Just to illustrate the uselessness of ranking points & GB's as a way to determine if someone is "good" at this game (obviously good in this game is subjective, more likely someone just has a different set of goals, so what may be bad for you could be a goal for them).
HMA player - 450,000 ranking points and a level 16 Arc. Looks like they might have an idea what they're doing based off those metrics. Ok, well lets take a look at their city.
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So much wasted space, but hey they've got an Inno to save space, but then they just waste it. Going with a not very good player rating on this one after looking at the city. Granted they could be in the middle of a rearrange, but there aren't any buildings being built so not likely.
That city illustrates the point I was trying to make oh so very well.
So the player's got an Arc and an Inno, two excellent GBs that will provide a lot of ranking points even with modest levels. But there's a lot of suboptimal choices made in the city's setup. First of all, the player kind of jumped the gun on the Inno, IMO. I would generally say that it's good to get an Inno early to eliminate the need for houses, but only
after ensuring that the city can meet the necessary coin income and happiness needs. This city does both poorly.
I'd say that an Inno requires a happiness GB first to balance out the population, but this city doesn't have one. It's got the happiness covered by Culture buildings, most of which are outdated: Theater, Ampitheater, Triumphal Arch, Inn, Market, Gallows and a Church. Almost all of them should have been discarded by now except for the Church, and maybe some Marketplaces if he can't afford more Churches yet. He probably has Churches available to him since he has a Knight Stable. The others should be dumped where possible. In any case, using Culture buildings to meet the needed happiness is using up space the Inno should be saving.
He needs to produce coins and he's got just 2 SoKs here. The SoAs are passable as space holders for now. There's a low level PoH and Canal Bridge, which probably are helping a bit, but they're both no higher than level 3, and are not meeting their full potential. I suppose that lone Brownstone House is probably helping to make up the slack, but doing an Inno right should make that house totally unnecessary. I certainly hope he isn't using the TF or Dock Market to make his coins. The Maypole is boosting coins a little, but he should have gone with a St. Mark's before putting that Inno in.
He has three goods producing buildings for HMA: Salt, Glass, and Bricks. Unless he's stupidly far ahead on the map, at least one of those buildings is making unboosted goods. I wouldn't be surprised if none are boosted either.
Some bad choices in military too. He's holding onto Archers and Mounted Archers when he has two Crossbowman barracks. Those Legionnaires are outdated by now. And he's wasting space and population on Horsemen when he has a far superior Knight Stable. Maybe he's in a GvG guild, but a player shouldn't be trying to make GvG troops without a Traz, and that doesn't explain the Horsemen.
His roads meander about and he doesn't make efficient use of his space.