How tall is tall?

ParadigmPlague

Chieftain
Joined
Jul 24, 2013
Messages
45
I mean I know a lot of settling is map dependent, like if you have a godmode starting settlement you might opt to go tradition etc, but what does a tall civ look like? 3 early settlements? 4 or 5 max? What's this "OCC" people refer to, like showing youtube videos as say babylon going super tall with 1 city? Is that even good?
 
OCC stands for One City Challenge. It's one of the advanced options. With OCC you can only build one city. I'm not sure if OCC has any impact on your city besides the 1 limitation in Civ V. In Civ IV it increased the number of national wonders allowed in a city from 2 to 5 (IIRC).
 
I would say tall usually equates to 4 cities average with as high a population in each city as possible. I usually play wide but have a few key cities with 20+ pop in by the mid-late game.

In all honesty, tall is as tall (or wide!) as you want it to be.

There's no direct benefit to playing OCC - it's just that - a challenge. As always though, less cities = less unhappiness.
 
Try an OCC or a game as Venice to get it.
Going tall has been the go-to-strategy for most players since G&K as the Tradition tree is super-powerful these days, and still is in BNW as the 5% extra science cost per city is quite crippling for wide empires.

A standard tall game involves going for Tradition and building 4 cities (which, with the trad SP's , gives you free monuments/culture buildings + free aqueducts in all 4), relying on high pop for science yields + specialists in most available slots.
With trade routes now also able to contribute food, i find a lot of fun in jamming my capital with food trade and seeing it explode to 25+ pop even before the reneissance!
 
In reply to the question in the title!
 
3-4 cities is what I strive for. I grow them to 10 and start placing Specialist. I also make it a point to grab 2 Maritime civs.
 
7 cities is most definitely not tall anymore, that falls under wide. To really get the GW slots, you're gonna need to get some of the good wonders.
 
Try an OCC or a game as Venice to get it.
Going tall has been the go-to-strategy for most players since G&K as the Tradition tree is super-powerful these days, and still is in BNW as the 5% extra science cost per city is quite crippling for wide empires.

The 5% penalty is easily overcome with the science produced by the new city unless you leave your new cities at 1-2 population.
 
7 cities feels like the new "tall" in BNW. Just so you have the space for all the great works.

Indeed, 3-4 may be too low. I had France with 4 cities shooting for culture and decided to go for a 5th city to make room for the additional archeological discoveries...
 
Usually you have to wage some pretty heavy wars to get to the point where you can own seven efficient cities. Unless you have specific map-types and/or are lucky.

For me going tall usually means between three or four cities, since I don't want to wage any wars when going tall. These cities usually end up around size 30 each by the end of the game.
 
Top Bottom