Cities

[Mahdimael]

How do you design your cities? Do you put everything in there-lumber, mine and farms, or do you specialize? How about temples and universities?

[Leaper]

Personally, the only things you can ever count on finding in ALL my cities are temples (to extend the borders); Universities (since I never seem to get knowledge quick enough); and watch towers (to protect my civilians from getting bribed). The rest is simply what I "feel" like doing at the time... no rhyme or reason.

~ Leaper

[Inverse Icarus]

i usually create districts, for example a "lumber district", a "metal district", etc.

the reason i do that is because smelter / sawmill benefits are on a per city basis. having districts allow for a minimum # of these structures.

the second i drop a city, i build a temple, 2 towers, and a fort. with the basic defenses set up, i set up perimeter defenses and whatever i need the city to do.

i usually have a temple, university, and oil refinery in every city.

[VitalyB]

Err, I am confused. Why not just build sawmill and other improving buildings in every city?

Or you don't build farms/woodcutters in every city?

[albiedamned]

You certainly can build a sawmill, granary, or smelter in every city, and they will provide a bonus to the gathering rate of their associated resource in that city. But it's expensive to build these in every city, especially since the costs escalate with each additional building of the same type. I also try to use Uber's approach, ie, have 1 city specialize in wood and put a sawmill there and 1 city specialize in metal and put a smelter there. You save resources that way. It's not as easy to have a city specialize in food, given the 5 farm per city limit, so I do usually need 2 or 3 food cities with granaries. Find a location where you can build a woodcutters camp with 8-10 spots for your wood city and a location where you can build a miners camp with 8-10 spots for your metal city and you'll be off to an excellent start (although you may need to supplement it later with resource gathering in other cities).

Uber, I like your approach, but I have to say that building a temple, two towers and a fort with every new city hardly seems possible! It takes a lot of resources to build all that. Maybe you can do that in the later game, but I don't usually found new cities in the later game since I go over the city limit by capturing cities. If you do find a way to gather enough resources to put all that in your early cities, then you can't possibly have much left for anything else (like military). What's your secret?

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by albiedamned
Uber, I like your approach, but I have to say that building a temple, two towers and a fort with every new city hardly seems possible! It takes a lot of resources to build all that. Maybe you can do that in the later game, but I don't usually found new cities in the later game since I go over the city limit by capturing cities. If you do find a way to gather enough resources to put all that in your early cities, then you can't possibly have much left for anything else (like military). What's your secret?

well, first off, the forts usually go in my border cities first, for defensive purposes. temples go essentially everywhere, for the border effects.

i am, simply put, a resource whore. i will mine every mountain i can see until my cap is met. same with food, and wood.

in the early game (usually the first 2 or 3 eras) i have no military to speak of, unless i am attacked. i upgrade my attrition damages and throw down a barracks, and casually upgrade the units whenever i find the time.

by the time i reach gunpowder, i usually have a booming economy and pour tons of money into military, creating, you guessed it, militart discricts. groups of two barracks, two stables, and two siege factories, relatively close to the borders i plan to attack.

if i was rushed heavily, and he had supply wagons, i'd probably lose hands down.

[Mahdimael]

I generally go with the first city as a food/wood producer, the second a wood/iron producer, and the third as a food/iron producer. After that, it's usually just based on whatever I need. All cities get universities, temples and markets.

I make military bases as well, near the borders.

[albiedamned]

Edit - I should specify this in response to Uber since mahdimal jumped in while I was typing this.

Now that you explained it further, I realize that's almost exactly how I've been playing. I do put Temples in every city since they're not too expenseive and they push your borders. And I try to put forts in every border city (usually this means 2-3 cities), though sometimes I have to settle for towers. And I am also a "resource whore" - I try to stay as close as possible to the commerce cap without going over. And I also build up very little military early. I tend to put a barracks and a stable near my capital (which presumably is central to my other cities). If I get attacked, I'll deploy the army in the appropriate direction. If it looks like it will be a prolonged war, I'll eventually build another barracks and a siege factory closer to the warring border (though probably not the stable since they can deploy quickly anyway).

So it sounds like you and I are playing similar styles. Thus we would both be crushed by rushers and speed demons! But I bet there are a lot of other TBS guys out there playing like us.

[albiedamned]

Originally posted by Mahdimael
All cities get universities, temples and markets.

Do you think there is value in putting a Market in every city? I think Markets give you a +10 gold, but other than that I don't think they do anything. I've found that one market can keep up with building all my caravans and merchants since you don't need to build these too fast.

[Mahdimael]

+10 gold is pretty substantial in the beginning of the game, I think. It's worth it to me...I like to be able to deploy those merchants as quickly as possible to resources

[Snotty]

I tend to build markets in more than one city, purely because of the +10 wealth bonus. Often in the early game I will find myself under the wealth cap, and the extra gold can certainly come in handy when building my military.

I often follow the district strategy, but have a question regarding mining and logging. Which city is regarded as a mines home city for the purposes of the smelter bonus? Is it merely the city closest to the mine, and therefore a pixel left or right would make it have a different home city? Or is it only mines within the circle immedietly around the city that get the smelter bonus? This would make sense as it would allow mines to be very versatile in placement, yet they would be more effecient if the city was devoted to being near hills.

[Mahdimael]

That's a good question- I always place my smelter (or granary or lumber yard ) close to the city where the mine is located.

[albiedamned]

I actually posted this very question a few days ago and got a response from a BHG guy. Mines only get the smelter bonus if they are in the city radius of the city where the smelter is. Same for woodcutters and sawmills. You can build camps outside a city as long as it's still in your territory, but they will never benefit from a smelter/sawmill. Farms of course can only ever be built in a city radius.

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by albiedamned You can build camps outside a city as long as it's still in your territory, but they will never benefit from a smelter/sawmill. Farms of course can only ever be built in a city radius.

... good to know.

[Rolfski]

Btw I always try to not to build to close to my capital right from the start as I've found out that the AI tends to nuke my capital later in the game. That also goes for border cities, the AI likes to nuke them to.

Also after my 4th city (huge map) I don't fully upgrade every one of them food, wood and metal -wise anymore. Those resources are not that important by then and because of the population cap I really need the men for my army.

However, I always build a temple, univerisity and market in everty city because knowledge and wealth continue to be important resources throughout the whole game.