Strategy question: how many cities to build?

Not sure there is a real answer to this question, um...I would try and build at least 4, 2 cities, 1 conclave and 1 fortress.  But it really depends on your map, number of opponents  and any number of other variables.  Probably, you should build as many cities you can get away with building without pissing off any big monsters.  But an early 4 city build is a good start I guess.

Thanks. I'm currently on a huge map with 6 opponents. Now in mid-game it just seems like having only one fortress is holding me back. I'm trying to make some dragon killer units and they take 7 turns each. By the time I have an army of them that dragon will stomp my countryside

My best 4x experiances have included empires consisting of 7-12 cities.

When it comes to FE, I try to push towards that end in the hopes of adding another 'best' to the books.

I would think that only 1/4 cities needs to be a Fortress.

The rest would depend on available essence, but I'd try to split Conclaves and Towns equally.

Generally, you want to aim for:

Enough Towns to make a 2 grain non-town reach level 5 without researching the 10 food/grain repeatable; I focus Material options at 4 and 5, unit HP at 3.

Enough Forts to have a negative Faction-wide unrest equal to or better than the unrest due to # of cities; I focus unit HP at 3, unrest at 4, and unrest at 5 (but only if my Faction-wide unrest is not keeping up with my # of cities unrest - otherwise, I'll take one of the other level 5 options).

As many Conclaves as humanly possible while satisfying the previous two options. I build Oracle, +2 Crystal, and +2 Fire power (assuming I have access to fire spells, which I almost always do). This ensures a high research (less important on Fast or Normal tech pacing, but I play Epic almost as a rule).

Thx all. So first city; Conclave, Town or Fortress?

Just trying to hone my game starts.

generally speaking, a single conclave with up to date research buildings can carry you through most of the tech tree. it will get a bit slow in the later stages, so you may want to build a few more later on. specialization is key here. research buildings (both the sage line and the study line) are top priorities. the mana buildings(herbalist/apotecary/alchemist) are nice to have, but research is more important.  

towns are a good option for all those mediocre tiles with no essence. they really don't need much to be worthwhile. they will add lots of gold and food to your civ. ignore science buildings in towns until you run out of production/gold/food/happiness buildings. consider at least one town on a high production tile (2/4/0 or 1/5/0 or something with a forest) - this town will build your brewery, merchantcross bazaar and other high production buildings. 

you'll probably only need one fortress for troops. make sure it either has very good production (for example a 2/5/0 tile with forest) to crank out basic units quickly, or several essences (2, preferably 3). an essence fortress will probably have less production, but with the super powerful passive unit enchantments (+inititative and fire damage) your elite troops will be really powerful, so you probably wont need that many. a few more fortresses for auxiliary troops and/or late game unrest reduction can be useful, too.

Nice. Thank you. 

What you want to start out depends on a few different things, with the two most important being: What your starting area has to offer (assuming you don't spam Ctrl+N or explore for better), and what your tech progression is on.

Epic tech progressions with a 2+ essence spot available in your start spot, Conclave is a given. If 1 or fewer essences are available to you, start with a Fortress. You're more likely to need quick/cheap early game unit construction than a high growth rate from food surplus. If you go with a Fort, prioritize Material, but try really hard not to go below 3 food, or this city will be a headache to level later in life.

Research is much less of a big deal on faster tech progressions, so Conclaves aren't super important, but military might is, so if you see a 2 essence spot, turn that sucker into a Fortress.

If for some reason your start spot is really bad (and you don't have any tiles with 2+ essence or 4+ material), start with a Town, and try to expand ASAP.

If you're playing an Empire faction, you can build a lot of cities.  As you get more cities, it becomes more important to start them building them Workshop chain, as Slave Pens will nullify the Unrest penalty for Production (thereby circumventing part of the city count Unrest penalty).  Also, with Death Magic, you can have Oppression on the city until they complete the Slave Pens.  Once you have Slave Pens built, you don't need to reduce Unrest until you want that city to produce Research.

When expanding, keep in mind that if you get your additional cities' borders to connect to your first city's borders, they lose an Unrest penalty (I think it's 15% for not being connected).  If you don't have the option for manual building placement enabled already, you might want to enable that to accelerate this process (it also helps to avoid releasing nearby monsters from their lairs).

As for what to start out with, I usually grow my first city to a Fortress (if it has at 2+ essence) before making any Pioneers.  Cities won't down-level when the population drops.  Fortresses have a bigger production boost than the other city types, and they can build better units.  The essences are important because the city enchants you can play on the city to improve units produce increase the status by 1 per esssence.  So, if you put the fire enchant on a city with 1 essence, they only get 1 bonus attack, but if the city has 3 essences, you get 3 bonus attack (and in the case of the bonus attack, that bonus is multiplied by the number of people that make up the unit, which is 3 to start, so you're looking at a difference of 3 vs 9 attack total right there, and it's fire damage which isn't reduced by armor).  Air and Earth have the other good city enchants for training units.

I play on Insane difficulty with dense everything, so having a strong military early on is vital.  I also play Empire, and I make a lot of cities.

I once approached the question mathematically, trying to maximize production per turn.

I think the answer was something like 16. Or, to put it another way, optimum unrest per city is 50%. You get stronger per city until you surpass that point, then you get weaker.

Of course the benefits start out big, but curve near the edge. Going from 0 to 3% unrest is much more important than 40 to 43%.

In the end, you should just put a city in every location that is-

A- Desirable. High tile yields, rivers and forests. Also resource nodes.

B- Defensible. Must not be cut off from your army and inaccessible. Must not be located next to mobs you cannot kill.

Great tips from all of you. Thanks again. I've been incorporating thinys as I learn. 

I tend to make only 1 fortress (preferably with 3 essences), and then mainly conclaves, with an occational town to support those. Even as kingdom there isn't really any limit to how many cities you can have, as long as you expand slowly. Just make sure you only settle where there are good resource yields (preferably on tiles with atleast 1 essence, so you can cast bless if neccesary).

Also, don't forget to build outposts. I had usually ignored them, but they're critical to doing well in the game for a few reasons:

1. They give you access to resources to help your empire without adding unrest, as well as adding a Zone of Control (preventing the AI from taking the area initially).

2. Once you research the appropriate technology, a road will be built to that outpost, which makes it very handy for moving troops around.

3. Outposts (with the proper research) can build a tech to give the attached city +1 growth. This is a HUGE benefit. It will allow cities to crank out pioneers more often and/or level up more quickly. Very useful!

Regarding what to build, I know others have said only 1 fortress is needed. While that's somewhat true, I've found in my most recent game it's handy to have multiples mostly because Fortresses are excellent with production, too. You can put one down and have it crank through claiming and upgrading resources like crazy, in addition to being awesome at building much stronger units.