I like that you can be small...

[Auncien]

... and still succeed in global politics and even warfare. It's pretty cool that they managed to model small but prosperous nation states like what we see in the real world. If you wanna be small and compact and go for, say, a culture victory you can do it and still defend yourself.

+1

 

[shamsael]

Yeah. Small nations are going to progress much faster on the Policy trees, and on top of that, a smaller land mass requires a smaller standing army to ensure its security. Wars are usually going to involve a dozen or so units at a time regardless of the size of the combatants. The only advantage a large civ has in wartime is that it can recover its losses quickly, but if you're dominating the field in the first place through unit positioning, size really doesn't matter.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

I do like that, but at the same time, it seems that it might punish being large too much. I'm still not sure if that's true, though. I haven't played enough. Regardless, being small and able to compete is very nice.

 

[BjoernLars]

Unfortunately, you might fall behind in the Tech since Science is based on the number of citizens that you have.

 

[DanX2007]

Unfortunately, you might fall behind in the Tech since Science is based on the number of citizens that you have.

I personally don't think that this would be that big of an issue. A smaller empire could have a larger happiness cap because of the lack of a "number of cities" penalty (And therefore, a larger citizen count). They can also select civics that favor small empires and trade with city states with the gold they save from maintenance upkeep to get the food they need to get a lot of citizens.

 

[Warspite2]

Yeah I managed to put up a strong defense with only my last city standing. It is so much easier to defend your cities in this game but at the same time its a lot harder to attack and take over an enemy city as well. No doubt you can be pretty small and still play a good game as long as you can keep your techs up to par.

 

[DefoesRightBoot]

I don't think they'll ever accurately replicate this to the point of the UAE in today's world because their success is due to so many factors (oil available freely to them, but not to many countries, coupled with a conscientious world that won't allow them to be conquered, like Kuwait in 1991)

That sort of thing is extremely difficult to get happening with an AI (I'd imagine) but the happiness etc does seem to make it less impossible.

 

[Auncien]

It's just awesome that you can just do your thing if you want to and you don't feel compelled to gobble up everything around you. I've been playing as this sort of 'force for good in the world' kind of state in my current game, liberating city-states and returning the world to the status quo in the face of other powers' aggression while working toward a cultural win. It's very satisfying.