Whats the limiting factor on number of cities

[Phoenix]

I'm pretty new to this but I've spent some 900 hrs plus in Civ 5. Limiting factors in there were happiness in the main and amount of culture/science you needed for new social policies and techs. It usually meant your empires were relatively small unless you really hit the big time early on with luxuries.

In Civ 6 there just doesn't seem to be a limiting factor beyond available land space? I know in my last game, Trajan was settling right up to me winning in around 1990 or so. He had over 30 cities by the look of it.

[Aachen]

There’s no global cap analogous to happiness in Six.

The nearest to is amenities, and demand for ‘em does not increment in quite such an expansion-limiting way.

Six is back to supporting as much REx as one can manage, more-or-less.

[Synavix]

Just time, really. There are no direct penalties for building a new city or capturing another.

But district cost increases with the more number of techs and civics you research, and builder/settler cost increases with each one you build or capture. So eventually you reach a point where the investment required to get another one out just isn't worth it anymore relative to how many turns you have left to win.

Amenities kind of works similar to happiness, but there are so many sources of them between entertainment districts, policy cards, and great people that it's not really a limiting factor on the number of cities, and more a limit of how many HUGE cities you can manage.

[Nibbie]

Each luxury's amenities only apply to four cities, so there is a soft limit there, but it is much nicer about it than civ 5 for sure.

[Aachen]

Amenities are per-citizen and IIRC aren’t even needed until three is reached, so amenities don’t punish a player for settling as Five’s luxury-happiness interaction does.

[Phoenix]

Interesting...ok, thanks for the replies!

[ElPrezCBF]

With the World Congress in GS, amenities now play a huge part in moderating expansion. If you make many civs dislike you, they could vote for your luxury resources to not produce amenities. I'm not sure if it's permanent or only a few turns, but it should be the latter for the sake of balance.

[Aachen]

“Four fewer amenities” never seems that unmanageable, for me. WC resolutions last till the next regular vote, FWiW.

[ElPrezCBF]

Originally posted by Aachen:

“Four fewer amenities” never seems that unmanageable, for me. WC resolutions last till the next regular vote, FWiW.

It does early game before you're swimming in amenities. Having a WC before the modern era never makes sense historically anyway.

[Aachen]

Early game? What do you consider “early?” WC resolutions shutting down a luxury rarely come up for vote in the first session or two, so I don’t even expect it at all till mid-game at the the earliest. What turn are you facing a Luxury Policy vote?

[leandrombraz]

Originally posted by twel70:

With the World Congress in GS, amenities now play a huge part in moderating expansion. If you make many civs dislike you, they could vote for your luxury resources to not produce amenities. I'm not sure if it's permanent or only a few turns, but it should be the latter for the sake of balance.

That's not how the AI votes in that resolution. Your relationship with the AI has zero effect on which luxury they will ban. They ban the luxury they don't own that has the highest number of copies in the world. Open the Global Resources Report screen, go to the bottom, see which luxury is the last (the one that has the most copies). Anyone that doesn't own that luxury will vote to ban it. The ones that own it will vote for the next they don't own in that list.


Amenities are almost meaningless in Civ VI not only because the sources of amenities are abundant, but also because of how amenities are consumed by cities. Each city needs one every 2 citizens, starting from the third citizen, so your city needs one when it has 3 citizens, then 5, then 7 and so on. In early game it's specially easy to keep your cities happy, since they will only start consuming amenities once they get to 3 pop.

The bonuses and penalties from amenities aren't as crippling as happiness in Civ V, so even if you end up with negative amenities in some of your cities, the impact is negligible and easily surpassed by the advantages of having as much cities as you can manage to settle. Players usually sell their luxuries in early game, because it really isn't necessary.

Amenities can only become an issue in the context of loyalty. If you're having some serious loyalty issues, the difference between having +3 amenities and -3 amenities in a city is 12 loyalty. Having surplus amenities can be really helpful and having negative amenities can hurt you quite a lot.

[ElPrezCBF]

Originally posted by Aachen:

Early game? What do you consider “early?” WC resolutions shutting down a luxury rarely come up for vote in the first session or two, so I don’t even expect it at all till mid-game at the the earliest. What turn are you facing a Luxury Policy vote?

I don't remember the exact turn, probably in the classical era, which is early enough. Even when I expanded to 5-6 cities, it still had a significant impact on my expansion until I grew more independent of external amenities through seaside resorts etc.

[ElPrezCBF]

Originally posted by leandrombraz:

Originally posted by twel70:

With the World Congress in GS, amenities now play a huge part in moderating expansion. If you make many civs dislike you, they could vote for your luxury resources to not produce amenities. I'm not sure if it's permanent or only a few turns, but it should be the latter for the sake of balance.

That's not how the AI votes in that resolution. Your relationship with the AI has zero effect on which luxury they will ban. They ban the luxury they don't own that has the highest number of copies in the world. Open the Global Resources Report screen, go to the bottom, see which luxury is the last (the one that has the most copies). Anyone that doesn't own that luxury will vote to ban it. The ones that own it will vote for the next they don't own in that list.


Amenities are almost meaningless in Civ VI not only because the sources of amenities are abundant, but also because of how amenities are consumed by cities. Each city needs one every 2 citizens, starting from the third citizen, so your city needs one when it has 3 citizens, then 5, then 7 and so on. In early game it's specially easy to keep your cities happy, since they will only start consuming amenities once they get to 3 pop.

The bonuses and penalties from amenities aren't as crippling as happiness in Civ V, so even if you end up with negative amenities in some of your cities, the impact is negligible and easily surpassed by the advantages of having as much cities as you can manage to settle. Players usually sell their luxuries in early game, because it really isn't necessary.

Amenities can only become an issue in the context of loyalty. If you're having some serious loyalty issues, the difference between having +3 amenities and -3 amenities in a city is 12 loyalty. Having surplus amenities can be really helpful and having negative amenities can hurt you quite a lot.

Any official link for reference on how the AI votes? It seems to be gamebreaking if they only vote against luxuries that are most abundant when the point of voting is to stop other players who may not own luxuries with the most abundance.

I didn't say lack of amenities was crippling, just significant enough to moderate my expansion. From what I understand, your amenities are spread out over your empire. So e.g., if you have 4 natural amenities and 4 cities, it's 1 to each. But if it's 4 natural amenities to 8 cities, of which some have access to excess amenities from other sources relative to other cities, the excess natural amenities will be distributed first in priority to cities that need them most and not stack with your other amenity sources in cities with an excess of them. So it does have a significant effect on growth if you expand too quickly before establishing excess or what I'd call "buffer" amenities.

[Aachen]

Classical-era World Congress? That’s a new one.

Originally posted by twel70:

Any official link for reference on how the AI votes? It seems to be gamebreaking if they only vote against luxuries that are most abundant when the point of voting is to stop other players who may not own luxuries with the most abundance ....

It certainly matches my experience of votes for the LP resolution—though I didn’t know the exact rules, just noting how often coastal luxuries are the target of the vote is a solid demonstration. Not an “official source,” of course.

[ElPrezCBF]

Maybe not exactly, but early enough:
https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/World_Congress_(Civ6)

[leandrombraz]

Originally posted by twel70:

I didn't say lack of amenities was crippling, just significant enough to moderate my expansion. From what I understand, your amenities are spread out over your empire. So e.g., if you have 4 amenities and 4 cities, it's 1 to each. But if it's 4 amenities to 8 cities, of which some have access to excess amenities relative to other cities, the excess amenities will be distributed in first in priority to cities that lack any. So it does have a significant effect on growth if you expand too quickly before establishing excess or what I'd call "buffer" amenities.

It doesn't, because each city you settle will need to grow to 3 citizens before it even needs one amenity, then to 5 before it needs 2. 8 cities with 4 pop each requires only 2 luxuries to stay content and there isn't much need to keep them content. A displeased city (-1 to -2 amenities) get only a 5% penalty to yields, which is negligible at this stage, mostly compared to the advantages of having more cities. With 2 luxuries, you can grow 8 cities up to 8 citizens before you start having any real problem. If you keep expanding, you'll easily have access to way more than just 2 luxuries, plus the likely possibility of getting amenities from certain city states, namely Muscat, Zanzibar, Cahokia and Buenos Aires.

Unless loyalty is a real issue, which isn't likely, it's always better to expand as much as you can, as fast as you can, without giving much consideration to amenities.