We all know the credo: "Land is power." and it is obviously true as it is rare for a player who has a large empire to fall behind in any aspects of the game. I've never really played a game where I maintained a small empire and was able to pull a win (besides a rare AP win and a couple culture/diplo wins).

Having said that, is there a way to dominate the game in military or science with a small empire? I've seen the AI Wang Kong (when not attacked) have an empire of 7 cities and skyrocket ahead in techs. If the AI can do it on Monarch level, obviously the human player can as well.

So, to all you advanced players, how does one go about having a small land empire that can dominate the science or military game? I'd like to have a game where MY empire is one of the smaller ones and my vassals are many (kinda like Britain) :D Is it possible?

As long as you get 6 cities... you can get a tech lead via bulbing/early Oxford. The advantage here is you need less workers/settlers/garrison etc and have less maintenance... meaning your slider is higher.

Usually a Cuirassier/Cavalry/Rifles war will allow you to gobble up a nation when at which point you'll have enough land to really make a big push forward.

I couldn't really show you, but here's an example from Rusten.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8388401&postcount=6

The most usual case for effective small empires is the "pseudo-OCC" WE/SSE strategy. The juice is in the capital, other cities are there sometimes just to open up Oxford. Though as long as you reach that national wonder threshold (with any kind of strategy), it's usually possible to expand with firearms vs arrows.

Cool. Thanks guys.

With having a small empire you can reach the renaissance/industrial era much faster, since you don't have to pay maintenence for a bunch of cities/units that will take a long time to be productive. You can also still get a whole lot of GPs with a small empire, almost as many as with a large one. But, sooner or later the small empire is going to fall behind in tech and production, so I think most people just try and use it to make a midgame military push when they've outteched a nearby civ.

Sounds stupendous. For some reason, my usual path (map permitting which it usually does) is to war early even if I have room for 6 - 7 cities. I don't really know why. I feel uncomfortable with small land mass. However, now that I think of it, I used to fall behind on Monarch because I wasn't micro-ing properly because of the large city #. With a smaller empire = easier micro up until micro matters less (late renaissance - industrial era)

Obviously the circumstances need to be right; i.e. when you only have a small piece of land, it better be good land! ;)

Granted! LoL. I've seen plenty of games where wide expansion was desperately necessary.

Obviously the circumstances need to be right; i.e. when you only have a small piece of land, it better be good land! ;)

Alternatively the land needs to be pretty bad except for the capital which needs to be pristine.

That'd work for an OCC type of deal, though. I would think that pre-bureaucracy, you'd be having it hard with 6 cities and only 1 any good (capital). If I'm to keep a small 6-7 city empire until rifles, I'm gonna want green green green. Lots of food for a GP farm and lots of nice cottagable land along with a decent production center for garrison and defense stack troops.

In my game in the PYL I had to put out 3 blocking cities for a total of 4 cities. I would much rather have stayed at 3 cities early to keep down the cost. I now have 11 and would rather have 6. You just want to be able to get the production you need out of the fewer cities. For example:

- Unlock the Heroic Epic from barbs and workshop your HE city at cannons.

- Build your army slowly during the game and upgrade it with gold once you reach an advantage at cannons/rifles.

- If you've got a city with a lot of surplus food, get the globe theatre out for whipping/drafting.

Check out my Monarch Willem game. I peacefully blocked off room for more than 22 cities. That just meant I was behind in tech most of the game. And should have went for space instead of fighting at nukes :)

It can be done, but it really depends on your starting neighbors more than anything. I won an espionage game with 5 junk cities at the end. (it was only on noble to test it out, so don't get too excited).

I seem to recall playing as the Dutch. I think it was Frederick and Washington who popped next to me, and they treated me as harmless. I kept a barebones but highly advanced military, founded the continent's religion, and stole from them ruthlessly with spies and privateers.

I played the game with the mindset of an organized crime syndicate rather than an empire. But I kept them supplied with techs to keep them both friendly and thanks to our mutual defense, they were my watchdogs against the New World.

It was a strange game, and I haven't been able to duplicate it as subsequent tries have all featured neighbors like Montezuma and Ragnar, making defense a priority.

If you have good natured neighbors, you can accrue a crippling tech lead on your competitors, limit your "friends", and annihilate the other continent through aggressive trading and by keeping them locked in perpetual war through bribery.

You have so much money coming in at any time that with the pyramids, you can just buy your production outright at a fairly early point in the game.

I eventually won a cultural victory through a massive combination of sabotage and poisoning water supplies over 1000 years to make my tiny empire relevent population wise.

I've tried duplicating the gameplay since I did it the first time, and never even get close. It was the most fun game of civ I've ever played but its starting to look like it was just meant to be that time.

Yeah, cultural victories aren't too difficult with a small empire as long as you have well meaning neighbors and good diplo skills.

It's the British victory type that I'm interested in. Small land mass, lots of vassals, good tech speed (better than parity), and fearsome military.

That'd work for an OCC type of deal, though. I would think that pre-bureaucracy, you'd be having it hard with 6 cities and only 1 any good (capital). If I'm to keep a small 6-7 city empire until rifles, I'm gonna want green green green. Lots of food for a GP farm and lots of nice cottagable land along with a decent production center for garrison and defense stack troops.

Pre-bureaucracy is when your science slider doesn't really matter too much, as you'll be bulbing. If you cottage your capital and get an Academy in there somewhere around 500bc-ish, you should have no problem getting Philo at around 200AD or before, at which point Civil Service (if you don't already have it) is very close by. Considering you're then going to bulb Education, your science output only increase from there on.

Having said that, is there a way to dominate the game in military or science with a small empire? I've seen the AI Wang Kong (when not attacked) have an empire of 7 cities and skyrocket ahead in techs. If the AI can do it on Monarch level, obviously the human player can as well.


Just to point that the comparison may not be valid, since the AI has a ton of bonuses, depending on difficulty level... so a decent AI techer, (Wang may be the best) with all those bonuses, can certainly do that with few cities if unnoposed.

Pre-bureaucracy is when your science slider doesn't really matter too much, as you'll be bulbing. If you cottage your capital and get an Academy in there somewhere around 500bc-ish, you should have no problem getting Philo at around 200AD or before, at which point Civil Service (if you don't already have it) is very close by. Considering you're then going to bulb Education, your science output only increase from there on.
Aha! So small empires are in need of an early SE sort of standpoint. IE as soon as libraries online, 2 scientists per econ city? Should caste system be prioritized, then? After all, 2 scientists per city isn't going to net many Great People for bulbing in that time span. Maybe 2 or 3. The slider still has to matter at that point unless mass Great People until Bureau.

Just tried again with the Incan empire. They seem like a natural fit, just crank out money and wonders.

Then Portugal, Julius, and Korea all showed up and they all managed to start their own religions. That went over about as well as you can imagine. :lol: (Julius was the last to get into the jihad with Judaism, but he decided to win it.)

It was nice getting mowed down by Caesar's chariots and catapults instead of Prets for a change. I had the misfortune of popping on the only iron on our little island. Oh well. That's life.

Aha! So small empires are in need of an early SE sort of standpoint. IE as soon as libraries online, 2 scientists per econ city? Should caste system be prioritized, then? After all, 2 scientists per city isn't going to net many Great People for bulbing in that time span. Maybe 2 or 3. The slider still has to matter at that point unless mass Great People until Bureau.

Its sound reasoning, but like all games balance it against your neighbors. My Julius steamrolling came from adopting caste system before establishing a more solid defense. Holding onto slavery a bit longer might have sent him home in shame and given me some much needed breathing room.

On that topic, Portugal is a lousy friend. He wouldn't close Caesar's invasion route despite being friendly to me after adopting his state religion (for ease of theft). :mad:

Aha! So small empires are in need of an early SE sort of standpoint. IE as soon as libraries online, 2 scientists per econ city? Should caste system be prioritized, then? After all, 2 scientists per city isn't going to net many Great People for bulbing in that time span. Maybe 2 or 3. The slider still has to matter at that point unless mass Great People until Bureau.

No GPs are needed by default except for the Oxford place Academy (usually capital)... Caste is counterintuitive since you will usually want Oxford ASAP, which means the whip.

Extensive bulbing or not can never be decided before seeing the map...

Understood. I imagine a very green map with rivers would entice one to use a lot of cottages right off the bat instead of relying on bulbing. However, it never hurts to have a food heavy city pump out scientists in the early eras.

We all know the credo: "Land is power." and it is obviously true as it is rare for a player who has a large empire to fall behind in any aspects of the game. I've never really played a game where I maintained a small empire and was able to pull a win (besides a rare AP win and a couple culture/diplo wins).

Having said that, is there a way to dominate the game in military or science with a small empire? I've seen the AI Wang Kong (when not attacked) have an empire of 7 cities and skyrocket ahead in techs. If the AI can do it on Monarch level, obviously the human player can as well.

So, to all you advanced players, how does one go about having a small land empire that can dominate the science or military game? I'd like to have a game where MY empire is one of the smaller ones and my vassals are many (kinda like Britain) :D Is it possible? What size map are you playing? Try winning a huge map with 7 cities is a lot harder than on a normal map. If you go to the demographics screen, what is your land compared to the leader?

I'm just curious because I'm currently playing a huge map/10civs right now and am finding it a lot harder than usual because the AI has so much land. I should have started the game with 18 civs so they couldn't expand so much.

I love playing with a small empire. Being successful depends on your opponents however. If one is carving out a huge empire you are gonna have problems. However, if it remains relatively peaceful, you can win with a 6 city empire. I had a game as Darius on Immortal where I had 6 cities, and 2 got culturally pressured beyond belief, one had already flipped early, and I won a space race. I had cottaged up my empire and I had taken the Khmer capital also, so I had two really good spots. As long as your competitors are relatively close on technology, and there is no breakaway AI in that regard, then the Internet almost always guarantees a space race victory. You just have to be clever in your tech choice and space-ship build order.

I'm not sure how successful a small empire can be on deity, I hope to try it out one day, but for now all I can say in confidence is that as long as there is no breakaway AI, a 6 city victory is very possible on any difficulty through Immortal.


Oh you wanted tips let me add... I'm more of a cottage person so I know this strategy works. I usually cottage most cities that I can and save maybe one good production city. The production will be low during the game, so I usually stick in slavery for quite a while and almost never hit caste system. My late game civics are all those bottom liners, minus environmentalism (free market instead). Late game, your towns will give ok production, if you are on a river the levees will be a huge help. If you plan to win late I'd try to settle on rivers as much as you can as levees are a pretty big deal (and fresh water health bonus!). Also, those customs houses and harbors really help the coastal cities, adding the extra trade route with free market is huge here. You definitely want to save a great engineer for Mining Inc, and if you can get Sid Sushi thats great too. Put this in your Wall Street city of course, you will most likely have your slider at 90-100% the entire endgame unless your diplomacy isnt good enough to keep you out of a war, or if one is just inevitable.

If you are going for space, the important thing is to beeline right to Internet. The late game techs you care about are corporation for Wall Street, then the one for Mining Inc (I believe railroad?). After that, go straight to computers. On the path, you will also have a shot at the Three Gorges Dam, its very nice if you get it, but not at all crucial. It only takes two-four turns to build a power plant, and if the health is really killing you then maybe you could switch to environmentalism. However, there is another way, more on this later. Once you get Internet you will probably get things up through rocketry at least. This is of course if there is parity at the top, otherwise it can be a problem. If you are getting blown away by one strong competitor with GNP much higher than yours, then you should have probably made a move to cripple them earlier. So back to the techs, after you get computers, go for robotics. If you are lucky, the Internet will have given you the other technology for the Space Elevator, if not, research it yourself, I'm pretty sure its Satellites. After this, get superconductors to get your laboratories up. Now you are all set. Its perfectly fine if you haven't even began Apollo yet, even if other teams are beginning to build parts. With the Space Elevator and laboratories, you will catch up in no time (hopefully you got aluminum, otherwise found the corporation... granted you have coal... if not, its still very doable so don't panic). Now you can make your decision, if health is now crippling your empire, grab genetics after superconductors. This will give +3 health per city which is a huge help. Otherwise, go straight after fusion and get the engine(s) built. Usually you can easily build both, I don't think I've ever launched in a small empire with just one engine. You will most likely be producing faster than you are teching through the tree, even with a cottaged empire. You only really need two legit production site, and a town/ levee/ US city is perfectly fine for this as the second best production city. Now, just pick up whatever pieces you still need and launch. Also, you would be wise to put a spy and a security bereau in any city building spaceship parts, as they will be targetted.

If you are getting blown away by one strong competitor with GNP much higher than yours, then you should have probably made a move to cripple them earlier. What GNP ratio relative to the leader is acceptable? Could you win with say 70% of the leader's GNP?

Do you absolutely need the highest GNP to win the space race?

What GNP ratio relative to the leader is acceptable? Could you win with say 70% of the leader's GNP?

Do you absolutely need the highest GNP to win the space race?

Don't pay much heed to that. You can win with less than half of the highest.

Agreed, what I mean is something like you have 1000 GNP and you have one strong competitor who has something like 4500. I've been in this situation before and I wasn't able to keep up when it came to late game tech'ing. However, a lot of their GNP goes to waste as they don't specialize their cities enough, but you should be able to get a feel of weather or not you can beat a single competitor on your own depending on how they've been teching after the medieval period.

If their GNP looks too high to you, take their cities. That tends to decrease it.

Don't pay much heed to that. You can win with less than half of the highest.

I'm talking specifically about space race here and no wars to extend land.

But does that mean you catch up due to tech trading and also better production for space parts? Even with 50% GNP? I'm surprised about that.

blitz look at delayed caste thread last page - artichoker and my games posted there. Though mine had especially good land. Choke had 6 cities and tundra i think. Well his game comes from his vassalage thread.

I'm talking specifically about space race here and no wars to extend land.

But does that mean you catch up due to tech trading and also better production for space parts? Even with 50% GNP? I'm surprised about that.

Certainly possible. Jimmying the diplo situation with bribes, the Internet, nukes, taking capital with a kamikaze force after enemy launch, sucky AI tech path neglecting Fusion - all examples of great equalizers. The AI sucks at going to space TBH. Though you'll never win lategame AI in production on high levels.

Anyway, why are you specifically talking about a single win condition with restrictions? If others are more viable then shouldn't you pursue those instead?

Certainly possible. Jimmying the diplo situation with bribes, the Internet, nukes, taking capital with a kamikaze force after enemy launch, sucky AI tech path neglecting Fusion - all examples of great equalizers. The AI sucks at going to space TBH. Though you'll never win lategame AI in production on high levels.

Anyway, why are you specifically talking about a single win condition with restrictions? If others are more viable then shouldn't you pursue those instead? I've never won space victory on Marathon before and wanted to try it. I've won the other victory conditions several times - except Time victory. Just wanted to try out other victory paths for fun.

small empires can definitely win the game, I've done it many times. You can wonderspam, GP spam, use a specialist economy, use representation, bureaucracy, religions, corporations, vassals, to increase your power without increasing your land.

Thanks everyone for your great advice!

I attempted to implement a war-without-capture methodology last night. Granted, I already had a rather large empire (started playing before this thread), but the tactic can be used with any sized empire. I sent a decent stack overseas to invade the next powerful neighbor. I had beelined steel and had combat 3 and combat 1/Guerrilla 2 muskets along with some combat 1/CR3 berzerkers.

I didn't have enough troops to capture and keep cities as Surya (my enemy) had a larger army. So I implemented what I thought would work for a small empire that I don't want to expand.

Cannons survived almost every attack (as he was still operating off of longbows and was just getting muskets online). I invaded and razed 5 cities. I acted just like Vikings should! Landed the stack, took and razed the city, loaded stack back onto the fleet, moved onto next target. I was able to eliminate all 3 of his huge stacks. His power dropped from 0.9 to 1.9 and after I took and kept the Hindu holy city and another adjacent to it, he dropped to 2.4 and was ready to capitulate. I had also pillaged about 10 towns down to nothing around these razed cities.

This was awesome. I was able to capitulate my most powerful rival (in both power AND land) and only needed to take 2 cities. I didn't even need to beeline Communism for State Property and was able to stay in free market. I tried it again on a less powerful opponent and was able to capitulate him after only 2 city razings and 1 capture.

Obviously, maintaining a tech advanced and large military would be necessary for a smaller civ since the capitulates would be able to break free more easily. This is only on Monarch, so I'm not sure if it would work for high levels where the AI gets such incredible production bonuses that you kinda HAVE to keep their production cities.

Thanks everyone for your great advice!

I attempted to implement a war-without-capture methodology last night.

This was awesome. I was able to capitulate my most powerful rival (in both power AND land) and only needed to take 2 cities. I didn't even need to beeline Communism for State Property and was able to stay in free market. I tried it again on a less powerful opponent and was able to capitulate him after only 2 city razings and 1 capture.

Obviously, maintaining a tech advanced and large military would be necessary for a smaller civ since the capitulates would be able to break free more easily. This is only on Monarch, so I'm not sure if it would work for high levels where the AI gets such incredible production bonuses that you kinda HAVE to keep their production cities.

Cool! I was just going to ask you how things were progressing. Actually, in regards to monarch (BTS), I'm finding that small empires are proving more effective than in noble.

The AI seem more capable of stalemating one another, so no single enemy civ is taking off wildly out of control, actually letting me focus more on early defense without compromising an espionage / raiding strategy.

Noble has ironically been a greater challenge for me (in a small empire game), since warmongers tend to steamroll the peaceful and become unbalanced for their era. On monarch, everybody is putting up a decent enough fight thanks to them all starting with archery.

In monarch, the warmongers often try an early rush and go home embarrassed. Its part of what I love about this game. The increased difficulty often makes things as bad or worse for your rivals. (Although, no more civs are getting wiped out in the first few turns by goody hut barbarians anymore. That was always worth a laugh.)

My ultimate goal is to play an Earth 18 map as English / Elizabeth, settle the English isles, early capture Paris and maybe settle 1 or 2 more culture buffer cities (from Germany/Rome) for a total of 6-7 cities. To use this and, like in real life, dominate the planet from that small area.

I figure Paris would be the military production-house as it has copper, iron, marble, and stone(? i think) as well as plenty of food and a few workshopable tiles. London would serve as an early scientist pump followed by cottage/merchant pump (plenty of food for specialists and green tiles for cottages). Second settler would settle to the north of London for the awesome cottage/production space (might switch capital to there later). Ireland settled for cottage spam / FIN coastal waters. Definitely going for Great Lighthouse as the only Wonder and MAYBE Colossus if I can time it right (prolly not). The buffer cities in Europe are mostly green and so would serve as further cottage spam. ADDED: With a FIN/PHI leader using this kind of approach, I can imagine tech domination quickly followed by military domination once Redcoats are beelined. Especially since Earth 18 is easy to manipulate the AI into warring with each other to kill tech pace.