Only four cities? Really?

[Tarvok]

I'm confused by how people treat the tradition/liberty/honor debate. The orthodoxy seems to be that tradition is best, that anyone who builds more than four cities, or more cities than they have luxuries, is a fool, and that this is pretty much best for any victory type. I have a few questions about that.

First off: cultural victory. How does tourism work? Because it seems like, while number of cities does make your policies cost more, that accumulated culture and tourism aren't affected by number of cities, other than by giving you more centers to generate the stuff from. Other things being equal, if you're shooting for a cultural victory, isn't it better to have more cities, and therefore more monuments, amphitheaters, museums, broadcast towers, airports, hotels, and so on?

Science. I get that there's a per-city science penalty, but is it really that difficult to overcome?

The impression I get is that if you have the attitude "if you can build it, just build it", libertysprawl would seem like a bad idea since paying for all those buildings gets difficult. But if you can get past that idea, it seems to me that there are some real trade-offs between a tradition centered tall build, and a liberty (or even honor) centered wide build.

First off, you can't build every building, you can't let your population grow to its highest size. However, what population you do have can all be working special tiles. Is this not a good thing?

And sure, you can't build every building in every city, but what if you pick one kind of building and build it in every city? That's a lot of marketplace gold (even before the 25% modifier). Suppose you build a shrine in every city? That's a lot of faith points, compared to the three to five you can get from a fully developed tall city. Suppose in the late game where gold is no longer as much of a problem you've built everything from monuments to hotels and airports in every city in your wide empire? How, exactly, does a tall empire compete?

As you can probably tell, I've played a lot of wide, not a whole lot of tall.

 

[RedRover57]

Optimum to me for just about any situation is 2-4 cities before NC then a total of 6-7 cities eventually (usually to backfill land and secure your area, or from annexing captured capitals). It depends on the map of course. You can handle 6-7 cities with Tradition just fine. Agree that it is only worth settling cities that can make up for the hit to tech cost, as well as provide additional resources. Otherwise 4 cities is perfectly fine. You can also do OCC of course, but optimally I would aim for 4-7 settled/annexed cities (plus however many puppets you want).

 

[kb27787]

I'm confused by how people treat the tradition/liberty/honor debate. The orthodoxy seems to be that tradition is best, that anyone who builds more than four cities, or more cities than they have luxuries, is a fool, and that this is pretty much best for any victory type. I have a few questions about that.

First off: cultural victory. How does tourism work? Because it seems like, while number of cities does make your policies cost more, that accumulated culture and tourism aren't affected by number of cities, other than by giving you more centers to generate the stuff from. Other things being equal, if you're shooting for a cultural victory, isn't it better to have more cities, and therefore more monuments, amphitheaters, museums, broadcast towers, airports, hotels, and so on?

Science. I get that there's a per-city science penalty, but is it really that difficult to overcome?

The impression I get is that if you have the attitude "if you can build it, just build it", libertysprawl would seem like a bad idea since paying for all those buildings gets difficult. But if you can get past that idea, it seems to me that there are some real trade-offs between a tradition centered tall build, and a liberty (or even honor) centered wide build.

First off, you can't build every building, you can't let your population grow to its highest size. However, what population you do have can all be working special tiles. Is this not a good thing?

And sure, you can't build every building in every city, but what if you pick one kind of building and build it in every city? That's a lot of marketplace gold (even before the 25% modifier). Suppose you build a shrine in every city? That's a lot of faith points, compared to the three to five you can get from a fully developed tall city. Suppose in the late game where gold is no longer as much of a problem you've built everything from monuments to hotels and airports in every city in your wide empire? How, exactly, does a tall empire compete?

As you can probably tell, I've played a lot of wide, not a whole lot of tall.

Tourism is based on great works (and artifacts) as well as some wonders.
Since only one great artist/writer/musician guild is allowed per empire, it matters not how many cities you have, only one city will be generating each type.

Now you can imagine having a mega-tall capitol working all three guilds stacking with National Epic + Garden + Pisa possibly; that will beat having 3 smaller cities working each guild (since you only can have one national epic); also since those specialist slots are the only ones that generate culture in BNW, it is best to have them all together + hermitage.
Amphitheaters, Opera houses, Broadcast towers do not generate tourism by themselves (only if they are filled with great works) as from my experience, 3 cities give you plenty of slots to fill (I've never filled all available slots with only 3 cities... there is no way you get that many great artists in a normal game)
The only upside of going wide is the number of landmarks likely to be in your borders (but as you know border size is not always dependent on number of cities... and landmarks need hotels+airports to be converted into tourism otherwise they are just culture tiles) and SPs that are needed to increase tourism (aesthetics tree and ideology policies) will need to be picked up (in addition to the normal rationalism tree) so many cities will slow down the pace of those SP.

That, and you want to stack everything in your capitol (wonders, guilds, landmarks, etc) since you only have one national visitor center. Tall capitols (size 40) are much better than size 20+ at keeping their citizens fed while working those slots and building wonders.

Now wide empire generate more faith early to mid game (but late game shrines + temples become negligible and your faith source will either be a good pantheon like desert folklore, or beliefs like divine inspiration, or, as will often be the case in deity, city states, since you don't have your own religion) a single faith CS ally will easily equal several cities' worth of shrines and temples.

One thing that is crucial in CV is diplomacy (you want open borders and trade routes and diplomats); in other words, war is terrible for CV unless you plan to wipe all their culture generation completely out. Expanding too much increases the risk you will piss off other civs (it is better if your empire only borders one other civ so diplomacy and avoiding war, as well as defending, is easier)

I presume you haven't been playing deity much? (Ideological unhappiness is another factor late midgame) going wide is bad in BNW.

 

[joncnunn]

I'm confused by how people treat the tradition/liberty/honor debate. The orthodoxy seems to be that tradition is best, that anyone who builds more than four cities, or more cities than they have luxuries, is a fool, and that this is pretty much best for any victory type. I have a few questions about that.

First off: cultural victory. How does tourism work? Because it seems like, while number of cities does make your policies cost more, that accumulated culture and tourism aren't affected by number of cities, other than by giving you more centers to generate the stuff from. Other things being equal, if you're shooting for a cultural victory, isn't it better to have more cities, and therefore more monuments, amphitheaters, museums, broadcast towers, airports, hotels, and so on?

Science. I get that there's a per-city science penalty, but is it really that difficult to overcome?

The impression I get is that if you have the attitude "if you can build it, just build it", libertysprawl would seem like a bad idea since paying for all those buildings gets difficult. But if you can get past that idea, it seems to me that there are some real trade-offs between a tradition centered tall build, and a liberty (or even honor) centered wide build.

First off, you can't build every building, you can't let your population grow to its highest size. However, what population you do have can all be working special tiles. Is this not a good thing?

And sure, you can't build every building in every city, but what if you pick one kind of building and build it in every city? That's a lot of marketplace gold (even before the 25% modifier). Suppose you build a shrine in every city? That's a lot of faith points, compared to the three to five you can get from a fully developed tall city. Suppose in the late game where gold is no longer as much of a problem you've built everything from monuments to hotels and airports in every city in your wide empire? How, exactly, does a tall empire compete?

As you can probably tell, I've played a lot of wide, not a whole lot of tall.

Basically what you are missing are the real penalties to self-founding cities:

#1 Each and every city you self found requires you build a full laundry list of standard buildings in order to build all national wonders you haven't yet built. Most of the national wonders are very powerful.

#2 Each and every city you self found causes your culture policy acquisition rate too slow down.

Neither of these penalties apply if you conquer a city and puppet it which leads to self found 4 cities and then conquer AI cities later, leaving them as puppets.

The science one does apply to puppets. Basically if you are on a standard size map or smaller, there is little point to having more than 10 cities total and in addition after about 12 cities it's going to be the case that your worst science city isn't carrying its own weight given how much your capital will be producing.

Cultural victory: Other than temporary artist slot shortage early and possible music slot shortage late, there are actually plenty of slots available for a 4 city empire.
That early shortage is dealt with by just hanging onto them until Hermitage. The late music slot shortage is usually dealt with by sending them on concert tours.

 

[Matthew.]

Optimum to me for just about any situation is 2-4 cities before NC then a total of 6-7 cities eventually (usually to backfill land and secure your area, or from annexing captured capitals). It depends on the map of course. You can handle 6-7 cities with Tradition just fine. Agree that it is only worth settling cities that can make up for the hit to tech cost, as well as provide additional resources. Otherwise 4 cities is perfectly fine. You can also do OCC of course, but optimally I would aim for 4-7 settled/annexed cities (plus however many puppets you want).

Yep, this is typically my strategy unless specifically trying to push 3-4 cities to ridiculous population. Trying to push beyond 6-8 cities typically does more harm than good, even though it technically can be done.

What I find interesting is annexing seems to be more desirable than puppets now. True, puppets don't add to policy cost, but to beat the science penalty you usually want science buildings and a puppet can spend a lot of time mucking around with worthless buildings like stables and walls.

At least for the first 2/3's of the game. Once you hit key military techs and don't really need the science as much, then puppets are fair game.

 

[Deau]

The real caveat of wide is that early game happiness bottleneck slowing down your growth and science making 2-4 city trad provide a better snowball effect that most setup much wider. With higher difficulty levels (aka deity) it's nearly impossible to get more than 4 cities out to good location unless you play pachacuti or got an isolated corner for yourself.

I'll let others go further in depth with what's "wrong" (or rather worse) of going wide instead of tall but as some have already pointed out, it's easier, less science/infrastructure pricy to expand through war than to build your own - unless you play on terribly low difficulty and/or crooked maps with more room to expand.

I'll add in one element about CV. It's mostly an illusion that wide helps you get higher tourism. Wider CV is only good if it allows you to snowball tech earlier/faster to Internet which when wide cities are founded, is usually the opposite. The very backbone of your tourism will always be your capital. The only exception, again, is expansion through war due to stolen great works. There's the obvious broken exception for sacred sites ICS but I'd hope that's beyond the scope of any discussion.

The net TPT gain from a single founded city in an ideal peaceful CV is +31 TPT (15 from a landmark as you've enacted and went freedom, +16 from museum with artifacts and theming bonus + hotel+airport)

That requires good luck since not all cities usually have a landmark. It also requires there to be enough artifacts to fill all those museums and you to be able to build enough archaeologists in the appropriate window of time.

It is also at best marginal when you think that my capital can hit over 900 TPT in a 1000 TPT empire CV. Thanks to the OPness of wonders, +3 culture per wonder WC resolution and the broken share of TPT provided by NVC/Enacted religion.

It also assumes Freedom bonus to landmark which is about impossible to take for ideology in a wide empire as you desperately need order both to sustain your own happiness AND to receive shared ideology pressures not to get crazy unhappiness from ideology pressure.

Also, CV has a very brutal need for SPs in the early renaissance (less with the patch if consulates is no longer an absolute must but still...) - you ought to get 2 pts into aesthetics and open exploration whilst hopefully not delaying secularism (minimally) or even up to free thoughts (ideal scenario). Sadly, wide empire culture only finally pays off in the late game once those slots are filled and each city provides more than it's %increase so it totally kills CV social policies in the mid game.

I could go on and on about wide CV but long story short, wide CV is only so good as the number of great works you steal which doesn't need you to plant your own cities.

 

[Tarvok]

Maybe it's difficult to fill up your ampitheaters and opera houses... but museums? I build massive, sprawling empires, and even then end up with an archaeologist building a landmark out in the middle of nowhere because my museums, palace, and the Louvre (if I built it) are all full. And speaking of landmarks, every additional city is a chance at more landmarks, which translates directly into more tourism once you've got hotels up and running.

And you guys act like there's no way to mitigate the unhappiness. More cities means there's more opportunities to build happiness buildings. There are several religious picks that offer a per-city happiness bonus. You also act like national wonders are absolute must builds. Isn't it possible that the benefits of going wide (the ability to produce lots of one particular thing) balances with the benefits of cheap national wonders?

 

[kb27787]

Maybe it's difficult to fill up your ampitheaters and opera houses... but museums? I build massive, sprawling empires, and even then end up with an archaeologist building a landmark out in the middle of nowhere because my museums, palace, and the Louvre (if I built it) are all full. And speaking of landmarks, every additional city is a chance at more landmarks, which translates directly into more tourism once you've got hotels up and running.

And you guys act like there's no way to mitigate the unhappiness. More cities means there's more opportunities to build happiness buildings. There are several religious picks that offer a per-city happiness bonus. You also act like national wonders are absolute must builds. Isn't it possible that the benefits of going wide (the ability to produce lots of one particular thing) balances with the benefits of cheap national wonders?

You kinda have to pick freedom for CV (as their +34% to broadcast towers is the only bonus that applies to great musicians); and freedom has very few per-city-happiness-boosting policies (and none of them boost tourism meaning you've just wasted SPs in just trying to stay happy).
Not having a happiness buffer (around 30 or so) means one single DoW is enough to screw your empire over.
Anyway if it works for you (shrug) do tell us how you pull it off on deity and what size your cap is at the end of the game at what turn... granted I'd rather grow my capitol and get more wonders.
Also you cannot win CV without atleast a national visitor center + hermitage anyway.

P.S someone who said they had trouble finding slots for their great musicians is probably forgetting that late game concert tours are way more powerful.

 

[joncnunn]

Maybe it's difficult to fill up your ampitheaters and opera houses... but museums? I build massive, sprawling empires, and even then end up with an archaeologist building a landmark out in the middle of nowhere because my museums, palace, and the Louvre (if I built it) are all full. And speaking of landmarks, every additional city is a chance at more landmarks, which translates directly into more tourism once you've got hotels up and running.

And you guys act like there's no way to mitigate the unhappiness. More cities means there's more opportunities to build happiness buildings. There are several religious picks that offer a per-city happiness bonus. You also act like national wonders are absolute must builds. Isn't it possible that the benefits of going wide (the ability to produce lots of one particular thing) balances with the benefits of cheap national wonders?

#1 Is dealt with by only starting digs when there is room.
Also, if you are beating the AI to archaeology every time its also dealt with by moving up a difficulty level so the AI takes some of them.
In addition, if you happen to be completing Exploration and digging at hidden sites; some of them now being Great Writings will also help.

#2 Global happiness isn't the main reason to only build a few cities; indeed puppets are subjected to the exact same happiness issues as normal cities and the tools you listed are very much needed if you plan to attach a wide puppet empire to your tall core cities.

On the natural wonders: National College is needed on a high enough difficulty level early in every game. Science is King.

If planning a Cultural victory, it's a whole lot quicker if you build National Vistor Center (usually in your capital). If you've self built a lot of cities, that's a lot of Hotels you need to cash buy or hand build.

With National Intelligence Agency, Wide empires don't tend to actually have as much problems with AIs trying to steal their techs as much as tall empires do. But that national wonder is a significant boost to Diplomatic victory. (Easier to run coups if you start with already promoted spies.) This is also a national wonder that carries at a huge cost to a wide self built empire.

Wide empires do have other ways of getting money than the national wonders; and provided they get their city connections up will make more cash.

Oxford is even more powerful built late if you are after the beakers. (More expensive free tech) Those seeking cultural victory will built it earlier for its theme bonus.

Also, going for a Cultural victory, wide empires are delayed building the Hermitage, which provides three great work of arts spots.

 

[justanotherturn]

And you guys act like there's no way to mitigate the unhappiness. More cities means there's more opportunities to build happiness buildings. There are several religious picks that offer a per-city happiness bonus. You also act like national wonders are absolute must builds. Isn't it possible that the benefits of going wide (the ability to produce lots of one particular thing) balances with the benefits of cheap national wonders?

it's almost always possible to manage happiness for more city. just not as effective / fast in terms of winning the game.


National wonder (most of them) are not just great, they're almost always the best building of that type you can build at this time.
Early NC is the most commonly used, and it's really good since i help you catch up to the IA tech in high difficulty. but early Ironworks is almost as powerful. (oxford is an exception as it's often better to build it later)

I never had to fill my GW slot to win a CV. GM bomb after the internet is always faster..

It's like saying you want to win a domination victory by taking all the IA city, it's useless, painfull, long, non-effective. yes you will win, but you can do it faster by just taking capitol.

 

[red_doctor]

National College is what makes wide empires worse. You have to get it early and that it is really important on higher difficulties. You can then expand but around turn 80-90 most good locations might be occupied by the AI.

In my opinion Science as it is right now, makes the game really boring and repeatable. Every VC is essentially a Science victory.

Every game you can't delay NC and you can't skip 4 points on Rationalism no matter what. Commerce and Exploration are there to fill the Policy screen, esentially useless.

 

[Arianna.x]

I've found that going really wide in BNW is only better than more conventional strategies if you have a religion and happiness beliefs. This is only possible a least on normal levels if you're playing a religious civ or Poland going piety.

Even civs like Inca who used to be great wide I don't go liberty but 5 to 7 cities

 

[Johan^^]

Yes only build four cities as a general rule. If you want to play optimal, dont settle cities after turn 50-60 and aim to have build NC around turn 70-85. If u have to make CB to survive early, maybe delay NC a few turn. On the other hand, you can use the military to take a couple of cities from your enemy.

If you want more cities after this point in the game, go take them from the AI. It´s easy, as long as you remember to play safe, meaning dont risk losing your units. (exceptions to this rule can be a few melee units for canon fodder if your taking on a city with high defense, i.e. Capital on a hill with walls etc.)

 

[Matthew.]

It is tough to justify a wider game when going for culture. You are extremely limited in how many great people you get overall, so it isn't like you will be filling up the culture buildings in additional cities. Artifacts are not as plentiful as it seems, and they come at a significant opportunity cost. Churning out archaeologists take up hammers.

I personally find wide just as viable when going science and obviously domination. Diplo I don't think really matters how you play.

 

[joncnunn]

Yes only build four cities as a general rule. If you want to play optimal, dont settle cities after turn 50-60 and aim to have build NC around turn 70-85.

Um; it's going to take a long time to do any combo of building and cash rushing four libraries (unless playing Spain and having El Dorado at your doorstep); which normally means you get to four cities as quickly as possible AFTER having built the NC with fewer. In the mean time, you use that bit of extra time to pick better city spots that you didn't know about earlier in the game.

If u have to make CB to survive early, maybe delay NC a few turn. On the other hand, you can use the military to take a couple of cities from your enemy.

If you want more cities after this point in the game, go take them from the AI. It´s easy, as long as you remember to play safe, meaning dont risk losing your units. (exceptions to this rule can be a few melee units for canon fodder if your taking on a city with high defense, i.e. Capital on a hill with walls etc.)

And when taking those cities; if it's useless, raze to the ground; if good then puppet it. Over if its a excellent city (such as former capital) should annexing after resistance ends be a consideration.

 

[njmfff]

Every game you can't delay NC and you can't skip 4 points on Rationalism no matter what. Commerce and Exploration are there to fill the Policy screen, esentially useless.

Commerce is great if you're planning on conquering, or even dropping few extra cities, only because the last pick which gives +2 extra happiness for each luxury.

Still, it's situational tree, unless you're playing Venice. With Venice tho, Commerce is awesome, because it makes buying buildings in puppets cheaper, allows you to build Big Ben (even cheaper buildings), faster MoV spawn and extra happiness. Road maintenance pick is rather useless tho, since Venice is mostly coastal civ, so you'll have Harbors anyway, and your CS will in most cases be far away to connect with roads.

Navigation, I never find it that useful. Again, it's great with Venice, and maybe some other coastal-specific civs like Carthage (+3 hammers, +4 gpt from sea tr is nice). Finisher is nice, I'll give it that. Sometime you get unlucky and don't get dig sites around your cities, so with NVG finished, you might get one "hidden" within your working titles.

National College is what makes wide empires worse. You have to get it early and that it is really important on higher difficulties. You can then expand but around turn 80-90 most good locations might be occupied by the AI.

Yeah, in BWN, 3-4 Tall empires are lot better then wide. You can always go wide with puppets tho. but NC is must on higher diffs, unless you want to throw rocks on tanks.

 

[SirPepsi]

I'd hoped that the map scripts in CiV would be a lot larger than they are now. It's also disappointing to know that the most effective way to win the game is to keep your empire small.

 

[Tinker]

I think the science loss per city (especially for puppets) wasn't a bad idea, but a bit of an overkill at the rate at which it happens. Would be cool to see some sort of offset for this within Liberty or any of the other early social policy trees.

 

[budweiser]

The OP is basically right. The real trick is timing your expansion so you don't fall behind on nationals. This requires intricate planning. You need happiness from all sources and decent cash to rush buy key buildings. After Hermitage is up, you should be able to expand at will.

To sum it up, a few cities until Industrial and then open expansion.

 

[Grubsnik]

So the question then becomes, does it make sense to start founding new cities in the industrial era?