Best Number of Civs and City States per Map Size?

[Licentia]

A lot of you guys like a crowded map. My preference for quite some time now, is a huge map with six civs including me, and six city-states. One of the downsides - it seems to provoke city-spamming from some AI civs.

But why is city spamming a downside? The problem with the default settings are that the AI gets screwed by selecting the Liberty policy tree, because the AI never ends up building more than 3-4 cities. The whole entire point of the Liberty tree is for civs to be able to expand to 5,6,7+ cities. By choosing to play a huge map with just 6 civs and 6 city states, you are making Liberty a more viable option for the AI, which should mean a more challenging game for you.

 

[martindo]

Never? AI only builds 3 or 4 initially, but eventually they expand to glom land and/or aluminum and oil.

When I want to level up to a higher difficulty (e.g., King to Emperor), I reduce the number of AI players.

Standard Map can get crowded (city-spamming?) even when AI only wants 3 or 4 cities.
So cut an AI: instead of 8 players (inc you) plus 16 CS, try 7 players plus 18 CS to fill some space.

Large and Huge are harder to run up a high score, even though win is fairly easy. Extra empty space = more barbarians.
And if you let the number of players default, you have more competition for Wonders (if you want them, as I always do).

Instead of 10 + 20 CS at Large, try 8 or 9 + 22 or 24 CS.
Instead of 12 + 24 CS at Huge, try 10 + 26 or 27 CS.

Rome is a great advantage if you want to sprawl wide: keep a steady construction of infrastructure in capital and all the other cities will enjoy a bonus when they're ready for each building. Ideally capital on the coast and/or river to enable those buildings.