How many cities is too many cities?

[Fluffyburrito]

I'm completely new to the game and finding this site a great resource but many of the guides seem a bit out-dated.

I've been seeing lately that the general consensus is that ICS no longer works. Is it almost always better to have 3-4 large cities and puppet everything else?

My favorite Civ so far is Rome because you can get a really early advantage as soon as you get iron (their lifeblood and a glaring weakness if you don't start near some) and usually take another civ or a few city states out to expand rapidly and gain a great advantage with your ULA. Then I usually just choose my victory bonus because I'm so far ahead. However, I've felt like having 7-8 cities really slows down my progress and I win scientifically barely before turn 400. I keep bumping the AI up after every game because they've been a breeze so far but I feel like this tactic won't work well once I fight some AI that provides a challenge.

 

[reddishrecue]

7-8 cities max because more cities that get puppeted will usually cause unhappiness if there aren't any luxuries or enough happiness.

 

[Fluffyburrito]

7-8 cities max because more cities that get puppeted will usually cause unhappiness if there aren't any luxuries or enough happiness.

I've yet to really have unhappiness via a handy religion bonus but what I'm mainly concerned about is I don't understand how much more cities affects your culture/science progress. I keep reading a lot of guides on the subject but they all vary quite a bit as it seems patches/expansions has changed things up.

 

[JeSuisNapoleon]

In BnW, the two main considerations are happiness and science output.
It seems puppets have a science penalty now, so large puppet empires are not a great as they once were.

In general at the early part of the game, its best to settle in a good location, and there should be one unique lux for each city. If you get 2 lux in one city, then you could then support another city without a unique lux, which may or may not be a good idea.

so long as you have a surplus of happiness, you can keep planting new cities.

For science, you also need to make sure each city will be producing adequate research beakers. this is largely a population concern, and you need to have the right buildings, ect. So the cities need to grow bigger, and have libraries and universities. other buildings come later. Its nice to have a few observatories. There are TONS of threads about this. Go read them

for whatever reason, planting more than 7 cities tends to get difficult. later in the game, I find its WAY better to conquer. You get a city with decent location, already ~7 population, and maybe a few buildings (wonders?!). this is better than a population 1 troll city in a bad spot. Also, it weakens your opponents.

on larger maps, you can get more cities, but I rarely ever found more than 7. Maybe thats just my style. remember, a domination win will get you 7 other capitol cities anyway right ?

 

[Fluffyburrito]

In BnW, the two main considerations are happiness and science output.
It seems puppets have a science penalty now, so large puppet empires are not a great as they once were.

In general at the early part of the game, its best to settle in a good location, and there should be one unique lux for each city. If you get 2 lux in one city, then you could then support another city without a unique lux, which may or may not be a good idea.

so long as you have a surplus of happiness, you can keep planting new cities.

For science, you also need to make sure each city will be producing adequate research beakers. this is largely a population concern, and you need to have the right buildings, ect. So the cities need to grow bigger, and have libraries and universities. other buildings come later. Its nice to have a few observatories. There are TONS of threads about this. Go read them

for whatever reason, planting more than 7 cities tends to get difficult. later in the game, I find its WAY better to conquer. You get a city with decent location, already ~7 population, and maybe a few buildings (wonders?!). this is better than a population 1 troll city in a bad spot. Also, it weakens your opponents.

on larger maps, you can get more cities, but I rarely ever found more than 7. Maybe thats just my style. remember, a domination win will get you 7 other capitol cities anyway right ?

Thanks for this. So is it always better to annex (at least when my happiness allows) than puppet?

The way I've been playing I've found maybe two cities, making sure they get in a good spot and around the same time iron is revealed, and then using the fantastic early game of Rome to go after a capital or very strategically placed city-state to gain advantages and then kind of messing around picking different ways to win because I'm not completely used to the game yet.

I guess one of the biggest mistakes I could be making is once I start a war with someone I finish it. I think I may need to raze the incredibly stupid cities the AI can build sometimes and just go straight for the capital instead.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

You should check of much usefull land you got.
In my opinion you can't have to much usefull land so get all that land you can get you hands on and you will likley never lose vs the ai.
However if your cities are very Close to each other its a waste so what you want is basicly as few cities as posible but as much land and population as posible.

 

[CivilizedPlayer]

I generally annex now, since the science penalty is there either way. But if you're going to annex, don't do it right away! Puppet first, until the city stops resisting. Then annex, and preferably rush buy a courthouse. That way, you never annex a resisting city (that can't build anything anyway) and you never deal with the large, "annexed" unhappiness modifier.

 

[joncnunn]

I raze about half the AI's cities since they are useless.

Everything else is puppet unless it's really good (such as former capital). Puppets don't require a full set of buildings of remaining national wonders to build.

Puppets will normally build the library so it will pay itself in terms of science.

 

[BlackWizard]

I generally annex now, since the science penalty is there either way. But if you're going to annex, don't do it right away! Puppet first, until the city stops resisting. Then annex, and preferably rush buy a courthouse. That way, you never annex a resisting city (that can't build anything anyway) and you never deal with the large, "annexed" unhappiness modifier.

You can annex immediately if you want to delay you Golden Age for some reason. These reason might be for example picking freedom tenet which gives 50% longer golden ages.

 

[Laurwin]

I raze about half the AI's cities since they are useless.

Everything else is puppet unless it's really good (such as former capital). Puppets don't require a full set of buildings of remaining national wonders to build.

Puppets will normally build the library so it will pay itself in terms of science.

I LOVE the Huns' double speed razing...