@vmxa - Thanks for the comments. It's clear that you warmonger a lot more than I do. I don't care to take more than I need for resources, neighbor gutting, or strategic position. Unfortunately, that does seem to be less economical. Part of me just really doesn't want to have to obliterate everything on my continent, but sadly the game provides a lot of advantages to doing so.
tR1cKy said:
Surely, going for a 20k victory is a good reason to put the wannabe 20k city in OCP with the surrounding settlements.
I wouldn't go that far. As long as the 20k city has 12 *quality* tiles to work with, it should be fine. The earliest you'll be able to get pop 13 is with the Shake (in C3C), and by the time you've built that the only wonder left that makes much difference is Newton's. If you've held up that far you can probably get the other wonders anyway, and even if you miss one or two it barely makes a difference in victory date.
Now, there *is* the point that a 20k city could be a research powerhourse with all the science wonders, and having a large population builds on that. Still, I probably wouldn't pump it past 15 or 16 until Mass Transit unless I had way more workers than I knew what to do with. And given how tough it is catching up in the early game after establishing the 20k city, I wouldn't hamper my expansion any more that I have to by giving it lots of space. If anything, I'd probably stick with CxxxC, but then give those overlapping tiles entirely to the 20k city in the late game, shorting the neighbors. The early 20k game is just too tough to waste time in.
Though I've got to admit - it's awfully cool having built every happiness wonder and seeing 20 happy, working faces in the 20k city pumping out 250-300 beakers per turn.
