City Size

[tboner23]

I am wondering what all of the experienced players out there do about city size. I have a tendency to want to grow all of my cities to their max potential size, which often keeps me from running specialists or from whipping population. I know that GP Farms require a lot of food and should have a large population for the specialists needed to get GPs. I usually get a good GP Farm city up fairly quickly, one or two good production cities, and one good commerce city in my empire. All of the rest end up becoming something between production and commerce cities without many specialists. If I have really good terrain I will run some specialists near the end of the game, say the 19th century or so. I have won some games before the 1800s, but they were straight warmongers on Tiny maps.

To boil it all down to a simple question... how or what do you all decide to do with the cities that you have with no clear direction on how to take them?

 

[The Tyrant]

In the early years, whip like crazy. Getting an early axe rush will do more for your empire, long-term, than gradually growing your cities to max size. Certain buildings you should also whip (granary, barracks, buildings that multiply the city's specialization purpose). In the early years you'll quickly reach the happiness cap and should whip off those unproductive citizens, anyway. The power of the whip is incredible and should be (ab)used.

Small cities will grow another population point quicker than larger cities, so don't think of it in terms of how many city sizes you're whipping away. Think in terms of turns-of-growth (whipping larger cities requires more turns of growth to return to the same size). That means whipping should ideally be done in the early years when your cities are smaller. Toward the end game you do want maximum size in order to maximize city potential, but don't be afraid to whip in the beginning.

As for hybrid cities (those whose terrain doesn't clearly lend itself to a certain type of specialization), just try to farm enough tiles to reach maximum pop and then mine/cottage the other tiles.

 

[Tyrael]

Excellent advice. Check out the War Room for articles on optimal whipping. That alone moved me up a level.