Summary
Vassal cities areMillennia’sversion of a colony. Instead of funding a new city or a new region altogether, players send an envoy of colonists to establish a semi-independent territory. With time, this vassal city will get closer and closer to the main territories. Eventually, players will get the option of spending some government points to integrate the city into the nation and turn it into a proper region.
The objective of founding a vassal city is to gain a new region. It is generally the easiest way to expand one’s nation and the only way to choose where the next region will be placed. But how does one decide where to place a vassal city? It really depends on how a nation is positioned at a certain point in the game, as different locations can provide different bonuses to the region and the faction.
1Near The Sea
Fishing And Building Boats
InMillenniathe ocean can open up a lot of possibilitiesfor players willing to invest in it, especially those who focus on exploration and nautical dominance. Doing this means researching the right technologies and maybe taking on the correct national spirit, like Ancient Seafarer. But it also means placing one’s vassal cities near the sea, ideally where banks of fish can be seen next to shore, where docks and ships can eventually be built.
Being close to the sea allows players not only to build ships and explore large parts of the world but alsoopens up to fishing, which is a great early-game source of food. Thanks to the utility ship’s ability to collect resources, gathering fish doesn’t even require improvement points to build the fishing boat improvement. That said, fish isn’t as great in the late game since, unlike meat, it can’t be further refined with improvements.
2Near Rivers
Boosts The Output Of Plantations And Farms
Rivers aren’t a good in the proper sense of the term. Goods, inMillennia, are elements visible on the world map that can be harvested by building the appropriate improvement on that tile. Packs of animals to hunt, plants to farm, minerals to extract, and so on. Rivers don’t occupy space on the tiles. Instead, they flow in the sides between those tiles. But every hexagon that touches a river gets a bonus that can be better than any good.
Farms and plantationsare significantly more useful when placed next to a river, especially early on. Both of those buildings allow to collect the goods on the tile they are placed on, as long as those goods are some form of farm goods. Plantations also produce two foods per worker. But if any of those buildings are constructed next to a river, they immediately produce one more piece of food per worker placed there.
3Next To The Mountains
Opens Up The Way For Mining
Mountains inMillenniamight not initially look very inviting. After all, they slow down travel and don’t allow players to build most kinds of improvements. They do naturally produce production points, which can be quite useful to grow a colony, but that’s hardly as good as a healthier food production line. But at around the second age, mountains reveal a new face.
The mining technology, unlocked in the Age of Bronze, finally allows players tobuild quarries and mines, which can extract materials from some hills and mountains. It also allows players to build stonecutters, which turn marble and limestone into the extremely productive stone blocks. Cities can easily fall into the trap of not investing in productivity, which slows their growth to a crawl. Mountains can be a one-stop solution to the problem.
4Surrounded By Grassland
The Most Useful Tile In The Game
Grassland is perhaps the most adaptable tile in the whole game ofMillennia. Every improvement requiresa certain kind of biome to build on. Many improvements can be built on any standard plain terrain, from grassland to the desert and the tundra. Some rare buildings require one of the less hospitable tiles, but so many more require to be built on grassland.
Pretty much every farm and plantation improvement requires to be built on grassland. That makes sense because the goods found on the map tiles that farms and plantations extract are only found on this type of tile. But clay pits and clay mines, which form the core of early-game harnessing of Production and Improvement Points, require grassland, making this tile necessary for improving small towns.
5Near Necessary Goods
Fixing Holes In The Nation’s Economy
The game map ofMillenniaisfull of harvestable goods like plants or roaming animals. Once gathered, those goods can be either transformed into other, better goods or consumed to receive resources, either regional (food, production, and so on) or global (improvement points, domain points, wealth). But actually harvesting those materials is easier said than done.
Gathering goods requires two things. For one, it requires building the correct improvement on the appropriate tile. Gathering wheat means building a plantation or a farm on the tile containing that good. However, to build those improvements and gather those materials, players need to take that tile under their control. The easiest way to do this is to build a vassal city next to those goods and then turn it into a proper region.
