City Development (or Decisions, Decisions, Decisions)

[Moho]

I'm a new player, but I've managed to advance at a fast pace due to my fellowship and the new work from home circumstances.

I am satisfied that my city has reached some sort of equilibrium. There are enough residences and workshops to produce a substantial amount of cash and supply. I have 14 residences, and 60% of them have reached level 6 while the rest are still at level 5. Upgrading the latter ones is not an urgent plan because of the culture problems it would incur. The main hall is at level 5.

My boosted good is planks, and I've been working hard to reach a level of production where the output is no long pathetic. There are 5 planks manufactories, 3 of which have reached level 7. The remaining 2 are still at level 6 because the population is not sufficiently large due to the culture problems I have already mentioned. I am really happy that my planks production is plentiful enough for me to engage in 1:1 trades. My city lacks marble and steel manufactories. On the day I started playing this game, I read various introductions and guides, and at least one of them recommended that I should rely on my fellowship members for the non-boosted goods so that I should save space and time. This is what I am doing now and it seems I'm in the perfect fellowship to pursue this strategy.

There aren't enough military encounters for a beginner to fully learn the ropes and continuously enjoy this aspect of the game. I have cleared most of the provinces around my little "kingdom" and now there are only "locked" and "very hard" ones. I can train not only the Axe Barbarian and the Crossbowman, but also the Paladin and the Cerberus, and I have successfully used them in tournament battles. "Very hard" provinces are impossible for me to clear through fights because the number of shady characters (i.e. the sizes of their troops) are simply overwhelming.

It was quite lucky that I started playing Elvenar during the holiday period, when the postal key game was in full swing. I managed to grab a series of cultural buildings which have turned out not only beautiful but also really useful. There is almost no space left in my city now. I think the culture level in my city is 150%, but I'm not sure because there is always some neighborly help from my neighbors or fellowship members. Most of the time I can see the culture level at 160% or 170%.

Probably I'll be missing the balance my city has reached at the moment. If I want to be able to handle harder fights, I will have to upgrade the barracks, which can only be done if I find more space. In addition, I may have to plant a Delicatessen Bucher too. Its surface is equal to that of the three Holy Codex buildings that I have now together, while the culture points provided will be superior. But it is easier to fit three small buildings than a large one. In addition, I'll be researching Secret Ancient Wonders soon and I'll need to find more space. I'm focusing on City Expansion 3 and City Expansion 4 at the moment, which will give me two expansions. I will have three expansions available because I have acquired an additional one by clearing provinces around my kingdom.

I have almost made the decision that these three expansions should be placed on the side where my main hall is. One can place 5 expansions on that side, and I will start right at the main hall. I hope I'll be able to make the necessary adjustments to fit everything well and enjoy another "state of equilibrium."

What do you think of all this?

 

[maeter75]

I think your off to a great start.
I would suggest placing the expansions next to each other and maybe avoiding placing one in the corner, as corners can be tricky
As soon as you research Ancient Wonders, get the Golden Abyss, its an amazing AW that scales up.

 

[Iyapo1]

Looks great and sounds like a solid plan!
I agree with putting the expansions on the main hall side, but running down your current open expansions(as maeter said) not running to the left corner. Your human so the rectangles orientation is good.

Also, I see by that chess set piece that you use the Magic Academy. Keep your eye on it, it offers great small culture buildings.

I have no doubt a couple of kind hearted Elvenarchitects will toss up a few city plans below this post to assist with space/culture/population optimization.

I am an elf and have a catering city, most of my advice would be purely useless to you .

 

[maeter75]

I thought I would add WHY not to add a corner, as corners can be hard to use especially when starting out.

Say you have a big building like a 5 by 5 AW.

If you use a non corner space, you can put it in the 5by5 square and touch it with one road and be set.
If it was in a corner, it becomes a lot harder to get that road connection

 

[Moho]

Thank you for all the replies.

I understand corners can be tricky, but this corner is a special one - it's the corner where the main hall is supposed to sit anyway, right?
So, let's take a look at the city grid, with the main hall and the roads at the moment. The three extensions should be on the left side.

I could simply move the main hall in the corner, where it belongs, and add several road tiles, and it will look as follows:

Now, there should be enough room for the new buildings, shouldn't there? It looks like the simplest approach to me right now.

 

[Sprite1313]

Have you used Elven Architect? That is a a great resource to map out your city and try different layouts outside of the game. It will give you a report of productions, culture and population available as you swap out culture buildings and do your chapter upgrades. Also, there isn't really a place where the main hall is "supposed to go". I think there have been a couple of threads with folks debating the best location for the MH.

https://www.elvenarchitect.com/city/planner/

Cheers,

 

[Moho]

Have you used Elven Architect?

Thank you for the advice.

What do you think of my city? I've made it myself, without the help of the ElvenArchitect. This is one of the challenges I want to undertake with my own resources. I think I've been doing a good job so far, but if you think there is something I could have done better I am willing to learn.

Also, I am not sure exactly what buildings I am going to plant within my city, but I wonder what direction my next expansions should be and how to make the transition as smooth as possible. I think I have found a simple solution, but I may be wrong of course.

Early in the game I did consider placing the main hall somewhere "in the middle," but I gave up on this plan pretty quickly because I wanted to handle the issue of the road access as neatly as possible. I'm not saying I've found out the best solution, but I did come up with the best solution I could think of almost instantly. Just for fun, which is the reason why I'm here.

 

[samidodamage]

I think you've got a good handle on efficient city design.
ElvenArchitect's city planner is a tool and is very much like the grid picture you have posted. It doesn't really 'help' you design your city, it just provides the grid, expansions, buildings, and a 'move' function for you so you don't have to physically draw them in yourself. You can find your city on ElvenStats and upload it to Architect, but there is no way to import changes back to your city; you still have to make the changes manually. And, it's not very mobile friendly, so if you don't have access to a browser, it won't be very helpful.
I went to ElvenStats and imported your current Ceravyn city to Architect.
Here's a link to it: Moho's city
And in case you are mobile only, here's a quick snapshot of how it looks there:

Spoiler

 

[Moho]

I went to ElvenStats and imported your current Ceravyn city to Architect.

Thank you for your time and effort.

I wished the City Planner on Elven Architect allowed people to move the elements out of the designated area and plant them back in with the same ease a kid played with lego blocks. Since there is no room for maneuver, my city on that site is as un-redesignable as it is in the game.

I think you've got a good handle on efficient city design.

This is the funnest part of the game (the very reason why I started this conversation).

 

[NightshadeCS]

On ElvenArchitect, you can pick up buildings and place them in the dark green area around your city (the parts with no grid lines). you certainly don't need to use EA, but I wanted to let you know that you can rearrange with ease that way.

A wise man (despite the fact that he seems not to have access to a change of clothes) once showed me that the Main Hall can be better placed than just hanging out in the corner. Early on, when buildings are quite small and players do not have many AWs, it is good in a corner. Once you get bigger buildings, it is actually a better use of space to put some large buildings behind it with just a square or so of road to connect 3-4 of them to the Main Hall.

All that being said, I don't think you're at the point yet where that knowledge will be useful (mostly wanted to provide some alternatives for later, or for others who may peruse this thread for help).

At your size, almost any expansion placed will get you a corner in short order, and you should be gaining them fairly quickly. I think you are on the right track currently.

 

[Moho]

you can pick up buildings and place them in the dark green area around your city

Neat. And I understand all your other considerations. Thank you.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________

I find this entire conversation very useful. Coming up with a great design, given the limitations, is really fun.

 

[SoggyShorts]

As soon as you research Ancient Wonders, get the Golden Abyss, its an amazing AW that scales up.

The Golden Abyss is not actually any better than a residence until you hit around 8,000 working population.
For a fast-growing young city that is (or should be) scouting daily, the Tome of Secrets is actually a better starter wonder IMO, and I'd wait until around chapter 5 or 6 to place the GA.

 

[Sir Squirrel]

You are doing great Moho! Just keep doing what your doing and you will be fine. Culture at 150% is where you want it, but if your producing enough gold and supplies you can let it slip for a bit as it only effects those two things. You need culture to upgrade buildings and build new ones, but if your getting regular help on your culture, having it a little lower isn't game breaking. Just for your information you can even go minus on culture and it doesn't affect your city other then no bonus on supplies and gold and you wouldn't be able to upgrade any buildings until you placed culture buildings back into your city.

 

[Iyapo1]

For a fast-growing young city that is (or should be) scouting daily,

I actually would recommend crafting a coldfire phoenix and scouting as many provinces as possible during its feeding window. Once you scout all the provinces you need to enter the next chapter sell the phoenix and focus on clearing the provinces you scouted. Do not over scout until you get to chapter 5!



I did this in chapter 3 and 5 in one city, and chapter 2 and 4 in my other cities. Strangely enough after selling the phoenix it did not show up in any of my cities soon enough for me to repeat the maneuver in consecutive chapters.

I gotta side with the Golden Abyss fan club. Once you start upgrading it it is pretty awsome. I think I had mine up to level 8 in all cities by chapter 4. But I go slow so....

Edit to add: At the end of each chapter there is a chest with the number of provinces you need to open to move into the next chapter, I recommend that you do not scout above that number until you are in chapter 5.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I gotta side with the Golden Abyss fan club. Once you start upgrading it it is pretty awsome. I think I had mine up to level 8 in all cities by chapter 4. But I go slow so....

Exactly this. IF you go slow enough you could even have a level 35 Golden Abyss which is obviously better than a house, but if you go pretty quick through the chapters and are putting KP into your tech tree, then residences give more pop per square than a Golden Abyss for quite a while-- until about chapter 5/6 for an average size city.
Much depends on your fellowship as well, if you are in a 10 chest FS getting 135+ KP that can ONLY be spent on wonders each week then you can get the GA up to a level where it is better than a house sooner.
Still the supplies from a ToS are pretty damn awesome at low chapters.

 

[Iyapo1]

Exactly this. IF you go slow enough you could even have a level 35 Golden Abyss which is obviously better than a house. . .

Much depends on your fellowship as well, if you are in a 10 chest FS getting 135+ KP that can ONLY be spent on wonders each week then you can get the GA up to a level where it is better than a house sooner.

lol, I go slow and I am in a ten chest FS with a KP wonder threads. I have a level 27 GA in my main chapter 5 city. It is more than 4x better than a magic residence! I love my Golden Abyss!
I am about to slide into dwarves with that one(just waiting for news from beta on the FA or not)

 

[SoggyShorts]

I have a level 27 GA in my main chapter 5 city.

When I started you didn't unlock the GA until chapter 5 Before you ask, yes, the route we took to the tournament was uphill both ways.
I made a little mini-challenge for myself when my city was new: never ever get tech locked. I wonder how that would go with all of the changes.
I'm fairly certain @MinMax Gamer did it but then must have run out of chapters too (I had to wait a month for the release of chapter 12 iirc

 

[Lelanya]

When I started you didn't unlock the GA until chapter 5 Before you ask, yes, the route we took to the tournament was uphill both ways.
I made a little mini-challenge for myself when my city was new: never ever get tech locked. I wonder how that would go with all of the changes.
I'm fairly certain @MinMax Gamer did it but then must have run out of chapters too (I had to wait a month for the release of chapter 12 iirc

Lolol that was a research kickback, actually, @SoggyShorts. I was very lucky to be in the right area when Wonders were added in, but I do remember the screaming outrage from more advanced players.

 

[Moho]

I have been toying with ElvenArchitect to see whether a better layout for my city is possible or not. It turns out it isn't.

Ha, ha. Of course, my failure to find a better design is only evidence of my prejudice or inherent inability to come up with something else. I produced five or six rearrangements, none of which looked as orderly as my actual city (although there are issues about the present layout which I am not happy about).

I will now post a version I've found - it is a rearrangement where the main hall lies in the middle:

 

[Moho]

Also, I see by that chess set piece that you use the Magic Academy. Keep your eye on it, it offers great small culture buildings.

Thank you for pointing this out. I was not careful enough and I didn't notice the shuffling of offers. Great opportunities indeed.