How to rapidly build 10 Cities?

yeehi

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I want lots of cities quickly. What is the fast way to build cities?

I feel that too much time is being taken to expand. Even if the cities were quite close together, a lot more of them would be better. I think I remember seeing some people discussing having 10 cities in 60 turns. Getting even half that many seems difficult, so what are the main techniques needed to quickly grow?

Thanks!

EDIT:

  • To rephrase: What is the quickest way to produce 2 Cities from 1 Settler?
  • Could we use the standard Earth Map as a default for discussing locations?
  • Standard Speed, China as a Civilization, for example
 
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To get the ball rolling try bee-lining Craftsmanship. You'll need a worker after you complete it and you will also need to have Mining researched. Slot Agoge as your military policy and then get a unit one turn from completion. Then use the worker to chop a forest. You can then build a settler and all the overflow from the chop will get the +50% bonus. The first hard built settler would typically take 10 turns or so to build at this point, and you can cut that in half by using chop overflow.

Once the second city is down go straight for Early Empire. Inspirations and and other culture boosts help tremendously so don't forget to scout and focus on growth in both cities to hit 6 pop fast. Once you unlock it you can slot Colonization and get settlers out of any decently productive city fairly quickly for at least the first 3-4 you build; the costs then start to escalate and eventually only your best cities will be able to make settlers. Also be sure to build an army. Any city that can't make settlers (either 1 pop or not enough cogs) can make units.

I would be able to self found 3-5 cities by T60 or so this way. To get to 10 cities I would need to capture a few.
 
I want lots of cities quickly. What is the fast way to build cities?

I feel that too much time is being taken to expand. Even if the cities were quite close together, a lot more of them would be better. I think I remember seeing some people discussing having 10 cities in 60 turns. Getting even half that many seems difficult, so what are the main techniques needed to quickly grow?

Thanks!

EDIT:

  • To rephrase: What is the quickest way to produce 2 Cities from 1 Settler?
  • Could we use the standard Earth Map as a default for discussing locations?
  • Standard Speed, China as a Civilization, for example

So heres "how to civ IV" in 1 easy step, yes even on Deity this strategy works.

1. Archers.

You make 4 slingers right away, beeline archery and upgrade them. Roll a few of your neigbors and get so far ahead the game is over by t50. Incidentally, this is also how you get 10 citys by turn 60, heck, you can even get 20 citys by t100.
 
Start the game by building either 2 warriors or 3 slingers (upgraded into archers asap). These are your defense against barbarians. Also, beeline Early Empire. From that point on, spam Settlers in your capital whenever possible. If you have a good production second city, build Settlers there too. This way, you can get 10 cities without conquering any by turn 100.

If you're interested in conquering, however, start with 3-4 slingers, upgraded into archers asap, and just conquer whichever city is closest, then move on to the next one and so on until you're in the classical era and start getting warmonger penalties. Meanwhile, again rush Early Empire and start spamming Settlers like before. I recently had a game where I had 10 cities in 59 turns and about 16 in 100 turns (maybe even more), if I remember correctly, on normal speed. This included 4 conquered cities and a lot of settler spamming because I had conquered both AIs on my continent by that time.

Also note that playing on higher difficulty, contrary to what you'd maybe expect, actually makes this easier, as, from Emperor on, AIs start with multiple settlers, giving you additional cities to conquer or, sometimes, settlers to steal.

And make sure you're finished your conquering spree before they start building walls, because after that it becomes a lot harder and you should probably first back off and prepare. As long as there's no walls, 4 archers and a warrior can take a city with ease.

One last thing, as for conquering city states, wheter or not you want to do so very much depends on the bonuses; if you're not going for a religion, for example, a religious city-state is a very good target. However, if you're going for a domination victory, you might want to leave, say, Kabul, up even though they're closest by, because that experience is just great to have if you're conquering so much. Think 7th promotion around the renaissance era.
 
The early gold is probably better spent on something else besides upgrading archers from slingers. Especially if you're beelining craftsmanship with a worker and slotting agoge. Archers build very fast with Agoge.

I'm going builder - settler/slinger - whatever now, with the first slinger only for the archery Eureka.

On diety barbs or a forward settling neighbor finding you in the first 5 turns will make me build a few more slingers instead of that settler.

To answer OP question, people are doing it with expansion and war. Can easily build/buy 3-4 settlers in 60 turns. You make up the difference through conquest.

To get the ball rolling try bee-lining Craftsmanship. You'll need a worker after you complete it and you will also need to have Mining researched. Slot Agoge as your military policy and then get a unit one turn from completion. Then use the worker to chop a forest. You can then build a settler and all the overflow from the chop will get the +50% bonus. The first hard built settler would typically take 10 turns or so to build at this point, and you can cut that in half by using chop overflow.

This sounds good if you're China. Otherwise, how are you getting Craftsmanship and a chop with one builder in any reasonable amount of time? I notice you said you'll need a worker after you get it [Craftsmanship] but bee-lining craftsmanship without the Eureka doesn't make sense to me? Are you building 2 workers in the first 25 turns?
 
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Play as Rome, get the first envoy with a culture CS, or have culture bearing resources near your start and you can get Craftsmanship fast the hard way. I open with a builder in almost all my games. If I can get Craftsmanship no later than T20 then I save the builder's last charge for a chop after I put in Agoge. This way city #2 is out no later than T25 and I have usually increased either housing or amenities (sometimes both) in my cap by one each.

This could be done most reliably as Rome or China. If other civs lack early culture but want to try this gambit then opening builder and purchasing a second builder ASAP should get it done. Using the second builder to improve a duplicate lux and then trading with the AI can recoup most of its cost. Early tile improvements mean the most and produce a fair amount of science and culture through eurekas and inspirations. The builders are well worth it.
 
It's possible to build 10 cities in that lap of time but the major problems are the AIs and barbs. Build 3 cities asap(no early empire or agoge) then rush commerical hubs. Build trade routes with +3 bonus production(make encampment and comm.hub in cap) then use early empire to rush rest of cities needed from these first 3 boosted cities(i once made 10 cities in 45 turns using that way online speed multiplayer) but you need a lot of land and few ennemies around.
 
And then what?

Unless you do a cetrain timing push you can expect other players to have archery as well.
The most archer zergs I've faced were easily dispatched.

It might work against CS or if you have an AI in your game, but generally going for an archery push is a waste of resources.
 
There's a separate subforum for multiplayer so I think it's safe to assume there were AI in Lily's games.
 
There's a separate subforum for multiplayer so I think it's safe to assume there were AI in Lily's games.

Urrr... In MP games maybe Stirrups. Although in MP games it may be not that possible to have that much cities...
In one MP game I got 8 cities with Stirrup using Arabia at T56(Standard Speed). I picked up 2 opponents and several CSs using chariots, then everyone surroundered for that early Mumluk.
 
Urrr... In MP games maybe Stirrups. Although in MP games it may be not that possible to have that much cities...
In one MP game I got 8 cities with Stirrup using Arabia at T56(Standard Speed). I picked up 2 opponents and several CSs using chariots, then everyone surroundered for that early Mumluk.

If were talking MP(which nobody on these forums does) then i would go as far as to say 10 by 100 is impossible. If you have it the other players are bad and it doesn't count paradox. 8 by 56? The most i had was 6 by 40 something, but then everybody mass resigned as i was to far ahead with carts. Theres a reason people ussually only play in groups they know.
 
The biggest difficulty with building ten cities IMO is not building settlers but trying to maintain that ten city empire and not have your growth halt. Youre going to need a decent army and roads with 10 cities because you've surely stepped on someones foot with all that land lol. Youre also going to need a bunch of workers to develop luxury resources in particular as well as getting your cities productive an efficient with their population use. Also you have to hope that the building of 10 settlers (costing 10 pop.) didn't set you too far back in your main settler building cities (likely capital) because you're going to be short a district or two so something will have suffered. Science bc no campus, culture bc no theater square/wonders, faith bc no holy site, etc.

I agree with some other posters in that rushing maybe like 6 cities is smart but after that its way easier to just capture the rest. You won't have stalled your empire and you will be capturing partially developed/populated cities with likely already improved tiles and made buildings. Also your army will be gaining experience and promotions, you'll be getting great generals and usually in my experience each civ has their own unique luxuries so you'll be getting those too.
 
The trick seems to be to get eurekas and build an ermy and conquer fast. Once your army is on the road spam settlers for a bit so you get the best of both worlds and therefore get 15-20 cities by T100. Then get builders when they are stronger and chopping more powerful and chop everything in you need.

With an empire this size you need to stop cities growing so your empire stays fruitful.
 
Scout your neighbors rapidly and scoop up any unattended Settlers. Then your hammers invested in Scouts and Warriors are multiplied. Often the last gasp of a civilization will be to make you a Settler to capture along with their capitol.

I'm pretty good at that initial land grab. I need to work on turning the corner into district development time, because I think I wait too long.
 
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