City Spamming - What's up with that?

G

GamerDad

Chieftain
Joined
Aug 31, 2008
Messages
61
Location
Pennsylvania
I see post after post referring to a civilization needing to have 5+ cities. Sometimes I see 10+ cities discussed. Personally, I've never had more than 5 cities that I can remember, and I usually win on Emperor and below with 4 or less cities. I find it very, very difficult to manage defense of a large number of cities (with or without roads), especially from an economic standpoint.

What I tend to do is really focus in on my cities. Keep them growing and have one or two producing and the others strictly science or gold with a strong map placement to support it. Am I the only one that thinks less expansion is actually a good thing? With the AI in this game ganging up on the human, I just don't see how having a ton of cities is beneficial. In my eyes, more time, production, gold, etc. is wasted trying to maintain them than if I focused completely on the one I can defend.
 
GamerDad said:
I see post after post referring to a civilization needing to have 5+ cities. Sometimes I see 10+ cities discussed. Personally, I've never had more than 5 cities that I can remember, and I usually win on Emperor and below with 4 or less cities. I find it very, very difficult to manage defense of a large number of cities (with or without roads), especially from an economic standpoint.

What I tend to do is really focus in on my cities. Keep them growing and have one or two producing and the others strictly science or gold with a strong map placement to support it. Am I the only one that thinks less expansion is actually a good thing? With the AI in this game ganging up on the human, I just don't see how having a ton of cities is beneficial. In my eyes, more time, production, gold, etc. is wasted trying to maintain them than if I focused completely on the one I can defend.
Click to expand...

Ok, then I will ask you some questions that maybe will answer your question:

Do you have with only 1 science city (you say you have 2 production cities) 500-600 science per turn or perhaps 3000? And how fast can you have technologies? Maybe you don't see beneficial having more cities, but you will see there are more benefits than other things.

If you want to know, with 'tons of cities' I had in 3 different games:

-2600 science by 1450 AD (video for this), deity
-3300 science by 1575 AD (picture), ranked team game
-3500 science by 1300 AD (picture for this) / 5000 science by 1575 AD, head to head.

And all this having defences where needed, and this isn't luck, only I do this when:

-I have room to expand
-I want to bother about doing this, but I prefer to do this where it isn't ranked.
 
MorteEterna said:
Ok, then I will ask you some questions that maybe will answer your question:

Do you have with only 1 science city (you say you have 2 production cities) 500-600 science per turn or perhaps 3000? And how fast can you have technologies? Maybe you don't see beneficial having more cities, but you will see there are more benefits than other things.

If you want to know, with 'tons of cities' I had in 3 different games:

-2600 science by 1450 AD (video for this), deity
-3300 science by 1575 AD (picture), ranked team game
-3500 science by 1300 AD (picture for this) / 5000 science by 1575 AD, head to head.

And all this having defences where needed, and this isn't luck, only I do this when:

-I have room to expand
-I want to bother about doing this, but I prefer to do this where it isn't ranked.
Click to expand...

This is where the Mongols comes in handy, MorteEterna?
 
another advantage to having many cities is that having one city with all of your science you would have to build a university for 200(with libary) production. When your science is split between five or so different cities you would probably have more science if you build libaires in all of them for 200 production and you would have more water space to work and more food space so you would have more people to work. And in this game there is no economic penalty for having many cities so defence is the only problem. As the Romans or French you could get half-cost roads and have few defenders just going from city to city as they are needed. If not playing as them you could always settle islands or peninsula cities which no AI will dare to suffer the amphibiouse penelty in an attack. In this stratgy you also should have more gold so it would be easy to rush a few defenders n your mainland cities.
 
LordGek said:
This is where the Mongols comes in handy, MorteEterna?
Click to expand...

Really, no, you can do this only with romans or chinese. Mongols will never do this because you can't settle cities and they are with no food or production.

However, with other civs maybe you can do this, but only if you are really, really, really lucky, perhaps using egyptians but you would have so much too late.
 
I also find that locking in my geography via city choke points (sometimes 3 or 4 across) can put an early end to the game (usually requires taking out a capital early via horseman rush).
 
The Chinese are probably even better than the Romans for this because they only require two techs from teh start to get rebublic and then they only have to loose one pop. in a city to get three pop in the new city. Because of the capital pop bonus it is easy to quickly tech up to code of laws and then you can easily establish a huge mulicity empire. China is also good because half-cost libaires are more effective when you have many cities and can make most of your cities good science cities.
 
hey sciguy....just started playing a couple of weeks ago, but I'm a quick learner. I usually keep my early cities to 3 pop, put 2 on production, one on food, make a settler, and then put the 2 that are left both on food to get back to 3. The new city then has 2 people on food to get to three....rinse, lather, repeat. Does the republic do anything for me in that scenario? I didn't know new cities started out with 3 pop...is that accurate? Finally, I'm usually aggressive with a horsemen rush while this is going on....any flaws in how I'm playing?

PS: Moving up to Deity now....finished ranked above Winston Churchill on the difficulty below that last night.
 
Tunacan:

when you advanced ages explorers but new cities start out with +1 population.
For example:
Ancient era: Cities start with 2 pop.
Medieval era: New cities start with 3 pop.
Industrial era: New cities start with 4 pop.
Modern era: New cities start with 5 pop.

When playing as China or Rome new cities can start with as much as six population. It also can be a good idea to delay settling a city and rushing science in all of your cities for a few turns to get this extra population.
 
Sciguy001 said:
Tunacan:

when you advanced ages explorers but new cities start out with +1 population.
For example:
Ancient era: Cities start with 2 pop.
Medieval era: New cities start with 3 pop.
Industrial era: New cities start with 4 pop.
Modern era: New cities start with 5 pop.

When playing as China or Rome new cities can start with as much as six population. It also can be a good idea to delay settling a city and rushing science in all of your cities for a few turns to get this extra population.
Click to expand...

Romans start with 2, then 3, 4, 6, because their bonus is in the modern era.

However, I get code of laws only to get the trading post, and when I have this, I should already have about 10 cities or more.
 
Are those starting population numbers (by era) for all civs? In other words, does having the republic govt. benefit the aztecs in the later eras since new cities start with a higher population (although I usually have 6-8 cities very early in the game)? If I have that wrong, are the higher population numbers specific to Romans and China? Thanks for your help...always enjoy learning from an expert!
 
tunacan22 said:
Are those starting population numbers (by era) for all civs? In other words, does having the republic govt. benefit the aztecs in the later eras since new cities start with a higher population (although I usually have 6-8 cities very early in the game)? If I have that wrong, are the higher population numbers specific to Romans and China? Thanks for your help...always enjoy learning from an expert!
Click to expand...

You should see the chinese or romans bonuses. They say you start with 1 pop more, because china doesn't start with republic. Chinese get it from the start and romans in the modern era (2,3,4,6).
 
MorteEterna said:
You should see the chinese or romans bonuses. They say you start with 1 pop more, because china doesn't start with republic. Chinese get it from the start and romans in the modern era (2,3,4,6).
Click to expand...

I'm probably being dumb, but I haven't been any other civ besides the aztecs. Can you explain the benefit of republic, using china, and using the romans? Keep in mind that I'm building about 7 cities in the first era and none thereafter. Thanks!
 
tunacan22 said:
I'm probably being dumb, but I haven't been any other civ besides the aztecs. Can you explain the benefit of republic, using china, and using the romans? Keep in mind that I'm building about 7 cities in the first era and none thereafter. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Normally, you get your cities with 2 population in ancient era, then each new era means +1 pop. It is normally 2,3,4,5.

With romans, you start with 2, then 3, 4, 6. They have the bonus in the modern era then it is +2 in the last era. Chinese start with it since the start, then it is 3,4,5,6.
 
MorteEterna said:
Normally, you get your cities with 2 population in ancient era, then each new era means +1 pop. It is normally 2,3,4,5.

With romans, you start with 2, then 3, 4, 6. They have the bonus in the modern era then it is +2 in the last era. Chinese start with it since the start, then it is 3,4,5,6.
Click to expand...

I get it now. So if I'm using my "build 7 cities in the ancient era" strategy, China would be a great choice. It would also seem that "republic" would be a great govt. to use with China early. Gotta run out for a bit...thanks for your help!
 
MorteEterna said:
Romans start with 2, then 3, 4, 6, because their bonus is in the modern era.

However, I get code of laws only to get the trading post, and when I have this, I should already have about 10 cities or more.
Click to expand...
Woops, I know that I just worded it wrong.
 
the most cities ive had is mabey around 20. i was being mongols on chieftain level and i have like 30 tank armies with infiltration and all of the enemies hade liegeons and knights.
 
btw, how do you change the rank like chieftain, warlord, and diety?
 
rank goes up with improvement in the 4 milestone catagores (cultural, economic, domination, techonology) in comparision with others.


As for city building, you should always expand as much as you can defend, especially in the ancient, midevil, and industrial. The earlier you settle these cities, the more powerful they become towards the end of the game.

You can win on Diety or against any AI rather easily by only building 3-5 cities, but you'll find it's even easier and you'll win a lot sooner if you expand more, not matter if you're in republic or not. On MP, building 3-5 cities will not keep up with anybody with any skill. It can work, but your opponet shouldn't let it work.

Just don't go building settlers and cities that you can't protect against a rush. the capturing of settler or newly found city can be a huge swing in momentum.
 
if your responding to me i mean under my username and above my avatar.
 
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