Town status/upgrade

[rob582]

Hi,

Could someone please explain to me how to achieve Town status and also which scenario I need to be playing? I've recently started and was getting my butt kicked all over by the AI bot's but now i managed to win a game and even though my settlement was growing quite large I did not see any option to upgrade to a town or extend my borders.

Many thanks in advance to what probably is a stupid question.

[quantumstate]

There is a button when you select the civil center which has II written on it.

[rob582]

Thanks for the help.

[umunas]

Hi,

Got similar question. How to advance to the City phase. It writes that I need 4 Town Phase structures, but I built all I could. Also it is hard to understand which are the Town Phase structures.

Thanks.

[quantumstate]

It says to build 4 town structures, not 4 different types of town structure . Town phase structures are the structures which are enabled in town phase (except for civil centres). It seems to be very difficult to find succinct wording for the tooltip which conveys this information.

[Mythos_Ruler]

It says to build 4 town structures, not 4 different types of town structure . Town phase structures are the structures which are enabled in town phase (except for civil centres). It seems to be very difficult to find succinct wording for the tooltip which conveys this information.

Indeed. Perhaps we can say in the structure's tooltip what phase structure it is.

[rmhibbs]

It says to build 4 town structures, not 4 different types of town structure . Town phase structures are the structures which are enabled in town phase (except for civil centres). It seems to be very difficult to find succinct wording for the tooltip which conveys this information.

I find that building Defense Towers is a quick and cheap way to get the 4 Town buildings. The towers are often needed anyway. Also, a temple is a simple and useful building.

[dvangennip]

I've seen this question more often, so perhaps it is not clear enough, which got me thinking. Would it be possible to list the village structures on the top row, town structures on the middle row, and city structures on the bottom row of the screen area that lists the options for a unit? I am not sure of the technical complications, but anyway, here's a Photoshopped impression:

This way, it would clear to anyone which structure belongs to which phase. Combined with the tooltip it should be easier to see how one can be eligible for the phase upgrade, provided one finds that II or III button first. Maybe the system could send a message (similar to a chat message) as soon as the conditions are good for an upgrade? The text could say something like "You are ready to upgrade to Town phase. Go to a Civil Centre and choose the upgrade phase button."

[wraitii]

Unless there is a specific civ for which this would mean an overflow, I support the idea.

[Lion.Kanzen]

I've seen this question more often, so perhaps it is not clear enough, which got me thinking. Would it be possible to list the village structures on the top row, town structures on the middle row, and city structures on the bottom row of the screen area that lists the options for a unit? I am not sure of the technical complications, but anyway, here's a Photoshopped impression:

This way, it would clear to anyone which structure belongs to which phase. Combined with the tooltip it should be easier to see how one can be eligible for the phase upgrade, provided one finds that II or III button first. Maybe the system could send a message (similar to a chat message) as soon as the conditions are good for an upgrade? The text could say something like "You are ready to upgrade to Town phase. Go to a Civil Centre and choose the upgrade phase button."

try to do this with Carthaginian faction. they have many Buildings Edited January 29, 2013 by Lion.Kanzen

[dvangennip]

try to do this with Carthaginian faction. they have many Buildings

That is indeed a problem, see the screenshot below:

(yellow tint: Village phase, blue tint: Town phase, red tint: City phase)

The Carthaginians have many structures, most of them become available at the Town phase. So my idea to put each phase on a different row would not fit here. I'll give it some thought, maybe there is another way to do it.

[sanderd17]

For half-experienced players (those that know the village-town-city principle, but don't know all civilisation's buildings), you could work with colours. Especially giving it a coloured border.

This could also be applied to buildings which can produce units (like in some scenarios, you start with a fortress, but that fortress can't produce heroes until you're in city phase).

Maybe, to make it not too busy (as you already have the player colour, and all kinds of coloured bars), the border could have 3 grey shades.

For non-experienced players, the explanation in the tooltip is still necessary.

[feneur]

Or we could just add a small I or II or III to the corner of the icons or something?

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

Perhaps Carthage would not suddenly have access to all embassies at one phase. Instead when the player begins, he or she chooses to have one available at the village phase, selects another upon opting to research town phase, and unlocks the last automatically. That could give them a bit of a Age of Mythology/Age of Empires III feel and would give it more symmetry.

[ribez]

Or we could just add a small I or II or III to the corner of the icons or something?

+1

[kosmo]

I'm not sure about that, it's something people need to know once only, why not cover smth. like that in a tutorial?

[Mythos_Ruler]

Or we could just add a small I or II or III to the corner of the icons or something?

Yep, this is what I'd prefer. Small I, II, and III icons overlayed on the corner of the building portrait.

Ideally, these number icons would be applied dynamically, by the phase techs. The icons can then be applied to tech portraits as well.

[MishFTW]

Here is a link to the game manual for future reference.

Or we could just add a small I or II or III to the corner of the icons or something?

Unobtrusive yet informative. +1

[Pureon]

Unobtrusive yet informative. +1

I actually find that quite an obtrusive option and think it's going overboard. I agree with Kosmo on this one.

[zoot]

I actually find that quite an obtrusive option and think it's going overboard. I agree with Kosmo on this one.

Me too. I think a grid of nearly identical numerals would look redundant/annoying.

[MishFTW]

I was under the assumption that this would appear on hover. If it is available in the normal state, then of course it is redundant.

[Mythos_Ruler]

The numbers would look something like this and would not be obtrusive:

[wraitii]

I find it fairly intrusive too. Perhaps a simpler solution would be to sort the icons by phase, and then only show a number for the first building in each phase/mark the separation with a line or something.

I believe this info should be available without going in a tutorial since with many civs, this gets tedious.

[Mythos_Ruler]

I find it fairly intrusive too.

It perplexes me that you guys find this "intrusive." They are icons after all, meant to convey information at a quick glance. I'll leave it to you guys to decide on the solution then.

[wraitii]

Intrusive might not be the right word. What I mean is that adding a phase indicator to every icon kind of clutters the GUI, making it not necessarily harder to read but at the very least feel less clean. If it can be avoided, I'd like it as much.

My opinion is that a single mark per phase, in the top left of the icon of the first building in that phase, is both informative enough and not too clutter-y. This however requires sorting the icons per phase, I dunno if they already are.