Hmm, well tass, let me explain why i dont just disband 20 cities (or more) in order to reach an optimum city number
In my current game i have hoover dam (I have never failed to get this wonder in a monarch or below game, so i can always rely on it). I have 65 total cities, 12 of which are doing tanks in 2 turns, and abotu 10 more which are doing tanks in 3-4 turns... I'm really out doing the computer for production, I dont want to delete 40-45 cities since 20-30 of which, are still giving me a fair amount of tax and science. Since i play in monarch, it is very feasible to stay ahead of the computer in science. I think this is more important than saving a few shields in production. Right now its 1780, I'm about 8 techs ahead of the computer inn modern age and my production is great (not 20 cities with a tank in 2 turns, but very close). So I dont see the point of limiting myself to this 'optimum city' number i hear so much about when theres alot of trade that can be generated from the outer cities... Not to mention that fact that you will never have resource problems when you control that much land area.
Id say 45 of my cities are within about 7 diaganol squares of my palaces, a city size of 12 at the outer edges of those radii is doing 20 productive commerce per turn (and many of these cities are around 20+ by now)... on my inner cities, on average I'm losing between 2 and 8 commerce per turn. It doesnt make sense to disband ~25 cities that are doing 15-20+ commerce per turn to gain less than 7 commerce in each of 20 inner cities. Clearly when you do the math, the outer cities are generating more revenue than is being lost on the inner cities.
The other cities that are unproductive i am keeping for tactical purposes, airlifts to other continents and certain island stations for bombers.
I'm not so sure it makes sense to limit yourself to 20 cities on lower difficulty levels. Maybe on emperor and diety where its harder to stay ahead in tech (if you and the computer are always fighting with the same units, every bit of production would be crucial), but on monarch it seems to make more sense just to have a well placed forbidden palace and keep all the extra trade generated by the outer cities, since you are always kinda at the next stage of development when you fight wars.
I dunno if that was stated very clearly, I'm a bit tired... but I guess my final word on the matter of governments is repbulic. Universal suffrage is a must, but I've found it to be really easy to secure wonders after the middle ages. I'd say democracy but i dont have as much experience with democracy as a war time government and i think the war weariness is worse. most of the time i switch to republic and it works fine for me throughout the game.
