juggler reaching the Booth, and again for the Booth's juggler reaching the houses. A break anywhere in the chain stops the service.

Placement

A Booth occupies a 2×2 footprint and is built on top of a plaza that the game lays automatically beneath it. Placement rules:

• The Booth must touch a road so that jugglers can arrive and leave.
• Unlike most buildings, a Booth (like the Bandstand and Pavilion) can be placed directly on a road bend or intersection — the road passes underneath it. This lets you drop a venue onto an existing junction without rerouting traffic.
• When you try to place a Booth without any Juggler School in the city, the game shows a warning reminding you to build one first — the Booth will sit idle until a school exists to staff it.

Tips

• Always build a Juggler School before — or together with — your first Booths. A Booth with no school never performs.
• Place a Booth on a road bend rather than a 4-way crossroads. Roaming jugglers choose randomly at each junction, so a bend gives more predictable, less wasteful coverage of the houses you actually want served.
• The Booth is the cheapest way to satisfy the entertainment need of basic housing. Blanket poorer districts with Booths and save Bandstands and Pavilions for the neighbourhoods you intend to push to higher tiers.
• One Juggler School can feed several Booths. Spread the Booths so their roaming jugglers cover different streets instead of overlapping.
• If houses report "no entertainment" despite a nearby Booth, trace the road from the school to the Booth and from the Booth to the houses — a missing road link, lost workers, or a dead-end street is the usual culprit.

building_booth {
  animations {
    booth   { pack:PACK_GENERAL, id:114 },
    square  { pack:PACK_GENERAL, id:112 },        // underlying plaza
    juggler { pos [35, 17], pack:PACK_SPR_AMBIENT, id:7, offset:-1 }
  }
  min_houses_coverage : 100
  labor_category : LABOR_CATEGORY_ENTERTAINMENT
  meta { help_id:71, text_id:72 }
  building_size : 2
  cost [ 10, 20, 40, 80, 150 ]
  desirability { value[2], step[1], step_size[-1], range[2] }
  laborers[8]
  fire_risk[4]
  damage_risk[2]
  flags { is_entertainment: true }
}

// Warns the player if no Juggler School exists to staff the Booth
[es=(building_booth, on_place_checks)]
function building_booth_on_place_checks(ev) {
  var has_juggler_school = city.count_active_buildings(BUILDING_JUGGLER_SCHOOL) > 0
  city.warnings.show_if_not(has_juggler_school, "#build_juggling_school")
}