Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
Vote for your favorite playstyle! You can choose multiple options. 
Favorite Playstyle
- Thread starter Thalassicus
- Start date
I used to play Tradition a lot and won my 1st game on immortal with 4 super cities as Celts.
Now I'm mostly going for Liberty and trying to expand as fast as possible to 4-5 cities, then taking my time to build nat college and treasury, then expaning 2-3 more cities. After that I might go to war depending how my rivals are doing.
I never choose Honor since I don't like rushing early and the effects of Tradition and Liberty are too hard to resist for me. Honor is also very bad to take after you complete your first tree since the opener is 100% obsolete at that time.
I also focus heavily on production, and I am almost always in the top3 of production in the game.
Now I'm mostly going for Liberty and trying to expand as fast as possible to 4-5 cities, then taking my time to build nat college and treasury, then expaning 2-3 more cities. After that I might go to war depending how my rivals are doing.
I never choose Honor since I don't like rushing early and the effects of Tradition and Liberty are too hard to resist for me. Honor is also very bad to take after you complete your first tree since the opener is 100% obsolete at that time.
I also focus heavily on production, and I am almost always in the top3 of production in the game.
Ahriman
Tyrant
Any of them. Mostly I've been playing Wide games lately, to explore the new religion mechanics.
![[to_xp]Gekko](https://civfanatics-data.community.forum/avatars/m/74/74677.jpg?1475248346){kind=avatar}
[to_xp]Gekko
QCT junkie
I used to prefer tall empires in Civ4 and I still do, however I've found in Civ5 I also like going wide or warmongering 
rhammer640
Russian Monk
- Joined
- Aug 9, 2010
- Messages
- 386
I love going tall but have found that it ends up getting a bit boring because i don't have any tough decisions on what to build cause i can build pretty much everything lol.
I have also found that if i really never have to worry about food limiting growth(this is with the cities on production focus as well!), and except for a few points in the game happiness really doesn't limit growth either so i end up with these super cities. I then can build pretty much every wonder cause they build so fast (8-10 turns usually). I even get ones i dont really want....
I have also found that if i really never have to worry about food limiting growth(this is with the cities on production focus as well!), and except for a few points in the game happiness really doesn't limit growth either so i end up with these super cities. I then can build pretty much every wonder cause they build so fast (8-10 turns usually). I even get ones i dont really want....
I can understand that a bit. I like to build smaller civs....but my definition of small is a bit larger than the Civ V version imo.
glider1
Deity
I'm an expansionist going for wide-wide-wide on simpler terrain because I want the AI to take my cities in a reasonable way, want to have the difficulty deciding on where to put limited numbers of troops, want the difficulty of expanding verses conquering, want the difficulty of balancing military verses economic costs. I'm not that interested in finessing the numbers and hate the strategy of building a couple of powerfully fortified cities and just massacring the AI as it tries to capture cities it has no idea how to capture, and then simply counter attacking and exploiting the AI's spent defenses.
Basically, the idea is to make the game dynamic like I remember how the Revolutions mod used to be, and it's as much about loosing territory as gaining it for me. Bring on the fight for land.
Cheers
Basically, the idea is to make the game dynamic like I remember how the Revolutions mod used to be, and it's as much about loosing territory as gaining it for me. Bring on the fight for land.
Cheers
I've been playing Civ since Civ1, but I'm kind of new to this forum. Could someone please give me the definitions to Tall verses Wide. I'm sure I understand their meanings just by reading between the lines, but still would like a complete definition. Thanks.
Dunkah
Emperor
Tall = Few Cities - High Pop in each
Wide = Many Cities - generally Low Pop in each
I voted for Tall but find that I can't win without conquering at least someone. Which invariably leads to more war.
Wide = Many Cities - generally Low Pop in each
I voted for Tall but find that I can't win without conquering at least someone. Which invariably leads to more war.
Ahriman
Tyrant
Hi SgtCiv,
"Tall" and "Wide" are terms used to describe different kinds of strategies in Civ5, driven in particular by Civ5's national level happiness system.
A "Tall" empire aims to have a few very large cities, while a "Wide" empire aims to have lots of smaller cities.
A Tall empire has several advantages: it gets much more efficient use of each population point, because it can build more yield boosting buildings (stock exchanges, public schools, etc.) and so suffers less from unhappiness, and so doesn't require that resources be spent building happiness buildings or policies. Great person improvements (academies and the like) can be concentrated in specialized cities with the appropriate multipliers (eg stock exchange for a gold city). Larger cities will build wonders faster, and have much better access to National Wonders. Tall empires with fewer cities will not antagonize other civs diplomatically as much as civs with many cities. It can acquire social policies faster, because each new city increases the cost of policies (though the net effect of this is a matter of opinion).
A Wide empire also has advantages: small cities grow at a faster rate (ie they need less food to grow to a new population size) so they can have a larger overall population, which also means more trade route income. They can cover larger land area, which means they will usually have more luxuries/strategic resources. Wide empires will usually have more gold income, though they'll also have higher maintenance costs for roads and buildings.
While there were strategies using different types of expansion in previous versions of Civ, the distinctions were more subtle and more temporary; in most previous civs, more cities were always better, and adding more cities would rarely hinder your existing cities, because mechanics like happiness and health worked on a per-city basis. [Corruption and maintenance costs did sometimes limit expansion though.] In Civ5 though, for a given level of happiness there is a tradeoff between the population size of your main cities and the population size of other cities. This drives the Tall/Wide distinction.
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
I have exactly the same problem! I also tend to find things to change, and start over to add new ideas to the game.
vhhawk
Warlord
I always try to be efficient and small, and I always end up big, fat, and wide (if I survive). Because I am power mad and land hungry. At some point I want all the things.
On a slightly more sober note, I usually settle my 3rd or 4th city in a place that provokes the nearest AI. If I survive that inevitable war, the sudden acquisition of production and territory and the realization that I have a strong, veteran military, sort of combine to incite my lust for more. I try to tell myself to work my advantage to win peacefully but it doesn't last long. Sometimes I wish there was some kind of war weariness that I could factor into my conquest plans to put a damper on them. Or some conquest/cultural penalty that takes a long time to overcome when absorbing another civ's capital.
My favorite mechanic of Civ IV was cultural flipping of cities and territory. I miss that so, so much.
On a slightly more sober note, I usually settle my 3rd or 4th city in a place that provokes the nearest AI. If I survive that inevitable war, the sudden acquisition of production and territory and the realization that I have a strong, veteran military, sort of combine to incite my lust for more. I try to tell myself to work my advantage to win peacefully but it doesn't last long. Sometimes I wish there was some kind of war weariness that I could factor into my conquest plans to put a damper on them. Or some conquest/cultural penalty that takes a long time to overcome when absorbing another civ's capital.
My favorite mechanic of Civ IV was cultural flipping of cities and territory. I miss that so, so much.
The mechanic you're looking for is called happiness and is *significantly* more problematic in GEM because cities only lose two pop when captured rather than half, so you go negative happiness pretty easily without care. If you keep the city as a puppet it contributes almost no culture and 50% science so, while if you annex it, it (initially) slows your policy acquisition rate.
I dislike conquering cities because of the obtuse mechanics involved... how cities have the special ability to bombard without line of sight... how the garrisoned unit disappears when the city is conquered, how units built in a city that already has a garrison make weird moves, etc.. Combat itself is interesting, just not around cities.
Virtuosofriend
Chieftain
I mostly settle a few cities at the start of the game, small to medium size focusing on production + gold. As soon as I got my war machine ready for action, I start conquering the much bigger enemy cities.
rhammer640
Russian Monk
- Joined
- Aug 9, 2010
- Messages
- 386
I agree, the whole city attack mechanic seems like it needs work. Not sure if we have the tools available to change it though...
