How to play wide?

[Redaxe]

Having a tall capital is definitely great but one has to look at the cost of getting one. There are occasions that the capital just can't grow very much (flat tundra start like the recent Rome Deity challenge). Yes you can put caravans on it but a liberty capital doesn't benefit from monarchy. Its better the use the caravans for gold and science and just let cities develop themselves off the land. Guilds should go to the city with highest growth on fresh water. Wide empires already earn more culture than tall ones because of more monuments, culture pantheons and liberty opener so its not as crucial to work the guilds early. I usually time my first couple of great writers for the worlds fair. With 7 or more cities you are guaranteed to win it.

Ahhh ha I suppose I should have clarified what I said, yes you're right you don't need a tall capital although its admittedly better if you can get a tall capital as you have more time to grow and develop it.
Regarding that Rome Deity challenge I must try it out but isn't it better in that circumstance to walk out of the crappy tundra. If it take a few turns to settle somewhere on a hill adjacent to a few nearby bonus tiles the benefit to early growth and production will make those hammers and your civ will be better in the long run.

 

[Vitruvius]

Ahhh ha I suppose I should have clarified what I said, yes you're right you don't need a tall capital although its admittedly better if you can get a tall capital as you have more time to grow and develop it.
Regarding that Rome Deity challenge I must try it out but isn't it better in that circumstance to walk out of the crappy tundra. If it take a few turns to settle somewhere on a hill adjacent to a few nearby bonus tiles the benefit to early growth and production will make those hammers and your civ will be better in the long run.

Up to you, you can stick with the tundra and get a few more better cities out. Or move out of tundra and focus on capital. I think the former is better because of the headstart as long as you are able to expand quickly.

 

[Leathaface]

Is it possible to play wide in BNW? Like 6-7 cities by in the Reneissance era?

Would happiness problems prevent your from founding those amount of cities? I always can only 3 cities max then wait to built Circus Maximus.

 

[Vitruvius]

Is it possible to play wide in BNW? Like 6-7 cities by in the Reneissance era?

Would happiness problems prevent your from founding those amount of cities? I always can only 3 cities max then wait to built Circus Maximus.

You can have a lot of cities. But you are gonna have to limit their population.

 

[lindsay40k]

I used to rate leveraging a decent Faith start as a means to go wide with happiness from Religion, but since cranking up my difficulty and game length (currently testing myself against Deity Marathon), I find that after the first three cities I'm better off grabbing AI capitals. Liberty wasn't bad when a GE-rushed Petra was feasible, but nowadays I'm much better off with Tradition or even Honor (when the captured cities rack up, warehousing units for extra culture and happiness and no upkeep gets kinda decent, especially when wiping out the AI frees up vast swathes of land for Barbarians to infest).

 

[Jinavajra]

Hey guys, just a quick update about the playing wide stuff. I tried it both with and without religion and....and no. I just don't like it. I'm forced to build colosseums and cricuses everywhere, the AI hates me and won't trade for luxes, I have too few workable tiles per city, my cities are tiny and worthless and have crappy production and I can't properly build wonders in my capital.

Being a religious juggernaut with the Maya was fun, but it didn't point towards a victory condition at all, and I still had sheet cities.

 

[beetle]

At turn 5-10 when I get my culture from ruins I can't foretell if I will have room for 5-6 cities, so taking liberty is a big risk and I'm yet to see it paying it off.

This is my experience as well. Even with aggressive scouting and even without the cultural ruin, the Tradition / Liberty decision is often just a guess for me.

I have been trying to play wide more often than not, just because 4 city Tradition was my default pattern. Wide is more interesting, but does not really seem to make the game take noticeably fewer turns or play out more reliably (i.e., make it easier to win). I have re-played a few maps now where I won going wide, and retried (albeit with map knowledge) and my 4 city tradition approach still took the games past 400 turns to win (so, yeah, I am not fast). This is immortal, continents+, everything standard but raging barbs.

My experience has led me to conclude that every city location needs to be excellent (i.e., on a hill near a lux or prolly don't bother). My success correctly making the decision that I can play the map wide is still only 50/50. If it develops that I cannot found 6+ cities in great spots, prolly I reload back to turn where I first opened Liberty instead of Tradition.

I plan to keep trying wide where I can for while, because it is fun for now, but I remain skeptical that I can really make it work. I would not be surprised if I just go back to 4 city Tradition just because it is more relaxed and works on every map.

Would happiness problems prevent your from founding those amount of cities? I always can only 3 cities max then wait to built Circus Maximus.

Hmm, I am not sure what we are doing differently, but I have never needed to hold off founding cities to wait for CM (going wide or not).

 

[noonex]

If you are on small map or scouting shows that you will have space problems, then no need to go wide.
If you really wish to go wide - try bigger maps.

The key specific for going very wide you don't need to grow your cities (because of happiness problem). 6 cities with size 4 (all working on resource tiles) may show production twice bigger than 2 cities size 12 (and it is easy to grow them once happiness problems are solved). Another point that growing prior to both Aqueduc and Civil Service is much less efficient and city with aqueduc will catch up very quickly (if you really wish to grow it).

 

[Jinavajra]

But that early unhappiness is completely crippling. I will never-ever get anything done in any of those cities until late industrial (I recon, I always got disenhartened by the Ren era depression). Also, more unhappiness from cities, less luxes from AIs at the same time. Not to mention how the AI will easily found a coalition against you for "founding cities too agressively". So not only you will have bad cities, but you can't improve them either because you are forced to train troops and fight on 2 fronts.

 

[Vitruvius]

But that early unhappiness is completely crippling. I will never-ever get anything done in any of those cities until late industrial (I recon, I always got disenhartened by the Ren era depression). Also, more unhappiness from cities, less luxes from AIs at the same time. Not to mention how the AI will easily found a coalition against you for "founding cities too agressively". So not only you will have bad cities, but you can't improve them either because you are forced to train troops and fight on 2 fronts.

How many cities and luxes do you have? Many people make the mistake of doing city management the same way for liberty wide and tradition tall and hence run into unhappiness really early.

 

[Jinavajra]

For example, in my last Mongol game I had 6 cities and about...5-6 domestic luxuries? I'm sure I had 3 near my capital, 1 more that I stole from Theodora (spices) and at least 2 more from other city locations.

I'm pretty sure I had Marble, Citrus, Salt, Spices, Cotton aaaaand maybe something else?

But anyways, that was an awesome start, the problem with that game was that you don't play the mongols wide if you wanna go conquest early, and that I had to forward settle like crazy for horses. But that's not the point.

The Maya is a better example. I was the first to get a religion, and I enhanced it by the time the second religion emerged. I think I had about 4 prophets by the time others got 1, or not even 1. I had a funny amount of wine (which led me to religion-snowball with Pagodas and Monasteries) and yeah yeah, I had a super religion but nothing else. If Caesar decided to have a go at me I could have put up very little resistance.

And I did try the "this is money city, this is production city, this is culture city" business, but at the end of the day, you need science in all your cities, you need production in all your cities and you need high pop (ideally) in all your cities.

 

[lindsay40k]

The other thing about going wide is if you are invaded the necessarily smaller cities have lower population and thus lower strength (and if the worst should happen, will either barely touch the invader's Happiness or else be scorched in a couple of turns), and whilst twelve pop in the fields might have comparable average production to four working resources, it doesn't have the peak production of twelve being sent to the hills to hastily erect a Castle, build a Cannon, etc. Add to that the larger surface area your army has to cover (and no Oligarchy subsidy or Military Caste bonus), and you've got problems when the AI takes exception to your outrageous decision not to OCC.

Edit: I guess on a larger map, the AI's permissiveness when it comes to expanding isn't scaled?

 

[beetle]

If you are on small map or scouting shows that you will have space problems, then no need to go wide. If you really wish to go wide - try bigger maps.

The Tradition/Liberty question is most interesting for standard size maps. The advise to try bigger maps does not really help. If I wanted to make things easier for Liberty, I could delete a major civ or two at startup. I want to be able to play wide while stepping out of my comfort zone.

I find it is pretty easy to rule out going wide. My most recent game had enough room, but then the Moguls forward settled on me, even though he had lots of better space in two other directions. Fortunately, that was before I had opened Liberty so I punted back to Tradition, and ended up with those two Mongol cities eventually...

The difficulty is when I open Liberty because I think there is enough space, but it does not work out. Those games I have to abandon, go back to early save, and open Tradition as usual.

 

[lindsay40k]

When I go Liberty, it's not to go wide. It's to chop Glib, then get NC, then Oracle for Collective Rule to catch up in settling, then GE Petra. When I go wide, it's when a number of factors come into play; most importantly I suppose is plenty of Faith in the capital for getting Pagodas and suchlike.

 

[Vitruvius]

For example, in my last Mongol game I had 6 cities and about...5-6 domestic luxuries? I'm sure I had 3 near my capital, 1 more that I stole from Theodora (spices) and at least 2 more from other city locations.

I'm pretty sure I had Marble, Citrus, Salt, Spices, Cotton aaaaand maybe something else?

But anyways, that was an awesome start, the problem with that game was that you don't play the mongols wide if you wanna go conquest early, and that I had to forward settle like crazy for horses. But that's not the point.

The Maya is a better example. I was the first to get a religion, and I enhanced it by the time the second religion emerged. I think I had about 4 prophets by the time others got 1, or not even 1. I had a funny amount of wine (which led me to religion-snowball with Pagodas and Monasteries) and yeah yeah, I had a super religion but nothing else. If Caesar decided to have a go at me I could have put up very little resistance.

And I did try the "this is money city, this is production city, this is culture city" business, but at the end of the day, you need science in all your cities, you need production in all your cities and you need high pop (ideally) in all your cities.

You should control the population of your cities more carefully. Do not overgrow. If you have a city that has say 2 horses, 2 copper, a wheat and a bunch of grasslands, then all you need is 5 pop in that city to work those 5 bonus resources. That 5 pop city will function as well as a 10 pop city because the extra 5 pop you have will be working grasslands for no production and gold. You only grow when you have the happiness to grow.

The difference between tall and wide is the unhappiness that result from more cities. Say you have 8 cities vs 4 cities. You will have 4x3=12 more global unhappiness. This 12 unhappiness can be countered by 3 more luxuries, which wide empires are more likely to provide. More cities also means more local happiness from colosseums etc. 4 more cities = 8 more local happiness from 4 colosseums, more with circuses. So a 8 city empire can have more total population than a 4 city empire, but the population will be spread out. You don't need to grow each city a lot, grow until you can work all the best tiles in the radius. And this is really the advantage of wide over tall. You can work more bonus tiles in a wide empire because you don't have to grow each city so tall by working grasslands which gives nothing but food.