Is tall vs wide even still a thing...?

[Sascha77]

Someone please fill me in on how the science-calculation works in Civ VI.

Here's my scenario:

Island map, Pericles, King. I have 5 cities ATM (around turn 200 on Epic) and am about to jump into the industrial era. I have three campus-districts, all with libraries, two with universities, one currently building a university. I also have the GL, plus I used a GS for that "science per mountain tile"-boost *and* Isaac Newton to boost my university's output.

According to the score, I should be ahead in tech, but it seems that Tomyris is leading both me and Vicky (who is also going tall). The reason why this is a bit puzzling is this: Tomyris is going full on ICS (as she usually does) and she's rocking her usual carpet of doom of horsemen. But her cities are all pretty crap. I've just started with spying and *none* of her cities even have a campus - so I can't even attempt to steal tech (the mission isn't even in the list for my spy). Most of them are size 7-8, her largest one is 9. Does the game still generate science simply based on pop, even if you don't own any scientific buildings?

The thing is that if you can do without science buildings if you're going super-wide *and* if the absence of scíence buildings/districts makes you immune to tech-stealing... why would anyone try to go tall in VI? AFAIK there are none of the usual penalties to keep ICS under control (like maintenance due to distance from capital from Civ IV or global unhappiness from V). Or am I missing something here?


S.

 

[Promethian]

The concepts of Tall and Wide do not apply to the game titled Civilization 6.

 

[ZHONN]

There is no advantage in going with few cities. The more cities, the better.

There will come a time, when the production/buying costs of the settler are not recouped as the game is about to end. Before that, it's always worth to settle. It is always worth it to conquer.

 

[Paramecium]

Expansion in Civ 6 is only limited by production and a little bit by amenities. There is no tall anymore and no true wide, too.

Wide was to build a lot of smaller cities, which will have a lot of buildings giving flat boni, while tall was to have few big cities which profit of percentage yield increasing.

Now you can spam cities everywhere where you find the space, but early on you will sacrifice production to other things and later on your new cities will be in the most cases more crap to mediocre.

The limiting factor is the production cost increase of districts, which will be harder to handle by younger smaller cities then your early founded/conquered Core Cities, which are well developped and can handle the high production costs.

Sure, with more cities you will have more traders, but you still need some cities which are worth to be your trading destinations:

IZ, CH, encampments, harbors, airports and spaceports add each +1p for your traders, Campus, TS, HS, EC add +1f to your trade routes.

I think I have forgotten some districts, but if I now remember correctly, aquaducts and neighborhoods dont add anything. So the more districts One city has, he better trade routes you will have (yeah, forgot, each city center add +1f +1p).

So you want to have at least some bigger cities after your road net is finished to max out your trading yields.
Until now so far, I have 4-6 bigger cities in every game, which close enough together to get the most out of the regional effects of the IZs and ECs and have round about 2 traders per city going to each other, but yeah, you normally need at least double the number of satellites cities which can add to your trader pool to get going.

Last but not least, each pop gives 0.7 science and 0.3 culture. But seriously, If you dont want to finish early, there is no need to rush the tech trees. You can have researched everything and still you will need a lot of turns to finish the science victory because of the high production costs ...

 

[Sascha77]

Thanks for the replies.

I agree with a lot of stuff you guys posted, and I do hope for a change.

Seeing how they totally revamped the whole culture/cultural victory thing in Civ V, I wouldn't put it past them to implement some fundamental changes with a future Civ VI expansion as well.

I for one did like the fact that ICS carried such heavy penalties in V. AI hated you, policies got more expensive, etc. It gave you a real incentive to go tall... -ish. Something which Civ VI clearly doesn't do. The only drawback to plopping down city after city that I can see is the fact that producing a settler will cost you one population in the origin city.

And it wouldn't be that hard to make "tall" a viable option (IMO). Make AI-players detest anyone who's going full-on ICS. Give science-buildings a %-modifier (based on pop) instead of the flat bonus they have now. Penalize science-/culture-output for every city past 4 or 5 that you put down. Increase/introduce maintenance cost for large empires... etc.



S.

 

[Ryika]

"Tall" as we know it from Civ 5 should not be a viable strategy, just as ICS should not be.
The goal should be to have players expand constantly, but in a controlled manner.

For that, the investment cost of expanding should just be increased, and districts should be rebalanced. 1 Trade Route per city (2 if coastal) is just an extremely strong bonus.

 

[Onii-chan]

Wide is pretty much always better. There are a couple downsides but they're very small in comparison

The only civ which can really go tall viably is Kongo

 

[dwarfling]

As a side-note, don't go light on Campus late game. If you're planning on a Science Victory, you'll want both Engineer and Scientist GPP to grab the 1500/3000p "towards Space race project" great people. +100% is alright too, and she's also a G.Scientist.

 

[spfun]

Tall isn't optimal, there's no tall per say, just a limit on how many cities you want to play with. I play 4-5 city games on standard maps on occasion on Immortal+ still an easy game, its just you could have 10+ cities at similar pop sizes at next to no cost by conquering your neighbors with the standing army you've likely built to defend yourself with.

I find it fun limiting how many cities I build as too many cities makes the game boring for me. But it certainly isn't Tall, Tall is dead unless you play Kongo or perhaps Rome(Bath + farm spam can be enough for Tall, before neighborhoods)

 

[Sascha77]

he goal should be to have players expand constantly, but in a controlled manner.

That's just the thing in Civ VI in its current form. Unless you go for constant ICS, you probably won't be able to dominate the other civs. Especially on higher difficulty with the AI getting serious production-/science-/culture-boosts.

At least that's my impression thus far.

S.

 

[Disgustipated]

I find getting high population cities pretty difficult anyways. Has anyone been able to get over pop 40?

It would mean sacrificing wonders and districts, and I'm not sure I'm willing to do that. Of course you could run a whole bunch of trade routes to boost food, but I like making money on my trade routes.

 

[Sascha77]

I find getting high population cities pretty difficult anyways. Has anyone been able to get over pop 40?

I had an insane location for my second city in one of my games. Coastal but with lots of land around and wheat *everywhere*. Plus three or four sea-ressources. Triple farms were insane already, but once replaceable parts hit, those daisy-chained wheat-farms *really* took off. Not sure if I could've grown the town to size 40, but 30+ would've been very easy there indeed (I didn't finish the game due to a corrupt save-file.. ).

S.

 

[Paramecium]

The point is, that you dont really have a reason to grow your cities that big. 25-30 seems to be the max usefull, you should have nearly every district, so the trade routes to that city are very juicy and yeah, maybe one or two wonders. There is just no reason I see atm, to grow that big. If I play Kongo, I will try out to max out a city, so every tile and every district is worked, but yeah, higher pop itself isnt that usefull. You need more culture? -> build a theatre district somewhere. You need more science? -> build a Campus somewhere.

That's it. At the point of 20+ pop, you probably are working every production tile for the city and yeah, everything else, have a lot of IZ in the near, +3 amenities and traders, traders, traders ...

 

[Promethian]

The point is, that you dont really have a reason to grow your cities that big. 25-30 seems to be the max usefull, you should have nearly every district, so the trade routes to that city are very juicy and yeah, maybe one or two wonders. There is just no reason I see atm, to grow that big. If I play Kongo, I will try out to max out a city, so every tile and every district is worked, but yeah, higher pop itself isnt that usefull. You need more culture? -> build a theatre district somewhere. You need more science? -> build a Campus somewhere.

That's it. At the point of 20+ pop, you probably are working every production tile for the city and yeah, everything else, have a lot of IZ in the near, +3 amenities and traders, traders, traders ...

Don't forget each district can be worked by up to 3 pops as specialists.

 

[Paramecium]

Sure, but only HS, TS, Campus, Harbor, IZ and Encampment. Each max 3 citizen. And yeah, until now, I have more the impression to slow down on science and culture to avoid to get all district cost sky rocket.

But you are right, those districts transform their tile in a 0-6 yield tile, which can be very helpfull f.e. with the IZ or encampent...

 

[redwings1340]

One thing I've noticed is that wide scales to be better the higher a difficulty you go to, because the AI builds so many districts on higher difficulties that you can capture. I do wonder if midgame conquering would be less rewarding on prince.

 

[Alleria]

IZ, CH, encampments, harbors, airports and spaceports add each +1p for your traders, Campus, TS, HS, EC add +1f to your trade routes.

As none of these acronyms is listed in the "Civ VI - Common Acronyms and Terms", would you please mind elaborating?

 

[CoconutTank]

IZ = Industrial Zone
CH = Commercial Hub
TS = Theater Square
HS = Holy Site
EC = Entertainment Complex

 

[Aenthin]

For me, tall vs. wide in Civ 6 only matters in the early-midgame. Tall civs would have an advantage of getting more districts (and maybe wonders) online on their most important cities earlier, while wide civs naturally take up more territory. However, a tall civ will eventually want to expand (whether by settling or conquering), and a wide civ will eventually want to go tall.

 

[Ricci]

For me, tall vs. wide in Civ 6 only matters in the early-midgame. Tall civs would have an advantage of getting more districts (and maybe wonders) online on their most important cities earlier, while wide civs naturally take up more territory. However, a tall civ will eventually want to expand (whether by settling or conquering), and a wide civ will eventually want to go tall.

Fair enough, this was Civ iv's case; but with different contention mechanisms. I believe it to be the proper aproach. Plus one for VI.