Civ 6 impairs the "not expansive" play-style:

[El Castellano]

My personal play-style in civ 5 was to have very few developed cities and build many wonders. I tried to do the same in civ 6 and I found this:

Limit of population in cities: they can not expand more than a maximum population and is difficult to get services.

Low production in cities and very expensive wonders.

If you're building a wonder and another civ constructs it before, then you do not get any compensation, you only lose the turns you've spent.

No penalties in science or culture by having more cities.

Internal trade routes are very poor and are only in one direction.

All AI civilizations are expansive.

In short, civ 6 is directed so overly "expansive" play-style that causes "not expansive" play-style is not recommended.

What do you think about this?

 

[Haig]

Rather this than the Civ 5 style of 3-4 cities Empires.

All this will probably be tweaked in balance patches , expansions etc.

So far I love to have the big empires back in business. Overextension isnt without risks like needing more armies to defend, and cities in poor spots without amenities could rebel.

 

[MistyRonin]

I'm not so sure.

I have played a couple games with tiny Empires (5-6 cities) and did better than a game where I went a bit expansive, I had 12 cities.

The only thing I realised is that having a good city placement and a good district distribution is imperative.

 

[Ornen]

Civ has always been about expansion. Civ 5 was the only game to privilege a non-expansive playstyle.

The good news is it's never too late to learn how to build an empire!

 

[Ryika]

I think not expanding too quickly works out okay. You just have to get away from the idea that you can grow your cities to immense size, instead, use your Citizens for things other than food and get the developmental advantage. It's not an ideal strategy (thankfully), and you need to slowly but surely add more cities later on, but in general it works just fine.

 

[kampori]

My first game only had 6 cities I founded (30 after I conquered the rest of my continent, cus every AI civ are absolute *******s)

Each one was well placed, grew fast and produced well. By the 1900s, each city was 27-30 pop, and each one could build wonders between 10 turn to 30 turns (for the modern wonders. I think eiffel tower, broadway, and sydney opera house were the only wonders that cost 25-30 turns). I managed to get 4-6 wonders in each city.
In the end it looked a bit silly, half my map was just huge wonders surrounded by neighbourhoods.