Is wide (bordering ICS) viable in civ 7?

[VGT]

I don't own the game so ELI5 is totally ok. For now it's hard to find any information on that topic. Small pieces of information I found suggest answer to question in the topic is no. Hints I see:

1. map size. Bigger than standard map size is not available. So there is probably not much space for expansion through conquest in general. Might be temporary, but I'm wondering if it's intended where otherwise game would go out of balance on bigger map size, because:
2. City limit. I noticed it on UI in the top. As I understand it grows over time, but starting with just 3. That's not much. Seeing this number I get the vibes where as a player I would be building small diorama instead of civilization.

Side question: Does map change/grow somehow with age transition? I think I heard something like that but don't know anything about it yet.

In previous games we also had limits preventing ICS from happening, but much more nuanced/hidden like city tax in civ4. Here it's plain number that I assume is soft cap and you can go above. Can you maintain going a lot above over time?

Is it possible to have playthrough 20-30 hours long (even ignoring any wining conditions as long as you prevent AI from reaching it) that will end up with total conquest covering all the land available like I have in attachment from civ 6 here? I'm hearing this game is less sandboxy so I'm worried it's not. If it's not, do you see room to have it in the future, where previous games Firaxis more or less tried to balance wide vs. tall to make both in some way viable? Not sure how big percentage of civ community is favoring wide long playthroughs as it's more time consuming, but would be great to here some thoughts from players liking similar things to what I adore in this series.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

There's a settlement cap, but it's a soft cap.

Now, that cap is sort of like the speed limit. The game tells you it's risky to go over it, but really, it's pragmatic to be at or over the settlement cap as much as possible. How much over you can go depends on how good you are at managing your Happiness.

 

[Krumm Nonster]

It does start off small which makes it a little tricky early, especially since your capital is the only settlement producing buildings, units, etc. I feel like it scales alright though, by the 2nd age I have 8 settlements 6 of which are producing, and here are ways to increase your settlement cap iirc. One thing I like is your settlements grow nice and tall, I have 26, 28, and 30 pops in my biggest cities. As for map sizes, I am assuming they will release more map variety and sizes in the near future. I'm playing Continents and so far it seems more like Pangea. I haven't seen anything about the map changing or growing since I transitioned.

 

[Chuy1530]

Going over the cap has linear penalties, not exponential ones like in, say, Millennia. It’s a 5 happiness penalty for each city over the cap so one over the cap is basically always manageable and I’ve pushed up to 3 over without having to think about it too much.

 

[Banazir864]

Spiffing Brit's video showed that the penalty caps at -35. I don't know if they've changed that, but if they haven't, you can go infinite if you can manage an empire-wide -35 happiness. I suspect that's possible with the right build, but it's not the sort of thing you can do on an ordinary playthrough.

 

[Krikkit1]

Spiffing Brit's video showed that the penalty caps at -35. I don't know if they've changed that, but if they haven't, you can go infinite if you can manage an empire-wide -35 happiness. I suspect that's possible with the right build, but it's not the sort of thing you can do on an ordinary playthrough.

-35 happiness per settlement

 

[evonannoredars]

Side question: Does map change/grow somehow with age transition? I think I heard something like that but don't know anything about it yet.

The map 'getting larger' between the eras is just you're able to cross the oceans and access the other continent and the islands inbetween in the exploration age.

 

[rocksinmypath]

There's a rebellion mechanic in the game where unhappy settlements will join someone else's empire. I don't know exactly how that works either because the game is bad at telling me what's happening exactly or because I haven't looked hard enough, but I imagine it's similar to how loyalty works in 6. Your settlement starts at 100, and when it gets to 0, you lose it. The maximum happiness penalty of 35 means that, your surplus settlements start with -35 happiness. That probably means you have 3 turns before you lose it. What you probably need to do to save it is to immediately buy at least 5 buildings in it so that you hit 7 pop, at which point you can upgrade it to a city. Cities have access to a wider selection of buildings than towns do, and some of these directly provide happiness (note that some actually take away happiness) while others provide resource slots, which can be filled with happiness resources. I suppose if you had infinite money, lots of camels and lots of happiness resources, you could pull it off, maybe.

 

[Banazir864]

-35 happiness per settlement

Yes, and it applies empire-wide, i.e., to all of your settlements, not just some of them.

 

[Ornen]

“wide” and “infinite city sprawl” are two different things

I’m finding it great for wide, idk about ICS. probably prohibitive in the first two eras, and would trigger a victory in the 3rd

 

[teakbois2112]

Unlock Caesar's lvl 2 memento (+1 cap). Play as a civ that gets to 8 settlement cap in antiquity (Rome can do this). With the +1 memento that gets you 9, for 9 military points peacefully, unlocking +2 settlement cap as a legacy reward. Both military and expansion trees can get you a +1 as well

Things really ramp up late exploration age with the cap.