[BTS] Tall vs wide.

[Gumbolt]

So how do you play? Do you rex till the land is all grabbed to stop the ai taking it?

If you are going peaceful route do you prefer a large empire vs 6-7 cities with maybe 2-3 uber sized cities?

I always used to think size 13 capital by 1ad was a good sized capital. However with HR civic a size 20 city is possible on a strong food map by 1ad. Of course you would need early monarchy to make happiness work. Which usually means Oracle which usually is not possible on deity. Albeit easier to trade monarchy.

Then the dilemma when to just focus capital on growth vs rex. I guess most will have a settler spam city.

The alternative to this might be spamming cities with GLH. You can have 4 island cities with no colonial costs. You could spam 12-16+ cities with a strong first war. Of course with no cottage or mids for science you could just end up with many weak cities not generating huge science.

For me i always assumed more land effectively gives you the game. Which long term is true. However sometimes a smaller empire will give you a much faster tech route unless you have a plan. Without mids a food economy can be weaker.

I guess play the map!

 

[Anysense]

I guess play the map!

Pretty much this. Which usually means expand as much as possible, as fast as possible. You don't want to stick to 6-7 cities on principle only to wonder later how to deal with 12+ cities AI's.

 

[Gumbolt]

Yes i am normally an advocate of 10-16 cities by 1ad. However i just got thinking if my approach was wrong to max out science. Sure get the best map strategy. Use helper cities for cottage cities.

Sometimes smaller empires reach tech goals faster. Especially Earth 18 if playing Aztecs. At times i have 20 or so cities but feel science could be so much further ahead with smaller empire and more focus on science. So where is the optimum point between tall vs wide. Or is it better just to keep grabbing land. If i am on war mode on immortal after 20 cities i usually keep expanding knowing communism will lead to hammer economy.

 

[Fippy]

Cannot really contribute here, on deity it's very expensive beyond 6 cities early.
On any other difficulty with good land..sure take all

 

[Heathcliff]

It is about having a healthy tech pace, were you tech fast enough so you can get tech trades.
Have as many cities as possibly, as long as you can get techs so you can trade.
I get 4-5 cities early, then fill and have maybe 8 at 500 AD.
Then after I get communism it is constant warfare and more cities are better.

I could never win space with just 6 cities, to do a peaceful spacerace I would need a favorable map where there is alot of room to backfill with cities.

 

[civac]

I'm beginning to suspect that moderating expansion in my SP games (Immortal, no tech trading) is the better way to play. So far I have tended to take all spots that have anything at all going for them. But this kind of rexxing has real downsides even in NTT games as it requires a fairly long recovery rate until you can attack someone and key economic boosts (Currency, Monarchy/Calendar, Bureaucracy, Printing Press) are much delayed. Developed AI land is much more beneficial than settling marginal locations on the map and the AI is fairly inept at war so it's easier to take than it should be.

In MP rexxing hard is the default option. Other players do not have resistance against quadratic maintenance cost the way the AI has so everyone's economy dies initially; it's just a matter of how badly.

 

[Gumbolt]

So where is sweet spot between science and expansion. Without the need to spam CH's.

 

[6K Man]

Once I can build wealth I keep expanding until the land is gone, in theory.

In practice, the land is mostly gone before I get Currency, anyway.

 

[civac]

I don't know. It certainly depends extremely heavily on the conditions. If there is good land (green river and/or lots of resources) I still believe it's correct to just settle it all as quick as possible. It's more the mediocre land I'm not sure about.

There is nothing wrong with courthouses though they are much better with ORG or one of the unique versions.

 

[Tonny]

I believe that WastinTime has proven that going tall is the way to go. (deity BC space game)

 

[Fippy]

I think there are many not so good MP players @civac, i'd be much more interested in how Plemo tackles those problems compared to guys who let themselves defeat by Knight stacks etc.
I have seen some weird plays in threads for sure and don't believe wrecking economies and then being collected later makes much sense.

 

[drewisfat]

Big believer in wide and big fan of IMP. Resources are king. At the start I will give most of them away to a neighbor to pacify them while keeping at one double copy available for the AI to demand. Mid game I like to grab all the forge resources for double happiness and trade as many as possible for GPT. Generally HR is not on my radar, outside of like stoneless isolated games. Bigger cities whip less efficiently, so I'm not interested in that until the late game. Maintenance is killer but generally you can afford whatever the AI lets you grab on most map scripts, as long as you have an eye towards trade routes and writing & currency. Inland Sea is a big rich script, so for that NC Suleiman I ran it in KMOD and rexxed to 12 cities ASAP. Sure, my economy was literally negative for a half dozen turns, but the land was so rich that I was tech leader by liberalism.

It's very common for me to fail to hit 3 cities by turn 50 only to shoot up to 5 cities by turn 60. My capital is my primary settler builder, and I generally don't whip from it straight away since it works good tiles and I care about not just the first settler timing but the second and third as well. I will often build 2 workers before a settler if I have trees to chop. Also, I usually don't granary the capital until the midgame.
I like to overbuild settlers compared to workers early, and then just idle the settler over the intended city while I finish key techs and free up workers. This is inherently inefficient, but it can prevent any complications from missing out on expected city spots. It's also great fun to troll the AI who somewhat predictably settles on blue circles or where premature city defenders hold position. Wait til the last possible turn to drag as many moves out of the enemy settler as possible before settling myself. It then takes the AI a few turns to really figure out where it needs to reposition its settler. This can mean the AI misses out on another city spot it could have claimed if it didn't fall for the distraction. On water/island maps I will go wild claiming nonsense once I hit astro, even if that means creating colonies.

I differ from many players who will grow as efficiently as possible and trust that they can just win a war with catapults if they don't hit 6 cities naturally. I will opt for peaceful lib every time rather than give RNG a say.

 

[civac]

I think there are many not so good MP players @civac, i'd be much more interested in how Plemo tackles those problems compared to guys who let themselves defeat by Knight stacks etc.
I have seen some weird plays in threads for sure and don't believe wrecking economies and then being collected later makes much sense.

I don't have that much experience. Most games I have played had extremely good land so not settling all the land was simply a bad option. Recently, I have observed and played some games with bad/mediocre land and people still settled heavily, until they were losing money at 0% in some cases. It also seems you can recover from almost any amount of rexxing as long the land is decent/good (by researching Currency with a GA as the desperate option or whipping overflow into Moais if you have Stone).

You can't do that if you want some key wonders. But in that time frame only Colossus and Mausoleum are relevant wonders (could count Oracle maybe). Great Lighthouse and Pyramids come before the economy is properly dead.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I always used to think size 13 capital by 1ad was a good sized capital. However with HR civic a size 20 city is possible on a strong food map by 1ad. Of course you would need early monarchy to make happiness work. Which usually means Oracle which usually is not possible on deity. Albeit easier to trade monarchy.

How do people even get a 20 city by 1AD? Where do you get the health?

I think national wonders encourage players to have mostly small cities, with a few large cities, like Zipf's Law.

I suspect colonies might be worth it on deity because your vassal is a trading partner and war ally with deity-level bonuses. Don't give them a small crummy backwater, but like really give them all the cities you just conquered on the other continent, run free market and corporations, and then ask for their resources. I am waiting for the right map to do it.

 

[sampsa]

Big believer in wide and big fan of IMP.

I'm also an IMP fanboy and I view it as the most undervalued trait. Believe it or not, I'm also your fanboy and I think you bring up excellent points in your post.

To the philosophical question in the OP, I think you need to see your destination and then find a path there. Work out how you are intending to win the game and then backtrack it from there. Anyway, your 1000AD position might not be that different whether you have 7 or 14 cities 1AD, so maybe focusing on what you have on a certain date can lead you astray. The direction of your actions is more important. I think the biggest drawback of smaller empires is that you are forced to fight soon, which was also one of drewisfat's points.

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win" -Sun Tzu

 

[Fippy]

IMP the new fan favorite?
I'd still take EXP or CRE instead tbh.

 

[sampsa]

IMP the new fan favorite?
I'd still take EXP or CRE instead tbh.

Yes, honestly I think they are both better than IMP. ORG on the other hand...

 

[sampsa]

How do people even get a 20 city by 1AD? Where do you get the health?

Very likely that the city is unhealthy, like 4 or so. It's certainly possible not to be unhealthy with EXP, all granary resources, all harbor resources etc.

 

[Gumbolt]

With 4-5 food resources size 20 is quite possible. Granary, HR civic and go. Yes i had 5 or so green faces. Had about 12 warriors in city. Got to about 23 in size by 300ad. Hanging Gardens assisted. Used all 20 land tiles.

 

[jnebbe]

This is a great question; I've gotten a ton more consistent at immortal by growing larger cities instead of settling as much land as possible. Reasoning is that settling 5 cities on t150 or whatever is significantly worse than getting a good cuir date and capturing 5 ai cities which have already grown some pop, have some grown cottages, and likely have some markets/courthouses/other goodies.

I never know what to do with new cities between T100-200 or so, pretty late to start cottages but also early enough that workshops still suck. Usually I'll just farm as much as I can which goes into whips for my army.