So wide play will clearly be viable... but will tall play?

[omniclast]

MadDjinn's streams seem to have clearly answered people's worries that wide play won't be viable in BE. He's even said several times that in BE, wide empires have the advantage.

I'm actually beginning to think that tall will be the strat that won't be viable. Maybe it's just MD's play style, he likes to go wide, but we haven't seen really any examples of players winning on the back of 4-5 giant cities. The lack of mirroring internal trade routes seems like an issue, but on the other hand the less painful unhealth modifiers seem like they'll benefit tall cities as much as wide ones.

Is anyone worried tall play won't be viable? Would that even be a bad thing?

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Well the lack of heavy % modifiers and growth storage will hurt tall play.
However things like limited numbers of satelites, tech and culture cost increase based on number of cities, powerful improvments alot of specialist slots may be thing helping tall play so we have to see and try

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I think that Tall is not opposed to Wide in CivBE

Basically with Biowells you can grow your city as large as you want.

Other cities you found can also grow as large as you want..and will benefit you.. But take a long time to pay off.

 

[Manannan]

It's probably going to take heavy investment in the Knowledge tree to be viable, and maybe some beelining for +food wonders (the one that gives boosties to farms, can't remember it's name). MD keeps getting really far back on science going wide (if his trade routes are any indicator anyway), so I'm hesitant to say his wide play is particularly strong right now. I'm thinking with 3-5 cities and a focus on science it might be possible to crank up affinity very quickly by burning through leaf techs faster than anyone else, but we'll see.

 

[Acken]

I don't see anything that makes small tall empire good in that game. All the bonuses that I see are always per city which helps wide as much as tall. On the other hand the restrictions for wide in civ5 have mostly vanished: scalable trade routes number, less punitive unhapiness, no requirement for world wonders, less crappy terrain.
Knowledge is certainly designed for tall cities but it will probably be even better in an healthy wide empire. And prosperity, trade route powered health buildings etc. allows that kind of empire.

Like many these are just speculations since we don't play the game. But that's what I take from the let's plays I've seen, making as many cities as possible as tall as possible. This was already the case in civ5 though but many restrictions made it way harder to pull off than it seems to be in civBE.

 

[Miravlix]

First question should be:

Does CBE have tall and wide at all?

It has negative health expansion vs positive health expansion.

 

[MadDjinn]

there are a few +% food carry over bonuses in the game, so 'tall' will have help that way.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I don't see anything that makes small tall empire good in that game. All the bonuses that I see are always per city which helps wide as much as tall. On the other hand the restrictions for wide in civ5 have mostly vanished: scalable trade routes number, less punitive unhapiness, no requirement for world wonders, less crappy terrain.
Knowledge is certainly designed for tall cities but it will probably be even better in an healthy wide empire. And prosperity, trade route powered health buildings etc. allows that kind of empire.

Like many these are just speculations since we don't play the game. But that's what I take from the let's plays I've seen, making as many cities as possible as tall as possible. This was already the case in civ5 though but many restrictions made it way harder to pull off than it seems to be in civBE.

The restrictions mostly seem to be on the Rate of expansion/pop growth.. New cities cost as much as a second ring building and take a while to get going.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Their have been some talk about that maybe specialist have some sort of % boost which would definitely help large cities, however I have not seen anything that say specialist give any such boost.

 

[ggmoyang]

Their have been some talk about that maybe specialist have some sort of % boost which would definitely help large cities, however I have not seen anything that say specialist give any such boost.

It was suggestion to improve specialists, there's no such bonus in BE.

 

[Haggbart]

MadDjinn's streams seem to have clearly answered people's worries that wide play won't be viable in BE. He's even said several times that in BE, wide empires have the advantage.

I'm actually beginning to think that tall will be the strat that won't be viable. Maybe it's just MD's play style, he likes to go wide, but we haven't seen really any examples of players winning on the back of 4-5 giant cities. The lack of mirroring internal trade routes seems like an issue, but on the other hand the less painful unhealth modifiers seem like they'll benefit tall cities as much as wide ones.

Is anyone worried tall play won't be viable? Would that even be a bad thing?

The only thing limiting wide play now seem to be if you want to take the hit on the cost of techs/virtues and health.

Vanilla CiV had no viable tall-strategy either, so it might be introduced more later here too. I think it would be a bad thing if REX/warfare is the only way to succeed. Would love to see more than one "right" path to victory when it comes to rate of expansion.

 

[Acken]

there are a few +% food carry over bonuses in the game, so 'tall' will have help that way.

Well to be clear, what people refer to as tall is usually "small empires" in civ5 terms. Wide empires since civ5 always want to be as tall as possible anyway.

Food bonuses are useful for wide empires. They were in civ5 I'd expect it to be the same here. (not to confuse with ICS). City bonuses do not favor playing small empires. Things like limited number of routes, building requirement for NW and policies working only on your 4 first cities did.

The restrictions mostly seem to be on the Rate of expansion/pop growth.. New cities cost as much as a second ring building and take a while to get going.

Meh I haven't seen them being slow with production trade routes being available right away (and prosperity + trade route cutting down the outpost to city time).

Vanilla CiV had no viable tall-strategy either, so it might be introduced more later here too. I think it would be a bad thing if REX/warfare is the only way to succeed. Would love to see more than one "right" path to victory when it comes to rate of expansion.

The game being 2 weeks away from release I sadly feel we're heading right there when it comes to how much expansion/cities you should do. Hope I'm wrong.

 

[MadDjinn]

Well to be clear, what people refer to as tall is usually "small empires" in civ5 terms. Wide empires since civ5 always want to be as tall as possible anyway.

Food bonuses are useful for wide empires. They were in civ5 I'd expect it to be the same here. (not to confuse with ICS)

I do know the difference between the 4 states. Two of which should not exist in the series, or at least, only for the early game (small).

A high pop strategy does need the food carry over, else it'll take forever to grow tall - to the point of not being worth it vs a wider empire growing pop per turn.

 

[Acken]

I do know the difference between the 4 states. Two of which should not exist in the series, or at least, only for the early game (small).

A high pop strategy does need the food carry over, else it'll take forever to grow tall - to the point of not being worth it vs a wider empire growing pop per turn.

And I'm not denying that fact. I'm denying the fact that this is an advantage OVER an empire with more cities.

Small empires being viable is the base of civ5 BNW. You seem to think they shouldn't exist, this is debatable.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

If there are severely strong tile or specialist yields that require specializing away from food, taller becomes more appealing. Otherwise, everything in the game makes you want more cities, so cities = better. Wider gets more population faster, more worked tiles, and duplicate buildings, not to mention the whole trade unit ridiculousness. Working those tiles gives production, those pops are science (still? I like SMAC labs.), and Not To Mention That Trade Unit Ridiculousness.

Did I mention the trade unit ridiculousness? It's ridiculous.

Only reason to go tall is for some kind of ideological, beyond-the-game belief in health, and quality over quantity.
Me, I want boreholes.

 

[Aeson]

I would actually say Madjinn is a tall builder/sledgehammer type ... we haven't really seen anyone push to wide or really push early (and effective) military expansion.

Civ V changed "tall" to 5 cities and spacebar for the win. I think it's good if "tall" moves back to OCP (optimal city placement) and do at least a little conquest mixed in. Back in I-IV conquering your continent if you could was almost a given even for "peaceful" or at least non-agressive players. Anything less (OCC, 5CC) was more of a variant play once you were bored with trying to do everything optimally and instead wanted to take on some self-imposed limitations to further the challenge of the game.

 

[Alkyon]

Honestly, I don't mind wide strategy being the preferred gameplay again. I wouldn't mind a few national wonder-like buildings to buff smaller empires but I always felt being so heavily punished for expansion in later Civ V was, well, boring and not fun. I want to settle the world, I want to expand, I want to build an empire.

I don't want to sit there and babysit 3-5 cities and leave the world half empty (well, half-empty until Hiawatha notices that there are some sandbars that still need to be settled on).

 

[Knut_Are_M]

In civ BE you can go both tall and wide. so the goal of the game is to both grow tall and wide.

Anyway Health is not much of an issue in Beyond Earth.
it only cost 1+ 3,5 unhealth per 6 pop if you get 5 in knowlege and 10 in prosperity and artists. so after midgame unhealth can be a non issue.
as in New cities cost 1 unhealth for the first pop and 0,75 thereafter and you get 1 Health per 6 pop.
Go Farmspam for super Tech.

 

[Zet]

Hey Maddjinn, I would love to see another try at a tall empire after the Franco-Iberia attempt didn't work out. Maybe this time with the African Union.

 

[Matthew.]

Yay! =D I welcome this change. Sorry, but settling a couple cities and clicking next turn makes for boring strategy game. I won't say both being viable shouldn't be an option, and that would be ideal, but BNW's tall play along with pacifist AI was too boring.