[Guide] City Planning and Management Guide v3.0

[KingJMobile]

City Planning and Management Guide

Welcome! In this guide, I will share some tips to make your city more efficient and look neater. This will include my GB Corner Method placement for the Town Hall, and showing you the proper way to connect your buildings.

What makes a great road design? Is there a formula for the best placement?

There are 3 things you want to consider in making a great road design:

1. Road efficiency – using the least number of roads possible to maximize space.
2. Aesthetics – making your city look neat with certain buildings in specific places. E.g. having wildlife event buildings around in a cluster to give an impression of a wildlife-themed city, or placing Titan GBs the “proper” way.
3. Convenience — making your city easy to adjust when removing or adding buildings – includes extendable and retractable road parts.

Some players may prioritize one thing over another: such as aesthetics over road efficiency, for example, but with a good strategy in hand, none of these things are mutually exclusive.

Concerning a formula for the most road-efficient city, there are many ways you can achieve the most, and nearly the most road-efficient city possible. This is because the most road-efficient layout only depends on how the biggest buildings you have are connected (these should be hanging on 1 road), and how the smallest buildings are connected (placed in road intersections/corners). Everything else should be connected via their shorter side lengths as shown below.

Regarding convenience, some things make re-organization easier or more difficult:

Spoiler: Easier and Harder

Easier:

• Have a square/rectangular city – it easily adapts to all kinds of road structures. Expansions jutting out of a nice rectangular city are very hard to make use of with roads.
• Have a good number of similar-depth buildings – such as 3x3s, 2x3s and 3x2s. This helps with making long straights without much hassle.
• Have fewer buildings that need roads in a larger city space to work with – more space is always equal to more ways you can place the buildings, making it easier to re-organize.

Harder:

• Chain buildings – the longer your chain buildings, the fewer possible ways there are to fit them in your city. These should always go on the outer edges of your city for the convenience of organization.
• Set buildings – wherever possible, opt for set designs that are rectangular and extendable, such that they can be made most efficient (tiles used/total tiles) in your city. If you have a lot of Set buildings, aim to have a large, square area measured out for it, and have enough towers to fill the gaps if there are any.
• Great Buildings – GBs are usually the most uniquely sized and largest buildings in the game, and it can be difficult to properly place them in your city, especially in smaller ones. Fortunately, I have just the layout to resolve this issue using the Town Hall.

Road Efficiency Calculations

To calculate road efficiency, measure the (total shorter length of the buildings)/(2*roads used to connect them). This is because we use the expected (100%) straight placement as the 100% starting basis since most buildings will be connected this way.

There are three ways to optimally connect your buildings. If, for example, you make twists and turns in your city or leave gaps in the road structure, it will reduce your overall efficiency.

The straights: This is where 100% efficiency is achieved: by having your buildings connected by their short side sandwiching a neat stretch of road.

Road corners: In a road corner, there will always be a “corner building”. This building will have its adjacent sides touching the two roads that cross each other, resulting in decreased efficiency.

Road end: This is the space where a road ends, and there is an opportunity to connect a building to only one piece of road. These are the places where your efficiency can go beyond 100%, as fewer roads are being used. There are two types: the outer turn, and the complete end.

NB: the number of maximum number of road ends you can create is limited to how many road corners you have. Using the GB corner method effectively allows you to create more road ends than road corners, leading to better overall efficiency.

 

[KingJMobile]

The GB Corner Strategy for the Town Hall

If your city could be much more efficient, and you are looking to redesign it, I strongly recommend starting with the GB corner method shown below. There is another advanced method that I have discovered called the “Windmill Method”, which is the most efficient given the size and shape of the Town Hall, but is significantly harder to implement than the GB Corner Method.

Starting with the GB Corner method is advantageous for several reasons:

• It provides an efficient foundation in your city – even if the rest of your city is inefficient, the Town Hall and GBs beside it are one less thing to worry about every time you re-organize your city.
• It gets the most uniquely sized and massive GBs out of the way – this makes your city look better with the GBs at the rear view of your city.
• It also makes creating rows and columns from the Town Hall much easier, leading to an overall better efficiency in your city anyhow. (This is provided you know what you are doing of course).

How to implement it:​

First, get started by selecting 3 GBs in the top right corner of your city, all connected by 1 road as shown below. The best combination, I think, is the CdM, Himeji Castle, and Arctic Orangery on 1 Road as shown below.

Following that, you can introduce a second road running down the Town Hall – pro tip: make sure the building adjacent to the CdM and Town Hall is hung on 1 road for optimal efficiency. By already doing this you have made sure that the entire back row looks tidy with the buildings in place. Note that you can experiment with different setups to see what works best for you, and change the depth of the rear row to make your city more ergonomic with the buildings you have.

The next step is to ensure you mark out the “midfield” using roads. This will make creating columns and rows much easier.

Finding and Adjusting Lines​

To make an efficient city, considering the depth of rows and columns between two roads is very important. I often alternate between a depth of 6 and 8 tiles, so that this allows me to finish off with a road end consisting of buildings that are 4 tiles wide. As well as this, a width of 8 tiles in between roads is extremely versatile especially as most buildings are on average 4 tiles long. See the picture below to see how you can adapt to a column of 8 tiles.

The 2x2 gap as well can also be a spot to place buildings that don’t need roads, such as Cider Gardens.

 

[KingJMobile]

Miscellaneous – Does it need a road?

Be careful of disconnecting buildings from roads: a disconnected building will not produce anything and provide no boosts, except for the population housed/taken up in it. So any road-required building that is not connected is almost a complete waste of space.

Spoiler: Exceptions to this

• Set Cultural Buildings, such as the Wildflower Meadow, when disconnected from a road, will not provide its initial happiness. However, the adjacency bonuses, like the coin and attack boost, will still be provided, as long as it is adjacent.
• For chains that add boosts, the boost will still be added to the building, even if the main building is disconnected.

Spoiler: Two Lane Streets?

Two-lane streets are completely avoidable. The only buildings that require two-lane streets are normal buildings, which are easily replaced by special buildings that only need roads. As for military unit production, two-lane streets are avoidable because having an Alcatraz along with military buildings, whether unbuilt and/or disconnected, will still be produced accordingly from the Alcatraz. Most players will be able to have sustainable unit production from their Alcatraz alone and unless you are losing units unsustainably regularly, it is unnecessary to have two-lane streets in your city.

Much more recently, however, many buildings introduced in 2023 and 2024 do not need roads, and you may accidentally connect certain buildings, like the Winter Pyramid and Aegean Resort, resulting in excess roads and leading to reduced efficiency. You can double-check using the FoEhelper extension, by clicking the Town Overview icon. Then click highlight buildings that don't need roads to see if you have done this by mistake.

Miscellaneous – Aesthetics

Of course, we should never forget about aesthetics in your city. Making sure your city is neat is also very important, especially for accessibility and visual impacts in your city. So what makes a city look good?

• Similar-themed buildings are placed together: the overall picture of your city will look much better if you do this.
• Taller buildings at the back of your city: so that you can neatly view all your buildings and have as few blind spots in your city as possible – this shouldn't be an issue with the GB Corner strategy.
• Recursive patterns, such as buildings all placed in a straight line or a staircase (check out my Staircase Layout Guide for more info) appear neat and ordered, making it visually satisfying.

Some players think that making a road-efficient city will not look as good. However, this is rarely the case. Many disorganised cities will have roads and buildings placed in careless ways, and give a messy look. The reality is, however, that the better you organize your city, the better you will find patterns that look neat and aesthetically pleasing as you organize.

 

[KingJMobile]

Afterword by KingJ

City Planning is like getting organized. It is one of the things I enjoy most about this game, along with playing events and collecting buildings in my city.

One of the first breakthroughs I discovered when reorganizing my town was the GB Corner Method, which I think I discovered in the summer of 2021 as I tried to make my city more efficient. A while before that, I had already known that getting over 100% efficiency was down to hanging large buildings on 1 road, so the strategy itself was designed around that idea. Note that this was long before I made the strategy public in this guide on 12th May 2022.

In August 2023, I finally found the most efficient Town Hall placement, which I called the "Windmill Strategy". In February 2024, I also discovered a new strategy which I coined, the "Staircase Strategy". It is not in this guide, since it is more advanced and harder to implement, but it is in my other guide (see Further Works). These advancements have allowed me to find the most road-efficient city possible.

(PS: I've added bold words for emphasis)

Spoiler: Changelog (for my reference and fun)

v3.0 — (23rd March 2024) — Renovated the first two parts of the guide. Includes

• Replaced the entire first section of the guide with an intro with a "research question" and road efficiency calculations.
• Dedicated the second section entirely to the GB Corner Method and planning, and added more diagrams.
• Updated the Miscellaneous section to make it more relevant to 2024 standards.
• Rewrote the Afterword, and also made a new guide about advanced strategies outside this thread.

v2.1 — (23rd May 2023) — Made the guide more succinct and embedded efficiency calculations to make the guide more accurate. Also made the picture smaller and renamed my "laws/rules" to "strategies/tips" instead, and I want to add some pictures to illustrate my points clearer.
v2.0 — (20th August 2022) — Renovated the Road Efficiency section of the guide. Includes:

• Revised 6 Laws and 2 “Tips”
• Created a “Setting Out Plan — KingJ style” and scrapped the “Practice” section as this will be more useful.
• Changed the image of the model city to my own.
• Removed the Thinking Out Loud Section (as they have been tested and answered).

v1.1.2 (24th May 2022)— Introducing Guide Translations. Added a new Italian Translation of my guide. Credit to Harold Nat from the Italian Server.
v1.1.1 (17th May 2022)— Added a new "Thinking Out Loud" section to the guide to keep track of my thoughts.
v1.1.0 (14th May 2022)— Added a new section Miscellaneous + Sorted out an issue on me discouraging Set Buildings. Re-organized guide to fit in an extra section.
v1.0.1 (13th May 2022)— Made introduction more confident and added a Changelog.
v1.0.0 (12th May 2022)— Posted the Guide.

Further Works

Below are some further works relating to city management.

• Italian Translation: Credit to Harold Nat for providing a translation of my guide on the Italian FoE forum.
• Staircase Layout Guide: A guide about an advanced strategy related to city planning.

 

[UBERhelp1]

This is much better than anything I could have done! I think you hit it out of the park on this one

 

[KingJMobile]

Thanks for the response @UBERhelp1 . I’ve yet to add in some fonts and pretty decorations to it.

 

[PJS299]

This is great. It was very helpful. Unfortunately, I made some dumb mistakes and my city can only be placed with the straight line technique. Right now, since it is an event, I fill all empty spaces with blacksmiths so that I can fulfill quests easily. Attached is a picture of my city. If you ever want to, feel free to make a suggestion. And before you sa to get rid of the Road to Victory, those are my main source of goods.

Spoiler

 

[PJS299]

This is great. It was very helpful. Unfortunately, I made some dumb mistakes and my city can only be placed with the straight line technique. Right now, since it is an event, I fill all empty spaces with blacksmiths so that I can fulfill quests easily. Attached is a picture of my city. If you ever want to, feel free to make a suggestion. And before you sa to get rid of the Road to Victory, those are my main source of goods.

Spoiler

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I know I need to move some stuff around a little. Like the Stage of Ages.

 

[DevaCat]

This is great. It was very helpful. Unfortunately, I made some dumb mistakes and my city can only be placed with the straight line technique. Right now, since it is an event, I fill all empty spaces with blacksmiths so that I can fulfill quests easily. Attached is a picture of my city. If you ever want to, feel free to make a suggestion. And before you sa to get rid of the Road to Victory, those are my main source of goods.

Spoiler

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I wouldn’t say get rid of your rtvs, but the entire roadway along them is being wasted - place buildings that back up to them (rtvs don’t need the road) and place the roadway to the east of these buildings so that it can do double duty. The other glaring problem is that roads along the outer perimeter are inefficient as well.

 

[cathea]

Pardon but waht are rtvs? ty.

 

[UBERhelp1]

Pardon but waht are rtvs? ty.

Road to victory (RTV) made plural, so RTV's or RTVs, simplified to rtvs

 

[cathea]

Road to victory (RTV) made plural, so RTV's or RTVs, simplified to rtvs

thank you so much makes lots of sense now

 

[Snek]

The outer roads are good for people who have many expansions they haven't placed yet.

 

[DevaCat]

The outer roads are good for people who have many expansions they haven't placed yet.

I suppose that’s possible, although I don’t know anyone who doesn’t place expansions just as quickly as they get them. If you are talking about expansions that haven’t yet been earned or paid for (I.e. potential expansions), then having a perimeter road down is a bad idea. Such a perimeter road is still inefficient unless an expansion is going to be immediately placed beyond that road.

 

[KingJMobile]

This is great. It was very helpful. Unfortunately, I made some dumb mistakes and my city can only be placed with the straight line technique. Right now, since it is an event, I fill all empty spaces with blacksmiths so that I can fulfill quests easily. Attached is a picture of my city. If you ever want to, feel free to make a suggestion. And before you sa to get rid of the Road to Victory, those are my main source of goods.

Spoiler

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Since you have so many blacksmiths, it should be possible to create a 2x2 sequence for them, and then a 3x3 series to run alongside it, as that appears to be your most numerous building sizes. Then try and stick your Statues of Honours on the end (you might find it better to put all the RtVs on one of them. Follow the Town Hall technique and stick in your other GBs on road ends.

Sorry for the late response; I was going to bed when you sent it (in the UK lol). I know this is easier said than done but try your best.

 

[KingJMobile]

The outer roads are good for people who have many expansions they haven't placed yet.

Are you talking about my model city or PJ’s city?

 

[Duke of Iowa]

Great info. Good work. The layout in the map is a little confusing at first. Some of the buildings are not exactly like you would see the city. Have to rotate 90 degrees.

 

[KingJMobile]

Great info. Good work. The layout in the map is a little confusing at first. Some of the buildings are not exactly like you would see the city. Have to rotate 90 degrees.

Thanks for the appreciation.

Tell that to FoEhelper lol. The model city was from another player who I helped re-organize their city, and they are particularly supportive of their guild hence all the SoHs, but I chose it mainly because there was more of a building variety than my own city, so I could show you more.

 

[KingJMobile]

This is just a Forum Posting thing but is it possible to slot in extra threads between threads? I was considering adding some extra parts which were related to the road efficiency page, but I didn't want to make it too long and have a page break in between.

 

[PJS299]

Since you have so many blacksmiths, it should be possible to create a 2x2 sequence for them, and then a 3x3 series to run alongside it, as that appears to be your most numerous building sizes. Then try and stick your Statues of Honours on the end (you might find it better to put all the RtVs on one of them. Follow the Town Hall technique and stick in your other GBs on road ends.

Sorry for the late response; I was going to bed when you sent it (in the UK lol). I know this is easier said than done but try your best.

Ok thank you.
I usually get rid of all supply buildings at the end of the event. I will try to work in what you said with the SoH and rtv's and the gbs.