To expand or not to expand

[Makaz]

Hi All,

Just thought I would gather a few opinions on a recurring problem I have had in my games.

Alright so 1st I play usually emperor / immortal (usually win emperor but loose immortal) and usually standard fractal map.

Aim is a nice domination/conquest win.



The start

Usually on a medium - continent with 1 neighbour or a large continent with 2 neighbours.

Initial scouting reveals lots of nice position for cities (usually between 8 and 15 depending if its a medium or large continent) with between (3 and 5 luxury ressources - 4 to 6 if counting city states specials)


the development

easily beating the 1 or 2 neighbours and own both their capital cities before mid medieval age / renaissance.

the problem

Once I am alone on my piece of land, I have 2 choices:

+ expand and fill in these large and attractive city spots
+ beeline astronomy and go rush a nearby island.

But here is the problem.

+ if you expand you quickly reach a critical happiness problem - no matter how many colliseum / theatre you beeline or which helping policies you get, your isolation makes you unable to trade for new luxuries and when you finally meet new oversea friends, they have already traded their surplus and have nothing to trade to you

+ otherwise beeline astronomy can be quite long as you have only 5 to 6 cities in total and hence your science output is moderate. Also, by the time you have astronomy, the other AI have expanded where you didn't and all generate a lot more gold and science than you so when you want to invade, you are usually late in tech and overpowered (not so true in emperor where it is still manageable, immortal is a challenge to be won yet)



I find it being quite a dilemma at this moment of the game as I would wish to build more nice cities that will become the backbone of my empire but if I do I may hit the critical happiness problem and be stuck. If I spread slowly (aka while keeping my happiness high), then it means that I won't be ready to expand oversea before mid industrial era and by that time, it is highly likely that a AI in immortal will have controlled his own continent and have all his hexes occupied by tanks and gunships making invasion with early infantry a challenge.


Or maybe I should just play on small maps ?



I don't know what do you guys do at this stage ?

M

 

[King Jason]

- it's a continents map? so anywhere from half to a 3rd of the luxuries should be on your continent. That should easily be enough to colonize said continent.

- Empires overseas on immortal level should have plenty of luxuries to spare especially since they're close to each other which means they likely share a lot of the same luxuries.

- city-states. You've made no mention of them or how you're utilizing them. If you're conquering them, there's your first problem. Allying them gives you their luxuries without the cost of their happiness.

-Coliseums and theaters pay for a 6 pop city. With just 3 luxury resources, you can run seven 8 pop cities, and anything 8-12 is a fine size.

- What are you doing with your policies? There's a multitude of ways to help with Happiness costs ~ -33% happy pop in capital (legalism), +happy per trade route (meritocracy), -20% pop from all city populations (theocracy), +50% happiness from gifted city-state luxuries (cultural diplomacy) are all viable options for the timeframe you're talking about. They make the above limitations on pop even higher.

- puppet or toss a courthouse in the capitals that you're conquering.

 

[Makaz]

Current game:


There is room for 18 cities ( 3 capital and 15 fillers) so with 8 chaps per city e need to get 161 happ
Lets say a coliseum per town, that is 72 happ so we look for 89 happ
(I do not count theatres as we are trying to populate by rennaissance, theatre will be usefull to balance the unhappiness made by conquered city as we take over a 2nd continent)


There is 6 luxuries on it (30 happ)

There are 5 city states providing 2 additionnal luxuries (they tend to repeat) - unfortunately not maritime but allied to me through quest or liberate. (10 happ)

I have got early meritocracy (17 happ)

3 from natural wonders (3 happ)

Assuming I want to go piety which is not my choice it is 2+25 (2 occupied cities) so 27 happs


So a total of 87 happ and that is with both liberty and piety imposed (not mentionning the need to have them early so the requirement for lets say Stonehedge which is perfectly feasible)



So if I prefer rationnalism to piety - I am screwed.

Of course we could beeline printing press for theatre earlier but the goal is to expand oversea when we hit rennaissance, theatre will only help pay for the conquered city afterwards to keep a positive balance, a stadium when we hit the 3rd continent!

So unless you wait for theatre and attack say mid renaissance, it doesn't work. Mid renaissance in immortal for me is too late cause 1 AI has already started spamming muskets too badly for a naval invasion.

 

[Makaz]

After renaissance and astronomy, usually things go well and I can achieve to maintain30 cities pop 8 to 15 with policies, col and theatre. It is just the end of medieval where I struggle aka:

if I expand more I go unhappy and get stuck
if I don't expand I start lagging behind in tech.

Quite a problem and although lagging behind is possible in emperor, it will fail in immortal.

M

 

[qyll]

Well, expanding has worked for me on immortal.

Once I've cleared my continent, I'll start to settle new cities in prime locations until I'm almost at -10 unhappiness. The reason is that I know that eventually the city will be able to pay itself off once it's got a coliseum and theater in that city. On top of that, I get the extra research and culture in the meantime. It's an investment because you only start to benefit from that extra city after 50 or so turns, but it's worth it. In the meantime, I'll meet the other civilizations and hopefully trade luxury resources until I can support my own empire.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Experience suggests that the underlying math favors expansion unless you are gunning for a specific Social Policy, given that you are otherwise playing optimally. Maritime allies are probably the most significant driving force; there are others.

 

[aimlessgun]

AI has already started spamming muskets too badly for a naval invasion.

Hrm. I don't really get this TBH. The AI is notoriously bad at naval stuff. You should be able to wipe out the majority of his forces with your ships with complete impunity. Might need to land some guys here and there to act as bait, but your losses should be small.

 

[Makaz]

Actually true about using boats on naval invasion - I rely too little on them right now and it might be my mistake.

Many thanks that may solve it for me

 

[fugazi]

Get a great scientist and let him pop astronomy for you. Get another, and you'll get it even faster. That's usually how I attain astronomy ..

 

[Makaz]

Ah that is now an idea in order to meet other continents and trade more ressources earlier.

Although my usual starting path is Scout > Worker > Stonehedge for culture and generating GEs which I will use for the forbidden place and the Hijemi castle, I usually have a GS by that time so that should be possible.

Thanks; I can feel this will solve some happiness problem while the naval tip will ease some naval invasions.

M