Why are Trade route limits in VI ok but not Settlement limits in VII?

[Kenshiro70]

This is one of the things that's been bothering me as I've written about the limits on Agency in Civ VII. There have been limits on things before, most notably the hard Trade route cap in VI. But for some reason it doesn't feel like as big a deal when I compare the two in my head.

So why does a soft limit on Settlements feel worse than a hard limit on Trade routes? I'm trying my best to keep this question distinct from my other issues with Civ VII and look at it much as possible in a vacuum.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, particularly around the gameplay aspects (as opposed to narrative justification).

 

[VGT]

First explanation coming to my mind is that settlement limit goes directly against "eXpand" idea of 4x. You see this land next to you, but number tells you, that you shouldn't claim it. But when I think more about it every limit will go against it in some way. Limit on trade routes limits your economy and therefore also ability to expand at some point? But maybe this one feels just to strict? I think I felt similarly towards happiness limit in V.

On the other hand when discussion about settlement limit comes I always wonder if only issue with it is that it's so simple/dumbed-down to a single number? Because even best game in the series for me - IV - where I loved to play wide, had sort of soft settlement limit, which was maintenance cost of cities. But while putting this obstacles in front of me, civ IV also out of the gate gave me options to combat it. Building courthouses, or when my terrain gets big enough, already planning where will I build Forbidden Palace, etc. I don't own it so I don't know if civ VII give you some options to combat settlement limit penalties or the only way is to just wait for next age to come and artificial number increase.

 

[Chefofrats]

Well, expansion has always been a core element of Civ games, and the settlement limit curbs expansion. I don't mind it in peaceful games, but I don't enjoy how it limits aggressive play. Having civs with a military bent clashes with a settlement limit.

For example, when I played as Assyria, I founded 3 settlements to get my war machine going. Then my chariots began overrunning the world... Well, a small part of it, anyway, as after conquering neighboring Maya I had to either stop or live with exceeding the settlement limit.

It gets worse in the Exploration era, when you are encouraged or almost forced to settle the distant lands. So you spend your settlement limit on towns or cities on the islands, to start with the economic victory path early, and conquering the old world is not really an option (because why do it if it doesn't help with the military or economic paths?) - but there still are military civs. You can conquer distant lands, of course, but that comes later, after Shipbuilding, by which time it might be too late to finish the Economic path if you hadn't settled the islands. Quite a conundrum.

 

[Berrern]

@Chefofrats I fully agree with all your points - in fact I had the exact same issue in my one game with Assyria. A solution to this would be to have more settlement limit increases in their civic tree.

What really bugs me about settlement limits is when playing on a Huge map, it's annoying that the limit doesn't scale based on map size!

You can conquer distant lands, of course, but that comes later, after Shipbuilding, by which time it might be too late to finish the Economic path if you hadn't settled the islands. Quite a conundrum.

This isn't entirely accurate, you can send your commanders across the ocean after researching Cartography. I always send out at least a couple of commanders to protect my expedition party (and typically use them to disperse independents sitting on treasure resources).

 

[itix]

Trade routes in Civ 6 are used to build roads and increase yields and gold income. They are useful, but you can live without them. Trade routes are not particularly fun, and with over 10 trade routes, it becomes tedious.

The settlement limit, on the other hand, is different. The basic strategy in most 4X games is to claim as much land as possible. Founding a new city is the only way to claim land. And more importantly, it is fun to found a new city. It is unfun to watch the opponent build a new city in your favorite location.

It is like Oklahoma land rush again and again:

 

[Siptah]

What settlement limit? The penalty is capped at -35 happiness (= 7 settlements over the limit). Whether you end antiquity with 19 or 24 settlements makes no difference. It‘s a bit hard for you exploration start though to have -35 on all settlements.

That aside, I think people are taking the limit too seriously. Even civs without any happiness bonuses can safely go beyond the limit by 2-3 settlements, and this is ok-ish for many parts of the game. Sure, at some points you‘d like to have a bit more, but than you also get an increase every now and then.

Still, I'd welcome it if the limit was raised by 2 or 3 points in antiquity, but cities cost 2 points and towns remain at 1. If you want it more complicated, the limit could stay similar in exploration, but a city following your religion costs on 1 point instead of 2.

 

[stealth_nsk]

What settlement limit? The penalty is capped at -35 happiness (= 7 settlements over the limit). Whether you end antiquity with 19 or 24 settlements makes no difference. It‘s a bit hard for you exploration start though to have -35 on all settlements.

Yes, the settlement limit is the soft one and you could deal with its consequences using gameplay mechanics.

When I compare it with Civ5 limits, I found Civ7 version to be strictly better:

1. Under the limit there are no penalties to add settlements in Civ7
2. Penalties in Civ5 are permanent, while in Civ7 the limit eventually grows

 

[Kenshiro70]

What really bugs me about settlement limits is when playing on a Huge map, it's annoying that the limit doesn't scale based on map size!

Trading range limits don't scale either - it can be a problem even on the Standard map sizes. That bugs me far more than the Settlement limits; nothing is worse than founding a city only to be told it's not connected to my trade network. I ended up getting a mod that bumped up the limit by 10. That was a big improvement on the larger maps.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

@Chefofrats I fully agree with all your points - in fact I had the exact same issue in my one game with Assyria. A solution to this would be to have more settlement limit increases in their civic tree.

What really bugs me about settlement limits is when playing on a Huge map, it's annoying that the limit doesn't scale based on map size!



This isn't entirely accurate, you can send your commanders across the ocean after researching Cartography. I always send out at least a couple of commanders to protect my expedition party (and typically use them to disperse independents sitting on treasure resources).

I feel like the mistake has been doing it on a Settlement Limit, they should have done a City Limit instead.

There's nothing stoping us from making every Town a City and that alone creates a massive snowball effect, but creating a hard City Limit I think curbs that A LOT.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I feel like the mistake has been doing it on a Settlement Limit, they should have done a City Limit instead.

The idea that cities should contribute 2 points and towns only 1, with the adjustments looks pretty right to me. It would pop the whole tall/wide thing to the new level, but of course, it would require hell of a balancing.

One not obvious benefit of this approach would be that with higher numbers it would be easier to adjust those limits to map sizes, including smaller ones.

 

[Kenshiro70]

To me, what's so strange about the Settlement limit is that it doesn't feel like it exists as something designed to impact gameplay. Instead, it's only there because the real limiting factor, happiness, is so diffuse and difficult to visualize that it needed a number slapped on to make it understandable. The Settlement limit feels like a band aid on problems with happiness, which is a double-whammy. Not only is it a violation of 4X Soul; it feels a kludge that wouldn't have been necessary if the Happiness mechanic had more time in the oven.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Why are Trade route limits in VI ok but not Settlement limits in VII?​

Well for one thing we like to see lots of cities on the map. I don't know about Civ7, but in Civ5 you don't get the feeling you're ruling an empire instead of a glorified confederation of 4-5 city-states

 

[UWHabs]

It's a simplification of the global happiness system in civ 5, and some of the amenity stuff in 6, but just out there as a visible number. The more I play through, and you realize that being a little above the limit really isn't that limiting, the easier it is to start to like. It adds some strategy - like in my current game, I had a few settlers out ready to settle, but I knew my core empire was stretched a little thin since I was already a few settlement over the limit, so I had to wait to get the next settlement increase point before I could pop down my city. In a lot of ways, that reminds me of civ 4 days when settling a city that was pulling in too much maintenance before you were ready could really cripple your empire. And I actually experienced a real problem with it once the revolt crisis hit at the end of the era and I actually lost 2 settlements that flipped to neighbours because I was running really negative.

I'd definitely agree that cities costing 2 and towns 1 would be a great balance to the limits. If it effectively cost me -5 happiness in every settlement to convert another town to a city, I'd probably pay a little closer attention there.

I do wonder though if it's a terminology thing. Like if it was labelled as corruption, or just "Free City Maintenance" or something along those lines, where it's evident that it should be treated like the highway speed limit, as a minimum rather than a maximum, if the reaction would be better.

 

[Uberfrog]

When this discussion arises, I always wonder if I’m playing the same game. It is quite possible, even advisable, to exceed the settlement cap if you manage happiness correctly. It is a very soft cap.

Are people simply being put off by the visualisation of it as a fraction at the top of the screen? I don’t really have a problem with it at all to be honest.

 

[Xur]

Cities have always been naturally limited by availability of land / map size. An abstract board game limit on cities is not immersive, fun or logical.

A limit on trade route is a blessing because they are generally not interesting and adds late game fatigue. I have no problem with no limits, but they would have to rework trade routes to be a bit more fluid and automatic. I would actually prefer if trade routes went back to not being units.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

This is one of the things that's been bothering me as I've written about the limits on Agency in Civ VII. There have been limits on things before, most notably the hard Trade route cap in VI. But for some reason it doesn't feel like as big a deal when I compare the two in my head.

So why does a soft limit on Settlements feel worse than a hard limit on Trade routes? I'm trying my best to keep this question distinct from my other issues with Civ VII and look at it much as possible in a vacuum.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, particularly around the gameplay aspects (as opposed to narrative justification).

The simple explanation is that settlement limit tends to hurt the 4X more than limiting trade routes. Settlement limits directly nerf expansion which is a major part of the game. All of civ is basically based on expanding your cities since cities are the source of power. Trade routes are useful but they are not seen as a major part of the game. You can play the game without trade routes just fine, you cannot play the game really without expanding. So I think people notice the settlement limit more because it impacts their expansion plans. Unless they really like trade routes, they might not really notice the trade route limit.

But from a more philosophical perspective, one could make the case that you either limit both or you don't limit either if you want to be consistent. So maybe both limits are bad design, just that one affects players more and so they gripe about it more. You could make the case that all limits are bad design so neither should have a limit. So let the player expand as much as they want (with consequences) and let them build as many trade routes as they want (with consequences).

 

[stealth_nsk]

Cities have always been naturally limited by availability of land / map size. An abstract board game limit on cities is not immersive, fun or logical.

There are 2 parts, gameplay and historical:

- From gameplay point of view some price of expansion is logical and is implemented in all civilization games since the first one. If this mechanic isn't strong enough (as it was in early Civ games), this leads to infamous infinite city spam strategy, which even has its own abbreviation here on civfanatics

- From historical point of view, it's also reasonable to have limit on the territory which could be managed. Early states were almost exclusively city-states and handling large empires was rare, required constant military presence and those empires were pretty decentralized internally

 

[SupremacyKing2]

It is quite possible, even advisable, to exceed the settlement cap if you manage happiness correctly. It is a very soft cap.

Yeah that is fine during the Age but watch out if you get hit by the happiness crisis. It can throw your cities into such deep negative happiness that they will revolt. I had a game where I was over the settlement cap but my happiness was still positive, so I thought I was ok. But then the happiness crisis hit and my cities were so deeply negative, and I had no more happiness buildings to build so no way to get out of the hole. 2 of my cities flipped.

 

[Calcifer]

As others pointed out, the settlement limit is not really a limit but just a mechanic that slows your expansion a little. You can easily go over the settlement limit in civ 7 if you can manage your happiness. I think the system is at the right balance between civ 6 (too easy to expand) and civ 5 (expanding was detrimental to your empire).

I could see giving settlements different weights towards the limit, as it makes sense that a city is more impactful than a fishing town, but it’s not at the top of my wish list at the moment.

Edit: yeah, the happiness crisis is the only one that feels like a real crisis to me, it can really wreck your empire if it catches you off guard.

 

[Siptah]

Civ 7 has the limit on expansion better than the 6 previous games - it‘s reasonably forgiving, while it can turn into real punishment when you overdo. At least that’s how I feel, even as currently implemented.

But maybe, to avoid confusion the „limit“ should be renamed to „upkeep free settlements“.