Towns

The town is the top left building slot in every settlement, be it capital or minor settlement (for illustration see Example of Optimising Province Income page). There are different types of town, as detailed in their description. Market towns are the default town, providing general wealth from subsistence, while specialised towns have a particular commodity or industry shown on their icon.

A big decision in gaining more wealth is deciding how far to upgrade these town buildings. For example, it can seem like a pain to upgrade a market town beyond level II, the maximum level where there are no food or order penalties. The order penalty for a level III town is 4 and that for a level IV town is 10. For a non-food producing level III province capital the food penalty is 8, for a level III market town 4, for a level IV province capital 12 and for a level IV market town 8.

In return, the benefit of upgrading a market town is a modestly improved subsistence income and a rather nebulous wealth multiplier (% bonus) to wealth from all sources. However, this multiplier can in fact more than make up for the increased demand for order in the province and the increased faction-wide demand for food if the province base income is quite high (see example below).

Market towns have the flexibility of bearing a multiplier for all types of wealth in that province. Specialised towns provide bonuses for certain types of wealth only, but have additional bonuses, e.g. grain towns provide a food bonus rather than a penalty but less of a wealth bonus, while other towns provide trade export materials. Check carefully what you want and need and what type of town you are considering upgrading.

Interesting non-wealth bonuses of specific specialised towns upgraded to level IV include:

  • Fish                 3 extra fleet recruitment slots, 8 food instead of -8 food
  • Leather            3 extra experience for spies (there is an animal skin ranger vibe, I think)
  • Iron                 -8% land unit recruitment cost
  • Glass               +16% research rate
  • Olive Oil         5 food instead of -8 food
  • Lead                -4% auxiliary costs
  • Wine                +8 public order instead of -10
  • Gold                0 public order instead of -10
  • Dye                 0 public order instead of -10

Clearly these settlements might have certain advantages if you intend to give a province a specialised purpose such as military recruitment.