another noob question - buildings

[Quetz]

Hi. Yet another noob question courtesy of me

I am getting about to the midgame now. Whenever I try to build a city/conquer a city, the only buildings I can choose from are walls and monuments. My old cities are doing fine, its just in the new ones that I have this effect. Since I'm sure its due to some game mechanic I dont know about, I was wondering if anyone could shed a bit of light on it

 

[Draconian]

Are you playing the Kuriotates? Their first 3 (dependant on map size) cities can work 3 plot rings but all other citys are settlements which can only build walls/monuments.

 

[Quetz]

oh. I didnt notice the "all other cities" thing. That kinda ruined the point, heh. Guess I have to restart *cry*

that doesnt really seem like a fair tradeoff to me

 

[Halancar]

On the plus side, those settlements (extra cities) don't generate extra maintenance. So there is really no limit to the size of your Empire (granted, only the core is productive).

I know that when I play, I usually have a small number of cities that actually build units and stuff, and generate a disproportionate share of commerce as well, and the other ones are strugling to keep up with technological change. The Kuriotate simply push this to the limit

But you do have to understand how it works from the start, to really plan your first cities as superproductive.

 

[woodelf]

It's all balance. Playing the Kuriotates is a blast since you don't have to micromanage as much or defend more than 3 real cities. I love the simplicity at times.

 

[Keldan]

Yeah, the Kuriotate's cities really rules, the only way to get population over 60 (but you'll need some future tech to get health bonus )
And their culture expansion is really a mass destruction weapon, the best way to dominate a continent with few cities

 

[Lord Vermillion]

or if your playing OCC

 

[Grey Fox]

oh. I didnt notice the "all other cities" thing. That kinda ruined the point, heh. Guess I have to restart *cry*

that doesnt really seem like a fair tradeoff to me

You might not have noticed this yet, but Kuriotates real cities can work 3 rings of tiles, making their cities huge! They can work almost twice the amount of tiles of that of a normal city. And also, their cultural borders cover a very large area. What I usually do is research towards and build a monument as soon as I can, and then I put one citizen as an artist and once I get the Great Artist I use its great work feature and BOOM, I got an empire covering a very large area. And this pretty early in the game, since you get monuments early and they give +15% GPP and Kuriotates are philospophical. (Although in 15e they are adaptive instead of philosophical so you can choose their 3rd trait)