any tips for playing tall?

More cities needs to win. If it doesn't you bork incentives.

However I agree it could be tuned. Right now the difference between a 7 pop city and a 20+ pop city is arguably too small. That's a side effect of the district gameplay setup + limits on tiles/city center multipliers. Coming up with amenities for huge empires can be challenging so that's where you'd get your tradeoff; if big cities are scaled to be more effective by a larger amount, you'd have some diminishing marginal utility in going wider w/o the ability to grow, without necessarily tanking in doing so or kneecapping yourself through war success.

 

Corrected for you

I think we mostly agree on this. You should be rewarded for growing your empire, whether you grow through more cities or through bigger cities, and if you can grow both, obviously it's even better.
Where i think some form of limitation to city spam is required is to stop ICS. It doesn't have to be a very big one, i think civ4 was quite right with the gold upkeep for cities. Cities were an investment that would cost you for some time, and pay off later. you would want more, but not too fast (overexpansion was the doom of many real-world empires) and not to any stupid location (city in the middle of the snow, yes please, gimme another trade route). Hopefully, if your empire is strong it should be able to sustain a few of those "crap" cities to grab strategic locations or resources, but planting multiple cities in the middle of "frozen nowhere" without a very good reason shouldn't be good play.

 

How about some non-linear scaling for science from population?

For example, first 5 pop give 0.5 science each (scaling down on tech speed is good anyway), after that each new pop gives size/10 science. So 6th pop = 0.6, 7th pop 0.7, 15th pop = 1.5 and so on.

Here's an ugly table that shows the science at all sizes up to pop 35, current system compared to this suggested system:

Spoiler :

Population	current science	modified science
1	0.7	0.5
2	1.4	1
3	2.1	1.5
4	2.8	2
5	3.5	2.5
6	4.2	3.1
7	4.9	3.8
8	5.6	4.6
9	6.3	5.5
10	7	6.5
11	7.7	7.6
12	8.4	8.8
13	9.1	10.1
14	9.8	11.5
15	10.5	13
16	11.2	14.6
17	11.9	16.3
18	12.6	18.1
19	13.3	20
20	14	22
21	14.7	24.1
22	15.4	26.3
23	16.1	28.6
24	16.8	31
25	17.5	33.5
26	18.2	36.1
27	18.9	38.8
28	19.6	41.6
29	20.3	44.5
30	21	47.5
31	21.7	50.6
32	22.4	53.8
33	23.1	57.1
34	23.8	60.5
35	24.5	64

Obviously the numbers can be tweaked, but in general this would make large cities more worthwhile. Up until around pop 10 size doesn't matter that much, but after this the effects kick in. A pop 15 city gives twice as much science as a pop 10 city from population. A pop 19 city gives 3 times as much science as a pop 10 city. If you can manage to build a monster pop 30 city, it gives as much science as 7 pop 10 cities or 3 pop 15 cities.

Overall the system would give less science/city than the current system for cities up until pop 11, then take the lead at pop 12.

 

The original release of Civ V was really unbalanced as I recall. Maybe its two subsequent updates were better.

Civ VI seems even worse in regards to game balance. If one is lucky, a diety cultural victory can be won prior to turn 100, normal speed, via religion without doing much culturally. Otherwise, there are many game subsystems (religious relics, cultural great people, great works, great wonders, cultural tile improvements, cultural buildings, cultural CSs, cultural civics, archeologist, artifacts, naturalist, etc.) that allow a cultural victory much, much later.

Civ VI is also tuned very badly. There is no justification for releasing a game where a Deity Normal speed Science Victory can be done before turn 100 (400 BC) within weeks of release. While this may have been done using exploits, it should not have been possible at all.

I can say that Civ VI is definitely more fun to play than Civ V.

Back on topic: Tips for playing Tall:

I don't believe that an empire of a few (four) huge cities will ever perform better on Civ VI than a wide empire of 10-20 or even more cities. The caps on Amenities and Housing are just too severe for most of the game. As tuned, a Deity game will be won prior to the ability to increase both Amenities and Housing, leaving Tall Empires no competitive wins.

On Civ VI, a hybrid empire of Tall and Wide cities would probably work as well as a Wide empire of Medium to Small citites. The Tall cities would make great trade route targets for the smaller cities. There could be some synergy here. Small cities could send traders to Tall cities for significant food and hammers. Tall cities could send traders to international cities for huge gpt and some research, culture and faith.

 

I didn't think I needed to, but I will add the caveat that when the combat AI is better this may not necessarily be the case.

 

How soon we forget .

In vanilla release civ 5 it was possible to defeat musketmen with horsemen. You could even 1-shot the musketmen if you set up the modifiers decently. That was the opening balance state of civ 5...

It's certainly an option worth considering in principle. Ideally the tuning would make it weaker than expanding by conquest, but with less investment/direct risk.

 

The easiest way to play tall is to just play on a standard map with 12 civs. Then you can pick whatever civ you want, play normally, and have a healthy sized empire with just 4 to 8 cities rather than 6 to 12 cities. I've played this way and it's certainly viable and fun. The only problem is, I don't know if the AI has trouble figuring out how to play in a tighter space effectively (thus, the difficulty might be a level lower than the one you picked).

The problem playing on a standard map with 8 civs and so on is there no real advantage for going tall and a number of disadvantages. Basically, you're handicapping yourself such that the difficulty of the game might feel like one or two levels higher than the one you picked. But, perhaps Civ VI will end up with a 4 city challenge where we used to have the 1 city challenge?

Another idea to consider is to play small rather than tall. Basically, play with 6 cities, tightly packed, none of which need to be larger than size 16 or so (but they can grow larger). You don't necessarily choose this strategy but, if you find yourself with little land to expand into but it's good land (plenty of hills/forests and easily defendable) it's perfectly viable to play nice with your neighbors and stay small even it higher difficulty levels.

The basic trade-off here is you're opting for peace over war and expansion, and thus, keeping your armies smaller and making a cultural victory more viable. Assuming your land is quality and defensible, you can get away with a smaller army. You're also looking to capitalize on good land faster because, realistically, you can't compete against a well played civ twice your size.

I doubt playing small is ever better than just doing the normal ICS in Civ VI. But, I've played this way as Japan once or twice on higher difficulty levels. I find it satisfying because things like district placement and building order are much more important and less forgiving.

 

Given how science and culture scale by building rather than population, I wonder if tall-peaceful is even worse than tall-aggressive in this game as-is. Maybe the best way to beat the AI in Civ VI with only four cities might just be to ignore science, culture and religion and just crank horsemen. Then you can move your army around the map, razing cities rather than keeping them, and only holding on to the capitals.

Maybe the best way to do it would be to look for bonuses for winning combat and clearing barbarian camps, like getting value for cost from healing your armies as Scythia, or keeping up on the Civics tree as Gorgo, or trying to farm eurekas with Sumeria from respawning barbarian camps.

It just seems like production is at such a premium that only four cities doesn't give you the time to "do enough things" before the other civs outscale you. And that if you don't settle enough cities to fill up your continent but also don't let the other civs crush you, you're going to be dealing with constant barbarian attacks the entire game, so you're going to need to build military anyway.

 

Another thing to consider is if you're only playing with four cities you will probably need to build encampments because you probably won't have two of the important strategic resources. So that also pushes you toward cutting the things other than military rather than cutting military.

 

Kongo, Russia, Germany and Japan are excellent choices for playing tall, and I think that Greece would work very well too. Each city would get the Acropolis securing border growth and a fast walk through the civics tree. Through the starting bias the capital can make use of its hills by having a industrial zone with a good adjacency bonus. The placement of the other cities should however focus on getting as much farm land as possible.

Go for the Great Prophet Wildcard as quickly as you can and get a religion that provides a bonus from having followers in other civilizations. Tithe would be my favourite, since money could be an issue with little trade routes available. Becoming suzerain of three or four city states gives a nice bonus to culture, and housing should be in reach early. (Monarchy thus become your favourite middle government until housing, for medieval wall housing bonus + influence points).

(As far as I recall, CIV4 had a centre-periphery concept. The distance from the capital defined the productivity and commercial parameters of other cities. Close cities were productive and paid their "taxes", distant cities were less productive and corrupt. A national wonder and a general wonder added additional centres with a capital bonus. While this system had its flaws too, I still like the general idea.)

 

I think that might have been Civ 3. In 4 city upkeep cost (payed in gold) increased with distance to Palace. In addition the upkeep cost of every city included "number of cities"-maintenance, so up to a certain point every new city increased the upkeep cost of all old cities as well.

 

I have played a lot of "tall" games lately but I would not call them tall. I would call them short because my pop never got over 20. About 5-7 central cities fairly close together so overlaps are great and come into effect sooner. Going commercial/industrial at start then Campus/theater mix based on requirements No exploring (bar the immediate area which normally gives 3 CS), no warring just blind, lets build and have the world meet us approach. It seems to work well not worrying so much about "tall populations" and more about getting districts down and running and getting projects underway.

The nice thing about Civ 6 is there seems to be more flexibility there to do such things, yes a tall Kongo pop is awesome but the AI is rubbish about districts.

 

Not sure if it was 3 or 4 but there were also government that reduced the corruption level. the problem with a "distance from capital" approach is that someone starting at the end of a peninsula is really in a bad position (overlap will already make his game harder, no need to push it further).

 

It can also get brutal on islands maps, especially if there is colonial maintenance for overseas cities like there was in IV. At least in IV you could move your capital to a better location, but this is not an option with the current domination victory rules.

 

True for those Island maps. I rarely play on those so didn't consider them but it's another good reason not to stick to old models. What worked for Civ3 or 4 might not work at all for 6 as a lot of things changed.

 

You are definitely thinking about Civ III which has corruption. Corruption does not exist in Civ IV.

 

I feel like Peter for Brasil can actualy go Tall with his Free Complex and the bonus from Jungle.

On my current map all my commercial district are +5 / +6 / +7

This is like 2-3 free building for that district. If you want to go tall, that bonus mean that each of your city is worth 2.

Bee-line for their Unique Unit, make a fleet or two with a baloon and admiral, if you are quick to reach that goal, you will rule the coast and the sea.

Unless you face a fleet of U-Boat, and even there, I think the Minerva win. Those ships are OP.

 

Civ 3. I remember working on figuring that out. Distance was only indirectly related -- the closest N cities to your capitol were productive (with increasing corruption), and everything after that was basically completely corrupted. (and you could "cheat" the system to get more than N cities by exploiting ties)