Building Slots

[quadalpha]

There's a line of city/town buildings (like castles in previous TW games) and each turn, they generate x amount of growth. When growth fills up, it adds one unit of 'spare population'. Building slots are opened up by spending these units of spare population.

[ReluctantSamurai]

each turn, they generate x amount of growth

And what determines how much "x" is? The reason I'm asking these questions is that it seems like some actual thought has to go into what gets built and where (much like the original Shogun with its' provincial bonuses, iron sands, etc.).

[quadalpha]

And what determines how much "x" is? The reason I'm asking these questions is that it seems like some actual thought has to go into what gets built and where (much like the original Shogun with its' provincial bonuses, iron sands, etc.).

I believe x is strictly dependent on the tier of the city/town building. I don't think organic population growth is modelled.

[ReluctantSamurai]

So everything works on percentages? And after reading this comment in a different thread, maybe there are some things to like about this game

With careful planning, I'm sure some of them are worth it. But a wholesale "No yellow up-tick arrow goes unchecked" approach definitely spirals out of control.

[quadalpha]

So everything works on percentages? And after reading this comment in a different thread, maybe there are some things to like about this game

Not quite sure what you mean by percentages. Let me give an example.

Province is Germania Minor, with two regions, Vesontio and Bagacum.

Vesontio is the capital and has a Roman Colonia from the city line of buildings, which gives +5 growth per turn. Bagacum has a Roman Village, giving +3 growth per turn.
The empire as a whole has +72 food, giving +5 growth per turn in each province.
The province has +47 public order, giving another +3.
One of the techs I have gives +1.
And finally, a general I have in the province has the trait 'Fertile' ('This man makes excellent choices in bed partners. And then acts on those choices.'), which, somehow, gives another +1, leading me to believe that he not only makes excellent choices, but makes them very frequently.

All that adds up to +17 growth per turn. It also tells me that I need 70 growth for next population surplus. The next building slot for my city would cost 7 pop surplus points. My town is currently maxed out, but it probably took 4 points to unlock each slot.

Basically, having surplus growth doesn't have any ill effects. You control when to upgrade your city/town, and all the penalties from that are factored into the negative public order and food they take up.

[Lord of the Isles]

I believe x is strictly dependent on the tier of the city/town building. I don't think organic population growth is modelled.

Yes, organic growth isn't modeled - population is abstracted in the level of the settlement as you say. But other things affect it too.

Growth happens at a province level (2, 3 or 4 regions per province). It seems to be based on 4 factors (according to the tooltip):

1. Growth bonuses from the main settlement building
2. Growth bonuses from certain other buildings in the province
3. Spare food production generated in the province
4. Some techs increase growth

The food in 3. comes from fishing ports, agricultural buildings and a few other specific buildings. I *think* that, unlike earlier TW games, there is no population for the game to calculate what food is surplus to the province's needs and can therefore be classed as 'spare'. Certain buildings have a food cost every turn. I think increased population is represented abstractly by the increasing levels of the settlement main building and by higher levels of other buildings - higher levels cost higher fixed amounts of food per turn.

The growth bonuses come sometimes from the main settlement line of buildings but also from the sanitation line (e.g. an aqueduct gives +2 growth, a sewer +4 - numbers from memory). A few other buildings do as well - one of the religious temples for example. Once the province has maxed out its building slots (see below), growth becomes 0 in the province. I have a game now where Hellas has 0 growth but one region (Sparta) only has 3 building slots available. It is the same level as Crete which has the full 4 slots. This may mean that some regions cannot grow beyond 3 slots but I'm not sure.


Background (for those without the game)

Each region has a predetermined number of slots available in that region. One region in each province is the main one (the province capital or city) which is the one that gets a normal TW seige when you attack it (walls, gates etc). The other regions have Minor Settlements (towns with no walls when you attack it, just buildings/streets/single capture point). The maximum number of building slots are:

Cities: 6 slots
Towns: 4 slots - though some may be capped at 3 - not sure yet.

The first slot in both cities & towns represents the settlement itself. As these get upgraded (sometimes you need a new tech researched to upgrade) they increase growth bonuses (and, depending on the culture, other bonuses as well) and also increase the number of total building slots available (up to the max numbers above). You always start the game with 2 or 3 (maybe some start with 4 or 5?) slots available.

The remaining slots in a region are divided into various lines. Towns are limited: you can only select the religious line, the agricultural line, a restricted subset of the military line and, where it is a coastal town, the port line of buildings. Cities can build in addition the full military line of buildings, city centre line, sanitation line, industrial line. But no agricultural buildings in cities (though some city centre line ones produce food). NOTE: this is Rome & Hellenistic factions - there may be minor difference for other factions/cultures. All buildings can be deleted down to an empty slot and you can rebuild a different line next turn (or leave it empty but soon a slum will form and it will cost you 500 coins to remove it).

The constant battle in developing provinces is to balance food and public order (squalor). Money and military bonuses are important too but mainly: some buildings give public order bonuses but cost food, and some give food bonuses but increase squalor (in other words, they cost public order).

[CaptainCrunch]

... Towns are limited: you can only select the religious line, the agricultural line, a restricted subset of the military line and, where it is a coastal town, the port line of buildings.

Are there no limits to the port line of buildings in coastal towns vs coastal cities? I've found that I can't access the Military Wharf structures outside of coastal cities, at least for Hellenistic provinces (all requirements met of course). Seems that it may coincide with the restrictions put on the military line of structures. Can anyone confirm this? I have regions with coastal towns all over the place where I'd like to upgrade my naval recruitment chains, but can only access the Shipwright line of buildings, and I have strong treaties with the cities in the provinces so I haven't taken them as well.

[Spoonska]

Here is the encyclopedia online : http://dsi0fanyw80ls.cloudfront.net/en/home , if you want to take a look at buildings. I spent almost all of yesterday playing around with the economics of this game and city planning. I'm not surprised so many people are confused by the system. It's essentially the shogun 2 system blown up. In Shogun we had "Town Wealth", and in this game that is split into Agriculture, Livestock, Commerce, Maritime Commerce, Industry, Subsistence, and Culture. I find the best route is to specialize your provinces with their city hub. Almost every province has some sort of specialization whether it be glassware, iron, grain, wine etc... if you read the tooltip it will tell you what type of commodities you're dealing with.

So glassware for example; it gives you +150 industry wealth. Ideally you want to build : Docks (+60 industry / +%40 Maritime Commerce), Tile Factory ( +600 industry, 16% industry on edict), Anvil Shrine (+40% industry). That gives you 810 industry x 56% for 1264 industry to be taxed. That's not including agent bonuses or general bonuses. That takes up only 3-4 building slots. Then you can tailor the rest of your province to culture or agriculture.

Just to take an example from the campaign I was playing yesterday. I took Macedonia a 3 settlement province that goes : Olive Oil - Market - Capital. Before I did any construction Macedonia was netting me about 1200 talents a turn. By switching that focus to Agriculture I pushed it up to 3100. I could probably squeeze out more with the right agents / talents etc.


This biggest part of trickeration comes in the balancing of public order (I always call it squalor), and your food supplies.

IMO too much food is a bad thing. Once you get your +5 Growth and 20% replenishment rate (usually around 20-30 food) you're good. Now, I might be totally wrong on this because the food portion of the game is my least studied area , but the keep it around 20-30 for that bonus has worked out really well so far. If you have a lot of excess food then you might want to consider changing up some of your buildings. IE LV4 Fishing post for a LV4 Trading post (Which adds 0 squalor). I might be totally wrong here, but it's worked out well for me so far.

For public order it's not as hard to swing as you might think. Agents specifically champions rallying your populace will add a decent amount of positive order. And you can build as many temples as you want (just not 2 in the same settlement). Foot shrine for example adds +4 order a turn while adding 10% wealth to all buildings. In a fully maxed town you're looking at having 40+ squalor so you need to plan for that.

[Lord of the Isles]

Here is the encyclopedia online : http://dsi0fanyw80ls.cloudfront.net/en/home , if you want to take a look at buildings.

I think you are right about too much food being a waste and will try to spot at what point the food component towards growth gets maxed out.

Many thanks for that find of the online Encyclopedia. Since games get modified all the way up to release (and afterwards with patches) it isn't surprising when things like it have errors. One I just noticed is about the Workshop line:

Equipment
Civilised factions can explore the military equipment chain at their provincial capital, growing beyond the humble workshop towards production on a larger scale that improves the production of arms and armour.

Yet in the game you can build all levels of this line of buildings in towns as well as provincial capitals. The Training Camp line info is correct, however, since those can only be built in capitals.

[Lord of the Isles]

Are there no limits to the port line of buildings in coastal towns vs coastal cities? I've found that I can't access the Military Wharf structures outside of coastal cities, at least for Hellenistic provinces (all requirements met of course). Seems that it may coincide with the restrictions put on the military line of structures. Can anyone confirm this? I have regions with coastal towns all over the place where I'd like to upgrade my naval recruitment chains, but can only access the Shipwright line of buildings, and I have strong treaties with the cities in the provinces so I haven't taken them as well.

Ah, I forgot that restriction. You are right: towns can only build 3 of the 4 subsets in the port line: Trade port, Fishing port and Shipwright, but not the Military Wharf. The Shipwright subset is a kind of combination Trade/Military port with some warships but not as good as the ones from the Military Wharf. I found that out by trial and error when trying to get a Military Wharf in Neapolis (since Roma itself doesn't have a coastal port slot). Eventually figured out it was impossible and built the Military Wharf in the Sardinian Capital (Karalis?).

Edit: Also, towns just get up to level 3 in all port lines - only coastal cities get to build the level 4 upgrades.

[Quillan]

Are there no limits to the port line of buildings in coastal towns vs coastal cities? I've found that I can't access the Military Wharf structures outside of coastal cities, at least for Hellenistic provinces (all requirements met of course). Seems that it may coincide with the restrictions put on the military line of structures. Can anyone confirm this? I have regions with coastal towns all over the place where I'd like to upgrade my naval recruitment chains, but can only access the Shipwright line of buildings, and I have strong treaties with the cities in the provinces so I haven't taken them as well.

The military shipyard line can only be built in provincial capitols, at least as Rome. The rest of them (trade port, fishing port, and docks) can be built in any coastal city. Some building lines are limited to provincial capitols only, some are minor cities only, and some can be built anywhere.

[Lemur]

The military shipyard line can only be built in provincial capitols, at least as Rome. The rest of them (trade port, fishing port, and docks) can be built in any coastal city. Some building lines are limited to provincial capitols only, some are minor cities only, and some can be built anywhere.

Not my experience as Carthage—in fact, I built a military dockyard in Lilybaeum so that I could quickly generate mega-fleets with the two military docks so close to one another.

[Lord of the Isles]

[snip]
The first slot in both cities & towns represents the settlement itself. As these get upgraded (sometimes you need a new tech researched to upgrade) they increase growth bonuses (and, depending on the culture, other bonuses as well) and also increase the number of total building slots available (up to the max numbers above). You always start the game with 2 or 3 (maybe some start with 4 or 5?) slots available.

I wanted to clarify that bit of my previous post. The level of the settlement (both in town and city) I believe increases only the potential number of slots available. But you do not actually get the new slots to build in until growth in the province has built up to the amount required to expand the settlement (create a new slot).

You get to choose which region to 'spend' the growth in (aka expand the city/town). The larger the city/town grows, the higher the level of growth you need for a new slot. So I might need 7 units of growth to expand to a 6th slot in Athens, but only 3 or 4 units of growth to get an extra slot for the town in Crete. When I reach 3 or 4 I can either spend it on the latter, or leave it to grow and wait to get the extra slot later in Athens.

On the last point about game start: most previous TW games gave you either empty, undeveloped provinces to start with or else ones with only one or two simple buildings. Rome II seems to start you with a lot more development already on the ground in the regions. Which, if you can afford it, you can change of course.

[benjywa]

I would reiterate that the happiness is province wide but the food is factionwide
I am currently trying to juggle this with Sparta 50 turns in

Apolonnia has inf rax/ skirm rax and 2 workshop upgrades - pretty much everything else is trying to keep people happy enough
Pulpelona (Spelling?? is making food - lots of food wherever possible
Athens is making sanitation and city center stuff mainly with trade and cashola on the side - struggling to grow now but on reflection that may be because its already maxed

I would very much like to see how people are splitting their specialisations and keeping enough happy citizens - having a military sector is obvious but the rest is beyond me at the moment

[Spoonska]

Agents + Bread and games edict are the quickest way to boost your public order.

Deployed Champions can increase public order by up to +6.
Dignitaries can get a trait that will also increase it by +4.
Generals also have Virtue that increase it up to +6

Bread & Games starts off at +10 but can be increased with buildings like
Wine Town Center Lv.4 + 2
Wine Market (City Centre) Lv.4 +2
Temple of Zeus Lv.4 +4 (And +5 normally from the building)



There are also traits that your characters can get that will increase public order and also give a boost to B&G. Also if you have enough food consider building things like Trading Post that do not increase squalor but give you large financial gains.