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    Your Elvenar Team

City Development (or Decisions, Decisions, Decisions)

samidodamage

Buddy Fan Club member
I enjoy this part of the game as well! I decided to play around with your city, using some of the suggestions here as well as ones I've learned over time. I offset the Main Hall and used one road square to catch more than one large bldg placed behind it. I also used the ends of roads for 1x[any usable number] bldgs to help eliminate road squares. And I moved any bldg that didn't need a road to a spot that didn't have a road. I was able to gain 12 squares of road (placed outside the grid instead of deleting so you could see them). Have a look here.
 

Deleted User - 3932582

Guest
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
Yes, I did no-tech-lock all the way up to and including Chapter 15, then I run out of back-to-back chapters. No way I could have done the same for Chapter 17. But as I realized this challenge is a bit superficial - it is easy to accomplish if you just don't play tournaments at all (or very little) - hence your KP intake will be very low, so technically you will never run into a tech lock. Conversely, if you're doing 20K in each tournament you can't keep up with KP inflow no matter what, especially considering chances are you will be getting most of the weekly KP within 1 day (with zero cooldowns).

But everything that I've done up to C15 I could still do after all the changes. Many early chapters can be done easier as you can just dump PPs when you're done with KP requirements (not something I could have done back in the day).
 

Moho

Chef
I was able to gain 12 squares of road

These road squares can, of course used when the new buildings are placed in the available area.

Let's have a look at the layout you came up with:

ElvenarCity.jpg


The main problem is that the culture building in the right bottom corner needs a road connection. It is the Ice Slide, which produces supply on a daily basis.

So maybe instead of leaving the left side empty, we should fill it so that the bottom can offer the space for the future buildings. Something like this:

ElvenarCity01.jpg
 

Deleted User - 3932582

Guest
The main problem is that the culture building in the right bottom corner needs a road connection. It is the Ice Slide, which produces supply on a daily basis.
Also, one of the residences has no road connection either. But we can fix it and still do better: https://www.elvenarchitect.com/city/planner/57387f5e954048328fd79fbb41873e72/

You free up 18 road tiles vs 12, and you have 3 completely empty expansion slots (so you don't need them for this layout). But the problem with hyperefficient layouts is that they're not expandable. Early on, when your city changes all the time it is usually not worth it to optimize it to the max - unless you do it just for the sake of optimizing.
 

Moho

Chef
But the problem with hyperefficient layouts is that they're not expandable. Early on, when your city changes all the time it is usually not worth it to optimize it to the max - unless you do it just for the sake of optimizing.
This is a thought that was lurking in the back of my mind. One must combine the need for efficiency with a great potential for expansion. I would rather pick an orderly layout that can be easily re-configured than use the space so effectively for that stage in the game that I will get me stuck when I want to pass to the next. :)

Anyway, it is a fun process.
 

samidodamage

Buddy Fan Club member
the problem with hyperefficient layouts is that they're not expandable.
That's part of what I was thinking of - he wanted the extra space for AW's. I left that side of the road empty so they'd fit with some extra room for future house/workshop expansions (didn't check when those would grow or change orientation, though). I like your layout better. To fit the AW's, just need to move that one residence and add back 3 road squares, so you still get a savings of 15 instead of 12 squares even after the AW's are placed. Like this.
 

Deleted User - 3932582

Guest

Moho

Chef
Hello, again.

I've added the three expansions mentioned before. I reconfigured the town so that it would be easy to manage and not be painful to look at.

ElvenarCity.jpg


When rearranging buildings within the new boundaries, I used some of the ideas suggested in this discussion. Here is the city layout as presented by ElvenArchitect:

ElvenarCity01.jpg
 

Moho

Chef
With the possibility of new developments, new questions arise, of course. I have just added a new extension and made a series of modifications to my city to allow for what is about to happen next. This is the layout of my city at the moment. There are no new buildings added - just a series of building upgrades with no consequences for the space, and a new extension. Part of the buildings, however, have been moved so that I can further develop my city:

City01.jpg


There are three main issues I need to address, involving placement of new buildings for which I have left the space on top and the right side.

1. Soon I will have researched Silk Manufactory, at which moment I am planning to build five of them, just like I did with the Planks Manufactory. I have no idea whether I'll be needing as many as that, but probably I will so that's my plan right now. And I'm also going to seriously upgrade them so that I can enjoy an affluent production - just like I do with the Planks Manufactories. I'm not sure is the right path though, and I wonder if I can support this development simply by upgrading the residences even further. I haven't forgotten the necessity for a matching culture level, and I think I need to replace a couple of culture buildings with superior ones.

2. My military advisor wants me to build a second armory for the next mission. I know I don't have to follow these mission so closely, but maybe a second armory will be necessary - right now I don't feel any pressure.

3. I was planning to build the Golden Abyss but I lack the runes and stuff, whereas the Tome of Secrets is ready to be placed. Somebody was saying that the Tome of Secrets makes more sense at this stage when I am supposed to be busy scouting, so maybe I should build it and leave the Golden Abyss for later in the game.

That's all for now. What do you think? :)
 

BrinDarby

Well-Known Member
@Moho ,
can you toggle "on" .... "requires a street" for future pics , hehehe.
I like how you are open to change if it gets you more space.
Good ratio residences:workshops ...
 

Moho

Chef
can you toggle "on" .... "requires a street" for future pics , hehehe.
Thank you for your observation. I hope this picture clarifies things:
City02.jpg


_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

And yes, the situation seems to be different in the case of the Silk Manufactory because to place the first one I need to raise the population - it says I need 108 people...
 
Last edited:

samidodamage

Buddy Fan Club member
My thoughts:
ToS is a better use of space this early in the game. The GA benefits are based on 'working' population. Until you get that number higher, a residence is probably the more efficient use of space for increased population/coins.
Armories: a 2nd armory is probably needed. If you are a cater-only city, you'll still need them in future chapters to make the little green orc heads they produce at higher levels. If you use or plan to use combat, you'll probably need more. They increase your training size (# of troops trained in one slot). That in turn increases your training time (calculated on a per unit basis). The goal for training units is to get to where you have something training 24/7. Fast training queues don't help you when the entire queue sits idle for several hours a day when you are away from the game. As a mostly combat player, I have 5 armories in one city and 6 in the other. 3-4 seems to be popular with cities that are a hybrid of combat/cater.
Factories: The Tier 2 silk factory is more expensive at lvl 1 than your planks were, but it is also larger and produces more goods than the planks did at lvl 1 as well. You may find in future chapters that you'll need more (depends on your play style), but I'd suggest starting out with 2-3, get them all upgraded to max and then see where you are.
Don't forget to keep an eye out for small culture and culture/pop buildings in crafting. As you grow, you can sell them off and replace as needed but they can be a big help at your stage.
 

Moho

Chef
Thank you for all this detailed information. :)
ToS is a better use of space this early in the game. The GA benefits are based on 'working' population. Until you get that number higher, a residence is probably the more efficient use of space for increased population/coins.
So, maybe this is the reason why the game (randomly) gave me the runes to be able to plant the ToS, and not the GA yet. Okay, I had to ask this question because building the ToS needs a lot of resources and I want to make sure I'm not on the wrong path.

Armories: a 2nd armory is probably needed. If you are a cater-only city, you'll still need them in future chapters to make the little green orc heads they produce at higher levels. If you use or plan to use combat, you'll probably need more. They increase your training size (# of troops trained in one slot). That in turn increases your training time (calculated on a per unit basis). The goal for training units is to get to where you have something training 24/7. Fast training queues don't help you when the entire queue sits idle for several hours a day when you are away from the game. As a mostly combat player, I have 5 armories in one city and 6 in the other. 3-4 seems to be popular with cities that are a hybrid of combat/cater.
I suspected that a second armory was really necessary, but I wasn't sure. And yes, when visiting other cities I saw many more - even five. I don't know what kind of player I will be exactly, but I'm training troops constantly. Not as much as I would like to though. As a matter of fact, I have already built the second armory because I didn't want my second worker to idle. So, this is settled. I'll be considering all the other aspects.

Factories: The Tier 2 silk factory is more expensive at lvl 1 than your planks were, but it is also larger and produces more goods than the planks did at lvl 1 as well. You may find in future chapters that you'll need more (depends on your play style), but I'd suggest starting out with 2-3, get them all upgraded to max and then see where you are.
Great. It sounds like my style. This is exactly what I am going to do.

Don't forget to keep an eye out for small culture and culture/pop buildings in crafting. As you grow, you can sell them off and replace as needed but they can be a big help at your stage.
I'm doing it right now. I already purchased useful stuff and I'll continue doing it. This is the reason why my Magic Academy is constantly producing Catalyst. There is reasonably enough space in my city now but I expect this to change fast.

Thank you again.
 

Moho

Chef
After considering the variety of things involved in the decisions I mentioned above, I realize that, with the space I enjoy now, I should be happy if I can have two Silk Manufactories upgraded to a high level. The limitation comes from two directions.

First, a lot more supply will be necessary to produce silk. Upgrading the workshops would be a natural solution, but at level 7 they occupy more space and require a larger population. I think I have the space to upgrade several workshops. I'll have to take it gradually, that is upgrade the two Silk Manufactories first. I am afraid I won't be able to be too ambitious with either the Silk Manufactories or the workshops because of the population.

And this is the second important limitation. Upgrading the residences beyond level 8 requires much more space, and I don't have it. Yes, I have been aware of this generic situation for some time. The game is devised in such a manner that solving one crisis will never allow you to catch your breath because of the new constraints.
 

NightshadeCS

Well-Known Member
I have run into a population squeeze in the Dwarf chapter (VI). I have had to add several residences, even with good pop event buildings to help boost me, and still can't get all my workshops and manufactories upgraded to the highest level possible. I have 4 T1, 4 T2, and 2 T3, so not a crazy amount, and 7 Wkshps.

There is a lag on population at this point, and I think Fairies chapter will provide the jump in residence output that I need to get over the hump, but it is a waiting game.

All this being said as a caution to not run low on population and keep a good reserve, as you will probably need it in chapters 5 and 6.
 
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