The perfect amount of cities

[814StopsToday]

Hey guys, I know there's alot of factors in the game as to how many cities you should build (given different situations) but I would like to know how many cities you find yourself striving for and shows to be the most effective while maintaining your civilization.

[AirBear31]

As many as possible. The cap on population forces you to expand whether you want to war or not. Get as many settlers out as fast as possible, usually you can peacefully find 3-5 good spots in the first 100 turns, in order to allow your capital to continue growing for as long as possible. 5 spaces apart is ideal as you wont naturally expand to the third tiles so you can just buy the ones that are important.

[Limygeorge]

Good advice!

[814StopsToday]

Originally posted by AirBear31:

As many as possible. The cap on population forces you to expand whether you want to war or not. Get as many settlers out as fast as possible, usually you can peacefully find 3-5 good spots in the first 100 turns, in order to allow your capital to continue growing for as long as possible. 5 spaces apart is ideal as you wont naturally expand to the third tiles so you can just buy the ones that are important.

Hmm, interesting. Thanks for your insight!

[rkelly17]

This isn't going to be very specific, but since you can't build every kind of district in every city, I try to build enough cities so that I can get enough of each kind of district. The exact number of "enough" depends on what sort of win I'm going for and what the other civs are doing.

[IDerpedYourMom]

Build 3, capture all except Toronto and some science city states. The perfect amount is until you rule them all. Never stop capturing, ever. That is the perfect amount. My record so far is 68 captured cities by 300 BC and all techs researched up to modern era (1 in modern, all earlier eras researched). That's without building any science districts of my own. I just build commerce ones. The cities you capture will have all the districts you need.

[postpaleo]

Originally posted by AaronWestley:

Build 3, capture all except Toronto and some science city states. The perfect amount is until you rule them all. Never stop capturing, ever. That is the perfect amount. My record so far is 68 captured cities by 300 BC and all techs researched up to modern era (1 in modern, all earlier eras researched). That's without building any science districts of my own. I just build commerce ones. The cities you capture will have all the districts you need.

What level do you play to have 68 cities on the map by 300BC? Let alone take them. I would watch you do it if you record it and I've never asked anyone here to show me thier games.

I don't play above king, so maybe that's normal, but dang.....

To topic, there is no number to go for, depends on a ton of things.

[Limygeorge]

OMG! I love the game but you guys and your tips etc make me realize how crap I am. BooHoo.

[814StopsToday]

Originally posted by AaronWestley:

Build 3, capture all except Toronto and some science city states. The perfect amount is until you rule them all. Never stop capturing, ever. That is the perfect amount. My record so far is 68 captured cities by 300 BC and all techs researched up to modern era (1 in modern, all earlier eras researched). That's without building any science districts of my own. I just build commerce ones. The cities you capture will have all the districts you need.

Wow man.. Are you being serious? You actually do this?

[IDerpedYourMom]

Yes I'm serious. You can pull it off on just about any difficulty. The higher the difficulty, the more cities there will be. Play a game with max civs on a huge map on marathon. Keep spitting out units at the start of the game until you have at least 3 battle groups. I like to have 2-3 melee with 4 or 5 ranged in each group. Take the Oligarchy government for the bonus to combat, and have the cards that give 50% to classical melee and ranged units and -1 to upkeep. Then the policy cards for +100% adjacency for science, and the other science one when you unlock it. The key is to fight smart and not lose too many units as late game you'll have a ton of cities that are only 5-7 population. You spend your gold on upgrading your units, and this is how you get around the production inefficiencies by not having to build late game units. For your cities not used in unit production, have them pump out builders to improve tiles. The key is you get your science from having such a large population and the AI will build all the districts and wonders you'll need. You'll want tons of commerce districts though. Like a quote from Total War: Rome: The sinews of war is inifite wealth. Suzerian the science city states and Toronto if it appeared in the game. Everything else, just conquer. I usually only build a couple traders to create a road network to the edges of the empire for faster troop movement. That is why Napoleon was so good. Logistics and rapid deployment compared to other leaders. He was able to catch his enemies divided.

[Limygeorge]

I like Domination too, (and science) victories, but my domination victories usually require 6 to 8 capitals, plus at least one other for each capital, say ave, 18 - 20 captured, or destroyed if their AI piissed me off.

BUT, that's after many turns into the latest era's usually. You, 68 at 300BC - that's just crazy man, I mean, "WOW,"

Remind me NEVER to play online against you. I'd probably only manage a few turns until the map is wiped clean of any evidence that I was there, back in early BC. Amazing!!

[814StopsToday]

Originally posted by AaronWestley:

Yes I'm serious. You can pull it off on just about any difficulty. The higher the difficulty, the more cities there will be. Play a game with max civs on a huge map on marathon. Keep spitting out units at the start of the game until you have at least 3 battle groups. I like to have 2-3 melee with 4 or 5 ranged in each group. Take the Oligarchy government for the bonus to combat, and have the cards that give 50% to classical melee and ranged units and -1 to upkeep. Then the policy cards for +100% adjacency for science, and the other science one when you unlock it. The key is to fight smart and not lose too many units as late game you'll have a ton of cities that are only 5-7 population. You spend your gold on upgrading your units, and this is how you get around the production inefficiencies by not having to build late game units. For your cities not used in unit production, have them pump out builders to improve tiles. The key is you get your science from having such a large population and the AI will build all the districts and wonders you'll need. You'll want tons of commerce districts though. Like a quote from Total War: Rome: The sinews of war is inifite wealth. Suzerian the science city states and Toronto if it appeared in the game. Everything else, just conquer. I usually only build a couple traders to create a road network to the edges of the empire for faster troop movement. That is why Napoleon was so good. Logistics and rapid deployment compared to other leaders. He was able to catch his enemies divided.

Very great tips, man. I'm crazy impressed. Any tips on how to keep war weariness down And keep the population happy?

[IDerpedYourMom]

I've never bothered with war weariness. I don't know if it goes away when a war concludes (completely wiped the enemy out) or what. I think by the cities being relatively small, and the sheer amount of luxuries you get by conquering so much, I never worried about it. Besides if you do get a rebellion, you'll have so many military units that can handle it in a heart beat. Just make sure to make a few horsemen for quick deployment. You can always throw a few happiness districts around if you need. Oh yeah on lower difficulties, having the Goddess of the Forge panthenon really helps, but doubtful you'll get it on higher ones. Also make good use of sieges. Once you unlock archery you should be taking down a city within a couple turns.

[IDerpedYourMom]

Now one more thing about city states. If you're really lucky you'll have a city state that you meet first that will give you +2 to unit production. This is the most valuable city state early game by far. Spare all the city states that you met first to keep getting their bonuses until it is worth more to cap it yourself. Once the religious ones build their religious district, take them out for example. Keep a commerce one too. Capping city states in the early game is good because you backdoor hamstring your opponents by taking their bonuses away and you can easily grow your empire. I do find they put up more of a fight than another civ though early game. The CS tech level is the average of all the players I believe, so they become real easy to steam roll too.

[Formosa2077]

One consensus seems to be having 10 cities around 100t. Since there are no seriosu penalties for the increase of the numbers of the cities you owned (as in CIV 5), the opitioum numbers for cities could be mostly determined by the efficiency to get your desired victory condition done.

[IDerpedYourMom]

Originally posted by Copysoul:

One consensus seems to be having 10 cities around 100t. Since there are no seriosu penalties for the increase of the numbers of the cities you owned (as in CIV 5), the opitioum numbers for cities could be mostly determined by the efficiency to get your desired victory condition done.

That seems to match my target of gaining one city for every 5 turns. 50 turns to pump out enough units to start capping on marathon.