Infinite City Sprawl in MP

[uigaw423]

73 capital... I had walls, castle, but not the next one up (arsenal I think?) and I didn't have The Kremlin, but I took the Liberty policy of +33% city defense. My record so far is 149 in a big capital with every building/wonder/policy that juices up the defense. The opponent's Mech Infantry and bombers were dying when they struck it, but he spammed them and had ranged attacks... that was back when I was a "noob" and I ended up losing the game cuz I didn't know what I was doing.

Who was it against? 149 is a huge defense but I have seen close I know I have.

 

[Silverfuturist]

So I have been experimenting with city spam in public games so changed my handle to "sir_spam_alot." DISCLAIMER: these are NOT games vs top players. I have done city spam so far with Egypt, Rome and France... very effective so far. Make a dozen+ cities (not including puppets) and the science and gold go off the charts. When I get to 250+ gold per turn (before golden age benefit) I am buying culture buildings as soon as the new cities go up. Surprisingly enough, I get policies just as fast as when I often go for 4 cities... I guess the piety happy/culture building policies motivate me to prioritize culture buildings (and they finish faster.) Also I have enough gold to ally every cultural city state still alive.

The capital is big and strong - after the first few settlers I let the other cities make the settlers. In fact I get several cities that can build wonders. Mostly my games for this have been on continents. Here is a policy order I have been trying:

1. Open tradition
2. Fill liberty
3. Go piety to get happy/culture building policy
4. Finish tradition (legalism when opera houses available)
5. Freedom (specilists policies)

The combo of liberty/tradition/piety means fast growing cities and a happy empire. Maritime city states give huge benefits with so many cities... in fact I am wondering if Siam can end up being the best spamming civ. With Freedom I max out the specialists slots... crushing games with over 2,000 points before everybody resigns. I get over 200 beakers per turn before the national college gets built. The funniest thing... some player is always calling me a noob for making so many cities and telling me how bad my strategy is... even as I dominate the demographics.

 

[MasterMishi]

nice idea but it has to be tested against top players surely?

 

[KM]

Most players at higher levels play more or less like that when it s ancient start but with soome differences.

1.st. I think, all thought i am not 100% sure about this that it is more efficient to skip 1 policy in trad. start with a monument i capital insted and go directly for liberty.

Second. Liberty gives a very nice producction bonus in capital for settlers. With ICS u wont have happines to support growth in capital in the beginning anyway. So I think most just grow to size 3 and then spam settlers from the capital while building army in the other cities.

A lot of players stop the spamming after about 6-7 cities thought (whn you run out of new luxery resources to secure) to develop infrastructure getting collos and roads up for happines to start growth.

 

[MasterMishi]

"wonders in many cities" - does the strat hold up against a tradition wonderspammer?
ND/CE essential?
"culture buildings priority" - vs a warmonger? need 5 up to date units first? only if its a cold war?

 

[zubrin]

What difficulty is this played on?

 

[Tabarnak]

What difficulty is this played on?

''human'' difficulty.

At Prince or higher, the total happiness available is unchanged. Duels and team games are often set with no cs and no barbs. That said, prince up to deity setting are exactly the same. If you add cs and barbs the difficulty played should be discussed before starting the game, especially if some guys may quit during the game.

 

[zubrin]

Ah, I forgot that the human variables remained constant at Prince and above. For some reason I was thinking happiness still went down.

ICS scares me as I am usually gasping for happiness, but I suppose building settlers really limits that city growth anyways.

 

[KiffeLesBiffles]

1. Open tradition
2. Fill liberty

Imo, this is not useful to open Tradition : you delay your Liberty SP and Piety SP too much. I guess you want to have them as quick as possible for happiness issue. It only pays off when you come back to tradition.

There have a long time debate on the subject somewhere on this forum.

1. Open tradition
2. Fill liberty
3. Go piety to get happy/culture building policy
4. Finish tradition (legalism when opera houses available)
5. Freedom (specilists policies)

Maybe, by the time you reach freedom, you are in industrial era, are not you ? You could take Order instead of freedom for +1 happy per city. Very usefull for ICSer!

When I play a NQ game, I usually ICS. One of the best way to ICS is annexing cities, because you can exploit the courthouse bug :

- Build 4 cities
- Rush your neighbour(s) and/or city states : you are now alone on your cont !
- Build the NC
- Annexed puppets and build courthouse everywhere.

More important issues with that is probably gold.