Rise and Fall of Your Empire?

[EDre]

Recently (well over the past weeks, im on marathon) I was playing as America on Continents and expanded my empire till I had at least 3 cities on each continent, some even more. I was always stuck in wars with different AI and my people were very unhappy. After about 15 wars I started to scale back. After I destroyed Gandhi for the second time I gave most of my overseas cities to people I could somewhat trust. My people were now really happy and about to complete Apollo Program. On the score list I am #2 but always am switching spots with #3, Persia. I am on around turn 1,350 and Russia is way ahead of me. I probably won't win but this is my first Marathon game and its fun.

Have you ever had to scale back your empire because you went a little too far?

 

[yosefm]

I never scaled back my empire, but when I started playing Emperor it cost me a game or two, and eventually I changed my playstyle from "expansion at all cost" to measured expansion while setting up the conditions for it in advance (resources, policies, etc.)

 

[poxpower]

Only in domination games.
On higher difficulties the AIs grow their cities stupidly fast and often in a peace deal they will just give you a 15-20 pop city. There's absolutely no way to absorb that without going massively unhappy so you have to raze it or sell it.

If you're settling so many cities that your empire is always unhappy, then you are playing the game badly. Unhappiness is the mechanic that prevents endless city-spamming. When your empire is unhappy you get a massive growth penalty so what will happen is you just have 20 tiny crap cities that can't ever build anything worthwhile.
The game is made so you have to choose between a few big cities or a moderate amount ( under 10 usually ) of smaller cities. There's just not enough sources of happiness in the game to allow you to spam that many settlements.

 

[yosefm]

There's just not enough sources of happiness in the game to allow you to spam that many settlements.

Until ideologies, that is. But when they come you usually don't even have room for more cities.

 

[EDre]

Only in domination games.
On higher difficulties the AIs grow their cities stupidly fast and often in a peace deal they will just give you a 15-20 pop city. There's absolutely no way to absorb that without going massively unhappy so you have to raze it or sell it.

If you're settling so many cities that your empire is always unhappy, then you are playing the game badly. Unhappiness is the mechanic that prevents endless city-spamming. When your empire is unhappy you get a massive growth penalty so what will happen is you just have 20 tiny crap cities that can't ever build anything worthwhile.
The game is made so you have to choose between a few big cities or a moderate amount ( under 10 usually ) of smaller cities. There's just not enough sources of happiness in the game to allow you to spam that many settlements.

That has happened to me but sometimes when I gifted cities the civs would then turn on me after a while and then I's recapture the city and have to give it back to the original owner.

And I was not city spamming I just had a serious lack of happiness related policies and buildings I did not realize this until today when the game ended in 2050, Russia won.

 

[BigChiefLizzy]

If you get gifted a city as part of a peace agreement and it's on your border, and you can't hold onto it because of happiness issues consider selling it to another AI you are friendly with who is miles away. Will act as a buffer (hopefully), and you don't take the happiness hit.

 

[EDre]

If you get gifted a city as part of a peace agreement and it's on your border, and you can't hold onto it because of happiness issues consider selling it to another AI you are friendly with who is miles away. Will act as a buffer (hopefully), and you don't take the happiness hit.

I did that around Mid Game when I was not as expansive yet (the game was so long it feels like two different games). I gifted it to Korea, another continent, but then I had to take it back because my enemy took it back and then I took it again. But by then the Pop. was so low it hardly effected happiness.
(In my mind the game was split in "Pre-Imperialism", "Imperialism" and "Post-Imperialism". The Game took at least 2 months.

 

[Darth Tribble]

I rarely scale back my empire unless it gets way too big to manage.

On rare occasions, I give away a city to help a friend who is about to be wiped out by another Civ. I usually try to give him a city that is in a relatively safe position from the enemy.