Does anyone settle more than four cities?

[Smote]

I generally do:
1. 1city infrastructure ->NC -> 4 city.
2. 2city infrastructure -> 4city (2city rush/2city infrastructure) -> NC (will be late on tech)
3. 4city infrastructure -> NC (will be vulnerable to attack, but is great if no damage is taken)
4. 1city infrastructure -> NC -> heroic epic -> 1city rush (some maps expanding isnt an option)
(will be late on tech)

You'll notice I do infrastructure first. This is because I value hammers over beakers, and am willing to have a tech disadvantage so long as I an have a production advantage. Sometimes expanding isn't an option because a nearby opponent may just kill your expansion.

There are some other variants, but these are the most common ones, especially numbers 1 and 2.

 

[Teagen]

I never settle more then 3 or 5 mainly because the luxuries in the area are usually the same and expanding outward doesn't net all that many more types. Plus I'm a huge fan of making the "national" wonders, never have to worry about it not being built...so nice.

 

[brasaelal]

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

Isn't that too much even on Huge Map? Unless you mean throughout the entire game...

If I go for Domination Victory I settle only 2 or 3 cities. If I go for Diplomatic or Culture I settle 3 to 5 cities, depending on the map and if there's room for that.

 

[KevinMiles90000]

I just won a space victory on Diety/Pangea/Siam game with 2 cities. The advantage of going vertical is that it's easier to keep peaceful relations with your neighbors and you can focus on teching and building, in addition to the social policy/happiness advantage.

 

[eric_]

I love building cities. I settle as many cities as I can manage until I hit the soft happiness cap, the sea, a massive mountain range, and/or the borders of rivals civs. If I hit and then expand the happiness cap, and still have room, I'll settle more cities. Once I've filled up my starting location, I go vertical and decide whether I want to go space, economic, or domination. I rarely settle overseas colonies, but I will settle far-flung cities on my continent if I'm lacking a vital resource (iron, mostly). Then I enjoy a little sub-game of connecting the outpost to my main empire.

In my last couple of games (one standard, one huge), I've had a LOT of space to expand.

Incidentally, regarding large empires and SPs, Kamehameha is fantastic for this. If you dedicate some coastlines to Moai and take the 4 free culture buildings SP, you can pump culture without having to waste much time on cultural buildings.

 

[MykC]

I continually settle new cities, never stop really. I generally keep the population of my cities limited to the amount of happiness they can produce. When I go to war, I just raze the cities I conquer and settle new ones in place.

With that said, different strategies call for different tactics. Like if I was playing Ghandi, India or Siam and going for a diplo victory I'd probably stick to 1-4 cities.

 

[tedoll78]

I usually do between 2 and 4 cities. My favorite civ is the French, and my policy sequence is usually:
Tradition >> Liberty >> free settler

This gets me a second city very quickly. From there, I look at:
(1) map resources, and
(2) need for geographical lockout on my opponents
.. when deciding how many more cities to build.

On my last online game (pangea), I went with three. Two inland cities positioned well with mountains and oceans to lock-in opponents where they started, and one more city for coastal access. It was just the right number, and policies came very quickly.

 

[chazzycat]

with France you can expland like MAD...with Liberty each city has 3 free culture, enough to keep pace with the increased cost per city already. France just BEGS for the entire liberty tree to be filled out...representation is especially well-suited.

I know it's nice to have lower policy cost, but I would strongly recommend everyone at least TRY to play some more expansive strategies with a good civ for it like France. You easily make up for a couple fewer policies by having a MUCH stronger economy.

 

[Teagen]

France is the only Civ so far that I can stand having anymore then 5 cities. Arabia can work if I can get a hold of enough luxuries (more trade routes and more luxuries both work out for the best with Arabia, so they generally do well with lots of Cities.

 

[Cotties]

2 to 4 cities sounds so boring.......... I'll keep on growing and growing and spreading my wings


only real problem I have is when I'm some strange nation and I have tens of cities to look after..

I can't remember the names....best I stick with the yanks me thinks

 

[Beef Hammer]

4-5 is generally my limit, including the capital. I really don't like managing a bunch of cities.

 

[Schalke 04]

with France you can expland like MAD...with Liberty each city has 3 free culture, enough to keep pace with the increased cost per city already. France just BEGS for the entire liberty tree to be filled out...representation is especially well-suited.

I know it's nice to have lower policy cost, but I would strongly recommend everyone at least TRY to play some more expansive strategies with a good civ for it like France. You easily make up for a couple fewer policies by having a MUCH stronger economy.

that's a good suggestion.

I think my next game will be as France with a liberty emphasis, just to try out Civ5's REXing opportunities.

 

[chazzycat]

yay...I reached someone

I swear it's like pulling teeth sometimes getting people to believe more cities is better a lot of the time. Seriously though, REXing is fun, try it. It's not just with France, many civs take advantage of having more cities:

- Hiawatha & Inca - discounted roads means more profit per trade route, so, the more trade routes the better. also more forest for hiawatha means more production leveraged by the UB.
- Persia - the larger you are, the more extra production & gold you get during a golden age. So, again bigger = better
- America - their abilities are very well suited for fast expansion. buying tiles discount means you have way more options in building cities (3rd hex resource not a big deal so you can grab the long-term "ideal" city spots). So, it's to your advantage to utilize that by building more cities. extra sight and extra movement bonus from the UU help protect a vast empire.
- Polynesia - so much culture from Moia & multipliers that SPs is almost of no concern. Build as many cities as you want then go down the left side of commerce for production...whoa
- Babylon...want a GS from each city once you get universities? yes please.
- China. paper makers are pure profit, so you want as many as possible right?
- Arabia as mentioned (although ironically they are also best for OCC - go figure)
- Russia - bonuses are per resource. Hence, the more resources the better. Obvious one.

I could likely go on. Most civs that are large & expansive in real life are well suited to do the same in game. Social policies are not the end-all be-all. A strong economy will crush strong culture in the long run.

There's no right or wrong way to play the game of course, and I'm sure even the civs above can be played very successfully with 4 cities. I just wanted to share because I started having a lot more fun since I started REXing. I play on emperor...I dunno, if you all are playing diety maybe I should shut up. But it's tons of fun at my current level.

 

[Schalke 04]

yay...I reached someone

To be honest, as a Civ3 veteran it's my usual play style to settle many cities, but I changed it hugely in Civ5. However I am greatly willing to give it a try again in Civ5.

Actually I see two disadvantages for REXing:

1. Social Policies.
This can be encountered with the new liberty tree (eg 1/3 culture cost for new cities, or 1 culture per city) AND your mentioned example of France with their UA which gives free culture

2. Happiness.
The main part in my books. Here I don't see any advantage for France. However I want to give it a try, but I think that you definitely have to go for Theocracy if you want to manage a huge empire (if it's either puppeted or self settled).
The single great benefit of a large self owned empire over a puppet empire is: production! You have the power what to produce. If you ask me, this screams for warmongering, as you can build military units. Gold and happiness buildings are being built by puppets anyway. Science buildings sooner or later as well. So the benefit of self settled cities over puppets is just military for me. Here France can serve very well - just imagine a huge army of Foreign Legion!


Apart from that, I don't see that great benefit of having many self settled cities over puppeted cities, but I am open for suggestions

There's no right or wrong way to play the game of course, and I'm sure even the civs above can be played very successfully with 4 cities. I just wanted to share because I started having a lot more fun since I started REXing. I play on emperor...I dunno, if you all are playing diety maybe I should shut up. But it's tons of fun at my current level.

You are so damn right! , I am playing Emperor as well And actually I don't know, if I ever want to change that On higher difficulty levels it is mainly about total war. I like to develop my empire, and not just focus on military.

 

[Buccaneer]

To answer the original question - no, I have never settled more than 4 cities in any Civ5 games. Most of the time it's just two and keeping an enemy capital or two. Playing ICS or REX has no appeal to me whatsoever, although I do tend to have lot of puppets. I typically play on standard-sized landmass maps or large-sized smaller landmass maps (like small continents et al).

 

[Civsassin]

I typically have the same answer for these types of questions: it depends. If I have close neighbors from the beginning, I tend to build fewer cities and look for an early fight. If I don't have neighbors nearby, I will typically expand quickly to get my science pumping. I can go as many as 6 cities, and in some cases more. The other determining factor is the amount of luxury resources available.

However, for me there are no "I always do this" answers, which is one of the reasons I enjoy civ games so much. Every one is a different experience.

 

[Deau]

I generally do:
1. 1city infrastructure ->NC -> 4 city.
2. 2city infrastructure -> 4city (2city rush/2city infrastructure) -> NC (will be late on tech)
3. 4city infrastructure -> NC (will be vulnerable to attack, but is great if no damage is taken)
4. 1city infrastructure -> NC -> heroic epic -> 1city rush (some maps expanding isnt an option)
(will be late on tech)

You'll notice I do infrastructure first. This is because I value hammers over beakers, and am willing to have a tech disadvantage so long as I an have a production advantage. Sometimes expanding isn't an option because a nearby opponent may just kill your expansion.

There are some other variants, but these are the most common ones, especially numbers 1 and 2.

Whenever neighbors are somewhat close, I use #4 for warmongering, with the slight exception of maybe settling a 2nd city right atop a 6-iron unit to avoid having to trade/buy a CS with a 6 unit. I really like the single-city war rush setup because it keeps your social policies cost very very low so you can get a meritocracy start, few honor policies, theocracy & scholaticism faster than a ~4 city dom that would skip honor all together. Ultimately, it also guarantees that all of my units will bear the morale +15% promotion which is very nice.

Other than domination victories (or early rush + o I feel like owning a whole continent is enough so I'll just peel off and go for science against the remaining AIs that I didn't cripple), I would say settling 3-5 cities is about where I go as well. Maybe +1 or +2 for coal/alluminum in the late game for factory/hydroplant etc. but they come in so late and are generally on very awful land that AI didn't touch yet so they have marginal impact on the game other than alleviating the awfulness of trading for those resources or buying specific CSs

 

[Deau]

You are so damn right! , I am playing Emperor as well And actually I don't know, if I ever want to change that On higher difficulty levels it is mainly about total war. I like to develop my empire, and not just focus on military.

Higher level is definitely not only about total war, snarzberry has a few posts about OCC culture wins on deity. MadDjinn has a lot about science victories. That beeing said, MadDjinn mentionned somewhere emperor is probably the most balanced level and I would have to agree. The AIs are good enough and have enough "free bonuses in gold" to allow a player to use it's whole arsenal (lux sale/RA for quick income and effective build rushing etc) yet it is flexible enough to have a no victory plan opener and still win (not without a challenge). Hell one could even bounce between warfare-science and diplomacy victories (the particular mechanic of SP cost increase put culture out of this league) and still pull a win out whereas I doubt I could see that happen on immortal or deity. I must aknowledge I don't have extensive deity play but my last "oops I'll change my strat" on immortal got me a 6-turn shy of spaceship loss to arabias' culture so I would've gotten rolled on deity.

 

[L0rv]

...4 cities? I usually have 15+

You shouldn't view an unhappy civilization as a bad thing. Unhappiness is simply a growth limiter so long as you don't go -10.

 

[Alien.Traveler]

I believe that at least up to immortal four cities are too many. 2, sometimes 3 cities are enough. Luxuries and resources are accessible through puppets and CS's. Social policies are abundant for 2 cities. What else do you need for any type of victory?