Where To Start - Basic City Setups and Research Goals

Topics Include:
-Basic buildings for all player types
-Starting to Specialize
---Military
---Hunting/Gathering
---Trade/Crafting
---Expansionist


The first priority a player should have is upgrading their Library to between 10 and 12, and Storehouse to 15 to unlock the Warehouse, then leveling that to 20. This will allow you to fund your research to unlock new technologies, and allow you to hold mass quantities of resources (sent by your allies) to feed off of while you level up your own resource plots and other buildings.

After that, most any type of player will want the following buildings in their city early on:

Barracks
Marketplace
Mage Tower
Consulate
Architects Office (optional)

In the very first city, most players will usually want to relocate via Exodus - a technology unlock that allows you to move your city, but delevels any building 13+ back down to 12. Others may choose to relocate with the instant teleport spell, but since the starting city resource plots are unbalanced in all but humans, and you only get one teleport per account, most reserve the teleport for other purposes like terraforming. If you plan to exodus in the near future, most recommend not leveling anything past 12, other than the storehouse/warehouse. If you plan to be there a little while, leveling the Barracks, Marketplace, Mage Tower, and Consulate can be worthwhile to unlock the related researches, and it doesn't hurt to have a large stockpile of Research Points from a high level Library either.

Unless you just want the extra population for your city, Mage Tower can stop at level 15 (for Rune of Intentions and Nature's Bounty unlock). Some prefer to level it to 20 just for the research (though largely unused), and then bring it back down to a lower level.

As for the Architects Office - This can be useful to give a little time boost to your building ques. Most people suggest that it is most efficient between levels 12-16 (weighing the time it takes to level it further VS the time saved on other building ques). Prestige users often have less use for this building, insta-building long ques anyway.


With the remaining plots available, most recommend filling all but 1 of the remaining empty plots with Cottages, so you can collect basic gatherables off the world map with Cotters. Also make sure to research the Demolish technology, so one-by-one the Cottages can be deleted as you put more advanced buildings in their place.



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Starting to Specialize

Eventually, most players will want to try every aspect of the game, and will have different cities dedicated to different things, or a variety of mixes in each city. But, since you have to start somewhere, and most buildings are far more effective when leveled to their max, here's some starting setups based on general game styles:

*Note: All build styles should be leveling food plots according to need, usually best to stay at least +100 food production p/h, though an excess doesn't hurt.


Military - for players seeking PVP action, either in the form of Tournaments, inter-alliance Events, or War.

Primary Goals:
*Barracks to level 20
*Completed Military Research Tree
*Res Plots (wood, clay, iron, stone) to minimum 12
*Leveling up your commanders (usually via hunting NPCs or tournaments/events)


The Barracks will allow fastest troop production, and the resource plots will be needed when you start claiming sovereignty on the tiles near your city to build structures that will increase the unit production speed of your troops.

Secondary Goals:
*Basic crafting buildings matching the needs of the troops being produced (Spearmaker and Brewery for Spear Units, Blacksmith and Forge for Infantry, Paddocks, Blacksmith, Saddlemaker, Spearmaker for Cavalry, and Tannery, Spearmaker, and Fletcher for Archers/Ranged).
*Flourmill is important long term, so make sure to save room, but usually not worth building until your cities food plots are all levels 15+
*Unit Cost Reducing Buildings - Spearmens Billets, Cavalry Parade Grounds, Infantry Quarters, and Archery Field, each reducing their respective troop upkeep costs up to 30% at level 20. Match the appropriate building to the type of troops you're producing in the city. Early on, there is little use for these buildings, as they eat hourly resources once built, more for each level upgraded. Once armies start reaching the many thousands, this building can be upgraded to help with the high overhead cost of the troops. Many people who house large standing armies use 2-3 of the same unit cost reducing buildings to alleviate overhead costs. Because of these cost-reducing buildings, which type of troops you pick to be built in each of your cities is usually highly dependent on the resource distribution of the city.


Once the primary buildings are completed, if you have an excess of food and want more population (either for increased taxes/income, or to reach the requirements for another city), adding buildings that will allow you to craft or gather goods can be a good way to fund armies by selling unneeded/excess goods.



Hunting/Gathering - attacking NPCs on the map, collecting their hides/animal parts, and/or collecting other gatherables off the world map. Though cities can be designed for this sole purpose, it also works well combined with Military or Trade/Crafting city setups.

Primary Goals:
*Barracks to level 20
*Military Research concerning Commander attack and speed values
*1-5 cotters
*1-5 Skinner Guilds
*1-5 Herbalists/Miners (depending on exactly you want to gather)
*Researches under Guilds and Cotters in the Trade research tree.

Secondary Goals:
There's really not much more that needs to be done to hunt/gather effectively. The remaining building plots can be used for crafting the materials needed for building your hunting troops to be self-sufficient. Other plots can be left as cotters, or mixed in with any of the other city setups.


Trade/Crafting: Buying/selling, and the creation of goods/materials. Because the more items produced usually equals more profit, the desire for as many crafting buildings as possible tends to make this city setup work hand-in-hand with the Expansionist build.

Primary Goals:
*Level 20 Marketplace
*Trade Center leveled to 20 to unlock the researches, then can be deleved if population or res upkeep is an issue. Be sure to consider the buildings hourly res upkeep compared to your cities resourse distribution when deciding where to build a Trade Center.
*Building 2 Traders - one for the Centrum trade hub, and one for your nearby faction hub (more Traders can be built as desired).
*Merchants Guild - used to speed production of Traders. Can be demolished once you've decided you've put Traders in all the Faction hubs desired.
*The research on the Trade research tree, specifically Guilds -> Merchants Guild ->  Faction Markets and Trader, Guilds -> Trade Office, and everything under Haggling
*Crafting Buildings - Spearmaker, Fletcher, Forge, Blacksmith, Saddlemaker, Tannery, Brewery, Common Ground, and, Paddocks. The Common Ground and Paddocks cannot be removed, so usually worth upgrading. Which other crafting buildings you make just depends on preference, or what good production sov might be in the area. It's usually not recommended to put a saddle maker and a tannery in the same town, unless you plan on shipping in cows from other locations - a single Common Ground cannot keep up with cow production to supply both saddles and leather armor, unless sov is dedicated to boosting cow production.
*T2 Crafting Buildings - Instead of producing a variety of T1 and T2 gear from the buildings mentioned above, you may wish to make craftable (T3) gear. If so, pair related buildings (Spearmaker with Spearmsith, Fletcher with Bowyer, etc) and consider the Workshop Specialization research to further boost production speeds (14-day research, plan accordingly). It's worth noting that the buildings responsible for T3 items are more expensive to level up and have a longer build time than their T2 counterparts.


Secondary Goals:
*Because you want to keep your production ques full, an excess of the 5 basic resources - wood, clay, iron, stone, food - is usually handy, so upgrades to the res plots are recommended based on use (what you're producing).
*As your city grows and hourly gold income increases, you can consider sov'ing the nearby tiles and building structures to increase your item production speeds.



Expansionist - for players who desire to obtain many different cities in their empire (10 or more), focusing on large city populations to meet requirements for expansion. Even for prestige users, this is one of the longer paths to take in the game. To keep the game from getting stale, it's recommended to be mixed into another city design setup so the city remains functional.

Primary Goals:
*The most important thing is city resource distribution and nearby food sov bonuses - choose your city location wisely. 7 food cities with multiple double-digit food tiles nearby is recommended for the largest cities, and the default starting cities do not meet this standard.
*Leveling food plots is important, albeit boring. Once leveled high (15+), can begin construction of Flourmill.
*The other 4 res plots - wood, clay, iron, stone - will also be used later on as you upgrade buildings that require hourly res upkeep.

Secondary Goals:
Focus on high level buildings. The largest population buildings (1796-2000 population) are Trade Center, Spearmens Billets, Cavalry Parade Grounds, Infantry Quarters, Archery Field, Thieves Den, Saboteurs Sanctuary, Assassins Guild, Spies Hideout, and Scouts Lookout. However, each of these also has a different hourly res upkeep, so which built should be planned accordingly.

The next tier of high population building populations, which do not have an hourly res upkeep, are (at 1497 population): Blacksmith, Book Binder, Carpentry, Common Ground, Consulate, Fletcher, Forge, Foundry, Kiln, Mage Tower, Paddocks, Saddle Maker, Siege Workshop, Spearmaker, Stonemason, Tannery, and Tavern. Which you pick should be decided by your overall goals and city needs.