Going wide in Civ VI is always better

[Dojichan]

The strategy of going wide in Civ V had issues for three reasons: because of the fact that every new city weakened your original cities(because of happiness), because civics only buffed your first 4 cities, and because costs of civics/science went up per city. Thus having exactly 4 cities was very strong.

In civ VI there are three things affected by going wide. 1)Appeal-Each source of luxury only helps 4 cities. The devs have said that there is a built in system that divides the luxury across your civ such that the overall appeal in each city is the same. This can be observed in fithyrobot's game when he is quickly going through his cities(he doesn't notice but you can by watching as the cities hit the every three pop). So if you have cities at -1,-1,-1,-1,0 overall appeal and get a new luxury then you will get 0,0,0,0,0 after it adjusts(devs say that it takes one turn). In other words, the largest cities get the appeal. Also appeal from population doesn't stop dropping until pop 3. 2)Builder-Every new builder will cost more than the previous builder 3)District-Every district that has been built will increase the cost of that specific district(not others). Devs and watching games confirm this. You can build a holy site in one city and a commercial in another for example. The cost only goes up when you build a holy site in a second.

I have not found any other effects in either dev interviews or Let's Play.(let me know if I missed one)

Proof that going wide is always better: Example empire: You have N amount of cities(where N is what you think is the best) My goal is to show you that having N+1 cities is always better.

Let's add another city. Let us not improve this city or build districts. Let us cap the population at 2. The appeal of this city will be 1 without luxuries.(not enough population to drop it). Because appeal is optimized across all cities, this means that luxuries will go to your N cities any time they drop below 1 appeal. You have not built any builders or districts so it will not hurt your N cities. It sucks as a city but it does have 2 pop so you do get some extra production,gold,science etc. Thus it is strictly better to have this city.

By induction it is better to have N amazing cities and then as many lv 2 cities as you can get. Yes there is a small cost of a settler from your N cities. But after you have expanded exactly one more time...you can use only the lv 2 cities to build settlers and then it will have 0 effect on your original N cities.

Now after your first N cities have used as many builders as they can...you can build new builders in lv 2 cities with no disadvantage. Now after your first N cities have all the districts they want(or after they have all built a holy site for example) you can build districts(or a holy site specifically) with no disadvantage. Now after you have increased their appeal through something besides luxuries(entertainment district, buildings, or religion) you can let them grow to whatever the next cutoff point is for your cities. (+2 pop per other source of appeal)

Thus making your lv 2(or more) cities become better and better as you get into late game.

TLDNR: an unlimited amount of unimproved 2 pop cities will boost your civ in all situations. Eventually those cities will become even better.

 

[criZp]

Amenities not appeal they are quite different mechanics

 

[Ryika]

And how do you defend an unlimited amount of unimproved 2 pop cities?

 

[treadwin]

Civ 5 was flawed in that there were situations where, even if you found a good site for a city, there were times when it was better to not build it. If that is what you mean by, "Going wide in Civ VI is always better", then I agree with you and I don't think that is a problem.

If you are saying that founding a city, no matter where it is, is always better, then I am not so sure that I agree.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Cities are not free. Yes they are good but you may have better options to spend your resources then founding cities.

 

[WiseGreen]

Settlers have escalating costs. Even assuming you're not improving the city to avoid inflationing your core cities' districts' costs, how much production do you need to churn out from that city to make it worth it past, say, 10 cities (250% settler cost, assuming each settler costs 15% than the previous one)? Even settling on luxuries/strategic resources you don't have might be more expensive after a while than going after other sources for amenities (districts, buildings, wonders etc.)

 

[treadwin]

Settlers have escalating costs. Even assuming you're not improving the city to avoid inflationing your core cities' districts' costs, how much production do you need to churn out from that city to make it worth it past, say, 10 cities (250% settler cost, assuming each settler costs 15% than the previous one)? Even settling on luxuries/strategic resources you don't have might be more expensive after a while than going after other sources for amenities (districts, buildings, wonders etc.)

I think we have seen that settlers, builders and I think districts (within type) have escalating costs.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

All civilian units have escalating cost.

District cost is mainly based on turn, +1 production per turn passed after turn 1.

 

[Dojichan]

Sorry. Yes I meant amenities and not appeal (oops)
Settlers have escalating costs.- Yes but you only build one in your original N cities so the cost is only on your pop 2 cities which in comparison to not having them at all is a net gain.
how do you defend an unlimited amount of unimproved 2 pop cities?-Worst case you lose them and are back to your N cities. AND the enemy will have to now defend them(same issue you had), he might let them grow(now it hurts his original cities), or destroy them(It sucks but now you are in the same boat as if you had never built them). Keep in mind more cities=more science and gold==more military==better odds of defending them.

 

[Calcifer]

I'd like to point out that everything about district cost increase is just speculation, we don't even know for sure if new city centers increase district cost. I think we'll have to make some tests after the release to find out more about that.

 

[Gort]

I don't really have a problem with a large country being better than a small country, all other things (EG: Population density) being equal - that just seems sensible to me.

Infinite City Spam is something to be avoided, but I think the escalating cost of settlers will mean that players have to weigh the benefit of another city against the benefit of building infrastructure in their existing ones. If that choice is a no-brainer, then we can tune it by increasing the escalation of the cost of settlers.

The thing to remember is that settlers are an opportunity cost. It's all very well saying, "Well, if I lose a few cities I'm no worse off than the guy who didn't build those cities in the first place", but you are worse off. The guy who didn't build extra cities got to spend the hammers you spent on settlers on districts and units, so he's in a better situation than you are.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

In civilization III what is said in the OP is pretty much correct but civilization VI is not civilization III and the opportunity cost for building settlers is way higher.

Civiilization VI your settlers compete with districts, district projects, buildings and units all of them being important while in civilization III settlers do not face much competition at all.

 

[Ryika]

Worst case you lose them and are back to your N cities.

...and have lost the investment you made, potentially permanently increased your settler/district cost to found a city that you now no longer have (I think we still don't have confirmation about how exactly that system works?) and have worsened the relationship with the leaders that you forward-settled.

ND the enemy will have to now defend them

Yeah, but unlike you he probably has an army sizable enough to defend those extra cities because he spent his resources building stuff that is not settlers (even if you build additional settlers in cities outside your core cities, assuming the same amount of early development he will be spending those cities of his for more active things), not made enemies on all sides, possibly even allied with some of his neighbors to attack you (assuming the AI is that clever), and is likely to be ahead in everything. And that's just that one AI, the other AIs who were not effected by you at all are pushing ahead on the other side of the map.

And for what? A few low-efficiency cities in the best case scenario? While it may work in a sandbox-scenario I don't think this is how it will play out, assuming the AI is strong enough to punish this kind of strategy.

 

[treadwin]

Sorry. Yes I meant amenities and not appeal (oops)
Settlers have escalating costs.- Yes but you only build one in your original N cities so the cost is only on your pop 2 cities which in comparison to not having them at all is a net gain.
how do you defend an unlimited amount of unimproved 2 pop cities?-Worst case you lose them and are back to your N cities. AND the enemy will have to now defend them(same issue you had), he might let them grow(now it hurts his original cities), or destroy them(It sucks but now you are in the same boat as if you had never built them). Keep in mind more cities=more science and gold==more military==better odds of defending them.

Not necessarily. In Civ5 cities had growth, science, gold, production and defense for free, but the amounts that were required went up for each city you owned.

Now, founding a city (unless it is a good site) gives you very little free growth, science, gold, production and defense. You need builders, buildings and districts to create those, and they go up in cost. We don't know the balance yet, but it makes sense that the quality of the site is going to be the deciding factor. Depending where they put the slider, and the difficulty level you play on, you are going to need better and better sites to make a city viable, before it repays the incremental cost of the hammers for its builders, buildings and districts. It may well be that this escalating cost for players (as opposed to the AI) is the main difficulty regulator.

Edit: The interesting conclusion is that because the city "tax" is paid only in hammers/cogs this time, the value of a city site is solely judged in hammers. Any science, gold, or culture it picks up is the bonus, as long as it can meet the production to offset this tax.

 

[LDiCesare]

Civ I ICS was exactly like that.
If a single city can produce 1 settler and 1 military unit, costs nothing more and provides nothing else, then it's a net benefit because it paid for itself by providing the settler.
The biggest problem for ICS is actually map space. CivVI prevents you from building cities next to each other, so you may want ICS but you may not be able to do it.
Still, wide seems to be better if you can spare the cost of the initial settler and if you can protect the extra territory.

 

[ThomasClark]

TLDNR: an unlimited amount of unimproved 2 pop cities will boost your civ in all situations. Eventually those cities will become even better.

Disagree, this is too simple. You need military to defend these cities and you need districts+buildings to win any victory type. And you'll get farther into the game and need 200 hammers just to build a pikeman or 330 production to build cavalry, cards and upgrades aside. Your 5-pop city isn't going to help very much with that. As others have stated, you'll be gifting your opponents easy cities and they will steamroll you.

 

[indradiva]

Yes, a city with 2 pop will give you only +1.4 science and +0.6 culture. And no faith, no Great People. A useful boost in all situations? LOL. Even Rome will not do it and they are made to go wide.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

A campus with all buildings but no adjacency bonus give 11 science per turn and add in a +100% campus buildings yield card it give +22 science. And the great person points may themself be worth +10 science per turn or so. Much better then a pop 2 city in my opinion.

Even early game expansion is debatable as you may be better of building districts and district projects to get an headstart over the other civs.

 

[Firebug]

except for when you have no room to expand, or there's nothing to expand to (like new luxuries and strategic resources), or if that scary neighbour has a big army waiting to crush your new city. Or if you need the population in that city and don't want to spend it on a new city. Also, those turns spent on a settler could be spent on something else.

 

[rpgalon]

except for when you have no room to expand, or there's nothing to expand to (like new luxuries and strategic resources), or if that scary neighbour has a big army waiting to crush your new city. Or if you need the population in that city and don't want to spend it on a new city. Also, those turns spent on a settler could be spent on something else.

You made me wonder, if you are with 4 pop and have a district already and you start a second one, change to a settler mid district production, after the settler is done and you fall to 3 pop.... can you go back building the unfinished district even without the pop requirement?