General Consensus: Stop at 3 Cities Early?

[slobberinbear]

An early Great Prophet wonder (Stonehenge, Oracle) for a holy shrine, combined with an early religion can make expansion, your economy, and having peaceful relations with your neighbors possible if you're willing to invest in the techs and producing missionaries.

But there are a lot of ways to skin the cat economically in the early game:

1. found & spread religion, build holy shrine
2. commerce resources
3. courthouses
4. marketplaces
5. large cities (from Monarchy, certain leader traits)

If you get most or all of these going, you can actually afford to use the culture and espionage sliders, believe it or not.

 

[jihe]

They're equal, except for the fact that you have libraries in your cities and not markets yet.

actually libraries and markets have no effect. instead build
research/gold is boosted by forge. actually I build research
a lot since currency is a long long way from alphabet.

 

[bovinespy]

I'm glad that my question has generated some lively discussion. I've picked up a few ideas for my next game(s). Ironically enough, in my current game as the Khmer (1st time), I started with 2 Gems in the FBC of my capital. I've simply REXed until my land mass was full. First priority was CoL, then Lit (Great Library), then CS (Bureaucracy + lotsa cottages at the capital and the aforementioned gems = HUGE beaker total!).

BTW, I'm hoping somebody will start a strategy thread on the Khmer (can't remember leader's name off the top of my head). That Baray is the only building in the game that gives extra food. That has to lend itself to some very interesting strategies of which I am as yet unaware. (To add to the +food theme, in my game I got the Horse Whisperer quest. I went with the Stable = +1 food option. Needless to say, my cities are bursting at the seams. Good times!)

 

[Roxlimn]

For my part, I usually plan expansion OR keeping small based on the land that's available in my immediate vicinity. I try to avoid establishing my second and third cities (on Normal maps) more than 15 tiles away because it makes the maintenance high and the defense efforts awkward.

You can usually judge the "money" that's going to come off of a land just by looking at it. Floodplains are great in bundles because you can put cottages in them and they'll still support respectable city growth. If I can manage to expand to a site with 4 or 5 Floodplains and 2 Hills, then that's a self-supporting money city, even without any resources. Well worth the maintenance costs.

If it has Copper or Sheep or Wine, then it's practically a must-have, even as a 5th or 6th city.

Conversely, I'm leery of resource-less plains and grasslands positions that don't have access to fresh water. You could link them up with Civil Service, but that'll take forever, usually well beyond what you would call "early phase expansion." Even if you do, Irrigated Plains and Grasslands don't produce Commerce, and Plains, in particular, aren't good for growth or for supporting Specialists.

The thing to do there is to look for a cow or sheep or other food resource that'll promote growth. Then you have the option of using the Grasslands for Cottages, or using the excess food for Specialists. You can even have both Farmed and Cottaged tiles, one for growing the city, the other for commerce production once the city is at the current happy limit.

I make a habit of watching the gpt indicator at the top upper left of the screen when I'm founding cities. That usually tells me how much founding the city is going to cost me in gpt. If it's below 10, then that's a good indicator that you can afford to found or conquer more cities, preferably close by.

On a decent map, with just Expansive and a few Happy Resources, you could probably afford to expand to 4-6 cities without much trouble, provided that your main cities grow to support the outer cities' initial support costing.

 

[Martinus]

6-7 cities by the start of medieval is a good marker. it is also the required number for completing a lot of the quests that are issued. while the payoffs aren't GREAT they are decent.

Is this Standard map or a different map size?

 

[cabert]

I'm glad that my question has generated some lively discussion. I've picked up a few ideas for my next game(s). Ironically enough, in my current game as the Khmer (1st time), I started with 2 Gems in the FBC of my capital. I've simply REXed until my land mass was full. First priority was CoL, then Lit (Great Library), then CS (Bureaucracy + lotsa cottages at the capital and the aforementioned gems = HUGE beaker total!).

BTW, I'm hoping somebody will start a strategy thread on the Khmer (can't remember leader's name off the top of my head). That Baray is the only building in the game that gives extra food. That has to lend itself to some very interesting strategies of which I am as yet unaware. (To add to the +food theme, in my game I got the Horse Whisperer quest. I went with the Stable = +1 food option. Needless to say, my cities are bursting at the seams. Good times!)

When you reach CS, there is no overexpansion problem anymore. You already have CoL and hopefully currency, and you have a capital paying for most of the empire.

IMHO the whole issue of rexing is to have some way to reach currency/CoL in a timely fashion.
I know a few ways to do this :
- beeline to those
- Oracle CoL
- trade for them (=beeline alphabet).

Of course, Courthouses and markets won't help if you generate no commerce.
I try to do the following as often as possible (some specific maps lend to some specific variations of course) :
- Settle the capital (duh!)
- Settle a high production city (usually with copper, but not always)
- Settle commercial cities (= cities with at least 1 commerce special, + the food to work it). If you only settle commercial cities from there, you won't "overexpand".
- After currency/CoL, there are many ways to get money (selling techs, building wealth, extorting from AIs, trading resources for gold ...), so you should not overexpand, even if you reach for less comercial cities.

 

[Roxlimn]

I think that one of the best determinants of expansion capacity is "core city capacity." I check my "reserves" by scaling research to an acceptable level (usually 60-70%, but less on a strong SE) then seeing how much "excess gpt" is left over.

This tells you how much gold you can put towards establishing new cities. Both Organized and Financial traits increase the margin, Organized by decreasing Civics cost, and Financial by providing more gpt.

 

[budweiser]

ah good point hermit. I usually take that for granted as the forbidden palace ends up in my victim's old capitol. usually I swell from between 6-8 to 10-14 cities and drop courthouses in the captured cities and the forbididden palace.

NaZ

This is excellent because I notice that I can sustatin 6-7 cities with no need for CoL. Hence I have been putting it off. I've also been playing peacefully and going for culture, but I will take someone out next time.

 

[Kennigit]

the research slider can be deceptive. its really about your actual beakers per turn.

if you have 3 cities at pop 6, 4 cottages per city say at 4 commerce.
this is roughly 50 commerce per turn including palace.

at 70% slider this is 35 beakers per turn

if you have 6 cities at pop 6, 4 cottages per city at 4 commerce
this is roughly 100 commerce per turn including palace.

but maintainance has dragged your econ to 50% science.. or roughly 50 beakers per turn.

you still are up 15 beakers per turn, and are working 12 more cottages than you would in scenario 1. this is 12 more developing into towns in the long run.

you also control the space those 3 occupy, and can leverage their production.

6-7 cities by the start of medieval is a good marker. it is also the required number for completing a lot of the quests that are issued. while the payoffs aren't GREAT they are decent.

in additon, if you have to, you can work farms in addition to the cities and whip like crazy, etc. you also control more resources through the expanded territory.

NaZ

That's why I really enjoy the hereditary rule route- your cities can get up and running from size 4/5 to size 8+ at a quick pace while developing lots of cottages. Courthouses take a little while to build, and personally working cottages seems to work better than whipping courthouses.

 

[Sswsp1]

Pretty new to the forums, anyone mind telling me what REXing is?

 

[budweiser]

Pretty new to the forums, anyone mind telling me what REXing is?

Rapid
EXpansion

It means grabbing all the land as fast as you can.