how many cities?

How many Cities do you usually build/have?

for many games I had just 1 city, though I often restarted and scouted for a great site.

I wanted to found more, but there where always so many important buildings, national and global wonders to complete first, that I never had the time. Also scaling culture and science costs scared me a little.

Now I force myself to found at least a few (3-5). But still I never reached the science victory. Always culture domination. (I don't like force domination too much. It feels too messy, bad developed cities in bad locations. So much work. But on higher difficulty levels I feel warring war is needed to win).

If I intent to early war its often 3 cities if later then 4 or 5 founded. As I'm nearly always going for domination I hope to have alot by the end

@OP, what difficulty level are you playing at? One City Challenge seems to me like it would make things harder than easier. Yes, working settlers into the cap build queue is a trick. Eventually expos help with the units, and cap is freed up for NW, guilds, and hard building a Wonder or two.

To answer OP question, Tradition is always 4. Fourth city might wait a bit if no great locations, maybe even off-continent. Free monument+duct too sweet to pass on. Liberty is 6-8 or don’t bother. No cities in bad locations. I have not figured out how to be successful with Honor (or Piety) at higher levels, and have little feeling for how many cities is optimal with those strategies.

But on higher difficulty levels I feel warring war is needed to win.

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That assertion is not consistent with my own experience and the strategy guides for peaceful victories.

Playing as the American real estate agent, I am solidly in favor of Raging Barbarians; and will make, take, as many cities as I can .
I shall Manifest my Destiny by using the American historical(hysterical) model, of careful, opportunistic expansion, spiced up with short, sharp, savage wars .

Current game, I have 10 cities, 7 founded, 3 taken (Egypt extinct); and am now aiming to take out the Celts, as I need ports which are not ice blocked; while waiting to see who wins the Aztec/Carthage war. (Aztecs, 5 cities; Carthage, 3 cities; that I have seen)

Working with: Huge map (dialed down to 8 AI's (now 7)) Pangea; on Prince; Raging Barbarians(ON), 3 mods: 1)Barbarian Unlimited XP., 2) Barbarian Spawn Increase, and 3) RYIKA's Caravansary mods; and with Time-,Diplomatic-VC's DISABLED .

So here I am, at T130, with +30 happy, 185 GPT, 58 FaithPT, 8/16 Trade Routes, and I'm getting ready to STOMP FLAT somebody .

Until I get an ocean-going capability, my 3 southern ports are blocked by ice and ocean (GRIPE!!) .
My northern port, Boston, shows promise, and may host my East India Company .

I am shooting for a Domination VC, but will be more than happy with a Culture, or Science VC .

lefuet said:

How many Cities do you usually build/have?

for many games I had just 1 city, though I often restarted and scouted for a great site.

I wanted to found more, but there where always so many important buildings, national and global wonders to complete first, that I never had the time. Also scaling culture and science costs scared me a little.

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Worth thinking on your initial build order, I think.

Post current patch, I tend to go Scout, Monument, Granary. I then adjust from there, but as soon as a I complete a build at capital size 4, I build a settler with maximum production focus. This sets up my second city, with the settler normally escorted to site by my warrior (who has returned home from his early circle of recon).

The third settler I tend to tweak in timing, depending on the situation. If I'm looking crowded by neighbours, its a high priority. If not, I'll often try and beeline the NC first, or get some archers together.

If at all possible I try to avoid building workers before turn 100 - I'd much rather steal them or rescue them from barbarians.

The primary goal from that stage is to nab the nearest capital with a CB rush.

For me, city 4 tends to come just after that, when I have enough gold and happiness and so on to get it up to speed quickly, normally with 3 caravans feeding it food.

This is all for a conventional tradition startup though. Also, many people advocate going double scout as a startup, and post-patch some people even open monument.

You'll note that along the way, I don't really build wonders at all. A granary, a library and a shrine are higher priorities, as are 4 archers ready for CB upgrade and the first war.

That assertion is not consistent with my own experience and the strategy guides for peaceful victories.

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Perhaps your strat is to bribe the AIs to fight each other and prevent runaways? otherwise it's quite hard to beat a builder AI without going to war

One City Challenge is a really cool way of playing. However you really depend on the surroundings. You can't really do anything if you get invaded by a really massive army at any point, and you will fall behind technologically and will have to rely on RAs a lot. Even then, if there is one civ who's ahead of you, at one point he might try to pick out a weak one like yours will be and just crush your capital in 2-3 turns no matter how big your defense is, and it won't really be that big anyway, if you're playing on a higher difficulty, natch, anything Emperor or less and you can ignore this.

That's not to say it's impossible to win an OCC Deity game but you really need a lot of factors to fit in your favour, you must be friendly with everyone for RAs and better trade deals lest you fall really behind. Also, if you're being friendly with everyone, war is not an option

beetle said:

@OP, what difficulty level are you playing at? One City Challenge seems to me like it would make things harder than easier. ...

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mostly King to Emperor, depending on the start. Playing as Spain and finding a nice location and a NW for your capital I also played like this on immortal. (I might have used some mods (religion, SPs, ..) for the great Spanish immortal game. ..

They where not really intended as OCC games. More like there was always better return on investment (for the medium future) by improving the capital then by starting a new city.

But I noticed the worse the starting position and at the higher levels (immortal+) it is easier/necessary to go wide(r). I also find myself less often in resource scarcity with more cities.

Assuming you have the space, building at least a couple cities will easily be worth it. You get to work so many tiles and will soon have a higher total population (meaning more science).

Sessy said:

Perhaps your strat is to bribe the AIs to fight each other and prevent runaways? otherwise it's quite hard to beat a builder AI without going to war

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I have only worked my way up to Immortal. I am sure Deity is harder without taking an early cap. Yes, I engage in plenty of bribing. The far-away runaway is a problem, and I sure do not win every game. But that's the challenge of it that I like: SV before they launch or win a CV. Usually someone DOWs me, so there will be war, just not of really significant consequence as far as my empire goes.

lefuet said:

But I noticed the worse the starting position and at the higher levels (immortal+) it is easier/necessary to go wide(r). I also find myself less often in resource scarcity with more cities.

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Hmmm. I don't remember dirt being better at easier levels. I remember unit production being easier. So OCC being more feasible at low levels. I would suggest replaying a map where you skip early wonders and build 3 setters once you cap hits 4/5 pop. Does you game end up being even better?

I wish...wish I could have 8-12 and colonize all over. Problem is I really think BNW was designed for 5 cities max unless you are a super player.

It is impossible before the industrial era to do more than 5-6, and by that point adding s verbal more cities just adds to your science, social policy costs and makes national wonders so much more harder to build.

Would you all agree with me? Wish there was a mod that made sprawling easier.

Unless it's a mod total of 4 self founded cities. 5 is no man's land, (it won't pay for itself going Tradition baring unusual events such as playing Spain and winning the natural wonder lottery by being first to 2+ hexes of them [or alternatively El Dorado being near you])

6 to 8 self founded can work well with Liberty start with sufficient diversification of luxury resource types, (5 is not really enough to take full advantage of the settler advantages when you are considering you skipped Tradition's bonuses) but it's so much easier to play 4 city Tradition on a standard map. [The 7 or 8 portion might require playing on Huge as well to reduce the per city happiness costs or on standard size something providing extra happiness such as an ultra early UB providing more happiness / ability to build several circuses / natural wonder with happiness bonus / etc.)

If you want to found more cities play a larger map.

Standard size and speed work great with four cities which is also the sweet spot for tradition, hence the standard four city tradition approach to every game.

If you go with a large map and epic speed all of a sudden you will want/need more cities, perhaps seven or eight. At this point liberty becomes a viable and perhaps superior choice to tradition. The larger the map the smaller the penalty for additional cities for science and social policies.

rover6695 said:

I wish...wish I could have 8-12 and colonize all over. Problem is I really think BNW was designed for 5 cities max unless you are a super player.

It is impossible before the industrial era to do more than 5-6, and by that point adding s verbal more cities just adds to your science, social policy costs and makes national wonders so much more harder to build.

Would you all agree with me? Wish there was a mod that made sprawling easier.

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I have to agree with that: back in the day, transitioning from Civ IV to Civ V it was pretty jarring how we've gone from managing dozens of cities to 4 or 5. The main culprit here is how Puppeting works, and Happiness. Big self founded empires just can't stay in positive happiness without making serious sacrifices. Once you hit Order ideology you can pretty much expand freely, but at that stage of the game newly founded cities do nothing for your economy and don't help your victory.

Still, I think personally that overall Civ 5 is a very strong game, so long as we carry with us the design-intended limitations to civilisation size and the design-intended 4-city based empire.

If you're looking for a more sprawling experience with hundreds of units moving in big stacks, then Civ 4 remains the game of choice.

Personally I still play Civ 5 at least once a fortnight, whereas its been months since I loaded Civ 4, but the older game still scratches some itches the new one can't.

I wanted to found more, but there where always so many important buildings, national and global wonders to complete first, that I never had the time. Also scaling culture and science costs scared me a little.

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It's often said here that early wonders are a trap. I only go for Oracle (extra social policy) and maybe Stonehenge if I'm greedy for religion and want to take a chance.

More cities = more pop = more science = more goodies.

The most important early Nat Wonder is the College. With 3/4 cities you should have it by turn 80-100 at latest.

Feeding your cap with caravans or ships will grow it fast or support your weakest.

How do you manage the heap of things to build in the Renaisance? Pisa, Sistene, archaeologists and so on?

rover6695 said:

Problem is I really think BNW was designed for 5 cities max unless you are a super player. It is impossible before the industrial era to do more than 5-6, and by that point adding s verbal more cities just adds to your science, social policy costs and makes national wonders so much more harder to build. Would you all agree with me?

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No, I don’t agree. I am NOT a super player, and can’t stand to micromanage my cities, but I can win games going Liberty with 6-8 self founded cities. Happiness is just barely a limitation; mostly it’s about sufficient great spots before the AIs claim them. I agree with you that you want to be done settling early, and that ideologies solve happiness problems. This is playing Immortal continents plus or pangaea plus, everything standard, so I disagree with the folks saying you need huge maps or to decrease the numbers of AIs.

Now, I can’t sprawl every game, and my 4 city Tradition games are stronger and easier to play. That said, sprawling is more fun and interesting to me, at least for now...

Mahasona said:

It's often said here that early wonders are a trap. I only go for Oracle (extra social policy) and maybe Stonehenge if I'm greedy for religion and want to take a chance.

More cities = more pop = more science = more goodies.

The most important early Nat Wonder is the College. With 3/4 cities you should have it by turn 80-100 at latest.

Feeding your cap with caravans or ships will grow it fast or support your weakest.

How do you manage the heap of things to build in the Renaisance? Pisa, Sistene, archaeologists and so on?

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I always had a very nice location (often many restarts) in my early games. Improving it with manufactories, .... Build most Wonders. Had a huge city in the end. All nat wonders and most global in 1 city garanties that all the possible multiplier stack. Science lead helpt with wonders help with science lead.

I remember a game with spain where I scouted for 30+ turns (marathon). Found my capital on a river, next to a mountain in range of a NW (on the resource heave side of the NW). I had to spend most of my finders fee for first sighting 2 NW to get it in range without waiting for culture grow. And then petra improved more then 50% of my possible tiles (desert hill)! The only thing missing was a port.
In the end I had iirc ca. 12 academies, 5+ manufactories and most wonders. more then 1000 BPT, CPT and tourism. All improvements for natural wonders, wonders and GP tile improvements through religion, freedom, and WC.
Was great fun!

Idk I think it depends on the local area in your map that is closer to your capital. With a honor start, I sometimes go with a 2 or 3 ,city start before beginning to attack the local civilizations. I don't always attack though but when I do, I try to make sure I stay with good technology, good warmongering penalty standing and most importantly, have enough resources for defenses in case of attack.
In traditional starts, I often get a 3 -4 city start and try to stay away from wars and conflict until it is time to finally make units to defend yourself. Being nice to them with tradition won't get you into that many wars since civilizations don't usually attack smaller empires since they're not considered a threat to victory.
Liberty starts, I could try to get as much resources in the land and try to gain a larger area to place 6-7 cities. Once the cities are built, buildings, improvements and workers should be enough for gaining national wonders that may become important. Military units should also be nearby in case of attack but be careful to not kill of a whole civilization and have the whole world hate and dogpile you.

Depends on the civilization and the particular starting area. If I feel that my capital has potential for a lot of food or starts in the jungle, then I'm more inclined towards a very limited Tradition city game until around the Renaissance (usually after I've built several national wonders. Generally for me the threshold is either Grand Temple or Ironworks.) So two, fairly far-spaced cities. Maybe three if I see a REALLY good spot. If I feel like my capital has a lot of hammers but not all that much food, I'll tend to go for a wider game with Liberty and spam happiness/culture buildings in my capital. I also have the flaw of being somewhat of a culture-monger and want to get as many policies under my belt as I can.

Civilization matters as well. Something like the Incas allows for wider expansion, in my opinion, due to the reduced maintenance costs. Same for India, oddly enough, since once you're around pop. 6, 7 in a city, the UA stops being a detriment and kicks in. As Sweden, for instance, I'm far more likely to play with just four core cities to take advantage of Tradition, and then maybe one or two more if I want to claim a few resources or see an OP spot with 6 seafood resources and some land. But that's because to me, Sweden is most optimal when it's a small but hyper-developed empire. Same with, say, the Maya or oddly enough the Aztecs (their UB is highly underrated, I feel.)

I don't think that I've ever played a game with just one city though, excluding Venice. I just feel like it's both more advantageous and more fun to have at least two or three cities to manage.