Walker service delivery

Each service building periodically spawns a walker that follows roads; as it passes, it writes a coverage value to nearby houses, which decays over time until the next visit. In Caesar III, as reproduced by the Julius reimplementation, a roaming walker first heads for a road point about 8 tiles out in a cardinal direction that rotates with each spawn, then wanders, turning pseudo-randomly at intersections and ending its walk at dead ends. Culture, health, and religion walkers set a per-service house value to 96, which decays by 1 on each periodic update; prefects reset fire risk to zero and engineers reset collapse risk to zero. Inputs: building location, road network, random turns. Outputs: per-house coverage values that gate housing evolution and prevent fires or collapses.

Designing for wanderers. Players build looping road blocks so walkers cover the right houses, use roadblocks where available, and watch for houses that a walker never reaches. Knowing that coverage depends on chance makes layout feel like guiding a crowd.

• walker roaming range and spawn interval
• turn rule at intersections: random, biased, or destination-based
• coverage radius around the walker and decay rate on houses
• roadblocks or other routing controls
• number of walker types and services per type

• Randomness that leaves some houses uncovered causes devolve-evolve flicker.
• Walker logic that needs community analysis to understand frustrates players.
• Too many walker types multiply layout constraints until blocks become formulaic.

• Standard block layouts (looped housing blocks with services inside) become community conventions.
• Coverage gaps produce local fires and collapses that spread.
• Road changes can suddenly strand houses by changing walker routes.

• Would walkers with learned or goal-driven routes make coverage more legible or less?