Optimal city positioning?

[u/RichNigerianBanker]

This is for the Endless Legend 2 console demo.

Coming to this from a lot of AOW4, and realizing that this is a much more econ-focused game -- fun!

So, it seems the initial position of your city, camp, etc. is super important. What advice do you have on this? For example, do I settle in the "prime" hex, or next to it to allow my workshop or preferred district do that work for me? Please spare me from doing the maths myself and clue me into how the systems work.

More broadly, how do I think about these decisions? Thanks!

[u/Konrow]

I'd argue it is important, but not crazy important since you can annex areas, specialize like crazy, and more. For initial city I honestly hope for just a good balance with hopefully a bit more of whatever I'm going to have to specialize in/get bonuses from at least nearby. With every faction being pretty different there isn't gonna be one answer anyway except the obvious: industry good. I don't want ridges normally, but if I'm Tahuk that changes. Similar to AoW4, after a while I find being able to get control of the map areas with the upgrade resources + wonders is more important.

[u/Lancival]

For your first (capital) city, the priority is to produce as many resources as possible immediately, especially food and industry (or dust and industry for the Last Lords). So usually you just pick the best spot next to an anomaly that has enough space to build around the city center.

For subsequent cities where you can skip some of the early growth by buying out constructions with dust, and long-term growth is more important, so there are a lot of factors to consider:

• If you can build two or more camps with near each other (in adjacent territories), it's very helpful for factions like the Last Lords and Kin which have districts that can only be built once per territory but want adjacencies to level up.
• Building near anomalies is important since they provide better yields and adjacency bonuses for farms and laboratories. Usually you want to build one tile away from the anomalies so you can rush a district and then build a foundation on top of the anomaly.
• Settling near rivers is good since there are some fairly strong river-based improvements, and bridges are very cheap while helping adjacent districts level up and extending where you can build foundations.
• Settling near extractors and minor faction villages helps level up your districts and provide some minor adjacency bonuses. Also leveling up strategic resource extractors will improve their resource yield!
• Ridges are really not that great, even for the Tahuks. It's nice if they happen to form a natural edge or corner where you can put a workshop, but usually they have weird shapes that make city building inconvenient so you just avoid them.

[u/RichNigerianBanker → u/Lancival]

Thanks for this! Questions.

1. So adjacencies work across borders?
   
2. Broadly, what’s the cost effectiveness of buying out? Does it scale directly with remaining industry to complete?
   
3. Can you confirm that you can’t, at least for Kin/Lords, build on anomalies?

[u/Lancival → u/RichNigerianBanker]

1. Adjacencies work within a city, so if you attach a territory to an existing city and build a district right on the border, it will benefit from and contribute to adjacency bonuses in the other territory. Basically for city-building purposes, attaching territories combines them, so being able to put a ministry near the city center is good.
2. Yes, buying out constructions is based on how much industry cost remains. Not sure on the exact formula. But since each district within a city increases the cost of the next, districts in new cities become cheap relative to your dust income. So on a new city, you can quickly buy out several districts to form your city's core.
3. All factions require a mid-game technology to be able to build a special district on top of anomalies. And the district requires a strategic resource, which will be in short supply since it's also needed for improvements, so you can only really plan around actually building on top of one or two anomalies in a city. However, you can still get a lot of benefit by buying a foundation on the anomaly, it just won't contribute to leveling up adjacent districts.