How Many Cities?

[Critt3r]

After about a dozen games on Warlord I still have not notched a victory.

My question is how many cities should I be shooting for?

For some reason I get distracted after about 4 or 5 and fail to build anymore.

Does this have a direct reflection on me being out-teched by the AI?

Is it even possible to win with less than 10 or 12 cities and is my revenue stream just not big enough to compete with only 4-5 cities?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Sayounara]

5 isn't enough?

Unless you don't work your tiles, I don't see any reason 5 cities could not be enough.

But I don't know warlord level. I have never played settler, warlord, cheiftan or prince level.

 

[DaveMcW]

Build cottages!

 

[LeSphinx]

Yes you can win with only 4 or 5 cities.
I had a cultural win with only 4 cities. They were well defended and they generate lot of Commerce. So you have to build lot of cottage around your cities!

LeSphinx

 

[Gufnork]

Five is very few on a standard map and while it's very possible to win on Warlord with so few cities, I would not recommend it. Try and get as many cities as possible, more is usually better.

 

[aidan_b5]

I tend to go for 8 on a standard map with at least 6 being in prime location (2 more planted for strategic reasons).
With that done, it's all about the cottages

 

[ÆnigmÆffect]

While you can win with just a handful of cities (Civ4 even includes a 1 city challenge baked into the game), on a standard size map, it's fairly normal to go for about 10-12 cities. That's probably the amount of cities you should go for, if you're new to Civ4. Having more cities will give more commerce, thus keeping a good tech pace.

Basically, if you're finding your tech pace is slow (double digits of turns to get techs, and your tech slider is fairly high, being 70+), you should probably get a couple more cities.

Keep in mind that each city is going to cost some sum of gold per turn to upkeep. Here's a thread on marginal cost per city:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=138473