[GS] Are Mountains OP?

I love reading these threads and hearing everyone's ideas. I wish there were more mods out there to try them out in-game. :)

I especially like the idea of moving back campuses. I think it would be one of those big moments where you would rush to build campuses as soon as you get the tech (kinda like how I play with Feudalism and workers...). However, I think that pushing campuses may exacerbate an early game issue where one or two good tiles really offsets balance. If you're not near any resource or wonder that provides science, there is virtually no way to generate science. Same issue applies to flat land starts since flat land with no features/resources is just SO BAD.
 
I still believe that the fact that most districts only have one slot with two choices for a building is a missed opportunity. It would be wonderful to add back in more buildings for more player choices. Instead of a bank, what if I want a customs house, focusing between a more stable internal gold production or a more volatile but more rewarding foreign trade route bonus? What if I have an observatory instead of a university, to increase that sweet mountain bonus, but it can only be built in those areas? And also not to mention the pitiful neighborhood options, which there could be a plethora of, and is also stifled by only being able to build one neighborhood building at ALL no matter how many neighborhoods you need?

Probably a topic for another thread, but gets me thinking.
Sure, what if you build out some harbors to be focused on military & production bonuses (similar to an encampment), and other harbors to focus on trade (like commercial hubs)? What if you could have different commerical hub buildings focused on luxuries or food? Lots of possibilities. I would guess the concern with FXS is that this would contend with civ uniques and CS suzerain bonuses to strongly. It's sort of a mechanism for another historical 4X game that doesn't exist. One where you build your civ from the hand the map deals you rather than getting a bunch of uniques going in and hope that your starting bias makes everything pan out.
I love reading these threads and hearing everyone's ideas. I wish there were more mods out there to try them out in-game. :)

I especially like the idea of moving back campuses. I think it would be one of those big moments where you would rush to build campuses as soon as you get the tech (kinda like how I play with Feudalism and workers...). However, I think that pushing campuses may exacerbate an early game issue where one or two good tiles really offsets balance. If you're not near any resource or wonder that provides science, there is virtually no way to generate science. Same issue applies to flat land starts since flat land with no features/resources is just SO BAD.
Well, sometimes you get an edge, sometimes someone else gets it. . We have that right now with meeting CS's early, before envoys are something the player can generate. And some players get luckier with goody hut boosts than others. Without campuses, science would mostly be a function of population.

Wouldn't mind some minor changes to early game to go with pushing back campuses. First one I already mentioned: a few pantheons for science. Second would be that tribal villages would not only give science and culture boosts, but would sometimes just give the points instead, just like you get faith and gold straight-up.
 
Last edited:
Civ 6 largely treats science as a thing you generate through investment. You have a specific district (Campus) with specific buildings (Library) which generate Science innately (adjacency or base yields) and you can then increase those yields via Policy Cards (e.g. Rationalism) or City States (i.e. Science City States, which give additional yields based on buildings). This is the main way to generate Science.

Civ 6 does provide other mechanisms to get Science, including trade routes (international trade routes and also trade with allies), indirectly through other districts and buildings (e.g. Free Inquiry, which gives Science from CHs and Harbours, or the Dark Age cards which boosts Science based on Holy Sites), and through Specialists, but these are totally overshadowed by Campuses and Campus Buildings, particularly once you leverage Policy Cards and City States. The only exception is Science through Population via Pingala, which is very strong, but of course limited to one City.

This "Science through Investment" approach is different to, say, Culture. You really can't generate all that much Culture from the Culture District and Culture Buildings alone - to really get enough Culture as the game goes on, you need to get Great People and then Great Works into those buildings, and or build Wonders next to your Theatre Squares. The result is that, personally, I find generating Culture way more fun, because the main source of Culture is inherently more interesting (i.e. TD, TD Buildings, and the race for Great People and Wonders), but also the main mechanism doesn't overshadow other ways of generating Culture such as Pantheons, Trade etc.

I also think the whole "Science through Investment" is a bit anachronistic. To me, it seems that until very recently, scientific advancement was more a product of trade and mercantilism and increasing liberalism, plus a bit of religion thrown in (think of all those monks that advanced genetics). The whole investment in Scientific Research seems to me sort of a more recent thing, and somewhat tied to the creation of the Military-Industrial Complex. I'm not sure Ancient, Classical etc. societies were spending all that much time setting up the equivalent of research institutes and spending heaps of money and resources funding research into better cross-bows. Instead, it seems to me science was mostly left to free enterprise, with a bit of government largess and patronage thrown in from time to time (think Queen Anne and Copyright and Patents or John Harrison).

So, what to do?

Well, I think basically the ship has sailed on "Science through Investment" mechanic. Civ has had Science buildings like since forever, and so that's just not changing. And frankly, Campus adjacencies are really fun - maybe the most fun adjacency after Industrial Zones. So, I don't think that should really change.

Instead, first, I think pushing back Campuses to the Medieval Era as people have suggested is probably the best option. You'd still get to build Campuses, but there would be a bit of delay, which would allow other routes to Science to have a bit more value. It would also have the added benefit of making Districts less frontloaded in the Tech Tree.

If you did that, you'd need to make a few other changes. I don't think making a library a City Centre building would help anything - people would just spam libraries rather than campuses. Instead, I'd rather see some other Tier 1 District Buildings maybe provide a Science Yield, so you were incentivised to build other things. But if we did have a City Centre Library, perhaps that could have some more onerous build requirements a bit like the Water Wheel does. Maybe something like a minimum Population requirement. Or perhaps a Library could be an exclusive building for your Capital.

Second, get rid of Science City States giving Science to Science Buildings. This more than anything else is what makes Science Buildings just so powerful. I'd rather see Science City States give Science to some other District's Buildings (e.g. Commercial Hub Buildings) or just give Science to the Capital and / or Government Plaza. This would weaken already OP Science Buildings, but would also help balance Tall v Wide play, because there would be less of an inherent Science advantage for Wide Empires.

Third, take another look at Specialists. I'm generally okay with where Specialists are, but I do think they could use a bit more balancing. I think one option might be to have Science Buildings provided additional Citizen Slots. Each Specialist therefore wouldn't be any more powerful, but if you could slot more Science Specialists overall then it might make Specialists (and Large Pops) more useful in general. And or I'd like to see non-Campuses Specialists also generate Science, e.g. maybe Harbour and Commercial Hub Specialists could generate some Science, either inherently or if you slot certain Policy Cards (indeed, maybe Rationalism could be re-tooled as a buff to Specialists).
 
I agree that moving the Campus back to the medieval era is probably the best course of action. As an alternative option, how would people feel about mountains giving the campus a minor adjacency bonus as a way to reduce the amount of +4/5/6 campuses available early? (So +1 :c5science: for every 2 mountains - although maybe that's no fun?)

Alternatively, you could reduce geothermal fissures to +1:c5science: and have campuses receive +1:c5science: adjacency from commercial hubs. Just so you have some more options during a flat land / no mountain start.

I also like the idea of good science being more reliant on specialists. If you had to crank up your food output and sacrifice some production to focus on science specialists, I think that would be an interesting choice.

A thought I had along those lines was that if you were to reduce the university from +4:c5science: to +2:c5science:, but then have it award +1:c5science: to specialists for each different type of terrain feature adjacent to the campus. For example, if a campus was adjacent to woods and marsh, you would get +4:c5science: specialists once you had a university. More wood tiles wouldn't get you more science, so the focus would be on the variety of features. It probably would be totally broken in practice, but I thought it could be interesting. It wouldn't do much to help campus spam, but you would have some more options if you didn't have access to mountains early on.
 
Last edited:
Second, get rid of Science City States giving Science to Science Buildings. This more than anything else is what makes Science Buildings just so powerful. (...)

Third, take another look at Specialists. I'm generally okay with where Specialists are, but I do think they could use a bit more balancing.
Interesting read, even if I don't agree with all your conclusion. Just bouncing a thought here: What if City State bonuses were changed so that being suzerain of a city state adds specialist yields to specialists in the corresponding type of district? So that for each Scientific CS you are suzerain of, your science specialists would get +1 science, for each Commercial CS you are suzerain of, your commercial specialists would get +2 good, etc.
 
Instead, first, I think pushing back Campuses to the Medieval Era as people have suggested is probably the best option. You'd still get to build Campuses, but there would be a bit of delay, which would allow other routes to Science to have a bit more value. It would also have the added benefit of making Districts less frontloaded in the Tech Tree.

If you did that, you'd need to make a few other changes. I don't think making a library a City Centre building would help anything - people would just spam libraries rather than campuses. Instead, I'd rather see some other Tier 1 District Buildings maybe provide a Science Yield, so you were incentivised to build other things. But if we did have a City Centre Library, perhaps that could have some more onerous build requirements a bit like the Water Wheel does. Maybe something like a minimum Population requirement. Or perhaps a Library could be an exclusive building for your Capital.

Second, get rid of Science City States giving Science to Science Buildings. This more than anything else is what makes Science Buildings just so powerful. I'd rather see Science City States give Science to some other District's Buildings (e.g. Commercial Hub Buildings) or just give Science to the Capital and / or Government Plaza. This would weaken already OP Science Buildings, but would also help balance Tall v Wide play, because there would be less of an inherent Science advantage for Wide Empires.

Interesting read, even if I don't agree with all your conclusion. Just bouncing a thought here: What if City State bonuses were changed so that being suzerain of a city state adds specialist yields to specialists in the corresponding type of district? So that for each Scientific CS you are suzerain of, your science specialists would get +1 science, for each Commercial CS you are suzerain of, your commercial specialists would get +2 good, etc.
Again, pushing Campuses back to the medieval era is not realistic. Districts in general and campuses in particular *should* be front-loaded, unless players are getting something else to do to pursue their science victory. Theater Districts come at the Classical era, and even then the design is implicitly giving a window to build an early wonder, which has a soft relationship with theater districts for the civic boost and a major adjacency bonus. It's just too subtractive to defer campuses for two eras and then tell a science player to go build commercial hubs or something for two eras, and cast aside all those pre-medieval great scientists.

As to city-state bonuses, they can't be gotten rid of outright because they give players a return on investment for envoys. Interestingly, in this thread we have some folks who snort their nose at science buildings and declare them less vital than adjacency bonuses. Then city-states enter the picture and suddenly buildings is borken.

Probably need some compromise. One thing to do is to tie it into governors. Much as I find governors to be thematically-challenged, this is one of Civ VI's few stabs at "quality-over-quant" choices. Another would be if we had something along the lines of those capital buildings I've been talking about a few times. Kind of like Civ V had National Wonders that each civ could build once. Maybe cut the CS bonus to +1 for the basic building, and +2 for cities that meet the elevated criteria.

Like I've said, one of the problems with the science game is that there isn't much to it other than building buildings and then accumulating the passive yields. With the culture game, you build to attract great person's to fill in great work slots, plus you got other ways to generate tourism (e.g. wonders). With faith, you have a great many ways to distinguish religions. But in the world of science, there are few ways to distinguish oneself than by building more campuses and more buildings, pumping envoys into CS's, and settling near those ever-so-generous mountains.
 
Last edited:
I agree that moving the Campus back to the medieval era is probably the best course of action.
Again, pushing Campuses back to the medieval era is not realistic.
[...]
Probably need some compromise.
Just 1 point, which seem not so important to too many ...

Moving the Campus to another Tech is comparably easy to realize.

This changed Rule applies to ALL players - ie. also the AIplayers. They will of course abide to the rule.

But who modifies the code, which controls the AIplayers' behaviour? Who cares that the AIplayers adapt their play to the changed Rule?! ***

Shall we ignore that point, change the rules away from that, what the AIplayers "are used to" and let be them even more dumb?

Keeping the general rules & only modifying the number of campuses/libraries available to the human player may sound boring, but it disturbs the weak AI the least.



*** (As long as we don't receive the DLL sources maybe ONLY Firaxis could do the necessary tweaks to the AIplayers)

.
 
Just 1 point, which seem not so important to too many ...

Moving the Campus to another Tech is comparably easy to realize.

This changed Rule applies to ALL players - ie. also the AIplayers. They will of course abide to the rule.

But who modifies the code, which controls the AIplayers' behaviour? Who cares that the AIplayers adapt their play to the changed Rule?! ***

Shall we ignore that point, change the rules away from that, what the AIplayers "are used to" and let be them even more dumb?

Keeping the general rules & only modifying the number of campuses/libraries available to the human player may sound boring, but it disturbs the weak AI the least.



*** (As long as we don't receive the DLL sources maybe ONLY Firaxis could do the necessary tweaks to the AIplayers)

.
Well, updating the AI behavior is subsumed into any change proposal. The AI builds rock bands now, usually before I do.

Then again, the AI already has to catch up in so many ways. It seems oblivious to the idea of adjacency bonuses for the most part. It builds commercial hubs a tile away from a river, for instance. It builds a farm and then, seemingly, will not pave over the farm or any other UI once it's unlocked a district.

Now, barring the AI becoming a better competitor, you're back to where we are now in just wanting our own player experience posing a greater variety of interesting choices. I suppose given the choice, I would rather have that than simple, obvious choices that make the path to victory easier to script.
 
  • Like
Reactions: cvb
Well, updating the AI behavior is subsumed into any change proposal.
:D Yeah, that is the answer I expect from one, who has his strength in making the proposals ... btw, I really like most of your proposals, because they are usually well thought out and/or nifty ... :) :)

Actually the vast majority of mods make more or less heavy modifications to the rules while happily IGNORING any AI aspects. (I even got once the reply: "I haven't made the AI dumb, I haven't touched the AI at all ..." :eek:)
we are now in just wanting our own player experience posing a greater variety of interesting choices. I suppose given the choice, I would rather have that than simple, obvious choices that make the path to victory easier to script.
Well, hearing the early campuses are too strong, I have no problem to tone down the issue for myself with a simple houserule, which eg. leads to 1 campus until Mathematics and then 2, 3 campuses until Education for me. While posing a greater variety of interesting choices because not being already superior in science.

Anyway, no problem, it is often quite interesting to read pro and contra of complex proposals ... I have just to switch off that voice, which asks 'what it would mean to implement that'.

.
 
Good deal. I don't look at change proposals in terms of modding, exactly because mods tend to not consider the holistic ramifications of changing just one element.
 
Flat land real does suck in Civ 6...

I find it can get worse than just Flat Land.
One of my recent games I had a bunch of grassland for my capital.
Mostly ocean to my West.
Complete Desert to my East.
Tundra to the North.
Two Aggressive AIs to the South.

I find I never get a nice even middle ground for my games.
I either have amazing everything or I have amazing nothing.
The difficult land annoys me because the game moves very slow.
The OP land annoys me because I am too far ahead too fast.
lol... I guess that is just Civ VI.
 
I find it can get worse than just Flat Land.
One of my recent games I had a bunch of grassland for my capital.
Mostly ocean to my West.
Complete Desert to my East.
Tundra to the North.
Two Aggressive AIs to the South.

I find I never get a nice even middle ground for my games.
I either have amazing everything or I have amazing nothing.
The difficult land annoys me because the game moves very slow.
The OP land annoys me because I am too far ahead too fast.
lol... I guess that is just Civ VI.
I think the Civ4 Model where hills added 1 production but also took away 1 food would work a lot better in this game than hills just adding +1 hammer.
The fact that grass and plains hills are 3 yield tiles, 4 if they have a feature, is completely bonkers. It’s also not very good balance given how floodplains are treated- the absolute ideal spot for early civilizations, but it’s really only useful in game for Dams and hoping you can roll good flood yields. Otherwise inferior to a grass hills start in most every way.
 
  • Like
Reactions: cvb
I think the Civ4 Model where hills added 1 production but also took away 1 food would work a lot better in this game than hills just adding +1 hammer.
The fact that grass and plains hills are 3 yield tiles, 4 if they have a feature, is completely bonkers. It’s also not very good balance given how floodplains are treated- the absolute ideal spot for early civilizations, but it’s really only useful in game for Dams and hoping you can roll good flood yields. Otherwise inferior to a grass hills start in most every way.

I also find the CS imbalance to be annoying.
My last two games I found CS's that just didn't help and found them later than usual.
In other games I might find 8 CS's very fast.
In those games I might have all first meets and they are Culture, Science, Gold and Production CS's.
It completely changes the dynamic.
 
The difficult land annoys me because the game moves very slow.
Try to relax.
I think the Civ4 Model where hills added 1 production but also took away 1 food would work a lot better in this game than hills just adding +1 hammer. The fact that grass and plains hills are 3 yield tiles, 4 if they have a feature, is completely bonkers.
In the beginning there were two pairs. Grass & plains and flat & hills.

grass counted 1 food, plains 1 prod,
flat 1 food, hills 1 prod

In combination we got flat grass 2-0, grass hills 1-1, flat plains 1-1, plains hills 0-2 ... and Sid saw: It was good.



In civ6 (with larger areas of the same terrain type) plains & plainsHills can be "too dry", so it helps to correct it not until mines.
Ie. allow unmined plainsHills with 1-2 (single food deficit), but force plainsHillsMine with 0-3 (double food deficit)

.
 
Interesting read, even if I don't agree with all your conclusion. Just bouncing a thought here: What if City State bonuses were changed so that being suzerain of a city state adds specialist yields to specialists in the corresponding type of district? So that for each Scientific CS you are suzerain of, your science specialists would get +1 science, for each Commercial CS you are suzerain of, your commercial specialists would get +2 good, etc.

It's an interesting idea, but I'd worry that would make Specialists too powerful.

I quite like the current balance with Specialists where they get additional yields once you build a T3 building. I do think Specialists could use a small tweak, but I'm not clear in my own head what that should be.

Again, pushing Campuses back to the medieval era is not realistic. Districts in general and campuses in particular *should* be front-loaded, unless players are getting something else to do to pursue their science victory. Theater Districts come at the Classical era, and even then the design is implicitly giving a window to build an early wonder, which has a soft relationship with theater districts for the civic boost and a major adjacency bonus. It's just too subtractive to defer campuses for two eras and then tell a science player to go build commercial hubs or something for two eras, and cast aside all those pre-medieval great scientists.

As to city-state bonuses, they can't be gotten rid of outright because they give players a return on investment for envoys. Interestingly, in this thread we have some folks who snort their nose at science buildings and declare them less vital than adjacency bonuses. Then city-states enter the picture and suddenly buildings is borken.

Probably need some compromise. One thing to do is to tie it into governors. Much as I find governors to be thematically-challenged, this is one of Civ VI's few stabs at "quality-over-quant" choices. Another would be if we had something along the lines of those capital buildings I've been talking about a few times. Kind of like Civ V had National Wonders that each civ could build once. Maybe cut the CS bonus to +1 for the basic building, and +2 for cities that meet the elevated criteria.

Like I've said, one of the problems with the science game is that there isn't much to it other than building buildings and then accumulating the passive yields. With the culture game, you build to attract great person's to fill in great work slots, plus you got other ways to generate tourism (e.g. wonders). With faith, you have a great many ways to distinguish religions. But in the world of science, there are few ways to distinguish oneself than by building more campuses and more buildings, pumping envoys into CS's, and settling near those ever-so-generous mountains.

There's some good points here. I don't think I agree with a lot of those point, but it's probably in the "agree to disagree" territory.

Just a few thoughts. First, yeah, I agree there needs to be yields tied to envoys, so there is a reason to place envoys other than Suzerain. I just don't think those yields should be tied to Buildings, because you end up magnifying yields across your whole empire and which is crazy powerful (at least for Science). My suggestion is that the bonus yields from envoys should maybe just be in your Capital City or tied to the Government Plaza. That would be a slight buff to Tall play (because it wouldn't be so disadvantaged versus Wide play) and would keep yields in a more reasonable level. I'd also be okay with City State yields being tied to Governors.

Second, I do think moving Campuses back to Medieval Era would work, but it would require a bunch of mechanics to be tweaked. Ancient and Classical Scientific Great People would be an issue, and I hadn't thought of that. Perhaps we would need some sort of Library building so you could potentially earn Great Scientists. Or maybe some way to run Science Projects (Research Grants) without a Campus. Other things that might need a tweak, are that the Eureka for State Workforce is to build a District and the Campus is one of the Districts you're likely to build for that Eureka, likewise Mathematics requires three different Districts so that gets harder too, and the Campus is also a common early High Adjacency District to build for Era Score. Pushing back Campuses would also be a potential Nerf for some Civilizations, e.g. Korea (obviously) but also Netherlands and Japan. But I think these issues could all be addressed.

Third, yes, you're right about how the Theatre District works, i.e. Wonder-Eurkea-Theatre Square-Adjacency . I've thought about that before, but hadn't got that it as clear in my head as you've put it. It's a good design. Entertainment has a sort of similar design, where it's Eureka is Construction, Construction's Eureka is Watermill, Watermill's (Wheel) Eureka is building a Mine on a Resource. It's quite a cool chain you need to go down, and slightly pushes you towards population growth which of course Entertainment Districts help with.

I think the Civ4 Model where hills added 1 production but also took away 1 food would work a lot better in this game than hills just adding +1 hammer.
The fact that grass and plains hills are 3 yield tiles, 4 if they have a feature, is completely bonkers. It’s also not very good balance given how floodplains are treated- the absolute ideal spot for early civilizations, but it’s really only useful in game for Dams and hoping you can roll good flood yields. Otherwise inferior to a grass hills start in most every way.

Sorry, I'm usually onboard with your ideas, but I really don't like the idea of Mines being -1 Food. FXS did that in previous versions and didn't carry it over, and I suspect they had some good reasons for that.

I do think Hill Mines need more of a downside, but again not totally clear in my mind what it should be. I think something more around Appeal and Happiness would be better, rather than a nerf to growth.

Anyway. Pushing back Campuses.

I wonder if there is a good idea for a small easy to create Mod in this thread. There's a few elements that shouldn't be too hard to do...
  1. Move Campus to, say, Mathematics. Or move Campuses to Education, and then push Universities back to Astronomy. I assume the AI would still build Campuses if we did this, but someone that knows more about modding would need to comment. You'd maybe need to look at the Eurekas for some techs, but I think that change would be pretty easy.
  2. You'd need to find a new benefit for Writing. This is the trickiest one for me, as I'm struggling to see what could be modded easily. You could have a Library Building that can be built in the City Centre (with the Campus T1 Building getting renamed "Academy"), but that gets tricky if you want an actual model for the City Centre.
  3. But if you got over that, Libraries could maybe give Science based on Districts adjacent to your City Centre (e.g. minor adjacency) or increase Science per Pop or something or be a small +%.
  4. You'd also need a way to generate Great Scientists. Perhaps Holy Sites and Commercial Hubs and or Harbours generate +1 Great Scientists (just the District, not the Buildings)? Perhaps they only do that after you've unlocked Writing? Perhaps Libraries let you run Science Projects?
  5. Limit City State Yield Bonuses to your Capital and to Gov Plaza buildings? Or maybe just do that for Culture, Science and Faith Buildings, so that Commercial Hubs, Harbours etc. have a point of difference?
  6. Give Specialists a slight buff? My suggestion would be to just give T2 Buildings two citizen slots instead of one. That's pretty easy to implement, and is only a slight buff for them.
  7. Rework Rationalism and related cards somehow. Maybe percentages based on buildings? Maybe additional yields per Pop in a City?
1, 4 to 6 are all pretty easy (although I need some suggestions for Rationalism). I'm just not sure how one approaches 2 and 3, without having something that's way too hard to Mod.

Or, you know. We just do nothing, hope FXS read this thread, and then do something in a patch or expansion. I remember about a million years ago working on a Mod to rework Industrial Zones and Powerplants, where Powerplants gave area effect housing and additional hammers based on resources, and I was working on some buffs for Specialists … and then FXS just put out Gathering Strom and then some Patches and changed the game in ways that were a Billion Times better than what I'd been thinking of.

Bother. I think I just answered my own question. I'll just wait to see if FXS fix this. Now, let me check the Winter Update thread to see how we're going with news on an Expansion or Patch etc. I mean, it's March, so I assume we'd now have a really clear timetable of what's coming and when.

Me: *Checks Winter Update Thread*
Me: ...
Me: *Screams in hopless despair and slaps head like a Startrek Picard Meme*
Me: ...
Me: *Sighs*
Me: yeah. So... Modding anyone?
 
Last edited:
Just a few thoughts. First, yeah, I agree there needs to be yields tied to envoys, so there is a reason to place envoys other than Suzerain. I just don't think those yields should be tied to Buildings, because you end up magnifying yields across your whole empire and which is crazy powerful (at least for Science). My suggestion is that the bonus yields from envoys should maybe just be in your Capital City or tied to the Government Plaza. That would be a slight buff to Tall play (because it wouldn't be so disadvantaged versus Wide play) and would keep yields in a more reasonable level. I'd also be okay with City State yields being tied to Governors.

Well, if there's one thing that I jam the brakes on in this day and age it's a reference to Tall vs. Wide play. There is no Tall vs. Wide. It is an outmoded dichotomy. In Civ VI, you can have 20 or 30 cities and cities with 20 to 30 pop. Governors, plaza buildings, golden era dedications, policies, and the abundance of amenities combine to make expansion easy and routine, while the limitations imposed by housing mechanisms keep all cities growing at a soft cap that really only gets a serious lift in the later game. There is no more diverting cities into production-intensive, population-draining expansion at the cost of whatever constitutes a "tall" opportunity. All talk about building large, quality cities is in addition to settling as much as you can get away with (which is quite a lot if you're the ruthless sort).

Regarding city-states, I would tend to favor getting rid lowering base CS yields, then having policies that can multiply them. Less broken than Rationalism (which is mostly broken because it's another thing the AI won't take advantage of). And then throw in governors and capital buildings.
 
Last edited:
Well, if there's one thing that I jam the brakes on in this day and age it's a reference to Tall vs. Wide play. There is no Tall vs. Wide. It is an outmoded dichotomy. In Civ VI, you can have 20 or 30 cities and cities with 20 to 30 pop. Governors, plaza buildings, golden era dedications, policies, and the abundance of amenities combine to make expansion easy and routine, while the limitations imposed by housing mechanisms keep all cities growing at a soft cap that really only gets a serious lift in the later game. There is no more diverting cities into production-intensive, population-draining expansion at the cost of whatever constitutes a "tall" opportunity.

Regarding city-states, I would tend to favor getting rid lowering base CS yields, then having policies that can multiply them. Less broken than Rationalism (which is mostly broken because it's another thing the AI won't take advantage of).

Tall v Wide is Dead! Long Live Tall v Wide!

Yeah, I tend to agree Tall v Wide is an out dated Dichotomy. Tall, meaning small number of Cities with High Pops, and Wide, meaning many Cities with generally lesser Pop, are both supported by the game, with Wide generally being stronger. Indeed, the game actually supports a hybrid where you either have a generally Wide Empire but with a few High Pop (i.e. Tall) Cities, or indeed a Wide Empire with all your Cities having at least 10 Pop.

So, when I reference Tall v Wide, I'm sort of just speaking in shorthand, and apologies if that wasn't clear.

Anyway. I do think there is scope for a bit of balancing "Wide" v "Tall" though. I generally like that Wide is stronger than Tall - Civ should be about expansion. But I think perhaps Wide should be nerfed a little bit, so that it's not so so much better than a Tall. To me, the key element would be getting away from City State yields being tied to Wide play (because the yields are added to buildings, and so you're incentivised to have as many Cities, with as many Districts as can support those buildings as possible), because it's just too strong. If you nerfed that, there would still be much stronger reasons for Wide over Tall.

I think Wide also suffers from a few other "balance" or "gameplay" issues. The first is just it's a bit tedious and micro, because there's nothing to differentiate your Cities. You just own all your Cities completely, and each City is the same endless sea of colour with its own Production Queue and list of the same buildings. There's a bit of differentiation based on whether Cities are Colonial or Home Continent, Settled or Captured, have a Governor or Not. But it all feels a bit flat and tedious to me. Personally, I'd like to see something where you have a distinction between say Core and non-Core / Colonial Cities, so your empire had a bit of shape, and maybe use that to reduce some of the micro of Wide.

Second, I'd also like to see Rationalism and Pop generally rethought, because the push to just have lots of Cities at Pop 10 is really boring.

Third, I'd also like to see Wide Empires being a bit harder to manage. Not really to nerf them - and I'd certainly not want to see a return to Global Happiness - but just something to make it all a bit more interesting.
 
Sorry, I'm usually onboard with your ideas, but I really don't like the idea of Mines being -1 Food. FXS did that in previous versions and didn't carry it over, and I suspect they had some good reasons for that.

I do think Hill Mines need more of a downside, but again not totally clear in my mind what it should be. I think something more around Appeal and Happiness would be better, rather than a nerf to growth
I'm talking about the base terrain yield of a hill tile, not a mine improvement. There was a whole other thread you had on farms & food, so i don't want to spill that back here.
I’m more irked by the low value of food then hills/flatland splits, although the current setup does give great importance to start biases.

The idea of hills being restricted from farming for most of the game is fine, but you don’t need many farms anyways, and the ones on hills are no worse than ones on flat. (I prefer the adjacency system of boosting farms over the old +1 food at various techs we had, but the simplicity does leave out certain cases.)
 
I think the Civ4 Model where hills added 1 production but also took away 1 food would work a lot better in this game than hills just adding +1 hammer.
The fact that grass and plains hills are 3 yield tiles, 4 if they have a feature, is completely bonkers. It’s also not very good balance given how floodplains are treated- the absolute ideal spot for early civilizations, but it’s really only useful in game for Dams and hoping you can roll good flood yields. Otherwise inferior to a grass hills start in most every way.
Yeah, this was literally one of the very first mods I got, I think it's called something like Civ5 Hills. I think playing the game without doesn't make any sense balance wise.
 
I'm talking about the base terrain yield of a hill tile, not a mine improvement. There was a whole other thread you had on farms & food, so i don't want to spill that back here.
I’m more irked by the low value of food then hills/flatland splits, although the current setup does give great importance to start biases.

The idea of hills being restricted from farming for most of the game is fine, but you don’t need many farms anyways, and the ones on hills are no worse than ones on flat. (I prefer the adjacency system of boosting farms over the old +1 food at various techs we had, but the simplicity does leave out certain cases.)

I should probably read things more carefully. Then, yes, I second the motion. Quite happy for Hills to have one less food.
 
Top Bottom