I have been having fun on big maps.  I usually intend only to build 3ish cities but by late game I've accumulated many.  I either conquer them or find a nice spot in my travels and hate to see it go to waste.  Outposts are great too, hard to resist making those, and if they get sacked, why not make 2 more?

I think they are pretty close to a good mechanic though.  Something as simple as making your second city have no penalty against prestige might help.  If you are only going to make a couple of cities, they would grow very fast, but when you get over 4-5 your growth rate will most likely fall to 1 or 2 as it does currently.

Funny, I think the current system is rubbish

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Well, I try outpost, but it's kind of annyod me when monter or a.I destory outpost many time and I don't had time for that, I find it's far better had build city rather than outport, that just me. try to more time to get troop to guard those outpost while high level monther is not worth my time. I try to build best city

and not want waste time building for outpost to detoryed in mere turn..I try use city to build for outport, and it's not working but waste a turn, let alone more turn for troop to guard outport even that troop wasn't good guard, and not very strong againt other monster or army attack outpost when I want to force building city to be stronger in longer term and keep up with a.i.

Personal Outport is not that useful, maybe rare useful where it's not good to build city area but had a resource there but not good for area of city as long there is no monter roaming or no war with a.I or there is good city keep outport safe from a.i, funny I though outpost is should first line to keep city safe, but it's go other way.

To be honest, I build cities in every viable location only so the AI isn't able to snap up spots and compromise my tidy border.

I love to have 1 great city and have the trait where razing an enemy city transfers half the pop to my city and gives +2 per grain.  I play as if I am a maniacle Lord Ruler who must have all of humanity in the ONE True City... with outposts getting every shard and goodie I can.  It gives a bit of a challenge to keep up with kingdoms who might out reasearch or out produce with multiple cities... until I raze em.

At some point the AI will be good enough to force us to city spam or be destroyed. Hopefully that day is soon so we can complain about it.

Other problem is that for mage user need a lot of shard , so he can't had one city with most of time, only one shard, sometime no shard in start of game, rare had 2 shard but spam city on every shard he can get  to make power more powerful and resouce as well. Outport won't do since monter and a.i attack and destory it wihout fight, even fight milita not very good to hold it off. pay and build troop is lot of wage and one city isn't going to cover every outport army's wage as well.

Humility--that is why I put outposts on all those razed city sites.... lots of outposts bounding my borders, too, to claim the shards.  I am fighting for shards.  They power the magic to make all see that they must submit to my rule in the ONE True City.... mehehe.

Right you are, Ensais !  Outposts on every resource that doesn't require a city.  Outposts on every razed enemy city site.  Outposts behind your lines to extend empire boundaries and your Road Network.  Outposts are cheap; and a great tool ! ... notwithstanding that they sometimes are lost to wandering monsters, or enemy empires ...

Spam Outposts, not cities !          

I like your sentiments Ensais/OrionM42.

Unfortunately it does not stack up with the game mechanics right now.  Once you have a brewery each spammed city adds 1 to the population growth per turn.  That is an additional 0.1 gildar and production per city per turn.  5 cities after merely 10 turns means that you are 5 gildar and 5 production better off (disregarding improvements, which may favour one city slightly, and materials of new cities which favour many cities hugely).  After 100 turns having an extra 50 gildar PER TURN makes other strategies very weak.

Edit: sorry I am confusing gildar with research points.  You will only get a percentage of this as tax.  But the general tenet stands.

I have never built an outpost, all I have ever used is one big lvl 5 city (sometimes two) & then turn on tha war machine if so inclined (granted I did lose my last play, as I never made an army unit).  Outposts are one of those things I hope get love, like militia or guard units of sometype, for it will take this or some other big change for me to even consider using them.  Would be really nice if they had a small patrol group that would wander around in its general vicinity actually protecting those juicy spots yur wantin

Dunno about having few metropolises, since on the hardest difficulty, enemies eventually zerg you to death. 

I prefer having tons of towns, constantly building or training something.  I need those troops to counter the rest of the AIs. Plus, I like those captured towns as forward bases.

Granted, steamrolling's too easy.  Once half the huge continent's under control, game's practically over, regardless of the number of enemies left.

I really like this idea.