What are the least cities you have won with?

[stwils]

Not counting One City Conquest strategy, what are the smallest number of cities you have won with?

I find it hard to manage a ton of cities so I am looking for a way to win using just a few cities.

Would appreciate any ideas or strategies.

Thanks.
stwils :enlighten

 

[-proletarian-]

You don't need 25-30 cities to win. Myself, I won a space race victory with only 10 (10!) cities on a standard size map. I started the game on a smallish island and only had room for 10 cities without any overlap, but because I had such a small empire, I could lavish attention on them with my small army of workers and didn't have to pump out settlers early on, so my cities grew large and prosperous.

By the end of the game I was the wealthiest nation, and had a tech lead. Having a small empire can be a blessing, it makes micro-managing your lands a lot easier.

 

[Citizen_K]

But I bet your military wasn't the top of the heap, so to speak.

 

[Lovro]

stwils, on any of the higher levels, you will need cities to keep up in economy and to keep your power rating at a reasonable level. I, myself, beat Monarch with less than 10 cities on an archipelago map, but I don't generally count spaceship and diplomacy as victories.

You can win culturally with any number of cities by developing a city that will gather 20000 points, but for any of the military victories, you will need more cities.

IMHO.

 

[saintides]

That's one thing I like when I get stuck on an island by myself. Sure, makes trading a bit tough at the start of the game. Build a dozen cities, that's it. Then, I just focus on culture. Don't have to worry about a big military, especially at the start. Later I build a handful of military, enough to kick off any slimeballs that are foolish enough to make landfall on my little paradise. I manage to do a culture victory with this scenario quite often, even when the ai has 3 times the cities I do. Of course, this doesn't work so well on levels above Regent. I've only pulled off a culture victory a few times on the higher levels, I'm far from being any "civ3 master".

 

[Phoenix]

I'm an expansionist and I normaly play on a huge map so I cannot count all of the cities that I possess. I to don't count a diplo as a real victory - all you have to do is be nice to most of the civs.