Balance

[Silentradar]

Clearly I have a complex (possibly from Civ II) where I feel the need to expand significantly early on. I have this fear of loosing ground (ie territory) as my neighbours crawl up my ass, boxing me in.

How do you balance expansion, with being bale to afford it? I haven't mastered the art of warfare in CIV IV yet, is the best way to expand to simply fight your way to it, or raze nearby cities so the territory is always available, or at elast available once I have the money to go?

I think if I could get the first 200 turns figured out a little better I would be seeing a lot more success.

[BeBMan]

If you raze cities make sure you have a settler available to settle yourself in free territory asap, before the AI does it again (sometimes it's so fast that they must have had settlers in reserve.....). Otoh if you raze or not depends largely on the situation.

[joncnunn]

The easy check is periodically check what your break even point currently is rather than waiting for money to drop to zero and having it automaticly lowered.

If you city after founding a city that your break even science percentage points same turn after founding is 20% (or more) below founding it, that's a good sign that you shouldn't be building any more cities for a while because it falls off like a cliff from there.

Things that really help:
Being Organized. (-50% upkeep right there). And faster Court Houses
Being Financial. (Extra gold along all tiles producing 2 already really helps along rivers)
Great Lighthouse (coastal cities only; works best if there's enough foreign routes)
Currency (The +1 trade route everywhere; works best if there's enough foreign routes). Same tech also allows Market Places.
Courthouses (in proportion to how far away from the capital the city is and how many cities you have)
Harbors (coastal only, but really only if the city has foreign trade routes)

Multiple Religious Shrines though amount to the best thing you can do; without any you are very limited compared to having one, and a second is a remarkable improvement. This appears to have dimensioning returns at the third in part due to the time needed to have a 3rd Great Prophet.

[Willem]

If you city after founding a city that your break even science percentage points same turn after founding is 20% (or more) below founding it, that's a good sign that you shouldn't be building any more cities for a while because it falls off like a cliff from there.

I haven't a clue what you're trying to say here. Do you think you could rephrase it a little more clearly please?

[CerberusIV]

He means that if you have to cut your science rate by 20% after you found a city in order to keep your gold income the same then it is time to stop expanding until you can improve your economy (at least I think that's it).

It can depend on how good potential city sites are and other factors. On a standard map I tend to found 4-5 cities quickly then pause. If I am isolated I will wait for courthouses before expanding further. If there are AI's nearby I will look for a source of metal and research Construction whilst they build my next cities for me.

[Blaupanzer]

If the AI is not at war, it will tend to build one more settler than space allows. These settlers hang around waiting for an opportunity. So ... when you raze a city, more than one settler that can reach that spot will move out immediately. The AI seems accutely aware of other settler stacks and will found a city on semi-decent ground just to beat the others to that area.

Later in the game, when you can see the cities of selected AI opponents, look for these settlers. Unless the AI just launched one in a ship they will always be there.

[Unimatrix11]

Allow me to doubt, Blaupanzer, not your observation, but your conclusion: Maybe the AI does not build (# of settlers for empty space +1), each, but rather exactly the amount for open space and then they beat each other to a site, with the result that approximately each of them ends up with an extra settler. I havent thought this through, and thus dont know if it makes logic sense - just a doubting thought...

[joncnunn]

Here's a typical example early in the game where you've already built a few cities and break even point is currently say 70% science. If founding one more dropped the break even point down to 50% science, your about to fall off the cliff. [Your looking at the science rate needing to drop to about 20% for the city after it]

By contrast, if founding that one city merely dropped break even point to 60% science, it's generally ok to found another one.