A city that rarely ever fights but makes it to the top of the Spire and goes 20 or more provinces deep every week in the Tournament.
Well, I fit that description, so I can give a few tips based on my city build; however, because I built my city from the ground up on these principles, some of these things may be hard to retrofit into a city that's already advanced. I'm not aware of a compiled list like Crackie's that focuses on strategies for catering. I could try to work up a longer, more comprehensive document if you think there's interest?
Tips I've learned in my gameplay:
1)
Don't place all available expansions. These increase your catering costs reaaaaally quickly. If you need more production, it's frequently possible to tweak production by changing out event buildings or using a few MMs. Try to build up, not out.
2)
Build more lower-level manufactories, instead of a few completely upgraded ones. This sounds completely contrary to my first point but in many cases will actually result in greater production for fewer city squares used (as can be calculated from the
spreadsheets I shared here) because of the greatly reduced need for population and culture.
3)
Rely on event buildings as much as possible for population and extra production capabilities. Most culture/pop event buildings will have a better population per square ratio than regular residences. Likewise, many event buildings are also great goods or mana producers per square. If at all possible, do not build armories for orc production. They are huge space hogs, require a ton of culture, and are worse orc producers per square than all event buildings that produce orcs, including the craftable orc nests.
4)
Plan ahead. Pay attention to what resources will be needed in the next chapter or two and start acquiring event buildings ahead of time (if you have a source of RRs for upgrading or are willing to spend diamonds to make them in the MA), and make plans for how to balance what is upcoming.
5)
Make every effort to top the Spire, even if your fellowship is uninterested. Yes, the diamond rewards from a committed fellowship are amazing, but even if you're playing it alone, the artefacts, the ability to craft special buildings in the MA, the extra diamonds, the Magic Residences and Workshops...these all make catering much, much easier.
6) As a follow-on from 5,
prioritize using diamonds to buy some Expansions when you need more space. This increases your costs less than regular expansions, and is a good use for any Spire diamonds you're winning.
7)
Ignore the quests on the side, unless they are going to be fulfilled by something you were about to do anyway. These will make you build your city in a way that is not conducive to catering (too many residences, lots of armories, unnecessary and expensive culture buildings, etc.).
8)
Make sure every wonder counts. Do the math on whether a particular wonder will be more productive for the space it takes up
and the formula penalty it creates than a similar production building (make liberal use of MinMax's
spreadsheet here), and don't be afraid to delete wonders that are military in nature, or that are no longer the best per square option.