After playing the game for a week or two, you will soon realize that there are far more types of buildings then there are slots available in the city. First important decision that you would have made was between petrolgyph and cave. It is obvious enough that you cannot have both unless you have a hill city. In addition to limited slots, there is a slider which one can distribute among Food, Wood and Science (changes to Science, Production and coins after currency). It is easy to see that if the slider is 60% on wood it makes sense to have lumber camps in the city Or if the slider is on 60% science one should have libraries to get out as much as possible from its population. It wouldn't be smart to keep slider at 60% food when very little food is being produced in the city.
This makes it really important to have specialized cities. Before jumping into specialization you should be aware of how many slots are then in each type of terrain.
Terrain[]
Each city has 16 build slots (excluding wonder & shrine slot) divided between plain, coastal and hill. Out of these 16, 11 are free and 5 can be purchased with coins.[]
- Plains - It has 15 (10 free) plain slots and 1 (1 free) hill slot free.
- Hills - 13(9 free) plain and 3 (2 free) hill slots
- Coastal - It has anywhere from 1-4 coastal slots, 1 free hill slot and rest are plain.
- Hill on Coast - It has anywhere from 1-4 coastal slots, 3 (2 free) hill slot and rest are plain.
Types of specializations[]
Depending on the terrain, one can specialize his city accordingly. However, there are few buildings which one will require to have in all his cities no matter the specialization.
1) Hut - Depot
2) Courthouse
3) Well - Fountain - Aqueduct
4) Shrine -> Residence -> Castle, since nothing else can be built in the City Center.
Following are the most important specialization that I have come across, especially for the initial months of the game.
1) Science city - This is one of the most important specialization required in the game. The slider for this city will obviously be at 60% science. Now, as one can build 2 observatories (comes little bit later in the game), which can be built on hills only, it is a good idea to have your hill cities specialized to produce science. As the number of free slots (remaining after above 3 buildings) in a hill citiy is 6 plain and 2 hills, following is a probable build structure that one can adopt:
- 2 hills = 2 observatories
- 2 libraries / academies on plains
- temple and theater on plains
- In the remaining 2 slots (or 3 if you purchase one), you can have houses (to boost pop) at start and a decoy in case you fear being attacked. Later on houses can be converted to museum, depending on requirement.
2) Production city - As important as science because without resources you cannot grow. Deposits are very important in the game and a production city can take most advantage of it. Hence, slider at 60% production. Production cities can be further classified into three categories
- 1) granite, iron or jewel city: As granite quarry / mines are required to improve their production, it is better if they are build on a hill city. Additionally, Granite receives a boost of 15% for being on hill. So build structure for this city would look like this (6 plain, 2 hills):
- 2 hills = 2 quarries (or mines)
- temple and theater
- Lumber camp
- Farm
- In remaining 2 slots - same as above (houses / decoy/archery range/market). Archery range, because in case there is a looming war it is good to have some longbow mans trained there.
- buy the third hill slot to put another mine/quarry.
- 2) Rest of the deposits : Plain city as you don't really need hill here. The build should look like this(7plain, 1 hill):
- In case of a deposit: 3 plain slot = 3 building which improves the deposit (weaver, winery,pasture...etc)
- temple + theater
- Lumber
- Farm
- Buy a plain slot and make house /decoy there
- 3) No deposit: Some cities, which will only be available later in the game cannot have a deposit. These include Music, Movie and Book cities. But, players and countries also need food, especially if there are nearby military threats when a big army may need feeding so if on the grassland without a deposit a dedicated Food city may be essential. Also one will need to create other specialized cities like Army and Banks.
3) Bank city: After couple of months into the game, coins become very important to pay taxes and maintain those costly building upgrades. Hence a bank city is a also a must. As there is no advantage of hill / coast here, it is best suited on a plain terrain. The build should look like this (7 plain, 1 hill):
- 3 banks
- temple + theater
- House/embassy/archery range
4) Army city: Although there is no particular slider for this. It is important to train a good attacking force in just one city than creating few troops in all cities. One can create few troops in each city but they should only be used for defensive purpose. Population is important for science city, so no troops should be trained there. Army can be trained either at a production city or a bank city. It is recommended to build it in a production city so that one doesn't spend packs of animals in transporting resources. The disadvantage is less of resources (as no space for farm / lumber). Hence, bank city for army is also not as bad as it looks.
There is no need to build temple and theater in army city as population will keep on converting to troops. This gives 2 additional slots in the city. Depending on what troops one wants to build - barracks, stable, archery & workshop can be built in a city
There can be other specializartions as well: like high population growth city which can be used to only create settlers. The best part about this game is one needs to adapt !! Coastal cities build will be similar as above depending on the direction one wants to take.
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