How to plan the city layout in Pathfinder: Kingmaker?

Overview

Welcome.If you ever wonder how to start planning the city in Pathfinder: Kingmaker game for the best kingdom stats then you come to right place.

The Idea

This is very simple matter to me: I always have a problem at the beginning of chapter 2 to decide what kind of buildings and structures should I choose to construct first?

You see, the problem is what thouse structures within every city/village are use for? Do they have some critical meaning for the future of my kingdome or is it just irrelevant?

Well, it depends… If you hurry just to finish the game without any far more map and world exploration or any kingdome leveling, then NO. But if you are like me, who want to find out about everything the game has to offer, then YES!

All the structures you can build inside the walls of the village or city HAVE their own bonuses to kindome overall stats. And this is the best way to proceed with them at the beggining in my own opinion ).

Q: “How the guide works?“
A: I simultaneously play the game for the first time and write this guide. It is first time when I make the guide in english language so… be understanding. I add new chapters, new layouts, new images and ideas along with game progression. Naturally then, chapters are made by claiming the regions order and by upgrading the settlements.

DISCLAIMER: This guide shows only the starting layouts of any village in chapter 2 and the LAWFUL ALIGNMENT. During the game progression you will need to consider change it completely in order to accomodate them to new challanges and other kingdome stats rank’s (more rare one’s like Culture or Espionage). The best moment for this is the end of chapter 3 or the start of chapter 4. With much BPs save already and cities upgrade, simply choose the city specialisation and decide adequate structures to build. If need to move any building just sold it and order to build in new slot in -50% cost (you cannot move buildings in the game and you need to make it happen one at the time).

Buildings&Structures – Upgradable

Note: data shown below apply to upgradable buildings and structures free of any Kingdome Bonuses which lower the cost (WIP).

“?” means I wasn’t able to properly calculate base BP cost due to too many active kingdome bonuses (lowering BP cost) at the same time.

Buildings&Structures – Non-Upgradable

Note: data shown below apply to non-upgradable buildings and structures free of any Kingdome Bonuses which lower the cost (WIP).

Region Specializations

Note: specializations are enable at the beginning of chapter 4, after Vordakai quest and before Barbarian quest (WIP).

Tuskdale – Capital City

At the beginning of chapter 2 we can finally get access to our own Kingdome Manager System. We can also enter the Capital and see how it looks like:
9 square places around each other, two separate slots and wall place.

This is the moment you decide in which direction your city planning should go. There is many ways but only 450 BP to start wit. So – I decided that the best option for the start is to make the capital a little supporter to overall Kingdome Stats. To be more specific – the first 5: Community, Loyality, Military, Economy and Relations.

They are the Kingdome backbone really, so you always need them to be in high ranks. Not the mention, you need them to be at specific level in order to gain another regions.

So these are my own propositions for starting layouts:

1. Neutral Layout (more Community/Economy approach):
And yes, I know about the stupid idea of making a photo to my monitor by phone, but just let it be…

As you can see, I spent 355 BP to use all the space avaiable and the end result is written on summary on the left. That combination of buildings and structures will give us much support at the start so we can quickly and easily level the basics stats rank combine with solving daily events (like Community/Loyality/Economy).

The end result is like this:
Plain and simple set up.

2. Law Layout (more Military approach):
We gave up Community/Loyality points to increase Military/Stability by constructing Watchtower+Barracs(II) instead of Windmill+Granary. We also need to spend more BPs for second Barracks (+50% BP).

Naturally after some time we will upgrade the capital to bigger city and we will have much more places to build.

Tradegard – Outskirts Village

After adding first new region called “Outskirts” we can to found the new village in the free region slot. I do recommend place it at the river in order to build Piers (+1Economy and +1Relations for Lumberyard).

The good thing here is, any new village at any new region will have the same slot placement (river needed). That means we can prepare the disare layout beforhand in order to future specialisation.

Very nice.

1. Friendly Layout (more Economy/Relations approach):
We gave up other stats to focus on Economy and Relations entirely. Stability and Military are just a simple bonus here. Also, we need to pay +50% more BPs for second Tavern and Lumberyard. We can also swap one Lumberyard for Bokken’s Alchemical Shop later.

End result (Bokken’s Alchemical Shop included: -1Economy/Relations).

The way I look at it, that is what first two new villages should look like (Outskirts and South Narlmarches). After making Jubilost and Linzi the advisors you are able to level up these two stats to even third rank (+60 points).

Tatzlford – North Narlmarches Village

After claim the North Narlmarches we are able to found next village in our Kingdome: Tatzlford.

The place is a little different then previous layout: only 3×2 slots clutch together plus two slots next to each other, three separate slots and wall place.
Quite nice I may say.

What can we do here at the beginning? Best would be stick to the plan which is creating two first villages focused on some of the first 5 kingdome stats.

1. I choose to stimulate a Community/Military/Economy (universal approach):
As before, we drop other stats away from the equation and construct some buildings raising three from five first overall stats.

Final result:
The benefit from this kind of slot orientation is that we do have a possibility to put a Windmill and a Watchtower all together in same village.

Having the Capital City plus two small villages and tending daily events I was able to rise some kingdome stats to III rank (with possibility to even IV like Community or Loyality). Naturally we are able to upgrade the capital to next level (from village to town) and gain next empty slots to fill up.

Shambling Steps – Kamelands Village

Kamelands region gives us opportunity to found the village close to Capital and if we want, we can found it by the river. Moreover, if the village going to be the third one beside the Capital, then we may customise it a little.

This is very familiar slot oriented village, no surprise here.

1. Diplomacy layout (more Relations/Economy/Stability approach):
The plan here is to focuse entire village on these three stats: +7Relations, +5Economy and +3Stability.

Naturally, we need to spend more BPs to build two Longhouses, two Lumberyards, two Taverns and three Breweries (I hope it is right writting). But at this point of the game (like the end of chapter 3) we have enough BPs to proceed with that kind of layout.

And this is the end result:
Relations stat focused village.

Tuskdale – Capital City Level II

Now, this is the different league: with such a big 2-slots buildings and 4×4 grid plus new separate slots, we have real opportunity to make a true Capital!

Keep in mind that we need a big number of BPs to fill all the slots – around 1’000 will be OK.

We have plenty of place to build:
4×4 square grid + double separate slot + 4 single separate slots.

Quick note: as you can see I sell all the structures I had here before, so I was able to see the grid with fresh look and think about the possible layouts.

I decided that the best way will be to fill the slots with buildings which have Community/Arcane/Stability/Culture bonuses. Why? Becouse we already have the first five kingdome stats at high levels thanks to previous villages, so we can finally focuse on the other five. And we need new buildings to make that happen. Lucky for us, there is a plenty of them!

1. Stabilized town (more Community/Stability approach):
Notice the Printing House green bonuses? They do not appear at settlement stats – we add them to overall kingdome stats.

Even without Printing House bonuses, the final settlement stats summary is impressive: +15Stability looks great! +7Community and +7Military also make a nice view, but +8Arcane and +7Culture and +5Espionage are the winners here: we simply didn’t have a chance to inrcrease them earlier!

It is possible of course to increase that stats by upgrading some buildings and structures like Walls, Barracks, Piers and Shrine but I recommend doing that ONLY with much BP save.

At this point Capital looks like that:
A this is a nice view indeed!

Silvershire – Silverstep Village

After upgrading the capital and venturing east, sooner or later we may claim Silverstep region and expand our Kingdome towards eastern border of the map.

As before, we can choose to found the village near the lake so we can end up with well known grid:
Double separate slots and 2×4 grid.

I choosed to make another customized layout like I did with Shambling Steps before. This time I focused on Economy/Relations/Espionage stats. Economy is always welcome but far more important are Relations and Espionage:
The key factor here is fact that we now have the “Transition of Power: Espionage” Kingdome Bonus active, after reaching Espionage above 11 points. It was triggered by Grand Diplomat and will stay active till Espionage rank III.

One of its benefit is the Tavern now has additional “+1Espionage if beside Barracks” bonus. Pretty cleverly wouldn’t you say? We can flank the Barracks with Taverns and rise 3 different stats at the same time.

The village looks like this:
+3Espionage bonus will vanish after reach rank III, but it will take some time.

This solution is temporary and will need to be change after time. Meanwhile we can help ourselves to increase the Espionage stat by customizing such a villiges. Bonus to Relation and Economy is also quite good!

Tradegard – Outskirts Village Level II (optional)

WARNING: this particular part of guide consider extremely wild approach to customize the town (any upgrade village later on game) at inseanly cost over 1500 BP and byond! You need to have much, much BP save in order to do that. The main purpose of this guide has been achieved at this point (to show an example of possible balanced city layouts at the early game). You do not have to follow my footsteps in your gameplay – I only did that to show you what is possible to achieve with specific layout.

So lets see how the clean town grid looks like when situated near the river:
4×2 grid + 3x3grid + 1×2 grid and 3 separate slots.

Now, becouse Tradegard is a town founded at Outskirts region, we have the possibility to grant a “Trading Ground” specialization for this region which colaborate perfectly with Economy/Relations focus layout.

I managed to come up with that kind of plan:
No half-measures in this case! We choose only the buildings which increase Economy and Relations – nothing alse.

This is very, very BP consuming option of course but you were warned :-). Finally we and up with this:
Economy maxed out but Relations – not yet!

We can still increase this stats by upgrading some buildings but before that, a quick interesting fact – look at this particular situation with the shop:
Did you notice its bonuses? +2Economy bonus: one as a basic and another one as an adjacent bonus.

But wait… Shop is adjacent to actually TWO taverns at the sime time! Should’t the shop get double Economy bonus for that? NO – not according to present game simulation, even if it sounds logically :-(.

So what can we get after upgrading the buildings here?
The uprgade BP cost will kill you!

But you will end up with some really beautifull settlement stats:
The +24Relations bonus is a nice view, right?

Work in progress

It is all for now.

After spending more time with the game I will try to expand this guide with new ideas and more city plans.

If you find this guide helpfull please, give it a like and send to friends.

If all of you have some different and other ideas for city plannig, please write them down!

Apologise for spelling&grammar mistakes and wrong words order in the sentences.

Changelog

Guide chenges history:

v1.0 (02 dec 2018) – online public.
v1.1 (03 dec 2018) – screen of Tuskdale after all buildings completed added, spelling&grammar corrections.
v1.2 (04 dec 2018) – new plan for more Military approach (thanks to Lonesome Wolf), spelling&grammar corrections.
v1.3 (05 dec 2018) – chapter about village layouts (Tradegard) added, futher minor changes.
v1.4 (11 dec 2018) – chapter about second village (Tatzlford) added.
v1.5 (12 dec 2018) – chapter about third village (Shambling Steps) added.

v1.6 (15 dec 2018) – chapters buildings&structures level I and II added.
v1.7 (18 dec 2018) – chapter about upgrade the Capital (Tuskdale) from village to town, futher minor changes.
v1.8 (20 dec 2018) – chapter about special buildings&structures added.
v1.9 (21 dec 2018) – chapter about fourth village (Silvershire) added.
v2.0 (26 dec 2018) – corrections to all buildings&structures chapters, new chapters about buildings&structures level III and region specializations added.

v2.1 (27 dec 2018) – buidlings&structures chapters redeveloped: there are only two categories now (upradable and non-upgradable).
v2.2 (29 dec 2018) – chapter about optional upgraded village (Tradegard) added, some other corrections and updates.