Post by zombierex on Jul 22, 2010 9:41:07 GMT -5
City with and without water
How to use these builds
* For the farm, find a similar lake that has room next to it for the 2 farms and additional buildings.
* For the 2 hideouts, find spots with a least 3 (preferably more) bordering trees.
* Any resources that are in the way should be removed.
* Only resources in places where you would put cottages in the middle section can sometimes stay, if they border at most 1 production building of the ‘wrong’ type, and at most 4 production buildings in total.
Resources
For a first city, about 20k each of wood and stone is reasonable. Resource buildings are put in the center block in standard 3×3 blocks, the 2 middle blocks are slightly more efficients than the 4 outside blocks. By giving stone 3 of the outer blocks and wood the 2 inner blocks you end up with a bit more stone than wood.
You then have 1 block left for iron. You could in theory add another iron block outside of the city center, but that would be very costly and reduce you other capabilities too much. 8k/h iron will allow building 50/h Paladins. As we will later see we will max out at just below 40 paladins per hour anyway, so that is not a problem.
Farms and food
FARMS AND FOOD
We’re planning on having 3000 paladins. Those paladins consume 45000 food per day, which comes out to 1875 food per hour. One lone farm on a lake would almost provide that (1750 food/hr). 2 farms would be sufficient, so adding the windmill would strictly be superfluous. But adding it improves the per building food production, allowing you to do without (or less in case of a military city) food production there.
In the case of the build with warehouses (the no-water/no-harbor build), the mill is place in such a way to touch our warehouses. This was not done because food needs extra storage more than the other resources. It’s just that we can get this extra storage for free, where it would require displacing a resource producer if we would want to place it next to a special building for one of the other resource types.
Gold, Marketplaces and Harbors
Gold seems an unnecessary resource at first, but become more important once you start gathering troops and the requirements to settle your next city (moonstones, barons). As Harbors are a lot more efficient at generating gold income, we use 20 building for gold generation in the city layout with water, and only 15 for the build without.
The choice for 3 instead of 2 marketplaces in the waterless city is to make it easier to get enough carts for settling your second city. This is less (or even not at all) of a requirement if you have harbors.
Military
In this game it is usually best to have specialized attack forces per city. For defense it’s still better to only build one type per city and mix them after the fact. (Exchange defense forces between cities).
For your first city you want troops that are good at raiding. Paladins are the only mounted troops that can carry 10 loot per recruitment slot (= 20 loot per paladin). There
are other alternatives, but the paladins have the added advantage of requiring the temple which is required to recruit Barons in your first city anyway.
We need at least one Moonglow Tower for the moonstones.
Adding 6 barracks into the mix allows a setup where each Barracks touches at least one recruitment building, although we will not recruit anything from the Moonglow Tower (but we could if we really wanted to).
Warehouses and hideouts
The no-harbor layout has a five spare building slots. We could use them for various things. In our standard layout we have used them for some hideouts and warehouses. But in your layout you can just as easily re-purpose them for extra gold, Barracks, or anything, really.
Having some warehouses makes life a lot easier. Without any, and 20+k/h, your Town Hall will overflow in under 9 hours. If you have a lot of spare time and/or ministers, you can maybe afford to play this way. But by adding 1 or even a couple of warehouses you make your life a lot easier. So it’s a choice between ease and efficiency.
Having a couple of hideouts will help when you get plundered. But don’t forget that having these hideouts costs you resources as well. You could have had extra resources all along that are now wasted before you’re even attacked. Or you could have had extra military to make plundering not worth it.
How to use these builds
* For the farm, find a similar lake that has room next to it for the 2 farms and additional buildings.
* For the 2 hideouts, find spots with a least 3 (preferably more) bordering trees.
* Any resources that are in the way should be removed.
* Only resources in places where you would put cottages in the middle section can sometimes stay, if they border at most 1 production building of the ‘wrong’ type, and at most 4 production buildings in total.
Resources
For a first city, about 20k each of wood and stone is reasonable. Resource buildings are put in the center block in standard 3×3 blocks, the 2 middle blocks are slightly more efficients than the 4 outside blocks. By giving stone 3 of the outer blocks and wood the 2 inner blocks you end up with a bit more stone than wood.
You then have 1 block left for iron. You could in theory add another iron block outside of the city center, but that would be very costly and reduce you other capabilities too much. 8k/h iron will allow building 50/h Paladins. As we will later see we will max out at just below 40 paladins per hour anyway, so that is not a problem.
Farms and food
FARMS AND FOOD
We’re planning on having 3000 paladins. Those paladins consume 45000 food per day, which comes out to 1875 food per hour. One lone farm on a lake would almost provide that (1750 food/hr). 2 farms would be sufficient, so adding the windmill would strictly be superfluous. But adding it improves the per building food production, allowing you to do without (or less in case of a military city) food production there.
In the case of the build with warehouses (the no-water/no-harbor build), the mill is place in such a way to touch our warehouses. This was not done because food needs extra storage more than the other resources. It’s just that we can get this extra storage for free, where it would require displacing a resource producer if we would want to place it next to a special building for one of the other resource types.
Gold, Marketplaces and Harbors
Gold seems an unnecessary resource at first, but become more important once you start gathering troops and the requirements to settle your next city (moonstones, barons). As Harbors are a lot more efficient at generating gold income, we use 20 building for gold generation in the city layout with water, and only 15 for the build without.
The choice for 3 instead of 2 marketplaces in the waterless city is to make it easier to get enough carts for settling your second city. This is less (or even not at all) of a requirement if you have harbors.
Military
In this game it is usually best to have specialized attack forces per city. For defense it’s still better to only build one type per city and mix them after the fact. (Exchange defense forces between cities).
For your first city you want troops that are good at raiding. Paladins are the only mounted troops that can carry 10 loot per recruitment slot (= 20 loot per paladin). There
are other alternatives, but the paladins have the added advantage of requiring the temple which is required to recruit Barons in your first city anyway.
We need at least one Moonglow Tower for the moonstones.
Adding 6 barracks into the mix allows a setup where each Barracks touches at least one recruitment building, although we will not recruit anything from the Moonglow Tower (but we could if we really wanted to).
Warehouses and hideouts
The no-harbor layout has a five spare building slots. We could use them for various things. In our standard layout we have used them for some hideouts and warehouses. But in your layout you can just as easily re-purpose them for extra gold, Barracks, or anything, really.
Having some warehouses makes life a lot easier. Without any, and 20+k/h, your Town Hall will overflow in under 9 hours. If you have a lot of spare time and/or ministers, you can maybe afford to play this way. But by adding 1 or even a couple of warehouses you make your life a lot easier. So it’s a choice between ease and efficiency.
Having a couple of hideouts will help when you get plundered. But don’t forget that having these hideouts costs you resources as well. You could have had extra resources all along that are now wasted before you’re even attacked. Or you could have had extra military to make plundering not worth it.