Does anyone settle more than four cities?

[Schalke 04]

In CiV I got used to settle four cities.

Four cities are enough for production, f.e. for military or for spaceship parts. In most games you don't need more production. Gold is delivered by puppets.

Happiness and SP are the limiter for more cities. And both seem to interact with each other. More cities mean more unhappiness AND less SP. And SP are one main source to encounter happiness problems. So more cities mean: more unhappiness and less ability to reduce it by SP.

These are my reasons why I found it hard to build more than four cities in my games.


On the other hand the new liberty branch is quite appealing and invites you to REX early. So maybe it is possible to go for more cities.

So my question is: Do you settle (far) more than 4 cities? Is ist worth it, and how do you manage it?

 

[chazzycat]

Sure, I will settle far more than that more often than not. It all depends on your civ, the map, your strategy, the difficulty, etc.

Many civs unique abilities lend themselves more to large empires than small, so if you are playing small you are not getting the full benefit. America, Persia, Inca, Russia, & Iroquois all come to mind and I'm sure there are others.

If you want to expand liberty is the way to go. Prioritize luxury sites to keep your expansion going, and prioritize construction for colloseums earlier than you would otherwise as well. Happiness is obviously key to expansion. I've found beelining Meritocracy to be pretty powerful for the GE - building a manufactory will really help you get out those settlers & workers you need to expand.

If culture is your main concern prioritize monuments early. This plus the +1 culture for each city should help not fall too far behind early. Selling an extra luxury & buying a culture CS can help and Representation will help significantly as well. You will still end up collecting policies a bit slower than in a small empire game, but the other aspects of your economy will end up being MUCH stronger by midgame and it won't matter if you're a couple policies behind.

Liberty to Piety has good synergy because you'll need a lot of happiness to keep growing, and theocracy is the single best happiness policy in the game.

 

[Kerosene31]

Yes, if there is room and new luxury resources. You have to be very careful, but it can be done.

You just have to stay way ahead of the happiness curve and set your cities to avoid growth if you can't manage the happiness right away.

My theory - more cities, more gold. More gold, more culture and happiness from bribing CS.

 

[RedRover57]

On standard settings, I never settle more than 3 to 5 cities depending on the number of good sites in the area. It is rare to have room for more than 4 additional good sites in the vicinity of my capitol. If I'm going wide I puppet instead of settling new cities (Theocracy is a must for puppet kingdoms). For me, Liberty tree is only good for the fast start, if you absolutely must settle more cities fast to grab the sites first. If I can afford to wait to expand (i.e., no aggressive civs expanding into my immediate area) I will expand after Landed Elite in the Tradition tree instead (after NC first in my capitol). I would likely settle more cities if I played on huge maps, but why build yourself what you can take from the AI?

 

[Schalke 04]

Yes, you mentioned some good points!

And I agree that Theocracy is very important (for a puppeting strategy as well).

I still have two concerns:

1. luxury resources. If you calculate one resource per city, you have to stop expansion early in many games. It's not that easy to find much more than four or five luxuries in the beginning. OK, trading and CS may help, but you have to use gold which could be used otherwise. Sometimes it is manageable, but then still you have to deal with the next point:

2. aggressive AI. If you settle too many cities too early, the AI becomes pissed off quickly. And that in a situation where you have to build collosseums, spend your gold for luxuries and have a wide empire with a probably weak military (Capital is producing setllers, workers and stuff).
In my first games (pre pre patch) I followed my usual Civ 3 habit to REX and got dogpiled very soon by the AI.


Just to make it clear: I don't want to state that 4 cities is the best strategy. It however works best for me, and I'm just interested in how you can manage a wide empire regarding my two problems.

PS: And yes, it all depends on difficulty level. My comfort level is Emperor.

 

[chazzycat]

1. I don't use this as a hard & fast rule. A good riverside city between you & the next civ is probably worth grabbing even without any luxuries. A brief period of unhappiness is worth grabbing the primo spots, as long as you have a plan to make sure it doesn't last long. Being in unhappiness is not the end of the world if you are leveraging the extra population. When unhappy, manage your cities to stop working the farms and work the good production tiles instead, getting the coloseum up faster. A lot of games I will struggle with going in & out of unhappiness until I get Piety, and I still have no problems winning on Emperor 90% of the time.

2. I've found it harder actually to defend myself with a small empire. If you've already expanded to 5 cities when you research IW, odds are you already have iron in your borders. Just keep your warriors around and the upgrade is pretty cheap. It's generally not very hard to figure out where the attack will come from - one of your rivals will covet your land, which you can see in diplomacy, and will have a higher strength rating than you. Your city closest to their empire should prep the defenses. Walls can be great, but don't wait until the sneak attack comes to get them up. Get a ranged unit or two and position them so they will be able to strike near the city (where the attack will come from) but not be vulnerable on the front. Utilize rivers & terrain to get the best placement. Combine a couple swords with a couple archers and your city attack, and you should be ok for the most part. A catapult in the city itself is ideal if you can pull it off. Getting your road network up early is key for defense too, so you can quickly pull units from other cities. Not so early to hurt your economy though.

 

[slobberinbear]

At emperor, the AI assault force will consist of 4-6 warriors, 2-3 archers, and possibly a spear or horse. You can defend this with a couple of warriors and the city's defenses, as long as you can keep the warriors alive.

So in conclusion, I don't let the fear of AI reprisals dampen my enthusiasm for rexing. The real issue is happiness.

 

[guczy]

At emperor, the AI assault force will consist of 4-6 warriors, 2-3 archers, and possibly a spear or horse. You can defend this with a couple of warriors and the city's defenses, as long as you can keep the warriors alive.

So in conclusion, I don't let the fear of AI reprisals dampen my enthusiasm for rexing. The real issue is happiness.

Except for when its Pachacuti with 15 slingers which will waste you in no time

 

[joncnunn]

Eight to ten is about the number of cities I typically found.

I normally NC first; then quickly get to 4 and stop for a quite a while but after the resources are improved and sufficient happiness structures are built I add more one at a time.

My current game is really early on so I'm at 4 at the moment. I have a clear 5th city in mind, a probable 6th, and a questionable in-fill 7th. (The 7th one will only get built if a mid game resource appears there)

 

[Kerosene31]

I still have two concerns:

1. luxury resources. If you calculate one resource per city, you have to stop expansion early in many games. It's not that easy to find much more than four or five luxuries in the beginning. OK, trading and CS may help, but you have to use gold which could be used otherwise. Sometimes it is manageable, but then still you have to deal with the next point:

2. aggressive AI. If you settle too many cities too early, the AI becomes pissed off quickly. And that in a situation where you have to build collosseums, spend your gold for luxuries and have a wide empire with a probably weak military (Capital is producing setllers, workers and stuff).
In my first games (pre pre patch) I followed my usual Civ 3 habit to REX and got dogpiled very soon by the AI.

Obviously the cities you found beyond the first few need to be really good, either the potential to produce a lot of gold (I love places with multiple gold/gems) and/or luxury resources.

As for the AI, you always need a large army to keep them from attacking you. (this really goes for anytime).

It is a risk/reward tradeoff. The AI will expand so you need to gobble up the open areas if you want them.

 

[CYZ]

I don't think I've ever settled more than four in civ V so far, did do it in civ IV.

 

[timtofly]

On a huge earth style map before happiness was nurfed, I had over 100 cities and happiness does grow. Using city-states as soon as possible and forgoing any food buildings while concentrating on happiness buildings get you started. City-states also offer luxury and stragic resources that you may not be able to get to right away. Using all of Patronage, will also increase these 100% and each era adds also. I would say that it is possible to do on emperor, but you may want to bring it down a notch till you get better at it. Empire building is no fun when the AI are able to get a way from you. I personnally am still working on getting acheivements, but after I get rid of the smaller and dual map sizes, I will be able to concentrate more on larger maps and higher dificulty levels to add more insight.

 

[lawofqr]

If going for a time victory, I try to cover the map settling cities, no matter how many it takes.

 

[Smote]

I get 5-7 sometimes, during late medieval/early rennaissance if I do.

 

[trueblue]

Cant say i remember a single game of Civ5 where ive built more than 4 cities. That being said i dont go above the standard size map setting.

 

[Muskie]

I play on a slightly smaller map than average as I have a slower laptop and only so much time. I generally get 3 or 4 cities then have to decide if I want to go to war or wait until I discover navigation then I probably add a colony or two. I don't play that aggressively so usually someone has to attack me, then I usually gain a city or two before peace breaks out, if I have enough happiness I'll annex them.

 

[SRG]

You say settle, so I will disregard my personal puppet empire stuff.


There are only two instances where I settle more than 3-5 cities:

1) Oh-My-God good city sites. So good that I would be willing to go negative happiness to keep the AI from getting this site.

2) More commonly... expansion in waves. When I truly intend to have a huge empire, I will do the first 3 settlers, do some workers + a couple defenders (that's all you'll need at Prince/King where I play), and then I will carefully choose a single building or two for all of these cities (this needs to go quick). I absolutely love Watermill as a first build, because it gives food and production. Then, once I get these cities to size 2 or 3 and get some excess happiness through trading, circuses, or... sigh... colosseums, I will have each city build another settler (not a hard rule, depends on their production obviously) and very quickly double my cities. At this point, expansion has to slow down or I will fall behind and won't catch up.

 

[Tabarnak]

I don't like to settle more cities BEFORE building Ironworks and maybe National Treasury. Gain from these 2 national wonders is higher than settling extra cities. NC first or after 4-5 cities is not he same because libraries come onilne very fast and they are cheaper. That said, if i want to build 4 cities, i build 4 cities ASAP. If i want 6 cities, i want them ASAP, etc.

 

[SRG]

I don't like to settle more cities BEFORE building Ironworks and maybe National Treasury. Gain from these 2 national wonders is higher than settling extra cities. NC first or after 4-5 cities is not he same because libraries come onilne very fast and they are cheaper. That said, if i want to build 4 cities, i build 4 cities ASAP. If i want 6 cities, i want them ASAP, etc.

Good point. Do you always stick to 1 expansion? Rely on conquest for future growth?

Just curious, always trying to experiment.

 

[Tabarnak]

Good point. Do you always stick to 1 expansion? Rely on conquest for future growth?

Just curious, always trying to experiment.

Not always. In multiplayer this approach is powerful when combined with early Landed Elite.

For good conquest games in singleplayer mode you will find yourself in good position most of the time. Just take care to get iron with last city if needed.