Special Province Upgrades: when how and why?

[Ragic]

I tried searching for a guide but it seems most right now are basically readings of the tooltips without much if any strategy context. I'm hoping to get a bit of clarification or maybe a few tips before this thread flies off the front page in 10 mins (there should be a strategy sub forum).

1. It seems when deciding what improvement to select when claiming a new province is dominated by the 'boost' requirements of city buildings. Which means I almost never elect the gold mine option. I've read elsewhere you basically want 3 farm, quarry, and forester for those boosts. That doesnt leave much room for the others. When would I prioritize those?

2. Are you expected to convert the province upgrades later after your city is built up to maximize yields after you no longer are worried about 'boosts'? I haven't gotten into the late game yet.

3. When do I want to worry about the 'special province' upgrades? I know they 'count as' the basic types and so will contribute to the boosts, but are they really built with that in mind or is it more for the adjacency bonuses in the later game.

4. When building a second city/outpost, is there an optimal distance apart your cities should be or is it more a factor of map/faction/playstyle?

I imagine the most obvious answer is to just play the game and get the feel of it, but I dont like getting 100 turns into a game only to realize i made dumb choices on stuff like this and am behind as a result. Appreciate any insight y'all might have.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Ragic:

Special Province Upgrades: when how and why?
I tried searching for a guide but it seems most right now are basically readings of the tooltips without much if any strategy context. I'm hoping to get a bit of clarification or maybe a few tips before this thread flies off the front page in 10 mins (there should be a strategy sub forum).

1. It seems when deciding what improvement to select when claiming a new province is dominated by the 'boost' requirements of city buildings. Which means I almost never elect the gold mine option. I've read elsewhere you basically want 3 farm, quarry, and forester for those boosts. That doesnt leave much room for the others. When would I prioritize those?

2. Are you expected to convert the province upgrades later after your city is built up to maximize yields after you no longer are worried about 'boosts'? I haven't gotten into the late game yet.

3. When do I want to worry about the 'special province' upgrades? I know they 'count as' the basic types and so will contribute to the boosts, but are they really built with that in mind or is it more for the adjacency bonuses in the later game.

4. When building a second city/outpost, is there an optimal distance apart your cities should be or is it more a factor of map/faction/playstyle?

I imagine the most obvious answer is to just play the game and get the feel of it, but I dont like getting 100 turns into a game only to realize i made dumb choices on stuff like this and am behind as a result. Appreciate any insight y'all might have.

I am afraid you are getting one way or another different suggestions and advice, depending on player and playstyle. I like to underline the importance of reading and comprehending the tool tips.

1. Yes and no. That is one way to play it. Better is when you have in mind what you are aiming for. If e.g. you found a new city, and want to expand it fast without spending Imperium, then you focus food income, wheras when you need gold for upkeep more, you go naturally for gold, and so on. It needs a basic understanding of a "base set" for a city which you need. Like draft can be ignored until the point you want to build units in that city. Production, farms, gold, knowledge and mana and special resource nodes is what you are aiming for mainly. Production and farms are local, and the others global.

2. Yes

3. When you need them or when you have nothing else to build. The basic buildings are more important in general before the improvements. A special improvement which gives e.g. +5 X when adjacent to Y, but you have no Y is meaningless. And a basic building you do not need is meaningless too for the moment as each expansion costs stability.

4. Everything matters. Building close is for tactical matters, while building far apart for optimisation and long run conquest. Depending on your empire traits, cultuires etc. I recommend having a 10-14 tile distant between cities at minimum. So if city A reaches towards city B five tiles, and city B reaches towards city A five tiles, they will not "cannibalise" each other/compete each other for resources.

[Ragic]

You're answer to 4 surprised me the most (assuming you mean provinces and not hexes). Thanks for the quick reply.

[ben]

One of the perks on the aspect tree gives cities 10% boost to production if they touch borders.

[Melmak]

One gripe with this is that if there are 2 cities connected those special improvements take into accunt upgardes from the city you build it in whih makes little sense.

[Teutorix]

3. These are especially useful if you are finding yourself in a scenario where you dont have the right terrain to build the basic version ie. even with no forests you can still build a special improvement that acts as a forester. And even more importantly is using special improvements to get conduits and research hubs in cities with no mana conduits or magical resources which you need to unlock your research and mana buildings in the city. You will want to look at the special improvements when selecting tomes as sometimes it may be better to grab a tome for a special conduit building if you are finding mana particularly scarce, or a special research district if you are trying to tech rust to a tier 5 tome.

[El Rey de Pinguinos]

The advice from アンジェル is solid, and particularly about using the tooltips.

To expand on 2: you can swap out improvements later and it won't turn off the buildings or anything. The guild buildings can boost the output of base improvements a lot, so it's worth keeping a lot of one base type (only one guild allowed per city).

For 3: one of the advantages of special improvements is that they can be built anywhere. For example, a special conduit doesn't have to have a mana node or magical resource in the province to be built. This can be a big deal for adjacency bonuses and specializing.

There are some advantages to building cities close together, especially if you're planning to defend province improvements for a magic/expansion victory, but generally you do want them spread out enough that they don't snatch each other's land.

[Teutorix]

Originally posted by Melmak:

One gripe with this is that if there are 2 cities connected those special improvements take into accunt upgardes from the city you build it in whih makes little sense.

I could be wrong but im almost certain you can benefit from adjacency bonuses from other cities as long as you own both cities (definitely doesnt apply to allies and vassals), the exception being where the special improvement specifies "in domain" in which case it only counts the city its attached to.

[Ragic]

Originally posted by Melmak:

One gripe with this is that if there are 2 cities connected those special improvements take into accunt upgardes from the city you build it in whih makes little sense.

Are you saying that the 'adjacency bonuses' only factor in provinces from the city and not provinces of neighboring cities?

[El Rey de Pinguinos]

Originally posted by Teutorix:

Originally posted by Melmak:

One gripe with this is that if there are 2 cities connected those special improvements take into accunt upgardes from the city you build it in whih makes little sense.

I could be wrong but im almost certain you can benefit from adjacency bonuses from other cities as long as you own both cities (definitely doesnt apply to allies and vassals), the exception being where the special improvement specifies "in domain" in which case it only counts the city its attached to.

I think you're right, or at least that matches my experience.

[KellyR]

I'll just toss in the obvious: If you have provinces you can only put Huts on normally? Prime place for a special improvement, because huts tend to give trash income and don't boost anything.

[Ragic]

So with regard to transferring provinces to an adjacent city, when/why would i want to do that? Do I want to have one mega city in the late game with max province bonuses? Or do I use the provinces from my first city to help build up the next one? Does that slow down it's expansion?

Awesome feedback btw, ty.

[Ragic]

Originally posted by KellyR:

I'll just toss in the obvious: If you have provinces you can only put Huts on normally? Prime place for a special improvement, because huts tend to give trash income and don't boost anything.

I thought that was the point of the terrain modifying spells. If you can go from hut to special, then whats the use of those spells?

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by KellyR:

I'll just toss in the obvious: If you have provinces you can only put Huts on normally? Prime place for a special improvement, because huts tend to give trash income and don't boost anything.

In late game that is fairly ~ mostly ~ irrelevant. The terraforming is a strong tool to change provinces significantly. A strong tool for good and bad.

[Antpile]

I like to build with a guild in mind. Farming guild makes the least sense because eventually more tiles doesn't lead to much benefit, just more unrest. There is no good use for extra food that I have found.

You can always use more gold or mana. Draft is super important in the late game. production can be converted to gold. Research is obvious. But food?

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Ragic:

You're answer to 4 surprised me the most (assuming you mean provinces and not hexes). Thanks for the quick reply.

https://i.ibb.co/5MXB5vh/screenshot-1683745044.png
Take note of the information at the bottom - in late game the projected income information will be more valuable for you to know