Once again the debate of wide vs tall rages on in discord. The talk on the usual suspects, yields and happiness primarily. However, if there was a case for Tall tradition to be "underpowered" I think its more fundamental than that....
Does Tall Tradition "win" a game, or are they "given a win"? This is a point about the brittle nature of Tall Tradition.
So first off, when I say Tall Tradition, I am referring to your classic 4-6 city Tradition play, where you stay on this city number for the whole of the game. This opposed to someone who starts tall, but eventually switches into military and conquers wide. While this play has a number of advantages, its key weakness is force projection. Your supply limit is small, often small enough that protecting your borders is a real exercise in strategic thinking, never mind actually going out and beating up someone. Because of that, a Tall players has very little hard influence on the rest of the board, and so it could be argued, if AI opponents "play the game correctly", the Tall player shouldn't win. Lets examine that.
Diplomatic Victory
At the end of the day, you need CS allies to win a DV....though with statecraft, freedom, and holy land, you can get a number of "Free votes" all on your own. However, you stil need some CS. If a warring player systematically takes out your CS....you really cannot defend them with this play. And so I would argue that DV is NOT a viable tall win condition if the AI "plays correctly".
Domination Victory
the antithesis of what your strategy, so not in the cards.
Cultural Victory
The default victory for a Tall player in many cases. The question is, if the world turns against you, votes down culture proposals, goes against your ideology, wars with you a lot, and maybe there is another strong culture player out there....is this victory still viable? Historically one way to force a cv was to beat up the highest culture player to knock them down, but again that is very difficult with this style of play. And so I wonder again, is CV truly viable if the AI makes it challenging, and is only a VC you can be "given"?
Science Victory
Tall players tend to have great science and are often well poised for a SV....if they can make it that far. This normally means the other VCs haven't happened yet.
DomV - You can guard your capital and prevent this from happeing.
CV - you are often a very strong culture contender with this style, so normally another CVer would need to beat you up to overtake you in influence, and again you should be able to stop that.
DV - this one is tricky, if a wide player ramps up diplo unit production in the late game, a Tall player really can't match that. The best you can do is soak up as many embassies and free votes as possible to prevent an enemy DV, but I would argue if a wide player "goes to work" on securing a DV, I think a Tall player can slow them down, but stopping them is a real challenge.
Survival - One of the last real challenges of the SV is mere survival. When your dealing with modern armies and aircraft (not to mention nukes), the brick defenses tall is often known for don't help. If a player decides to flood your civ with xcoms, nuke you, send waves of zeroes, and a full army (maybe navy) at your door step, can a tall player truly hold out? Often you have the science advantage which is a big help, but I would argue that if a AI "gets serious" about a late game war with you, I don't know if holding out long enough for an SV is truly viable or not.
Does Tall Tradition "win" a game, or are they "given a win"? This is a point about the brittle nature of Tall Tradition.
So first off, when I say Tall Tradition, I am referring to your classic 4-6 city Tradition play, where you stay on this city number for the whole of the game. This opposed to someone who starts tall, but eventually switches into military and conquers wide. While this play has a number of advantages, its key weakness is force projection. Your supply limit is small, often small enough that protecting your borders is a real exercise in strategic thinking, never mind actually going out and beating up someone. Because of that, a Tall players has very little hard influence on the rest of the board, and so it could be argued, if AI opponents "play the game correctly", the Tall player shouldn't win. Lets examine that.
Diplomatic Victory
At the end of the day, you need CS allies to win a DV....though with statecraft, freedom, and holy land, you can get a number of "Free votes" all on your own. However, you stil need some CS. If a warring player systematically takes out your CS....you really cannot defend them with this play. And so I would argue that DV is NOT a viable tall win condition if the AI "plays correctly".
Domination Victory
the antithesis of what your strategy, so not in the cards.
Cultural Victory
The default victory for a Tall player in many cases. The question is, if the world turns against you, votes down culture proposals, goes against your ideology, wars with you a lot, and maybe there is another strong culture player out there....is this victory still viable? Historically one way to force a cv was to beat up the highest culture player to knock them down, but again that is very difficult with this style of play. And so I wonder again, is CV truly viable if the AI makes it challenging, and is only a VC you can be "given"?
Science Victory
Tall players tend to have great science and are often well poised for a SV....if they can make it that far. This normally means the other VCs haven't happened yet.
DomV - You can guard your capital and prevent this from happeing.
CV - you are often a very strong culture contender with this style, so normally another CVer would need to beat you up to overtake you in influence, and again you should be able to stop that.
DV - this one is tricky, if a wide player ramps up diplo unit production in the late game, a Tall player really can't match that. The best you can do is soak up as many embassies and free votes as possible to prevent an enemy DV, but I would argue if a wide player "goes to work" on securing a DV, I think a Tall player can slow them down, but stopping them is a real challenge.
Survival - One of the last real challenges of the SV is mere survival. When your dealing with modern armies and aircraft (not to mention nukes), the brick defenses tall is often known for don't help. If a player decides to flood your civ with xcoms, nuke you, send waves of zeroes, and a full army (maybe navy) at your door step, can a tall player truly hold out? Often you have the science advantage which is a big help, but I would argue that if a AI "gets serious" about a late game war with you, I don't know if holding out long enough for an SV is truly viable or not.