Same here, occasionally I take a huge map and set the number of players down to 10, which would affect the number of cities I expect to settle/control.
This is usually the result of frustration on my part from some really terrible starts on Deity where I could hardly settle anything and it was a matter of time before the game was lost anyway.
I just don't get how you can play tall on Civ 6, unless you really hate micromanaging that much. To me, tall = lots of wonders and districts. But if you have anything less than 10 cities, that means your empire starts to get crowded and you have to start eating up some good yield hexes. So at some point that caps the potential of your cities to grow unless you are running a ton of internal trade routes.
I build them tall by micromanaging. And I space them out to give them as much workable tiles as possible. So usually 5-6 tiles between city centers when circumstances allow. And I switch from internal trade routes to international once wisselbanken becomes available. Really happy that works with city states as well now.
I voted 16-20 and am actually very intrigued to find out that's on the higher end of the voting curve. I always feel like I tend to play taller than is purely optimal, since I do like to grow and highly develop cities. But I usually end up with somewhere in the range of 10-12 "real" cities, and then another half dozen or so that I settle later on, for one or more of the following: (i) resources (usually oil/aluminum), (ii) specific infrastructure (later-game Petra city, somewhere to put Amundsen-Scott in a science game, to chop out Estadio in a game where I'll need amenities, etc.), (iii) to keep pushing towards my victory condition (smaller cities that only build a campus or theater square, or that are settled specifically to build natural parks/seaside resorts).
I got a kick out of a recent Scotland game where I was specifically trying to play tall - built audience chamber and appointed all of the governors, took River Goddess as a pantheon, stayed ecstatic in pretty much all my cities. But in the late game I founded two cities to get oil and another for Amundsen, and was tickled to get the era score for having a civilization with at least three more cities than all others (there was a somewhat strange amount of AI warfare in that game, so I think they may have razed some cities in there in the mix).
I always play huge maps / marathon, so I voted 20+
I'll usually found around 5 to 10 and the rest by conquering and/or loyalty flip. I find the game favours playing wide by parallelising builds, and I use the extra territory I wouldn't have if building tall. I also find the penalty for playing wide (amenities) can easily be outweighed by the luxuries you improve and/or trade.
Granted, the end of the game can get tedious when you have 30 cities - but you are also nearing victory by then
At least 16, so I voted for 20+. If you play against reasonably good players instead of some stupid AI you will have to optimize everything and you will have to settle a lot of cities and settle densely. It's not like I always want a wide empire, but I want it to be optimal (I hate domination late game because there is a lot of cities and it's not optimal at all). If this was Civ V then 4 cities is something completely doable.
I typically play large/huge maps, so I'll usually have around 12-15 cities most games. If I go militaristic the odd time, I may go to 30 or so, but even then having a core of 12-15 by the end game is normal for me, especially with DA on.
If I'm playing peacefully, usually 7/8, but Corporations and Monopolies encourages more. Like in my last game, I had 16, albeit in three different continents. On occasions when I'm taking over my home landmass, if not every other civ, I end up with more and it usually becomes a sloppily managed mess.
Usually five or six...and since you separated those I voted conservatively for five because I usually found four or five core cities, and then I'll found additional cities if needed to procure resources or colonize uninhabited landmasses in the mid-to-late game.
I try to fill the space out as much as I can. Bad cities? Does not matter. I can still build/buy/chop a district here or get another resource there. Most of the games I even settle random tundra/snow cities just in case some strategics will appear there later on once I got all other terrains settled.
I put 11-15 but I certainly go above or below that in many games. But they are mostly on Large maps. Does that sound small? I think it's about average for the map size, and often the Ai will achieve empires larger than that.
On a large map there is often enough room for each civ to make a core of at least 8 cities, though some will be crowded. Sweden, Mali, and Ethiopia all did fine for me with less than 8 cities. Most games it's more like 12+ on large maps.
Late game I may settle some further colonies for a bit of fun but once an empire hits about 20 cities I usually try to end it soon as turn times add up. I can never just park my units I always have to be doing something with them...a meteor strike halfway around the world and I'm speeding a recon unit to it even though its Modern Age and I have more military than most AI's combined....
Voted 11-15. I almost exclusively play peaceful games on Standard Continents maps, and my gameplan seems to be pretty fixed: I usually settle 8-10 core-ish cities by T100 and settle 3-4 colony cities on other continents for chops and lux or strategic resources. While I am aware of the "the more, the better" principle, I find that this laid back approach nets me an early 200s SV/CV on Deity, so I am not that into expanding the late game micromanagement chores with more cities.
Voted 11-15. I almost exclusively play peaceful games on Standard Continents maps, and my gameplan seems to be pretty fixed: I usually settle 8-10 core-ish cities by T100 and settle 3-4 colony cities on other continents for chops and lux or strategic resources. While I am aware of the "the more, the better" principle, I find that this laid back approach nets me an early 200s SV/CV on Deity, so I am not that into expanding the late game micromanagement chores with more cities.
Mye sentiments as well.
Micromanaging my early cities makes sense since those will end up as core powerhouses and the managing is a good long term investment, but managing small cities late in the game (within say, 50 turns of where you can expect to win) just feels like a chore that sucks the fun right out.
Depends on the VC. I'm looking for at least 15 in a science game - preferably over 20. In a culture game I'm usually content with anywhere from 8 to16 depending on how long the game lasts. I don't go for the other VC's that often. Ended up voting 16-20.
11-15, since that seems to be what it takes to win (at least through immortal). As noted multiple times in this thread, victory type and map size will influence this greatly (e.g. religion on a small map vs. domination on a huge map). 11-15 hits the sweet spot for me in terms of micromanagement vs. more cities always being better in Civ VI.
Incidentally, I think when you found the cities can have as decisive an impact as how many, to a point. After about turn 100 (standard speed) cities take a long time to grow and catch up on infrastructure. By the time they're useful the game is already mostly over. So if I have 8 cities by 100 I can certainly found another 8, 12, 20, etc. but I'm not sure they help much towards final victory; I'll still be leaning on the original 8 by turn 150 / 175. There are ways to speed up city growth but those are resources that can be used elsewhere, so opportunity cost comes into play. Obviously, capturing cities is a different situation, since your opponents have done the building for you and you just have to repair the damage you inflicted.
If Civ VI had better tools to manage multiple cities simultaneously, I would build more of them. But the current UI is lacking in this area (I STILL can't queue district buildings before completing their prerequisite buildings? Come on man...)
Usually five or six...and since you separated those I voted conservatively for five because I usually found four or five core cities, and then I'll found additional cities if needed to procure resources or colonize uninhabited landmasses in the mid-to-late game.
This is why I love a Hic Sunt Dracones Golden Age during the Renaissance. I'll typically only end up using it for 3, maybe 4 cities (ideally after revealing coal and/or oil), but since those cities are often on different continents, they can hit the ground running at that point in the game - 4 starting population, (usually) a builder from Ancestral Hall, and enough gold to immediately buy a granary and monument means they will contribute something immediately, and will grow pretty quickly to 7+ population (or higher if I use the builder to chop some rainforest). Plus with 4+ population, the production will be high enough to fairly quickly build a core district or two - extra campuses/theater squares depending on VC; a harbor for trade route/more housing/food; a holy site if I'm trying to spread religion to the new continent.
My ideal path is to have monumentality during Medieval so I can faith-buy the settlers at the end of that era, then send them out to actually settle during Renaissance with HSD.
This is why I love a Hic Sunt Dracones Golden Age during the Renaissance. [...] My ideal path is to have monumentality during Medieval so I can faith-buy the settlers at the end of that era, then send them out to actually settle during Renaissance with HSD.
I usually pass on HSD as my city core is set & I'm usually worrying about other things at that point in the game, but you laid out a very nice argument / approach. I'll have to stop sleeping on HSD and give it a shot the next time the game gives me a suitable continent to target.
I usually pass on HSD as my city core is set & I'm usually worrying about other things at that point in the game, but you laid out a very nice argument / approach. I'll have to stop sleeping on HSD and give it a shot the next time the game gives me a suitable continent to target.
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