Cities , loyalty and expanding.

[Nuke]

AS the cities get bigger so does the negative loyalty rating .Whats the best way to exapnd the empire ?
couple of bigger citties ? alot of smaller ones ? one city at a time development or multiple cities.
Im wondering what are you prefrences

[BLACKcOPstRIPPa]

First...
This depends on Race preference
SM is limited to one so doesn't apply
AM=3 to 5, depending on map size and breathing room
Tyranids=as many as I can fit anywhere
orks=See AM
Necrons=2 to 3 depending on size of map and how far apart they are
Chaos= 3 super fast cities than more in mid to late game depending on map size etc

It is also situational for me, I don't have any "set" starting strategy, it is reliant on what resources are near by and what I can cover land type wise.

I play a lot of AM, so good ore cities are a must, less food, enough to support pop but I don't focus infantry late game so not a must for me, but because of that science is important, tanks before I get attacked is name of game.
So I either get science from resources on map or build more citites faster to increase science and get them faster.

As for 1 more multiple city development, I usually develop 1 until it reaches a point where it supports itself and I can build buildings non stop in all my current citites without issues, then I expand. If I have to stop building a building in 1 city to be able to afford another somewhere else than I am hurting my potential economic growth and there for didn't need to expand yet.

P.S. I also perfer Large over lots, When I place citites I make more builders to get buildings built faster and increase pop faster through city edicts so I can grow faster than a city can normally without being boosted etc. Because of this I also plan on my citites having all 3 tiles all around them at end of game if it goes that long so they have 6 spaces between them on average.

Hope this helped:)

[glythe]

Loyalty kinda got nerfed (read as: it is less important now) but generally speaking you should expand if you can do so without going negative or you can get it back to positive very quickly.

If you make a new city then you get a 6 loyalty penalty everywhere else. If you expand your city to be larger you need to make one loyalty building and one +population building. In other words you can grab 2 more tiles at most and 4 more buildings.

I aim for 2 large/1 small with the Necros. The ability to teleport your infantry to a town is super important in case you don't have monoliths nearby (or even researched yet). If the game goes long I might aim for a 4th small city (possibly specialized in aircraft/vehicle production if frontline or ore production if I need a back resource base).

The long/short version is that if our armies are relatively equal and I have more city square footage then I will likely win as long as I can defend what I have. Playing against the necrons it is very scary if your enemy sneaks a nearby city or gets a monolith near your base. For this reason I often bring a spider with my early roaming army.

[Jey]

You should always have two cities as fast as you can (well aside from SM obviously).
The third one is dependant on your taste and the build you want to do. (Three cities are more powerful than two in the long run, but it takes longer to get them running).

As a tyranid, I personally always go for three cities.

More than 3 cities depend on what you're playing. If you have a huge map in comparison to the number of players, you can probably do it. But otherwise, 2 or 3 cities is the most efficient (in term of speed) way to play.

[SilasOfBorg]

Agreed with Iffu.

Two cities ASAP is mandatory. The gains in overall resource production exceed the loyalty penalties. This is true even if you haven't built a single loyalty building yet.

Three (or more) cities is situational. If you think the game will go on for a long time (100-120 turns or more feels "long" to me, YMMV) then three or more cities have time to produce economic dividends.

[Khalagar]

Rush cities as fast as possible. I usually rush 3 instead of just 2, but play on Very Hard on large maps with at least 1 of every single faction so games last a long time and you need to be planning 50+ turns in advance.

Loyalty . . .doesn't really do all that much honestly, and you can just build a loyalty building pretty easily.

The first poster with the name I'm not attempting to type is pretty much right on with the numbers I typically go for.

[Drewsko]

good deal

[Drewsko]

only 2 cities? what faction? 2 sounds 2 little. unless ur space mahreens!

[Jey]

Building two cities is most optimal for quick fights. Three can be used if you know the game will take longer and you'll need to scale your fighting ability. More is almost always a waste.

[Drewsko]

oh tiny maps... gotcha