Do we still get punished for having a large empire?

I don't really see the science penalty as that crippling to large empires. As long as you don't do ICS (which is cheap and cheasy anyway and they were right to nerf it) and make sure the cities you found are actually worth founding, the science output from a fully developed city should be more than enough to counterbalance the penalty. All the science penalty does is make sure that tall empires can compete with wide ones in the science race. Going wide is still very advantageous for basically all of the victory types, it's just not the no-brainer it once was (which is good, as it allows more gameplay variety).

Is going wide (with liberty) ever a good idea if you're going for non-domination victories?

it's a sub-optimal strategy for most civs, yet, going Trad/Lib hybrid is viable. King difficulty or below you can pretty much do what you want to do if you've grasped the game elements pretty well.

Marshall Thomas said:

Is going wide (with liberty) ever a good idea if you're going for non-domination victories?

Click to expand...

Just not very rewarding. It'll slow your win time a little and risks angering your neighbors. Past 5 or 6 cities you don't gain a lot in general by expanding. I used to say the balance was fine and going wide was as good as staying tall but if you want to win before turn 300 you really can't expand a lot anymore.

Going wide is good for two things imo:

Warmongering- Large empires can move troops quickly with a good road system and more troop factories can churn out more troops as needed, alleviating the need to gold purchase troops. You also irritate your neighbors which is actually a good thing for a warmonger, you can use that to manipulate your trade partners and allies to join in against the civ that just denounced you.

Tourism & Culture Shielding- Larger empires get more theming opportunities with more museums, have more landmarks and possibly have more natural wonders. Larger empires will also produce more culture in general. Even if you ignore tourism but are generating culture for SoPols you won't be heavily influenced by tourism civs most of the time. If you're not getting a lot of early wonders going wide may be your only option for winning a CV.

This is where the RTS get's it right and Civ simply refuses. Population is its on limiting factor. The problem is this... the buildings in Civ are all or nothing. One marketplace serves the entire city no matter how big the population is in the city. Certain buildings should only enhance parts of the population so that multiple buildings will be required to enhance the entire city if the city is large in population.

I can think of a number of buildings that could use this change. It is simply ridiculous that in my opinion that Civ ignores this. I truly believe this change would make you think about which buildings you want to build and thus add a layer of strategy that is lacking. That is not being able to build every building the game offers. Having to choose which buildings you build.

The simple answer to your question is: Yes.

IMO the designers wanted to place more emphasis on late game elements. To do so they put their thumb on the scales to prevent early expansion, by the human player at least.

The other contributing factors are the natural advantages of defense in this system. Numerical advantages are nullified by the 1up system, terrain advantages multiplied, city bombardment is OP. Plus the AI has no idea how to attack, but is very good at defending.

The unfortunate side effect of all this is a game with far less uncertainty. If you have any sense at all you can pretty much guarantee you won't ever be conquered. War is a momentary annoyance early on, and only an option later in the game if you're behind.

Happiness system is the only reason why I play FE:LH more over Civ5 these days.

(Plus the fact that I'm invincible to the AI isn't helping the matters any at all. Noone is a match for me when I go full tile autocratic on them.)

I managed to lose one of my cities for first time in 3 or 5 years? On FE:LH xD

Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes.

Does anybody know if the science and culture penalties for cities applies to the AI?

I don't know about "punished." I just finished my first HUGE MAP victory. Had a snow day today and was able to recommit. I went with Science. Seems like the only one that I could accomplish. It was pretty fun because there were no runaway civs. I felt like I had to expand my empire just to keep other Civs in check and to maintain resources like oil and coal. I was Spain, so I was on a wonder hunt. I ended up with three cities planted on wonders, which was pretty nice.

I admit that a better player probably would have won this game in much less time than I did, but I enjoyed steadily growing. Toward the end, I founded two cities just because I didn't want Russia to have any cities in my zone of control.

I never had a big problem with happiness. Order took care of that. However, I never got to pick a policy in the World Congress. And they cut off trading to city states, so that kind of sucked. I didn't know how to fix that. I never had much money. I found that with a large empire, almost all of my money was being spent on a military that was spread out on six different fronts. At the end of the game, I started deleting units, and I was amazed at how much money I was squandering on those suckers every turn.

More cities-more problems. I guess.

Well, for warmongers the science penalty is especially bad, because it triggers as soon as you take over the city, but the city won't actually do anything for you until it's out of rebellion. So, especially in late game, whenever you decide to go on that conquest spree, your science will basically freeze in place, and you'll only tech at a snail's pace. Earlier wars, when the population (and thus turns of resistance for newly captured cities) is lower, are not as bad, but teching then is arguably more important. So, it's lose-lose.

What each non-capital city needs to generate in science to be science-neutral in civ V (assuming it takes you 10 turns to get each tech):
Internet: 51
Telecommunications: 44
Ecology: 37
Penicillin: 30
Plastics: 24
Radio: 18
Electricity: 14
Scientific Theory: 9
Architecture: 7
Acoustics: 5
Medieval: 2
Classic/Ancient: 1

Pop in cities necessary to break even, with library, no specialists, no rationalism (as you can see, this is no longer realistic past industrial era):
Internet: 34
Telecommunications: 30
Ecology: 25
Penicillin: 20
Plastics: 16
Radio: 12
Electricity: 10
Scientific Theory: 6
Architecture: 5
Acoustics: 4
Medieval: 2
Classic/Ancient: 1

Pop in cities necessary to break even, with library, university, rationalism, no specialists (as you can see, at a certain point, you'd want to start working specialists; -2 pop required per other specialist, -4 pop required per scientist):
Internet: 21
Telecommunications: 18
Ecology: 15
Penicillin: 12
Plastics: 10
Radio: 7
Electricity: 6
Scientific Theory: 4
Architecture: 3
Acoustics: 2
Medieval: N/A
Classic/Ancient: N/A

Pop in cities necessary to break even, with library, university, schools, rationalism, no specialists (as you can see, this is where you want to be; -2 pop required per other specialist, -4 pop required per scientist):
Internet: 14
Telecommunications: 12
Ecology: 10
Penicillin: 8
Plastics: 6
Radio: 4
Electricity: 3
Scientific Theory: N/A
Architecture: N/A
Acoustics: N/A
Medieval: N/A
Classic/Ancient: N/A

If you're teching at a faster rate than 10 turns per tech, these requirements get upped.
If you're teching at a slower rate than 10 turns per tech, these requirements get lowered.

Overall, it's pretty rough on your science to expand. This is less of an issue for culture/diplo victories, where you only need one late game tech (and you can oxford or rationalism-finisher it). But, for science victories, going wide has its problems.