Settling/moving cities, what to look out for.

Well here goes. Moving takes much thought - there are however the following points to look out for:

1. A 7 food tile (in-town crops) square to lie on - Many things are much easier with 7 food tiles, and if you can find a place that has a reduction in stone its optimal in regards to resource flow during your game.

2. Special spawninghubs/sovereignty squares that has 10+ food value - these boost your food production in a given city notably and can be quite useful - especially if your city has less than 7 food tiles (in-town crops).

3. Factions. As the game progresses, establishing fruitful relations with our surrounding factions will benefit our game - so lying near these make it easier to trade with them or - if they are hostile execute attacks/raids on their hubs in the future.

So far =CE= as a whole are focusing on good relations with: The Undying Flame, the Outlaws, The Trappers, and the Sundog Gith in Meilla.

We conversely plan to attack: The Daedalons, King Sigurd, Lords of the West, Duchy of Keppen.

As the game moves forward, there may be additional factions that will end up on our good/bad side, but so far we have agreed on this method of approach.

4. Strategic reasons: If you look around the map youll notice the broad geography. Right now its fairly meaningless in regards to travel, but once pathfinding is implemented, travel will be made much more demanding - and slower. Hence, rivers, roads, and narrow passages through the mountains become vital points of interest that will help us direct/control/tax the traffic in our area and serve as sentry outposts. A few of my cities are placed to promote this, eg. Falkenborg, Bulwark, Mastodont and Marienborg. There has been talk between us of establishing a foothold near the coast for our alliance, but so far we have been too preoccupied to make the effort. Later on this may be relevant to look into.



When choosing you place to stay, bear all of the above in mind. Then go to the strategic map - accessible from the World map menu.

Once there, choose from the dropdown menu: Colonist Empires, Wheel of Time, Warriors of the New. Switch them to "on" and you will clearly see how our closest neighbours lie in relation to us. If you switch all towns "on" you will see how the demography lies scattered across Fremorn - In any area you do not see us or our neighbours dominate, would be suited in finding a good spot to settle. This will give you room to find new untapped resources in your immediate vicinity, while still enjoying the protection of the alliance. You may wish to move one of your cities to the far west outback of Fremorn to have it lie protected behind the bulk of the alliance. If you are ever attacked by armies or thieves, moving your advanced resources to a distant city is a great way of avoiding large pricy losses - trick is to make it a city that is easy to overlook.



My overall point is that =CE='s strategy is to dominate Fremorn at all costs (without starting unncessary wars), and how you decide to work yourself into this project is really up to you.

You (the individual player) need to think the whole structure of your cities through - each city's individual purpose and potential and gradually move towards realising it while keeping defensive/strategic issues in mind.

I can't tell you the right way of doing things, everyone will have to make his/her own system work, but now that you know my thoughts I hope it will help you in finding the right spot for you


Anyone that find interesting spots to settle can post them in this thread - Cheers!

Thank you this is precisely what I was looking for. And thank you to Zwerg/Dicentra for council on how best to benefit myself and the alliance in the first placement of my city.

(The following is the policy for Fremen Society city placement. Please comment/criticize as needed.)
Most people will use their first city as a cornerstone for the rest of their empire. It is best used to supply future cities. If you look at most veteran's city placements, almost ALL of them are placed on tiles with 7food plots.

The reason a '7 crop' is so ideal is that food allows for population growth. Population can be defined as 'food consumed.' Some veterans find this out far too late and hit a cities population limit much earlier with 5 crops. If they choose to continue to create buildings there, they will have negative food production and be forced to import food. Many of these veterans will actually exodus their city to a 7crop. When they do this every single one of their buildings will be brought down to level 12 again. The potential population loss is in the multiple thousands, and yet they do it anyway. The loss is worth the gain of 2 extra food plots and the 40% food increase that brings. It is for this reason we forcefully recommend each of our members place their cities on 7 crops.

The larger your food production capability, the larger your city will grow. This is a longterm investvent that outweighs ANY alternative. Mountains for defense are all well and good, but NOT worth the food loss.

So when looking for your city placement look for the following:

1. Place your city on a 7 crop (>7 resource squares are special tiles which cannot be settled)
   
2. Ensure your city will be at least 10 squares away from any city that is not yours. (There may be some leeway in this with our alliance and confederates, but permission will be required from the them before you move)
   
3. Find special food squares nearby! Look at sovereignty bonuses in a 5 tile radius from your city. Keep in mind, closer sov is cheaper to maintain. Double digit resource squares will give an excellent boost to your resource production once the appropriate sov buildings are built. Also keep in mind multiple double digit food tiles WILL NOT yield a satisfactory replacement for a 7 crop.
   
4. Look for a waterfront property! An update called pathfinding is in the works. With it the game will change dramatically. Mountains and forests will be more difficult to traverse. Our waterways will be utilized with ships and boats. So we need to gain control of Fremorn waterways. We need to control every mountain pass.

If you are using Tenaril's spell of teleportation, do not place your city on the 7 crop you have chosen. Unfortunately, with the spell you bring your resource plots with you so you will eventually need to exodus your city in order to gain the benefits of a 7 crop. So when using the spell of teleportation place your city adjacent to the 7 crop you have chosen. This will minimize the pain of exodus.