how to play more than 3 cities effectively in BNW ?(spread empire newbie)

Hello. In the past time i always play only 1 city.
Now +33% maximum cultural per city built is reduced to 10%. I want to try to play more than 3 cities. But i don't know how to play it at all because in 1 city playing i try to buy all buildings and make the wonders as much as possible.
How do you guys play spread empire effectively?

build new cities near luxuries,
take liberty and per-city religious beliefs
pyramids would help workers to improve your land faster
forbidden palace is very good too, to mitigate the extra unhappiness

killmeplease said:

build new cities near luxuries,
take liberty and per-city religious beliefs
pyramids would help workers to improve your land faster
forbidden palace is very good too, to mitigate the extra unhappiness

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Edit: I was mistaken, ignore my first point. I have built it too...go figure.

The key is to specialize cities. Not every city needs to build everything. Have a city that focuses on military, a city that focuses on wonders etc.

I would read some strategies. It also largely depends what type of victory you are going for.

Yzman said:

Forbidden Palace doesn't do that anymore.

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It does.

also, ally maritime citystates

killmeplease said:

also, ally maritime citystates

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Isn't it a greater priority to ally Mercantile and/or Cultural when going wide?

WiseGreen said:

Isn't it a greater priority to ally Mercantile and/or Cultural when going wide?

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Especially Mercantile. Patronage is a lot stronger for wide empires then one'd initially think.

So do you mean that i should make more than 5 cities to make appropriate city that each city will concentrate to create only 1 resource ? And thank you for everyone who reply to me.

for a 10-city empire, maritime CS would give 12 food per turn
how much culture would a cultured CS give?

killmeplease said:

for a 10-city empire, maritime CS would give 12 food per turn
how much culture would a cultured CS give?

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Was it +23 cultures? Or it depends on the era?

Depends on the era.

I like playing with few cities too.

From my experience when I play with more cities I don't focus on growth as much. I tend to be happy spamming out units and focus on production.

I read this from a guide that basically suggested keeping the population below the point where you can easily keep them happy. ~5 Pop is what I recall.

I'd imagine having many small cities would choke your research. That guide's probably from before BNW?

I for one wouldn't recommend learning playing wide in BNW. I used to play wide all the time but BNW supports tall empires very well.

Rhaegar7 said:

Depends on the era.

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Ancient era is best era!

I can still build tall and wide in the game; it has always been about city states. If I'm going standard map I always take tradition. If I'm going to sprawl at the start I will drop 5-6 cities by turn 100 and ensure they are in ideal locations. I will be at negative happiness for a little bit but I insure I scout as many city states as possible and do barb quests. Early game I prioritize culture, military, city states then I try and pick up a mercantile and two maritime allies for max city growth. The culture helps me burn through tradition I like the free monuments. I usually then take patronage, when going wide you should have more gold and science then other civs who are going tall.

The key I find is getting a couple earlier game wonders and dropping your second, thrid and fourth cities in great city spots. It's very important to have an early game tech advantage as your going to need some wonders. (Tall civs build units and wonder's faster generally). If you drop your cities early enough you can fix happiness problems and grow out rather quickly. I usually focus infrastructure early on and wait for a civ to attack me I will buy walls defend and consider a counter attack if it's past turn 150 as I'm usually ahead in tech by now.

The reason you can still build tall when going wide is simple the mercantile and maritime cs ensure you never fall behind in population. You should always have more population over your entire empire than someone who is building tall. This should results in you having more gold and more science. The most imporant factor in doing this is city placement. The cities have to be in an area of advantage like a river with a mountain preferably flood plains. Ocean access with luxury tiles for gold production is also huge. If you can focus infrastructure, and gold production you will be leaps and bounds ahead. The best advantage is the patronage science boost. This can send you over the top and ensure you get certain wonders. Whenever I drop a city I'm always looking at the three tile radius to ensure it's in the proper location I will sacrafice one resource for a river / mountain combo because of civil service/water mill bonus the reason I do this is not for population growth although this is true it allows me to use specialist slots which is what I really want the food for! There is no better land then wheat located on flood plains with the petra built in the city. Wonders and religion that add to your existing tiles can always make an ok city epic. If you can manage four epic cities you will be laughing.