First, and foremost, check out the forums!!! There's so much here that will help you with everything to do with the game, and it may seem obvious, but so many people just start playing, and don't check the forums first. It can help you with so many good ideas, even if you've been playing for a while.
Okay, here's one way to increase production efficiency. (Everybody has a different way to design their realm, so ask around, you'll get great ideas!)
I started out kind of random, and I'm having to fix that now. (Wish I'd known more when I started, but hey, we're all learning!)
Look at your sectors, and figure out what you want to produce in each one. (When you back all the way out and look at the whole map, the sectors are laid out like the 10 key pad to the right on your keyboard:
7 8 9
4 5 6
1 2 3
Sector 1 is where you start initially.
It's really best to try to keep all of one kind of production together. That way it's easier to see everything you have of that type of production, and fix any problems. Buffing is easier, as well. Some things you have to spread out a little (like marble) because the resource deposits themselves are spread out, but for the most part, you can keep things together. (Not at first, though. If you're just starting, don't worry about this too much, since you don't have a lot of choice, you have to place all the different kind of production buildings in the starting sector.
Next, place your storehouse in the middle of your production buildings.
Think of it as an oversized tic-tac-toe box. :)
Center square is the storehouse
The boxes all around it are your production buildings.
So, if "S" = Storehouse, and P = Production, you would have something that looks like this:
P P P P P
P P P P P
P P"S"P P
P P P P P
P P P P P
This is where roads come in handy. Imagine the space in between the P's and "S" as roads, both horizontal and vertical. If you map your area out with roads in advance creating a grid, you can just drop your buildings in one at a time, in perfect formation.
But of course, there's the trees that your cutters and foresters are all so busily working to keep chopped, planted, chopped, planted...... you get the idea. They do tend to get in the way, and chopping them down doesn't help, because they just grow back. So, the reality is, you can't always have a perfect square of production. Just do the best you can with what you have to work with, and knowing that a square tends to be better, you can scout your locations, and make your best call on where to place your storehouse.
Your Mayor's house is a storehouse, and the best place to start. A lot of people have surrounded their mayor's house with their most important production buildings that don't require resource deposits.
With that in mind, this is very important to remember: If your building gathers resources from a specific location, like your masons, they need to be placed close to BOTH the resource and a storehouse. Place your production building in between, anywhere in the direct line from the resource to the storehouse is best. Keep in mind that the travel time TO and FROM both the resource and the storehouse are factored into the production time, so the further away your production building is from either one of those, the longer it takes to produce, and the less you'll get on an hourly basis from that building.
Take, for instance your cutters. They need to be close to the trees they are gathering AND the storehouse.
I've seen so many people's realms with all the trees cut down. All this means is that they are increasing the distance their cutters have to walk to get to a tree. The production time is increasingly longer and longer. Pretty soon their production of other resources dependent on wood logs suffers, because their cutters are getting slower and slower at producing those logs.
So, it's very important to have foresters close to your cutters so they can replant those trees, and keep the cutters close to home. The correct ratio of cutters to foresters is 3 foresters for every 2 cutters. That means, if you build 2 cutters, you should put 3 foresters very close to them. Ideally, you will eventually upgrade your buildings, and you can have 1 level 2 cutter, and 1 level 3 forester, reducing your building license usage. Once you upgrade to level 3 cutters, you'll want 3 level 3 foresters for every 2 level 3 cutters that you have. Less than that, and you'll cut down all your trees faster than you can replace them, and more than that is a waste.
But one of the really important thing that a lot of people miss is that you have to have this ratio of cutters and foresters clustered together. You can't just count on foresters in sector 1 to replenish trees in sector 2 or sector 4. They have to be close to the trees they are replanting, just like the cutters need to be. They are travelling from their production building to the tree they are planting, just like the cutters are. So, cutters and foresters need to be in the correct ratio, close to the groups of trees that they are cutting and planting.
Pay attention to the difference between Fir and Hardwood resource locations. When you go into the building menu and select a cutter to build, all the tree locations light up on your screen with little circles showing you where your cutter can actually gather that type of wood. Ideally you would pick an area that's got a lot of those little "nodes" and put all your cutters and foresters there. Once again, make sure you group the buildings around or at least close to a storehouse.
It winds up being worth it to have some extra storehouses if you can. The loss of the building license is made up for by the gain in resources per hour. (Yes, I know.... building licenses. It's a neverending battle for more licenses!) And here's something to consider if you decide to move a storehouse from one location to another.... if you only have one storehouse in a sector, and you destroy it, ALL YOUR OTHER BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. So make sure you build that storehouse in it's new location before you destroy the old one. Could be devastating!
Residences, the tavern, the provision house, the Branch Office and your barracks are all buildings that don't gather any resources, just produce troops, buffs, etc., so they should be placed away from storehouses and resource locations, NOT next to your mayor's house or storehouses. That would be a waste of very valuable space, and could be expensive to correct later, (if you place all your noble residences close to your mayor's house, like I did!)
Farms and wheat fields are dependent on each other, so need to be placed next to each other, but the wheat field doesn't need to be close to the storehouse, so an ideal farm area would look like this:
W = Wheat
F = Farm
"S" = Storehouse
WWWWW
W F F F W
W F"S"FW
W F F F W
WWWWW
This layout has more wheat fields than farms, but protects you should one wheat field dry up while you're not looking. Farmers will collect from any nearby wheat field, and you can put 3 farmers on one field if you wanted, but this drains the field 3 times faster, so more fields is really better, since they take no licenses and use no peasants. Only the farms do.
Mills and bakers both gather their resources only from the storehouses, so as long as they are next to or very close to a storehouse, they don't really need to be by a farm at all. (I have them by farms, however, because even knowing this, I had to! But I made sure they were adjacent to the storehouse as well.) This is also true of Smelters, Coking Plants, Toolmakers, Bow Makers, Weaponsmiths... you get the idea. Anything that uses resources that are stored in the storehouse, and not gathered from mines, deposits, etc.
The whole idea behind this game is production balance. You have to keep in mind that almost EVERY production building you add will have a "trickle down" effect. In other words, when you reach a level that allows you to add a new type of production, say iron mines, iron smelter and iron swords, and you decide to build those production buildings, you are going to increase your need for fir logs and coal.
So say you decide to build these iron producers. when you add 1 or 2 iron mines, that will have no effect, because they are self-supporting, they only need the ore itself to keep busy. But when you add the smelter, now you've increased your need for coal, because it takes both iron ore AND coal to make a bar of iron.
So, now you need more coal, and will probably need to either add or uprade a coking plant.
But that means you are going to need more fir logs.
So, now you need more fir cutters.
Which means you need more foresters.
Okay, you've fixed all that. Now add your Iron Weaponsmith. This will use your Iron bars that your Iron smelter is making, and.... Oh. It takes more coal.
(sigh)
There is an excellent tool that really helps balance things out. It's the "Economy Calculator"
The web address is:
http://ceo-economy.appspot.com/
As you build your realm, plug in all your buildings, and it will tell you if you are balanced. You need to plug in not only the number and level of your buildings, but the TOTAL production times as well. (*This is very important to get an accurate picture of your production, since the calculator only factors in the initial production time, not travel time, so it may say you have enough fir cutters, but in reality, you're still losing fir logs because of the travel time that's not factored in.) I try to experiment a little BEFORE I add a production building, to see what effect it will have on me, then I can decide whether I'm prepared to do it, or need to wait until I have the resources to add all the other buildings I may need to support that one building that I wanted to add. I have to say that the satisfaction of seeing the Economy Calculator balanced, showing nothing in negative numbers, but only plusses to production is rare but most satisfying. Mark it on your calendar. (This is a lot of work, so may not be worth if for everyone. If you don't want to do this, just keep an eye on your storehouse, and your trees. If the storehouse numbers keep going up, and you have a ratio of 3 foresters to 2 cutters, and your trees never get chopped down, you're okay!)
Another very helpful post right here in the CEO forum is:
http://forum.castleempireonline.com/...Chains-(Ratios)
This gives you production ratios that will help you determine how many of each building you'll need for a production chain.
You can really get as deep into production as you like. If you like to keep it simpler, trial and error works too!
There is no wrong way to play this game, so just have fun. These guildelines can help make production a little smoother, and less frustrating, if you want to take the time to work on balance.
I am always available for any questions, and I NEVER judge. I've learned everything the long, hard way, so if you make a mistake, I guarantee it's one I made myself. Just whisper me, or send an e-mail!
Good Luck!
Ygrane
P.S. Comments and suggestions are most welcome. If you have an idea to add to this post, please don't be shy!
