The MCS strategy

[Diadem]

In the beginning, there was ICS. In civ4 however, this strategy has been effectively eliminated. City upkeep rises very steeply with increasing number of cities, and it is very easy to kill yourself by overexpansion.

Still, old habits die hard, and many new players find their first few games frustrated by overexpansion. Even those who have learned to not make that mistake, still expand fast an early, like in the old days.

I've seen strategies where people start by building a settler. Or they start with a worker, and then choprush a settler immidiately after. At first I played like that as well. But I've become a fan of OCC (One City Challenge) lately, and I've learned a lot from playing like that. There's an amazing lot you can do with just one city. This has changed the way I look at the game, including the start.

So let me introduce to you, the MCS: Minimum City Strategy.

The idea is that we do not want many cities. A few cities is enough, provided that these cities are major powerhouse. This saves us a lot on upkeep cost, allowing us to run 90% or even 100% science. Meanwhile we'll have to time to optimize every single one of our cities. They don't have to spend a lot of time pumping out settlers and workers, since you won't need many of these. And you won't go crazy from having to micromanage a hunderd billion cities and workers.

So how many do we want? Well, the game has made that an easy question. Missing out on national wonders like Oxford or Wallstreet is out of the question. So we need enough cities to build these wonders. On a standard map size, that means 6 cities. At this point upkeep is already starting to hurt, so we certainly do not want more cities. Hence the name Minimum City Strategy.

So, how do we go about acquiring these cities. Do we rush for 6 cities? No! On the contrary. We don't need 6 cities before we can build our first national wonder. So not before we get Education (or Drama, if you are in a hurry to get Globe Theatre). So we have a lot of time to get to 6 cities, and we're gonna use it all.

Let's start with the beginning. There's a huge number of different strategies about the beginning. Most of them involve building a settler early on. But settlers take a long time to build. You can chop for them of course, but I also want to chop for wonders, and keeping a few forests for their bonusses is never bad either. Unless you are extremely lucky with your start, chopping for settlers just means your wonders take longer to build.

Your first city is almost always on a very good spot. Usually there are a number of good resources around. By building settlers early on, you are robbing yourself of growth of your city. This will hurt your production and commerce in this city, and thus your growth.

Yes, you'll have a second city early on. But a new city takes a lot of time before becomming really productive. You need basic buildings, basic defence, a worker to improve the terrain around it, etc, etc. Early expansion just means you'll have 2 sucky cities instead of 1 good one.

So, don't build settlers early. Wait a bit. Build units, a worker, and start on those early wonders. Pyramids is really good. Wait for you city to grow a bit bigger. On the higher difficulties your happiness limit is usually 4 or 5. Once your city has reached that, *then* it is the time to expand. (even if you are halfway with a wonder. That's the beauty of civ4, temporary changing production is possible). You will now build setters in only a few turns, and it won't cost you any growth!

It depends on the terrain and resources around you, but 2 or 3 new cities is best. You can build these quickly after eachother, and then a few workers improve your new terrain. This goes quickly with a bigger city, and your new cities will be able to start with building buildings immidiately, making them a lot better a lot sooner.

Don't expand to 6 cities immidiately, wait a bit longer with this. Once our new cities are productive and start making money we can do our next wave of expansion.

This is basicly the entire strategy. It's pretty simple, and it's really effective. You'll be amazed at how strong a single city can be early in the age, if you allow it to grow.

There's an important part I haven't mentioned yet though. That is war. That is, of course, where things get complicated. If you are playing a cramped map where you have little space, things are a bit different. Delaying expanion too much might mean you'll have no room to expand anymore. So you might have to expand a bit earlier than I detailed above. Still, don't start building settlers on turn 1...

Of course, you can also take the AI cities. If he builds on closeby on a spot where you wanted to expand yourself, building a few units instead of a settler can be effective. My strategy works very well with early rushes. You just have to remember to raze most of the AI cities, and only take the very best ones.

One more note, about late game. You don't have to stay on a minimum number of cities for ever, of course. Once all your cities have matured and you have a very solid economy, expansion is possible again. It is, however, not needed. New cities will take a lot of time to build, and will generate very little profit compared to what your already established ones give. You should have enough production capacity already, and you don't need new cities for wonders or things like that.

Of course, if you can start with a big, strong city, right away, that's another matter. So conquesting for new cities is still a good idea. Later in the game, once you have a solid economy, expansion through conquest will not hurt you. It depends on your style and diplomacy if you want to play like that of course, but it's an option. Should you go for conquest though, remember to raze most cities, and keep only the good ones.

Well, this has become a very long post. If you are still reading, let me know what you think. Personally I've been playing like this with great succes.

[ghen]

One sticking point with not expanding by size 3 is the AI will. If I'm going to take your route of MCS, I would forgo building all but maybe 1 settler and instead focus on taking enemy cities that are plopped down by mine. In the Extreme case on a standard map I don't have to build any settlers at all, allowing the AI to expand and work tiles before I take their size 2 or 3 city. Rarely do I take capitals because its hard, but I do take them.

To modify that to fit into MCS, I guess it would require razing cities and building new ones in optimal spots, but thats alot of hammers down the drain and very hard to do on higher difficultiesm wasting time building a settler. Personally I expand to about 6-9 cities early, and then do major expansions when I do infantry wars.

[Bluefusion]

On what difficulty do you play your MCS strategy?

[Diadem]

@ ghen -> Yes, that is a very possible strategy. If you're playing on one of those maps where the AI expands very quickly, taking a few of his cities is nice.

Razing enemy cities and building your own may seem like a waste, but if those enemy cities are badly placed it's actually a good idea. 2 badly placed cities are far less useful as one well placed city.

Of course, if those enemy cities are well placed, and you don't have too many yet, keeping them is the best option.

@ Bluefusion -> All of them. It's not a difficulty-specific strategy.

[fed1943]

I agree with Diadem about never build premature settlers (actually before my capital gets size 3 minimum not even workers).
But,just stop in 6 cities... what about resources?
I would like to ear from you about these resources point.
Best regards,

[nullspace]

I like it. A good city is easily worth two mediocre cities. I've been having most success with a strategy similar to this without thinking about it that much.

I think it's much more important to have population working good, improved tiles than it is to have many cities. My early strategy is based almost entirely on getting access to the best resource tiles, improving them, and working them. Settlers are expensive, and if the city isn't going to be strong soon, then I'll let the AI settle there and take it from them once it's worthwhile. Fighting an enemy who's been building settlers is easy when you haven't. On the other hand, if they obsturct my path to a good site, I'll fight right away.

I don't think you should purposefully limit yourself to few cities; a good city is always worth acquiring. But I agree that you should use the good terrain that you have before you try to get more.

[jerry247]

Interesting, I shoot for 9 cities usually, 8 in a circle and 1 in the middle. I get those out fast on borders and slow on edges of the continent/map. 9 fit nice together and give me 3 'super tmples' for my 3 culture cities. But slow sounds neat, I'll try it!

[The diplomat]

MCS sounds like a great strategy. I think one reason why MCS will work well is because civ4 encourages slow expansion.

Which leader traits would favorise this strategy the most? I am thinking the financial trait would probably not work well with MCS because you'd want a large empire to take advantage of the extra gold. On the hand, the Spiritual, Creative and Philosophical traits would probably work really well with MCS.

[Shr3dZ]

I like the sounds of this strategy too.

Im not at home right now but Im wondering one thing: In lets say 50 turns or so, would it be better to stick with 1 city, or go with a settler first and have 2. You said its better to have 1 good city than having 2 sucky ones. How large would your first city be on 50 or so turns, would you be working more tiles then than if you had 2 cities? Do you have any numbers to back up yer comments? I guess at least you would gain some turn-advantage by not wasting so many rounds building a settler eh...

[Mujadaddy]

Originally posted by Diadem
Razing enemy cities and building your own may seem like a waste, but if those enemy cities are badly placed it's actually a good idea. 2 badly placed cities are far less useful as one well placed city.

Of course, if those enemy cities are well placed, and you don't have too many yet, keeping them is the best option.

Did this last night: if you have a great artist hanging around, capture the enemy capital. It will generally be his best city (wonders, population, etc.). The great artist's Great Work will IMMEDIATELY end the resistance and give you 4000 culture...

Raze the other cities---you don't need the cultural pressure flipping the enemy capital back...

As far as MCS, I have been leaning on military conquest to win my games lately... using armies to get close enough to the Domination victory that no one can catch me... but I STILL use "myMCS" (and always have since Civ1) as I want my home cities to be the best. I'll often have 2 of the top 5 cities, even if they're "wonder-deficient," simply because I make 'em good.... oh, and the Top 5 Cities board is great for picking where your great artist is going next

[Aginor]

In Defense of Empire

Empire means resources. Luxuries, military units, production advantages. Copper, Iron, Coal, Oil, Uranium.

Empire means production. If I found a city that adds 10 gold/turn to my overall empire maintenance, and it produces more than 5 hammers/turn (need 10 if the Kremlin is operational), I am even...even if it contributes no commerce. Any buildings constructed (Forge, Market, Library, etc.) are investments in future production, of course. Else, a unit factory is just as efficient as more gold in my pocket at the end of the day. Discounting for the moment whether it brings a resource into my empire that I did not already have...which is one of the key reasons for expansion IMO.

More resources means happier, healthier, larger, more productive core cities than one has without empire.

He who has the most hammers (or gold coins substituting for hammers) and the most beakers wins. Admittedly, Civ 4 does an excellent job of ensuring that big does not necessarily equal more beakers. However, in the long run it does equal more hammers, and as one does not have to invest heavily in all types of infrastructure in all cities, those hammers can ultimately translate to a production advantage (as opposed to translating merely into buildings in a quest to make the cities productive).

Finally, *early* empire means fewer rivals. Your gain is your neighbors' loss. If there are two continents, and you can reduce your competition on your own continent to small and lagging in tech, victory is virtually assured. The modern era just flies by, and spaceships are going up by the time an effective modern assault force with ranged power projection capabilities could come online.

[Velociryx]

I dig parts of this strategy too....with the parts of being key.

There IS a lot to be said for vertical growth (and in fact, I'm working on a new article that addresses this very thing), but it should be noted that it DOES have it's disadvantages. These need to be addressed if you mean to build a viable strategy.

* If you don't grab the land, the AI will. This is true in SP, and it's doubly true in MP. Land = Power. The more land you have, the more power you have. This is at least partially addressed in the latter portions of Diadem's excellent post.

* Fewer cities means less margin for error. Lose one of 5-6 cities and you'll be hard pressed to recover, no matter how good they are (primarily this is because no matter how "good" a city is, it can still only build 1 thing per turn. During times of war, that means, at best, six units a turn (and it probably....realistically, it won't be that many)).

* Fewer cities also means fewer aggregate tiles worked. Six cities * 21 tiles = 126 tiles AT MOST. The greater bulk of the game, of course, you will be working far less than half of this total. A civ with a greater number of cities will invariably work more tiles, because smaller cities grow faster than bigger cities, and he'll easily surpass you in total outputs. Granted, they'll be more highly dispersed, but more is still more.

* Almost as bad as losing a city is pillaging. A small empire cannot afford to have even ONE tile pillaged. You're already not working very many tiles, and if so much as a single enemy troop gets through to pillage you, it HURTS. Much more than it would for the guy with 20-odd cities, who can take it (or even the loss of a city) on the nose without even blinking.

* It's inaccurate to say that an early worker or settler stalls growth. Speficically, it stalls vertical growth while fostering horizontal growth (with a net effect at near-zero). Sometimes, and for some specific strategies, you NEED vertical growth (for snagging wonders, for example), but horizontal growth is powerful in its own right. Granted, it might not be everybody's cup of tea (because it does involve micromanagement), but that takes nothing away from its power.

* It's highly start dependent. Average (or worse) start, and if this is your usual method of playing, you'll be sorely upset that you're not getting anywhere, and it might prompt you to just start over, when all it really would have taken was a focus on horizontal growth to get you over the hump.

* Some civs, and some starts cry out for a vertical start. Others do not. Play the "wrong" civ and the wrong traits or start this way, and you won't have a good time. The same is true on the flip side. For example, the creative trait CRIES OUT for horizontal growth, while Philosophical does the same for vertical. Both are right, in their appropriate context.

Not saying there's anything at all wrong with playing the game this way. It can obviously be very powerful. I've tried it myself to good effect. Just saying that if you are gonna experiment, you should be prepared for the downsides not mentioned in detail in the original post, and there are some.

Oh, and Diadem...Great post!

-=Vel=-

[Diadem]

Thanks for the comments everybody. I really appriciate them. I was hoping on a good discussion when I started this thread. So thanks

Some people asked about resources. Well, when you expand you keep in mind resources of course. Here you actually have an advantage at the gamestart. If you expand very early you won't yet know where the first three resources (horses, copper, iron) are. If you expand slower, you'll probably have already discovered at least the first two. So in placing your first cities you can already keep the locations of these resources in mind.

You won't know where the late game resources are of course. The bigger your empire the higher the chances of finding them. But if you have 6 cities, each quite cultured, odds of finding these in your empire are already quite decent. And anyway, by the time you discover these resources, your economy should be strong enough to afford you a few more cities.

Late game cities are much easier to make productive. You have better terrain improvements, allowing an equally sized city to do more, and you'll have better civics and buildings. More traderoutes too. The first difference is probably most important. A early farm gives one food, versus a fully upgraded watermill giving 1 food, 2 hammers and 3 commerce. That's a major difference. Your city can break even already on a much smaller size.

So MCS is really a strategy for the early and middle parts of the game. Later on, extra cities are much more cost-effective, thus can (and should) have more of them.

Regarding the question what traits would be best. Well, Creative is not much use I think. That's something for large empires. When you have only a few cities, but each one has a library and other culture-giving improvements, maybe even wonders, the culture bonus isn't going to do much. The same is true for Organized. With less upkeep cost, a reduction on this is less effective, obviously.

A good trait is Expansive. Contrary to what the name of this trait implies, I think this trait is actually less effective with large empires. For the simple reason that with smaller cities health is less of a problem. When you have only a few highly optimized cities, they will be bigger, and thus they will be more likely to have health problems.

Industrious, Philosophical and Spiritual of course go well with this strategy. Any good implementation of MCS will use wonders and great people a lot. And no anarchy is always useful. Aggressive, well, I don't think this strategy has much effect on the weak and strong points of that trait, so that's about as good as it always was.

The Financial trait I'm undecided about. With less tiles being worked you'll have less bonus, but each one counts more since you'll be using the money more effectively. In the extreme case of an OCC game, Financial is actually a pretty good trait, so I expect it to work here as well.

Well that's enough for one post. I'll respond to Aginor and Velociryx in a seperate post. I hope I forgot noone else.

[Diadem]

Re: In Defense of Empire

Originally posted by Aginor
Empire means production. If I found a city that adds 10 gold/turn to my overall empire maintenance, and it produces more than 5 hammers/turn (need 10 if the Kremlin is operational), I am even...even if it contributes no commerce.

But it does not work that way. Those 5 hammers are nice to have, but you can't turn them into science. If you have serious problems with your production, like if you can't build enough units to defend your empire, than this is a good tradeoff. But that is normally not the case. Because of course you'll make sure to have a few good production cities among your select few.

Besides, a city is an investment as well. You need to invest in a settler, a worker, defence. With 5 hammers a turn it takes a loooong time to just win back the cost of your city, and meanwhile you'll be falling behind on money and tech. And while it's building forges and granaries and other more or less essentional city upgrades, it's not doing anything useful either. An investment in futher production? Yes, sure, but meanwhile you're falling behind in tech...

More resources means happier, healthier, larger, more productive core cities than one has without empire.

Yes, resources are important. They can be a valid reason to build new cities. But if you place your cities strategicly you can already get a lot of resources in your cultural bounderies even with only a few cities. Of course you're making sure that each of your cities has at least 3 border expansions

He who has the most hammers (or gold coins substituting for hammers) and the most beakers wins.

He who has the most net gold, hammers and beakers wins. That's an important disticntion. If I make 1000 commerce / science and only have to use 50 of those for upkeep, I'm better of than someone who makes 1200 but has to use 300 for upkeep.

Admittedly, Civ 4 does an excellent job of ensuring that big does not necessarily equal more beakers. However, in the long run it does equal more hammers, and as one does not have to invest heavily in all types of infrastructure in all cities, those hammers can ultimately translate to a production advantage (as opposed to translating merely into buildings in a quest to make the cities productive).

Yes, but you need a lot more hammers as well. First to get all those cities, then to improve and defend all those cities. Then to make all those cities productive. In the end a large empire has more hammers, I give you that, but it will take you a long time to get there, and in the meantime I will have more hammers. And more beakers too.

Finally, *early* empire means fewer rivals. Your gain is your neighbors' loss. If there are two continents, and you can reduce your competition on your own continent to small and lagging in tech, victory is virtually assured. The modern era just flies by, and spaceships are going up by the time an effective modern assault force with ranged power projection capabilities could come online.

There's nothing that stops you from destroying rivals without taking all their cities. Genocide is a lot of fun. When I eliminate someone, I usually take over his capital, and sometimes a few other key cities. But most get razed.

[Diadem]

Originally posted by Velociryx
I dig parts of this strategy too....with the parts of being key.

There IS a lot to be said for vertical growth (and in fact, I'm working on a new article that addresses this very thing), but it should be noted that it DOES have it's disadvantages. These need to be addressed if you mean to build a viable strategy.

Every strategy has its disadvantages. Even MCS has them, I admit. No strategy is applicable in every conceivable situation. You might notice that I've given my strategy in quite generic terms. This is on purpose. I don't consider filling in all the details useful. They are much too dependent on circumstances. There is not a single strategy better than thinking for yourself and adapting when it's needed.

There are probably plenty of situations where some parts of MCS aren't applicable. There might even be situations where the entire strategy fails, though hopefully there aren't too many of those

* If you don't grab the land, the AI will. This is true in SP, and it's doubly true in MP. Land = Power. The more land you have, the more power you have. This is at least partially addressed in the latter portions of Diadem's excellent post.

This is a problem. I've had games where the AI stole my expansion site the very turn my settler arrived there. So annoying. This is heavily map dependent though. On Islands maps this is much less problematic, and bigger maps seem to give more space per civ as well. On more cramped maps, and high difficulties, you probalby have to build your settler a bit before your city maxes out, so size 3 or something.

I have very little experience with MP, so I'm not sure here. I think other humans expand a lot less fast than the AI, even if they try to expand aggressively. They simply lack all the extra starting units AIs have. Also humans will be less happy about expanding very far away, because of distance costs. So there will be a lot less danger of good early expansion spots being taken before you can take them. Unless you start very close to someone of course.

However a lower hammer capacity could be more dangerous on multiplayer. Human foes will be a lot more effective in attacking and exploiting weaknesses. So I'm not sure how effective a very small number of cities is in multiplayer. However even if more cities is better, overexpansion will still cripple you. And human foes will exploit that weakness more effectively as well!

* Fewer cities means less margin for error. Lose one of 5-6 cities and you'll be hard pressed to recover, no matter how good they are (primarily this is because no matter how "good" a city is, it can still only build 1 thing per turn. During times of war, that means, at best, six units a turn (and it probably....realistically, it won't be that many)).

True. Entirely true, and one of the drawbacks of MCS. However if you put some priority in military you should be able to sustain an adequate defence. A good road network and large pillage zones helps a lot as well.

Hmm, I gtg now I think. I'll reply to the rest of your post later. Your comments are really interesting, and I thank you for them. I will certainly respond to them at a later time.