vakarr wrote:Hi, I noticed that although upgrading town sites to the next level costs a lot of bricks etc, all it seems to do is give you an extra site on which to build things, and possibly increase population growth (so maybe it is more effiicent to just go and conquer another site if you already have a few). Do you get extra taxes or decrease overcrowding if you upgrade your village to a large village/town/city etc?
Yes, you get extra taxes, because taxes are based on population, but the production is what really counts.
More sites to build on means not just more room for resource-producing structures, it also means more sites for bonus-producing structures.
The thing is, cities than can produce the more rare resources (silver, gold, copper) are very few and far between. If you have a city that can produce silver, you want to build one Shrine (to keep people happy, for the bonuses), and as many silver mines as you have room for.
Also, the resource
level of the city determines how far those resource-producing structures can be upgraded. If, for example, your city has a rating of Silver 5, that means you can upgrade to level 5 silver mines, assuming you do the research.
So the answer to your overall question is that developing your cities as far as possible, (note that how large a city can grow is determined by the Brick level), will give you the strongest possible economy, and therefore the strongest possible military.
Another argument against just conquering more cities is that the more cities in your empire, the more problems you have with unrest in
all your cities