How many cities? (newbie alert)

[shadezguy]

To be asking this, I'm obviously new to the game. From reading other posts where people talk about having 50 cities, I'm beginning to think one of my biggest mistakes is not building enough cities.

Is it generally prudent to build as many cities as soon as you can, as fast as you can, until all available real estate is occupied?

Is it worth it to build on terrain where there is little resources? I usually look for 9-square blocks where the majority of the nine squares are resource rich, at least in food and shields.

Any discussion of this will be appreciated. Thanks...

 

[LaRo]

You should build cities as long as there is land avalaible because it count a lot in the score.
When there is no more land avalaible (or before depend of your strategie) you may attack for conquer cities.
If you don't want to go to war, build cities on the border of your frontier to grab small part of land to others civs. If you do so, rush for library and other cultural improvements to avoid losing cities by culture.

 

[ripcord_tx]

I have a large game going - I'm Persian, it's about 500AD, I've settled as many spots and I'm the 3rd largest civilization out of 16 and technologicially advanced. I'm trading techs, everybody is polite, when suddenly the Germans demand a tech from me. When I refuse, the go to war. They sign a pact against me with the Greek, who go to war. The Greeks sign a pact with the Russians, and they go to war. Then the French, the Americans, the English, the Babalonians, the Indians. They all swarm in together. I'm building Immortals as fast as I can, but it's not enough. None of the civilizations will talk to me, and I've lost 7 cities in the last 200 years.

This is fun? How do I exit from this downward spiral?

I watched the AI cheat, too. They sailed a boat clear around my area, landed and moved inland and picked the 1 city in the middle that had 1 spearman in it and captured it. How in the heck did they know that particular city was poorly guarded?

 

[ferenginar]

The AI always cheat, they know exeactly how many units you have and where they are.

I think your problem here is that your military is simply not big enough, and this has encouraged the AI to declare war on you. If you have a large military force they are more likely to leave you alone.

You must build units in all your cities, start with defensive units, preferably ones that can be upgraded. Once you have increased your military then you should be able to broker peace deals. if not immediately, then attack, take a few cities then go for peace.

ferenginar

 

[ripcord_tx]

I'm hoping it's not too late. I'm producing spearmen and immortals as fast as I can, but since everyone is at war with me I can't trade for techs. I see the English have decided to declare war on me now and they're bringing in swordsmen.

I had, oh, 15 cities and I've been trimmed to 10. The Germans, Babylonians, and Americans have each offered peace, and each want a different city. The other 5 civilizations won't talk to me. The city on the point has 3 spearmen and 8 immortals in it, but the Germans have just parked 20 archers 2 squares away. The Greeks have 6 horsemen, the Russians have another 8 archers. The English are attacking the other side of my territory with 5 swordsmen, but I only have 3 immortals on that side. They must have all signed Right of Passage with each other.

So not only am I not keeping up militarily (they outnumber me 8 civilizations to 1), but I'm falling behind on tech and culture. I'm only equal to them on territory, but I'm getting ready to lose that.

Sheesh. And this is only Warlord. Things were fine until a few hundred years ago, then this cascading war declaration and 1 by 1 they signed pacts and attacked. I don't think I'm going to survive this one.

 

[LaRo]

It's seem like Alamo. Fight to the last city but make peace whenever it's possible. Maybe you could make a military alliance with the civs you are in peace vs the bad guys.

To avoid this situation happen again, whenever you are in advance in the tree tech and you don't want war, trade you technology to all civs. It'll bring you cash to increase science to 100%. Sometimes, someone will want 100gp and maps. Give him or her. Losing units cost higher and you may lose cities to.

Pop: 1-5: 3 defensives units
6-11 4 defensives units
12+ 5 defensives units

The best defensives units are Spearmen because you can upgrade them up to mech infrantry.

 

[Allemand]

I play the huge maps, and my goal is to build about 15-20 cities by 10 AD, then expand that out to at least 30 very soon after that. On smaller maps you may need less but you're better off thinking more is better. I look for good terrain, so sometimes I'll have some unused squares. If the area is large enough, I eventually put a small city there.

Also need a military force strong enough to fight a war against at least one opponent. Mobile forces are better than foot soldiers, so 12-15 horsemen used as a field army will be a better defense than the Immortals (some of you may debate this last point).

 

[ripcord_tx]

I may have to do that. They captured the city on the point and cut off my supply of iron, so no more immortals.

 

[Ironikinit]

Oh no that's terrible. If you can overcome that setback, you're a legend.

If the land is really bad, like tundra or desert, I might not bother settling there. Jungle is important to claim because it has resources. I expand as much as I can and only try to defend against barbarians at first.

 

[BillChin]

The answer to how many cities depends on the difficulty, the world size and your basic strategy. I'll outline what I find to be an effective method. I play Emperor difficulty, random civ, standard size map. I build 8 to 15 cities, all close to the capital, with only one to three spaces between cities. This dense build has the following advantages: tremendous early production leverage (tech, gold, units), an easy to defend position, easy to connect all cities with roads, low corruption due to minimal distance from the capital. The negatives include the need to micromanage because of overlapping squares and the need to trim cities to let others expand after I get Aqueducts and railroads.

After the initial build out, I build 20+ horsemen and attack with overwhelming force to gain all the enemy land. I research the Wheel first thing in order to be able to claim a horse icon.

Another key point when war time comes, is to bribe the other neighbors to stay out of the war. One free gold per turn often does the trick. Again, this works for me on Emperor difficulty. On lower difficulties, many more strategies are viable.

 

[Fierro1816]

To aboid cascade alliances against you sign Right of Passage with peaceful countries. They wont war with no excuse until the treaty ends... (otherwise they get their reputation hit)

 

[Grotius]

BillChin, if you're reading this thread, I tried your dense-build approach on Regent level, Japan, small random map, sedentary barbs. It's a fun change of pace, so I really appreciate your posting about it. But I'm still not sure whether it suits my play style. It worked fine in the early years, since I was able to out-build my closest rivals, the Chinese. I've squeezed them off most of my continent through a combination of military and cultural victories.

But as a result of my dense build, other civs took much more real estate than I did during the initial expansion phase. They spread three times as far, which counts for a lot more in victory points. What's more, my startup cities are now competing with each other for resource squares. Only one -- my capital -- has made it to pop 12, and I'm about to enter the Industrial Age.

Yes, my other startup cities are packed in close, so there's minimal corruption, but there are also no "go to" cities with massive amounts of production or cash/science output. Even my capital is hemmed in. You say I could 'trim' cities, but I'm loathe to destroy the investments I've put in my mid-sized, close-in cities. Or should I just have not invested in them in the first place? Built no temples, etc?

Now, I may still win: I managed to get the Great Library, and I now enjoy a tech lead & am cranking away with democracy into the Industrial Age. And yes, I've taken over some nice chunks of former Chinese land. But I'm not sure how I'm better off with a smaller civ, with cities packed together, now that the rest of the world is full of civs that expanded traditionally. OTOH, I do have to admit that it's nice to have minimal corruption problems for a change. And yes, it's easy to defend such a compact little empire.

So I have some questions. What type of victory do you seek with this strategy? Do you just go on an endless military campaign to expand your initial small territory? Do you use this strategy on Tiny maps only? I know you're playing on a higher difficulty level than I am, so maybe I'll appreciate it more if I try Emperor or something. Anyway, thanks for posting it; I'll keep plugging away with it. And heck, if I win, a win's a win.

 

[ripcord_tx]

They wouldn't do a Right of Passage without me ceding a city to them as well. Anything less and they were insulted, even while polite.

I'm convinced my army was too small. I posted a summary under another forum here. After being wiped out the first time, I went back in time and gave the Germans 30 gold to go away. No war, no cascading declarations of war, I became a powerhouse. All hinging on that one decision.

 

[LaRo]

You're right! Sometime, it's better pay a tribute to avoid losing more in a war that you don't want or you're not ready to go.

 

[Allemand]

But when you're strong again, go get that money back, with interest.