What does your empire look like?

[Biwin]

I've seen a lot of different styles when it comes to choice of expansion strategy. Some people, myself included, prefer taking all nearby cities and growing outwards
in an ever-expanding blob of resource buildings and markets, whereas a lot of my guildies seem to prefer having small bases dotted all over the map, sometimes in multiple sectors.

Which method do you use and why?

[MechaStorm]

For my first cap i take a strong city within 1 hr away by troops. It also depends on how the world is working out so far.generally the clusters are very secure but it limits your choices of capping. i go with the attack anything thats strong then build a cluster surrounding it. so i have bases on many different sectors

[Karl302]

I started with one cluster of 10 then built another north and south of my original cluster now I have one massive cluster of 167 city's. My end game is to be in 100% control of this region.

[foehammer47592]

I try to avoid super clusters. They are too tempting for enemy guilds to cap. That being said, I still tend to build in clusters of four or five. If I cap a big city in a new region, I will slowly build a new support cluster there of defense cities to protect it.

However, I have seen guilds build super clusters that take up an entire corner of the globe, without a single barbarian city in the midst of them. That is the ultimate goal eventually, but in that scenario you are intermixed with friends/allies and not just by yourself.

[Kur0r0]

I'm definitely with you, Biwin. I like to grow out my own cluster, taking all the nearby cities first, then expanding outwards like a blue plague =D.

I do this because a) it's easier for me to manage the cities, b) it's faster to send resources in between cities, and c) it just looks more intimidating and difficult for enemies to pick off.

I'm sure (lots) of players will disagree with me, however =P

[Biwin]

I'm with you Kur0r0. There's definitely a psychological impact on the enemy when your cities cover an entire screen.

[MechaStorm]

for me i think that huge clusters of one person takes the appearance away. i think that if you have a super cluster that many of your guild should have cities not just one person. cuz if its only one person then its easy to make a war plan on him/her. if there are many of your guild members then the enemy will think twice about thinking such a power region. thats my view on city cluster

[Biwin]

I agree Mecha, but in the case of my guild (#2 guild on W85) we're relatively scattered over 4 different sectors. We've developed "squads" for each sector for easy communication, but my nearest guildmate is still a good 4-5 hour scholar walk from me, and I started surrounded by players who ended up barbing out early, so it was easy for me to grab tons of land in the immediate area early on. I found that doing this set me up for a much stronger expansion in the later game as it made resource shuffling and supporting cities under siege to be a whole lot easier.

[LordFirefall]

That works if you're surrounded by blue and green.

[MechaStorm]

but for me on w63 #1 we began by mass attacking one region at a time. first we cleared out r22 then began spreading out like a plague. this worked very effecively because we each targeted someone right next to each other regardless of points. because for us it doesnt matter who gets the most points since we act together. whe we first began killing the enemy base in r20 i was alone in a sea of red but we made a takeover op together and we cleared out that area well