It depends on what I'm lighting and the look I'm trying to achieve.

If I want a "naturalistic" look for an outdoor scene I may just use the sun.  I may add a second (occasionally a third) lower powered sun to soften areas in shadow and reveal things hidden in them.  I prefer this to using ambient light as it gives me more control.  I often work with ambience pretty much reduced to zero for all the materials in a scene.

If I'm lighting a figure I often use a traditional cinematic 3 light set up to compliment the natural lighting.

If I want dramatic lighting I'll use the number of lights required to achieve the effect I want.  I'd do the same if I were lighting a subject for a photograph or on stage.  For example for a night scene I was making recently of a woman holding a lantern near her head I used a cylindrical array of point quadratic lights to emit the light from the lantern to give it a more realistic look.  These lights were only set to illuminate the main figure and the floor.   A single low powered, blue tinged sun was used to add a bit of general illumination to the surroundings but excluding the main figure. I then used spot lights with mostly blue colouration to pick out bits of the surrounding space to make the final image more atmospheric.

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