Overlays are a useful mechanic in Pharaoh: A New Era that enables players to see what facilities the city needs.
There is so much going on in Pharaoh: A New Era that forgetting a critical aspect of your city composition is not only possible, it’s likely. Luckily, the game’s developers created a mechanic called Overlays that you can use to get a visual look at where you can improve your settlement. Here’s everything you need to know about the mechanic.
How to Use Overlays in Pharaoh A New Era
Overlays let players better understand facilities coverage for their cities. Darker-colored buildings indicate good coverage for the desired Overlay, while lighter or no color indicates poor coverage. To access the various overlays in the game, press the Overlays icon on the left side of the screen. From here, you’ll be able to select the following Overlay options:
- Water Overlay
- Entertainment Overlay
- Education Overlay
- Health Overlay
- Religion Overlay
- Taxation Overlay
- Risks Overlay
- Desirability Overlay
Water Overlay
The Water Overlay displays which houses have adequate access to water. Water carriers transport water from Water Supplies and Wells — so if certain Housing is not getting water, make sure that there is a path between the housing area and the water source.
Entertainment Overlay
The Entertainment Overlay is broken down into 6 categories, including:
- All
- Jugglers Overlay
- Musicians Overlay
- Dancers Overlay
- Senet Players Overlay
- Zookeepers Overlay
These represent the different kinds of Entertainment available in the game. Toggling the option to All will give you an overview of Housing that’s receiving general overall Entertainment while narrowing down each of the Overlays to their respective occupation will provide you with a better idea of Entertainment variety — an important factor when upgrading the highest tier of housing in the game.
Education Overlay
The Education Overlay gives players a good idea of how many houses have access to high-quality education, including Scribal Schools and Libraries. Here, players will have three options including:
- All
- Teachers Overlay
- Librarians Overlay
Health Overlay
The Health Overlay indicates whether players have adequate health facilities in their city and is broken down into the following sub-categories:
- All
- Herbalists Overlay
- Embalmers Overlay
- Dentists Overlay
- Physicians Overlay
Good health will reduce the number of settlers that get sick and can prevent plague outbreaks from occurring.
Religion Overlay
The Religion Overlay indicates whether there are enough places of worship throughout your mission. These include the different deities players can worship, including:
- All
- Seth Overlay
- Ra Overlay
- Ptah Overlay
- Osiris Overlay
- Bastet Overlay
Taxation Overlay
The Taxation Overlay is an important Overlay that can help you maximize the efficiency of tax in your city, which can result in higher monthly revenues.
To improve Taxation coverage, remember to build Tax Collectors and Courts throughout your city.
Risks Overlay
The Risks Overlay indicates how safe your city is in various capacities, including:
- Malaria Risk Overlay
- Diseases Risk Overlay
- Crime Risk Overlay
- Collapse Risk Overlay
- Fire Risk Overlay
Desirability Overlay
The Desirability Overlay indicates whether an area on the map is a good or bad place for housing. Factors that can improve an area include access to a variety of facilities and beauty of the area (Gardens, Statues, Plazas). Things like production buildings, mines, and storage facilities will decrease the desirability of an area.
Highly-desired areas will be dark green, while highly undesirable areas will be indicated in red.
Why Use Overlays?
Ultimately, Overlays are a useful function in Pharaoh: A New Era and enable players to better understand how their cities are working. There are so many elements to the game it can be a hard balancing act to figure out exactly what your settlers need, and Overlays help accomplish this by giving you a visual idea of where your town is excelling and areas that could use improvement.
With Overlays, players can raise key Ratings like Kingdom Rating and Culture Rating, all while building up a solid economy that will last for decades.
See our Pharaoh: A New Era Section for more guides like this one.
