How to rapidly grow in the early game.

So I have read plenty of post on here where people say to "rapidly grow to 10-15 cities by 0 AD" (or similar statements).

As I see it, this is difficult to do unless you focusing too much effort on the growth and little or none on archers (or similar) to establish defenses.

Can someone describe in a general manner how they are going about this expansion while maintaining respectable defense? Also, is growth done at the expense of maintaining science development?

Thanks,

maybe they're talking about teh settler farm stratefy. you bidld a bunch of tiny cities around the capital, use thom to make settlers and send them to your capitl to make a megacity.

steeemer said:

So I have read plenty of post on here where people say to "rapidly grow to 10-15 cities by 0 AD" (or similar statements).

As I see it, this is difficult to do unless you focusing too much effort on the growth and little or none on archers (or similar) to establish defenses.

Can someone describe in a general manner how they are going about this expansion while maintaining respectable defense? Also, is growth done at the expense of maintaining science development?

Thanks,

Click to expand...

Broad stroke generalizations:
If you're Roman, it's easy pumping out settlers. For everyone else, you should still be rushing settlers out as soon as youy hit 3 pop. You only need to worry about defending where you're likely to be attacked.

You will initially lag on science because you're growing cities, but you're research rate will shoot up fast with the larger number of cities due to a couple of factors. 1) Population growth gets slower in each city as it's population increases. To oversimplify, you can get 10 cities to 3 pop far faster than one city to 30 pop. You will have more flexibility in how you assign workers with larger numbers of cities. 2) If you earn any first-to-research system wide bonuses like literacy and university, +1 research X # of cities means the benefit favors having a larger number of cities.

In SP, getting 10-15 cities by year 0 is very easy to do. In MP, I find myself getting bogged down defending against rushers, but I can still get 7-9 cities by this time without any trouble (assuming I haven't lost the cap early on). I've only recently started, so I'm still learning the tricks, but this is basically how it's done.

It's not about defending cities, it's about defending chokepoints, which many people forget. If they can't get to your territory, what's the point in defending? One of your first cities should be placed on a choke point, and you should backfill from there. Expand towards the enemy, and make it so that he can only hit a single spot. If you're on a 1 tile peninsula, use an archer on a hill to block off your land.

The general tactic is to get 5-6 cities by the time you reach Irrigation (try and beeline it) so that once you hit Irrigation, all of your cities get boosted a population. Also once you hit Irrigation (if you beeline it) you will then just be advancing eras meaning your settlers will gain another + 1 population, meaning new cities will automatically start off with 3 population. It's at this point (usually around 1500 BC) that you kick your expansion into over drive: Beeline CoL, rush cities in ever city, and spam 5+ settlers onto islands. Once you settler those island cities, it should only take you 10 or so turns to catch up in tech.

kadazzle and mikewest, those are great explanations that will help me a lot! Thank you!

steeemer said:

So I have read plenty of post on here where people say to "rapidly grow to 10-15 cities by 0 AD" (or similar statements).

As I see it, this is difficult to do unless you focusing too much effort on the growth and little or none on archers (or similar) to establish defenses.

Can someone describe in a general manner how they are going about this expansion while maintaining respectable defense? Also, is growth done at the expense of maintaining science development?

Thanks,

Click to expand...

Hi all, I am a new member of forum. Would a newcomer be warmly welcome here? Good day you guys!!!

jezzicaz789 said:

Hi all, I am a new member of forum. Would a newcomer be warmly welcome here? Good day you guys!!!

Click to expand...

Welcome aboard and good day to you!

jigglylizard said:

kadazzle and mikewest, those are great explanations that will help me a lot! Thank you!

Click to expand...

Also wanted to say thanks this has been a question of mine as well. Have been asking myself what the advantages are in number of cities early on. The one mistake i have made in more than one game has been putting my cities to far apart and going broke due to some kind of distance penalty, and having all my workers disbanded due to a "strike" when i bottom out on gold. I can at times wait it out and catch up. It was always my thinking that the further apart the citites the better. i.e. Less unhappiness due to over crowding, but the little bastards..lol..just werent happy anyway.

One trick worth to follow with most civs for rapid early expansion:
In ancient era (2 pop starting city size):
1. spend 5 turns with 2 workers on grass (or fish if you have it and have bronze working) to grow to 3 pop
2.a. put 2 workers on trees and 1 on grass and choose to build settler, in 5 turns you get a settler and your city is back to 2 pop instantly, so you can start all over, i.e. you get a settler out in each 10 turns.
2.b. if you have enough gold to rush settlers, then you can spend 2 turns on 2 grass + 1 tree, getting 8 food + 4 hammers, then rush a settler for 32gold, set the 1 worker on grass and next turn you are back to 2 pop, so this way the whole loop is only 8 turns.

There are some variations that make it more efficient for some civs, and also some special resource can help too, e.g. cattle if you have Code of Laws (Romans), whale if you have navigation (Spain), ox with Horse Back riding, so try to use those resources.

Romans in republic (or other civs if you get the pyramid from the Angkor Wat and switch to republic) can do it without 3pop: just collect 8 food in 2 turns on 2 grass, then spend 5 turns on 2 trees to build settler or rush earlier if you have gold.

Once you reach medieval, or if you play Chinese, your new cities start at 3pop, so you can skip the initial 5 turns of growth, so it becomes much faster to get a chain of settlers going: build/rush a settler in 5 or less turns, then the new city does the same and keep going, while the old 2 pop one is put to trade or unit production.

Americans should reach medieval and republic ASAP, then just put all workers on trade to make gold and rush a settler for 20g from each new city and move along building the next city rushing the next settler etc. This is the fastest, no time wasted on food or trees, you can easily get 20-30 cities by 0AD even in multi-player.