Because 4X games (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) are all about having more resources so you can then do more things. If you have more cities, you can build more buildings, more wonders, more units and so on. At some point, if want more cities so you can building more buildings(wonders, units, etc), you have to go conquer someone else because you don't have room to found new cities, its that simple. Even if you only get points for building things, not controlling things, then conquering more cities is still better because you can then build new buildings! Unless you only get points from cities you founded, which is an arbitrary limit.
But clearly, you don't? Where's the expansion when playing with Maya? Or the extermination when playing Canada? What's with the all One City Challenges or Civs (Venice) designed with OCC in mind? How often do you read users saying they avoid wars entirely? The four Xs are guidelines, not rules written into stone. The games can be whatever you make them, whether it works or not is a matter of creativity of the designers. That doesn't mean they need to reinvent the wheel each time, but trying to invent new ways to play beyond the established conventions is how you keep it fresh.
Case in point, Old World detaches movement points from quantity of units. Your approach, applied here, would be something like:
"the end game becomes tiresome because more units and cities implies the need for more decisions. Attempting to change this would be an arbitrary limit."
Just like the amount of possible "orders" does not need to follow a linear path roughly equivalent and tied to the amount of units/cities, expansion isn't an inevitable element, it's a requirement which derives from how the victory conditions are designed, and the manners made available to achieve those conditions.
I can't stress this enough. Designing the game to limit expansion isn't any more arbitrary than designing the game to favour expansion. I'm opposed to both designs. The first one has been attempted and failed, the second one has become too much of a comfortable box.
More resources doesn't/shouldn't automatically imply the need for more cities, even if that is the most straightforward path.
No, its pretty much one-to-one conquest to cultural high point even if it isn't an immediate effect. During the late Republic, Rome's imperial conquests were so lucrative that the Senate cancelled a bunch of taxes.
Wait, how do you get to the point of the imperial conquests? Why are you immediately jumping the cultural innovations of the office of the Dictator, the army reforms, and the plethora of other aspects which characerized the Republic of Rome?
Could you please define "culture high point". I'm curious as to what you consider to be objetive variables of cultural superiority.
The Mongols are another obvious example.
How exactly? Does not the cultural tradition and mastery of bowmanship and horse-riding made possible the conquests in the first place? How can your "cultural high point" exclude the culture itself?
You're equating "cultural high point" with "owning a large territory which controls millions of people" to conclude that territorial expansion leads to a "cultural high point". Well, yes, when defined in that way.
The Mughals in India as well. Medieval Baghdad's opulence and renown as a center of culture and learning was because it was the imperial capital of a large empire. Same for Ottoman Constantinople and other cities like Samarkand under Timor. Empire is lucrative, its what allows all of these great works of monumental architecture to be built in the first. In addition to the patronage of the arts and sciences by their rulers. That stuff isn't cheap and, historically speaking, the larger the territory you rule over the wealthier you are. And yes, I do believe if you are making a game based on history, you do need to, at least, get the big picture things right otherwise, why bother with history in the first place.
Uh? Why did Hadrian decide to abandon Parthia? Do you think the game reflects the difficulties which arise from an ever increasing empire effectively?
The wealth of the monarch was often less dependent on territorial extension and more on the quality and extension of the bureaucracy, the cultural norms and the technological innovations. Extraction of resources through military domination of peoples is of course one manner to obtain wealth. Yet the inability of the monarch to extract resources willy-nilly from its subjects, the increased protections given to private property, etc, was partially what made the British empire possible in the first place. Again here it's the cultural norms that precede empire.
historically speaking, the larger the territory you rule over the wealthier you are.
Historically speaking, the wealthier individuals to ever exist ruled over no territory at all. And how do you account for South Korea, Switzerland, Netherlands, etc having some of the highest GDPs in the world (total, not per capita)?
And the reason why I put "great" is brackets is because everyone has their own opinions about what constitutes a great empire and even whether or not its a valid concept. I was not questioning the fact that cultural high points are funded by conquests and large empires.
You're not questioning that
cultural high points are funded by conquest and large empires, even as you concede that defining a
cultural high point is a matter of opinion and maybe not even a valid concept?
Because in every game if you are eliminated from the game, you lose the game. Like, every game. Its how games work.
Only if you skew my words. I said
"eliminated through conquest", clearly meaning being left with no cities on the board.
You keep making very confident remarks with absolute certainty about game design, apparently assuming my own suggestions aren't based in game designs I've already interacted with.
Small World is a very popular game where civilizational decline and being erased from the board is turned into a game mechanic. It's possible, and not even uncommon, to win the game even after nothing is left on the board. Many "Civs" are focused on expanding, Others on holding on to small territories, etc.
But really, just in general, many games do not require you to have anything left on the board.
Scythe again comes to mind. Territory is only one way to gain VP.
Not to mention, what would you do after you were eliminated but before the game ended?
The easiest option is: nothing at all. I was talking in the context of a proper Score Victory and the skew towards domination oriented Civs that currently exists. One could accumulate enough score that, even if you're eliminated from the board, you'd still get first place come end game.
But it really doesn't take a lot to imagine ways in which you could play the game without controlling cities. You're again equating inability to conceive of possible designs with their impossibility. You could have a religion tied to your original Civ, for instance, and you could control the decisions of that religion despite of who controls the city which is its Holy City, and in that manner keep accruing points towards your end score.
Because you don't own it anymore. "Through time" means throughout the entire game so, if you don't control something why should you get points for it?
Why shouldn't you? It's a design choice.
Like, so many cities passed through various empires and nations throughout history, each adding to the city. Its like saying that since Antioch was founded by the Seleucid Empire, it should only be considered a Hellenistic Greek city, which is ridiculous.
No, that is your argument. You're the one saying there should be no such thing as "legacy" and that the conqueror takes all. Literally just above you argue that the only thing that matters is ownership. My entire position has been to argue against it.
In your own words, "
various empires and nations added to the city", and you find it ridiculous that a city should then be associated with a single culture. Thank you, I agree. Which is why I keep suggesting that victory points should be granted for actions which
"add to the city" (such as building Wonders) rather than simply
"owning".
