[GS] Playing tall revisited

[Francel]

Hi. I am considering getting gs, already have rise and fall.

The thing I don’t like is how many cities you need in civ vi, and the fact ics has no real downsides. Has anyone made a tall mod yet?

At the very least, removing the tile requirements for wonders and granting population bonuses would be ideal. Thank you.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Building settlers youself do get quite expensive and can leave you with alot of underdeveloped cities. The key is military conquest since it allow you gain very developed cities for maybe less cost than actually founding the cities your self.

There is no real drawback to having large cities either other than the cost it takes to build them up and grow them. You can have like 50 cities each being 30+ population if you want to each with all districts that it can build.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Well, I mean it's a lucky start, but the cities themselves aren't the best quality.

And honestly, wide should > tall. Tall pretty much means you bank that all the needed resources and land are in a small space and no effort is being meant to throttle rival expansion.

This wouldn't be as much as a problem if neighborhoods were actually useful.

 

[The googles do nothing]

Has anyone made a tall mod yet?

I made a mode that removes the free amenity that cities get. With Default rules 5 cities get 5 free Amenities, 10 cities get 10 free... With this change you have acquire more Luxuries or build Entertainment districts.

 

[nzcamel]

At the very least, removing the tile requirements for wonders

As these requirments have made it possible for players at higher difficulties to get more wonders than they would otherwise I think that would be a very unpopular move.

and granting population bonuses would be ideal.

Even as someone who isn't that concerned about tall being competitive with wide; I agree that bigger cities should give some more rewards based on population. I think of it thematically as the greater cross-pollination of ideas

 

[kaspergm]

I made a mode that removes the free amenity that cities get. With Default rules 5 cities get 5 free Amenities, 10 cities get 10 free... With this change you have acquire more Luxuries or build Entertainment districts.

I think I'll try this out. I think generally there's too little happiness penalty for going wide. Apart from that, I don't completely agree that tall cities have little value. The population limit on district numbers does give a fair incentive for me to grow my cities. It's only after I've build Campus, Holy Site, Theatre District, Commercial Hub/Harbor and Industrial Zone and/or Encampment, that I start to run out of meaningful districts to spam.

 

[Tech Osen]

The thing I don’t like is how many cities you need in civ vi, and the fact ics has no real downsides. Has anyone made a tall mod yet?

How many cities do you think you need and how many is too much for you? On standard size maps I have plenty of victories with around 10 cities.

 

[nzcamel]

I think I'll try this out. I think generally there's too little happiness penalty for going wide.

I guess this maybe isn't specifically what you are saying; but why should there be a happiness penalty? If one decides to promote tall or punish wide surely coming up with a thematic reason that doesn't annoy people is a good idea. Global happiness was jarring as it made no sense. Why should they be unhappy (on average, and throughout history) that our nation has more territory?

 

[Vandlys]

Hi. I am considering getting gs, already have rise and fall.

The thing I don’t like is how many cities you need in civ vi, and the fact ics has no real downsides. Has anyone made a tall mod yet?

At the very least, removing the tile requirements for wonders and granting population bonuses would be ideal. Thank you.

"Let's play tall" is a mod that lets you limit the amount of settlers that can be produced. It's not ideal, but it's at least something.

Personally, I HATE that Civ rules that "more is better". I mean, of course countries like China, Russia and the US have always been the best in the world when it comes to production, research, culture, entertainment, religion, etc. Let's forget all these countries like Korea, Japan, or Germany, Denmark, The Netherlands that are at least half the size of the aforementioned countries, and are doing much better on some of the aspects above.

I wish you'd be rewarded for developing a succesful civ, not a large civ. Currently I'm playing a game where I, by sheer luck, have enough space to develop. Standard map, and I have about 20 cities where the opponents have about half. I'm doing twice as good, even though almost all my cities are relatively unhappy.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

You only need one city to win this game, more cities make the game easier which mean victory is actually less impressive. The more exploit of ai and such also ruin the value of the victory.

The more is better rule apply to pretty much Everything, large cities are better than small and more cities are better than less. But currently the ai let you win even if you don't even try to win, like 3 cities, nearly no tile improvement, no chopping or anything really.

Also what would be the actual advantage/reason to have few cities, return civ 5 penalties per city?

 

[Linklite]

Maybe you could make population growth a factor.

Have it so that the greater the population of a city, the faster you get more population (more people meeting and so more likely to have relationships, kids etc). Then have the population transferrable; so if you have a 30 pop city called London, then found a new city called Liverpool with population 1, you can transfer 10 pop from London to Liverpool, giving it a boost. That way itmwouodmbe advantageous to have at least a few tall cities to keep up the population boost. Have a transfer time and attrition (you lose a certain percentage of pop transferred for every 3 tiles or something, difficulties of the journey and all that) perhaps, to make it something you have to consider before doing it.

I'm not pverly convinced by the idea; it would benefit those civs that are advanced way more than those struggling, giving stronger civs more of an advantage which always makes me feel reluctant.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Increase the value of large cities would not help playing small (what people here calls tall) relative stronger as a large empire can still have as large cities and more of them.

This wouldn't be as much as a problem if neighborhoods were actually useful.

Would not change anything​

 

[Archon_Wing]

Would not change anything

Well I mean it's only the largest bottleneck to city size.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Well I mean it's only the largest bottleneck to city size.

The large empire would build them as well and unlike civilization v there is no direct competition of number of cities vs population.

 

[Archon_Wing]

The large empire would build them as well and unlike civilization v there is no direct competition of number of cities vs population.

Yea, but settlers are expensive. If you spend resources on infrastructure or taking Audience Chamber, you're not going to be that large empire. Of course the bigger empire with equal infrastructure would be the better empire, but that sorta goes without saying.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Yea, but settlers are expensive. If you spend resources on infrastructure or taking Audience Chamber, you're not going to be that large empire. Of course the bigger empire with equal infrastructure would be the better empire, but that sorta goes without saying.

With district cost locking, chops, rush buy with gold and so on mean that large empires can have as good infrastructure and most large empires is done by conquest which mean you get the infrastructure of conquered cities.

If you removed district cost locking, nerfed chops and maybe made ai better at military conquest, you would se smaller empires more competetive.

 

[Linklite]

Increase the value of large cities would not help playing small (what people here calls tall) relative stronger as a large empire can still have as large cities and more of them.

The problem is that large cities are currently penalised. There is at least one veteran player on this board who intentionally limits their cities to 10 pop because beyond that the costs for them at least) outweigh the benefits.

Sure, a wide empire can eventually get all their cities to be large and so eventually have it both wide and tall. But really that should be an investment. At the moment there is just little reason to specifically go tall. Wide but not tall empires can crank out units pretty quickly, need less amenities per pop, plus are an investment in the future, as you said. There need to be more advantages to going tall.

The logical step is to make tall cities the quick, rush type the strategy, then have wide be the long term pay off strategy where it takes a while to get there (you have to have small cities as you use resources to create more cities rather than growing the ones you already have) but eventually you get many large cities.
In the short term, going tall would be best because you get those perks and maybe overwhelm those who are going wide. In the long run, wide isnbetter because eventually you'll have double or treble the number of cities each of a rough parity to the cities of the tall empire, giving a strong advantage there.

I don't know all the answers, but it makes little sense to me that I should be seeking to limiting my city sizes in order to get the best stats, nor that there isna "right way" and a "wrong way" to do it.

 

[Archon_Wing]

With district cost locking, chops, rush buy with gold and so on mean that large empires can have as good infrastructure and most large empires is done by conquest which mean you get the infrastructure of conquered cities.

If you removed district cost locking, nerfed chops and maybe made ai better at military conquest, you would se smaller empires more competetive.

Chopping has been nerfed. And yes, conquest is very strong for value but that's why it's a separate issue-- we can't make a game revolving around your opponents simply throwing the game.

But I think there are many cases where building up instead of out is more practical for victory. Too many people are still stuck in Vanilla.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I don't know all the answers, but it makes little sense to me that I should be seeking to limiting my city sizes in order to get the best stats, nor that there isna "right way" and a "wrong way" to do it.

The price of growing pops is polynomical while the benefits of pops is linear (at a dimishing rate) which mean you pay more and more and gain less and less which mean the payback time of growth eventually get too long to make sense. Many other games have more encouragement to grow cities because the buildings have % yields instead which mean the value of the buildings are directly linked to the size of the city but that system was for some reason abandoned for civilization vi. If buildings was returned to % yields or yield per pop, you would see large cities make a return.

If a library gave 0.25 science per population in the city instead of 2 science and University gave 0.5 science per population instead of 5 science you would no longer see pop 4 or 7 or 10 cities being that good anymore.

 

[Victoria]

The problem is that large cities are currently penalised. There is at least one veteran player on this board who intentionally limits their cities to 10 pop because beyond that the costs for them at least) outweigh the benefits.

Not sure who you mean but it’s not me very often. I played a game a couple of months ago where I got 10 cities to pop 30. Playing a deity game ATM where I have 7 cities, the capital is about to hit 15 thanks to Liang. If you are trading with everyone and have Cahokia mounds then why not and there is a 15 pop inspiration and a 20 pop eureka

the payback time of growth eventually get too long to make sense

THIS
The main issue with the 10 pop rule is for fast victories you typically end up chopping cities up to 10 pop rather than limiting them but when they do hit 10 pop specialists are better than increasing most often.

Fast victories either depend on large amounts of cities or super efficiency and projects/specialists. Neither fits tall.

Currentl game... 8 cities in fact, but notice I have not settled the free green areas above me on purpose

Certainly going to pump out the fisheries on this city