Well, the faster your sovereign can move, the faster you can win. I think im going to try to make a Sovereign with Max Speed (foot trotter/ globe trotter) just to kill everything as fast as possible.
That being said ... my "real" goal is to try to build optimized "perfect" cities ... or rather, 1 perfect cities and the rest of the cities will be support cities.
The best city, by definition, meaning to optimize science output, so that I can then slay the entire tech tree, and win the game in a way that I would prefer.
A few things I have noticed ... is after initial stages of the game don't build ANY money producing or wood producing or troop producing buildings, as it just detracts from the overall value of the city. There is simply not enough space to build anything other than Prestige, Housing, and Science in order to optimize a city. Building next to trees is sub-optimal, and building next to non-science unique features is sub-optimal (im not even sure if building near a Science unique feature is optimal or not).
So far, with my limited experience, it seems that Schools, Houses, and Town Halls are the only optimal buildings, and I have a theory that Estates will become more optimal than Town Halls (unless estates only give 1 prestige, yeck).
Slums would become "useful" if they used significantly less food than 4 houses. I understand the initial idea, that slums cost ALOT less gold ... however Space and Prestige are far less renewable than gold, so I think I'll pass until slums are at least as low as 12 food. I don't care how cheap or expansive slums are as long as the Food/Space ratio is more optimal than normal housing. Otherwise the -1 prestige simply isn't worth it for my giant Science city.
I would imagine (in a perfect world), a blend of Estates, Slums, and a few houses, with (at least) 4 schools and a couple enclaves, as my brilliant city of science. Of course, the common denominator is maximizing for space. And the ratio of Slums to Estates will be dependent upon Food availability, while keeping a reasonable amount of prestige. There will still be alot of houses, as the default for when Food/Prestige ratio is at equilibrium will be to merely build more houses.
Therefore, theoretically, if there is significantly excess prestige, and extra space for more building developments, however low on food, then we will buldoze some housing, build a slum or two, and have enough food for a few more houses. This, of course, would be IMPOSSIBLE with the current 15 food required for a slum. If slum was 12 food, or 10 food, then it would make more sense.
I propose for Slums to hold 200 people, cost 12 food, and have -1 prestige. OR Slums can hold 250 people, cost 16 food, and have -1 prestige. OR Slums can hold 300 people, cost 16 food, and have -2 prestige.
In otherwords, if a Slum is "in some way" worth an extra house, either by providing that amount of housing OR by requiring that less food, it is worth the -1 prestige. IF!!! however it provides anough housing for 2 houses, then -2 prestige is acceptable.
The "middleground" of costing 12 food and housing 250 people, still is worth 2 extra houses by costing food for 3 houses and providing the housing of 5 houses. That would be worth -2 prestige, because of the combination of extra Space and extra Food.
This is a perfect example (that I have provided) of food, prestige, and space working in equilibrium. In an Expanded addition, all 3 permutations of Slums would be available (theoretically) and it would depend on the relative available portions of Food, Prestige, and Space needed that would determine which of the three slums the player would build.
In the base Elemental, however, picking one of the 3 provided Slums options is sufficient, as well as the Dev team deciding a gold cost that fits into their "balance" calculator. Materials cost is completely outside of my current calculations ... as they are renewable resources and thus FAR less valued than Food, Space, and Prestige.
