Civ 7 reduces micromanagement, but stronger—and uncapped—penalties for exceeding the settlement limit are needed to keep it that way

[Djospe]

Right now, the optimal strategy is to ignore the settlement limit entirely by the time you reach the Exploration or Modern Age, ending up with 30, 40, or even 50+ settlements. This leads to a much more tedious late game and basically undoes many of the excellent changes Firaxis made to reduce micromanagement in Civ 7.

I believe stronger—and importantly, uncapped—penalties for exceeding the settlement limit are needed to help maintain a low micromanagement experience.

Does anyone else feel this way? How do you handle late-game expansion in your playthroughs?

 

[uppi]

I disagree that it is the optimal strategy to ignore the settlement limit. Yes, it is a viable strategy, but you have to invest into happiness to make it work. And then that investment is missing somewhere else. A good empire within the settlement limit will likely outperform an empire that ignores settlement limit. (Unless you are going really crazy with maybe 80+ settlements).

In my opinion it is a choice to make a build for massively going over settlement limit and then you know that you are signing up for massive micromanagement. And also going infinite should be possible for those who want to conquer the entire map.

 

[Porry]

Plus, with all the new resources introduced, happiness is no longer an issue. With trade and resource allocation, happiness can be easily kept under control.

 

[Djospe]

In my opinion, once you reach late exploration age, assuming you're playing well, you've already settled, built, improved, befriended, traded, etc. everything that brings a meaningful return on investment.

Thus, the meaningful optimal option from there is to invest in a large army and go well over the settlement cap by conquering other civs and getting stronger that way. Not doing that (unless in some very special cases) means that you're likely playing suboptimally.

Note: I play deity on default settings with a random leader and a random starting civ.

 

[uppi]

In my opinion, once you reach late exploration age, assuming you're playing well, you've already settled, built, improved, befriended, traded, etc. everything that brings a meaningful return on investment.

Thus, the meaningful optimal option from there is to invest in a large army and go well over the settlement cap by conquering other civs and getting stronger that way. Not doing that (unless in some very special cases) means that you're likely playing suboptimally.

Note: I play deity on default settings with a random leader and a random starting civ.

I disagree that this is the optimal play. Yes, you should be building military in such a situation. But in my opinion, the optimal play is to stop conquering once you took over the enemy power centers (the big cities with wonders in them). You leave them with their small towns still in their hands, because they will not add much to your empire, will not help any happiness issues you might have after the age transition, and most importantly: they make easy-to-conquer targets for the military victory. Once you made it over the age transition with a huge military, you make it to an Ideology ASAP and then conquer all the towns you left alive in the last age.

Going over the settlement limit in late exploration is only worth it if you are conquering a big city or if you have specifically made a build where you have way too much happiness, anyway. As it stands now, victory is all about being able to get things rolling as fast as possible in early modern. Little fishing towns over your settlement cap in late Exploration will only ever be dead weight for that.

 

[CliffCo]

I actually enjoyed the micromanagement in Civ6 and don't want to see the devs remove more of it than they already have, in fact i'd like to see more added.

 

[Sly1foxy]

I disagree! In fact I want the settlement cap penalties lessened or done away with completely. It is so annoying to have multiple civs declare war on you and when you successfully counterattack them you are forced to either eat all of the settlements and the penalties associated with that or raze their settlements and suffer those penalties. If they are stupid enough to declare war on me I should be able to take their cities without penalty. Now if I declare war on them then I'd understand some kind of penalty for taking a lot of their settlements.

 

[Sly1foxy]

I disagree that it is the optimal strategy to ignore the settlement limit. Yes, it is a viable strategy, but you have to invest into happiness to make it work. And then that investment is missing somewhere else. A good empire within the settlement limit will likely outperform an empire that ignores settlement limit. (Unless you are going really crazy with maybe 80+ settlements).

In my opinion it is a choice to make a build for massively going over settlement limit and then you know that you are signing up for massive micromanagement. And also going infinite should be possible for those who want to conquer the entire map.

I disagree with your theory. I have ended up with science and culture per turn totals of +1000 each many times with less than 80+ settlements. Usually I can hit those numbers (depending on leader and civ obviously) with somewhere between 40-50 settlements.

 

[Krikkit1]

I disagree! In fact I want the settlement cap penalties lessened or done away with completely. It is so annoying to have multiple civs declare war on you and when you successfully counterattack them you are forced to either eat all of the settlements and the penalties associated with that or raze their settlements and suffer those penalties. If they are stupid enough to declare war on me I should be able to take their cities without penalty. Now if I declare war on them then I'd understand some kind of penalty for taking a lot of their settlements.

If you want to punish a warmonger without becoming too big…sack ang pillage, don’t conquer the city center but burn everything else to rhe ground.

 

[uppi]

I disagree with your theory. I have ended up with science and culture per turn totals of +1000 each many times with less than 80+ settlements. Usually I can hit those numbers (depending on leader and civ obviously) with somewhere between 40-50 settlements.

And I can get those numbers at the end of exploration with less than 20 settlements:

Take a look at this screenshot for example:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...thread-funny-strange-etc.695129/post-16842623
770 science and 1560 culture and it is not even the end of exploration (I think at the end I had ~1000 science and 2000 culture, but I don't have an end of exploration save. I ended up with a 34 turn science victory in modern). With 18 settlements. If you need 40-50 settlements to reach that, maybe the development of your core cities suffered because you had too many settlements? In any case, going way over your settlement cap is a valid playstyle, but it is just a playstyle. I don't think it is the optimal way to play.

As the penalty for going over is capped, there is obviously a point where going over the settlement limit will be overtaking the style of staying within your settlement. I don't know where exactly that point is (80 was just a random guess).

 

[Kwami]

And I can get those numbers at the end of exploration with less than 20 settlements:

Yes, this. I do it in just about every game. Why does anybody need 40-50 settlements?

 

[madeirabhoy]

I disagree! In fact I want the settlement cap penalties lessened or done away with completely. It is so annoying to have multiple civs declare war on you and when you successfully counterattack them you are forced to either eat all of the settlements and the penalties associated with that or raze their settlements and suffer those penalties. If they are stupid enough to declare war on me I should be able to take their cities without penalty. Now if I declare war on them then I'd understand some kind of penalty for taking a lot of their settlements.

this. even if I play peacefully I cant stay under the settlement cap. as im minding my own business, a civ asks to be an alliance. fair does okay I say. next minute they've declared war with 2 or 3 civs, some of which ive not even found. as soon as they can, each civ asks for peace, offering me a city. 5 mins after asking for peace, they are declaring war on me, and as soon as they can, asking again for peace, again in return for a city. why should I be penalized for this?

 

[Krikkit1]

this. even if I play peacefully I cant stay under the settlement cap. as im minding my own business, a civ asks to be an alliance. fair does okay I say. next minute they've declared war with 2 or 3 civs, some of which ive not even found. as soon as they can, each civ asks for peace, offering me a city. 5 mins after asking for peace, they are declaring war on me, and as soon as they can, asking again for peace, again in return for a city. why should I be penalized for this?

You can make a counter offer where you don’t get any cities.

 

[Djospe]

And I can get those numbers at the end of exploration with less than 20 settlements:

Take a look at this screenshot for example:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...thread-funny-strange-etc.695129/post-16842623
770 science and 1560 culture and it is not even the end of exploration (I think at the end I had ~1000 science and 2000 culture, but I don't have an end of exploration save. I ended up with a 34 turn science victory in modern). With 18 settlements. If you need 40-50 settlements to reach that, maybe the development of your core cities suffered because you had too many settlements? In any case, going way over your settlement cap is a valid playstyle, but it is just a playstyle. I don't think it is the optimal way to play.

As the penalty for going over is capped, there is obviously a point where going over the settlement limit will be overtaking the style of staying within your settlement. I don't know where exactly that point is (80 was just a random guess).

Valid points, Uppi.

This brings me to another (connected) thought: even at 15-20 settlements, is it too much in terms of fun? When it comes to strategizing/optimizing, as soon as you have about 10 settlements, you can already have 3-4 cities, some farming/fishing towns, and some specialty towns. More than that is just doing more of the same - adding more management but not more diversity/strategy/fun. Am I the only one feeling this way?

 

[UWHabs]

You can make a counter offer where you don’t get any cities.

Yeah, I often find myself ending a war and declining any cities in return, even if they would offer them, because those cities add nothing to my empire.

And I can get those numbers at the end of exploration with less than 20 settlements:

Take a look at this screenshot for example:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...thread-funny-strange-etc.695129/post-16842623
770 science and 1560 culture and it is not even the end of exploration (I think at the end I had ~1000 science and 2000 culture, but I don't have an end of exploration save. I ended up with a 34 turn science victory in modern). With 18 settlements. If you need 40-50 settlements to reach that, maybe the development of your core cities suffered because you had too many settlements? In any case, going way over your settlement cap is a valid playstyle, but it is just a playstyle. I don't think it is the optimal way to play.

As the penalty for going over is capped, there is obviously a point where going over the settlement limit will be overtaking the style of staying within your settlement. I don't know where exactly that point is (80 was just a random guess).

Yeah, my current game I'm ending the exploration era with maybe 24 settlements (so still over the cap), and in the 1300ish both science and culture (plus 3000 gpt when in a golden age and +180 influence per turn).

Although even with being like 5-7 over the settlement cap, most of my towns are still not worse than -10 happiness. I do think it's a little too easy to repair happiness in your core cities. If I can be conquering a bunch and that far over the cap, and the only penalty is -10% or -20% to yields to my worst 10 settlements, it's not really a penalty. At least they should probably add a blanket -3% or something to all yields for each settlement over the cap, irrespective of happiness, then that would be something. My current empire with a -15% or -20% to all yields would probably be a little more balanced.

 

[Kwami]

Valid points, Uppi.

This brings me to another (connected) thought: even at 15-20 settlements, is it too much in terms of fun? When it comes to strategizing/optimizing, as soon as you have about 10 settlements, you can already have 3-4 cities, some farming/fishing towns, and some specialty towns. More than that is just doing more of the same - adding more management but not more diversity/strategy/fun. Am I the only one feeling this way?

Now that towns don't constantly bring up a specialization thing that I have to click away every turn, it's OK. Lots of towns takes up space to keep the AI away and also grabs a lot of resources. Pretty much all of my overseas settlements stay towns. Actually, anything settled after antiquity stays a town unless it would be a really, really good city. I've already got my 3-5 core cities by the end of antiquity.

 

[Canadian Bluebeer]

Yes, this. I do it in just about every game. Why does anybody need 40-50 settlements?

Who cares about NEED. AI declares war on me. I squash him and take all thier settlement. (aka: obliteration)
Penalties for keeping them vs razing.

aka: they didn't think things through or playtest anywhere near enough.

(why would I give things back to the AI after they attack? Why would I let them live (or why should I?)

btw, getting a cap limit of 40+ is possible. So getting 80 settlements? Either huge map or packed like sardines. heh.

 

[Arcaian]

aka: they didn't think things through or playtest anywhere near enough.

I strongly suspect that this is something they did playtest and think through quite heavily, and you just don't like the decision they made. It's a pretty fundamental aspect of gameplay, and between the settlement limit and towns being much less micro intensive, I'm pretty pleased with how much less of a pain it is to play the game past the first ~1/3rd or so.

 

[uppi]

As an experiment, I played a game with Charlemagne and reckless disregard for the settlement limit. I ended up with 57 out of 20 settlements. The end result was fairly powerful (but not overly so), but it took quite some time to get there. The happiness issues in the cities can be solved (but it takes some time), but it is much more tricky in towns (in which you don't want to invest too much anyway). So you end up with quite a few unhappy towns, which don't contribute that much. Of course, you have many towns and then it evens out somewhat. It works as a playstyle, but I don't think it is optimal and does not need to be nerfed.

I feel like I could have optimized more: hug the settlement limit for longer until more of the empire has been developed and you can go over the settlement limit without impacting your growth curve that much, but then I would have had less time to conquer as many settlements.

 

[Leucarum]

More options in peace deals would feel good. There are as people have said a lot of situations where the optimal peace deal is not to take anything. Lump sums of Money or Influence? Getting a % of their gold or influence per turn could be an option maybe? Maybe even % of science or culture?

I'd kind of like the settlement limit to be lower TBH. By modern the micromanagement needed is higher than I'd ideally like...