Brewing Optimized City?

I've got the Gnome Brew discovery, which cuts the requirement from 25 food to 20 food. The city is on a 7 food spot, but the population really isn't that large. I think a Nature's Bounty, a flourmill and maybe a few food sov should do the trick.

How will you supply the food for all that beer?

If you were use a 5 food city you could sustain 19200/hr of the basic resources.  You'd have to find a different means of gold income because at most you'd be able to have a tax rate of 10% in doing so.  

If you are going pure brewery focused, you should be able to set up your city for a concentrated focus of 250% or greater using 18-20 squares split between level II, III.   

It's been about 3.5 months since I started down the road to Neu Braumeisterburg. The town has evolved very nicely to a population of 2500. I incorporated a lot of feedback that I got from this thread, so I thought you guys might like to know that. If anyone wants to check out the town:

http://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/#/World/Map/215/-937

The brewery is about to reach level 20. I completed the Allembine Research and Gnome Brew discoveries. Of course, I prefer to think that my braumeisters reverse engineered the gnomish process to employ dwarven efficiency while still producing great craft beers.

The town itself is still fairly sparse. As recommended, I have a high level Mage Tower and a maximum rune for protection, plus a high level Consulate. I also have a fully leveled Marketplace and Warehouse. Neu Braumeisterburg is home to several hunting armies, because there are lots of interesting animal parts to be obtained in Tallimar (I have another city devoted wholly to platemail crafting). For harvesting I have two level 10 Skinners, and two Herbalists at 13 and 9. The other 11 plots are all cotters, who supply minerals and herbs for crafting.

Since the brewery is finally at full capacity, I have started claiming sov for Brewer's Yards. There are four +3% Brewing squares at distance 1 (x2), 1.4 and 2. The short term plan is to get these each to Sov II, which will cost about 1800 gold/hr and 1200 res/hr. The final math on this configuration should be 24.6 barrels/hr (15 barrels/hr for level 20, multiplied by +64%).

Sov might be limited in Neu Braumeisterburg for a while, simply because there aren't many buildings that raise population. That caps the maximum tax rate. I may experiment with a Chancery of Estates and try adding 16 Brewers Yards I at +5% each. That would take brewing to +144%. Of course, that would also drain a lot of basic resources

One of the lessons I've learned is that the underlying resource plots can be more important than getting maximum location for the bonus squares. I picked a 5w/4c/4i/3s/7f square for the city itself, and it's pretty obvious that the Chancery of Estates is going to badly strain clay production, especially if I build two. However, since the city has a modest population and a 7 food base, I may end up using a kiln and the Nature's Earth geomancy (+8% clay), plus a Sov V on the 12 clay hill at 213|-936 (2.2 sq).

As the city grows towards 5000 population, I will likely end up demolishing more of the 11 cottages. But maybe not. Tallimar is a great place for herb and mineral harvesting, and my armor city is already almost completely full of crafting buildings.

Overall I'd call this ongoing experiment a great success. I'm learning a great deal about the game mechanics in Illyriad, plus I'm having lots of fun trying to be the biggest brewer in the game. I'm also quite pleased by all the interesting items I can craft by shooting giant beetles, pumas, baboons and golden monkeys.

Thanks to everyone who took the time--both in this thread and in chat--to give me great advice on resource production, city building and sovereignty.

Cheers, --Brandmeister

P.S. Attention monkeys: you brought this on yourselves. Stop eating my cotters, you little yellow furred jerks!

P.P.S. Dear beetles: you've got two strikes against you. You ate 30 skinners in December (EXPENSIVE!), and you are highly useful for making mountain armor. We are obviously going to end up killing a whole lot of you to pay for those skinners. Oh who am I kidding, why am I scolding brainless insects that infest trash heaps? Someone shoot them, and ship the hearts to Centrum.Neu BraumeisterburgNeu Braumeisterburg