Town focus usage poll

[evonannoredars]

I was curious how often people use each town focus, so here's a pretty lengthy (but could be longer if I wasn't limited by the number of possible responses) poll.
Farming towns and mining towns I expect will be used most frequently by far, but I'm curious about the rest. I've found fort towns useful a few times - although it's a shame that focus doesn't let you buy more walls - and factory towns can be handy if I want to win faster with my economic victory, but the rest I've never really felt a need to use (urban centre especially I've never felt like is worth it compared to just making it a city).

For reference, what they each do:
Fort Town: +5 healing to Units and +25 health to Walls
Urban Center: +1 Culture and +1 Science on Quarters
Farming/Fishing Town: +1/2/3 Food on Farms, Pastures, Plantations, and Fishing Boats
Mining Town: +1/2/3 Production on Camps, Woodcutters, Clay Pits, Mines, and Quarries
Trade Outpost: +2 Happiness to each Resource tile in the Town, +5 Trade Route Range
Religious Site: +2 Happiness and +1 Relic Slot on Temples
Hub Town: +2 Influence per settlement connected
Factory Town: +100 percent Gold towards purchasing a Factory in this town +1 Resource Slot

 

[Uberfrog]

Urban Centers doesn’t really make sense because you are very limited in what you can build in a Town. So you’re not able to stack adjacencies and run a specialist economy. This requires a City.

Farming, Fishing and Mining are natural choices 90% of the time. Towns exist to send food and production (as gold) to cities. So boosting food and production works well.

The others could have niche use cases, but probably need buffing to be competitive choices.

 

[JNR13]

I think Urban Centers is for when you cannot afford making a town a city again in a new age. If it's a city, its own food yield will be pitiful and not even +50% growth will do much, so might as well have it make some science and culture while you wait to get enough gold. The obvious problem: obsolete buildings no longer count as quarters, making this idea nonsense. The only time I've used it was when I basically had to conquer a capital but didn't want to go over 3 cities to keep the extra yield for specialists, so I made it an urban center with its 10 quarters or so. Not that like 8 culture and 8 science really mattered in the middle of the modern age anymore...

 

[stealth_nsk]

Urban Centers doesn’t really make sense because you are very limited in what you can build in a Town. So you’re not able to stack adjacencies and run a specialist economy. This requires a City.

Urban centers make sense for formal cities - either converted on age transition or conquered.

But I usually make them cities anyway, not sure if that's right.

 

[Melkus]

Not that like 8 culture and 8 science really mattered in the middle of the modern age anymore...

Maybe if they'd scale with age like some of the others - at the end of the modern age you can't move the needle much with food anymore.

Your edge case may work - but these big pseudo-towns this applies to are pretty cheap to convert, as well.

 

[Brutus2]

I’m surprised people aren’t using the Trade Hub. The +2 happiness per resource is huge.

 

[bbbt]

I use some hub towns pretty much every exploration age. I really like using influence and there's not a lot of source of it.

I often use trade outposts as well as I tend to expand significantly above my settlement limit the first two eras.

I've used factory towns when I was going for economic victory, as I don't usually have a lot of cities.

Then the rest fishing or mining towns. I don't think I've ever used fort town or urban center.

 

[StargazingDog]

Urban Centers doesn’t really make sense because you are very limited in what you can build in a Town. So you’re not able to stack adjacencies and run a specialist economy. This requires a City.

I use it for cities I have conquered unless I really want them to be a city again.

 

[StargazingDog]

But I usually make them cities anyway, not sure if that's right.

Unless you want to build more urban districts, I find leaving them as towns is better. You don’t pay district upkeep, so they generate more for your empire. Next time, watch how much your gold and happiness income drops when you convert it to a city.

 

[99-percent-sure]

I've had a fort town on every playthrough so far. I don't focus on combat, so I'm inevitably playing defense and wind up needing to assign "fort" status to the target of AI military incursions.

 

[CivKirk64]

What I find is there are often still way too many workable tiles I want to expand to utilize, if I want to be a farm town, I want some farms built before I switch and the growth screeches to a halt.

I find by the time I chose a specialization the age is ending, I don't get enough of the benefits. Also id love a summery of exactly how much gold, how much hammers (which are converted to gold so what do they do?) before I choose.


Should mining towns send their production to nearby cities? I'm at the point now where I think the town to city ratio should be 1:1, I too often need mroe universities, or find that there is a perfect spot for a wonder in a town I have, I'm finding myself converting to cities more often than specializing.

I wish there was faster growth in towns somehow smaller populations specializing to work larger land area as a justification.
My other suggestion would be that the specialized towns, allow certain buildings to have a reduced cost, or to allow specific city buildings when specialized for example the science or culture in urban/hubs, economic buildings in trade, production buildings in mining towns etc.

 

[Taefin]

I think Urban Centers is for when you cannot afford making a town a city again in a new age. If it's a city, its own food yield will be pitiful and not even +50% growth will do much, so might as well have it make some science and culture while you wait to get enough gold. The obvious problem: obsolete buildings no longer count as quarters, making this idea nonsense. The only time I've used it was when I basically had to conquer a capital but didn't want to go over 3 cities to keep the extra yield for specialists, so I made it an urban center with its 10 quarters or so. Not that like 8 culture and 8 science really mattered in the middle of the modern age anymore...

Somewhere I saw text that having two buildings from the same era would also be a quarter. Perhaps that is supposed to be in place, or they changed their mind and it made urban center rarely useful.

 

[Fluffball]

Fort Town is at best situational.

Urban centre is counterintuitive to towns in general. Maybe situational if you have captured a large enemy city.

Farming/fishing town is the obvious default choice.

Mining town seems ok if you have a lot of hammers, little food and/or doesn't have a lot of city connections.

Religious site...never really had a problem with happiness. Maybe if has no other real option.

Factory town...maybe better on higher difficulty but doesn't seem great in my initial games.

Hub town is a good option if it has a lot of connections as influence is the most limited resource

 

[StargazingDog]

before I switch and the growth screeches to a halt.

I find that most towns screech to a halt at ~8 pop anyway. 20 turns of food is much more valuable for a city.

 

[Fluffball]

My tactic for towns which will never be cities is to rush to get the resources, sometimes even putting down and improvement then building over to expand quicker and then just turn it into a specialist town. No real point growing further if it will never be a city

 

[Aeon221]

Urban Centers doesn’t really make sense because you are very limited in what you can build in a Town. So you’re not able to stack adjacencies and run a specialist economy. This requires a City.

Farming, Fishing and Mining are natural choices 90% of the time. Towns exist to send food and production (as gold) to cities. So boosting food and production works well.

The others could have niche use cases, but probably need buffing to be competitive choices.

You urban center by building up a city in one era and then in the next era leave it a town. If you've completed a bunch of districts its a pretty solid way to go esp if you want to stay at 3 cities.

 

[JNR13]

You urban center by building up a city in one era and then in the next era leave it a town. If you've completed a bunch of districts its a pretty solid way to go esp if you want to stay at 3 cities.

Buildings from the previous age won't count for the bonus. "Quarters" are only formed by non-obsolete buildings, i.e. ageless buildings and buildings of the current age. Just tested to confirm that this applies to the Urban Center bonus to quarters as well.

Outside of conquered cities and/or playing Augustus, the max bonus from Urban Centers by age is:
Antiquity: +2 Science, +2 Culture from 5 available buildings (City Hall, Granary, Saw Mill, Brickyard, Altar - Fishing Quay cannot be paired)
Exploration: +4 Science, +4 Culture from 8 available buildings (City Hall, Granary, Saw Mill, Brickyard, Gristmill, Sawmill, Stonecutter, Temple- Fishing Quay cannot be paired)
Modern: +7 Science, +7 Culture from 6 available buildings and one full-tile building (City Hall, Granary, Saw Mill, Brickyard, Gristmill, Sawmill, Stonecutter, Grocer, Ironworks, Factory, Fishing Quay, Port; + Rail Station)

Assuming Gold to be half the value of Science/Culture/Happiness (leaving out Food because it scales very non-linearly), an Urban Center would in an ideal case be about as good as a Mining Town with eight corresponding improvements.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I must admit that I've never used anything except farming and mining. Not convinced I'm sleeping on any major strat tbh, but I can see situational use for fort and trade perhaps.

 

[StargazingDog]

I must admit that I've never used anything except farming and mining. Not convinced I'm sleeping on any major strat tbh, but I can see situational use for fort and trade perhaps.

Which seems about right. Most towns would be farming or mining towns with the occasional fort/castle town and trading post.

 

[rocksinmypath]

Speaking strictly about just Antiquity, I think farming towns are terrible. Food is grossly underpowered in Antiquity. It's even worse when it's fed to well-developed cities because food requirement grows exponentially, and beyond pop 7 (not including citizens from buildings), food does very little. If I'm getting a lot of farms in a town, I'm doing it with the goal of replacing them later with districts, and putting the citizens that previously worked those farms to mines, etc. Food in early towns are pretty valuable because it helps those towns reach early growth events meaningfully more quickly, and those growth events are 50% cheaper due to growing focus. Once these towns reach pop 7, however, they're unlikely to continue to grow at a meaningful enough pace, so if you have the gold, you should either convert the them into cities, or buy a bunch of buildings on those farm tiles, and then look to put the town into either urban centre or mining focus. I think trading posts are nice, too, on paper, but I haven't figured out exactly how they work. In a previous game, I made one and it did absolutely nothing to my trade route length.