A Beginner's Guide to EU5: Why You're Building Towns All Wrong
Your new city-building obsession is probably tanking your economy. Here's how to fix it.
If you just booted up Europa Universalis 5, you've probably discovered the 'build town' button. And if you're like me, your first instinct was to click it on everything.
It spreads control! It boosts pop! It must be good!
I'm here to tell you to stop. You're accidentally strangling your own nation. The new population and building system is a massive trap, and if you don't understand the "why," you're going to end up with a starving, bankrupt empire that's 100% under your control.
The "Town" vs. "Rural" Trap
Here's the central problem you need to understand: Rural and Urban locations do two totally different jobs.
A Rural Settlement is your food and raw-material powerhouse. It's efficient at things like farming and mining, with bonuses to raw resource production.
A Town (or City) is a population and tax hub. It's where you build advanced "urban" buildings, support higher social classes like Clerics and Burghers, and exert Control.
When you upgrade a Rural Settlement to a Town, you are killing its raw food and resource efficiency. If you do this everywhere, your entire nation will suddenly be unable to feed itself.
The Golden Rule: One City, Many Rurals
This is the most important strategy I've learned. Don't build a town in every location in a province.
Your goal for an entire province should be one central town (which you'll eventually upgrade to a city) supported by a ring of rural locations.
Why? Because it's a trap. I've seen the math:
Bad Strategy (1 City, 4 Towns): You have 100% control, but your province has negative food production. You make 10 ducats, but spend 35 on food imports. You are losing 25 ducats.
Good Strategy (1 City, 4 Rurals): You make 3 ducats, but only spend 0.3 on food. You are profiting 2.7 ducats.
You want to centralize your population in one heavily-defended, well-supplied spot, and use the surrounding countryside to feed it.
How (and When) to Actually Upgrade
How to Find the Button
First, finding the damn thing. It's not obvious.
Click on a location.
In the top-left of the location panel, look for a small circle or star icon next to the location's name and shield.
That's the button. Click it to create a town or upgrade an existing one.
When to Click the Button
You can't just spam it. The game will stop you. You need to meet two main requirements:
Population: The location needs a minimum number of inhabitants (for example, 5,000) to upgrade from Rural to Town.
Resources: You must have the necessary resources available in your regional market to fund the construction.
Where to Click the Button (The RGO Dilemma)
This is the part that will make or break your economy. Pay attention to the RGO (Resource Gathering Operation) you're building on.
Here's the pro-tip: It's almost always better to build your one city on an industrial resource like gold, iron, or silver.
Why? This does two things: First, you can build a castle to protect your priceless gold mine. Second, it keeps the supply of that resource low, which keeps the demand and price high.
Conversely, never build a city on a food RGO like fish or grain. You want your food supply to be high and the price to be low to keep your pops fed and happy.
Your Town's Mandatory Shopping List
Once your town is up, it's a blank slate. Every single town you build needs this starter pack. No, this isn't debatable.
A Market: Lets the town trade and helps your pops get the goods they need.
A Temple: Helps with control, because people are religious.
A Castle: Defends the location and the valuable people and RGOs in it.
A Wharf/Dock: An obvious choice if it's on the coast.
A Granary: Food. I shouldn't have to explain this.
Roads: Connect it to your capital and to all the rural spots that feed it.
The Governor's TL;DR
So, let's recap the grand strategy.
One city per province.
Build it on your most valuable industrial resource (like gold).
Surround it with food-producing rural locations.
Build the mandatory buildings.
That's it. That's how you build a healthy nation that actually makes money instead of just creating a dozen starving, rebellious cities.