How many cities in an empire?

[ChrisShaffer]

Take a look at the world map in the lower left corner of the GameSpot diplomacy screenshot - http://gamespot.com/gamespot/images/..._screen002.jpg . The Germans have fourteen cities, and from what can be seen that's #1. At the bottom right, you can see it's 1620 AD, so pretty late in the game.

Makes me wonder how many cities there will be in an empire? Is this an example of a small game, or are all the players just slow to build cities, or did the anti-ICS measures really work that well?

Inquiring minds want to know...

[Ralf]

Im all positive to anti-inflationary game-design measures.

In Civ-2 you could always expand yourself to 100% assured success. With the exception of added micro-management, bigger was always and only better. Not so in Civ-3, I hope.

[Footie Mad]

I like this to, a large population should not mean immediate succes as it did in civ 2, there are many real life examples of this but who cares? I just think it will make the game more fun.

[Ribannah]

There have been taken at least three anti-ICS measures:

(1) Producing Settlers costs TWO population heads instead of one
(2) Producing Workers costs a population head
(3) No cities on mountain tops

Of course we can now play OCC-Colony sleeze

[General Ludd]

Size of the empire is directly related to the size of the map. As you can see, in that game the map is completely full, if they where playing on a larger map, there would likely be more cities.

But yes, they have taken some steps to reduce the speed and efficiency that an empire can expand at.

[ChrisShaffer]

Originally posted by Osweld
Size of the empire is directly related to the size of the map. As you can see, in that game the map is completely full, if they where playing on a larger map, there would likely be more cities.

Um, yes, true, but that was the point of the original question. What size is this map? Does the screenshot show a small, medium, or large map? It's obvious that if they were playing on a larger map there would be more cities. What I asked was "is this a large map, if not how much larger can they be?"

[Footie Mad]

Originally posted by Ribannah
There have been taken at least three anti-ICS measures:

Of course we can now play OCC-Colony sleeze

Must I remind you of one of the gaming commandments: THOU SHALT NOT SLEEZE/CHEESE

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by ChrisShaffer


Um, yes, true, but that was the point of the original question. What size is this map? Does the screenshot show a small, medium, or large map? It's obvious that if they were playing on a larger map there would be more cities. What I asked was "is this a large map, if not how much larger can they be?"

The word is that the maximum size will be 6x as large as in Civ2.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

I like the fact that you can build as many cities as you want, and not to have some artificial border, like in CTP when you had unhapiness increasing to unplayable level after you reached certain number of cities, and if yo uconquered some more you had to disband them to keep unhapiness at bay which made the gameplay worse for me.

[barefootbadass]

You won't be able to expand as fast as in civ2, sure, but it will be even more important to expand as rapidly as you can and put your cities closer together when low on room, so you can get more armies, or at least this is what I would expect. But I may be wrong, there may also be cultural penalties(or missing out on cultural bonuses) for having lots of small cities.

[dearmad]

My guess is that that map is a pretty small one- judging by the white square displaying what is on the screen. However, I am all FOR less cities in the game overall to avoid the headaches of twenty+ cities- it becomes less a story of the history of my empire and too much about numbers and one city begins to blur into the other and it all turns bland... I want my cities to be numbered so that they have more "personality" to them: "ah, this is my big west coast port, and this is my hearltand food producer, and here I am checking in on the secret desert technology research center, and whoops- Barbarians near my souther outpost!?" THAT is what makes the game for me.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave
I like the fact that you can build as many cities as you want, and not to have some artificial border, like in CTP when you had unhapiness increasing to unplayable level after you reached certain number of cities, and if yo uconquered some more you had to disband them to keep unhapiness at bay which made the gameplay worse for me.

There must be rubberband-limits how many cities you can have without gradually increasing domestic problems. Otherwise we go back to square one: just expand yourself to 100% assured success, Civ-2 style.

I dont like CTP-style unhappiness directly because of size only, but rather increasing corruption and economical burdens, and perhaps unhappiness and potential revolts indirectly because of these latter factors.

Finally; its also VERY important that small empires is given some counter-balancing attractive advantages that huge empires dont have (and vice-versa, of course). Perhaps really big individual cities is easier to nuture in small empires, then in huge empires? Or something like that.

[DarkCloud]

The First thing I am going to do if 16 cities is the best I can do in a game... I will change the terrain to produce 10 food!

I like big cities
I like big empires

If I switch civs in the middle of the game it makes it extremely challenging!

[Inverse Icarus]

firaxis said maps could be 6x larger than those of civ2. so i guess this is a rather small map.

the "viewing square" is a thrid of the map in height, and a fifth of the map in width.

[Executor]

Originally posted by Ribannah
There have been taken at least three anti-ICS measures:

(1) Producing Settlers costs TWO population heads instead of one

Democracy and a 50% Luxury rate will fix that. Once your population goes through the roof, you won't have to worry about losing two citizens instead of one.

Originally posted by Ribannah
(2) Producing Workers costs a population head

Same as above.

Originally posted by Ribannah
(3) No cities on mountain tops

I never built cities on mountaintops anyway. If I needed a defensive city, I placed it on a hill.