Are the Penalties of Going wide and going to war too much?

[beetle]

When we say "wide" with civ V we're usualy talking no more than 12 cities due to the inherent hard limits I mention above.

You are onto a good point about the local happiness effectively capping total of number of founded cities. But there are other buffs that let you found more than 12, should you want to push things. Each Natural Wonder adds one global happiness (and therefore one more city), more if you have one of the few that grant global happiness. Then there are World Wonders like Notre Dame and Eiffel tower which add global happiness.

Autocracy tier 2 tenet doubles happiness from annexed cities (which you might have started with early) will let you go as wide as you like.

 

[fyar]

3. The city number penalties to science and culture. If the above 2 were the only penalties there'd still be a few competitive edges to goign wide. You'd be struggling with happiness and growth but at least you'd have the option to generate more culture, grow a bigger/stronger religion, have a greater total production capacity, and generate a lot of science and innovation from the many people in your empire. This is realistic to history. The large empires did well at all these things. But the devs though this was unfair too so they introduced the science and culture penalties for going wide. Every city beyond your capital makes every tech cost 5% more and every social policy cost 10% more after the next one is reached. And you can't undo it by selling/burning cities (the ratchet system).

The effect is that you can actually make less social progress and do WORSE in science by having more people and a bigger empire. It can be overcome but it requires you to get your buildings up VERY quick and grow very fast, which is not very feasible being nerfed already by happiness and having less money. Many games if there was just more happiness to be got somewhere I could grow my new cities rapidly enough to overcome these penalties but I find there is absolutely no happiness left anywhere to acquire in the entire world. I think these penalties would be ok to work around and be balanced if either 1 or 2 was not a factor but with all 3, just as they wanted I guess, you cannot expand smoothly in civ V. You will eventually hit a wall of pain and have to stop regardless of if there is more land to settle nearby. [/I]

Most of this topic has been discussed, but I think you're vastly overstating the science penalties, and to a lesser extent also the culture penalties. You should never be dissuaded from building a city because of the 5% science penalty unless you're tempted to build one of those cities that the AI likes to put on a one-tile island in the south pole surrounded by ice. A 5% penalty means that to support itself in science, that means that your second city has to produce at least 1/20th of your capital's science. So if your cap has 100 science, you just need to have 5 science for your second city to overcome the science penalty. I certainly hope you planned on having more than 5 science. If after having played a wide game you managed to get 10 cities, and are thinking of an 11th, it would only need to produce 1/30th of your total science to carry its own weight. So if by that time you have 600 science, your 11th city should produce 20 science for it to be worth it. That's 10 citizens, a library, and a university. If you don't plan to grow your city to 10 citizens, then you probably shouldn't be planting that city anyway.

I don't think I've ever chosen not to plant a city because of the science penalty. The other happiness constraints, yes of course. But the science penalty is overstated.

 

[maddskillz]

I find my wide games are more of a battle of unhappiness than the rival civs

I am learning a lot of ideas from this thread, but a slider would be nice to lessen some of the blows from taking new cities or just having more population.

I really liked the way things went in civ 4 regarding going wide, I wish the thought process were more similar regarding conquering rival cities in civ 5.

At least offer the old colony option to snag some good resource areas since we can't build cities like we would like. I really liked the colony option, miss it in civ 5.

Great thread, looking forward to hearing more thoughts! I also think improving AI would help against a war monger. Design the game to form alliances with actual offensives against the war mongering civ or human. That would be great!

 

[beetle]

...but a slider would be nice to lessen some of the blows from taking new cities or just having more population.

I do not miss the slider a all. Such a clumsy hack!

 

[danaphanous]

Fyar: yeah science one is not very bad, I don't usually get too hurt by it in hindsight. I usually get bit by the culture one though and progress through policies a few tenets slower from early expansion. The only exception is if I support my empire with at least 2 religious buildings but that's untenable with every civ.

You are onto a good point about the local happiness effectively capping total of number of founded cities. But there are other buffs that let you found more than 12, should you want to push things. Each Natural Wonder adds one global happiness (and therefore one more city), more if you have one of the few that grant global happiness. Then there are World Wonders like Notre Dame and Eiffel tower which add global happiness.

Autocracy tier 2 tenet doubles happiness from annexed cities (which you might have started with early) will let you go as wide as you like.

Yeah that was my main point. I'm actually really happy I started this thread though as I'm hearing the strategies of other wide players.

I usually don't get Notre Dame on immortal but maybe I should? I might be able too if I beelined it but usually I don't and am still building infrastructure at the time. It's worth a lot of happiness though so might be worth it. good suggestion! I pretty much always get Eiffel Tower though and most of the wonders thereafter but that's due to tech lead. Usually I'm not getting enough wonders for it to make a difference early game but if I change the ones I prioritize to happiness I might get more potential expansion in the renaissance. Is this your usual plan?

Natural Wonders help a little due to the discovery perk but I seem to have terrible luck getting them in my borders. They are always halfway across the world or gobbled by AI by the time I find them. This has been consistent my past 15 games or so. The only one that ever ends up near enough to claim is, ironically, Old Faithful, one of my least favorite due to the opportunity cost. And ist hat +3 happiness on the tile bugged because I never seem to get it when I work it. only thing that changes is a paltry 2 science.

I saw a game where someone created a massive wide empire with Spain and founding near early wonders but I'm looking for a reliable strategy not a gimmick.

What policy are you talking about in autocracy? The only one like that I see is +3 happiness from courthouses, but that is also a local source like everything else so I fail to see how it enables me to go as wide as I like through war? Did something change in BNW about the ideology?

 

[fyar]

The only one that ever ends up near enough to claim is, ironically, Old Faithful, one of my least favorite due to the opportunity cost. And ist hat +3 happiness on the tile bugged because I never seem to get it when I work it. only thing that changes is a paltry 2 science.

You get the +3 happiness just for having it in your borders. That's why you didn't notice it, your happiness changed as soon as you founded the city or your culture borders expanded into the natural wonder. Working it does not add to your happiness.

 

[Browd]

What policy are you talking about in autocracy? The only one like that I see is +3 happiness from courthouses, but that is also a local source like everything else so I fail to see how it enables me to go as wide as I like through war? Did something change in BNW about the ideology?

There were no other changes to Autocracy, and I've no idea what Beetle is referring to. The only level 2 tenets in Autocracy that provide happiness are the one you note, Police State (+3 local happiness from courthouses), and Militarism (+2 local happiness from every barracks, armory and military academy).

That said, Autocracy is a powerful ideology for happiness -- just count up the happiness you can get from those two tenets, plus Fortified Borders (+1 local happiness from every castle, arsenal and military base), Universal Healthcare (+1 local happiness from every national wonder), and Prora (+2 global happiness and +1 additional global happiness for every 2 social policies (including ideological tenets) you have adopted).

Throw in generic happiness buildings (zoos, circuses, etc.), conquering whichever AI cities have Notre Dame or other happiness wonders (Autocracy is all about conquering, after all), and add Gunboat Diplomacy for easy influence with mercantile CSs and even more (global) happiness.

 

[beetle]

Yes, I just meant Police State, miss-stated the effect, and did not mean to imply it also helped with global happiness. My point is that the net effect is to let you found more than 12 cities.

As Browd details, Autocracy is swimming in happiness, I just think Police State is most important one for going wide.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

1. Game ends too quickly on standard speed with expert level play compared to Civ IV. (Not enough time for a new self founded city to pay for itself)

Wat. There are huge differences between the games but this is not one of those differences! That's especially true if you're considering relative #cities between the two games (Civ V has less total cities on a given map size). Right now there are still some elite players in Civ IV strategy doing stuff like immortal always war on Pangaea and winning before they reach rifling. At what point is a new city still viable in such a scenario?

Back to primary topic:

"Tall vs wide" is a cancer concept. "Tall" amounts to settling/conquering fewer cities, doing/taking less in wars, and having fewer decision points to micromanage. Civ V did not balance this well at all; pre-ideology there is overwhelmingly favorable tall/growth option and not much else unless the map is small/uncontested so that you can rush everyone out. Other strats are "winnable" but boil down to cherry tapping; obviously suboptimal fodder on the overwhelming majority of maps that will cause you to win later.

When you make expansion past a certain point extremely punitive, it becomes a false choice for anybody seeking optimization. I'm seeing claims that Civ V did it best in the series, but if you use an objective "how often is the choice of expanding a lot now versus trying to tech up interesting" then Civ V is a wet noodle compared to Civ IV. IV had other problems but it massacres V on this issue.

Edit:

If you're going mega wide, screw rationalism and just run commerce/autocracy (other ideology can be viable too though, I've had a ton of cities with freedom IIRC taking it as the only remaining 2 tenet option). If you're that big you should have some gold, commerce finisher + city state + happiness tenets can carry you quite a bit...but this is just helping you get more money to buy/carry more units and end the game, nothing more. If you're okay with that, wide it out. It's not like you will really be needing the rationalism tech at that point.

Autocracy for tech theft is a nice boost if going that route.

 

[MrRadar]

Under the current happiness system, from more of the roleplaying point of view, I find it somewhat disturbing that your nation's general mood may increase, if you, e. g. lose cities during war. "It is my heavy duty to inform you, that our brave soldiers could not hold <CityName> and we had to leave it to the enemy to take and burn down." &#8211; &#8222;Huzzah! Carry on! We love you!"

And if you, as a ruler of a wide empire, are struggling with happiness, but manage to get yourself - or rather your populace - nuked by a sympathetic enemy, your nation's blues will be swept away together with half of their compatriots. BOOOM! &#8211; "WOW!... That was ace! More, we want more!!!" Probably it is so true that bright light helps against depression.

Judging by the role this resource has in the game, it probably should have been called "administrative capacity" or something like that, and "happiness" or "mood" then could have been something else, e. g. it could have had some more positive (or negative, if insufficient) influence on production and troops' morale or on the same administrative capacity.

 

[Browd]

I do think folks get fixated on the words "happiness" and "unhappiness" and apply their notions of what those words mean in ordinary conversation to criticize how the game uses a particular mechanism to limit expansion. I suspect there would be less fuss about the phrasing (as opposed to fuss about balance issues, which will always be debated) if Firaxis had chosen a more neutral term, like "administrative capacity" (as MrRadar suggests) or "dissent", "tension", "discontent", "unrest", "discord", or even "overextension" or "stability" (tip of the hat to two terms from the EU series, though used in slightly different ways from Civ V happiness).

 

[danaphanous]

your descriptions cracked me up MrRadar

but yes this was what I was getting at. I definitely role-play a bit as I play and these inconsistencies bother me. It seems they spent a lot of time with measures to nerf many cities so as to balance the two ways of playing, and they did ok, but the cost is realism. The current system is not as intuitive as previous iterations and is counterintuitive in some ways. I agree, global happiness, would much better be described as political control or power. The consequences of overextending should not be unhappiness but loss of control. I'm reminded of the corruption system in civ III, though that was based on proximity to the capitol and was a tad more local. And cities you can't control generate only a fraction of their science/culture/production for the empire.

 

[beetle]

Hat tip to MrRadar for coming up with a term, administrative capacity, which reflects the Happiness mechanic.

Is there not some German or Orwellian term that captures that idea in a single word?

 

[Captain_Wozzeck]

I do think folks get fixated on the words "happiness" and "unhappiness" and apply their notions of what those words mean in ordinary conversation to criticize how the game uses a particular mechanism to limit expansion. I suspect there would be less fuss about the phrasing (as opposed to fuss about balance issues, which will always be debated) if Firaxis had chosen a more neutral term, like "administrative capacity" (as MrRadar suggests) or "dissent", "tension", "discontent", "unrest", "discord", or even "overextension" or "stability" (tip of the hat to two terms from the EU series, though used in slightly different ways from Civ V happiness).

Even if that's true, there is still a definition problem in that when a city is starving, it results in happiness/administrative capacity gains rather than losses. Starving a population should be a really strong source of discontent and unrest.

So for me that is more of a local happiness issue than a global one. I like the idea of global happiness being limiting because it is very difficult to keep a large and diverse empire running without dissent.

 

[Captain_Wozzeck]

2. 100% requirement of X building for each national wonder (puppets excluded) instead of a fixed number.

Actually it's not just the number of buildings and the timing of national wonders, but the increased national wonder cost can be brutal. I tried a 10 city liberty opening and nearly cried when I saw how much the ironworks would take to build (National college was also a huge build, but I used the liberty engineer on that).

Then again, I have heard it argued that what you lose in National wonders you gain big advantages in projects like the worlds fair. It's a fair point, but national wonders are generally more critical to the game

 

[inthesomeday]

What you lose in national wonders going wide you gain by simply already having the slack in production. The measly 8 production from ironworks is easily made up for by a city sized around 6 population ideally; when liberty has 3 more cities each sized population 15, this production is massively compensated for. Sure, each city increases tech costs marginally, but you'll be by far making more beakers for each city to compensate for the slack lost. National college usually has a beaker value altogether of about 10 or 15 total when it's built; its hammer value can be as much as basically two caravans with a reasonable number of cities, and it takes only a total of 10 population with libraries to compensate for the NC's beakers. NC I prioritize roughly before turn 100, but that isn't too hard with 8 or so cities. If you build your last expand by turn 75, work the right tiles, you can get the last library by turn 85-90; national college in the capital shouldn't take more than 8 turns, unless you have a no-hill no-pasture start. University-rushing tradition finds itself losing out in BPT to wide play with competent internal trade management and worker strategies.
Realistically, liberty players find their happiness and gold dipping twice in the early game: once very early, this is after you spam your first several expands, and it can be fixed with the right luxury focusing and cs appeasing, and by working plantations and gold camps with spare population. Of course, even after this, once you've got your steady cities ring and they all have their pop up, there comes another dip right around the late medieval, right before finishing liberty. However, this is around when you're completing markets and getting the circus maximus up. I'd say the build order I usually pursue in expands goes monument granary into either colosseum, market, or library, depending on where I'm weak.
With the second to last policy in liberty you either pop your free golden age early or grab the happiness from city connections, depending on which problem is more severe with the first dip; usually it's the city connections. This means finishing out liberty, you'll either have a massive empire finally getting enough happiness to sustain a massive growth, or just entering into a golden age during which you get your roads up and use production boost to spam colosseums and markets. Either way, the admitted problems caused by early expansion are fixed by the late medieval and you're ready to focus the potential you've built up.
As to playability and balance, it's great because wide grabs up higher base yields and those base yields are then compounded massively with the right percentage buildings, resulting in a much larger raw output than tall, providing a very tangible and immediate advantage in faith, production, and gold (which do not scale) and roughly being even in science, culture, and happiness (which do scale). Come ideologies it edges out and ends up overcoming every single comparable facet of output and is simply superior to tall over time.
As to historicity and realism, I find it very realistic! Modern superpowers are all huge states with power derived from sheer output, the U.S., China, Russia. Sure, they lost out on certain advantages to smaller core empires in earlier time periods, but come industrialization size was crowned and the infrastructure fostered following expansion became compounded massively with new ways to focus raw output. Over time, wide beats tall.

 

[beetle]

Even if that's true, there is still a definition problem in that when a city is starving, it results in happiness/administrative capacity gains rather than losses. Starving a population should be a really strong source of discontent and unrest.

But in the game, that is kind of reversing cause and effect. Cities stop growing (or even starve down) because of insufficient administrative capacity. Cities getting smaller, which is always for bad reasons, increases administrative capacity.

Actually it's not just the number of buildings and the timing of national wonders, but the increased national wonder cost can be brutal.

That is not my experience, as the prerequisite buildings are much more of a bottle neck. Also not that going wide through conquest increases NW costs, but hardly anyone complains about that!

When I play 4-city Tradition, turns to complete NW goes down. When I play Liberty, turns to complete NW stays about the same. So it is very much the difficulty of the prerequisite buildings that feels like the burden.

 

[Athenaeum]

The only one I might do away with (or diminish) is the 3rd one.

I don't think that reaching the local happiness cap has ever been an issue with me at all. Even if the first things you build in a new city are a circus and colosseum, are you not going to be at pop 4 most likely by the time you finish these things?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I do think folks get fixated on the words "happiness" and "unhappiness" and apply their notions of what those words mean in ordinary conversation to criticize how the game uses a particular mechanism to limit expansion. I suspect there would be less fuss about the phrasing (as opposed to fuss about balance issues, which will always be debated) if Firaxis had chosen a more neutral term, like "administrative capacity" (as MrRadar suggests) or "dissent", "tension", "discontent", "unrest", "discord", or even "overextension" or "stability" (tip of the hat to two terms from the EU series, though used in slightly different ways from Civ V happiness).

Yes, the choice of happiness as a term confounds the issue and that is unfortunate, but there is an unmistakable balancing issue in play too. In punishing someone for spamming out wonders, you wind up punishing yourself for winning early wars militarily, and the relative viability of policy trees is rough. That's one thing they share with Civ IV civics, which also had completely dead options in most games.

The other problem with global vs local happiness each impacting the "global" figure is that you don't have to manage individual cities as carefully. Happiness and health were a big deal in Civ IV too, but despite that there were more cities each city management was also more unique on average. Maintenance really was a better constraint. Too bad about the broken tech trades, super RNG combat (early game), and excessive dependence on land quality.

 

[beetle]

Could you expand this bit please?

In punishing someone for spamming out wonders, you wind up punishing yourself for winning early wars militarily

Are you talking about taking attractive cities from an AI, and the consequential diplomacy penalties for warmongering? I agree that the warmongering penalties are an &#8220;unmistakable balancing issue&#8221;. (But, FWIW, I think the warmongering penalties are actually balanced quite well.) I just don&#8217;t see the connection to &#8220;punishing someone for spamming out wonders.&#8221; You can just as easily be punishing someone for spawning on the continent with you, and &#8220;you wind up punishing yourself for winning early wars militarily&#8221;. But I think I might be missing something of your point! The rest of your comment is spot on.