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Planning your Empire

Deciding what to put in each city, and where is a good spot for a city, can take some time, but it will be well worth it.  Decide what you want and stick to it.  Things can be changed later.

 

On first settling a 'New City'

Planning your Empire

City Types

Walls are important too

 

On first settling a 'New City'

Whatever you decide to do with a new city, you are going to want it to build fast.  

  • You'll have 2k of each resource there, use that to upgrade the Basilica to Level 4, giving you 15k of each storage and 40 build spots.

  • Send in resources from your nearest city.

  • If that's going to take more than an hour to arrive, you might want to demolish a resource node or two while you wait.  A lot of experienced players demolish every resource node in the centre if they're making a military city.  If you're not decided, demolishing any 'lone' nodes in  the centre might be useful, it will get you more space to work with.

  • Once more resources arrive, set down cabins, anywhere from 10 - 20.  

  • Let all those cabins upgrade.  Resist the urge to do much else, the increased Construction Speed (CS%) will be worth it long term.  

  • When you can wait no longer (maybe at 1000%?) start laying out other buildings.  You may need the Basilica to go up a few levels to allow this.

 

Planning your Empire, aka 'What shall I do with my city?'

There are many schools of thought on this.   One answer to the question might be 'What am I short of?'

 

One example of the order in which cities might be settled

  1. Main - raider/resource production/senators and refining

  2. Defensive Raider - a few resources/raiding for required resources

  3. Offensive Raider - maybe some resources/raiding

  4. Defense  - protect your resources from theft

  5. Defense 

  6. Offense

  7. Hub - to ensure all cities have the resources they need

The resources in the first few cities can gradually be demolished once raiders are doing their job.

 

City Types

Designing your city

The City Optimisation tool will help you get the most efficient layout for what you want to do.  There are many suggested layouts available, so ask around if you want a layout for a great Ranger city, for example.

 

Resources

Resource cities are useful early on, or when settling on a new continent when the wait for resources might be many hours.  If you are particularly short of a resource, for example stone, making a 'Stone' city is unlikely to be more productive than making a troop city and raiding hills. 

 

Hubs

Hub cities generally have a LOT of storage and carts and ships to be able to move it around as needed.  Placing storehouses next to Lumber Mills increases wood storage, next to grain mills increases food storage etc.   

 

Military

Specialising in a particular troop type is most efficient, raiding troops are likely to need forums in their city to move the resources out, or a Sorcerers Tower to refine it.  Some people add Farm Estates to feed the troops - it depends what troops you have and if they are raiding or not.

 

Navy

Cities on water can be very effective in executing attacks on cities on other continents, or supporting cities overseas.  Since Galleys can carry a limited number of troops per galley (500 troops, remember some units eg Horsemen, use 2 spaces each)  you need to balance the Galleys with the troops they're meant to carry.

 

Food

Making a city dedicated to food which you then transport around your empire can free up building spaces in military cities to add more barracks.  

 

Hybrid/Mixed cities

Depending on your other cities, local alliance mates and enemies, a hybrid/mixed city may work for you, for example a mini hub producing food to be able to supply a few cities in a cluster. 

 

Castles (on region view - blue squares)

If a city has a castle built in it that means a few different things

  • It can be sieged and assaulted by other cities that have castles - therefore you could lose it

  • It can be used to scout, siege, assault and plunder other cities with castles - you could use it to capture another castle (if you have a senator in your sieging army)

  • It can be used to scout and plunder non castled cities

  • The available troop space increases with each level of the castle

  • It can be blessed by a shrine

  • You will have an increasing number of Command slots, as the level of the castle goes up

 

Non Castles (on region view - circles)

Cities without castles are safe from being captured by other players, but can be plundered and your resources stolen.  If your city is in an area surrounded by many enemy castles, you probably don't want to build a castle!  Probably safer to leave it producing and refining resources.

 

Temples 

A city with a temple in it can be seen on region view with a coloured glow surrounding it.  If you have a temple you will get advice from your alliance on renovating it if you need to - maybe lots of cabins so temple upgrades build faster, or lots of storage, or lots of city guards.

 

 

Walls are Important Too

Your walls, and any defenses that you build on them, can protect your buildings and troops from incoming attacks.  Choosing the defenses to place around your city will help a lot if you are under attack.

 

Walls

Building your walls takes a lot of stone, but reduces the chance of your walls and buildings being demolished by attacking armies, and increases land unit defence against attack.  Build the walls up in any city before thinking about building a castle in it!

 

Wall Defenses

There are two types of wall defense

  • Barricades - wall barricades will repel some of an attacking armies troops.  For example if you expect to be attacked by cavalry troops, then Equine Barricades will neutralise some of them, limiting the attacking force's power.

  • Posts - placing posts on your walls increases the power of some of your defending troops.  For example a Triari post will increase their defensive ability, also helping you against an incoming hostile army.  If your city is Rangers, build ranger posts.  

What type should I build/how many? 

Once more, there is no exact answer to this - it depends what you expect to happen in the city!  One thing  to definitely build though is a Sentinel post - it will increase how far away an incoming attack is spotted from, the more warning you have, the better you can prepare.   Posts and barricades are fast to build, you may like to leave a few spots empty to be able to add Barricades based on what is attacking you.

On first settling
Planning your Empire
City Types
Walls are Important too
Castles
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