How do you feel about being limited in number of cities and can we conquer the world?

[historix69]

Humans settle every bit of fertile land. Empires don’t. The map should be full, but it should be full of Independent People. (every bit of land should realistically be “claimed” at the beginning of the game… but having it be completely full can probably be put off for the late Second or Third Age)

If you try to hold a bunch of settlements in your empire, it should be hard. (With ways that make it easier or harder)

Before the invention of Agriculture, most of these people were living as hunter-gatherers. Settlements were small. Population density was low.

Still population estimates for 10,000 BC are a few million people (1-10 M) while estimates for 4,000 BC range from 7 M to 50 M.
In Civ those other people are just simulated as "goody huts", "barb camps" and later also "city states".

Prehistoric demography - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Estimates of historical world population - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Nikolai II]

In Civ those other people are just simulated as "goody huts", "barb camps" and later also "city states".

This. It's a decent representation IMO.

 

[Krikkit1]

Before the invention of Agriculture, most of these people were living as hunter-gatherers. Settlements were small. Population density was low.

Still population estimates for 10,000 BC are a few million people (1-10 M) while estimates for 4,000 BC range from 7 M to 50 M.
In Civ those other people are just simulated as "goody huts", "barb camps" and later also "city states".

Prehistoric demography - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Estimates of historical world population - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Exactly…Independent Peoples (who should be able to be nomadic hunter-gatherers/herders who claim the region of land they move around in and use, or farmers who claim the land they farm)

Basically if you can get food out of it, IRL, there will either be people who already consider it theirs…because they use it at least every few years.

So in Game, the map should be “full” by at least partway through the second age.. but probably not able to get the whole world painted the same color without a MASSIVE effort.

 

[Takfloyd]

To be fair, every Civ victory condition is, "fantasy," in the real world, and none of them have ever been achieved.

It has been argued, and not without merit, that USA has won a cultural victory in the real world.

 

[GeneralZift]

While I'm not a fan of the city cap, I much prefer it's a soft cap instead of a hard cap.
I think the downsides (negative Happiness) would hopefully be really easy to sidestep (additional Luxuries), such that the practical city cap is actually larger.

The Global Happiness is really not a big issue - it's just one number you need to look after. Maybe people have Civ5 trauma because it was totally unclear why the Happiness might change quite quickly and why.

What I really hated was the Loyalty system - maybe not on paper - but definitely as implemented in Civ6.
The problem was that it was completely population based and did NOT serve to actually combat wide gameplay.
People will spam Cities to have as much loyalty pressure as possible, and your Cities will be surrounded by tons of your own Cities, so the so-called Loyalty system wouldn't actually punish building tons of Cities.

All it ever did was add a system by which other factions can steal Cities for free.
And punish people who wanted to build on other continents or strategically place Cities or anything EXCEPT a huge blob of territory.

Big downgrade in my opinion. If Loyalty worked based on Culture then maybe it could be a different story.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Why are we trying to curb expansion in an empire building game? Is it really a problem that a 12 city empire has more yields and is generally more productive than a 3 city empire?

This is the crux of the matter for me, why do we want to limit expansion??

 

[Thormodr]

This is the crux of the matter for me, why do we want to limit expansion??

I think a bit of restraint on REXing is good. You can't have none, IMHO. (Well maybe in a game mode?) It's when it becomes too heavy handed that it is a problem.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Agreed, I'm not an absolutist lol

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I also have mixed feelings. I hope global happiness is not the same as it was in Civ V; I don't mind an empire wide happiness mechanic in theory, I just thought it was far too heavy handed in V, to the detriment of both fun and strategy.

I don't really like the idea of a settlement cap, what is the flavour justification for that? A bit on the gamey side for my tastes.

But I do think some soft limits on the amount of expansion are a good thing, and I like what I hear about towns (apart from them being included in the settlement cap). So I guess I'm in the "need to know more" camp. Tbh, I've said that so many times since the gameplay reveal that my rear is getting a bit sore from all this sitting on the fence. Ho hum!

On the subject of city management in VI: for me personally, the burden was not the UI or the lack of hotkeys (PS5 player, sorry not sorry), it was really just that by the end game, building anything in these cities was a bit pointless, so it just became extra clicks to get to the next turn. I didn't have any issue with city management in the early and midgame.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

This is the crux of the matter for me, why do we want to limit expansion??

Quite simply because every tactic, strategy, and mechanic in the game should have limits.

If None have limits, then the game becomes a boring Sandbox in which you can do whatever you like and likely will be bored stiff after 1.5 playthrus.

If only some have limits and some do not, then those without become the optimum play, decision-making is curtailed, and, again, the game becomes a boring Sandbox after a few plays.

And then is not played again, nor recommended to others.

The question is not should any and everything in the game have limits, but how are they designed, how are they implemented, and, as a footnote, do they bear any resemblance at all to actual events.

I submit that expansion, along with exploration, exploitation, and extermination, should be limited, and that the limitations should vary in severity and application throughout the game.

Good example: I just started reading a brand new book on the fall of civilizations (strictly by accident that it's so pertinent to Civ VII!) and have just finished reading about the Assyrian Empire - the largest geographical extent of empire in the world up to that time, which basically Always had problems keeping the 'expanding edge' of its empire from falling away. Even when a younger brother of the King was placed in charge of the sub-state of Babylon, he revolted, allied with an external enemy, and marched on Nineveh.

Basically then, from the beginning there have been serious limits on expansion - especially in Early Days, when the mechanisms for governing were pretty primitive and gaining legitimacy for a 'foreign' rule of any kind was nearly impossible.

Now, snap forward to Civ VII's equivalent of Exploration Age, and neither the Persian, nor Byzantine, nor any of the Arabic Caliphate governments had much trouble governing and maintaining control over a much wider area than the Assyrians had so much trouble with. In other words, the degree and severity of Expansion Limitation did and in-game Should change dramatically, at least between Ages and possibly within them (given the difference in span of control between, say, Assyria and Rome) as Technologies and Social/Civic Policies change and evolve.

And this should be matched by similar changes in limitations in every other mechanic in the game.

 

[Professor Phobo]

Managing too many cities exhausts me, I like playing tall. OCC was my favorite in Civ 5.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Managing too many cities exhausts me, I like playing tall. OCC was my favorite in Civ 5.

To be perfectly honest, I love City Building games and city-building aspects in other games. I devoured all of the old Sierra city-builders: Caesar II to IV, Pharaoh, Rise of the Middle Kingdom, etc, and my two most-played games in the past couple of years have been Anno 1800 - a city building/trading/production game, and Farthest Frontier, a pre-release medievalish city/town builder.

So I don't mind carefully planning out my District configurations and (now in Civ VII) what exactly to put in each of them. But I also will freely admit that too much of that is not good for a game at Civ's scope, in which you have Too Much other stuff to contend with and you can get overwhelmed by numbers of decisions to be made in each city.

The good news: Civ VII's design seems to have been planned to address and minimize where possible the kind of Micro-Decisions that have plagued previous Civs - in unit movement, construction, improvements, etc. It remains to be seen if they've hit a 'sweet spot' where I feel like I'm building a City and you do not feel like you are being dragged into Urban Renewal - The Game.

 

[pokiehl]

What I am most interested in is seeing the tension between having a settlement remain a Town (and specialize) or upgrade to a City. With Rome's abilities, we can already see that there are bonuses in the game designed to encourage you to keep settlements as Towns. I just hope there's always an interesting choice to be made in that regard.

 

[AntSou]

It depends on how it is implemented, but the happiness mechanic never really bothered me in Civ 5 like it did many others.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

What I am most interested in is seeing the tension between having a settlement remain a Town (and specialize) or upgrade to a City. With Rome's abilities, we can already see that there are bonuses in the game designed to encourage you to keep settlements as Towns. I just hope there's always an interesting choice to be made in that regard.

I strongly suspect that one of the great sources of 'tactical decisions' in Civ VII will be the management of the Town-City interactions.
.
Getting the proper ratio of Towns to Cities to feed the cities and hold territory and not overwhelm yourself.

"Improving" both Cities and Towns, however they allow you to, and using Resources properly and most efficiently to maintain both sets of settlements.

Recovering. If, as they have said/hinted, some of your Cities (All? Most? Only those not on the coast?) turn into Towns at the onset of a new Age, how and how fast can you recover them to Cities or abandon them for new Cities and, in each in-game instance, what is your best course of action?

I foresee a massive number of Posts/Threads post-release on How To Manage Your Towns and Cities and 'best plans and strategies' for doing so.

- And, I again strongly suspect, it will turn out that different Civs and combinations of Civs in later Ages will have Somewhat Different 'Best Strategies' for managing their Towns and Cities . . .

 

[Disgustipated]

I strongly suspect that one of the great sources of 'tactical decisions' in Civ VII will be the management of the Town-City interactions.
.
Getting the proper ratio of Towns to Cities to feed the cities and hold territory and not overwhelm yourself.

"Improving" both Cities and Towns, however they allow you to, and using Resources properly and most efficiently to maintain both sets of settlements.

I look forward to this. I like getting my cities nice and big. Although part of it was because I had this OCD need to try to work all 30 tiles even though it was hardly necessary. So I suspect I'll be using some towns just to send food to my larger cities.

The biggest challenge will be to place towns in places that aren't TOO good that I would want it to be a city. Like I actually want a location that's just food, and nothing but food. In previous civ titles this would be a bad city site. But maybe this could work in Civ 7 for a town location. Or you could place a town in a place that's just production and nothing but production. Since production is converted into gold, this would be a mining town specialization.

It will be fun to "play the map". My big thing is I don't want towns encroaching on tiles that I want my cities to have. So I probably don't want too much overlap. Because it seems like there's no way to stop expansion of borders in this game. And towns do grow quickly when first established, which means borders will grow quickly.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I look forward to this. I like getting my cities nice and big. Although part of it was because I had this OCD need to try to work all 30 tiles even though it was hardly necessary. So I suspect I'll be using some towns just to send food to my larger cities.

The biggest challenge will be to place towns in places that aren't TOO good that I would want it to be a city. Like I actually want a location that's just food, and nothing but food. In previous civ titles this would be a bad city site. But maybe this could work in Civ 7 for a town location. Or you could place a town in a place that's just production and nothing but production. Since production is converted into gold, this would be a mining town specialization.

It will be fun to "play the map". My big thing is I don't want towns encroaching on tiles that I want my cities to have. So I probably don't want too much overlap. Because it seems like there's no way to stop expansion of borders in this game. And towns do grow quickly when first established, which means borders will grow quickly.

Exactly. I foresee some major decisions to be made on how many, where, and what type of 'specialized' Towns you can establish to feed your Cities.

And then be made again before the end of the Age, and again when the next Age starts, and so on. The Town-City interface alone promises to keep the game interesting long after Civ VI would have become a yawn-fest dragging through the Late Game.

 

[Patine]

It has been argued, and not without merit, that USA has won a cultural victory in the real world.

This is the crux of the matter for me, why do we want to limit expansion??

I think a bit of restraint on REXing is good. You can't have none, IMHO. (Well maybe in a game mode?) It's when it becomes too heavy handed that it is a problem.

That is a good question. Fundamentally, I think we don't. What we do want is to prevent expansion from being optimal in all situations - because when one plan is always best, the player loses a meaningful choice. This is especially true for REX (Rapid Early Expansion). There were a time in past Civs were pumping out settlers as fast as possible was virtually always the best thing to do. The issue is that, because of snowballing tendencies, it's very hard to make expansion "good" without it rolling over into "much better than everything else". I think that this balance can be reached though, by making expansion come with a sufficiently strong opportunity cost that takes a long time for the investment to pay itself back, all the while the player is missing out on something else that's good. And is in a state of heightened vulnerability (to the AI or a Crisis).

Note that RES is different to ICS (Infinite City Sprawl) which is about packing cities as closely together as possible no matter the terrain. But I don't think this has been a problem since Civ5, Civ4 even really.

I think they would have to overcome the swelling of reactionary pushback and generated hatred of American culture that's spawned from many sources in many parts of the world in the last several decades, first, before taking that title.

 

[historix69]

...
Good example: I just started reading a brand new book on the fall of civilizations (strictly by accident that it's so pertinent to Civ VII!) and have just finished reading about the Assyrian Empire - the largest geographical extent of empire in the world up to that time, which basically Always had problems keeping the 'expanding edge' of its empire from falling away. Even when a younger brother of the King was placed in charge of the sub-state of Babylon, he revolted, allied with an external enemy, and marched on Nineveh.
...

If you mean the book by Paul Cooper, there is a video series and podcasts on youtube, too.

Fall of Civilizations

A podcast about the collapse of civilizations throughout history. Why do civilizations collapse? What happens afterwards? And what did it feel like to watch it happen?

www.youtube.com

 

[Disgustipated]

If you mean the book by Paul Cooper, there is a video series and podcasts on youtube, too.

I absolutely love those. I admit I also use those to fall asleep to if I can't sleep. But I also learned a lot from them. After watching his Carthage one, it would get me in the mood to play Phoenicia in Civ 6. As you can tell, I'm a big Dido fan.