Tall or Wide? Winning Short and Poor

Buccaneer

Deity
Joined
Nov 2, 2001
Messages
3,562
Just finished my science-focused game (Babylon, Emperor, Fractal) and while I studied the various tall and wide strategies, I couldn't do it. I had four cities, all size 10 or under the whole game, and in somewhat isolation with only Polynesia as a close neighbor. I think it was because I was so focused on specialists, both science and merchants, to not only keep afloat financially, but to stockpile GS so I can make the Great Leap.

Not only did it work, I managed to engage in only one small defensive war. I got nervous when I was (slowly) building my last SS parts because Polynesia could've struck a blow and Germany was conquering the world via nukes. The Germans never got to me in their steamroll.

The Great Leap was 8 GS plus Scientific Revolution to go from Telegragh area all the way to Satellite. Had to do Particle Physics the hard way while buying time to get one more GS for Nanotech.

Two of the keys were converting all of the hill farms to mines before building the SS, as well as the left side of Rationalism.

I wouldn't recommend trying to stay Short and Poor but it did work, for what it's worth.
 
How did you manage under size 10 all game?
 
it's possible, especially as Babylon. As long as you're getting RAs and generating a lot of GSs, you can easily get to modern in a 'bad' state.

Though, if you ever get truly pressed, you're likely done for.
 
I also did build enough units to stay in the 4-6 range in soldiers, so small doesn't necessarily mean weak but being on the end of a snake fractal did help to maintain science focus. But Mad is right, if next-door Polynesia and runaway Germany decided to prevent me from winning, they could have.

I never went negative happiness but I tried to maximize either hammers and/or gold in my four cities. Only the capital had an abundance of hills, the others were non-river plains with good luxuries. The capital had good hill farms but I needed to focus it on wonders and buildings (switching over to the mines half the time). All cities had its three scientist slots filled plus the market/bank slots filled. That's five workers in a mostly food-scarce location.

Altogether, 14 Great Scientists; good science rate through Renaissance; handful of RAs; and four solid City-States most of the game.
 
Yeah I had an ultra short and poor game on Deity as Egypt where I wound up winning by :c5science: after shivering away in the tundra all game with 3 cities. Only Thebes was decent sized. Never had to fire a shot, and it was a pangaea.

Pure buying wars and RAs. It was never a really fun game but you can make it work. Really shows the power of RAs currently.
 
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