How many cities do you usually settle?

[Zortex]

One think worth thinking about in the annex/puppet vs raze/resettle argument is that I beleive you get a diplomacy hit for all AIs if you raze a city. This isn't 100% confirmed or anything, but I have seen people mention it as a strong possibility.

 

[sarah_aus]

I usually have 3-4 depending on what kinda victory I want, and then whatever I capture on top of that. I usually only keep the capitals unless there is awesome resources on a smaller city and it's worth keeping. I took York from Lizzie today and had 2 whales and 2 fish. I was happy to keep that.

 

[H4run]

let me count it the way Bernard Shaw count it on one of his Don Juan drama,

Ricky, Ticky and Tavy : all 3 cities.



the rest, with hearth heavier then the black cloud, civ 5 force me to raze every cities except :

1. capital, they leave me no choice.
2. Those who have plenty of happy building and wonder. I do choice not to raze it.

I hate the happiness issue and how it works, it make me play like an angry barbs at war time. I prefer to be more civilize but once again, they leave me no choice.

edit : But i do build another city after i raze it, but my self improve city only 3. The rest, my new city just have to take a sit on my opponent fancy tiles. Well improve and organize, but sometime they do overwhelm the tiles with farm, it cost me lots of works yeah.

 

[Airey]

Suppose the following case from my last game:

- You have just wasted the second opponent. It is somewhere between turn 65 and 70. You have had The Wheel for about ten turns, and the road network leading out to your new possessions is incomplete.
- You have taken London and York. They are somewhere between fifteen and twenty-five tiles from the capital. Much of it is Rough.
- You have a bunch of terrain that the AI has developed that you cannot currently work due to insufficient pop.
- You have a Whales in London's radius. London and York are your only possessions on this coast; both are coastal.

It's pretty much a no-brainer in this situation to annex the better production site. Developed land > undeveloped land, especially post-Rationalism, and the lost time moving Settlers out there is prohibitively costly. You're better off bringing the territory online now and wasting the time/coin on the Courthouse and the 200G on the Work Boat, as compared to raze/resettling or leaving the territory fallow.

Turn 60/75 and Post Rationalism is 2 totally different scenario.
By the time you reach rationalism and still have unimproved land in a city you conquered at T75, then the problem doesn't lie with annexing/razing.

Post Bio, resettlement gives much more potential upswing because no annexing unhappiness, and thus give you more cities to settle. It doesn't matter when you resettle a new city post rationalism, because 90+% of your empire has fully developed land/cities anyways...

it looks like you two are playing different strategy extremes...if you are talking about warrior rush, you prob don't settle as much cities as his by mid game. Annexing is good short-term for +production to wipe out AI on the continent...but I agree that in most cases annex aren't the best alternative. Can just better prepare prewar instead.

 

[Fluxx]

It really depends on the kind of land/civ and strategy you are going for.

My last game was with Siam where I intended to go for a culture victory. With that back in my mind and the UA, I settled only 3 cities. These cities were far enough apart from eachother, and in locations I knew big border spreads would benefit the huge population they would get through early maritime.

After getting some key wonders, and rushing to patronage, my research gain was high enough to end up with the war elephant UU against warriors, archers/swordsman. Then I started taking cities and puppeting them.

Sadly enough I was pretty unlucky with the city states on my continent, only 2 of them were cultural and I actually have to skip a UN victory to get my culture win

 

[eric_]

3 - 5 seems to be as far as I get before bumping into other civs, at which point a conquering spree is somewhat inevitable. (this is on prince/king, standard map, 12 civs). I puppet almost as a rule, but there are definitely times when annexing has been in my best interest, e.g.:

Strategically placed might mean you need build/purchase ships in it because its your only coastal city on that side of the continent. I would annex rather than build a new one in the same spot because it would take me too long to spread my borders.

Also, if you have a big empire, you need a big annexed production city in the territory farthest from your home base. For defense purposes.

I have annexed for both reasons, in the same game around the same time. The game had three continents, and I actually annexed three cities on the second continent I conquered (the first being my home continent) because I had +20 happiness and could easily absorb the extra unhappiness until courthouses were built. The cities were two gold and one production/gold hybrid (lots of goldmines and hills on that portion of the continent).

Meanwhile, my only coastal cities on the west side of my home continent were puppets and I needed to build frigates to protect embarked troops on their way to conquer the third continent to the west of my home continent. Soon after conquering continent 2, I annexed St. Petersburg, built a courthouse, and then cranked out frigates. Monty didn't last long after that.

 

[andrewlt]

Seems like early game you probably want to annex capitals otherwise they will spend forever building bad stuff over what you want. Annex when you can't raze them

Isn't it the opposite? Courthouses are more expensive turn-wise in the early game. And compared to maintenance costs, there are way more good buildings than bad in the early game. The bad buildings usually come later in the tech tree compared to the good ones.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Turn 60/75 and Post Rationalism is 2 totally different scenario.
By the time you reach rationalism and still have unimproved land in a city you conquered at T75, then the problem doesn't lie with annexing/razing.

I'm not sure I'm being clear here. You're giving away a ton of Hammers if you settle that city in your unimproved land back home, ditto if you spend the turns to run the Settler out there. The AI made Mines, and you should work them. Doing that frees up your citizens to work the Trading Post spam when Rationalism hits, because you already have the necessary infrastructure in place.

Post Bio

No such meaningful time period exists, even if you beeline it. In most games, I delay Biology and Steam Power to try to time them with Research Agreements. Then once I have Electricity, I set off the Scientific Revolution/GS bomb, build the UN and end the game.

A Spaceship win will at most add thirty turns to the research time frame. Less if you have Research Agreements to cash in. Rationalism specialists are just straight up absurd, especially after Unis are built. Size 6-8 cities can produce 40+ Science around turn 105. (Not that they're good for much else, mind you.) Enough of them will devastate the tech tree.