Expansion: # of cities by certain dates

AlphaShard

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I know I've seen the term REX and overexpansion coined alot on this forum but I haven't seen a discussion on just how much one should expand according to the time. This I think is mostly for BC era, for instance I notice most AI will get a second city going around 2500-2600 BC.

I've noticed that if you pop a settler early (like still in 3000 bc era) that you can usually support a second city fairly early. I just wondered how fast one should expand? I realize that alot of this depends on the resources around and what techs you research but I wondered what people's time frame for settling cities was.
 
I just realized I put this in the wrong forum can it be moved to the CivIV general discussion area?
 
I don't pay much attention to time frame in the game. It seems more of an arbitrary reference to me. I watch the science slider and teching more. Some games I have resources or traits that allow faster expansion. If I'm peacefully rexing I don't like to drop the slider below 40% or 50%. But in my current game I had some great early war opportunities and let it drop to 10% still loosing gold, but I had and completed a recovery plan. Now I have captured 7 AI cities and wiped out two civs on a huge world map. Slider is back up to 30% and courthouses are starting builds.

Just gave myself a dumb*** award. Just saw general discussions and didn't notice it's revolution civ. I play PC civ 4.
 
In my last game I had 3 cities in 1 AD but quickly got up to seven by 500 AD. Usually it is a good idea to have 5 cities by 1 AD.

I plan on eventually playing a game where I chronically overexpand early on. Probably using Catherine so that I can get settlers out fast and I don't have to worry about monuments; more granaries = faster settlers = more cities out earlier = stronger position in the late game, even if you are playing catchup early on with your crashing economy.

EDIT: Woops, didn't realize this was CivRev!
 
In spite of posting in the wrong forum, IAM is basically right. Unlike Civ2, where cranking out lots of settlers early is the whole basis of strategy, in CivRev I let the game come to me in terms of how fast I expand. Early on, I crank out warriors with no rush buying and try to accumulate 100g for the bonus settler. Then I spend gold to get Libraries in my first two cities, research CoL ASAP and then start the settler rush. I have not read these boards extensively, but if there is a way to rush settlers first, I have not found it. If I build settlers in an early city before Republic, the -2 population hit just cripples that city for turns at a time, causing me to fall behind in money, tech and culture. The only civ with which I have had any luck building early settlers is China with their Size 3 city starts in the Ancient era. In fact, even with the Romans (Republic to start) settlers too early slows down Rome's growth and I end up with a bunch of mini-me cities which cannot grow, trade and produce all at the same time.

I would love to hear a workable strategy for the start different from above, because my games are in a bit of a rut plus how fast a start I get depends on how generous the Barbarians are! In Civ2, I am a master of micromanaging my cities, but the only real trick I have found in CivRev is the old chestnut of starting a wonder or building you do not want in order to "save up" production so once a critical tech is discovered my cities produce the desired unit/building right away.
 
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