How many cities as India?

johnny5000

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Jan 16, 2006
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I'm playing my first game as India, normal difficulty, standard map.
I know the idea for this civ is to go tall, not wide, since the number of cities will greatly increase unhappiness. How many cities would be ideal?
 
Ho boy, not this can of worms again :D :D

It has been proven and calculated from what I understand that the reduced unhappiness from population outweighs the increased unhappiness from cities, so I guess you should settle as much as the map allows and then go as tall as you can
 
20. They're actually very good with wide strats. Don't let the UA make you think otherwise. You just need to settle a bit slower than most. Tall strats for them does have one thing though: you get more golden ages faster.
 
Conquer as many as you like as India, the UA works best for conquering cities, especially if you combine with tourism advantage to keep more than 50% of the population.
Self founding more than a few though is a pain, due to interaction with the 100% rule for national wonders.
 
Yep. If you want to play with the UA, just always be slowly adding another city when your last one reaches pop 10 (I think that's where the happiness trade off takes place and your city is producing less unhappiness than a normal city).

Lol, re: the can of worms. :)
 
Conquer as many as you like as India, the UA works best for conquering cities, especially if you combine with tourism advantage to keep more than 50% of the population.
Self founding more than a few though is a pain, due to interaction with the 100% rule for national wonders.

I did something similar to this and I was surprised because I expected more unhappiness from having more cities but it was just the opposite.
 
For a standard map, the break even point is 6 population (India gets 6 base unhappiness + 3 from population while others get 3 base unhappiness + 6 from population).

It actually gets even better on a larger map where the unhappiness per city can go down to 1.8 base and 3.6 for India -- meaning 4 citizens is already a net gain for India.
 
Like everyone else has been saying, the the bonus happiness from your UA matches then exceeds the extra unhappiness from UA at a certain population per city, so India can have just as many cities as anyone else - in fact, in the very long run they can have more cities than anyone else, and massive ones at that.

Founding cities in the early game, when happiness sources are limited, does become a pain though, and going into unhappiness several times is practically an inevitability.
 
and going into unhappiness several times is practically an inevitability.

That is extremely subpar in Civ V as going to negative 1 results in 75% growth penalty.
You need to wait longer between self founding cities when the new city doesn't have something to offset such as being directly on a new luxury or adjoining a happiness natural wonder.

As above, that interacts painfully with the 100% self founding rule for national wonders.
 
Sometimes you just need to claim the land before the AI does on higher difficulties, though. Shouldn't go down to like -10 unhappiness, mind you, but dropping a few points into the negative can be very worth it.
 
It actually gets even better on a larger map where the unhappiness per city can go down to 1.8 base and 3.6 for India -- meaning 4 citizens is already a net gain for India.

I would love to make a wide Liberty game work for India (at Immortal or Deity). Maybe I should try a huge map?
 
In a recent India game I played, there were a ton of mercantile CS. I found that I could self-found a city so long as I allied a mercantile CS at the same time. I feel that it's important not to go into unhappiness as India. Remember that the city actually cause less happiness eventually, but it has to get to size ten or so to do so. To grow, you must be happy. It just won't happen if your in the negative. 75% penalty is just impossible when you need to get to that level.

Using the mercantile CS trick, I managed to self found seven cities. It was awesome. (Paused at three cities for NC though.)
 
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