this sounds more like a stereotype black and white way to think, perhaps more relevant to vanilla but not so much for G&K. happiness isn't much of a limiting factor for expansion, i always end up with excess happiness even with the most aggressive city building possible (selling all lux, fast liberty tree settler, building settler, etc). i should note though that i find on most maps if you choose the standard number of players per map there just isn't a lot of room to expand beyond maybe 8 cities MAX, unless you happen to have a neighbour who doesnt like to expand. i find with the set number of players per map there is only so much room to keep expanding, so if i get 8 cities i feel lucky, generally it's probably closer to 6. so this might not count as 'ics', but im not sure how you can 'ics' more than this when the ai generally ics'es themselves and maps have only so much room per civ for expansion. in any event, at 8 cities expansion happiness has never been a limiting factor for me and my cities (assuming decent land) become all equally large.