How many cities in an empire?

[ChrisShaffer]

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.

I'm pretty sure there isn't a population boom in Civ3, so I don't think that democracy + luxuries will significantly increase population size. At any rate, democracy comes pretty late in the game and newer cities will have lower culture ratings....

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Executor
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.

You talking about Civ-2, and Civ-2 style democracy. What makes you believe they havent tweaked democracy differently in Civ-3? We just dont know yet how the game-mechanics actually works yet, do we? They have added both anti-ICS measures (and they are more then those Ribannah counts up) and anti-BAB measures (bigger is always better) in Civ-3.

Why, for instanse should republic/democratic city-pops jump up 1 point for each and every "We love the King day"? Its an obvious misguided bonus that only gets misused by some veteran players. Also, in Civ-2 there where no effective rubber-band limits in how many cities your empire could found, without increasing economical problems, and as a result of the latter; increasing political unrest.

[Admiral PJ]

I may be wrong, but it appears each city may cost an amount of maintenance (in money or pooled shields), according to civ3.com,
that states Colonies don't need upkeep or maintenance unlike Cities, upkeep being building upkeep.

If SO, city proliferation(lots of cities) will be penalised by costing money even for small 1 sized cities.

After all no new 'city' (colony?) is self supporting, needing outside support.. perhaps early city support could be another limiter (or just make Settler units more expensive to make some cost as that for building up the houses and infrastructure of new city)

It makes me question wether resource Colonies (ie plantations) should be free to maintain, maybe they could after a Tech of Colonisation is received, see my new Scenario
Colonial Empires which actually encompasses the whole civ timespan from 4000bc to 2100ad roughly

LordPeter

[Roman]

I am all for anti-ICS and anti BAB measures, but I hope Firaxis doesn't confuse those with artificial limits like the 255 city limit in Civ II. I truly hate those limits.

[Admiral PJ]

I do hope theres a good City rebbelion model too..
what better way to reduce ICS than have your cities turn against you and join another civ/barbarians, and i mean 1 city at a time,
not just the Civil war thing from the old Civs.

Hmm I think I would sell my mother to buy the Civ3 game
Its sounds exciting , I just hope it won't distract from making my own God strategy scifi game (but hey gameplay is RESEARCH like i tell my family )

[Executor]

It all depends on what Firaxis decides should happen when a Republican/Democratic city is under We Love the President. If there's still a population boom, then I won't have to worry about rebellions with 50% Luxury and a decent Culture rating. Even maintenance won't be a problem, as the cities will pay for themselves in a dozen turns. Democracy is a cash cow anyway.

[lockstep]

Wasn´t the SMAC equivalent to Civ2´s "We Love The Leader Day" called "Golden Age"?

Perhaps, in Civ3 a city full of happy citizens does not mean a population boom, but the same thing that can occur also once in your whole empire: all worked tiles contribute one additional trade and shield per turn.

[campmajor!]

I just hope there won't be absolute limits like in ctp.

I really hated it when I conquered the weak AI civ and finding out that I now had too many cities.
There is no such thing as too many cities!
The bigger the empire the more culture you should have, because people will be proud to be member of this big empire!

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by campmajor!
I just hope there won't be absolute limits like in ctp.

I really hated it when I conquered the weak AI civ and finding out that I now had too many cities.
There is no such thing as too many cities!
The bigger the empire the more culture you should have, because people will be proud to be member of this big empire!

I agree,

And if you dont like to deal with more than 20 cities play on a small map.

It should not be so easy to expand and win as it was, but if it is still easy to expand and win, Firaxis should teach AI to use ICS, and than the game will become even more challenging.

It would really hurt gameplay if you got to some artificial limit in happines or corruption, where there was no improvement or science to help you advance ovet that. The only point is to teach the AI too.

[Barnabee]

For me the real question is the number of civ than you can play at the same time. There was quite a huge debate a few months ago but I didn't followed it really up to the end. Could someone tell me if Firaxis has made an official announce about it??
I fear now that you could only face 7 civs in a world 6x bigger than the biggest in civ2 which would let far too much space to expand whithout limit.....


anyone can inform me? thanks

[campmajor!]

Well Firaxis has announced that standard there are 8 civs max in the game, so 7 opponents. But it can be tweaked to 14 opposing civs, only some screens will not be able to support that....

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by campmajor!
I just hope there won't be absolute limits like in ctp.

I really hated it when I conquered the weak AI civ and finding out that I now had too many cities.
There is no such thing as too many cities!
The bigger the empire the more culture you should have, because people will be proud to be member of this big empire!

Sorry, but larger empires do not necessarily mean better empires. (Look at Rome, 18th-19th century England, 16th-17th century Spain - and the problems they had maintaining a far-flung empire once they became huge) Having restraints on your empire based on size is a good thing, because it forces a player to not just ICS, or roll over smaller empires because he now has double the production capability of the next ranked civ in place due to the fact that he has just conquered a lot of cities. Don't get me wrong, if you like to play the game as a conqueror, so be it, but there should be consequences to that approach. (It may mean that you build less cities during the course of the game to take into account a militaristic bent.)

Personally, I would rather not have the 'blank check' approach of no limits, because then I have to consider the consequences of my strategy - which makes for a more challenging game.

(...misconception about CTP setup - there is a happiness penalty due to exceeding the empire size or distance limitation, but this penalty also translates into a higher crime rate which eats away gold/food/production - i.e., the corruption effect.)

[Inverse Icarus]

there is no "luxury rate" in civ3. luxuries are now resuorces you have to link via road.

[Executor]

Originally posted by UberKruX
there is no "luxury rate" in civ3. luxuries are now resuorces you have to link via road.

Are you sure? That will make it kind of hard to keep your citizens happy. What about the tax and science rates?

[Andrew1999]

A couple of other things I noticed in the map screenshot were:

1. The civs expanded pretty much evenly (looks like 10-15 cities each). In SMAC you'd usually have a couple of expansionist factions with 20 bases each and the rest would have two or three.

2. The AI colonized new continents and islands. Again, in SMAC they would usually just stick with whatever land mass they started on and leave half the world empty.

Both of these were also problems sometimes in Civ 2, but they were much more noticeable in Alpha Centauri.