To colonise or not to colonise

werothegreat said:

See, a combination of Tithe and spamming Holy Sites, in addition to my trade routes, typically means that by the time I'm in the Industrial era, whenever I plop down a new city, I can just purchase Aqueduct, Granary, Workshop, Harbor, and watch the little sucker grow like a weed.

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Along with Order and the Shoshone.

kingfish101 said:

Along with Order and the Shoshone.

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This still provides you with an unnecessary happiness hit, and you still need workers, and all the science buildings to make the city useful. If you just have a 5 pop city with no buildings or production potential its really not worth anything especially if its turn 300 when you are going to win in the next 50 turns.

killmeplease said:

another city adds to your tech and policy costs (5 and 15 % respectively)
so you should not colonize 1-tile islands - unless there is some seafood

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Is this the case even if conquering?

Yes, each conquered city increases base tech costs by a further 5% (on a standard-sized map -- penalty varies by map size).

Each annexed city (but not puppets) adds to your social policy costs (again, the per-city percentage increase varies by map size, and can be reduced by taking the Representation social policy).

Browd said:

Yes, each conquered city increases base tech costs by a further 5% (on a standard-sized map -- penalty varies by map size).

Each annexed city (but not puppets) adds to your social policy costs (again, the per-city percentage increase varies by map size, and can be reduced by taking the Representation social policy).

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So I guess it makes sense to puppet the capital and only cities with real good improvements/wonders. Otherwise, raze the rest?
If you trade a city, does the culture and science penalties go away?

rover6695 said:

So I guess it makes sense to puppet the capital and only cities with real good improvements/wonders. Otherwise, raze the rest?
If you trade a city, does the culture and science penalties go away?

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If you trade a city? I think so.

Try Tithe, Mosques, Pagodas, and a +happy in religion; with 10-12 cities and trade-routes , and you can drop cities whenever you want before Industrial Era, coupled with : Raging Barb's, and Unlimited Barb. Exp., and Caravan Buff mods . Once you get past 4 cities, you'll thrive, AI's might survive .

werothegreat said:

See, a combination of Tithe and spamming Holy Sites, in addition to my trade routes, typically means that by the time I'm in the Industrial era, whenever I plop down a new city, I can just purchase Aqueduct, Granary, Workshop, Harbor, and watch the little sucker grow like a weed.

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Another way to kickstart late cities is to send a production caravan or cargo ship to them. It also helps if you immediately spread a religion which includes a faith building, for an immediate boost to happiness and culture. The culture from those buildings obviously helps expand borders to grab more workable tiles.

I played a wide game with Indonesia and grabbed Pagodas for my Hindu religion. With Pagodas and Gardens I was swimming in and all game. I did fall behind somewhat in in the mid game, perhaps because of too much wondermongering. I still won a pretty easy diplomatic victory though.

Late city foundation and wide strategies in general are perhaps best left to easier difficulty levels.

I always find that cities like this tend to cost me more than they give back, but for some reason I just can't stop founding them

I allways use liberty in my games (immortal), because I find it most fun.

I don't think it's fun placing 4 cities and then go all in science.

I think it's much more awesome settling your homeland with 3-6 cities and then go exploring for new territory to settle, ending up with . It's amazing when you find that sweet spot overseas with iron, horses and 1 luxury, easily defended by sea (ofc you have a solid navy as a seafaring empire )

That's why I mostly play civs like Portugal, Indonesia, Byzantium, Carthage and other civs favouring seabased empires.

Settling a new island allways raises curtain questions:

- Will it get some production later to compensate with happiness hit from building it?
- Will it be able to produce ships for late navy superiority?
- Does it provide important luxuries for selling, keeping?
- Does it provide strategic resources usefull now or later? (Iron gets VERY important when you want that frigate navy)
- Will it upset close nabors and risk war?
- Is the placement strategically good for late navy/air base or invasions? Or perhaps defence?
- Will it be a important island for late expansion?
- Will it open lucrative trade routes to friendly civs?
- Is it positive for my religion? (1 more city to build religious buildings)
- Is it very vulnurable to enemy attacks? (building nice cities close to aggressive enemies may cause them to attack you)

Hope it helps

The discussion seems to be ignoring other aspects

1. Gold: You're going to want to buy key buildings, so this drain needs to be taken into account (especially if you're planning on using surplus gold on city states, so rush buying buildings in a new city is an opportunity cost)
2. Production: See rush buying. Also, even once the key initial buildings are bought, if it's an island city or otherwise low-hammer city, then you're not only going to have to rusy buy initial buildings, but most/all buildings.
3. Defense: Warmonger AIs tend to make lots of ships. If you're not careful, they can take down your city before you can get your own fleet out there. Even if you keep 1 or 2 on station, that's not enough against 8-10 enemy ships. Again, this is made worse by an isolated city (which is what we're talkking about) and also by an island city (with low production, which means Walls etc. are not a priority).
4. Religion: a minor point, but it's harder to keep your religion on an isolated city. Eventually it may change due to simple pressure from others, which means you have to spend another missionary or prophet zap on it

I'd say this falls in the "you don't know if you don't try" camp. If the spot looks good, settle it this time and take note of how it works out. When I've done this, it has paid off handsomely and I wish I'd done it sooner. It may increase your culture costs, but it also increases your raw culture and tourism output, and that's tourism defense.

Sometimes you get lucky and it turns out that otherwise unremarkable island has a ton of coal, oil or uranium.

You also have to plan ahead for that future Sydney Opera House and Neuschwanstein. If you want those, it's bad to wait until you researched the tech to then realize you have nowhere you can build it.