Sultan's mosque

Sultan's mosque (foundation)
Building details
Cost	50000 · 40 · 80 · 100
Maintenance	300 (Inactive: 150)
Prerequisites	2000 Prestige 1740 Envoys
Size	15 x 10
Icon

First part of the Monument.
Creates a Construction area for Nomad huts.
Satisfies all Building requirements of the Orient when completed.

The Sultan's mosque is an Oriental Monument. It follows the same mechanics as the Imperial cathedral; It creates a Construction area for Oriental housing and satisfies all Public building requirements within its Influence area. Grand vizier Al Zahir will reward you with 1000 Honour after completing the first Sultan's mosque. The Sultan then arrives in the region and will occasionally give Sultan's quests. Al Zahir will also start offering powerful end-game Items in his Warehouse, which can cost up to 1000 Honour.

Note: The Setup Achievement "The Emirate" requires the player to finish construction of the Sultan's mosque within 5 in-game hours of play.

Details

	Mosaic	Wood	Tools	Glass	Maintenance	Prerequisites	Time
Timberwork	144	180	-	-	300	1740 Envoys	30
Mosaic floor	432	-	240	-	350	3480 Envoys	60
Window	648	-	-	270	400	5240 Envoys	90
COMPLETE	1,324	220	320	270	500	-	180

The first step of constructing any Monument is to place the Foundation. The Sultan's mosque is the only Oriental building that does not follow the linear progression between Oriental Inhabitants and Diplomatic rank. It requires the highest Diplomatic rank, but only 1740 Envoys to unlock, while the final buildings from the previous Diplomatic rank are unlocked at 2600 Envoys. That is to say, don't wait until after unlocking all the buildings from the previous Diplomatic rank before achieving "The Sultan's confidante" if you want to start building the Sultan's mosque as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, the prerequisites for starting the final Phase of Construction is higher than the unlock prerequisite for any other Oriental buildings, so we'll want to continue expanding until we've reached the Metropolis status at 5240 Envoys. Envoy houses can hold up to 25 Envoys, meaning we'll need at least 210 Envoy houses to reach a Metropolis. The Population page tells us that 70% of our Oriental houses can become Envoys. This means we'll need at least 300 houses in total.

Construction

Monuments, just like Production buildings, need to retrieve the Raw materials they consume. While we could technically have the Master builders retrieve the materials directly from Production buildings within its Influence area, the high demand and placement within the center of our Settlement makes it more advisable to have a Trade building in range from which the Building materials can be retrieved.

We can calculate the Consumption rate of the Sultan's mosque by dividing the total Resource cost of each stage by the time it takes to complete it. This consumption rate neatly matches up with the Production speed of the Building material Plants that supply it. The number of Production buildings for each Phase of Construction is shown below. Note that Construction speed increasing effects from Items or the Academy of Wisdom increase the number of Production buildings needed to supply the Construction. This is of course not the case for Items that also include a Construction cost reduction, like the Items given during Chapter 8 of the Campaign.

	Goods	Phase I	Phase II	Phase III
	Mosaic	2	3	3
	Wood	4	-	-
	Tools	-	2	-
	Glass	-	-	3

Hints

A construction plan item for the foundation does exist but how useful it is depends on what version of the game is being played.

• In Anno 1404 (Dawn of Discovery) plan items permanently require a socket while their resulting building exists. As the only advantage gained by them is the saved placement resources, the socket can always be put to a better use. Selling them yields Honour, which is always useful.

• In Anno 1404 Venice plan items were changed to be consumed upon use. This means that they save you the placement cost of buildings. Using them can save you considerable resources, especially with expensive placements like foundations.

Do read the tooltip of the construction plan carefully as it will warn you if the item will block a socket.

Trivia

• The Sultan's Mosque resembles the Sultan Ahmed Mosque in Constantinople, Turkey. From this we can assume that the Orient is based on the Ottoman Empire, which is further supported by other references such as the title of Grand vizier and the Roasting houses, which are equivalent to real-life Turkish coffeehouses.