[GS] Playing tall revisited

[qadams]

I suspect that history makes you feel uneasy too then. Which no doubt parts of it should.

I remember feeling uneasy as well when I first began playing Civ 3 about 15 years ago. In fact, I told a friend, the guy who introduced me to Civ, that it felt wrong to have an optimal game-winning strategy of exploiting natural resources, building a huge military, and ruthlessly conquering all of my neighbors.

Of course, that's pretty much the story of human history, so "Civilization" truly is an appropriate name. And eventually I got over my discomfort. Now I just play for fun and to distract myself somewhat from the horrific reality of the outside world.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

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?

It makes sense to me. Larger empires are harder to govern efficiently. Historically, there were limits on how the growth of empires, and it wasn't based on how much territory they could conquer. It was based on how much territory they could conquer and then administer efficiently afterwards. Whether you're talking growth by conquest or internal population growth, as political entities get bigger the tendencies of humans have been to split up again into smaller, more local governments that are more responsive to the needs/wants of their people. To me, that's why the bigger your empire gets, the harder you should need to work to keep your people happy.

But were there a head to head between a huge country and a smaller country, the huge country will win 9 times out of 10. Yes, it isn't that simple; but the desire for a few cities to compete on an equal footing with lots isn't realistic.

In Civ they'll win 9 times out of 10, in the real world that's not true at all. Innovation has not been concentrated amongst cultures that control the most territory or the most people. Innovation has been concentrated in compact cultural groups with the right social climate. Often that's aligned with large urban centres, not overall population.

The history of the world is a history of small groups innovating, and then taking over much larger and more populous groups. And then, typically, stagnating as they get larger and more ossified.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

What Victoria said. The name of the game, yet again, is Civilization. There has not been a single civilization that hasn't become dominant via using the resources available to them.

Tell me any civilization that was successful without building any tile improvements which is currently seen as optimal because a tile improvement cost possible 100+ production from a chop you could had instead. Civilization 3, 4 and 5 did not have this extreme short term explotation since these game did not have flat yield districts and buildings being so dominant.

 

[kb27787]

It makes sense to me. Larger empires are harder to govern efficiently. Historically, there were limits on how the growth of empires, and it wasn't based on how much territory they could conquer. It was based on how much territory they could conquer and then administer efficiently afterwards. Whether you're talking growth by conquest or internal population growth, as political entities get bigger the tendencies of humans have been to split up again into smaller, more local governments that are more responsive to the needs/wants of their people. To me, that's why the bigger your empire gets, the harder you should need to work to keep your people happy.




In Civ they'll win 9 times out of 10, in the real world that's not true at all. Innovation has not been concentrated amongst cultures that control the most territory or the most people. Innovation has been concentrated in compact cultural groups with the right social climate. Often that's aligned with large urban centres, not overall population.

The history of the world is a history of small groups innovating, and then taking over much larger and more populous groups. And then, typically, stagnating as they get larger and more ossified.

civ V captured this quite well in BNW.

Bringing back the 15 pct increase in culture cost per city would be interesting.
Also, allowing multiple copies of a district per city would help. (maximum number of districts still determined by pop). It makes no sense that a large city cannot have two universities for example.

It would make expansion something you need to think about a bit, rather than something you do blindly

 

[kaspergm]

civ V captured this quite well in BNW. (...) Bringing back the 15 pct increase in culture cost per city would be interesting.

Ugh ... have to disagree.

Also, allowing multiple copies of a district per city would help. (maximum number of districts still determined by pop). It makes no sense that a large city cannot have two universities for example.

It would make expansion something you need to think about a bit, rather than something you do blindly

I don't see how that would solve much. Instead of making the optimal winning strategy Campus first in every city, now it would reduce the game to be build Campuses only. Would it help with wide vs. tall disparity? Probably ... But it wouldn't make for a better game without additional limitations and adjustments on how districts like Campus works.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Changes that would help:

• Remove flat yield from buildings and make them produce per pop yields
• Make specialist boost productivity instead of giving yield so a engineer could increase the city's production by 10% which would be good for large cities
• Make neighbourhood give bigger bonuses to being adjacent to other districts and maybe +1 specialist slot to represent easier access to workplaces
• Make Entertainment district buff the effect of cities being happy by 5% per building which mean a city with a full developed Entertainment district would get +50% bonus from amenties
• Remove card effect (and all other production buffs) from chopping/harvest and maybe cap its yield at 100 at most to counter the effect that chopping gets better and better as there is less and less turns left
• Increase the number of Citizens needed for district and make the first district come with more Citizens, like first district at size 4 + 1 for every multiple of 4.
• Make conquered cities come with long term penalty such as the need of courthouse building and maybe drain diplomatic favor for x number of controlled conquered cities.
• More bonuses from actually being the one to build a wonder rather than simply conquer it.

 

[Victoria]

In civ the small country may have a upturn if they Uniques were cheaper rather than more expensive. But no, they did the opposite.
There is a timing thing though, keep expanding and eventually the civ building infrastructure will succeed but capturing tens of cities gets around this.

 

[GrumboMumbo]

To the OP, I’m not sure there is a mod that can do what you are looking for. The fact is that civ6 has too many major aspects of gameplay that lead to wide play being dominant as others have already explained. It would need a massive update from firaxis to change this, and is incredibly unlikely to happen at this point.

My advice is to buy Civ5 with all the expansions, and possibly get lekmod if you want even more balance and mileage out of it.

I would waste more money buying GS, it’s just not worth it for the type of gameplay you are after

 

[Victoria]

I played a series of 5 city games on emperor and they were fine, I won 4/5 and only lost one because I take risks in my play. It just means you have to be more efficient with your play. One key difference between 5 and 6 is in 5 you would start owning science from the start while in 6 it looks like you are losing science for the first 80-100 turns but that is just because you are getting the infrastructure in place to run away with science.
It seems the comment all noobs make... I am behind in science! Sure we all are, that means you are doing things right.

 

[Scaramanga]

A pop 1 city with a fully developed Theatre district gives you the same yields - both actual yields and GPP - as a fully developed Theatre District in a pop 30 city. Clearly something is wrong here, both in terms of logic/realism and in terms of game design.

That's not really true since more population allows more districts and districts create adjacency bonuses, then it's up to me to plug in the right card to double those bonuses - the Japanese get this right off the bat. Building production costs don't scale like districts so having more cities with individual districts can't be as good as having a few cities with max building level in each district. The double building yield cards explicitly help taller cities (10+ after Vanilla) and great people points from those buildings can create great people that sometimes boost the yields of district buildings like libraries and universities.

 

[kb27787]

Ugh ... have to disagree.

I don't see how that would solve much. Instead of making the optimal winning strategy Campus first in every city, now it would reduce the game to be build Campuses only. Would it help with wide vs. tall disparity? Probably ... But it wouldn't make for a better game without additional limitations and adjustments on how districts like Campus works.

I'm thinking about GPP... in BNW the GPP had a nice balance between wide and tall in terms of GPP generation.
In VI the main reason to build wide is to get as many districts and GPP as possible...

But if a size 30 city can have a dozen campuses.... then it would make it competitive with 5 size 6 cities, etc.

 

[Rosty K]

Historically, there were limits on how the growth of empires, and it wasn't based on how much territory they could conquer. It was based on how much territory they could conquer and then administer efficiently afterwards.

And that's exactly the issue in Civ6. It doesn't provide effective limit to how much can be administered (at least to a human player who knows how to play around loyalty). I think every previous installment had some mechanism that limited or slowed down the expansion (unhappiness, corruption, Civ5's national wonders, etc.)

In the current scheme, for example, later governor promotions (or even some governors, like Pingala) could be unlocked not by tech/civic progress, but by 'population density'...

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

And that's exactly the issue in Civ6. It doesn't provide effective limit to how much can be administered (at least to a human player who knows how to play around loyalty). I think every previous installment had some mechanism that limited or slowed down the expansion (unhappiness, corruption, Civ5's national wonders, etc.)

To better or worse effect, depending on your tastes. The original corruption mechanic might have been the best of the lot, but it was tossed in the name of change, rather than being expanded into a more subtle system. Civ 4's approach was more of a return-on-investment mechanic (up front cost for long term returns). Civ 5's happiness system was either effective or horrible, depending on the type of player you are. My major problem with Civ 5's system was the late patch changes to the National Wonders, rather than the happiness system, but I also don't think that's the only (or even the best) way to represent the challenge of administering a growing empire.

The initial starting spot, I believe, is that this challenge has to be built into the core game, not tossed on later as an anti-snowballing mechanic. In other words, it should be part of the fun and the interest in playing the game, something that evolves and changes over time, and offers meaningful choices (where should I place my new governor in order to improve my control over that province? should I adopt a social policy to decentralize decision making, improving output but limiting my control over where it goes?, etc.)

But that's also part of a bigger picture issue of what type of game do you want Civ to be.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Ok, for those who are saying 'a tall empire doesn't reflect history well enough' or 'lots of cities should always be best because it is realistic'

This is a game. It is not reality. There are many things in Civ (and all games) that are not realistic. Moving units around on a mechanical hex based grid is not realistic, but games are made up of many mechanics. In this case, those mechanics, I hope, are attempts to make a fun Strategy game at its core. So, first we have to answer what 'fun strategy' is...

I think that most people would agree that in Civ, 'fun' would involve a diverse range of strategic options. It is possible that I am wrong here, and perhaps strategic diversity isn't important at all, maybe things like immersion/pace/theme/controls/sound etc are more important. But I think we can all agree that Strategy is at least 'up there'.

If this is the case, then imo Civ6 struggles to achieve the same Strategic Diversity that other previous strategy games have offered in the past. To me Strategic Diversity is about having options, different ways to approach the game with grand strategy in mind. Now Civ6 does have lots of small tactical equations to solve, building small combos (think adjacency bonuses coupled with 100% adjacency policy cards) Where should I place this district to maximise my yields? What shall I prioritise building to maximise that eureka boost? This is enough to carry the game for some people, but for others we need more grand strategy options, simple tactics is not enough.

Wide vs tall is just one aspect of this, but it is an important player in this strategic depth discussion. I agree with the OP that it isn't present here, and I wish it was.

I have written another thread about all of this that got moved to the 'ideas and suggestions' forum:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/improving-civ6s-strategic-depth.650084/#post-15554355

But tall does work. It may not work as well as wide, but it does work. Not all options have to be equal, especially when the difference is just who wins by a couple dozen (if even) turns faster.

There are many reasons why tall should be inferior to wide though from a gameplay perspective. I suppose one could argue that expansion shouldn't always be a duh, but that doesn't equate to not expanding at all.

And besides, even since Rise and Fall when most infrastructure wasn't improved yet, there were plenty of people pulling off fast peaceful culture wins on deity with less than a dozen cities (though in GS this has to be modified to include faith) using trade route tourism bonuses and such. Such strategies were often better than their expansive counterparts too.

 

[kaspergm]

That's not really true since more population allows more districts and districts create adjacency bonuses, then it's up to me to plug in the right card to double those bonuses - the Japanese get this right off the bat. Building production costs don't scale like districts so having more cities with individual districts can't be as good as having a few cities with max building level in each district. The double building yield cards explicitly help taller cities (10+ after Vanilla) and great people points from those buildings can create great people that sometimes boost the yields of district buildings like libraries and universities.

Obviously I was putting things on the edge, and I agree that there is some element of balance in Civ6 in the form of production costs. In my opinion it's a very bad way of doing it, because it's not a very fun game to play when you have to wait 30-50 turns for anything to be produced in a new city, but you can argue that it does put an effective block to the usefulness of new cities. That people didn't like it has been shown by the fact that governors now allow you to circumvent this restriction through faith and gold-buying districts. When that's said, all experience shows that the most effective way to win Civ6 still is to spam campuses, which goes to show there's still an issue (or at least can be, depending on your viewpoint of what's good and not).

 

[GrumboMumbo]

But tall does work. It may not work as well as wide, but it does work. Not all options have to be equal, especially when the difference is just who wins by a couple dozen (if even) turns faster.

There are many reasons why tall should be inferior to wide though from a gameplay perspective. I suppose one could argue that expansion shouldn't always be a duh, but that doesn't equate to not expanding at all.

And besides, even since Rise and Fall when most infrastructure wasn't improved yet, there were plenty of people pulling off fast peaceful culture wins on deity with less than a dozen cities (though in GS this has to be modified to include faith) using trade route tourism bonuses and such. Such strategies were often better than their expansive counterparts too.

I know that it is possible to go tall and win against the AI, anything is possible against the civ AI. But this is not a good enough barometer for if something is balanced well. I'm also not saying that tall should always be better than wide and visa versa. But it would be really fun if there were game elements and mechanics in place, that in any given game you might remain competitive with any amount of cities 1-50 with any of the multiple win conditions. This game is about having options, choosing the type of civilization that you want to lead, whether that is cultural/scientific/diplomatic/war etc

Obviously, it would be few and far between that you might win with a single large city. But it would be nice if once every 10 games you were dealt a hand where that was actually an optimal strategy to grow a super large mega city and be competitive in one of the many win conditions.

Let me ask this more simply: Is having options or strategic diversity important or interesting at all?

 

[Archon_Wing]

I know that it is possible to go tall and win against the AI, anything is possible against the civ AI. But this is not a good enough barometer for if something is balanced well.

Then what barometer are we using? You certainly aren't going to go "wide" against decent competition that won't just give away their cities or just let you freely expand. And the strategy I brought up used by better players isn't necessarily involving exploiting the weakness of the AI either.

 

[The googles do nothing]

But it would be nice if once every 10 games you were dealt a hand where that was actually an optimal strategy to grow a super large mega city and be competitive in one of the many win conditions.

The first tier Government Plaza buildings intended to do this. Not for one city but there is clearly buildings intended for tall, peaceful wide and conquer wide. IMHO the Audience Chamber turned out to be decent at both tall and wide. If you had to have 3 promotions to get the bonus and lowered the loyalty penalty to say -5 or -10 it would be a more distinct choice.

 

[GrumboMumbo]

Then what barometer are we using? You certainly aren't going to go "wide" against decent competition that won't just give away their cities or just let you freely expand. And the strategy I brought up used by better players isn't necessarily involving exploiting the weakness of the AI either.

The best barometer to use is playing against human opponents. Then you can figure out if mechanics are balanced. A good player wouldn't let you expand, but it is always correct to fill all available space with cities in multilayer, and generally people will often pack their cities closer together with overlapping tiles. It is always correct to have the most cities you can fit, so that should tell you something about balance. A lot of people have already said they think wide should always be better, but those people never talk about strategic depth do they...

I will revert to asking the question again, is having strategic options interesting?

 

[GrumboMumbo]

The first tier Government Plaza buildings intended to do this. Not for one city but there is clearly buildings intended for tall, peaceful wide and conquer wide. IMHO the Audience Chamber turned out to be decent at both tall and wide. If you had to have 3 promotions to get the bonus and lowered the loyalty penalty to say -5 or -10 it would be a more distinct choice.

The government plaza buildings don't make a big enough impact to even consider talking about, I wish they did