How many cities do you build and around what turn

[Dreepa]

That's what I was wondering. Do we have city spammers? Or 1 city only challengers?

What is your pace and when do you build a new city? How far away from the starting sektor? Any specializations you prefer in those first cities? Any milestones you see viable for going for the next city? Any particular power progression?

Curios to know!

 

[Ethorin]

need a food, an energy, and a research in the first 3, ideally the energy will also be production. Sometimes landmarks will warp this and sometimes the terrain is just bothersome.

 

[RNGesus322]

Generally you want 4-5 cities by turn 30 at least. Success rate depends on how lucky you are with getting settlements.

My opening build is usually +15 Food building -> Scout -> Colony Defense Building -> Colonizer, and I use the starting stack and scout to find a suitable place for the second colony. With luck you can get a settlement around the same time as your first colonizer, and then have 3 cities by around turn 15.

 

[Scottgun]

Along these lines, what kind of sectors do you look for colonization vs. annexing?

 

[gholin]

Man, I'm slow at expanding. Always buiiding up my cities instead of making colonizers...

Good to know I need to be quicker!

 

[Dreepa]

Does it work to build tall instead of wide? Anyone tried it?

 

[CodingFox]

Generally you want 4-5 cities by turn 30 at least. Success rate depends on how lucky you are with getting settlements.

My opening build is usually +15 Food building -> Scout -> Colony Defense Building -> Colonizer, and I use the starting stack and scout to find a suitable place for the second colony. With luck you can get a settlement around the same time as your first colonizer, and then have 3 cities by around turn 15.

Oh my, by turn 60, close to the end of Vanguard mission 1, I had two colonies

 

[IloveSteak]

i usually end up with 3 colonies or so.

 

[Frank327]

My pace is roughly one colonizer every 8 turns and saving all my influence at the start to absorb the nearest independent colony. So 5 cities at turn 30.

Of course the colonization slows down after that.

 

[Madzai]

Does it work to build tall instead of wide? Anyone tried it?

I don't think "tall" works well unless you're super lucky with Landmarks and other bonuses, because no matter what you'll get more unhappy citizens than you can support with various +happiness effects in a single Sector. And you need energy. A lot of it. So a bunch of cities is necessary. You should probably aim to try making at least one Sector dedicated to various unit empowerment bonuses, but aside from that you need a bunch of Sectors with energy focus.

 

[Scottgun]

Oh my, by turn 60, close to the end of Vanguard mission 1, I had two colonies

For the campaign fewer colonies works because you are mostly chasing story elements.

 

[Jolly Joker]

I think, it depends also on the settings you play, especially concerning "speed". I play slow (following what I did in AoW 3), but slow seems still to be quite fast, so I imagine "normal", which probably is what everyone is talking about here, will be faster, still.
I don't think, there is a good recipe. You'll always have an option to overtake a colony of your race in your vicinity, and new founding should come once you have cleared a sector that offers good annexing options you don't have yet. Cosmite rift, I'm looking at you.
So I'd say 3 is an early standard at around turns 10-20, depending on the actual lay of everything and the settings. Then it's depending - for example, on density of other players and map style: you may be surrounded by initially inhospitable terrain (water, mountains) and opponents with claims and whatnot and at war, before you can do more, but generally spoken, you should try to fill a vacuum, but not at all costs.

 

[Sarmatian]

Yeah, nothing penalizes you for going wide, except having to defend more territory.

That seems to be a major flaw in basic game design.

Techs don't change their cost based on number of cities, there are no maintenance/corruption/distance penalties.

No reason not to spam cities, because by expanding, you gain more energy and production, thus negating the only downside (having to defend more territory).

 

[Madzai]

No reason not to spam cities, because by expanding, you gain more energy and production, thus negating the only downside (having to defend more territory).

Also some techs increase the speed of moving inside your own territory so it isn't rally a downside...

 

[Dreepa]

I am gaming since the 90s, and be it friends, or internet, over all the years I have always heard the same complaint: Managing too many colonies is not fun, but repetitive. I even have some friends that think Master Of Orion 1 is better than MOO2, because it had less micro of colonies.
Yet, every 4X that I play, with the exception of CIV5, has colony spam and super repetitive build-order management. It's really weird.

 

[Gyor]

Oh my, by turn 60, close to the end of Vanguard mission 1, I had two colonies

By the end of the Vanguard Turtorial I had like 3-4 colonies and two Colonizers.

 

[steinernein]

Yeah, nothing penalizes you for going wide, except having to defend more territory.

That seems to be a major flaw in basic game design.

Techs don't change their cost based on number of cities, there are no maintenance/corruption/distance penalties.

No reason not to spam cities, because by expanding, you gain more energy and production, thus negating the only downside (having to defend more territory).

30 Cosmite(sp) 100 Energy is a pretty hefty cost early game. It's still a pretty big tax even through mid game when you want to be flooding the map with units/armies/upgrades or when you're building your end game weapons which are 50c each.

If you're building cities and not units, then the old question comes back which is, "Why build cities when I can just take them over?"

I guess if you aren't warmongering then you have a case of making cities everywhere but then that will piss off the AI eventually.

 

[steinernein]

I am gaming since the 90s, and be it friends, or internet, over all the years I have always heard the same complaint: Managing too many colonies is not fun, but repetitive. I even have some friends that think Master Of Orion 1 is better than MOO2, because it had less micro of colonies.
Yet, every 4X that I play, with the exception of CIV5, has colony spam and super repetitive build-order management. It's really weird.

MOO1 did it correctly with them sliders. Now if only someone combined those war plans/campaigns from HoI with MOO1 then it would be awesome -- zero micromanagement and all strategery.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

As the game is designed, you really must go for early cities somehow. It can be with colonizers, settlements, or conquest, preferably a combination of all three, but you have to get those cities. As others have said, you just run out of energy extremely quickly otherwise and cannot keep up unit production. Skipping cities is outright suicide and the biggest contributor to your capabilities is how many cities you have. Building cities up is also a bit of a trap. More units are usually better than city buildings, beyond sector exploitations and necessary buildings like happiness and military infrastructure.

 

[Ethorin]

More units are usually better than city buildings

well, you know, except all the buildings that make units vastly better/let you make more of them/let you HAVE breadbasket cities...

... ... ...Imma be honest, outside of some more situational racial buildings I have no idea how someone would come to the conclusion that buildings are bad.