If you can grab territory, Should you? Or should you stop expanding at some point?

Artifex · August 18, 2002, 03:48

Lets say you have a continent with 30 cities on a standard map that has 3 continents. After the map is discovered you see 2 civs on one continent and 3 civs on another continent..and you wiped out 2 civs on your home continent.

There is another continent you are fighting on with the 2 civs. You could take it over..and settle the entire continent with 20-30 cities. To make you total 60 give or take.

Is this bad strategy? I heard that corruption increases bigtime when you start having alot of cities?

Should you just clear the continent and not settle it? To keep your total around 30 cities?

If you found alot of new cities on a continent then all your good cities back on your home continent are gonna get smacked with massive corruption right?

Whats more important, alot of territiory at this expense..or not expanding so as not to cripple all your good cities back home?

Since a lot of territory = high score and denial to other civs I usually settle, but I have been wondering if its good to just have a bunch of useless 1 shield cities for the sole purpose of having a lot of territory.

Anyone know how badly expanding liek this hurts your good core cities back home?

DRoseDARs · August 18, 2002, 04:05

Well, if you place your palace in the middle of all your cities on your home continent (not necessarily the center of the continent itself), go ahead and take the new continent, fill it with another 20-30 cities, place the Forbidden Palace in the middle of that set of cities, and switch to Democracy or Communism, the corruption level should be at a managable level. Also, Courthouses and Police Stations are a must if you go the route of many cities.

Personally, if I'm in a Warmonger mood or feeling like a corporate CEO, any land is good land for expansion if it denies the AIs any leeway or advantage. It irritates the Hell out of the AI players, but I usually manage to fend them off by the diplomacy of the bribe and the diplomacy of the sword.

notyoueither · August 18, 2002, 04:14

What do you want to do?

Conquer the world? Sheit yah! Colonize it.

Build the space ship? You probably don't need it, except for the odd port to collect resources and luxuries.

Cultural victory? It might help if you build your FP in a good site on the original continent and rebuild your Palace there with a GL. Then those new cities can add temples and Libraries faster.

2050 points? Go for it! Tightly packed size 6 cities are the way to go.

BTW, Corruption increases should be managable with Court Houses and Police Stations.

Artifex · August 18, 2002, 04:16

In this particular game I got a Great Leader early BC's and used it on the other end of my barbell shaped continent so I have two palaces on each end of my home continent.

(I couldn't resist I had done a jag rush and had just conquered the Iroqois and got a GL and rushed FP in a conquered Iroqois city.)

My home continent is in the middle of the 3 and is shaped like a snake so I got good distance between my 2 palaces on both ends...pretty sweet.

So if I conquer this other western continent (russia,france) and settle Ill have basically 30 useless cities on it. I mean territory = Score, and it also denies to the AI so they can't get any stronger.

I am dealing with Xerxes, Hammurabi and Shaka on the 3rd and last continent to my east so they can be a threat if they grow big.

I just wonder how hard a 30 city expansion on another continent will hit my good core cities back home corruption wise.

Artifex · August 18, 2002, 04:23

"Conquer the world? Sheit yah! Colonize it."

I like to Conquer world when I play as Aztecs. I have almost wiped away 2 continents and 4 civs thus far. I get alot of GL's that way. I stay in Monarchy. It's just early middle ages too and I got mosty of the good wonders..Russia and France are in the stone age still (Great Library and contact with the eastern continent workes wonders for my tech).

I usually build my cities far apart to maximize thier growth potential and hopefully reduce corruption..but maybe it is enivitable when you conquer the world.

notyoueither · August 18, 2002, 04:24

Quote:

I just wonder how hard a 30 city expansion on another continent will hit my good core cities back home corruption wise.

Not too much, I think.

I pack 'em in (the cities) using 3 spacing. Lots of overlap. Not much corruption added to the important cities that I've noticed.

The new lands, now they are a different matter. Prepare to see plenty of 1 shield, 1 commerce cities. The first thing I do there is set them to a Court House. Then I wait until they hit size 6 (don't allow them to go beyond that) and set up WLKD. Pretty soon you have a size 6 city with a Court House and more than 1 shield. Now build Temples, etc... After you know that the city will be productive and kick back the gold to your coffers that the buildings cost to maintain. Otherwise, it's adding to your pop and territory score and stuck at 6 forever with several tax collectors.

Coracle · August 18, 2002, 05:24

"Stop expanding"??

You want to be like the AI crazily expanding all over? It settles everywhere, even on terrain no one with a brain would. It settles on that lousy terrain even with no resources nearby. It settles far far from its own capital. It settles deep in enemy territory.

Many of the places it settles are a waste of a settler and military as they can never be productive for various reasons, and, if war breaks out, they really can't be defended. Stupid AI.

So, I'd say no. Do not keep expanding like the crazy AI.

notyoueither · August 18, 2002, 05:33

Yes but...

When some oil disappears in Siberia and pops up back on that patch of Tundra...

Just how useless is it then?

notyoueither · August 18, 2002, 05:34

And he's not talking about useless land. He's talking about prime real estate.

Aeson · August 18, 2002, 06:27

Adding more cities won't change corruption in your already founded cities unless you are in Communism, or the new cities are closer to your Palace/FP than the old.

Artifex · August 18, 2002, 07:19

On my new continent I am settling... I usually place cities to maximize land coverage with no overlap.

You are advising me to pack them all in on the new continent 2 spaces apart and keep them at size 6? So If I space them out with no overlap and let them grow to level 12 or even higher that's a bad idea?

That's how I did my home continent. I tried to stay away from ICS but is it the preferable way?

SABRA · August 18, 2002, 11:31

With 20-24 cities on a 256 x 256 you should be good .
Add a couple bases around the world and that should do it .

More then 40 cities is to complicated to run things .

Inverse Icarus · August 18, 2002, 11:42

in my recent game (large archipeligo) I actually found a new empty continent, enough land to support maybe 10-13 cities. I was about halfway across the map from my own continent, which was large. I killed off 2 AIs and had my own continent now, and i was placing the FP so it would have little to no corruption.

I plopped down 1 city on the new land, and then refused to spend any more time on it. the AI was exploring and was sure to find it soon. my litle city sprouted 2 more cities, and then the AI came like locusts and gobbled up all the remaining land.

I know later in the game i'll just conquer the island, I'm just letting them lease and develop it.

alva · August 18, 2002, 12:10

Quote:

Originally posted by UberKruX
in my recent game (large archipeligo) I actually found a new empty continent, enough land to support maybe 10-13 cities. I was about halfway across the map from my own continent, which was large. I killed off 2 AIs and had my own continent now, and i was placing the FP so it would have little to no corruption.

I plopped down 1 city on the new land, and then refused to spend any more time on it. the AI was exploring and was sure to find it soon. my litle city sprouted 2 more cities, and then the AI came like locusts and gobbled up all the remaining land.

I know later in the game i'll just conquer the island, I'm just letting them lease and develop it.

Why are we trying to kid ourself thinking this is a peacefull game , for civilised gamers

They sure picked the wrong title for this one

C Chulainn · August 18, 2002, 15:22

Grab All Land!
Even if the cities you build there are totally backward and corrupt, it's still better than an AI civ getting them.

The Pioneer · August 19, 2002, 02:33

The main reason for grabbing all the land you possibly can is to deny it from the AI. A second and not a less important reason is resources, the more land you have the more the chances that you will control more resources (you should try to build cities in any terrain, unlike Civ 2), which will give you control over the game!

So long...

RedBird · August 19, 2002, 04:24

Quote:

Originally posted by Aeson
Adding more cities won't change corruption in your already founded cities unless you are in Communism, or the new cities are closer to your Palace/FP than the old.

Aeson, I just watched the end-movie of your 63K point victory posted on the CivFanatics site. Absolutely incredible. I'm in awe.

But despite that I'm still going to question your statement. I would agree that distance corruption will not be increased in the inner cities by new cities in distant locations, but if one had not already exceeded your OCN (Optimal number of cities as determined by map-size for those not familiar with the term) wouldn't new cities increase the corruption in all cities? This is really a question, not a challenge. I've seen the corruption threads, but I'm still foggy on this.

I'm in a similar situation. I have a (small) newly-emptied continent which I kicked the Russians off of. I have one city on it because that's where all the world's Ivory is. Due to the RR's I built on the continent I have enough units to kick anyone back off if they try to land to colonize. Thus there's no need for me to colonize to prevent AI from taking it since they can't get onto it. Any new city will be a one-shield city. So far I haven't colonized it, but after I see .SAV's like your win I have to wonder.

Aeson · August 19, 2002, 06:28

I'm not absolutely sure on the corruption, but this is how I think it works.

OCN corruption is based off of the city #, which is determined by ordering of distance from the capitol/fp. I'm not sure how it's ordered in cases of distance ties though. The closest city will always suffer the same OCN corruption regardless of how many other cities there are. The same applies for each city number. So building a far away city won't alter the corruption rates of core cities. Building an interior city can change around the ordering of cities, and thus increase corruption for already founded cities.

Communism is the exception of course, where each new city increases the corruption flat rate for all cities.

As for completely corrupt cities, they will pay for themselves in population and shields in 30 turns assuming there is any food source within it's radius. The territory/resources claimed by the city, and the production/population growth for the rest of the game are just icing on the cake after that. These cities also make great 'buffers' along your border. If the AI launches a suprise attack, you lose a city that doesn't mean much, instead of a more valuable productive city.

There is very little trade-off for building a settler in a city which is sitting at it's population limit and has a granary (full). You lose 2 pop the first turn, 1 of which grows back the very next turn, leaving only half the food box to be filled to get back to maximum size. Then you get 1 more pop once the city is founded. You can almost always build a worker from the new city in 10 turns, which can be added to the original city's population if it hasn't grown back already. With irrigation and railroads this city can spit out a worker every 10 turns for the rest of the game and still end up growing itself. Over the course of a game this can really pay off, especially if you have many of these cities.

Not to mention how drafting occasionally in these cities can quickly built up a huge military, to be used in war or disbanded for shields in other cities. How each extra city increases the AI's estimation of your power. How these cities can produce their own settlers to continue on with founding more such cities...

The only reasons not to build them that I can think of is if the war to free up more territory would be too costly, or if you really want to be in communism. There are other benefits of war which will usually pay off by themselves (leaders, eliminating AI threats) anyways though. Communism has it's flaws, and isn't worth changing to.

So build the cities!

Lord Merciless · August 19, 2002, 14:31

A Commercial Civ can have 100+ cities on a huge map and suffers less than 25% of total corruption.

Thrawn05 · August 19, 2002, 14:38

I spread as much as I can without breaking my empire into pieces on the same continent (I don't want to have to rely on ROP too much).

Once that's done, I find islands (they are great for staging a "D-Day" operation if I need to) and spread as much as I can on totaly unused larger islands/continents.

I really hate seeing large islands with a city from each civ overlapping each other, it's just ugly looking. This is somthing Firaxis coule improve on I guess.

Once I pretty much spread my empire out as much as possible, I find a good place to put my FP and build it.

Arrian · August 19, 2002, 14:50

I think Aeson is right about this. Your home continent is safe, Artifex (sounds like you have a nice, optimal Palace/FP setup), but the cities you found far away will be nearly totally corrupt. That's fine, since their purpose isn't really to produce things. They are there to provide luxuries to keep your people happy, resources, claim territory and add more happy people to your empire (both boost your score).

I typically buy temples, marketplaces and aqueducts in totally corrupt areas if I want to boost my score. Those improvements provide a lot of happy faces. The city will hit size 12 (running 10% luxury spending, this should probably keep the city in WLTKD). If you want to go all out, buy a hospital and a cathedral.

I've pretty much stopped doing this, though. I don't really care about my score, and I am kinda obsessive about having an efficient empire. So lately conquered continents have ended up with 1 port city and several colonies. The upside is that any units you have over there will go elite killing the resurgent barbs

-Arrian

alexman · August 19, 2002, 15:31

Quote:

Originally posted by Aeson
I'm not absolutely sure on the corruption, but this is how I think it works.

*alexman put's on corruption-expert hat (it's the only hat he owns)

You are 100% correct. In non-communist governments, the rank of each city for number-of-cities corruption calculations is based on its distance from the capital (or FP). In this case, adding a city farther away does not affect corruption in existing cities.

*alexman takes off corruption-expert hat and becomes his clueless self once more.

Cookie Monster · August 19, 2002, 15:52

Corruption be damned sire, take more land so that we may be on the road to domination!

By the time you are worrying about having too many cities and corruption up the wazoo you should have factories, dams, solar plants, etc. in all your cities that count. Rely on their monstrous production abilities to continue building up your empire. Those cities that can only produce 1 or 2 shields?

Why not build tons of explorers and disband them in these cities to help out with production?

Are there any thoughts on this?