Human city plan (IV) help please

[DeletedUser22511]

I been playing around with city planning but can't seem to get it just right...
right now at chapter 4 working on advance scouting.

here is my city:
https://www.elvenarchitect.com/city/planner/13f3ea47367e44b584f8e95438317bd1/

I stopped upgrading barrack to lv 15 and residence to lv 15 because lack of resource or afraid I would be out of culture to finish upgrading.

Here are list of culture buildings I currently have in summoning that can help:
culture + pop:
3 x purple phoenix egg (lv2)
1 rise of phoenix (lv 2)
3 phoenix nest (lv 2)
1 phoenix exculsion (lv1),

culture only:
1 the heards gathering (lv3)
1 frozen purple flame (lv 3)
1 sun codex (lv3)
1 the great auction (lv3)

I tried deleting some residence and replacing burning eggs with purple phoenix egg instead but in the end i'm negative on residence and culture...
I am planning for city with workshop upgrade to lv 15, magic dust to lv 7 and endless excavation.....if max lv can't achieved, I would be happy with just being able to put lv 11 workshop and lv 4 magic dust....more emphasis on workshop because supply demand is high....
if armory to lv 15 can be included in city planning that would be nice but think that might be pushing too much.

I only have 1 extra land expansion from clearing providence. My tech tree has 2 expansions after workshop and magic dust upgrade that comes with armory update.
I'm willing to clear providence to get more land but only to 75. currently at 50/75. Although I do want to save lands I get from clearing providence for future building upgrades from tech tree..
Oh and I do tourney every week, fight my way though most of time but I use goods too (especially when it's my boosted relic, I try to reach end of tourney) For clearing providence, I use goods mainly. It's at medium, hard, very hard right now.

If you could help me out, I would appreciate it so much!

I read Mykans' guide, checked out elven gem of knowledge. Didn't really help much.
I don't plan on spending real money to get diamonds and get magic residence or workshop.
I gave up on culture bonus but currently I can't keep up culture enough to build upgrade and stuff.
lv 1 workshop, steel production buildings are just for event. It can be sold

I always tried to look for players with near my level to see how they design their cities but so far I haven't had success finding one....Wish some screenshots of city plans are available somewhere so that player can reference from...

 

[DeletedUser20951]

I think that's only the second or third time I've looked at a city with the Architect (I don't use it for my own 'planning', preferring the trial and error and cursing of real-time city tinkering), and the format still looks a bit like gibberish to me due to a lack of familiarity, but your outdated culture/combination structures stick out. You almost have to keep all of them leveled up to your current chapter in order to have enough culture and population for expanding and upgrading. Aside from Wells, a smattering of KP generating thingies (Carting Library, etc.), and improved roads, I maintain my culture requirements by crafting Lava Codices and Frozen Tree Stumps, along with a few Flower/Rainbow Cages and each of the two-by-two two-by-one/one-by-two culture miscellaneous to fill in odd empty spaces (and for variety), but the Lava Codex provides the greatest amount of culture per square.

Tearing down your old culture providers and replacing 'em with new would help out the most, and then it would be a matter of choosing either to use residences for the bulk of your population (as I do, but you need a bunch of 'em), or the pop/culture combination buildings.

Ah, and you wouldn't much want to place what you have in storage. I recommend breaking those down for frags, unlocking the Advanced Scouting for chapter four, and then going after daily prizes you like in the event or crafting fourth level culture stuff, or you'll be in the same boat, not having enough pop and culture, again soon. Personally, I like what's easily replaceable without Royal Restoration spells, nor having to wait for an event building to come around.

 

[DeletedUser22511]

I think that's only the second or third time I've looked at a city with the Architect (I don't use it for my own 'planning', preferring the trial and error and cursing of real-time city tinkering), and the format still looks a bit like gibberish to me due to a lack of familiarity, but your outdated culture/combination structures stick out. You almost have to keep all of them leveled up to your current chapter in order to have enough culture and population for expanding and upgrading. Aside from Wells, a smattering of KP generating thingies (Carting Library, etc.), and improved roads, I maintain my culture requirements by crafting Lava Codices and Frozen Tree Stumps, along with a few Flower/Rainbow Cages and each of the two-by-two culture miscellaneous to fill in odd empty spaces (and for variety), but the Lava Codex provides the greatest amount of culture per square.

Tearing down your old culture providers and replacing 'em with new would help out the most, and then it would be a matter of choosing either to use residences for the bulk of your population (as I do, but you need a bunch of 'em), or the pop/culture combination buildings.

Ah, and you wouldn't much want to place what you have in storage. I recommend breaking those down for frags, unlocking the Advanced Scouting for chapter four, and then going after daily prizes you like in the event or crafting fourth level culture stuff, or you'll be in the same boat, not having enough pop and culture, again soon. Personally, I like what's easily replaceable without Royal Restoration spells, nor having to wait for an event building to come around.

yes except new culture most of time aren't better than current ones I have...so far...from both just regular culture and event....
it would be best if I can upgrade current culture but upgrade resource is impossible to get...I think...only got like 4 from phoenix event once.
I am looking into crafting but so far good one hasn't shown up.
also i'm scared of trashing cultures with population unless better culture replace them...otherwise I would end up with negative population despite having several residence in lv 12 or so...but I will play around with that idea too...thank you for your reply

 

[DeletedUser20951]

otherwise I would end up with negative population despite having several residence in lv 12 or so...

I have so many residences, I don't want to know the exact amount, but negative pop doesn't hurt you, exactly, except that you can't upgrade anything but houses until you resolve it, provided you have the culture to do so. I don't like destroying things unless I have something better to put in their place, too, and normally avoid it, going structure by structure, instead. Crafted culture items are awesome, but patience does tend to be necessary, because of the huge number of uselessness offered in the rotation. As soon as I reach a new chapter, I jump on crafting, checking as often as possible for what I want, but it usually takes me a while to replace every one. Worth it, though.

 

[NightshadeCS]

Do you use a spreadsheet? It can take up some time, but has helped me so much in determining my needs and the "true" value of buildings. I suspect there are some templates floating around that some folks (with too much time on their hands? ) have developed.

Here's what mine looks like, if you would like to see what I mean.

I use formulas for the calculation of culture per square, pop per square, etc. The column for pop+cul per square is useful if I am trying to maximize both aspects. I can filter and sort by any of the categories, and coloring ones with certain things like mana and seeds helps me quickly sort those ones into groups (which I have also migrated to other sheets so that I can add additional columns for those specifically). You shouldn't have to worry about those for a while, though, so your sheet can be significantly simpler.

 

[DeletedUser22511]

Do you use a spreadsheet? It can take up some time, but has helped me so much in determining my needs and the "true" value of buildings. I suspect there are some templates floating around that some folks (with too much time on their hands? ) have developed.

Here's what mine looks like, if you would like to see what I mean.

View attachment 6009

I use formulas for the calculation of culture per square, pop per square, etc. The column for pop+cul per square is useful if I am trying to maximize both aspects. I can filter and sort by any of the categories, and coloring ones with certain things like mana and seeds helps me quickly sort those ones into groups (which I have also migrated to other sheets so that I can add additional columns for those specifically). You shouldn't have to worry about those for a while, though, so your sheet can be significantly simpler.

wow so over the top!
thank you. I will consider it hopefully I can find all the info to start on that

 

[DeletedUser20951]

I only have 1 extra land expansion from clearing providence. My tech tree has 2 expansions after workshop and magic dust upgrade that comes with armory update.
I'm willing to clear providence to get more land but only to 75. currently at 50/75. Although I do want to save lands I get from clearing providence for future building upgrades from tech tree..

Meant to talk about this some before, but, no, my dum-dum brain likes to forget stuff immediately and then not remind me of it until much later.

Anyway, my eternal war with my internal computing system aside, I would advise against saving expansions at your chapter and stage of development, and instead focus on bumping your pop and culture back up into the positive with any space available to you now. Once you do that, you will have a better idea of the total room you've got to play with concerning other upgrades. In adhering to my simplistic approach to nearly every single darned thing I do, I decide what is most important to my city at the moment and work to achieve it, without worrying about anything else much, as built buildings generating their currency of whatever flavor beats out blank spots reserved for future buildings in all but a handful of situations (settlement structures, event shanties, imminent pop/culture additives). Constantly running out of supplies? Upgrade workshops first, then cast an eye at goods production and which are being burnt through the most. I consider armories to be great if you can comfortably afford to upgrade 'em, but more of a luxury, since you can make up for some of the short training queues with frequent logins, and maxing the Barracks isn't recommended while continuing to struggle with supplies. Basically, solve the most pressing issues that hampers the smooth operation of your city, and once a solid, self-sustaining base is established, it is much easier to move on to advanced expansion.

My decision on how I go about scouting and clearing provinces, running up to the next chapter's requirement as soon as I unlock the Advanced Scouting, is not something I recommend for or against. There are many an experienced player that follows the never-ever-stop-scouting-and-clearing ethos, as it allows them to expand much faster, and if you're quite diligent about it, you can handle the huge amount of goods it requires to negotiate the encounters, although you are forced to slow down for a bit when Orcs start being demanded, but that's a route that has never appealed to me.