When to stop expansion?

[theDragon]

Ok. Given what I now know and have learned about Corruption Waste and some things about cities.. I am beginning to wonder if my strategy is somewhat flawed.. I expand as far as I can, taking whatever land is yet to be settled. I take EVERYTHING I can. First go after resources of coarse, but also expand until there is no where else to go.

However, I ask Apolyton what is the best option on this subject? Expand only enough where your cities will be working for your government the best you can, or do you just expand utterly regardless of the waste it may cost the country? Basic question: Expand and have many colony-type cities and wasteful cities on the fringe? Or Expand to a comfortable and efficent sized nation?

(resources should not play a factor because we would all jump ontop of an iron or oil resource; I am talking about open land where the success is not assured)

THANKS!

[chuckdelicious]

This was just discussed in the strategy section.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=130596

[Elda king]

Expand allways that you can, but keep in mind defense of new cities (both militar and cultural) and the growing of the city. Corruption and waste aren't important, if all your cities are good cities, strategical,rich or powerful.

[joncnunn]

It's a matter of playing style. The corruption model means if you don't want to form far flung island city sites, you don't have too.

Just be prepared to go end up having to conquer that nearby tundra island when it turns out you have no oil inside your territory, and that's the closest source.

An advanced topic is the forming of camps. (Temporary cities)
They just build barracks and units. And they get disbanded when the first of adjoining cities now needing to use too much of it and enough cities formed well past it that the camp is costing the empire more in terms of lost shields than it's bringing in itself.

This also means that if in one direction, the terriagn isn't as good as the others, that in that direction, the city should be slightly further from the capital than in the other directions. It's better to have poorer quality cities have higher corruption so the higher quality cities can have lower corruption.

[Shogun Gunner]

Expanding so fast that you don't have a few core cities at a decent size can really handicap your science. If you fall too far behind in science -- kiss the game goodbye.