How many cities are reasonable?

Can't beat the AI? Is it too tame? Discuss the best strategies!
uncivilizedplayer
Posts: 45
Joined: Sun Mar 08, 2015 9:08 pm

Re: How many cities are reasonable?

Post by uncivilizedplayer »

I won with 4 cities, in a 10 player normal AI game (150 tiles pp, min city distance 4, I agree smallpox is crap)
Jacew
Posts: 23
Joined: Thu Apr 30, 2015 8:45 am

Re: How many cities are reasonable?

Post by Jacew »

Against AI, expanding fast, building as many cities as possible and conguering as much land as possible is sure way to victory. I always play with Cheating AI because with that cutthroat style, AI on Hard-level gives no competition.
The Alchemist
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Oct 22, 2015 9:22 pm

Re: How many cities are reasonable?

Post by The Alchemist »

The further away your cities are, the more corruption they will experience. That is not at all a reason to stop building them at any point at all. In civ3 they quickly become totally corrupted (and waste too) yet playing optimal in civ 3 still means occupying every square you can and often ending with more than 200 cities mostly using specialists.

Then there is the unhappiness caused by your city count. 1 unhappiness is surely worth it to have double the city count. 2 unhappiness isnt that bad either. After that it becomes debatable. Were at 40 or so cities now.

Optimal city spacing depends on the expected length of your game. (which depends on map size and victory condition) If you think you are going to quickly win by early conquest, its best to space your cities so that they have about 8 good tiles each to work. (so dont count mountains and deserts since you cant use those early) If you expect a medium length game, try to aim for about 12 workable tiles per city. (now you can include mountains and deserts since you will terraform them). If you are going for a long game and you have enough space (big map, few players), go for near minimal overlap. (dont overdo it, better to have 18 tiles per city and no tiles wasted than 21 tiles each but lots of wasted tiles and needlessly long distances causing difficulties in defence and extra corruption)
If you dont have that much space and you need to fight for your land, you could consider building a tighter layout and disbanding some towns to give space to the others later on. If not that, just go for 12 tiles per city, its a good compromise between early game needs and late game needs.
ahfretheim
Posts: 49
Joined: Sat Apr 05, 2014 9:29 pm

Re: How many cities are reasonable?

Post by ahfretheim »

In short, I would say you should stop asking what's reasonable and start making the best decision given what you have. To be more specific though, I'd say that your city building strategy depends upon your starting position at the beginning of the game. If your starting capital has the potential for a lot of gold and shield, especially if you have a second city that can serve as a settler factory, you may want to invest in early game growth and get a head start on wonders, technologies, et cetera. If, on the other hand, both your starting points are fairly mediocre, or remarkable only in the amount of food they can grow, you should build as many settlers as possible. If another player is nearby, conquest may be your best empire expanding strategy, especially since it comes with free technologies and better comparative position, possibly even eliminating the other player entirely early in the game. Also, if your starting position includes crucial strategic chokepoints that you need to maintain for the safety of your realm, you will need to expand faster for that reason as well, whereas if you are starting on a small island you will of course need to invest more in science (and maybe even have scientists in your cities from turn one) in order to rule the seas from very early in the game.
jorneg4
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Feb 26, 2014 11:51 pm

Re: How many cities are reasonable?

Post by jorneg4 »

T1000
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Dec 16, 2015 5:53 pm

Re: How many cities are reasonable?

Post by T1000 »

GriffonSpade wrote:I find that having more than 5 cities starts to become annoying. More than 10 is just outright tedious due to all the micromanaging you have to do for buildings and such. I"m definitely a fan of largepoxing.
You must learn to use F4, when creating cities assign them roloes by changing name - eg - Production city which will achieve its maximum potentia at size 3 - PName3 and so on.
Then you use F4, sort cities by names and apply worklists/change production at once.
uncivilizedplayer
Posts: 45
Joined: Sun Mar 08, 2015 9:08 pm

Re: How many cities are reasonable?

Post by uncivilizedplayer »

yep for managing larger empires use the cities list manager, its very powerfull , you can for instance with 2 clicks instruct all your cities to build armor, and then buy them all too if you have the gold
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