Absorbing and exploiting empty space

[borislav]

I could not find any good tip on how to best expand into "empty space" - territories conquered from non aligned where there are no cities.
I'm in the game where my east border is facing huge area controlled by non aligned tribes. I can push them this is no issue and I can build roads with track stations or supply depo to get going but how to use this new land when there are no cities.
I tried to build few on my own but they are growing too slow. Sure at some point they will be doing fine like some that are created early in the campaign. If you try to use existing cities they will have lot of admin. strain due to long distances to mines or other assets.

Does anyone have good strategy on this topic?

[Xxzard]

It sounds like you know the basics already... there's not much more beyond what you've already said.

You build a new city, usually starting from a transport hub, and add on from there. To exploit distant resources and ruins it's pretty much the only way - there is no overcoming admin strain beyond a point.

To grow a city, you have the following options:

1) colonists: you can use zone orders to pay population to become colonists, who can be sent to another city as long as logistics points are available.

2) salary: you can increase worker salary to a high level to encourage migration to fill jobs (also useful to get key jobs filled in cities you just conquered)

3) QoL: you can increase QoL to make the population happier and provide private sector jobs that also attract population

4) Public funding: a high level of public funding can help subsidize private asset/QoL growth and helps the zone pay free folks to move in faster

5) Stratagems: there are a couple stratagems to attract free folks, build private assets, give money, and rarely you have Boom Town FP stratagem.

Generally speaking from my experience, these small outlying cities take quite a while to grow, and unless there is a compelling reason I don't often grow them beyond size 1 or maybe 2. Population is a limiting resource throughout the game.

[Thrake]

I overcome it through the use of colonists and bitting the bullet and building public qol. A level 2 city is easy enough, level 1 qol of everything and sufficient workers will do it quickly, a full fledged city from scratch will take some more time but also doable.

I don't like increasing salaries if it's intended to stay small as high private salary will attract populace while colonists allow to keep a mostly private workforce for maximal efficiency. Besides in a new city there's really little available private jobs.

[borislav]

Getting qol 1 assets it tricky as you need workers for this and until they are in motion your colonist consistently leave city, so it is significant investment.

Anyway, thanks guys, at least now I'm assured there is no magic solution for this problem.

[Thrake]

The first building you can build before actually founding the city can be a qol asset.

[borislav]

Transport hub and airport?
I didn't know they count as QoL.
But until it become city you could not build anything from governments tab.

[Thrake]

Sorry for thinking you were looking for advice.

[Xxzard]

The first building you can build before actually founding the city can be a qol asset.

I don't understand what you mean either, Thrake. QoL assets are city only afaik. Transport hub and airport do not count for any QoL as far as I'm aware.

With this thread in mind I've experimented with building these outlying new cities in my current game. I've unexpectedly had big waves of migration to the fledgling cities - in one case 8k migrants 2-3 turns after founding - despite the new cities having few available jobs and low QoL (although they do have a higher public worker salary). Earlier in my game I found an automated cloning facility, so population in the core cities is quite high. It appears that in this case at least, migration to the outlying cities is pretty strong.

[Thrake]

The first building you can build before actually founding the city can be a qol asset.

I don't understand what you mean either, Thrake. QoL assets are city only afaik. Transport hub and airport do not count for any QoL as far as I'm aware.

With this thread in mind I've experimented with building these outlying new cities in my current game. I've unexpectedly had big waves of migration to the fledgling cities - in one case 8k migrants 2-3 turns after founding - despite the new cities having few available jobs and low QoL (although they do have a higher public worker salary). Earlier in my game I found an automated cloning facility, so population in the core cities is quite high. It appears that in this case at least, migration to the outlying cities is pretty strong.

new zone.png (2.14 MiB) Viewed 1853 times

A major factor in population migration seem to be private salary.

[Xxzard]

Ah, illuminating. Thank you.

[borislav]

Thanks Thrake, I didn't know about this trick!
Does anyone have idea which one is the best to start with since you can build only one?

[Thrake]

Barracks help with unrest, that's the best option to deal with troublesome cities. University provides the best national bonus.