Town meta after patch 1.2.5.

[m_mus]

I am really curious as to how patch 1.2.5 has changed your personal meta regarding towns. More specifically:
What is your typical numerical ratio of towns vs. cities throughout the 3 ages? Does your ideal ratio stay constant or does it change throughout the ages?
What is your general setup / portfolio of towns? I must admit, that I seldom chose anything else than farming/fishing towns (many) or urban centres (few). Do you ever build Resort towns, Trade Hubs or fortress towns? And wihtin that line of thought: Do you actually have mining towns? In my feeling they sound great on paper, boosting your gold-income and they appear to me even more important since 1.2.5's introduction of cost-progression (gold is scarcer than before), but I often feel that mining towns are growing so painfully slow since their typical type of improvements is obviously not oriented toward food ... so that the actual production converted into gold is not that high, since only few people work the lands (or mines) within these towns.
And considering the growth of growing towns: when do you typically give your towns a focus? Right at the first possibility when they hit 7 pop? Or later so their town-specifc bonus has a bigger effect?
At least these are the questions I find myself confronted with in my playthroughs and where I don't feel sure what the current meta is. Maybe I am overlooking crucial questions / decisions you are racking your brains about, so please enlighten me

 

[Siptah]

I haven't really adapted to 1.2.5 yet (played only one game), but:

- I have as many cities as possible in antiquity, even if it's just for the last few turns and to buy some things in them to get more bonuses from quarters in the next age. I always have around 6 or 7 in the end. With the new patch, this was a bit more difficult to keep going, as I did not swim in gold all of antiquity. Hence, I assume my goals may change in the next games. I rarely have more than 10 cities in the end though, so at some point I only convert to cities in good locations or when the closest city is far away. E.g., I always have 1-2 cities in the distant lands in exploration.

- I keep them growing as long as the turns to the next growth event are bearable and until I work all tiles I really want to work. Usually this happens at the end of antiquity. I don't think I need to change much here, actually. The extra growth in cities isn't that "necessary" in antiquity imho, but becomes important when you want more specialists in exploration.

- I specialize for farming/fishing, hub town, and urban centers. I do religion (exploration) and factory (modern) as well. I never do resort town or fortress town (but I don't regularly play deity, where fortresses might be more useful), and rarely mining. Farming/fishing can be great, but I think the added food is often less valuable than extended trade range or the now even better options of urban centers. These also send food to the closest cities anyway, so if they are great for producing food, it might be better to give them another bonus than just more food. So, maybe mining is now a better option with 1.2.5.

 

[marius_kaparius]

One thing I will call out is that I tend to go Town->Urban Center->City now. This reminds me of the old Cottage in Civ 4 - a nice nostalgia kick. I think the buildings should be spread out more between the town types though.

 

[Xandinho]

So far, I’ve completed two full games with the new update, so these are my experiences up to this point:

In the Antiquity, I had around five cities to maximize the number of Academies. No more than four cities during the Exploration and Modern Ages, though I had well over ten settlements.

Most of the time, even before the update, I used to specialize most of my settlements as Farming/Fishing Towns, Trade Outposts, and Hub Towns (alternative sources of influence are always useful). I’m still following the same approach, but now I also specialize some of them as Urban Centers, which I rarely did before. Recently, I started converting a few distant towns into Fort Towns since I didn’t have enough units to protect them and and I had no intention of converting them into cities. I rarely specialize in Mining Towns, as I don’t find them very practical. I’ve never specialized my settlements (or at least don’t remember doing so) as Resort Towns, Religious Sites, or Factory Towns.

 

[Leucarum]

Interestingly, I tend to play like Carthage a lot of the time in Antiquity. I'll usually go urban centers everywhere and use my gold for spamming out buildings... Just using my capital for millitary/wonders. Once I have Academies or Ampitheaters then I'll then usually pick a few any towns and city-ify them rapidly with gold. I usually end up with 3-5 but I bring them online late...

I don't usually play beyond Antiquity so I don't have much to say there. The only time I'll play is if I can see a fun Songhai or Inca build, and there I'm just trying to get a couple of cities for navigable river or mountain setups. And then I usually get bored and stop after 20-30 turns.

 

[MutilationWave]

I've only had one game post-patch, on deity, and I went three cities in antiquity, three in exploration, four in modern. I would have loved to have more cities in antiquity to get unique quarters up, but the gold just wasn't there. I reached settlement cap in antiquity and never reached it again in the next two ages. I did take Fealty but that turned out to be unnecessary. That is until the I was wrapping up all legacy paths in modern and warring for fun. Side note here - the influence penalties for capturing and razing settlements are out of hand and very un-fun.

I did not specialize any towns in antiquity because they were all still growing very well. However, at the beginning of exploration I specialized them all. Mostly farm/fish, several mining towns. A couple hub towns. One I really wish I had gone urban center but I still haven't used that specialization and frankly forgot about it until it was too late. I'm sure some others would have been better off as urban centers.

In modern again I went farming, mining, or hub. Didn't see the point in urban centers because I had snowballed harder than ever before. Keep in mind I am definitely not playing optimally.

 

[UWHabs]

I've only had one game post-patch, on deity, and I went three cities in antiquity, three in exploration, four in modern. I would have loved to have more cities in antiquity to get unique quarters up, but the gold just wasn't there. I reached settlement cap in antiquity and never reached it again in the next two ages. I did take Fealty but that turned out to be unnecessary. That is until the I was wrapping up all legacy paths in modern and warring for fun. Side note here - the influence penalties for capturing and razing settlements are out of hand and very un-fun.

I did not specialize any towns in antiquity because they were all still growing very well. However, at the beginning of exploration I specialized them all. Mostly farm/fish, several mining towns. A couple hub towns. One I really wish I had gone urban center but I still haven't used that specialization and frankly forgot about it until it was too late. I'm sure some others would have been better off as urban centers.

In modern again I went farming, mining, or hub. Didn't see the point in urban centers because I had snowballed harder than ever before. Keep in mind I am definitely not playing optimally.

I'm similar. Antiquity I can't get past about 3 cities. Exploration I think I stayed at 3 cities, and in modern I'm up to 5, but building costs are heavy (I'm really only at 5 because I have 3 good ones on my homeland, and basically 2 distinct regions in distant lands that weren't connected, so instead of having like 3-4 towns that only interact with each other, better to make one a city).

I had a few tough calls whether to make some of them urban centres or not. I'm still not sure - it was still expensive to buy the buildings with gold, when you are mildly limited it just didn't seem worth it. The problem comes when you have towns that just aren't specialized. If they have like 6 or 8 farms/fishing boats, 5 or 6 mines, and are connected to like 5 other settlements, all the town options just feel a little limited.

 

[vorlon_mi]

In Exploration, I have often identified a few towns which will get Temples and specialize them as Religious for the extra Relic slots.

Upon reflection, that might be slightly misguided. Yes, I do choose a reliquary belief that gives me 2 relics when I convert a specific type of city (or city-state). Yes, the legacy path is only triggered when the relics are *displayed*, not just sitting in my archive. So yes, the extra relic slots are useful to finish out the age.

But there may not be a downside to letting the relics sit in my archive for most of Exploration. Yes, I can slot a social policy to earn culture on each *displayed* relic, but it doesn't unlock early so the loss of extra culture for a few turns isn't going to hamper me. Perhaps I don't need to rush to display the relics as I earn them. Perhaps having more towns, with more Temples, as Hub towns for the influence, is a better tactic.

 

[stealth_nsk]

But there may not be a downside to letting the relics sit in my archive for most of Exploration. Yes, I can slot a social policy to earn culture on each *displayed* relic, but it doesn't unlock early so the loss of extra culture for a few turns isn't going to hamper me. Perhaps I don't need to rush to display the relics as I earn them. Perhaps having more towns, with more Temples, as Hub towns for the influence, is a better tactic.

Great works also produce yields (science in antiquity and culture in other ages), plus you could get more from civics. So yes, having them slotted is a good idea.

I think the bigger problem is that legacy paths currently speed up age end and thus it makes sense to delay legacy paths completion (one of the mechanics I don't like in legacy paths).

 

[WillK96]

Great works also produce yields (science in antiquity and culture in other ages), plus you could get more from civics. So yes, having them slotted is a good idea.

I think the bigger problem is that legacy paths currently speed up age end and thus it makes sense to delay legacy paths completion (one of the mechanics I don't like in legacy paths).

Agreed - though not sure if delaying slotting relics as the player in Exploration actually does anything since the AI finishes Tokshana by turn ~30.

 

[UWHabs]

Yeah, that one ends early enough that I wouldn't waste effort to delay the last step until the 10 turn counter just to cheese the system. Treasure convoys are often close enough to timed that you can.

Getting those relic slots can be nice, especially if the town isn't really useful for anything else (like those random island towns set up to pull in a couple resources). But on the flipside, if I want to display the max relics, I often just aim for the relic slot on science buildings, which gives a good number of bonus spaces. Especially if you have a science UB or have some golden age academies.

 

[WillK96]

Yeah the treasure fleets are easiest to stockpile for sure.

 

[magicq99]

This is only partly related to the original topic, but I think that religious sites could be more interesting if each relic would give a unique bonus when slotted.

This would not only encourage slotting them but also thinking about in which settlement a specific relic should be slotted.

For example, it could be provided that upon discovery of a relic, you get a selection of maybe three randomly picked special bonuses for this relic, simiarly like you are given a choice of special abilities when training an apostle in Civ VI.

Those abilities could have regional effects, much like some beliefs in Civ VI provided bonuses specifically around holy sites. This could make strategic placement of religious sites more interesting, even if you don't chase the culture legacy path.

Some of those bonuses could be peaceful, like +x happiness to each happiness building, or militaristic, like +X healing or +X CS against other religions. But each bonus limited to like 6 tiles away from where the relic is displayed.

There could even be unique relics providing a powerful unique bonus, which can only be discovered once.

 

[stealth_nsk]

This is only partly related to the original topic, but I think that religious sites could be more interesting if each relic would give a unique bonus when slotted.

This would not only encourage slotting them but also thinking about in which settlement a specific relic should be slotted.

For example, it could be provided that upon discovery of a relic, you get a selection of maybe three randomly picked special bonuses for this relic, simiarly like you are given a choice of special abilities when training an apostle in Civ VI.

Those abilities could have regional effects, much like some beliefs in Civ VI provided bonuses specifically around holy sites. This could make strategic placement of religious sites more interesting, even if you don't chase the culture legacy path.

Some of those bonuses could be peaceful, like +x happiness to each happiness building, or militaristic, like +X healing or +X CS against other religions. But each bonus limited to like 6 tiles away from where the relic is displayed.

There could even be unique relics providing a powerful unique bonus, which can only be discovered once.

It's really interesting idea, but with religion being active for 1/3 of the game (1/4 if we ever get 4th age), it's kind of overkill.

 

[MutilationWave]

It's really interesting idea, but with religion being active for 1/3 of the game (1/4 if we ever get 4th age), it's kind of overkill.

It barely registers for me and I think many others. Build or buy four to six missionaries with the extra charges, autopilot them out. Forget about them until they get there.

 

[UWHabs]

It barely registers for me and I think many others. Build or buy four to six missionaries with the extra charges, autopilot them out. Forget about them until they get there.

Some games I basically push to see how close to 100% I can get. Others, yeah, you basically build enough to chase relics, and that's that.