What's your City VS town ratio so far

[Menocchio]

Playing as Augustus and Rome/Abbasids/Meiji, I kept zealously to a "one City challenge" which made for a fun game. Augustus' ability is perfect early on—I was able to consistently pour Legions out of Rome in one turn each, but I resolved to play more towards science than domination. It ended in the Modern age with 20 towns to 1 city, which was ideal for science but suboptimal for keeping up with the endless world wars the AI kept dragging me into. Needing to purchase your armies dragged on my economy until near the end, but I was so vastly ahead in science—I finished the entire tech tree, including masteries, before I'd done half of the main civic tree—that I sent Yurius Gagarinus to orbit before things got too out-of-control.

Augustus' +2 production per town might fall off as the game goes on, but not to be slept on is the similar Abbasid tradition that gives +4 science per town. There's a lot to chew on with the city/town dichotomy; it offers a lot of subtle complexity to the game that I think people will be figuring out for a good long time yet.

 

[Big J Money]

If it's connected to one, if not it's wasted. I basically did a quicksave and quickload before changing to farm focused because I couldn't tell if it was going to send it or not.

Yeah, I literally just wasted one, lol. I'm looking for the merchant to make a road but apparently I can't build one. I'm guessing I have to research merchants again in the Exploration age? I'll figure this out...

 

[Ornen]

I try to have as few cities as possible so that the towns can boost them up. 1-2 cities in Anitquity. 3-4 in Exploration, and 4-5 in Modern.

Rome and Khmer really want to only have 1 city.

I really don't agree with this for Rome. you get benefits from towns, yes, but the inability to build science/influence/production buildings in towns will slow you down in the back half of the era if you stick to 1 city purely.

in my experience with Rome, you want mostly towns, and with Augustus at least, you want to add buildings via gold before converting into town. that means you are slower to make new cities (gold goes towards key buildings first) but you still make them nonetheless, so that you can keep up with science as the age progresses.

the town benefits for Rome are very nice, so you definitely want more towns than cities and develop cities slower than other civs. but in my experience, sticking to 1 city is not optimal

for Rome when you convert a town to city you are effectively trading +2 production in capital (and little gold) for +10-25 production in your city, which is a good tradeoff.

(haven't played Khmer so can't speak to them. would imagine the same logic applies to some extent, but the penalty on cities could make for a different story)

 

[Mudkip1001]

I tend to do 2 cities in antiquity (although I try for 3), 4 cities in explo, 6 cities in modern...

And I have had two games where I had 80 settlements or 36 settlements, but generally, you can get by quite well with just the low amount of cities and just buy stuff within the towns...

Mind, I always disobey the "settlement limit"

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Rome and Khmer really want to only have 1 city.

I assume you mean Augustus??

 

[Elhoim]

Yeah, I literally just wasted one, lol. I'm looking for the merchant to make a road but apparently I can't build one. I'm guessing I have to research merchants again in the Exploration age? I'll figure this out...

Yes, but even then it might not connect, it's honestly all a mess. I'm not sure if they didn't see the issues because they didn't have proper UI for it, or we don't have a proper UI because of all the issues

 

[Disgustipated]

So far I've had a lot of cities. Probably not optimal, but towns kind of annoy me. I rarely have enough gold to just buy a lot of buildings in them, so I'd rather just have them a city. And I still can't seem to tell if a farming town is actually giving food to my other settlements. City connections are hard to tell if they are actually working.

In the end of exploration age my ration was probably about 70% cities. Maybe not optimal, but it's what I prefer. In case it matters, I am playing Tecumseh Normans.

 

[Elhoim]

So far I've had a lot of cities. Probably not optimal, but towns kind of annoy me. I rarely have enough gold to just buy a lot of buildings in them, so I'd rather just have them a city. And I still can't seem to tell if a farming town is actually giving food to my other settlements. City connections are hard to tell if they are actually working.

Open the city panel, if it's sending it, it should be there (keep in mind you need to exit the city screen for it to update after you select an specialization).

 

[Taefin]

Gold to production costs appear to be 3:1 (I just checked a random streamer video, but it checks against memory). It sure seems more cities would be dramatically better for:

-more pops since keeping food in the smaller cities that need much less food to grow
-production is worth 50-100% more than gold, factoring production town focus
-can boost all yields further with buildings

Downsides
-less gold means less flexibility, struggle to upgrade units or rush buy in emergency
-more micromanagement
-lose out on building up a few cities with multipliers on key yields, but if those can build all they need, then perhaps that is when you have enough towns

Hope I’m missing some things that would make towns better.

 

[Disgustipated]

Not sure where to post this, I found it amusing when playing America when I have New York City as a town. Maybe they should just call it New York to avoid confusion.

keep in mind you need to exit the city screen for it to update after you select an specialization

ahh this is where I was going wrong. I wasn't exiting and reentering.

 

[Sagax]

I need someone to sell me on towns. I'm really disappointed that they stop growing when they specialize, but maybe that is indeed better for gameplay? As it is right now I just promote to city as soon as I can. I don't really get the system.

I want my actual cities to grow to obscene levels for those sweet specialist yields, and food from towns is the surest way to achieve that. Also, managing 20+ cities is still a chore, so I'd like the less significant settlements not to bug me.

That said, it still eludes me when is the right time to specialize the town. I feel like there is always one more resource/tile I want to grab, or one more improvement to place before I feel like I'm done with it.

 

[King of Prussia]

I either make a town a city or specialized when the growth is too many turns. Towns are a great way to rapidly grow a new settlement, get resources, then convert into a city for the better buildings.

As for keeping it a town. Youll have to balance how many tiles you want to work to make use of your upcoming specialization. Is it better to get a few more tiles for the food or production(gold) or send the stuff off now. I will say i think food is the best option by a large margin right now. The others are too niche or just not good enough to be worth it most of the time. Im not sure if buffing the others and/or nerfing food would be better.

At the start of the modern era, there arent that many buildings for you to make. You can leave them as towns for a while to make extra gold. That extra gold can be spent on explorers, ports/railroads, and units. If you save the towns specilization until later, you can use the factory specialization for cheaper factories and slot

 

[teakbois2112]

I suspect the best way to do it is keep a ratio for most of the age, but then flip as many to cities as you can afford towards the end to pump out science and culture buildings to help early in the next age.
This doesnt work with the legacy path reward of keeping cities as you want those to revert.

 

[Disgustipated]

I will say by the end of the modern age after finishing my first game, I had a lot more towns than cities. With the settlement cap so high, I can just spam towns to fill in the gaps of my empire.

 

[Devilbound]

I need someone to sell me on towns. I'm really disappointed that they stop growing when they specialize, but maybe that is indeed better for gameplay? As it is right now I just promote to city as soon as I can. I don't really get the system.

Actually if the town is developed properly with farms and so on it may grow faster when specializing, and often does.

 

[Tanel]

I wonder if I am playing suboptimally. In both my games, I have played 2 cities in antiquity, add a third DL city in exploration (and in the only modern age I’ve played I kept three cities with the +2 sci/cul specialist buffs until I need more cities to house artifacts at the very end.

Does anyone know what the gold/production exchange rate is? I’m thinking it’s 3:1 (600 gold buys something that takes 200 production). In that case, maybe I should be converting more cities.

The default gold to production exchange rate is 4:1 but you can improve it with gold and silver resources.

 

[Tanel]

I try to have as few cities as possible so that the towns can boost them up. 1-2 cities in Anitquity. 3-4 in Exploration, and 4-5 in Modern.

Rome and Khmer really want to only have 1 city.

Even as Augustus and Rome you still want 1 or 2 more cities so you can build more buildings and have more specialists.

 

[MrRadar]

I need someone to sell me on towns. I'm really disappointed that they stop growing when they specialize, but maybe that is indeed better for gameplay? As it is right now I just promote to city as soon as I can. I don't really get the system.

If you want a farm/fishing town, don't hesitate to drop some mines, woodcutters and quarries among farms, slot in food bonus resources. When they grow larger, replace those with food and happiness boosting buildings, and turn liberated miners and woodcutters into farmers/fishermen. Buying a building adds a population unit. After that you suddenly have a larger town, now you specialize it for food and it produces a heap of food that's funneled into your cities for their growth. Intersperse a bunch of smaller and closer located towns in-between a few of your farther apart placed cities and they'll will grow into huge population centres, overfilling with specialists.

A lone city without town support will have to sacrifice some tiles for food production. It will struggle with growth and production. Having supporting food towns you outsource city's food production to those towns and then the city can build other stuff on those tiles, you can have more production buildings and build things even faster.

The same with production towns: after necessary growth is done, replace farms with production buildings in towns in production heavy area, specialize them into production and they will become cash cows for your empire. Cities are there to thrive on towns and towns are there to be milked by cities.

 

[Elhoim]

Even as Augustus and Rome you still want 1 or 2 more cities so you can build more buildings and have more specialists.

Yeah, the game and connections are built around having cities surrounded by towns so you kinda go C - T - C - T. Currently getting a connection from a town behind a town is extremely hard.

 

[Siptah]

Yeah, the game and connections are built around having cities surrounded by towns so you kinda go C - T - C - T. Currently getting a connection from a town behind a town is extremely hard.

I automatically try to have coastal connections (at least in the later eras) as much as possible tbh, they usually work when you think they should.