Early City Explosion Tactic?

[Sparrowhawk]

I have been thinking this over for a little while. Since cities are going to be so hard to take, and culture builds up over time, should you build some early cities way far away from your capital? That way you could eventually grow out to meet them, and they would absorb enemy expansion near them through culture. What does everyone think?

 

[Sailsa]

Could be a good idea, but it could work against you. Not only will it be more susceptible to attacks and harder to reinforce, but if your outlying city gets completely surrounded by enemyones, your city could end up getting absorbed. Good idea though. I'll probably try it sometime to see what happens.

 

[DarkSchneider]

My experience from Civ2 is always expand radially from your initial location. It reduces corruption, makes your cities easier to defend, makes your infastructure easier to plan and your initial towns faster to seed. I see nothing in the Civ3 FAQ that would change this. The only good time to make a 'cut-off' town is when you know the world map and you can block off a relatively large land-mass at a single point. Then again, if the resources near that location are nothing worth noting you can always build a fortress instead.

 

[Marik2000]

if this is a valid stratigy, the pyramids will be a very good wonder... growing u people fast building settlers, but u could get in big problems with unhappiness... in the higher levels...

if deaty has anything like the unhappy levels as in civ 2.... It is about impossible 2 use this stratigy... and maybee this si a good thing... by giving the AI a good change in a fair game.... really don't think a IA undertsnads what u r doing when u grow that many cities that fast

 

[WUM]

because far away cities will be harder to connect, so it will be harder to trade and use resources, i will start with a very big ring of cities and my capital in the middle. Later i will fill in this circle by new cities. Problem might be the terrain.

Even though i like the absorption of enemy-cities through culture i fear this will only happen:
- on small island were i have a city before another civ also builds a city on this island.
- when another civ builds a city on a free spot on my home-continent.
- on borders with a much weaker or stronger civ, where it will be a matter of being the first with a potent culture-border-city.

a tactic of *really* expanding through cultural assimilation is impossible i think. Because my younger cities will have borders with older enemy-cities...

 

[pansophy]

From what I can tell, Sparrowhawk is right on. In Civ2 I always put cities in strategic locations and then filled in the middle. That tactic continues to look effective _ even if a civ builds in the middle of your cities, all of your cities will start to bear down on it and it could switch over anyway.

 

[Peteus]

Distant cities are bad, because corruption is a really major problem! I'm observing in my first game that it's oh so much more severe. My third city was loaded with corruption, like maybe 2/3 waste in Despotism!! I eventually built the Forbiden Palace there - no thought about trying to stash it on the other side of the world! The capital even has some corruption, and I gather it's still a considerable issue even in Democracy now (haven't gotten there yet though - give me 15 turns or so!)

Oh, and enemy cities aren't particularly hard to take. My enemy hasn't been building city walls though - I wonder why, as they're really cheap! Maybe he has no stone mines...

 

[DarkSchneider]

I read the manual and it looks like City Walls only help if you city is below pop 7. After that you get bonuses for the size of the city.

 

[zandar]

The Zulus in my game did just that, they traveled FAR through the jungles and set up a city on my borders, then filled in the rest of the area. The Zulus are still in the game, the English, who tried to expand by going after my cities, are now ancient history.

 

[nekulturny]

Corruption is a real killer. And the Forbidden Palace so expensive it's hard to get it built when you've only got 1 or 2 shields to use on it. I've had three enemy cities absorbed into my empire so far (on whatever they're calling "prince" level nowadays.) I've captured, held, and expanded a city dead center in the enemy's territory. Once I got a peace settled I was even able to use a horseman to escort the leader (formed defending with a bowman against an immortal) out to my "home" territory.

I've had the best luck by expanding out in a loose ring with a capitol and a few core cities at the middle. I try to leave enough space that I can come back a little later with just enough room to fill in one more city between the inner core and outer ring. I also try to make sure that every city builds at least one settler and every other city (on average) puts out a worker.

 

[betheballdanny]

Admittedly, I haven't played extremely far into a game. I may have played one game into the ADs. In the other games, I was toying with this strategy for spreading out my civ quickly...

I've only played as the Americans, so the expanionist trait may be why this seems to have worked.

I settle my first city near a shielded grassland. I have my worker (again, maybe just an expanionist starting bonus) build a mine and a road on the shielded grassland. I'll do this for three grasslands or so since there isn't much else for the worker to do.

The first thing I build is a warrior. Then, and I never did this so early in civ2, a granary. Barring bonus wheat, the granary finishes right about the time my city reaches size 3. Then, I build my first settler and a second.

Thanks to the granary and the mines, this city (my capitol) has now become a settler factory.

I treat the settled cities a little differently. I have my settler factory at work, so I don't have to worry about getting that settler out there. So, I build a temple instead of a granary for cultural purposes. I don't bother with a temple in the capitol right away because the palace helps.

I can't wait unitl my F-15 fighter shows up.

 

[Craterus22]

After getting into a bad battle in my first game I sued for piece gave up a city then got the cities back through culture assimalation.

ONe of the funny things about the first two levels of play (Chieftain and warlord?) is that the enemy will rush to fill in in the gaps between your cities. You usually end up gettting them with culture when they are still pop 2 or 3.

The thing that initially confused me was how the computer could settle within my borders without permission... oh well they just provide me free population points.

After my first game I wanted to see if you could continue to culture attack farther into the game without much success. I did have some minimal success in the midgame stealing cities by puting three new cities near a stray enemy city and pumping up the culture fast by pounding workers into the new cities to help build stuff faster.

But late in the game I havent had the success - I guess due to the individual cities culture value being too strong

Good luck all...