Critique My General Layout Idea Please!

[Twan]

Hey everyone

I typically set my limits to 99999999 for almost everything, build a bunch of magazines, and stockpile massive amounts of resources, not just food. I don't mind the magazines, I love to hoard things!

My starting area will eventually have a tight group of magazines built right next to each other with roads in between them in two columns (in my current city I have six just in this sector). Also I tend to put lots of my first manufacturing buildings here, like homewares, furniture, candles, building supplies, etc. I also have one of each butcher here.
The starting area I guess is the industrial sector.

After awhile, I setup one entire side of the map (very large, I'm using MM and CC) to be my rural area with one full-size pasture (30x30) for each type of animal, with two workers each. I Noah it's a lot of land. Also in the rural area will be 11x11 cropfields with one worker for every type of crop, besides a few multiples. My orchards are also all here, right next to each other, with one 7x17 dense orchard per type. I have roads surrounging each field hoping to allow easy travel. I build some houses on the outskirts every so often so people don't have to walk huge distances to go to work (sometimes I omit a few fields and build the houses there for better reach).

Then on the other side of the map (or the middle, depends), I set up my more urban area with fancier looking housing in blocks (Medieval Housing mod) and densely-packed markets, services, more butchers, etc.

I'm trying to build seven smaller pastures near my urban sector, one for each animal, so that the urban sector doesn't have to walk so far for food (I have a market, but I kind of want to be redundant). I put one of each butcher at the central market.

Also, for my markets, I have found that I don't even need a worker, and I can "shut them off", but they still seem to work fine. However, I found a few times they were being filled with random items besides food, so I used market stalls on the perimeter of the market specifically for food; fruit, protein, vegetables, and grains. I think it looks pretty good.

What do you think? Is it good? It's pretty spread out, but it seems to be working pretty well. I used to build only log cabins and the 3-story medieval houses, but after reading up on the houses, I am now only using stone houses along with the 3-story medieval houses. I think it looks ok.

I've seen some really nice looking, densely packed cities though, mine don't usually turn out that good :D

[Jambie Lionheart]

If they aint't porn magazines they fail and all of your male bannions will die of boredom.

[thrillogy]

You use the very large map? Does it ever crash after a certain point rendering the save corrupted? That is what was happening to me so I gave up on the very large map. Research told me it had to do with the amount of trees being too many or something like that.

It was a reported bug years ago. Has this issue been fixed? Or have you yet to reach the tipping point were it happens?

Anyone out there - has this issue of the very large maps crashing been fixed? Or do I need a really good setup to handle the very large maps? I really want to use them again. Thanks

[Red Earth]

I've never had an issue with large maps.

[thrillogy]

Originally posted by Red Earth:

I've never had an issue with large maps.

The Very Large map choice found in the CC or Mega mods? I would always get to a certain point on the very large map where the game would crash upon saving. I'd load the save again play some more and then try to save and... boom - the game crashes without saving. I gave up on the very large maps and settled on large with no issues.

[ebrumby]

Without seeing pictures, it's hard to see what you are doing and critique that. I prefer to spread items out in a more "organic" way so storage and homes are near places of work and within the circle of a market. I also want it to look good, leaving room for decorations. I might build a mining district such as a clothing district (which includes cotton and/or flax fields), a district for manufacturing building supplies and homewares, an area that produces luxuries that includes a winery, tavern, orchards, etc. I'll often add a few mods to build specialized areas - such as Red Ketchup's Hunting Camp or kid1293's Mission or Tequila mods. I use the Slightly Ridiculous Storage mod from BlackLiquidSoftware.com so I don't have huge stockpiles all over - I can build fewer and smaller barns and small stockpiles where they are most convenient. How it looks is important to me - I strive to make my towns look as good as Paeng's: http://blackliquidsoftware.com/index.php?/topic/1371-some-mod-impressions/

[Twan]

Originally posted by ebrumby:

Without seeing pictures, it's hard to see what you are doing and critique that. I prefer to spread items out in a more "organic" way so storage and homes are near places of work and within the circle of a market. I also want it to look good, leaving room for decorations. I might build a mining district such as a clothing district (which includes cotton and/or flax fields), a district for manufacturing building supplies and homewares, an area that produces luxuries that includes a winery, tavern, orchards, etc. I'll often add a few mods to build specialized areas - such as Red Ketchup's Hunting Camp or kid1293's Mission or Tequila mods. I use the Slightly Ridiculous Storage mod from BlackLiquidSoftware.com so I don't have huge stockpiles all over - I can build fewer and smaller barns and small stockpiles where they are most convenient. How it looks is important to me - I strive to make my towns look as good as Paeng's: http://blackliquidsoftware.com/index.php?/topic/1371-some-mod-impressions/

Good idea with specialized districts, that would allow them to be even more efficient. Right now I'm just expanding my urban area, I have a winery, distillery, tequila maker, gemcutter, etc. all mixed together, it feels wrong.

Also those pictures look great