New Towns and Settlements

For the first time ever, I find myself in various games looking to establish new towns and also create new settlements. A couple of quick queries for the hive mind.

1) New towns. I know the rules are a new town needs 10,500 settlers, costs £400,000 and takes two years. Can you, at the same time as establishing a new town, construct sewers and fortifications there? Or do you need to wait until the two years is up before adding anything?

2) Settlers. Looking at the various rules and supplement entries on settlers, it feels like they refer to people moving into larger geographical areas rather than a condensed area, so (for example) they settle across Island X or Territory Y. Is it possible to have settlers establish a nucleated settlement that is smaller than a town at a certain specific site? For example, on Island X you know there is a place that would be a natural harbour, could you order 1,000 settlers to establish a settlement there rather than generally on the island?

Jason2 wrote:For the first time ever, I find myself in various games looking to establish new towns and also create new settlements. A couple of quick queries for the hive mind.

1) New towns. I know the rules are a new town needs 10,500 settlers, costs £400,000 and takes two years. Can you, at the same time as establishing a new town, construct sewers and fortifications there? Or do you need to wait until the two years is up before adding anything?

2) Settlers. Looking at the various rules and supplement entries on settlers, it feels like they refer to people moving into larger geographical areas rather than a condensed area, so (for example) they settle across Island X or Territory Y. Is it possible to have settlers establish a nucleated settlement that is smaller than a town at a certain specific site? For example, on Island X you know there is a place that would be a natural harbour, could you order 1,000 settlers to establish a settlement there rather than generally on the island?

Not sure about the 10,500 settlers. I thought it was 10,000 civilians (i.e. not recruits). Otherwise yes, I have/do build buildings at the same time as a town is being built. Whether the buildings (if trade related) actually have the same impact in month 1 that they do in month 23 is not something I thought about. Probably they do because as a town is under construction it will simply need different materials to a town which is complete.

I think you can order your town built at any spot you identify (I think the rules give the example of New Orleans - not actually founded in 1700, but if the player wants to then they just specify the site). It is a while since I have done it so the rules might have been enhanced/changed, but if it is a particularly remote or hostile area the chances of a successful foundation might be reduced (natural disasters/disease?), so it might be worth sending at least a token military force which you have to keep in supply whilst the initial phase of construction is completed.

Building up colonies is one of the aspects of the game I really enjoy.

I have now established numerous new towns across Continental North America, using the river system to help link them up.

While this may seem like a lengthy process I take an initial two step process. 1) I look to establish 10k-15k settlers in the district that I am planning to build a town. This takes one year. These are set up to produce farms, logging etc. To provide basic raw materials and food for the town. Once they are established it is then 2) use 10k settlers to construct a new town (takes two years).

If I am concerned about the local area the town is built with fortifications. I have found it very hard to have anything other than basic construction in an area where you have no settlement (makes sense I guess) so in a lot of cases if the location is remote to you main position you should look to establish settlers in the region first.

Building a granary and having grain on site is helpful too. Some sites (not all) seem prone to quickly rising SL ratings. Im still trying to deal with this. I would suggest a hospital, and possibly a mobile medical unit if you can manage it too.

After the three years, its a lot easier for the new town, potentially around 25k people to flourish and then build up as you would any other town in your home nation.

Hope that helps a little

Thanks for the comments and advice Will be useful in more than one game

I find sending at least enough grain to keep town going to next harvest helps and would also recommend sending 1000 trained farmers with extra seed grain, tools, horses etc as part of the settlement is also a boon in many locations like the America's.

Think it also helps to specify what your town is for ie market town, trade or industry and some rough idea of how it earns its income and how its feed.

Thus many now important cities in India and the Far East like Hong Kong, Madras, Calcutta etc started out as no more than a Trade Post and perhaps a village and developed on trade. In populated farming area's food is not really a problems but if you are going to drop 10,000 in the middle of Siberia and basically say "get on with it" it is likely to be more of a problem even if they have a local gold mine.

Thanks Stuart, useful advice