Cultural buildings "outside" of the city.

[DeletedUser13432]

In this pictures I got from google images (random guy city), I drew in paintbrush like squared ring areas.
Some people have said to put all cultural buildings on the external ring (yellow), than place a second ring (red) of buildings that need roads and than place a 3rd ring (green) of roads connected to the main hall.
In my opinion it would make sense to save space with buildings that don't need roads, but it comes out two points to think about yet:
1- cultural buildings have very random sizes and shape. It wwould be hard to fit the second ring inside the outside ring.
2- the city is expanding each time more, it would be also a bit random the shape of the city, although not impossible to do it.

 

[DeletedUser9601]

One city format I've had success with is:
1. Put your main hall at the "top" of the yellow diamond. So directly touching where your city name is in the picture above.
2. From the Main Hall, have 2 sets of roads. 1 set goes diagonally left, and it is for buildings that should be placed on the "long" end (like workshops in the picture above). 1 set goes diagonally right, and it is for buildings to be placed on the "wide" end (like residences above).
-this ensures that buildings touch the road on their shortest side.
3. Branch additional roads off from these two main trunks as needed.
4. Build your guest race buildings in half of the remaining space, and put cultural buildings in the other half.
-Guest race buildings are going to vary in size/number, so I like to devote most of my city space to maximizing them.
-Cultural buildings come and go. The real problem I see with the layout above is that it works at this exact moment. But, this city has Chapter 5 culture (Garden of Harmony) and Chapter 3 culture (Mysterious Cyclones). If you are looking to maximize your city, you should delete those Cyclones. Cyclones are about 2/3rds as efficient as Gardens, so you're devoting way more space than you need to. Complete waste. So now, in this city layout above, you go to delete your Cyclones, but you can't! Because you need culture buildings that are 3 spaces wide, and Chapter 5 doesn't have anything that really fits.

Under the layout I suggest above (and I have by no means invented it - I've copied liberally from others in-game and on the forums), you now have a "cultural quadrant" in the corner of a city. And you have lots of room to move cultural buildings around to fit what's needed. You can more readily delete buildings.

The city picture above is beautiful, but I think it would be very difficult to recreate in every chapter.

 

[juniperknome]

I gave up planning too many building change shape and there is always the never ending replacement of culture buildings

 

[AtaguS]

I like to plan at least one chapter ahead of where I am...that way I can design with any expanding upgrades in mind. Once I hit guest races, my city practically has a new lay out with each new chapter.

 

[Mykan]

I have seen people employ this design approach and if it works, great. As you get into guest races it complicates matters as you need a space for them and then there is Wood elves. The mana requirement forces many culture buildings to have a road connection which would force the above approach to adapt a lot.

The general concept is pre-mana to put culture buildings away from roads so you can minimise space spent on roads. Whether you pack them behind the MH or in a corner or around the edge in a circle is up to each person. The change in building sizes and chapters is to force you to think and re-think your approach and adapt to each new challenge.

 

[DeletedUser13889]

i do this and it works for me