Building early vs rapid expansion

[The diplomat]

Having a high pop city in the ancient era means good production and gold. But the player also needs to expand fast. What is the best balance between the two?

I played a recent game as the French (Commercial/Industrious). My capital was on decent terrain, adjacent to a river, and with nice special grassland all around. After my capital built its first settler, I decided to grow my capital instead of building more settlers from it. I used my other cities to build settlers and expand. Obviously, my expansion was a bit slower. But, I used my fast workers to improve my capital's city radius, and I let my capital grow. My capital reached size 8 fairly quickly, giving me a good city in the ancient era.

How many use this type of strategy? Or do you stick with the standard "crank out settlers as fast as possible frm every city until there is no room to expand, then develop your cities"?

I found that civ3 seems to greatly favor the player that slows expansion just a bit in order to develop 1 or 2 cities early.

[alva]

mix it somewhat, but go in favor ( 65%-35%) towards expanding.

[Allemand]

A couple of good cities can pay big dividends. What I do is make the second city a settler farm, and often I put it within the capital's radius so it can use the cows or wheat that may be there. Eventually this city will be wiped out and the capital will get its resources back, but in the first hundred moves the settler city will pump out lots of settlers. Meanwhile the capital can grow at a reasonable rate.

This works well in other locations, too. I like to specialize with each city to some extent, so some of them will be building more settlers than anything else, while others are building units. However, I try to have every city produce at least one settler (payback for its existence).

There are times when I concentrate on building just settlers, but usually I don't have to do that.

Most important thing in any game is to get a good starting postition, of course.

[Willem]

My approach is I don't build anything in a city until it has produced two Settlers, with defensive support, and at least one Worker. Two in the very early part of the game. Then I start with building a Temple.

[Catt]

I think the question greatly depends on the difficulty level. On Monarch I have trouble letting a city get beyond 5 or 6 citizens, on Emperor or Diety beyond 4 or 5. With fewer citizens born content on the higher levels, you are forced to: (i) ensure access to several luxuries; (ii) divert a good chunk of your income into luxury spending; or (iii) build workers / settlers to help keep the population down. Option (iii) often seems to me to be the best option.

I would agree, however, that if circumstances allowed, having a large and content city in the ancient age is very valuable - you can build everything fairly quickly (including a granary which helps keep the pop level high while still allowing the occasional pop unit), and you've certainly got a unit and wonder-producing powerhouse. If you can get away with it, I say go for it.

Catt

[Txurce]

Lately I've tried to use my capital as my settler factory, so that it's easier to abandon and relocate elsewhere. But the idea of having one of the early cities grow quickly is interesting, if early wonders are on your agenda. An early large coastal city with Colossus - a modest goal - could not only provide culture, but a hell of a lot of gold and beakers. I usually get caught up pumping out either settlers or units, and then taking the egalitarian temple+library route.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Txurce
Lately I've tried to use my capital as my settler factory, so that it's easier to abandon and relocate elsewhere. But the idea of having one of the early cities grow quickly is interesting, if early wonders are on your agenda. An early large coastal city with Colossus - a modest goal - could not only provide culture, but a hell of a lot of gold and beakers. I usually get caught up pumping out either settlers or units, and then taking the egalitarian temple+library route.

How do you disband a city? The game never allows to build a settler if the city is not greater than 2.

[Iskandar Reza]

1.21f allows you to disband it with the right click context menu under "Abandon City"