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Number of cities does affect corruption, but only due to rank. This means that my #2 city, once my entire core is settled, will remain my #2 city, no matter how many other cities I build. Going over the OCN (i.e. building many little corrupt towns in the far reaches of the world) does nothing to affect those inner cities.
Actually, I consider commercial the best for this, as it gives you more flexibility in tile assignment. Normally, the best thing to do is make sure the city nearest the capital gets any tile in question, to minimize corruption. With commercial's lower corruption, though, it's less of a hit to your bottom line to optimize production at the possible expense of uncorrupted raw gold. Since most of your growth is already done by this point, Agricultural is only a so-so trait for it, giving just the half price boost on what hospitals you do build. The extra city center shield from Industrious makes it a decent trait for it, along with the fact that those extra workers you're building in the process are better than everybody else's. So I'd say Com/Ind would probably be the best combo for it, with Agr running a good bit behind and the rest of the traits completely useless (for this technique only).
Since gold and science work on a national level, they aren't a major concern when "solomoning" (just make sure Copernicus/Newton go into a city you will be growing to max size). That's why shields are the driving force. What this does allow you to do, though, is keep your powerhouse producers and let the shrinking cities pick up the commerce from other tiles that abandonment would miss.
Actually, I consider commercial the best for this, as it gives you more flexibility in tile assignment. Normally, the best thing to do is make sure the city nearest the capital gets any tile in question, to minimize corruption. With commercial's lower corruption, though, it's less of a hit to your bottom line to optimize production at the possible expense of uncorrupted raw gold. Since most of your growth is already done by this point, Agricultural is only a so-so trait for it, giving just the half price boost on what hospitals you do build. The extra city center shield from Industrious makes it a decent trait for it, along with the fact that those extra workers you're building in the process are better than everybody else's. So I'd say Com/Ind would probably be the best combo for it, with Agr running a good bit behind and the rest of the traits completely useless (for this technique only).
Since gold and science work on a national level, they aren't a major concern when "solomoning" (just make sure Copernicus/Newton go into a city you will be growing to max size). That's why shields are the driving force. What this does allow you to do, though, is keep your powerhouse producers and let the shrinking cities pick up the commerce from other tiles that abandonment would miss.
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