Cities of your Civ

[HylandPaddy]

I am interested in people's stratergy in building their cities.
I want to find out how many cities you build, a few strong metropilises, or do you just city spam?
Do you like overlap or are you a person who has every city neatly spaced out?
Do you capture enemy cities or build all your own from scratch?

I hear alot of people saying; Expansion,expansion,expansion.But for me personally i rarely build over 6-7 cities and i hate overlap.
Please share your knowledge, critisims and opinions.

 

[ColinZeal]

I NEVER overlap. But I do build as much as I can with border to border, just like tetris. I try to be as effective as I can

 

[Whelkman]

I build 127 cities, all over the globe, anywhere and everywhere that supports such a thing. It's not possible to eliminate overlap unless playing on a landscape nearly devoid of water.

 

[HylandPaddy]

how do you keep track of them all?

 

[Whelkman]

how do you keep track of them all?

It constantly evolves. As a general rule I keep as much in my head as possible, but I occasionally use spreadsheets and map overlays as aids. I simplify by crafting "eras" for my civilization where just about every city is doing the same thing at any given time.

In a "builder" society, city management isn't the most taxing task until the mass We Love the President Day campaign. Caravans and fast Settlers, if one chooses to utilize them, are much more demanding throughout. Efficiently pre-plotting 127 cities, if one chooses to do so, is also a rigorous task.

 

[HylandPaddy]

Is it annoying when enemy civs take an interest in your cities and disrupt your expansion?

How many enemy civs are present in any given game?

 

[Whelkman]

Is it annoying when enemy civs take an interest in your cities and disrupt your expansion?

How many enemy civs are present in any given game?

I get rid of the enemy tribes early on. Nothing disrupts my expansion except self-generated inefficiencies. I choose seven rivals because it raises the chances of initial double Settlers, and I like to see all the conquests on the replay. I usually choose the Babylonians to survive.

 

[Khilak]

Whelkman is a special issue. He loves to push the game to its numeric limits, as he has said on some occasions. He fills whole map with cities.

His turns maybe last 3 or 4 hours each, because the cities management can become quite long in the end.

Number of necessary cities? It depends on your goals and of the difficluty level.


In order to win an Emperor game, i would recommend no less of 15 cities, and 4 or 5 at least of size 20 or so, the other ones at 10 would be fine.

Boyz, i LOVE this game!!

You gotta play the GOTM's!!

 

[Veni]

I have dabbled with various styles of city expansion over the years, but my favourite style runs something like this:

Initially, I spam ca. 10 cities. These form the 'core' of my empire in one specific geographic region, and I craft them as lovely, balanced cities over the years. Incidentally, they take names such as Latium, Etruria, Samnium, Campania, Venetia, Liguria, etc.

When exploring the world and uncovering an appealing province, I send out a military force and a settler, which founds a provincial capitol (with names such as Gaul, Illyricum, Achaea, etc.). This city is responsible for developing that region with further cities, especially those which provide the original 10 cities with a continuous stream of caravans &/or barracks-cash. If the region is not empty of other civs, I usually leave them alone (except for using diplomats to take control of their resources!). When they eventually attack, however, they ultimately find themselves absorbed into my empire!

 

[Osvaldo Manso]

I like to play the same as HylandPaddy. I like to have around 6 or 7 cities. If I'm on a big continent I can reach to 10 or even 12 cities but I don't think I need that much. On the contrary there were times when I sticked to only 4 or 5 cities - it gets a little more difficult but that's ok. I always play King level.

I rarely overlap cities. However if I find a pretty good location that overlaps only 1 or 2 squares from another city's radius, I don't waste the opportunity to build a city there. So, my "no overlapping rule" is not a strict one. I never used city spam - just not my cup of tea.

I only found cities on grassland terrain (with a shield on for production), on plains with horses or on oasis. If one of these squares is close to a river, even better. I avoid founding cities on the river itself, because normally there's no way of knowing if that particulary square will produce a shield. Furthermore, I always try to build cities in the coast and preferably at least one coastal city to each direction (one at the North coast, one at the South coast, one at the East coast and one at the West coast).

Another important feature is choosing a location that offers both food and shield production for the future. So, I always take into account terrain that can be converted to grassland, like swamp and jungle. On the other hand, I rarely build a city in a location that doesn't offer at least a hills square nearby, because there's no way of turning a terrain square to hills and hills are very important for production, specially after switching to more advanced forms of government.

Usually, I play peaceful games and never begin hostilities. So, most of my cities are built from scratch. However, when involved in a war I sometimes capture enemy cities. These cities I will treat as if built from scratch trying to look after them for the rest of the game. I don't like having first class citizens/cities and second class citizens/cities.

 

[krille]

Is it good to have "barracks" cities?

I tend to evolve my cities. All of them. Probably around twenty cities or so eventually. Occasionally more. I usually play on Small landmasses (I find micromanaging annoying, so less land means less cities means less micro) and Emperor difficulty of course.

I always use the settler cheat (ie one "terraform" per settler per turn, if possible).

I hate it when cities grow too big though (because it's very hard and eventually impossible to manage all your specialists). I often turn non-productive grassland into plains because of this.

I tent to overlap a lot though. Hmm... I think I'm contradicting myself. My play style has gone from very few, non-overlapping elite cities to a higher number of often crammed (extremely overlapping), inevitably, less developed (but still eventually developed) cities. Hmm...

 

[Grand Dad]

Yes Barracks are good, they create versatile units who are better at fighting compared to untrained ones ! And I hate CHEATS, never had any when I started the game 1


PEACE!!!

 

[HylandPaddy]

Is it good to have "barracks" cities?

Are you refering to building and selling barracks to make money because a city doesn't have anything else to build?

Yes it is anoying when you have alot of cities and can't manage them all and just end making them into barrack factories.

thats why you should only build 6-7 cities...like me...

 

[krille]

Yes Barracks are good, they create versatile units who are better at fighting compared to untrained ones ! And I hate CHEATS, never had any when I started the game 1


PEACE!!!

Meh. They aren't cheats per se. The settler "cheat" is simply exploiting a bug within the game. So it's perfectly legit in my book.

Works on all versions.

Are you refering to building and selling barracks to make money because a city doesn't have anything else to build?

Yes it is anoying when you have alot of cities and can't manage them all and just end making them into barrack factories.

thats why you should only build 6-7 cities...like me...

Yeah, that's the one.

 

[Blinking Joy]

Hi!

During the first few thousand years, depending on my situation, I generally follow this pattern:

Build city.
Build defensive unit (usually militia).
Build settlers (if there is a food surplus of 2 or more).
Build temple if city still has a decent food surplus, OR granary if it doesn't, OR city walls right away if i know I'm sharing a big continent.
If temple was built, build granary; if granary was built, build temple; if city walls were built, build barracks (since I'll likely be at war soon).
After a temple and granary have been built (in a "safer" city), build a marketplace, OR another settlers if: A) its first settler has built a new city or; B) it still has a BIG food surplus.
If city walls and barracks were built, then I usually go crazy with chariots and attack like mad until I have the whole continent, or I have created a LARGE distance between my civilization and my nearest neighbor's. THEN I build a settler, and then I start building temples, granaries, etc.
By the time my cities all have temples, granaries, and marketplaces, and most of them are building libraries, I generally have Trade, and seem to be working on Religion around this time (I go for Religion as soon as possible!). Thus after a library is built, or in some cases right after the marketplace is built, I build caravans and cathedrals. Usually I will designate a couple of high-production cities to build caravans (and a few ships) for everybody, while the rest build cathedrals, and often I will build the two religious Wonders as well (I like them).
At this point, it is usually around 1ad. Now I am sending ships laden with caravans and diplomats to other continents, my cities all have cathedrals (except for any newer cities, of course), and I am ready to REALLY play Civ! For me, 1ad-1500ad is the most fun period: I spend it sending out boatload after boatload of caravans and diplomats, exploring my opponents' civilizations, and building universities, banks, and city walls at home -- until I develop Gunpowder (usually around 500ad), when I spend a couple centuries building barracks, musketeers and cannons.

I only play on King Level, by the way.

 

[Blinking Joy]

Oh, and yes, I hate to overlap, I also go as "tetris"-style as I can, interlocking each city's territory with its neighbors, to maximize population and production.

Of course, this isn't always possible. Sometimes I need to overlap one or two squares, in order to place cities where they can each grab decent resources. And once in a while I will leave a square or two "unused" in the midst of my always-compact civilization -- these squares will normally be tundra, or desert, or rarely forest; but I really, really try not to leave out any grassland (or jungle or swamp), since I like to have giant populations.

 

[Whelkman]

If a city has nothing to do, building Caravans is by far the most productive action. Due to a bug, miscalculation, or intended but previously unknown behavior, the bonus obtained when establishing a route also adds to the research stockpile:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=225203#9

Edit: I meant "research", not "trade".

 

[HylandPaddy]

blinking joy, how may cities are in your civ? Do you build many cities or only a few as the backbone of your nation?

Whelkman thank you for bringing my attention to that invaluable information.

 

[simonnomis]

I usually stick to 5 cities... nice odd number, just enough to produce units and tech without making everything too long-winded and still enough to win the game without invoking the 'war thing' where every civ declares war on you for being biggest after 0AD. I tend to irrigate, road and mine right from the start. By the time they are size 3-5 their entire area is completely developed (except railroads).

 

[Urtica dioica]

I'm really new to the game: took it up a few months ago. The way I play any game is to try and solve it. In the case of Civ 1, getting a massive score sounds too boring, so I play speed runs instead. In other games, a speed run is usually measured in seconds, but in this case I'm talking about turns.

I've played three conquest games so far, all on Emperor 7 civs. My latest and best finished in 820 BC, no cheats. Since then I've thought of better ways to do it, so explaining my method now is pointless.

What I'm working on now is an early landing. I've actually only finished one landing game, and that was on King.

Anyway, the way I think is best right now is to build cities early as fast as possible (hope there are no civs nearby to steal your space). Find an ideal spot to build a massive trade city and build it up with settlers from your support cities as fast as possible. Build Colossus if you can get it, but often you can't. At least build Copernicus. Then, when there are no good spots to build more high-production size 2 cities, build masses of caravans, and re-home them to the trade city. Give your trade city the three best trade routes, then send the rest to the best city for income and science. Get railroad; celebrate your trade city's population up 'til it uses all available trade squares. Get Bach to keep all your little city's happy, so they can be used as military bases to keep defenses up. Republic is often a good idea here, in which case you can keep a few cities in disorder, and re-home units to them until they run out of support.

If the big trade city is maxed out, it may be best to build another. No need to re-home caravans to it beyond its trade routes though. Also no need to build improvements anywhere but in trade cities.

Haven't finished a good game this way yet, but I'm at 1320 BC in a new game where I might get good results.