Tis the size not the number

[Lostman]

I've read a lot in this forum where people are under the idea that having many cities is important in the game. I don't agree.

I find that if I nurture my first couple cities and space them out just far enough they will grow faster and give me just the same amount of land.

I would rather have 4 or 5 large cities that are producing good numbers than 20 size 2 cities that are struggling to build anything.

Less to protect, same amount of money, less to spend on upkeep.

Am I just insane or am I the only one that thinks this way?

 

[Beam]

Since my main occupation is outside psychiatry I can not judge the insanity part

Many plays have shown that an early dense built, so many small cities close to each other, give an enormous advantage early on in the game.

Couple of reasons:
- Unhappiness is reduced by luxury resources. The more pop in a city the more lux resources are required. So small cities most likely are happy with just 2 resources, while bigger ones require extra happiness stuff.
- A dense build brings more cities close to the capital, reducing corruption in those cities and making them more effective, i.e. libraries.
- It takes a while before a city grows beyond 6, in the meantime a lot of tiles are wasted. It takes an eternity before they grow beyond 12.
- Cities further away from the capital suffer from corruption, yet no matter if they are size 1 or 12 they always produce 1 shield. So with a dense build more shields are produced.

There might be more reasons, these are the ones I think are the key ones.

Oh, Sun Tzu is a key GW for dense build

Edit: with more advanced governments and units / improvements becoming more expensive cities are abandoned while advancing in the game. As a result settles become available to clean pollution and build railroads.

 

[Bamspeedy]

I used to think the same way you do Lostman. But, you see with a denser build, you don't need as many happiness improvements. Also, with the cities spaced further apart there will be tiles that are not used until you get hospitals.

With a dense build, I utilize every tile before I get hospitals. I don't need to build any happiness improvements, just getting a bunch of luxuries and putting marketplaces in each city keeps everyone happy. Also, you will get excess population quicker (specialists). Granted, each specialists doesn't help a whole lot, but when you have hundreds of them....

Now, which is better...50 cities building tanks every 3-4 turns (15-16/tanks per turn) or 20 cities building tanks every 2 turns (10/turn)? And with a denser build the game will usually be won before hospitals and factories come around.

Also, the 'power rankings' (found in the histograph screen), uses the # of cities as the primary factor in determining your strength compared to others. Your power ranking determines how much other civs respect/fear you.

 

[God]

@lostman: We use ICS for high scores.

 

[Zouave]

The only feasible reason why having lots of cities (i.e.,, Settler Diarrhea) makes any sense at all is to acquire resources and deny them to rivals.

That is because of the absurdly low resource rates Firaxis gave us. Since I edited up their appearance rate it does not matter now.

 

[MirandaCore]

Lots of cities are good if u want to win with domination or culture. Besides, its fun building cities even though most are useless . (how do u use smileys and face expressions in a reply?)

 

[MirandaCore]

Never mind, i just found out

 

[warpstorm]

Lots of cities means lots of culture if you are willing to spend on cultural improvements. Even a 1 pop tundra city can produce dozens of culture a turn. If you have a 2:1 culture lead culture flips will mostly be in your direction.

 

[skaternate]

your are not insane young lostman, just not wise in the ways of the civ, but we shall teach you my young padewine. Just follow the above previosly posted tips, would repost but its a waste. Though if you are looking for a high score think happy citizen = 2pts, anyone else except not happy = 1pts, not happy = 0pts. many little cities are easlily pacified and always celabrating, many many points in the long run.

 

[T-hawk]

I ride exactly in the middle between ICS and perfectionist. Usually, I build cities with one or two tiles of overlap between it and each of its neighbors. The general idea is to have 12 tiles per city - NOT counting Desert and Mountain tiles or more than 3 Hills tiles. Those aren't useful until Railroads, which conveniently come at the same time as Hospitals. Then the city can grow to size 18-20.

I refuse to milk games for score, though.

 

[Arathorn]

The thing that "dense builders" don't realize is that the number of cities closer to the capital, NOT the distance to the capital, is the most important corruption factor.

Bamspeedy draws a false comparison when he claims 50 cities producing tanks every 3-4 turns and 20 cities producing every 2 turns. To get 50 cities that productive, the max # of cities would have to be at least 25, which means he's talking at least a large map, probably huge. In the space of 50 size 6-12 cities, one can easily put 36 size 12 cities and still have tons more cities that can be productive -- the less dense the build, the further one can get non-corrupt cities.

The TOTAL number of non-fatally corrupt cities is completely independent of how close they are to the capital. There's a hard limit on the NUMBER of cities one can have productive. Beyond that core, a dense build might make sense, but near the capital (and FP, of course), moderation is required.

That's not to say it's worth wasting squares near the capital just to get a broader build. Some overlap (a few squares in most instances) is usually good, but too much just costs long-term.

Final nail in the coffin of the ultra-dense build, IMO, is the ease with which one can blitz a dense build. Spread-out cities, with large cultural borders, are much harder to blitz. Even the AI is smart enough to blitz a dense build (with tanks). A slightly more sparse build (a la T-hawk) gives much better buffer zones and a chance to respond. That is important.

Arathorn

 

[eighty]

OCN is a factor also. If anyone cares to elaborate, please do because I am sure I am not eloquent enough to adequately explain.







Insanity is in the eye of the beholder.

 

[GI Josh]

. . . I typically build out to 7-9 cities, with usually no more than 4 tiles of overlap. I'm a *big* fan of having a small empire up until cavalry. Of course, I'm a builder and usually wait until arty/tanks to start taking over the world. I've tried the dense city build, but it makes the game more tedious and I find it's better to have a few great cities than many mediocre ones. Arathorn seems to me to be right on the money. In MP, having buffer zones will be *extremely* important, because humans will do sudden combined arms strikes, and cities within 2-3 mvmt points of the border are going to be very vulnerable.

Note: I typically play on Monarch/Emporer games, standard map, 5-7 ai civs.

 

[JuicyCivNewbie]

But... what better a buffer than many small border cities, most of which are 'useless'? Suppose your enemy takes one of your 1 shield/1 commerce cities. It's not big deal at all, plenty more where that came from, and all those other 1 shield/1 commerce cities can get rushing units. Now suppose your opponent goes in and captures one of your big size 20 cities producing 50 shields or so per turn. Most likely he'll just raze it straight away, after all there is now no chance for you to get it back. Instantly, the damage has been done, and a significant portion of your production has been taken away. It's also likely that next turn he may be lined up to attack another city. Contrast this to ICSed borders where he'll have to wade through lots of small cities worthless to him, just to reach your productive core. ICS is a great defence, not forgetting the psychological factor (how many players would want to attack a 100 city empire, even if all the individual cities were small? It's a daunting task especially considering that each victory only does a tiny dent to his overall production).

I would much rather attack an empire consisting of a few big cities, especially ones with only 7 juicy cities Would be great if you got a leader and could rush the FP in there.

 

[skaternate]

not to mention fifty border cities, that are compleatly useless, level 5 cities, can conscript a very annoying defense really fast and make you cry before you even get to any important cities.

 

[Qitai]

The only real BIG benefit of ICS is that you grow MUCH faster in the early stage and that is a HUGE enough reason why ICS is always better. The other reasons are minor. Try it and you will find yourself stronger.

 

[Bamspeedy]

The only real BIG benefit of ICS is that you grow MUCH faster in the early stage and that is a HUGE enough reason why ICS is always better. The other reasons are minor. Try it and you will find yourself stronger.

Exactly! Here is my current game at 500 A.D. (see below screenshot) I have 331 cities, with 79 settlers in transit. I have more settlers being made and if I wanted to just trigger domination I could do it in the next 20 turns or so, but I am claiming mostly grassland to milk the game. I have killed off 5 of the 8 civs and will start to obliterate the last of them with cavalry in the next few turns. I'm learning techs every 4 turns with 0 libraries because of some specialists and all those cities add at least 1 beaker to science with science set at 50%.

My core is still densly built, but if I had some very strong rivals left I would disband some of those cities to allow the cities around the capital to become bigger and build tanks very quickly. (just make sure you don't disband a city that has a wonder in it!) I have built no infrastructure yet. All the cavalry was upgraded chariots/horsemen, which any city can build real quick.

 

[JuicyCivNewbie]

Oh yeah, try getting that level of domination with 20 cities

ICS is the best strat for any victories other than spaceship (you can often get there faster using a more builder type strat) and perhaps diplomatic.

 

[BachMusic]

From a corruption perspective, what is the "optimum number of cities" for each map size? That is, how many can you build before corruption takes off?

Thanks.

 

[dthrsh]

i agree with the size, i like the quiet and suttle cultural take overs