Let's talk about the expansion phase

[andydtoma]

There is a lot of the discussion about the opening moves, about the district development, about the wide empire strategy.
But how do you perform the expansion phase around turn 50, and get many cities around turn 100?
How to decide producing settlers or building the first districts.
What are the priorities on the building queue for the secondary cities?

 

[Stringer1313]

My goal is to get about 6 cities by turn 100 (I'm not a hardcore player). I've never had a hard time expanding b/c there's always space. I may build one district in the capital but otherwise my capital is a settler-machine; the other cities build commercial districts. In the rare circumstances that there isn't space, I focus 100% of my production on military units to take over other cities.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Expansion phases, for me [Emperor/Immortal, Standard, Standard, Continents].

1. Ancient Era: Throw some elbows. This 1st expansion phase is usually the seizure of at least 1 city from each of my immediate neighbors. I like to do this before warmonger penalties accrue and before the enemy can get walls up everywhere. Sometimes, this leads to wiping out one of my neighbors. In my most successful games I take over my entire continent in this phase, wiping out my rivals before they build a 3rd city (that's only happened a couple of times - a more typical result is to knock my neighbors down and become the major power before warmonger penalties arrive and I have to be more circumspect).
- At Emperor and above, the AI starts the game with a Settler. So a 2nd city is not evidence that an AI is expanding. Don't freak out when you see a non-capital city. Just take it.

2. Ancient to Classical Era: Lay down borders. The 2nd expansion phase is building settlers. I adopt Colonization and build multiple Settlers simultaneously. If everything has gone well thus far, this is 3-4 new cities. I put these around my periphery, claiming as much land as I think I can, trying to box out my neighbors.
- Make sure you've researched Bronze Working, so you can see where the Iron is.
- This is a good time to claim Natural Wonders and look for good locations for coastal cities.
- You'll probably be pushing against a neighbor here. That's part of the point. Found multiple cities on the same turn, so that when your neighbor gets upset you can tell them "Okay, I won't settle near you any more."

3. Push borders & fill in the gaps. The 3rd expansion is similar to the 2nd. If I can expand my borders, I do. If I'm already crowded, I look for gaps and places to add a city within my existing borders. Sometimes there's another war of conquest here, but by this point I'm usually looking at warmonger penalties, so I have to think about it.
- Switch to Settler View to see where grey and green hexes are, between the red hexes of your cities. Fill in those gaps, even if the new city is in a poor location and won't be very good.

4. Start an overseas colony. This expansion phase comes after I discover an unsettled land mass or an AI that's turtled. Colonization again and another round of multiple, simultaneous Settlers. This time I have some Builders and a colonial army ready to go with the Settlers, and I save up several thousand gold in preparation (to claim hexes and purchase buildings). I like to get at least 3 cities founded together, so the colony can be a little bit self-sufficient. Usually this doesn't involve waging a war, since the whole point is to seize territory the AI has overlooked or hasn't discovered yet.
- Don't forget to build a navy, unless you're the Suzerain of Lisbon. You'll want to use domestic trade routes to boost the food and production of these new cities.

 

[UWHabs]

Yeah, I follow a similar pattern.
Early game I try to expand quickly to 3-4 cities, either through settlers or archers. Then I tend to settle down, let those cities grow a bit, and then I suddenly go, "oh, yeah, I should build more cities". Then most of then switch and build a settler each, and I basically double in size to 6-8 cities, and that usually just about fills my territory.
After that, I tend to stop expanding except through war. I find at that point it's not really worth the settler cost to put a city down in some useless location that will take forever to get off the ground. Sometimes I still build settlers because I'm bored, or if I do find an island with a luxury that can be worth it. But mostly I ignore those cities.

 

[Victoria]

To me the expansion phase is from turn 20-80
Getting that first settler out to forward settle is a priority for me.
I will then go for around 6 cities nowadays by about turn 80 and then spend about 20 turns in the chopping, preparing for the middle game.

It all sounds so simple but never goes 100% to plan, I can end up with 10 cities through stupid neighbours or 4 cities... well never really.

Of course with domination the expansion phase is typically the entire game.

 

[andydtoma]

Ok. But if we needed a religion and no Stonehenge around, then what should come in the capital after the opening moves? The Holy Site or the first settler?

 

[ShakaKhan]

Ok. But if we needed a religion and no Stonehenge around, then what should come in the capital after the opening moves? The Holy Site or the first settler?

Your question is actually an answer to another question, "Why do most people think it's better to not found a religion?" Especially on higher difficulties, getting a holy site delays your initial expansion substantially. The capital is delayed in spawning out the core cities, the core cities being settled later delays them in settling the tertiary cities, it's a big domino effect.

As for my approach to initial expansion, it varies greatly depending on how close my nearest neighbor is. I think by far the single most important factor in having a good early expansion (which more or less means having a great game) is how many cities and settlers you can steal from a neighbor.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

Usually I expand via Archers. The goal in the first 100 turns is to wipe out at least one neighbor and have at least 10 cities.

• War usually begins around turn 30. By that time I have 3-4 Archers and 1-2 Warriors, which is often enough to down one neighbor.
• Then begin Settler phase. I build at least 2 in my capital (usually the first one before Early Empire).
• With my new cities, I supplement my first army with a few more Archers and Warriors. I probably get the Mercenaries inspiration around this time.
• After they get 2 pop, it's Settler time for them too.
• After killing my neighbor (and maybe a CS or second neighbor) and research Political Philosophy, combine Colonization and Urban planning to churn out Settlers non-stop.
• Somewhere along this Settler spam, build an Entertainment Complex and start Colosseum.

Ok. But if we needed a religion and no Stonehenge around, then what should come in the capital after the opening moves? The Holy Site or the first settler?

Scout if your neighbor has a Holy Site. You may be able to use theirs after you conquer them. But if not, a Holy Site might be needed before the first Settler. Only do this if attempting a Religious Victory, though.

 

[ShakaKhan]

Scout if your neighbor has a Holy Site. You may be able to use theirs after you conquer them. But if not, a Holy Site might be needed before the first Settler. Only do this if attempting a Religious Victory, though.

I'm wondering what people think about this, and about having a holy site outside of your capital. I'm pretty sure it's just the Civ5 in me talking, but it just feels strange having a holy city that's not my capital. If I capture a city with a holy site and decide that I'm going to found a religion, I'll often build another HS in my capital. However, I don't think there is any reason for your holy site to be your capital in civ6, is there?

 

[UWHabs]

I'm wondering what people think about this, and about having a holy site outside of your capital. I'm pretty sure it's just the Civ5 in me talking, but it just feels strange having a holy city that's not my capital. If I capture a city with a holy site and decide that I'm going to found a religion, I'll often build another HS in my capital. However, I don't think there is any reason for your holy site to be your capital in civ6, is there?

As far as I can tell, the holy site location doesn't matter at all, except that it's basically the first city you can build apostles in.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Conquering neighbours is more effective than building settlers for the following reasons:
-The captured cities have some development already and thus are worth more than a freshly settled city
-Conquering neighbours gives you control over more lands and eliminates enemies that might be in your way later, compete for CSes etc etc.
-Your units should not die. While a conquest group of 4 archers and 1 warrior comes at about the price of 2 settlers, it can conquer much more than 2 cities.

The only really downside of conquering very early is that you dont give the enemy civs opportunity to settle more cities for you to conquer and to build more in them for you. However, your window of opportunity for conquest with archers is somewhat limited, so i think conquering ASAP is still best. Unless maybe you only have 1 other civ on your landmass and you can still conquer them with archers even if you give them some time to settle like 5 cities.

So we go for conquest rather than settlers. I usually start with just building slingers into archers (with upgrade ofc) and attack as soon as i have 4 archers. After my first group is on the go and i have agoge up, i also build 1 or 2 workers to improve some tiles and do some forest cuts. With a forest cut under agoge, they pay back for themselves right away, so its pure profit and only gets your armies out faster. It would be nice to do this right at the start, but it is not safe to start with a worker right away, you dont yet have agoge so waste the forest cut and you need to research mining first and that might delay archery too much (you definately want archery when the 4th slinger is produced at the latest)

A conquest group starts out being 3-4 archers + 1 warrior and should be upgraded to 5-6 archers + warrior when the enemy gets city walls. Depending on your capitals production and the amount of enemies available, you decide if you go with 1 or 2 combat groups. The second combat group is only worth it if there are several cities for it to conquer before it gets obsolete. An archer combat group is obsolete when your enemy gets a significant amount of horsemen or better units. See if you can pillage horse tiles to stop them from making those if needed. You are not conquering sumeria with archers.

After you are done producing archers and they are busy conquering (somewhere around turn 40-50 ish), comes the settler phase. Needless to say, you want the 50% production bonus civic for this. You build settlers from basically everywhere (capital and captured cities). I like to first repair the monument in captured cities though and the newly settled cities mostly start building a monument too. Also lay down the foundations for districts to keep the price down, but dont complete them yet. Getting many cities is what matters now.

By around turn 80ish, youre archers are about to become obsolete. You have filled in most of the gaps with your settlers, and you have now gotten the feudalism civic. Swich to worker phase, build a mass of 5 action workers, improve all your lands, cut the forests you want and build districts the districts you like.

Off you go and by turn 100, you should have between 20 and 30 cities with a monument and 1-2 districts in each. (if you got that much space ofc)

Of course it all depends on map and victory plan. This works on pangea/continent and is a start for a late game victory. If you want a conquest victory instead, you dont do a settler and worker phase but instead focus on teching for the next unit tech to proceed conquest when your archers are obsolete. If youre alone on an island, you cant do archer conquest. If you want a religion or religious victory, you must take that in account (conquer holy sites early enough or add one in your build) etc....

 

[Kyro]

There's no such thing as an "expansion phase". You do it as and when you can, whenever you can, all the way to victory.

And WackenOpenAir is right. Warmongering is the best means of expansion there is. You're not efficient if you expand peacefully.

 

[Art Morte]

I don't really enjoy expansion through conquest because the AI is so bad at warfare. It feels too easy and like securing victory for the whole game too soon.

On one hand I quite enjoy the fact that you can find good, unsettled land pretty late on in the game, even on a pangaea map. Founding a distant colony is fun. On the other hand it's another issue that makes me despair at the AI; why haven't you settled these lands already? It feels especially disappointing when you see AI settlers just wondering around without any rush to found a city.

One thing about Theater Districts: the general consensus seems to be that people don't build them, but rather CDs and then use gold to buy tiles. I'm a bit different, I like building a TD in a border city that's going to compete for border growth with rival AI cities. You know, trying to get the city's culture up. Now, this leads to a weird problem sometimes: if I build a couple of TDs, I start accruing more great person points for writers, artists and musicians, obviously. I get some of those great people and I may actually run out of slots for great works - unless I build more TDs. And if I build more TDs, I get more great person points in that area again and more great works. Basically, I find myself half-playing for culture victory even though that was never my intention. I actually find this cycle a bit annoying.

 

[greygamer]

There's no such thing as an "expansion phase". You do it as and when you can, whenever you can, all the way to victory.

And WackenOpenAir is right. Warmongering is the best means of expansion there is. You're not efficient if you expand peacefully.

I thought the point of 'peaceful' expansion was to claim enough territory to achieve one of the other victory types by just defending that territory.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Ye, it should be. And if you act like its a real world and war is a bad thing, it would still be (although instead those leading the real world act like its a game of civ)

But this game has made conquest more effective than settlers. If that was not enough, they made the barbs so that you need to build units anyway. This effectively further reduces the cost of conquest. If you are building them anyway, why not use them...

 

[knighterrant81]

Your question is actually an answer to another question, "Why do most people think it's better to not found a religion?" Especially on higher difficulties, getting a holy site delays your initial expansion substantially. The capital is delayed in spawning out the core cities, the core cities being settled later delays them in settling the tertiary cities, it's a big domino effect.

While it is completely true that the Holy Site slows your expansion and its probably better to build a different district or just expand, here's what I'd do to get a Religion (if for whatever reason that is a goal for you). First, Holy Site ASAP. You pretty much have to get the first Great Prophet to have a shot at a religion on higher level difficulties. The Inspiration from a Natural Wonder on Astrology is nice but not the end of the world if you don't get it. God-King card to get a Pantheon (unless you get a hut or CS that can help you here) Some of the Pantheons can help with getting a Religion. If you are a civ that gets a Wild Card slot for free (Poland or Greece) Mysticism-->GP Policy Card is basically like building a 2nd Holy Site+Shrine for free. After that, Holy Site projects can actually help you a lot with overtaking a zealous AI. That said, you are throwing a ton of production and a district slot in towards this and it is probably better in most cases to go for military and settlers instead.

 

[Kyro]

I thought the point of 'peaceful' expansion was to claim enough territory to achieve one of the other victory types by just defending that territory.

That's just it there's no such thing as "enough" territory when every City you found/Conquered brings you closer to Victory; especially since there is no real cost to doing so.

There is no advantage to expanding peacefully over warmongering; since you technically can both warmonger and expand yourself simultaneously.

The only reason not to Warmonger is if you don't want to miss out on wonders and would like to focus more on the building aspects of Civ 6 and that is just preference. Unfortunately, as the game is right now, trying to do that puts you far behind when compared to just conquering all you see.

It's possible to devour an entire Civilization (5 or 6 cities) with all its districts and wonders in about 30 turns or so. NO amount of peaceful expansion is going to get similar results in the same time frame.

 

[Victoria]

The Holy Site or the first settler?

Settler, you need 2 holy sites to have a chance

 

[greygamer]

That's just it there's no such thing as "enough" territory when every City you found/Conquered brings you closer to Victory; especially since there is no real cost to doing so.

There is no advantage to expanding peacefully over warmongering; since you technically can both warmonger and expand yourself simultaneously.

The only reason not to Warmonger is if you don't want to miss out on wonders and would like to focus more on the building aspects of Civ 6 and that is just preference. Unfortunately, as the game is right now, trying to do that puts you far behind when compared to just conquering all you see.

It's possible to devour an entire Civilization (5 or 6 cities) with all its districts and wonders in about 30 turns or so. NO amount of peaceful expansion is going to get similar results in the same time frame.

But once you start your military juggernaut rolling it seems a shame not to keep on rolling
Some folks don't like war and want just enough space to win, that's also called peaceful play especially if you can get that done in the ancient era (no warmonger penalties).

 

[Kyro]

But once you start your military juggernaut rolling it seems a shame not to keep on rolling
Some folks don't like war and want just enough space to win, that's also called peaceful play especially if you can get that done in the ancient era (no warmonger penalties).

You're right and that's why Civ 6 isn't what it's supposed to be it's more like Civ War right now.

I'm a peaceful player myself and even then I never stop founding cities. Peaceful play doesn't mean you stop expanding at some point of time because the nature of Civ 6 is ICS again.

Even without Warmonger Penalties a difference of -16 because of different governments is sufficient to keep you perpetually denounced so I don't think peaceful play gives much of an edge in diplomacy either.

In short if you're not conquering cities you're already lagging behind and if you don't ICS on top of that you'll be way behind. Not saying you can't win without it but seeing how speed seems to be the goal of everyone here it only makes sense to go for the more efficient path.