Cities needed for science victory?

[ltccone]

On a standard map, what is the ideal number of cities for a science victory? In my BNW experience, 4 doesn't seem to be enough.

 

[Cromagnus]

On a standard map, what is the ideal number of cities for a science victory? In my BNW experience, 4 doesn't seem to be enough.

One city. If you have a high-food starting position and don't forget to research the archer upgrade path, one is best. But 4 is easier to manage, because then you can have a production-focused city, a gold-focused city, a culture-focused city, and a research-focused city.

Just my opinion though. There is no one best formula but one-city means you finish social policies faster. And it's easier to get research agreements when you don't expand, because expansion makes people hate you or covet your land. Completing rationalism early and signing multiple research agreements, planting great scientists, and going TALL is how you maximize science.

And certain civs are just better at it. Babylon. Korea. The Maya. Siam. Ethiopia.

 

[ltccone]

One city. If you have a high-food starting position and don't forget to research the archer upgrade path, one is best. But 4 is easier to manage, because then you can have a production-focused city, a gold-focused city, a culture-focused city, and a research-focused city.

Just my opinion though. There is no one best formula but one-city means you finish social policies faster. And it's easier to get research agreements when you don't expand, because expansion makes people hate you or covet your land. Completing rationalism early and signing multiple research agreements, planting great scientists, and going TALL is how you maximize science.

And certain civs are just better at it. Babylon. Korea. The Maya. Siam. Ethiopia.

I'm playing Siam, and have 4 cities. Unfortunately, I only have two neighbors on my continent and none have enough money yet for a research agreement.

 

[superliminal]

One city. If you have a high-food starting position and don't forget to research the archer upgrade path, one is best. But 4 is easier to manage, because then you can have a production-focused city, a gold-focused city, a culture-focused city, and a research-focused city.

Just my opinion though. There is no one best formula but one-city means you finish social policies faster. And it's easier to get research agreements when you don't expand, because expansion makes people hate you or covet your land. Completing rationalism early and signing multiple research agreements, planting great scientists, and going TALL is how you maximize science.

And certain civs are just better at it. Babylon. Korea. The Maya. Siam. Ethiopia.

I disagree. I'd say three or four, solely for the benefit of internal trade routes. If you have four cities on the coast, and send three food trade routes to your capital, that city is going to grow much quicker than it would otherwise.

 

[Byzantine Bomb]

Three is fine but in my experience four works out better, if only to serve as a unit production facility in times of great peril. That and the increase revenue lets you make more research agreements.

 

[budweiser]

While you can reach 1000 BPT with 4, I think more would be faster.

 

[mrwho]

ignore

 

[mrwho]

As long as your next few cities are producing more than 5% of the total science, which they clearly would be, I see no reason why staying to one city would be a good idea at all.

 

[Ninakoru]

Four is a nice spot, you get all the free buildings from tradition. Try to settle your capitan near mountain and river, and you will get an overpowered capital.

 

[Cromagnus]

As long as your next few cities are producing more than 5% of the total science, which they clearly would be, I see no reason why staying to one city would be a good idea at all.

Well, one reason would be the faster social policies, hence completing Rationalism faster. I'm not necessarily saying one city is better. I personally prefer 3-4 as well. But one city does have its advantages. It's easier with one city to get the national college, oxford university, national epic, and Hermitage, all of which help. With careful management, of course you can do it with more cities, it just requires a lot of planning to make sure you don't lose turns waiting for universities, etc.

I do think Guilds have changed things. With one city, it's pretty hard to fill up all those specialist slots as soon as you get them. Depends on how your growth is going but yeah. It takes a 30+ city to really utilize every specialist slot and still have any production.

 

[FrostK]

With nice civs like Venice or Korea: 3 or more. Usually 4. With something like Azteq you should probably go more cities. Anyway it is always question of territory - if there is space, if it is good, etc.

 

[joncnunn]

Easyist to manage at 4 self built cities and an optional puppet empire attached with no more than 8 additional for a total of 12 on standard size. Going past 4 self built & annexed cities slows down cultural policies. Many cultural policies directly or indirectly benefit science.

And since every city (including puppets) must contribute at least 5% of your empire's science just to stay even and your capital will have NC and a few academies, it's unlikely a 13th city could ever significantly add to your science rate.

 

[Vidszhite]

Four is a nice spot, you get all the free buildings from tradition. Try to settle your capitan near mountain and river, and you will get an overpowered capital.

My last game, I wandered a bit and found a coastal mountain next to a double river, surrounded by jungles, with 4 banana tiles and a deer forest. 2 unique luxes, with 3 spices, ended up being 2 sources of 6 iron each nearby. Best start ever. Too bad I was going for domination, but I was so far ahead, I couldn't even use industrial espionage once I got autocracy (immortal). There was even a second spot just like it to the south, except it had more hills, cows, and forests, so it became my production city. Topped out at over 130 base hammers with no nuke plant or Manufactories, because so many of the hill tiles were river tiles, and several of those were iron. It could build wonders in 6 turns with nuke plant (standard). It had a mountain too, so I had 2 observatories.

My 3rd city, ironically, actually became my biggest because of a perfectly placed lake, making every grassland tile in its radius a civil service tile. No production at all though. It was my culture city.

Like I said, best start ever. All the AIs coveted my land all game.

 

[kb27787]

I've done it on 2 cities on deity Pangaea before... (at the end I had around only ~800 beakers) but I was friends with the whole map.

In BNW as opposed to GnK I wouldn't worry too much. As long as your cities are big cities, 3 is a comfortable enough win, granted that you have RAs with most if not all the AI.
4 is just runaway win, if they are all good and you can get them to grow.
Above 4 I don't think makes much difference.

 

[ltccone]

I did win a science victory with only 4 cities on a standard map but...

I'm now playing a game as Russia on a standard continents map. My starting continent I shared with Sweden and Denmark. In the Classical age I built an army of horsemen, swordsman, and composite bowmen, and annihilated both of them. I burnt their cites that weren't capitals, and built my own. I built 10 cities, and also had Copenhagen and Stockholm. I chose Order as my ideology.

With those cites, I found myself ahead of my science victory game in both science and culture.

I found I had a huge tech lead over the other continent, which contained Korea, India, Iroquois, and Songhai. They were pretty peaceful when I found them, but that soon changed. Songhai is history, and Korea will soon join them.

I have no chance of winning a science victory though, because I will win a culture victory first, and I didn't disable it like I did in my prior game.

 

[FrostK]

I did win a science victory with only 4 cities on a standard map but...

I'm now playing a game as Russia on a standard continents map. My starting continent I shared with Sweden and Denmark. In the Classical age I built an army of horsemen, swordsman, and composite bowmen, and annihilated both of them. I burnt their cites that weren't capitals, and built my own. I built 10 cities, and also had Copenhagen and Stockholm. I chose Order as my ideology.

I believe that on any difficulty peacefull SV (if you have nice land) is faster than SV after war.

 

[z284pwr]

3-4 coastal cities can make things a breeze if you just use food trade routes to keep your population booming assuming you can get gold the traditional methods from luxuries and buildings

 

[parts]

There's no answer to this. It's as many as you can without breaking unhappiness, yet allowing for some reasonable degree of growth for science to overcome the 5% penalty.

Typically, though, 4-city Tradition is favoured for a reason.

 

[ltccone]

There's no answer to this. It's as many as you can without breaking unhappiness, yet allowing for some reasonable degree of growth for science to overcome the 5% penalty.

Typically, though, 4-city Tradition is favoured for a reason.

A 5% penalty isn't much if you can build up a city quickly.

 

[Ninakoru]

4 is the easy spot, but placing your capital near a mountain is more important.