How many cities do you build?

[Smolf]

I'm mostly playing on monach, standard world size (continents), warlords expansion. My problem is that I seem to lack the funding to build more than 5 or 6 cities for the first 5000 years or so. I can keep research at 60% or 70% without losing money each turn. I build a lot of cottages early on to improve my income but still I lack the income to expand beyond the 6 city limit without lowering my research.

If I compare my "demographics" to the AI players, I'm number one in production, gold, food and population even though they have a larger number of cities than me. This can of course change later in the game when they have developed their cities to the same level as mine.

So my question is how many cities do you build? Is it "normal" to only have 6 cities during the whole game?

 

[RegentMan]

I often go into Civ III mode and pump out too many cities. Once I remember my income was -12gpt at 40% (with only 50 gold in the bank) and I only needed one more city built to complete my empire. So I figured, "One more city, only a couple more gold." Went to -19gpt. But I had my peninsula all founded.

But five or six is common for me as well.

 

[Smolf]

I just feel that it is hard to limit my expansion... I want ALL the food/gold/luxury resources that I can get my dirty hands on.

 

[Tavenier]

Well, I also mostly build around 5 or 6 cities and then get a few more from city flipping. Then after5 astronomy I will explore and build some more cities on islands I discover.

But sometimes when I find myself on a peninsula and want to make sure it will all be mine I build more cities then is good for my economy. Then I tend to lack behind in tech slightly, but when my empire is getting developed then it will be so strong that I easily become more technological then my opponents and I easily make money even on 100% research. It just takes quite some time and planning (working special resource tiles for trading is essential). I find it a fun strategy and very different from the '6 cities' standard.

 

[I_RA]

I actually only build like 5 or 6 cities but make my empire bigger by conquering usually the closest AI with the best resources then i get all those cities added to my empire then change their names to make it more official

 

[Lance of Llanwy]

I usually end up building anywhere from 5-7 cities, usually in an attempt to seal off land from the AI, which is promptly settled once my economy stabilizes. That's in an ideal situation though. More often I hit 4-5 and have nowhere desirable left, so the axes get sharpened

 

[Watiggi]

I tend to expand until I run out of room and then move into aggressive expansion. I quite often hit 0-10% research before I stop, recover and then expand some more. Lately though, I have been more interested in only building a few cities and then going on a razing frenzy.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

I'll subtitle this short essay "How not to playing the opening"

Pls note I normally win on monarch, my excuse was I'd already gone to bed, couldn't sleep, and thought I'd mess around on warlords for a while...

Anyways Monarch / marathon / huge / 12 civs/ aggressive Ais/ Zulus....

Got a very average starting position, moved a few squares north to a river, and started there, still very average though, only visible resource pigs.

Set to research an husb, while building worker (nothing wrong there) while exploring and popped extra scout. Found myself to be at very southern tip of a peninsula shaped very much like India, and met Ottos to the nw and Gandhi to the ne..both quite close (only about 20 tiles, which is close for a huge map) but at least I wasn't too worry about a mega early attack which often happens with aggressive AI settings.

So, the exploring reveals the whole peninsula to be virtually unbroken jungle (sigh) apart from my cap's bit, but there's some really good "bunched" resource city sites...half way to gandhi is 4 gems on a river, half way to Otto is 5 ivory plus 2 sugar, also there is several dye bunched together, a great multiple seafood city site, a whole bunch of spices and another site which has loads of hills (under jungle) with rice, and corn to balance which would make a great longterm production city...

An husb is researched, but no horses anywhere to be seen, and with the 2 best sites around a dozen tiles away to get them both I decide to reserach bw and "chop assist" the first 2 settlers (something I normally frown upon, but whatever).

So the worker makes a pig pen, then eventually (its marathon didn't I say) bw is researched and he chops some forests. I reach the gem site and build the city already costing me a bundle, but those gems will pay for themselves in no time....(he says)...but no copper anywhere at all...hmmm

The 2nd settler is being chopped, reaches the ivory just before Otto and builds...now both cities have nothing but jungle at the moment in their small cross, and no connection to anywhere else, but I figure they'll be great in time, no need to worry at the moment....

So I then reckon there must be iron somewhere near, so I tech straight for IW, which of course will be needed anyway for the jungle clearance....

Well to cut a long story short, when all you can build is settlers or warriors, then rapid overexpansion can become a little inevitable, and I filled all the nice sites mentioned earlier plus one more great one by total deforesting Ulundi, and nearly 90 turns later, finish Iron working.

And yes there is Iron, but exactly one tile outside the ivory cities small cross, and I'll need mysticism, then the wheel, and because the city won't grow (i did mention jungle everywhere), a monument can't be chopped or pop rushed, so its going to be 90 turns to build then another 30 to grow before I can even touch the Iron.......

And here come the barbs, so I should really get archers shouldn't I, but I'm down to 10% science and archery will be about 50 turns.....

When the barbs didn't even bother with archers, but instead skipped them and came straight with axes, I watched one take out 3 warriors on succesive turns, and then raise the gem city....well then it was "goodnight suzanne" time.....

The motto is don't play when your stupidly tired, and sometimes bad luck and overexpansion can kill you, literally

 

[Smolf]

Nice (but sad) story DrewBledsoe... bet you couldn't sleep afterwards because of the frustrating demise of your fledgeling civilization