4 city tall strategy questions

The 4-city policy is just a guideline, not a rule. Many times, there simply won't be enough room to make four of your own cities. This becomes more frequent on higher levels because the AI expands faster and farther. You just need to play to the terrain, not a build set in stone.
 
If your having trouble with 4-city I would suggest 3-city. It can make certain things a lot easier and you'll get up and running sooner. TBH based on personal experience I would recommend 3-city over 4-city unless their is a must have 4th spot.
 
If your having trouble with 4-city I would suggest 3-city. It can make certain things a lot easier and you'll get up and running sooner. TBH based on personal experience I would recommend 3-city over 4-city unless their is a must have 4th spot.

This is victory condition & game style dependent.
Going for a Cultural victory or a domination victory I would agree.
And if your planned science victory includes puppeting a few cities on top of your 3 built cities I'd also agree (especially if you plan on annexing the most productive one)

But if playing peaceful science; 3 cities going tall won't produce as much science as 4 cities going tall.
 
That's good to know. I just started a new game last night and there are 3 pretty good spots that will get me 6 (or maybe 7) unique luxuries, plus loads of extra silver. I couldn't really fine a decent spot for a fourth city, however Ghandi is just north of me (in fact I think I will annoy him settling me second city) so I might try and take his capital as my fourth, might be a bit tricky though as there are tons of jungles around him.
 
When you play the tall strategy, do you go with 4 cities all the way or do you found more cities at a later point?

In my two games so far I founded only four cities during the entire game. I had a few puppet cities later which were basically forced on me because the former owners started a war, but there was still a lot of empty space on my continent where I could have founded more cities. Since I didn't, of course the other AIs later settled all those spots.

So I'm wondering if it would have been better to claim the spots with my own cities or not (I still won both games but that doesn't mean it was the optimal way to go as it was only Prince/King level).

Would you recommend going wide(r) at some point, and if so, when?
 
Would you recommend going wide(r) at some point, and if so, when?

If you have enough gold to be rushing buildings, if you have a choice spot, if the game isn't almost over, and if you won't be missing out on critical social policies or unreasonably delaying them due to increasing costs.

Typically this means that you may get a window after taking Free Thought in Rationalism.

Alternatively, if the game is almost over but you need a strategic resource (coal/aluminum/uranium) to speed up production of the utopia or spaceship.
 
When you play the tall strategy, do you go with 4 cities all the way or do you found more cities at a later point?

In my two games so far I founded only four cities during the entire game. I had a few puppet cities later which were basically forced on me because the former owners started a war, but there was still a lot of empty space on my continent where I could have founded more cities. Since I didn't, of course the other AIs later settled all those spots.

So I'm wondering if it would have been better to claim the spots with my own cities or not (I still won both games but that doesn't mean it was the optimal way to go as it was only Prince/King level).

Would you recommend going wide(r) at some point, and if so, when?

If there're more tasty spots, and my empire is comfy, I will always expand beyond 4 cities. Really no reason not to. But if space is contested or you don't have the happiness or you're behind on your infrastructure, that's more important. Also, if you're going to settle new cities, make sure you don't do it too late. For example if you settle a new city on turn 150, you're probably not going to get much out of that city (unless you settled it for a strategic/NW). I try to usually have all of my cities (5-7 usually) up by about turn 120 to make sure they have time to grow so they can contribute to your empire lategame (~100+ beakers or so). Usually a city needs to be around size 15 to be able to contribute that. Actually just checked a save and on turn 200 a size 14 city is providing 137.5 science for me. A size 19 is providing 167.5. These are my 5th and 6th cities in this game, so my empire is actually producing about 15-20% of its science from my 5th and 6th cities, not bad at all.
 
If you have enough gold to be rushing buildings, if you have a choice spot, if the game isn't almost over, and if you won't be missing out on critical social policies or unreasonably delaying them due to increasing costs.

Typically this means that you may get a window after taking Free Thought in Rationalism.

Alternatively, if the game is almost over but you need a strategic resource (coal/aluminum/uranium) to speed up production of the utopia or spaceship.

And also if it wouldn't delay remaining national wonders. Which eliminates the above window in G&K (unless you're playing with espionage off)

As to late game strategic resources; you should never need to found a new city if your short; chances are extremely high that one city state will have coal and another will have aluminum; just send a spy each to rig elections and then coup only with protection from coup (or if espionage is off, buy them)
Uranium is rarer.
 
chances are extremely high that one city state will have coal and another will have aluminum
On some difficulties, you'll win before they get the tech for them (rare situation for most players, who are playing on higher difficulties if they win that fast... I realize... more relevant to the HoF crowd).
 
And also if it wouldn't delay remaining national wonders

I was going to say that too, but I thought it could be covered under having enough gold to rush buildings.

I don't see the national intelligence wonder as necessary. It's really hard to fit in those hammers with a fast finish.
 
I was going to say that too, but I thought it could be covered under having enough gold to rush buildings.

I don't see the national intelligence wonder as necessary. It's really hard to fit in those hammers with a fast finish.

The CIA is the only thing (other than the world wonder) that brings the AIs tech stealing rate down to something reasonable.
But more important is that it makes your spies defending your city state allies against enemy rigs/coups more effective.
 
Thanks for all the information!

I think the main problem with the attack I was talking about was the position of my city, I have started another game last night and my choice of city positions seem much better, even though the selection of luxuries in the cities' radii is a bit bad (1 citrus, 1 cotton, 1 marble, 1 silver and 8 salt!). Also I miss out on any horses, hopefully iron won't be an issue!

You might have an issue with blood pressure late in modern era. I'd suggest bee-lining and rushing Hospitals and Medical Labs to prevent a massive die-off :lol:
 
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