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I played about six games a week until recently. Still the released version (no test version for the Dukes yet), but I learned most from looking at replays and that's where I found this structural problem. What I'd like to comment to Dicsoupcan about is the following: a good food supply is always possible to sustain a big city. But can you explain to me how it would be possible to make a sufficient supply of food during the 'big-boom', because this is the point which decides your economy's success at about 70 minutes play time. Or do you deny the existence of the 'big-boom' versus 'inn-run' problem?Can't you solve it with infrastructure and multiple inns?
It all depends in your food supply and the amount of citizens you have. for example if i make a big town with 90 serfs and a big leather production i will have around 5-6 pigfarms, 2-3 butchers and maybe one vineyard to feed them all. but because my town is so big i need 2 inns to feed them all. It also depends on how far your food production is fom your inn, so i suggest making it as close to it as possible to the inn. this provides another advantage, if your butcher/baker get's hungry there is a big chance it get's feeded fast. otherwise you might have a lack of food production because your baker/butcher cannot eat in time (everything has been eaten before they arrive). what is also a nice suggestion is leaving a bit of empty space under the inn to prevent traffic jams.
As for your big boom theory in combination with the inn-run problem, it does not matter. the most citizens you train are builders and serfs, and they will eat
after their job is done (a delivery, making a road for example). So even if they are recruited at the same time, they still eat at random times because of their job. What might happen is that you only have one inn or you did not leave some space under the inn.
another possibility of an inn-run problem is if you have an inn next to the storehouse and you decided to store all wares. if you block nearly everything it will not only save serfs (you will need less) but you also reduce a lot of traffic, wich will make an inn-run problem less likely.
so basically you are right, you can solve it with multiple inns (2 is more than enough) and a good road network + blocking wares from the storehouse. If you want to know all i store in the storehouse is food and gold chests. and sometimes weapons temporarily if ido not have a barracks yet but my weaponmakers are nearing 5 produced weapons (after 5 produced weapons they will not produce more, wich is the reason i store it
temporarily).
I hope this awnsered your question
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