How quckly should I expand?

[Destroyer]

I just played my first game, and got my arse handed to me in the industrial era by the Romans.

I was reading the forums, and got the impression you can survive on a few cities. I literally had 6 main cities, with 3 smaller newly established ones.

The Romans ended up with 17...

When Augustus came for me, he had about 20 riflemen, to my 10 muskets, and thats not including the arty, and obviously the defenders he left behind. I was struggling to maintain my army, and had almost no income.

So is income still the limiting factor? I read its happiness. So if I am right, I can keep expanding no matter what my income is, as long as my happiness is positive. Is there a chart somewhere that shows what the unhappiness is caused by cities. IS there a sliding scale like civ4 maintenance?

I played on standard with normal size warlord with England

[Dinner]

I usually race to something like 8-10 and grab all the best spots with luxury resources. It's easy with the right civics.

[Wyrda Edocsil]

The unhappiness for your cities is about one per city, plus one per population point, and five per occupied city. I think it changes based on difficulty, though, so I'm not sure of the exact numbers.

[pdxsean]

Expansion is a tricky balance but smaller is usually better, especially in the beginning. I'm still trying to find the right pace to expand while seeking a space race victory.

When Augustus came for me, he had about 20 riflemen, to my 10 muskets, and thats not including the arty, and obviously the defenders he left behind. I was struggling to maintain my army, and had almost no income.

The AI will tend to have larger armies, but they're pretty incompetent so if you have a nice strategic mix of your own you can usually beat their larger forces in the field. You mention having ten muskets; you might try something like 5 muskets, two crossbows, two horse, and a trebuchet. Much easier to defeat the AI (or anyone) capitalizing on the strengths of each force.

And the AI doesn't leave any defenders at home, from what I've seen. Once you crush their front line, it's easy pickings as they struggle to make more units.

[pdxsean]

The unhappiness for your cities is about one per city, plus one per population point, and five per occupied city. I think it changes based on difficulty, though, so I'm not sure of the exact numbers.

If you hover the cursor over the happiness indicator on the taskbar, you can get a breakdown of the info. King difficulty, for example, provides 9 bonus happiness on a large map.

[Destroyer]

So, should I keep raising new cities until the happiness meter drops to about 4 or 5?

I guess the maintenence for cities remians zero if I dont build improvemnts.

Is there any indication of what units cost? Is it cheaper to field obsolete units, or should I disband old units and build new ones, if I cant afford to upgrade?

I really hate not having a slider for cash and research. Thats the worst change, imho.

[Jaybe]

King difficulty, for example, provides 9 bonus happiness on a large map.

Prince level through Deity all provide 9 bonus happiness (per the handicap xml), on any size map (I'm playing a huge map today). Warlord difficulty is 12 happiness.

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Destroyer, it's a balancing act -- there are no free lunches (or assured wins) in this game (yet). As far as buildings are concerned, they all have their place though you don't want to build them all everywhere because of their maintenance cost. Financial buildings are great, since they do NOT cost maintenance; neither do wonders. Build those financials where your gold is highest when they become available. If you are going to expand your population to near your happiness, you could end up having to restrict your growth (and therefore your research) so your happiness doesn't go negative. Also, your happiness surplus determines your full-length golden ages (I like mine in the 20-30 range). Trade for those luxuries!

Few cities are for those hoping to go for a culture victory or getting lots of social policies since your SP thresholds go up 30% per additional city (so I suppose you have to get more culture buildings (or WONDERS!) if you want to keep up).

Your F9 (demographics) can give you a guide as to how your military is, though you get identities only on the weakest & strongest that you've met.

Parenthetical overload -- sorry!

[Dinner]

I found that one the second highest difficulty setting the AI can field some massive armies and actually take a few cities during wars.