Having recently picked up the BNW pack I've been playing Civ V a lot lately and am currently playing on Emperor. The majority of my victories come by constructing peaceful tall empires aiming for science/cultural/diplomatic victories, or wide empires in which I have just a handful of core cities and the rest are puppets as I go for a domination victory.
What I'd like to try now is something like a mix of the two; construct more cities, but with less of a focus on military strength. I've been playing around with the Mayans, who are generally regarded as one of the strongest civs, but I'm not quite sure how to make them work in a wide empire. How many cities should I be looking at building? It seems that there are so many issues when attempting this strategy; trying to punch out settlers to grab land before the AI does, making sure that there is enough happiness to support the growth of new cities, having enough units to deal with barbarian pillaging/worker capturing, and being able to balance rapid expansion with the development of science/growth/gold infrastructure.
Is there a solid way to develop a more peaceful wide empire in BNW, or does the term 'wide empire' imply that its wideness is at least partly gained through military might?
What I'd like to try now is something like a mix of the two; construct more cities, but with less of a focus on military strength. I've been playing around with the Mayans, who are generally regarded as one of the strongest civs, but I'm not quite sure how to make them work in a wide empire. How many cities should I be looking at building? It seems that there are so many issues when attempting this strategy; trying to punch out settlers to grab land before the AI does, making sure that there is enough happiness to support the growth of new cities, having enough units to deal with barbarian pillaging/worker capturing, and being able to balance rapid expansion with the development of science/growth/gold infrastructure.
Is there a solid way to develop a more peaceful wide empire in BNW, or does the term 'wide empire' imply that its wideness is at least partly gained through military might?