Specialized towns

[stealth_nsk]

The game as intended is - specialized towns send copies of their food to connected cities, 1 copy for each city. But they also continue to grow on their own.

The difference with growing towns is that it has growth increased by 50%, but doesn't send those copies.

 

[Krikkit1]

The game as intended is - specialized towns send copies of their food to connected cities, 1 copy for each city. But they also continue to grow on their own.

The difference with growing towns is that it has growth increased by 50%, but doesn't send those copies.

That is definitely not intended, no "duplication"

Food either stays with the town and it grows (no help to anyone else but it gets a bonus).... or the town gets a different bonus and sends all of its food away giving no growth

I think they didn't count on unconnected towns... partly because connections seem to be buggy

 

[J80H]

I've read this thread and watched potatoes vid and congrats everyone I'm more confused about this than I ever was before. I thought for the longest time much like Mr Potatoe that DID continue to grow, despite reading pretty much everywhere that they DONT grow when specialized. Then recently tested it myself and found they DON'T grow when specialized at least IM PRETTY SURE. Now I have no idea. Do they grow? Do they not? Is it working as intended? Is this yet another bugged thing? I would love some dev feedback on this.

 

[Melkus]

Funnily enough the connection is buggy in my screenshots (you can see the outline of my main island at the top of the last one and the fishing quays are right there in range. It should be connected, but isn't.)

@J80H I'm sure they never grow by themselves when specialized (unless you buy a building). Intention is unclear.

My preference would be to send half of it (plus the food bonus?) and keep the other half to grow the town itself. Or at least give us that option.
Bonus points if we can choose the cities it goes to. (I'm confident this is doable with good UI, but they'd have to teach the AI to do that etc., so unlikely).

 

[stealth_nsk]

That is definitely not intended, no "duplication"

Food either stays with the town and it grows (no help to anyone else but it gets a bonus).... or the town gets a different bonus and sends all of its food away giving no growth

I think they didn't count on unconnected towns... partly because connections seem to be buggy

Copying food is exactly as intended, developers said it during livestream. If you look at Growing Town description in UI it specifically says "+50% to growth", not just growth.

 

[Melkus]

@stealth_nsk That would be a massive bug to miss. I can't imagine that someone like @B0RDERL1NE wouldn't notice that his towns are supposed to grow, but don't. (The wording is definitely confusing.)

 

[stealth_nsk]

@stealth_nsk That would be a massive bug to miss. I can't imagine that someone like @B0RDERL1NE wouldn't notice that his towns are supposed to grow, but don't. (The wording is definitely confusing.)

But as far as I know, they are growing. They just do it very slow, because they don't have any sources of external food and their multiplyer is gone. Growing on it's own food is really slow process after level 10.

 

[Giskler]

Here, I tested this right now with a town that is unconnected. As you can see the growth did not change from one turn to the next:

 

[stealth_nsk]

Here, I tested this right now with a town that is unconnected. As you can see the growth did not change from one turn to the next:

View attachment 724591View attachment 724592View attachment 724593

Hmm... maybe. Ok, one of the things is clearly bug - either display or behavior and now I don't know, which one.

Maybe my mistake.

 

[UWHabs]

But as far as I know, they are growing. They just do it very slow, because they don't have any sources of external food and their multiplyer is gone. Growing on it's own food is really slow process after level 10.

It's definitely a bug somewhere in the system. Although I wonder if maybe it's something where originally it worked one way, and then the balance team or someone came and saw it was too powerful, and scaled it back. But then nobody updated the first place.

I understand either way - duplicating does seem the original intention in a lot of cases, and does increase the value of towns. Or, at least, basically their food is 2x as good as in cities, but you don't have as much control over it, and their production is worth a lot less. But if you take it as it seems to work, where you choose either grow OR send the food and get bonuses, then that gives a much deeper strategic choice. I don't want to switch to specializing if I still have tiles I want to grow to, and you have an interesting decision there.

Which part is the bug, it's hard to say.

 

[Goodenuf]

I would think the "+50% to growth" implies that 50% more food is produced and it all goes to the Town. Once you specialize, then (a) you lose the 50% bonus and (b) what's left all goes to the connected city.

It could be a lot more clear, though.

 

[Melkus]

But getting back to OP: The edge case of an unconnected town wasting its food should definitely be handled. (At least indicate that it is unconnected or even don't let us specialize in that case.)

 

[stealth_nsk]

But getting back to OP: The edge case of an unconnected town wasting its food should definitely be handled. (At least indicate that it is unconnected or even don't let us specialize in that case.)

Settlement connections are one big painful topic. Not only it needs proper display, but it's totally bugged. In my recent game I put a lot of efforts to connect the other side of the river with two ancient bridges, later upgraded to medieval ones, just to lose connection to one of the towns in modern, despite staying on exactly same position as before.

 

[UWHabs]

But getting back to OP: The edge case of an unconnected town wasting its food should definitely be handled. (At least indicate that it is unconnected or even don't let us specialize in that case.)

There are some cases where I could trade the food bonus for the influence. But at least a warning on the city display somewhere that it's not connected would help.

 

[Cymsdale]

It seems like disconnected towns should keep their own food (without the growth bonus) but perhaps they wanted to avoid weird meta strategies where you purposely keep a town disconnected. I wish the UI was much better and I could see what cities a town was connected to before I pick a specialization (and then have to close the town screen and reopen it).

 

[stealth_nsk]

I think the whole settlement connection system needs some significant shaking. I imagine it was done to limit forward settling, but it seem to create more problems than it solves.

 

[Melkus]

There are some cases where I could trade the food bonus for the influence.

The influence hub is powerful when the connections work, but in that special case you may be disappointed about the amount of influence you're getting