You argued this before. That "wide" play is somehow intrinsically natural and that any game design that disfavours it is "arbitrary". Your starting point is to naturalise a certain type of game design as inevitable expressed as "it's an inevitability because having more cities/territory is better".
Back then I suggested it could be attenuated by granting the points to the builder, not the owner. Pair that with a higher focus on wonders constructed, rather than buildings/districts (which they actually did for GS), and you could reduce the skew domination oriented Civs have considerably even in a game not designed with Score in mind.
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.
One could rewrite it as "if you look through the "great' civilizations in history, their high point as a civilization almost always leads to a conquer/imperial phase". It's all so vague that for the most part you can switch around cause and consequence and the sentence will still be applicable.
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. The reason why Rome had a million people living it during the early imperial period was because they could offer subsidized grain, the money to do so came from their massive empire, and the grain came from their conquered territories, Egypt in particular, and was cheaper than normal because they ruled over those lands. Athens' golden age was directly funded by its role as the hegemon of the Delian League, an Athenian empire in all but name. The Mongols are another obvious example. 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.
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.
Why? You're just declaring it with such confidence.
"Player elimination" is itself a design choice.
Because in every game if you are eliminated from the game, you lose the game. Like, every game. Its how games work. Not to mention, what would you do after you were eliminated but before the game ended?
If the point is to accumulate score through time, why should the score be lost upon being conquered by another Civ?
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? 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.
The game attempts to specify what is "scientific" what is "cultural" and what is "diplomatic". I want it to NOT do that, or not as obtusely as it currently does.
Are you talking about the various victory types? Like, I'll give the culture victory is kind of obtuse in how it works and doesn't really rely on culture per-se but the others aren't obtuse in the slightest. Religion? Covert everyone. Domination? Conquer everyone. Science? Go to another world, a long time scientifically related ambition of humanity. Like, I'll give you that is an arbitrary win condition but then, they are all arbitrary because you aren't going to find universal agreement on what counts as a "scientific" victory, or any other victory.
