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

[greenOak]

From my understanding, towns create duplicate copies of food collected and can send that food to cities, while the production they collect get turned into gold. Although we have no way of knowing for sure, I would guess that the rate at which towns turn production into gold is not efficient*, so in the end towns are amazing at generating food, probably worse at generating production, neutral? at producing gold, and presumably worse at producing more advanced resources like science and culture due to the lack of urban districts. This seems like a decent trade off where a town heavy empire can grow population faster than a city heavy empire but will lag behind in production, science, and culture.

However, upon hearing about town specialization I do wonder if it will ever be optimal to specialize towns in anything but food. It seems to me that you'd want to turn your high production settlements into cities and keep your high food settlements as towns.

*Based on past iterations of civ turning your production into gold (wealth, city projects) and then back into production (gold rushing) is extremely inefficient.

 

[Krikkit1]

From my understanding, towns create duplicate copies of food collected and can send that food to cities,....

Not sure that its duplicate, they may just have a fraction of their total food that they send (but holding back enough so that they don't starve)

As for the gold... I can see that Prod->Gold->Prod would probably be inefficient.... however, if there are large maintenance costs for the empire/army.. perhaps just Prod->Gold would be what towns are for. (and possibly it would be effective to help build up a city... as well as keeping the towns themselves productive.. since your farm towns will need gold to get their granaries)

 

[Disgustipated]

Also keep in mind some civs have a higher settlement cap than others. Rome and Mongols in particular. I hope at least a few other civs have higher settlement caps as well.

 

[Patine]

I think this feature, along with 1UPT and tactical combat on a strategic map, from Civ5, and urban improvements around the city, visibly on the main map, from Civ6, allows me to articulate a way of describing a trend in recent Civ game iteeration. I had used the term, "realistic," but, indeed, a lot of civ features are unrealitic. I had used, "scope and scale," but that, alone, is not enough. I think it's the move to a, "small world," feel, if you will, as opposed to the, "big world," feel of Civ1-4. I don't like the shift in seeming focus in that area.

 

[chaosprophet]

We need to get more information about towns. Maybe they just have a different benefit than cities where it would be useful to not turn one into a city whenever you have the resources to do so. Albeit, being able to build more buildings, wonders, and etc., makes me think chances are the benefit in towns is more likely somewhat related with when you go over the settlement cap, but we will see. Hopefully in some of the events someone asks firaxis about that.

 

[historix69]

We need to get more information about towns. Maybe they just have a different benefit than cities where it would be useful to not turn one into a city whenever you have the resources to do so. Albeit, being able to build more buildings, wonders, and etc., makes me think chances are the benefit in towns is more likely somewhat related with when you go over the settlement cap, but we will see. Hopefully in some of the events someone asks firaxis about that.

In the previews it is said that cities in Civ VII grow very slowly on their own. The more towns support a city with their food, the faster it grows, comparable to those Food-traderoutes in previous civ games. One guy said at the cap of 7 he had 1 city supported by 6 towns and the city grew very fast. The ratio between towns and cities roughly determines how fast your cities grow and how big they can become.
However only cities have production, so you will have to find a good balance between fewer bigger and more smaller cities to produce all those wonders, city improvements and military units ...

 

[chaosprophet]

In the previews it is said that cities in Civ VII grow very slowly on their own. The more towns support a city with their food, the faster it grows, comparable to those Food-traderoutes in previous civ games. One guy said at the cap of 7 he had 1 city supported by 6 towns and the city grew very fast. The ratio between towns and cities roughly determines how fast your cities grow and how big they can become.
However only cities have production, so you will have to find a good balance between fewer bigger and more smaller cities to produce all those wonders, city improvements and military units ...

That's interesting which them open up lots of questions like, if you turn a town into a city than their food production gets smaller? Or just that a town may need a much smaller amount of food to grow themselves than a city of same pop size? And then there is all the specializations too. Fishing and Farming makes sense for food, just that they would likely get more food from a certain type of terrain. But then there are Mining, Military, Trade at least, so they likely aren't supposed to be just for food, and maybe a mining town could send production back to the cities, or something like that.

Well, more details about towns and how happiness and over settlement cap interacts with them is second only to more details about when you transition to a new age as things I want to know.


More on topic, they did mention how Rome and some civs may have a higher settlement cap than others. The Rome example is good cause we got detailed info on the game guide page:

Legatus Pro Praetore

• Tier 1: Gain a free Infantry Unit in new Settlements that you found. Increased Settlement Limit. Unlocks 'Latinitas' Tradition.

So Rome extra settlement limit is tied with their unique civics tree. Which makes me imagine the unique civic tree bonuses may be things you carry over to the next age, if you research them on the current age. Would make sense than it being a bonus tied to the civilization that would then disappear if the next civ don't have one.

Maurya India also is similar having a unique civ that increases Settlement Limit.

 

[tedhebert]

I DO wonder how the link from town to cities will be operated… will towns automatically support the closest geographical city ? Will we as player have any kind of control on that ? If we do, will the support numbers be modified by distance from town to city, as in farther means lower rate ?

Can’t wait to know more

 

[chaosprophet]

I DO wonder how the link from town to cities will be operated… will towns automatically support the closest geographical city ? Will we as player have any kind of control on that ? If we do, will the support numbers be modified by distance from town to city, as in farther means lower rate ?

Can’t wait to know more

I would expected either the player being able to choose manually, or it being equally divided between all cities. But may be distance related like you said.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I think it's the move to a, "small world," feel, if you will, as opposed to the, "big world," feel of Civ1-4. I don't like the shift in seeming focus in that area.

I agree.

15 is quite a lot, if it only applied to actual cities.

15 is a very very small cap for an empire building game.

 

[Acepox]

I don't know a whole lot about the limit, but I know it's not a hard cap. You can go over that, but with penalties. I just hope they don't go too extreme Civ 5 style. There's a reason why I'm not a big fan of Civ 5, that being the biggest one. I also see this as yet another attempt to "even the playing field" by limiting player's options. And I have to say, I'm just not a big fan of all these rules changes punishing the player because they are "too good". But it remains to be seen how this works in game. I'm sure we'll find other ways to exploit over the AI. But taking their cities was always a good one.

It sure seems to me this game is having a much bigger focus of diplomacy over combat. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it makes you wonder if it will even be worth it to declare wars. With you being penalized for doing so. Hopefully they can get the balance right on that.

And will it even be possible to conquer the whole world? It's kind of ridiculous, but it's sometimes fun to do in games.

edit: And the other reason for limiting cities and the size of maps might be for performance reasons. I have a feeling this game is going to be tough for many people's systems to run.

The obvious solution to massive, multicultural but dysfunctional empires is to allow vassals. End result is you still dominate the world, but less micromanagement and your imperial core is still of a reasonable size and could still be overthrown by a rival who manages to liberate your vassals.

 

[8housesofelixir]

I think this feature, along with 1UPT and tactical combat on a strategic map, from Civ5, and urban improvements around the city, visibly on the main map, from Civ6, allows me to articulate a way of describing a trend in recent Civ game iteeration. I had used the term, "realistic," but, indeed, a lot of civ features are unrealitic. I had used, "scope and scale," but that, alone, is not enough. I think it's the move to a, "small world," feel, if you will, as opposed to the, "big world," feel of Civ1-4. I don't like the shift in seeming focus in that area.

More like "many small cities" vs. "several massive cities." Personally I never felt like Civ I-III cities are cities, just resource extraction points that you can spam on a grid (IV feels better because of the cottage-towns).

Although, with how city management became more and more region-management-like, and also the fact that we are going to have different "tiers" of cities in Civ VII (city vs. town), the trend seems to be moving away from a city-by-city dynamic of controlling territory, while having more depth in territorial management.

I'll predict that maybe in Civ VIII or IX, what we now know as "cities" will become "Provinces" instead, and what we now know as "districts" will become "Cities" instead.

 

[Big J Money]

From what I've seen and heard, I'm happy with this "cap". I think there should be something in 4x games that requires the player to choose, "do I want another city or not?". I use quotes for "cap" because I think cap is the wrong term, even though it's a familiar one. It's more of an "allowance". We get a certain number of cities for free before the new city cost kicks in.

My main issue with Civ V's city cost is that the math for the next technology and next social policy was too complicated. So I had less information as a player when making the decision to found a new city or not. From what I understand about Civ VII, the penalty will be a simple happiness penalty in all cities. This is how a few other 4x games already work, and I like it.

I also like that you can have any number of towns, so you can still settle wide, you simply won't be projecting power. So "wide" in that sense is not quite the same as what we're used to. You might say there is "weak wide" (many towns) and "strong wide" (many cities).

 

[Krikkit1]

I also like that you can have any number of towns, so you can still settle wide, you simply won't be projecting power. So "wide" in that sense is not quite the same as what we're used to. You might say there is "weak wide" (many towns) and "strong wide" (many cities).

Towns aren’t free (its a settlement cap)
and towns do project power.

 

[DeckerdJames]

I am not able to go into great detail about what I would prefer, but considering the end game, having a modern central government of some type, it would be interesting to have had a level of government management that pertains to the central government and how well it is doing, but each city has an economy that is separate from that. For the central government to work you need to tax and taxation causes unhappiness, but spending the taxes on the right things and the right policy implementations potentially increases happiness.

When your empire is very wide, suppose it becomes very diverse. Then the policies that seem right to some, seems unnatural to others. They might have balanced wide vs tall as a matter of how easy it is to govern populations with great diversity. Maybe you try to do it with communism and a very strong central government. If you conquered half the world, the population becomes more diverse and perhaps there are rebellions in some places.

There could be ways to make wide challenging in that way, while tall might be challenging in other ways, mainly by the size of the economy perhaps. Each type of government could be a different kind of game. A monarchy might be tall or wide with different challenges, but a democracy can be tall or wide and the challenges might be the same, but the solutions are different.

 

[Elhoim]

I, for one, love how they built Rome to be the "One City, lots of towns". In general, my main problem with cities in 4X is that they are always "just repeat the same action in every city over and over" as the game goes on. I'd rather manage an empire than a collection of cities. In general, the ways you can build cities are not distinct enough, and ends up always becoming busywork. Maybe it's because I've been playing Civ since the first one, so I'm a bit tired of the repetitive gameplay that cities end up having. Giving me one city I can detail, and a lot of towns on which I just give some general direction is the best for my preferences.

 

[Voidwalkin]

They're sorta taking a hit either way on this one.

Either A: the penalty is crippling, and empire building not feasible(which will upset players)

Or B: the penalty is nor crippling, in which case there is no real restoration of an even playing field on era change(which sorta... defeats the point of splitting into three eras)

 

[chaosprophet]

They're sorta taking a hit either way on this one.

Either A: the penalty is crippling, and empire building not feasible(which will upset players)

Or B: the penalty is nor crippling, in which case there is no real restoration of an even playing field on era change(which sorta... defeats the point of splitting into three eras)

Alternatively, the penalty may be not super crippling, but harder the more you go over the cap, and which can be countered by focusing on things that gives happiness, so you sacrifice resources for other things instead to have a larger empire if you want.

I'm hoping for something like I mentioned before on this thread, where towns are much easier to maintain happiness, so if you want to keep yourself on the settlement cap or only a bit over it, you can have more cities, but if you want to go a lot over the cap, then it is more feasible to have more towns compared to cities.

 

[greenOak]

Looks like the happiness penalty applies per settlement, and it is capped at -35 per settlement.

Not sure how I feel about the latter as it essentially means the penalty for being 7 over the cap is the same for being 8 over the cap, or 100 over the cap. It effectively punishes slightly overexpanding more than grossly overexpanding.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Looks like the happiness penalty applies per settlement, and it is capped at -35 per settlement.

Not sure how I feel about the latter as it essentially means the penalty for being 7 over the cap is the same for being 8 over the cap, or 100 over the cap.

This is one of several places where a system that seems geared towards a single map size and number of Civs and size of Civs needs to be modified (IF it isn't already and we just haven't seen it) to accommodate larger and smaller maps and Civs.

This and some other instances lead me to believe that parts of the new game are still being 'tweaked' before Launch OR that we are being shown bits of the game that do not reflect all the options to keep us guessing . . .