So are the big empires definitely gone?

[Wardog]

Since Civ 2 i enjoyed having big empires with lots of cities. To me, the essence of the game consisted on conquering new lands and having more and more cities. As I could read in some reviews and comments here, it seems that civilizations with a big number of cities are no longer possible in Civ 4.

I didn't buy the game yet, so I ask: so now you can not have under control an empire with 20 or 25 cities - even in huge maps? I can't figure out a roman "empire" with 4 cities. It seems a totally boring idea to me.

 

[Bertilsson]

20-25 cities is not a big problem as long as you don't get them too early in the game as it would totally devastate your economi.

 

[Willowmound]

Big empires is not a problem as long as you manage to develop your cities enough for them to be profitable. A slow and steady conquering of the planet shouldn't be at all impossible!

edit: stupid typo

 

[winbros]

Since Civ 2 i enjoyed having big empires with lots of cities. To me, the essence of the game consisted on conquering new lands and having more and more cities. As I could read in some reviews and comments here, it seems that civilizations with a big number of cities are no longer possible in Civ 4.

I didn't buy the game yet, so I ask: so now you can not have under control an empire with 20 or 25 cities - even in huge maps? I can't figure out a roman "empire" with 4 cities. It seems a totally boring idea to me.

*Points at Sirian & Sulla's Cuban Isolationist game* One Big Empire coming up with English Toast as a side dish. And its a variant game too by the way.

 

[Psyringe]

Big Empires are certainly possible. There are several possibilities to maintain one.For example, you could choose a financial civ, build banks / markets /groceries / harbors etc. and earn so much money that you can afford the high maintenance costs. Or you switch to government civics with little upkeep, or to communism which nullifies distance maintenance. Or you build courthouses to reduce maintenance, or certain wonders.

When you get your economy running, it's easier to maintain huge empires as it was in Civ3, because you can now build improvements in any city and don't have the rather ridiculous one-shield-city problem. It's however harder to *expand* fast. In Civ3, all you needed for that was a settler pump. In Civ4, you need to build your economy while you're expanding. Expand too fast, and you'll be broke.

 

[Vosje]

Why can't you have a big empire? Too much micromanagement?

 

[alvinthegreat]

Why can't you have a big empire? Too much micromanagement?

Not really, all you have to do is tell the city to concetrate on something and start pumping out units.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

One word, MAINTAINANCE. Cities actually COST money at first, rather than earning money for you. You have to build the population of the city, work tiles that earn you cash/resources, develop trade routes with other cities-both local and foreign-and build commerce improvements, merchant specialists to capitalise on the money flowing into your city. The money from your base cities can then be used to support the cost of new cities-and so on and so forth. What you can't do anymore is just expand, like a maniac, into every nook and cranny and expect to win the game. If nothing else, you will be forced to turn your tech rate WAY down-and falling behind in technology is a BIG mistake. That said, it is simply wrong to state that you can NEVER have big empires, just that you need to be smarter in building said empires.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[basickillr]

Big empires are not gone, but definately curtailed, especially in the early game. In Civ3, there was no great penalty to large empires so it was grab as much as you could to get resources and deny the computer room to grow. In Civ 4, the cost of lots of cities, especially at higher levels just drains your cash. You can build them, but you will watch your research grind to nothing.

I can still get to 10-12ish cities decently quick, but the days of REX'ing your heart out, REX'ing some more, then REX a few more to be safe are dead and gone. Later in the game you can grab a few more cities by filling in places AI's raze cities and conquer some of your own, but conquering I think will probably be limited considerably. The cost of fighting a decent sized AI along with the willingness of even your best friends to pounce on you at the first sign of weakness means wars are quick and dirty versus epic campaigns to take 10 cities.

 

[warpstorm]

You can have big empires. You just have to plan for them.

 

[panzooka]

state property anyone?
in theory, u can have as many city as u want this this civic

 

[Dida]

Well, I am in the process of making a large empire. It is on huge map with 18 civs. I believe I already control about 40% of the world.

 

[lysander]

Big empires are definitly not out, I just finished a game on a huge map on noble difficulty, winning a domination victory in 1903 with 63% of the world's population and around 50 cities on 4 continents. In fact, with corruption out, it's much easier to run cities far away from your capital, so colonies on islands and the like are actually effective.

The thing with empires is simply that you have to work hard to manage them. They do cost a lot of money to maintain, so if you want a world-dominating empire, you have to be willing to compensate for the high maintanence costs. However, big empires have access to a disproportional amount of the world's resources, and selling these to other civs can make you this money back. There are many ways to have a big empire in civ 4, it's just an extra challenge.

 

[Wardog]

Good to know. Thank you.

 

[kulgan]

Excellent comments. I too had thought empires were gone.

 

[Hyronymus]

20-25 cities is not a big problem as long as you don't get them too early in the game as it would totally devastate your economi.

Define early in the game, I had 15 cities ~ 200 AD. Currently I control 28 cities.

 

[Rexflex]

It all depends on how quickly you make the core cities highly cost efficient. I find that the ICS limitations does significantly stall my growth in terms of city numbers, but eventually I can take the whole world (as long as I can succesfully capture the enemy's cities and victories such as space and time are taken out) without losing money. The thing is, often the conflicts arising in capturing enemy cities when you don't have any more free teritory to grap means that you have to switch from making your cities more cost efficient to maintaining the war effort instead. It is one of the factors that makes playing the expansionist aggressor much harder than previous Civs. I haven't played Deity yet, but Prince and up takes real effort for total conquest with large numbers of civilisations.

I was worried about ICS when I first heard about it, but I think it really works well now that I have several games notched.

 

[UKScud]

That said, it is simply wrong to state that you can NEVER have big empires, just that you need to be smarter in building said empires.

I think you've summed it up very nicely there. You really do have to work smarter in this game than civ3. I don't think you can just live in perpetual war. You have to work on pumping up the economy after each conquest unless you have a fair amount of cash in reserve. [reminds me of that ol' phrase 'war chest'.] You really have to prepare to conquer another civ in terms of bolstering up your economy before you start the war.

 

[bad_ronald]

I'm playing at Monarch at the moment, and even though it is a whole lot more difficult to maintain a large empire than it was in Civ 3, I like the changes. I find that it's best to only conquer one neighbor (or the equivalent amount of territory from two or more) in the ancient age. You'll take a hit to your economy, but it can be overcome. Trying to take more than that will put you in a tech hole for a long, long time. Once you can build courthouses, you can proceed pretty much as though you were playing Civ 3 and conquer as much as you can, though .

 

[LususNaturae]

I actually like the idea that you cant simply expand wildly. It makes the game more realistic. Any civilization in the real world that has expanded at a blinding spead has always been very unstable an usually collapsed.