Best Tall civs?

Zednaught said:

There's a lot in this post that strikes me as inaccurate. The Inca make for great Tall civs (up to 4 cities is my definition). Their starting bias makes it very likely that you'll get very large cities around mountains for your terrace farms, and you want a high pop for science, especially from astronomy, and that bonus fades as you leave your starting zone. True, the road maintenance is great, but remember that you'll get the the free tiles inside your area, which a tall civ would have anyways, so the advantage isn't as great as what you might lose by going wide.

The thing I've found with the Shoshone is that you're almost forced into being tall because your civ borders encroach on enemy Civs before you've even got the chance to go wide.

And you're way, way, off about Poland. For starters, Poland has the ability to be strong at any type of style. Being able to combine Tradition and Liberty makes for a very powerful Tall strategy. I'm most of the way through a Deity game with them, and I've never had to declare war. Heck I was only able to build a single stables. I'm going Tall with them, and it's worked out quite well thanks to their abilities.

Your say that their militaristic building and unit means they have to go wide, but you leave out any discussion of their unique ability, which is by far the most important aspect of Poland.

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Inca can build tall, just like most other civs, especially ones with river and grassland bias. But that doesn't mean Inca benefits from being tall more so than other civs. Inca's UA demands warmongering and expansion play. The total crop yield from terrace farms also scales with width.

Vitruvius said:

Inca can build tall, just like most other civs, especially ones with river and grassland bias. But that doesn't mean Inca benefits from being tall more so than other civs. Inca's UA demands warmongering and expansion play. The total crop yield from terrace farms also scales with width.

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Saying that the huge food from terrace farms demands wide play is like saying that the reason to go to war with the Aztecs is for their floating gardens. Or that Austria for their coffee house, or the Netherlands for their polder. Tall cities can simply work all their tiles.

Incans are an amazing tall civ. Super food. Cheap roads means no money problems. Amazing defence from their UA, just spam roads on all your hills, and before that simply having move and shoot archers on hills stop any invasion.

Vitruvius said:

Inca can build tall, just like most other civs, especially ones with river and grassland bias. But that doesn't mean Inca benefits from being tall more so than other civs. Inca's UA demands warmongering and expansion play. The total crop yield from terrace farms also scales with width.

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Well, there are two different comparisons here. First we can compare Tall Inca to Wide Inca, which is sort of a dumb exercise given the superiority of Tall over Wide in BNW in general. Then we can also compare Tall Inca to other tall civilizations. In that case there is a general consensus that puts them *just* below the OP tier of Poland, Korea, etc.

Good tall play (which in BNW is basically synonymous with "good play") is almost totally dependent on early snowballing. The insane food/hammer tiles from Terrace Farms and the free gpt from Great Andean Road are one of the strongest snowballs in the game.

Soffacet said:

Well, there are two different comparisons here. First we can compare Tall Inca to Wide Inca, which is sort of a dumb exercise given the superiority of Tall over Wide in BNW in general. Then we can also compare Tall Inca to other tall civilizations. In that case there is a general consensus that puts them *just* below the OP tier of Poland, Korea, etc.

Good tall play (which in BNW is basically synonymous with "good play") is almost totally dependent on early snowballing. The insane food/hammer tiles from Terrace Farms and the free gpt from Great Andean Road are one of the strongest snowballs in the game.

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I'm not saying Inca isn't good at going tall. I'm saying Inca is just as good wide as tall. Unlike some civs that are better being tall than wide.

Besides, saying "only tall play is good play" is a bit extreme.

Rome is more about maximizing the military conquest and building happiness infrastructure, but Rome does well going tall in between military conquests.

France culture victories work well with about 3 core cities + 1 tall cities that maximize output of artists, musicians, writers by distributing the guilds between cities. The fourth + cities should export food and production to the core cities, so the core can focus on great people.

Austria does well going tall for cash generation on the best cities, to buy up independents.

Shacassanach said:

Rome is more about maximizing the military conquest and building happiness infrastructure, but Rome does well going tall in between military conquests.

France culture victories work well with about 3 core cities + 1 tall cities that maximize output of artists, musicians, writers by distributing the guilds between cities. The fourth + cities should export food and production to the core cities, so the core can focus on great people.

Austria does well going tall for cash generation on the best cities, to buy up independents.

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Splitting the guilds is bad from a GP output standpoint because you can only build the National Epic in one city.



As for the original question, any civ that gets a food bonus, a happiness bonus, or a bonus to specialists is a good tall civ.

Food buff civs:

Aztecs: UB is laughably overpowered, every time I play as aztec i have to keep all of my cities at avoid growth whenever their a turn away from growing, and then I just precisely uncheck the box for each city I want to grow whenever I have the happiness to support it. Going tradition is overkill with aztecs really.

Incas: its a more subtle food boost, but my cities got really tall with them as well

Dutch: the polder is a food buff but marshes are rare enough that I don't know how big this buff really is

Morocco/Iroquois: Morocco's UI will have you casbah-ing desert hills instead of mining them, which means you get 3 hammers for 1 food instead of 4 hammers for 2 food, this translates to a bit more growth. In a similar way, the Iroquois enhances the value of 1F/4H lumbermlls over 0F/4H mines on forested hills.


Happiness buffs: civs beyond counting, happiness is such an amazing buff because it makes a civ more capable of going wide and or tall at its discretion.

Specialist buffs: Korea, and all of the cultured civs, since they will tend to go freedom which has loads of buffs to specialists and incentivizes going tall.