As someone who has an awful lot of sympathy with the OP because of the extent to which Civ 5's global happiness mechanic limits expansion I'm just going to repeat a question to those who say they routinely go wide that I asked in another thread. Specifically, does anyone know of a Let's Play video on youtube that illustrates how easy it is to go wide in BNW?
Wish I could help but Liveplays are not my thing. If I learn of any I will PM you.
Sounds like you're putting words into another poster's mouth. As someone who would also like to play wider than Civ 5 allows me to play, let me offer an alternative rationale behind @Dishonour's comments that I use: that other posters would simply like to settle good land, where good means land that is capable of supporting a city that would make a meaningful contribution to an empire. The issue here of course is that the land may very well not be capable of being settled in BNW because it doesn't contain an unowned happiness resource. Settling good land and settling without bound need not be the same thing.
To be fair I think you need to relook at the posters remarks that I was addressing. They specifically mentioned "Expanding" and "Exterminating" and being limited by "stupid" game mechanics. They compared it to the Sims and Facebook, reductio absurdum and all that.
Their whole premise was that Game Mechanics should not limit expansion, only players. How is that not implying a desire for uncurtailed expansion at the point of a sword. I truly cannot see any other interpretation of THEIR words, YOUR position is a vastly different one IMO.
I don't disagree with a single thing you said, even the "words in mouth comment". I just happen to think they were the right words, regardless of whether I put them there.
The impression I got from the description they gave was what I typed. Was I paraphrasing yes : yes. Was I wrong : possibly. But do I stand by it :yes.
Hey each to their own, I don't object to Dishonours desired playstyle, nor do I have any acrimony towards them. Wide expansion should be viable, war for land should occur, warmongers should have their day in the sun. I was just objecting to assertion that the game was not 4X, and more importantly that game mechanics should not curtail expansion. Without that mechanic Civ would be dominated by ICS or Wide Sprawl strategies. From my perspective I think multiple viable expansion options (Wide Sprawl or Small Tall, can't say I am in love with ICS though), within a plausible historical framework, is the most desirable option.
Your interpretation is a much more considered and rationale one, and had the poster put it in that way I would not have responded as judgementally. I would in no way make the same assertions about you, as your premise is a wholly different one IMO.
It's not necessarily a bad thing but it can be something that's not fun for some. Maybe others for instance would like to manage more cities than they're currently able to do in BNW (which limits the number of cities in your empire courtesy of the global happiness mechanic) to give them more to do per turn.
Yes but I was specifically talking about limiting empires by various mechanics, I did not mean to imply I was only talking about Global Happiness when I said "How is that a bad thing"; the previous statement list various metrics for limiting empires. I was saying how is curtailing expansion due to real world factors a bad thing, the only other interpretation is unbounded expansion until forced to stop via the sword or the ocean.
If the debate is about global happiness then I would just say, well its a mechanic, it has its pros and cons and it probably needs to be tweaked a little. Civ 6 may or may not have it, but one thing you can bet on is it will have an expansion limiting mechanic.
As I showed in a debate with @PhilBowles recently, games may well use different mechanics to achieve the same end (eg. to limit expansion) but the use of those mechanics can have very different gameplay effects. And the issue that the debate in this thread epitomises is not necessarily whether a mechanic is right or wrong, but that some gamers will find certain mechanics fun given the way they like to play, others not so.
I agree.
That said I do believe mechanics can either be right or wrong within the context of what they were designed to accomplish. What we see each patch/expansion is a tweaking of the game to try and make SMALL-WIDE both viable. SMALL/TALL was atrocious when Civ V was originally released, remember TRADITION vs LIBERTY at that time. Remember how all Happiness was global and therefor an ICS dream (enter SULLA's ICS). Gradually SMALL/TALL got buffed. Perhaps the pendulum has swung to far since BNW, I really don't want to comment either way as I just don't have enough info to make that judgement. That said I tend to lean toward the poster who said wide becomes more and more viable as the game progress, or words to that affect.
FTR I enjoy both playstyles (except ICS) and am wedded to neither. What I choose or enjoy the most is dependent on the Civ I play at the time and what VC I intend to pursue (if I make the choice early).