I Am the Lord of Ultima (well, not yet) Part 19
- by Goemon

A really long time ago, I complained that building layout should have more of an impact in this game. Being devout followers of both this blog and this series, EA finally decided to listen to me. You now get a bigger increase in resource production by building next to natural resources rather than destroying them and just building cottages. Of course, you won’t find my name being thanked in the update notes. Classic corporate move if you ask me. Ahem. Here is the subtle difference between the new and old buildings (Left is new, right is old. Hopefully you knew that).

Basically, now you get a 50% bonus for connecting rocks, 40% for nearby (i.e. diagonal ones) as opposed to a 25% previously. That’s quite the boost. I like it. Of course, now that I find out it’s beneficial to build next to natural resources, look at the layout of my new city.

It’s like some kind of post apocalyptic vision of what a city should be. There are no trees, no water, nothing natural. It’s all smoke, cottages, factories, and they couldn’t be packed closer together. In a way it’s perfect…Too Perfect. Ever seen that movie Soylent Green? No? Didn’t think so. Spoiler alert: Charlton Heston finds out he was on Earth all along. But seriously, this city is like that.

It’s my first expansion on the new server though, and I’m not about to go demolishing everything and starting over. I’m going to make this utopia work. Now I’m being plundered by two different top 10 alliances, the oh-so-creatively-named “the_elite,” (they might have well just called themselves The Lords or something) who are currently ranked #2, and “ghosts” who are #10. I took over this town so naturally I was expecting it to get plundered, but I didn’t know it was going to happen so quickly.

Unfortunately the fact that I didn’t start this city from scratch has left me in a bit of a tough spot. The building limit is definitely maxed out- beyond maxed out actually. There are too many buildings for the current town hall level. This is only possible because while it was deserted, all of the buildings degraded. I did not realize this at the time…I guess that’s why they have scouts, right? Well, too late now.

Anyways, I need to build some defense, or at least some hideouts, but in order to have more buildings, I need to upgrade my town hall, but in order to upgrade my town hall, I need resources, but in order to keep getting resources, I need to stop getting plundered, but in order to stop getting plundered, I need to build hideouts and defense, but in order to have more buildin- alright, I’ll shut up now. My head hurts.