Leveling up cities

What's the benefit of leveling cities, exempt getting bigger people pool for army, and unlocking new buildings.

Currently, in my game, I have several cities that don't produce anything that would benefit them elevating to 2nd level. No gold, no iron, no higher level buildings worth building. Isn't it just better leaving them at 1st level, to not eat extra food they don't need.

Exempt if there is some hidden benefit of having them at higher level.

elemental

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Nope, if there's no resources to exploit you're better off leaving them at first level. In fact, unless they're on an ancient library, ancient temple or goldmine I generally leave them at level one unless there's something specific I need to level them for (i.e. smelters, or prestige border pushing), or I'm stuck with an abundance of food

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I find that level 2 cities get the big increases to resource production, ie the 20% bonus for leveling and then the buildings that add 25%+. So works best with the resources they have access to.

Cities with no resources get 1 production from basic buildings. You would need to be a lvl 3 city to get 100% increase in production of that resource bringing you to 2 resources per turn (20% lvl2 city+30%lvl 3 city+ 50% for buildings=a lot of money spent). Definitely not worth it from that perspective.

I upgrade if I have extra food because of the borders expanding. No other reason.

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Yes, border expanding is one of the hidden benefits. Level 1 cities get up to 2 tiles border, level 2 up to 3, etc...

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Tridus

Join Date 03/2008

+110

The best cities to level up are the ones that have a resource. If they have several of the same resource, level them up as far as you can. Because each bonus stacks multiplicatively, taking the same bonus each time results in massive production increases.

For cities that don't have a resource, the food is usually better spent on a city that does have one.

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