learner gamer:
It's hard for me to reconcile "small civ" with "ten cities on a standard size map." The Standard Continents map in Civ5 would house no more than 10 cities comfortably in one continent. By that I mean ten cities with tiles that are actually worth working. A medium sized island would house no more than 4. Ten cities is not a small civ on Standard!
If I had ten cities placed on good dirt on a Standard map, my colors would be dominating the minimap.
I would rather say that 5-8 is medium, with anything beyond 10 as large. Ten cities is enough to claim an entire major continent, on a Continents map that only has two major continents! I would not call enough cities to claim half the world map as "medium." That's equivalent to saying a single nation spanning both North and South America (classed as one Continent in Civ 5 terms) is a "medium" nation!
The pedestal worship of Civ4 you were replying too is quite typical of Civ5 critique, which is usually to say it's not Civ4, and often it's remembered with a heavy set of nostalgia.
But yeah, 10 cities is not small. I consider the cut-off for tall empires to be 4, based entirely on the Tradition bonuses. And on standard maps, 4 cities is almost wide.
The reason it's so funny is because, as I'll shortly show, your criticism is so completely, totally and tragically wrong. Instead, both you @dexters and @Roxlimn have suffered a complete reading comprehension fail. And what's more, whereas @Roxlimn at least managed to keep the debate focussed on the game, you @dexters elected to get personal, accusing me of “Civ 4 pedestal worship”. In the process, sadly for you @dexters, you only succeeded in highlighting how personally you take criticism of a game called Civ 5: Brave New World.
To see why you're both so wrong, let's take a look back at my earlier post, in which I said:
As it happens, I was reading an old review of vanilla Civ 5 earlier today by @Sullla (at:
http://www.garath.net/Sullla/Civ5/whatwentwrong.html)
who was very critical of the mechanics used in the base game. Now of course, that review reminded me of just how much has changed for the better in the interim from the initial release. However, this quote when discussing global happiness in vanilla caught my eye:
"The developers clearly intended players to build a small handful of cities (roughly five to ten on a standard-sized map) and based the happiness mechanic around that assumption."
because it occurred to me given this thread:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=503996
that BNW might therefore actually be the culmination of what the developers wanted Civ 5 to be. Perhaps they do indeed want it to be a game in which the civver turtles to victory, to ensure the end game is relevant. If so, I'd suggest mission accomplished in BNW.
In other words, I included a quote from a review of Civ 5 vanilla from @Sullla. As a result, the first mistake both of you made was even assuming that I agree with @Sullla's notion up to 10 cities could have been regarded as a small empire in vanilla. However, if you both bother to check my posts, you'll find that I make no such claim. Instead, my sole reference to empire size in both vanilla and BNW has been the following:
Judging by some of the posts on here though, I get the distinct feeling that some folks think that six cities isn't a small empire in Civ 5 / BNW.
And I stand by that comment – I think that six cities was a small empire in vanilla. But I've said nothing about whether I perceive an empire with 7 or more cities in vanilla as being small, as you clearly imply in this quote:
Ten cities is not a small civ on Standard!
And that's for good reason: I don't and have never said a 10 city empire is small, in vanilla, BNW or Civ 4. Go and check. Both of you.
Now, if either of you can actually be bothered to hunt for some facts instead of just making unfounded accusations, you'll find that, instead, my comments have focussed on the date (1 AD) at which I could assemble a 10 city empire in Civ 4 (ie. not BNW) - and I've noted that I find myself running fewer cities at the same point of a game of BNW. In other words, the comparison that has been made is between empire sizes at a given date. This has been repeatedly borne out by my continued references in this thread to activity levels in “the early game” and why the rest of us have been talking about RExxing – to gauge opinion on whether BNW would be improved if the date at which an empire of a given size could be founded was brought forward.
Your second – and bigger - failure meanwhile is to assume that even if I agreed with @Sullla that a small empire consisted of up to 10 cities in vanilla (when I have made no such claim), that I also believe this definition of 10 cities as "small" also holds true in BNW. And here you both fail tragically, because, as I specifically pointed out in my post here:
As it happens, I was reading an old review of vanilla Civ 5 earlier today by @Sullla
@Sullla's quote referred to the game as it stood in vanilla. In other words, neither he nor I made in that quote any representation of what a small empire might constitute in BNW.
Indeed, I made this point even clearer subsequently in my post by subsequently noting that I was completely aware that there have been a number of changes to Civ 5 made “for the better in the interim from the initial release.” In other words, I'm completely aware, to quote just one obvious example as a for instance, that the minimum number of hexes between cities has changed from 2 initially in vanilla to it's current 3 in BNW. What's more @Sullla's review also highlighted another change made in an early vanilla patch, to colosseums. As a result, I am (and was when I posted) therefore completely aware that it would be necessary to question whether any gamer's perception of what constituted a small empire in vanilla (which is all Sullla has discussed in that review I quoted) was still an appropriate definition to use in BNW. And perhaps, at least here, there is something I need to consider: whether 6 cities is still a small empire in BNW, in accordance with my quote here:
Judging by some of the posts on here though, I get the distinct feeling that some folks think that six cities isn't a small empire in Civ 5 / BNW.
Obviously, that's something I'll reflect on as (or if) I play more BNW.
However, to repeat, at no stage did I suggest that a 10 city empire is small in BNW as you've both accused me of doing. And quite frankly, your failed attempts to put words into my mouth are just hilarious.
So why post @Sullla's quote? Well, as I mentioned in the remainder of my post, it illustrated a point that I was trying to make about BNW: that perhaps the developers intend that the gamer build a small empire in BNW (however you define that – and I've certainly made no reference to a 10 city empire being small in BNW, and neither did @Sullla) and then, as I went on to say, turtle, to make the end game relevant. And I stand by that hypothesis too. What's more, as I pointed out in the remainder of that post, that hypothesis would be consistent with the observations of others in this thread, such as @knighterrant81 and possibly @KrikkitTwo.
A word of advice to both of you. If you're going to reply to my posts and accuse me of “Civ 4 pedestal worship” in particular @dexters, at least read them first and be sure you have your facts straight to avoid embarrassing yourselves by making false and unfounded claims...and then trying to get personal to boot.
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