City size/amenities sanity check

[Spartacus73]

Just wanted to see if I'm normal or missing something-

On my Immortal/Deity games, it seems really difficult to get city populations high until late game. Most cities I have to cap at 7 pop at the most, with maybe a couple key cities that I'll allow to grow to 10ish. The limiting factor is of course amenities. Even if I do build some Entertainment districts, which I don't love to do, without the regional buildings they don't help much so I usually put them off until the regional buildings are available.

I get the Colosseum when I can, use the +1 Economic Policy when available, and now I've been playing with the Governor/Government bonuses, but still basically really restricted until late game.

I see lots of screenshots of people with 15-20+ pop cities, and I usually assume they're playing on lower difficulty with more Amenity bonuses, but maybe not? For cities that I found, they rarely get much above 13 pop before the game is over, and sometimes I'll have some larger ones that I conquered from other civs that were big when I got them. Is my experience normal for Immortal/Deity play, or are there some strategies I'm not utilizing fully?

Just curious- feedback appreciated!

 

[Melchizedek]

Are you settling too many cities without luxuries, or selling luxuries too aggressively? If you're conquering, it might help to prioritize conquer civs with luxuries you lack. That can help get your core cities a little more growth room (even if you have some very limited peripheral cities). Entertainment Complex + Audience Chamber + Merchant Republic + MR legacy card yields four amenities per city, so it is possible to get large cities early but there is definitely an opportunity cost to running all of those.

 

[RealHuhn]

That's weird. I don't have any issues with that and I rarely build the colosseum. Does Deity even have a penalty for amenities? I don't think so?! You must have a ton of war weariness or something.

 

[bonafide11]

I always have too many cities so I'm always lacking amenities. I should probably raze more cities I guess, but I find the cities usually end up paying for themselves in terms of gold.

 

[Spartacus73]

If I’m founding cities, I’m pretty much always looking for a new amenity if it’s feasible. Usually make sure my war weariness gets back to zero before picking another war. In the early to mid game, it seems like conquest is mainly limited to geography since you haven’t even met some civs and couldn’t cross the ocean anyway, so if your neighbor has the same amenities and you have to take them out for one reason or another it can be tight. And with the new Loyalty feature, it makes it even harder to do a remote war if you want to actually keep cities and not raze them.

I don’t think I’m missing a lot strategy wise, although there’s always room for tuning. Maybe I’ll try a game on a lower setting to see if I can push cities bigger.

When do the amenity penalties kick in? Don’t you get higher “free” population sizes on lower difficulties before you need amenities? Thought I read that somewhere a long time ago.

 

[Esperr]

My core citys ussually end up at 10 to 15 and growing when the game ends. All my other citys are capped at 6ish. Most citys are at either negativr 1 or 2 happyness, but the benefits outweigh the downside

 

[Spartacus73]

My core citys ussually end up at 10 to 15 and growing when the game ends. All my other citys are capped at 6ish. Most citys are at either negativr 1 or 2 happyness, but the benefits outweigh the downside

That's a pretty familiar picture. That changes if the game goes late enough to get into lots of stadiums, water parks, etc, but my games are frequently ending at about the time that stuff becomes available unless I'm just going for a high score or specific victory condition and have already eliminated all the competition.

 

[Pietato]

My core citys ussually end up at 10 to 15 and growing when the game ends. All my other citys are capped at 6ish. Most citys are at either negativr 1 or 2 happyness, but the benefits outweigh the downside

Unless you have a zillion cities, you really should be getting more amenities.

 

[Victoria]

Too many large cities, going wide is fine but 4 cities of pop 10 needs 4 luxuries... 16 amenities. That’s 16 pop 4 cities.
40 population vs 64 population. Also larger cities take longer to grow larger and to what value? Few cities get good land bonuses above 10 pop. If you are wanting 10 cities grow them, 20 cities then limit them just to the most valuable tiles and stop growth.

 

[Arms Longfellow]

There's a policy card called Retainers unlocked with Civil Service that gives you +1 amenity in a city if it has a garrisoned unit. This is a great way to get a large amount of amenities early on by simply cranking out some cheap scouts and fortifying them (scouts cost no maintenance). Another nice thing is that it's a red card, when you often struggle to find a useful red card (it definitely beats 1 gold reduced unit maintenance). Beware though, the card becomes obsolete with Mass Media.

 

[Esperr]

Unless you have a zillion cities, you really should be getting more amenities.

I dunnoh. I don't think most maps can actually support a normal number of citys on amenities alone. The coll citys are ussually fine. But this is pretty common.

 

[Victoria]

I dunnoh. I don't think most maps can actually support a normal number of citys on amenities alone. The coll citys are ussually fine. But this is pretty common.

16 x 4 = 64 / 3 = 21 cities. I am not sure what is a normal amount of cities but sometimes I do not get the coliseum and still seem fairly chipper.

 

[Esperr]

Im ussually between 20 and 40, just depends on map type and whether or not I actually finish the game. I havn't seemed to miss the coll since R and F came out though.