When to build what building in each new city

[aflashman]

There are many types of building I can build in each new city. A
Early on: Granary, Lumber Mill, Smelter, Market, Temple, University
Later: Refinery

My question is this: With the building on my early on list, with each new city, should I build each of those building. For example does every town benefit from having a market and a temple? And should I build them right away if I have enough resources?

If I don't build them right away, I sometimes have trouble keeping track of what I have built where, and I end up wasting time visiting each city, trying to figure out what I still need to build.

Plus of course there is the Library and the Senate. TheSenate you only need one of. The Library, however,I think there might be some benefit in building two of so that you can research more than one thing at a time.

I would greatly appreciate any advice. Cheers.

[Ladez]

I haven't played this for years, but the following is my understanding. If someone more experienced sees any flaws here, please weigh in.

Universities are very important because they produce knowledge, so building those in every city and stuffing them full of scholars should be high on the priorities list. This will cost a lot of gold though, so it will be an ongoing process.

Markets are not required for caravans, but each one generates a base income of 10 gold per second, so its a good idea to build them quickly.

Temples can offer major defensive bonuses to a city, so they might be good to have in your border cities if dealing with an agressive enemy, but other than that they don't seem overly important. You should build one in your capital and research Taxation as quickly as possible though.

Granaries, Lumber Mills and Smelters give percentage based bonuses, so you need a sizable income of that resource in a city to notice their effects. These are best to build later on, when you have already established a powerful economy.

From what I can see, refineries are special in that their effects stack towards the total base production, so these should be built everywhere for most benefit.

About the library, I'm not sure. If you're a highly skilled player, it might be beneficial to research multiple techs at once, but personally I don't really have any use of it.

When I place buildings, I try to place them so I can quickly figure out what I'm still missing by looking down on it. I group the farms together, the production boosting buildings together, the military buildings together, and keep temples and markets close to the center.

[Leb]

I like to have 2 libraries, allowing for researching of 2 techs at once. Which is sometimes handy if you have the resources

[Jean Luke Folgers]

What Ladez said was spot on. If you build a granary in a city that has no farms, then the granary does nothing to help you. The Granary, Mill, and Smelter only apply to resouces collected within that city.

Example: If you have 2 wood collectors, then that's +20 wood rate (the city itself automatically provides 10 food and 10 wood, so don't let that throw you off). Now you add a lumber mill which say provides a 33% bonus on wood collecting. So now instead of gathering 20 wood, you're gathering 26. Then the city bonus of +10 makes it a total of +36.

These buildings don't need to be made any sooner than age III (maybe IV, I cant remember). They aren't much use until you can upgrade them.

Don't bother with a second library (unless you're greek) until age IV at the soonest. For my second city, I build a temple because it pushes the border out further, thus giving me more room for when I want to build my 3rd city and it could potentially deprive my opponent of resources.

[aflashman]

Thanks for the advice guys :)
Young J*zzy, I'll take that all onboard, I'll hold off wasting resources the bonus economic buildings unil age 3 or 4. That's exactly the sort of advice I was looking for. Cheers.

[Jean Luke Folgers]

Originally posted by afLaSHman:

Thanks for the advice guys :)
Young J*zzy, I'll take that all onboard, I'll hold off wasting resources the bonus economic buildings unil age 3 or 4. That's exactly the sort of advice I was looking for. Cheers.

You're welcome. And now I should mention that the above rules dont apply to oil refineries. Build one in every city. Their bonus is applied to all oil wells, no matter where they are.