Poll: Which style is stronger in game: Tall or Wide?
- Thread starter Stalker0
- Start date
Are you including or excluding conquered cities in your city count?
budweiser
King of the Beers
All styles are equally strong for winning. By that I mean 1 city can win as sure as 7+. I will make a bold statement and say 1 city can win any map within 500 turns.
The difference is final score which is largely ignored on these boards.
The difference is final score which is largely ignored on these boards.
Its a good question. I will say conquered cities that you annex count, we will leave out puppet cities.
jlim201
King
Whatever you have room for. if there are 7+ decent city spots that wot make a leader like Shaka mad at you, go for it. If you only have 4 city spots, then go tall. This is all about situation.
I don't think your poll options are any good. Tradition tree strongly encourages exactly four cities, no more, no less. At most, tall == 3-5. OCC is its own special challenge, but prolly more a feat than “strong”. I think most players would characterize six cities as wide.
kaspergm
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2012
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- 5,568
Agree with beetle, most people use to refer to a 6-city empire as wide, if you founded the cities yourself, or at best it would be transitional between tall and wide. Also by stronger, do you mean which one wins the faster? I think it's fairly well established that a 4-city Tradition strategy will bring you the fastest (science) win, while if you go for culture victory, I think wide generally serves you better (at least from my own experience) because you can hoard more artifacts, more religious buildings (if you have Sacred Sites), more Landmarks etc. within the borders of a wide empire.
Jlim...if that is your feeling than I would recommend you select the "Wide" option.
You are suggesting that ultimately you think more cities is better. Now...you might not be able to "get away with it" but you "would if you could".
We had the same debate in the balance post ourselves. I will let this poll finish up, then I may do another run to do see if redefining Tall as 1-4 provides different results.
Either faster, or on higher difficulties, or in MP turns what lets you beat stronger human opponents.
I voted for tall mainly because it said standard map and building the cities as there usually isn't the room to found more than a few decent cities on a standard map in BNW.
In G&K and vanilla wide was much better really as you could do a much more true ICS on a standard map.
On a standard map due to the limited locations for good cities a tall start will almost always serve better than a wide start as it can be turned wide later on if you go conquering.
In G&K and vanilla wide was much better really as you could do a much more true ICS on a standard map.
On a standard map due to the limited locations for good cities a tall start will almost always serve better than a wide start as it can be turned wide later on if you go conquering.
reddishrecue
Some dude on civfans
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- Nov 16, 2009
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- 6,212
I voted overall equal because wider empires can often beat taller empires in late game competitions. Tall empires could have an early advantage over most other civilizations particularly when the capital begins in a suitable location combination such as hill river luxury resource start which already adds that extra hammer and makes producing items that much easier.
I think you really need overlapping ranges to give people sufficient confidence with picking an answer. Otherwise you get too many “it depends” or too many that fall exactly at the edge of the options you provide. Do you really need to ask people to characterize “strong” (hard to answer) versus “how do you play most often”?
Maybe: How many cities (including your capital) do you tend to found in most games?
1-3
3-5
5-7
7 or more
No need to use the words “wide” or “tall” and it helps avoid the whole tradition/liberty debate. But of course, I am not completely clear why you are asking...
Acken
Deity
In civ5 due to global happiness it makes little sense to think in terms of wide vs tall.
The best strategy is to get as wide as possible, each city going as tall as possible.
If you have to sacrifice growth to go wide, then it's an inferior strategy. For anything other than SS spam that is.
The best strategy is to get as wide as possible, each city going as tall as possible.
If you have to sacrifice growth to go wide, then it's an inferior strategy. For anything other than SS spam that is.
As to the why...
The Community Balance Patch is an attempt to address some of the perceived imbalances with Civ 5 BNW.
One of the imbalances that has been discussed is whether Wide or Tall gameplay is currently more strongly favored in the base game, and then whether some kinds of adjustment should be done.
We have some very strong opinions on both sides...but that group is much smaller than the larger Civ 5 population.
I was hoping that this poll could give me at least some insight into whether the larger community believes there is a balance problem or not.
Acken, to ensure I understand you. Would it be fair to say that you consider Wide superior...as long as there is amble happiness that doesn't cap growth?
Acken
Deity
Yes but that is usually hard to go wider than 6 cities as a result.
In theory, if you had infinite happiness you'd expand a ton, after NC at least (due to increase costs you'd want to delay further expansion until you finish NC). Like on Settler difficulty for example. And every city would be played like a tall one, focusing on growth.
In theory, if you had infinite happiness you'd expand a ton, after NC at least (due to increase costs you'd want to delay further expansion until you finish NC). Like on Settler difficulty for example. And every city would be played like a tall one, focusing on growth.
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