Expanding on Emperor

[ArnoldI]

I'm a tall player and I have problems on expansion. I usually finish my games with 4 or 5 cities (5 cities is much thing for me). And I have some questions for expansion:

Which civs do you use in expansion games?

When do you build you second or third settler?

How to expand and dominate?

Which are the best wonders for large empires?

and, how can I expand without destroying my happiness and economy?

 

[OwlRaider]

1. Arabia and the Mayans are probably the best civs for going wide, but you can do it with almost every civ.
2. Preferably after you get Collective Rule, to cut the down needed to build the settlers.
3. Going wide rather than tall shouldn't change your overall strategy by much. You can still choose whether to focus on science early or on production to get a large army out quickly. As a whole you will want a balance between science and military, how to achieve that balance depends on your play style and the map.
4. Again, it depends on your strategy. There are the obvious ones like the Pyramids for example who are great in wide empires since you have a lot more tiles to improve, but other than such obvious wonders get the wonders you need for your strategy, and in any case don't chase them too hard.
5. Religion is the key to maintaining happiness in a wide empire. Firstly you should get used to being at negative happiness early on, -9 or higher is still fine, -10 is where you start to be in trouble, so don't let your happiness get there. Get your religion up quickly and focus on happiness beliefs. There are many to choose from so mix and match according to your strategy and situation.

 

[nanomage]

use mercantile CS, expand to new luxuries first. Also, I don't think you really have much options with religion when wide. You'll probably want MoG + CB + Ascestisicm. MoG because you'll not have your NC up in reasonable time (compared to tall), CB just because you need happiness and Ascestisism because you most likely already have Shrines in your cities (you need them to have your religion in the first place)
You have a bit more freedom here if you're Maya/Ethiopia, or if you have chosen faith-generating pantheon or are just lucky, but even then it's something along the happiness line. You really need it to expand, and other sources are depleted fast.

 

[OwlRaider]

Well, he can still have a reasonable NC time even when going wide. As long as he doesn't sacrifice everything else in order to go wide there's no reason why he shouldn't be able to get NC up with 3-4 cities than continue to grow wide rather than stop expanding like you would in a tall game. CB+Aestheticism is a good combination but far from his only choice. He can go for Pagodas or a different faith building for example if he has high faith production, and/or a happiness pantheon rather than MotG, which than leaves room for Tithe/Church Property to get a lot of gold from the religion. Also happiness in general is very map dependent, if you have enough luxuries you won't need that much of it from religion, also if you go very wide you can limit the growth of your cities to the point that they're leaving you even or even positive with a single happiness building. But yes, in general happiness is the #1 priority from religion for a wide empire, it's just that there are still choices to be made.