Need help building my city

[Cloppyfawks]

Hey guys, so I'm fairly new and played about 4-5 multiplayer games now. I still feel really weak compared to the other players so I'd like to improve.

I played a game today, this was pretty much what my city looked like so I wanted to ask if there's anything you guys see that I should REALLY improve on? Also: my serfs kinda got stuck in the middle, any ways to make that stop?

[Ben]

Ow, there is a lot to be done here
I don't have time to write a lot right now, but I'll probably write more later if someone else doesn't beat me to it. For now:
•Block raw materials and anything else that is "processed" by a building (except for food and gold) in your storehouse; this will stop a lot of traffic problems
•you need 1 coal mine for every building that uses coal + 1 (so if you have 8 coal-using buildings, you need 9 coal mines)
•Try to place coal-using buildings next to coal (so iron smelters should be close to coal, idealy)
•Try to place fields below your farms as much as possible. Also, you only need 15-16 fields per farm
•9 wine tiles per vineyard
•1 swine farm takes 1.5 farms (so 3 farms can operate 2 swinefarms)
•1 mill takes slightly less than 1 farm (you could probably operate 3 mills with 4 farms; not that you would normally need such a setup)
•You'll probably never need 3 tannerie/butchers in most games. I've never needed more than 2
•Woodcutters need more space!

That's all for now. Good luck and have fun in your battles

[Da Revolution]

•Woodcutters need more space!

And you probably need more of them.

[The Dark Lord]

You need more roads. Look at your farms. If a serf wants to take corn and bring it to a pig farm, he has to walk all the way up and use the road in front of the school. When your timber gets transported to your weapon makers, they use the same road, causing a lot of unnecessary traffic. As Ben pointed out, vineyards only need 9 wine fields. You could have made a beautiful road under your vineyard, connecting the farms with your mills/pig farms. Some other stuff:
- 4 smithies won't work with just 2 iron smelters. But with only 2 iron mines, making a third is useless. It would be better to make 2 armory smithies and go for sword fighters/knights I think.
- Plan your weapon makers next to your sawmills. Then they only have to walk a short distance to deliver 2 resources (timber) and a long distance to deliver 1 resource (a weapon to your barracks). Right now you lose time because they have to transport a lot of timber over a significant distance.
- The same for butchers and bakeries: making them close to your inn would be better (this also increases the chance vital villagers such as bakers and butchers succeed in getting their hands on a bread or sausage in case of a famine). (Actually I just noticed you were building a second inn, that's indeed a nice spot for it although you're wasting some coal; but I guess the little space-wasting has to do with the trees that were there.)
- This also counts for coal. Your iron (weapon) production would be more efficient closer to coal for the same reason as above. You need at least twice as much coal as iron ore.
- Try to build your school towards the gold. Now the serfs have to walk in front of the storehouse to reach it.

[cloppyfawk]

Thanks for all the tips so far! Learning as we speak. Keep them coming, if you guys see any more mistakes I make ( which surely are plenty ).

[cmowla]

•Try to place fields below your farms as much as possible. Also, you only need 15-16 fields per farm

I did some experimenting a few weeks ago, and I found that the following formation of fields produces the most corn:
It outputs corn a little faster than if you have 16 fields in a square formation directly below the farm (at least at the beginning, but it still at least keeps up with that speed afterwards).

So, cloppyfawk, farms are most efficient if you have fields directly below and slightly to the left (but very inefficient if the fields are above or to the right).

Someone can do some test runs in the editor to see if there is a more efficient formation, but this is the best I've seen so far.

[Ben]

Of course something like that is the most ideal situation for a single farm (can't think of anything else that'd be better, as that obviously shows the shortest distance) but such a setup isn't practical in real games. To teach someone an exact method of setting up farms is to give them bad advice.

[sado1]

Yeah. Try to make a city with 8-10 or more farms, this might be problematic for your city layout. You will waste very much space.

[cmowla]

I agree with you guys, but I think having a farm like this next to a stable or swine farm is ideal. It might be ideal to have inefficient farms next to mills if you don't store corn, because at least you will save some space without having extra corn sitting in your farms.

[Ben]

It has a lot more to do with just the efficiency of farms. If you make a habit of building your farms like this, you'll waste a lot of time in making unnecessary roads. it's nice to build farms on the way to other resources, especially gold.

P.s., I think I may split this topic, as it has gone on to a different direction

[Tudoracke]

Hey guys..I am new here. I was playing this game a long long time ago..I play a little differently in a way. I am storing all may wares, in 2-3 storehouses and never have traffic jams..Also the big advantage is that I can have a surpluss of production that is not wasted if not picked up.

[dicsoupcan]

that is true,m but you also wasted time building storehouses and gold in making extra serfs to keep it running this time could have bene put into weapons and recruits.

[cmowla]

Hey guys..I am new here. I was playing this game a long long time ago..I play a little differently in a way. I am storing all may wares, in 2-3 storehouses and never have traffic jams..Also the big advantage is that I can have a surpluss of production that is not wasted if not picked up.

That's exactly how I used to play. I found that adjusting the distribution of wares also slows down traffic and prevents surplus of production (I always put 1 corn for mills, 2-3 corns for swine farms and stables, 2 coal for all buildings taking coal, 2 iron for the smithies, 4 wood for the weapon's workshop, and 1 wood for the armory workshop).

But I now block all other wares in the storehouses except for food, wood, pigs, skins, and weapons. At the beginning of the game, I store stones, coal, gold, iron, corn, and trunks until I have at least one building which takes them, and then I block them (or at least I try to do this).

However, I believe that the optimal town is one which combines building multiple storehouses and blocking wares stored in the storehouse(s). Since the market has been added to the game, I believe storehouses next to swine farms is good so that you can store up extra skins and pigs (for trading for iron weapons). In addition, having storehouses next to food producing buildings and metallurgists is a necessity.

I don't believe I ever needed more than 4 storehouses for a town, but the average seems to be 3.

[Tudoracke]

Yes..I might use more serfs, and more roads..but the town also looks nicer I played only with ai so far..and one game of kam remake..I post 2 images (one with serf tab open, the other with stored ware in main storehouse):
http://i.imgur.com/u1oHSgq.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/TW3CPis.jpg

[cmowla]

Yes..I might use more serfs, and more roads..but the town also looks nicer I played only with ai so far..and one game of kam remake..I post 2 images (one with serf tab open, the other with stored ware in main storehouse):

I rarely find it necessary (if ever) to have two inns (that is, if an inn isn't already built from the start as it is in some single player missions). You seemed to place your corn fields in decent locations (for the most part), but I think you have too many vineyards per vineyard (you should have at most 12).

Here is my latest "Two Sides" single player map town:

You can see that the inn is towards the center of the town (I have wood cutters below the screen shot as well). In addition, I only had 49 serfs trained, and some of them were idle. So having multiple storehouses, if you want to store anything at all, can actually allow you to use fewer serfs, not more, if you build your town properly and block appropriate wares in every store house.

Of course "Two Sides" doesn't allow smithies, and thus the town you see here is pure leather and trade. However I have seen this pattern over and over, even for the most common games.

As you can see, I like to build wide roads as well, but they are only necessary under storehouses, the barracks, and other very high traffic areas. I have a lot of road because I was "rich", so I just had a little fun and filled up that town with roads.