When to build a 5th city?

[Jesterozan]

I honestly don't know the turns I win on. It's usually fairly late though but the important thing is that it's before anyone else wins. Sometimes I'm a bit earlier (1970s or 80s) and sometimes if it's been a slower game I've pushed even into the 2000s. But still, as long as I'm able to stay ahead of the AIs, IMO it's still a relatively easy winning strategy.

I'll start recording the turn numbers though because I'm actually curious now too.

I win a sceintific victory at around 230 turns (-/+ 5 turns) with 6-7 cities, are there anyone that can make it or earlier with 3 or 4 cities?
edit : I play emparor

 

[Matthew.]

circuses and stoneworks are situational (not every city can build them) and even with both you'd push the number to a measly 12 pop anyway.

Sure, a lot of things are map dependent. Also, it is potentially much more than 12. Those buildings built in other cities frees up the happiness from luxuries, which carries over.

The point is 1.) After Industrialization you can place 20+ cities as far as the map allows. 2.) Before Industrialization, when happiness is actually an issue, there are enough sources to support a 5th or even 6th city. Beyond that it gets unreliable, both on space and happiness sources. But you make it sound like the difference between 4 and 5 completely cripples your empire. I'm simply arguing that in many cases, you are ending up with the same stats, and actually more once you get into the end-game.

Unless you found your city in a coastal desert wasteland with no fish and used food caravans solely to pump it up, bigger is virtually always much better.

And as long as the cities are developed, more cities is virtually always much better, too. You are thinking of it as a trade-off, but it isn't. A new city adds sources of happiness you wouldn't normally have, which means population (science) you wouldn't normally have, extra city connections which you wouldn't normally have.

 

[fyar]

Really now... say if (in my normal games) my capitol is size 50 and my satellites are size 20+ each, +20% production in all of them wouldn't get more done than having a 5th may be size 10-15? GAs are not just production you know... CULTURE increase from GA for example is no contest a 5th one slows your policies down (always, regardless of GA or not) and the most it can boost your culture is merely 1 each for each culture building.
Also GOLD of course, is increased by a bit (esp important in GnK where gold is essentially doubled) and if you go freedom GAs will last 12 turns and with a wonder or Persia even longer... those GAs can be worth a lot.


Speaking about production... sometimes you can't just add up the hammers from each city... for example, when building wonders or spaceship parts... only one city may work on one wonder/part at a time... here the 5th doesn't matter at all, and god forbid you miss, say, hubble, when you could've had it if that golden age had happened.

That said, the only reason I would take a 5th is for science.

Let me reiterate: There are many advantages to 4-city Tradition. Production is not one of them.

Therefore, we're not talking about culture or gold. (Although your claim that "the most [your 5th city] can boost your culture is merely 1 each for each culture building" is puzzling... what game do you play where you can't fill those buildings with great works or find a landmark or have a culture-producing pantheon or etc. etc. etc.?)

Obviously the game changes if you built Chichen Itza or are playing as Xerxes or Pedro or have some other buff to Golden Ages, but I'm trying to strip away the "what ifs" because you've introduced way too many of them.

Generally speaking, since your premise was that you're sitting on 20 , that 5th city will grow without limiting the growth in your other 4 cities, and eventually it'll easily outproduce your Golden Ages and their +20% which is only active less than 20% of the time. Unless you placed city #5 randomly and didn't bother to develop it or anything.

 

[darden]

almost never... the exception is if I stumble upon a really good location (natural wonder or strategic resource I've been struggling to acquire) or if I need a forward base to launch an invasion from (once we're into the modern era, I get leery of relying on carriers for my air force; I'd much rather base my fleet of bombers in a city)

 

[fat_tonle]

If you are on a separate continent, you absolutely have to maximize the land. I was playing as the Dutch with only 2 CS on my continent. I took 6 cities with Liberty, with decent locations. Had a lot of poulders and 5 fish at my 6th city. I took a huge unhappiness hit (prolonged stretch of -5 to -10), but once World Congress was founded, I was able to settle in and acquire the luxuries I needed. Internalized all my sea trade routes (all coastal cities btw) and got all my cities at 25ish by the 1940's for a space victory. I had so many engineers that I basically hurried/bought 6 Research Labs and pushed my science from 600 to 800 in one turn to pull away from the field. Take the cities if they can grow no matter what, and you don't take a massive diplo hit.

 

[NinjaGnat]

Don't do it. The national wonders exist to reward tighter empires. If you went tradition the only time you'd ever want to grab more than 4 cities is if you luck into enough happiness resources to afford that city after you build the national college, but before it's realistically time to start getting Circus Maximus, East India Company or Oxford.

I don't think that's possible without lucky luxuries or a religion which provides happy, which is luck in it's own right.

If you're going for a science win, you can probably justify it with some good spots, but for culture you're just making it more difficult to get the hermitage and national visitors center.

 

[kb27787]

If you are on a separate continent, you absolutely have to maximize the land. I was playing as the Dutch with only 2 CS on my continent. I took 6 cities with Liberty, with decent locations. Had a lot of poulders and 5 fish at my 6th city. I took a huge unhappiness hit (prolonged stretch of -5 to -10), but once World Congress was founded, I was able to settle in and acquire the luxuries I needed. Internalized all my sea trade routes (all coastal cities btw) and got all my cities at 25ish by the 1940's for a space victory. I had so many engineers that I basically hurried/bought 6 Research Labs and pushed my science from 600 to 800 in one turn to pull away from the field. Take the cities if they can grow no matter what, and you don't take a massive diplo hit.

sorry, but 800 science with SIX city research labs is FAR from convincing (I mean people who play 3 cities, not even necessarily going for SV get over 1000 science easily a century before you do... it's just that their capitol which has the national college is at 50+ pop by 1940)
You do know that while you were unhappy you were missing out on 10% science during that stretch as well, as well as a whopping 75% growth? At -10 your cities stop growing at all.

 

[kb27787]

Let me reiterate: There are many advantages to 4-city Tradition. Production is not one of them.

Therefore, we're not talking about culture or gold. (Although your claim that "the most [your 5th city] can boost your culture is merely 1 each for each culture building" is puzzling... what game do you play where you can't fill those buildings with great works or find a landmark or have a culture-producing pantheon or etc. etc. etc.?)

Obviously the game changes if you built Chichen Itza or are playing as Xerxes or Pedro or have some other buff to Golden Ages, but I'm trying to strip away the "what ifs" because you've introduced way too many of them.

Generally speaking, since your premise was that you're sitting on 20 , that 5th city will grow without limiting the growth in your other 4 cities, and eventually it'll easily outproduce your Golden Ages and their +20% which is only active less than 20% of the time. Unless you placed city #5 randomly and didn't bother to develop it or anything.

Well originally I was talking about GAs in general, not just production.

Even ignoring golden ages for the sake of simplification, show me a game where you were able to fill the slots of all 4 cities (barring conquering other civs, in which case you'd get the slots from the puppets anyway) with great works that you'd need a 5th just to put them in and I'll show you a game you would've lost at immortal+ because an AI would've launched several dozen turns earlier.

When it's about culture what matters most is your hermitage/guilds city; a typical number for culture is at least 500+ endgame and 100+ midgame unless you've completely ignored culture.
To justify the increase in SP cost, you'd need around 10 culture midgame (just from pantheons this is a stretch unless your city has 3 cows 3 sheep 3 horses for example) and a whopping ~50 endgame (at least 2-3 landmarks with the right WC resolutions).