[GS] Getting to ten+ cities by turn 100 with difficult terrain

[intellectsucks]

So in some games getting to 10+ cities by turn 100 is easy as pie: enough space between you and your neighbors that you have a few good city placement options, good tile yields around those city options and maybe also one or two close city states (CS) or civs that can be conquered.

In other games however, I find myself with lots of close neighbors, and the space between us is filled with tons of desert, tundra or flat plains, without a lot of opportunities for adjacency bonuses. I understand that you can use city placement and adjacency bonuses between districts to turn otherwise crappy cities into good ones but it seems that you still need to get those cities population and production up to the point where you can build those districts.

How do you balance this? Do you just accept that a fair amount of your cities will take a long time to be meaningfully productive?

My approach is generally to look for cities that are placed to take advantage of good yields and claim strategic/luxury resources, with more emphasis on the latter. Should I be shifting my focus when yields/resources are scarce?

I'll try to post a screen shot with an example later.

 

[knighterrant81]

So in some games getting to 10+ cities by turn 100 is easy as pie: enough space between you and your neighbors that you have a few good city placement options, good tile yields around those city options and maybe also one or two close city states (CS) or civs that can be conquered.

In other games however, I find myself with lots of close neighbors, and the space between us is filled with tons of desert, tundra or flat plains, without a lot of opportunities for adjacency bonuses. I understand that you can use city placement and adjacency bonuses between districts to turn otherwise crappy cities into good ones but it seems that you still need to get those cities population and production up to the point where you can build those districts.

How do you balance this? Do you just accept that a fair amount of your cities will take a long time to be meaningfully productive?

My approach is generally to look for cities that are placed to take advantage of good yields and claim strategic/luxury resources, with more emphasis on the latter. Should I be shifting my focus when yields/resources are scarce?

I'll try to post a screen shot with an example later.

You'd be surprised how you can turn desert cities into decent cities. All you need is a few good tiles.

That said, some maps are harder than others. There isn't really such a thing as an unwinnable map, especially at lower difficulties, but some maps are harder. The fact that you don't have enough space for good cities is basically what makes them hard. These maps are a great opportunity to learn how to play from behind and make do with what you have. You can win, but you will likely have to out-economy the AI, which is harder with fewer cities. If you can, try to timing push and sweep up a neighbor's cities. Otherwise, its all about your economy.

I'd have to look at your map, but I doubt it is really about shifting your yield focus. Sometimes if food is really scarce you need to put some extra effort into it, but otherwise no. I'd like to see if we can discuss making more productive desert cities and generally just learning to maximize your use of available territory.