[NFP] Why is Wide > Tall?

[Kupe Navigator]

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where does Maya fit into this since Maya encourages you to go tall and actually PUNISHES if you go wide-( -15% yields)

 

[NukeAJS]

If specialists gave GPP points, this would be a completely different conversation.

If specialists gave GPP points, it'd be a completely different game.

 

[knighterrant81]

...
where does Maya fit into this since Maya encourages you to go tall and actually PUNISHES if you go wide-( -15% yields)

That's the wrong way to think about it. A better way is to think that founding cities outside of your Maya zone is only 85% as good, and founding a city inside your Maya zone is 110% as good. 85% is still plenty good enough to warrant wide play, or at least, there's no good reason to not found a few perfectly good cities with perfectly good observatories. Maybe don't go as hog wild as you would with other Civs, and conquest looks less good (since you need to plan out Observatories).

 

[AriochIV]

-15% isn't enough of a penalty to make founding additional cities prohibitive; a city at 85% of capacity is still better than no city.

 

[Victoria]

The real difference is not 15%, it is 25% but I would still settle cities outside as long as I can get decent amenities.

 

[EgonSpengler]

• 
  
• There is no challenge involved in holding a vast empire together

This is a key issue for me. I don't mind that geographically large countries are powerful; from both a gameplay perspective and a pseudo-historical perspective, I think they should be. But they should also be challenging. The problem is that there's no challenge commensurate with the rewards associated with a larger country. Building the large country in the first place (sometimes) takes some work, but keeping it doesn't. Having to (micro)manage a large country doesn't really count as a challenge, in my view, because it isn't 'a series of interesting choices'; there isn't any skill or strategy to it. On the contrary, having a larger and larger country makes the game less and less challenging, because external pressures reduce, and there are no internal pressures in this game. You have to spend time moving your Builders around to repair hexes after natural disasters, but that's not decision-making, that's just maintenance (it's not even proactive maintenance, it's purely reactive). You have to renew trade deals, but that's only decision-making if something external has changed since the last time you renewed the deal. You have to upgrade your military to keep pace with technology, but the larger your army is, the less that's true, because a big army is enough of a deterrent to keep you from being attacked.

 

[knighterrant81]

The real difference is not 15%, it is 25% but I would still settle cities outside as long as I can get decent amenities.

Definitely, from the Maya point of view. If you are comparing what the Maya get from expanding (outside of their zone) to what another Civ gets for expanding generally, wouldn't it still be 15%?

This is a key issue for me. I don't mind that geographically large countries are powerful; from both a gameplay perspective and a pseudo-historical perspective, I think they should be. But they should also be challenging. The problem is that there's no challenge commensurate with the rewards associated with a larger country. Building the large country in the first place (sometimes) takes some work, but keeping it doesn't. Having to (micro)manage a large country doesn't really count as a challenge, in my view, because it isn't 'a series of interesting choices'; there isn't any skill or strategy to it. On the contrary, having a larger and larger country makes the game less and less challenging, because external pressures reduce, and there are no internal pressures in this game. You have to spend time moving your Builders around to repair hexes after natural disasters, but that's not decision-making, that's just maintenance (it's not even proactive maintenance, it's purely reactive). You have to renew trade deals, but that's only decision-making if something external has changed since the last time you renewed the deal. You have to upgrade your military to keep pace with technology, but the larger your army is, the less that's true, because a big army is enough of a deterrent to keep you from being attacked.

This has been an issue since the original Civ game. Most of the Civ sequels can be seen as the developers struggling with how to discourage ICS without wrecking the fun/reward of reasonable expansion.

 

[acluewithout]

This has been an issue since the original Civ game. Most of the Civ sequels can be seen as the developers struggling with how to discourage ICS without wrecking the fun/reward of reasonable expansion.

I just griped about this is another thread, ie population needs to be more valuable but also we need more empire management to make wide empires still the stronger empire but also make them more challenging to sustain.

I get finding the balance here must be tough for FXS. They’ve tried getting it right in multiple Civ games, and it’s proven very difficult to balance each time. Corruption, maintenance, global happiness, each one hasn’t quite worked.

All I’d really like to add is that I think FXS do now have two new tools they can use to help make this task easier. First, “Game Modes”. FXS can now have a bit more freedom to introduce things like eg corruption, and then just put it behind a game mode so that if some players find it too crushing they’re not locked into using that Mechanic.

Second, adjustable settings. Just like FXS did with disasters, they can make any sort of “wide empire” Mechanic adjustable, again so that players can decide for themselves how hard it is to maintain wide empires.

Honestly, I really don’t know how to get the tall v wide thing right. It seems really tricky to end up in a place where you have lots of cities, but they’re a mix of tall and small, and it’s hard to maintain your wide empire but still worth it for the rewards, without then tipping into ICS or Four City Tradition or Every City Pop 10 with Rationalism. It probably requires balancing a bunch of stuff, including local v global food, housing, amenities, gold and maintenance, happiness and science / production etc, policies etc. But if some elements are optional or adjustable, I’d hope FXS could find something where most players are happy with the balance once they’ve tweaked a few settings to their liking.

 

[agonistes]

I think the original question has been answered, so I will not repeat what others already have said. I will, however, join the debate as to whether the balance should be changed, as there seems to be many who think the balance is fine because you can choose to go tall if you want to. Well, to that point I would say that you could go wide in Civ V as well, but I rarely see anyone arguing that tall wasn't overpowered compared to wide in that game. Not even myself, as someone who enjoys building a limited number of enormous cities and absolutely hates late game micro-management, would argue that the balance in Civ V was right.

I do think they went way to far in the opposite direction with Civ VI, though. These are my main problems with it:

• Tall cities are far to weak
• There is no real limitation in how wide you can go, or how quickly, regardless of social and technological development
• There is no challenge involved in holding a vast empire together

Making tall impressive cities is pretty much a waste of time and resources, as spreading the same population out into numerous smaller cities gives you much more of pretty much everything. I don't this makes sense. You can only have one of each type of district, and there really aren't many synergies to be had between districts in a city. This means that the Commercial Hub or Campus of the world's largest city will output basically the same as any other mid-sized city in the world.

I disagree.

It doesn’t account for 1) trade routes 2) production times 3) citizens.

Personally, I go tall and wide, which is why I place a premium on amenities and religion (which just got buffed again! crazy they keep doing it!)

A tall city can have every district, extra citizens, and have crazy high production. It can work more tiles that have culture or science, and population gives various bonuses.

So a 42 city can work every building in a science hub and spit out science projects.

Taller cities also can work more tourism tiles.

I won’t mention military, primarily because you can dom the world with your ancient units if you just keep upgrading.

If it required more effort to boost pop I would agree, but making large cities is hardly an effort - everything synergizes so well it is a mistake to not go down that path, if you are trying to win. It is a minimal investment with a huge return.

 

[Victoria]

Taller cities also can work more tourism tiles.

Tourism tiles are worked by tourists, not citizens.
A 42 pop city is an extreme example that does take effort to make. Little effort will normally get to 20’s. To get to 40’s you have to have a lot of the population working strong food tiles and getting the Workers, housing and amenities To make it 42 is a hell of a lot of effort. A one off city to be proud of but not by any means an average.
Weirdly I look at that city as not being tall, but a wide city because it is so spread out.

 

[agonistes]

Tourism tiles are worked by tourists, not citizens.
A 42 pop city is an extreme example that does take effort to make. Little effort will normally get to 20’s. To get to 40’s you have to have a lot of the population working strong food tiles and getting the Workers, housing and amenities To make it 42 is a hell of a lot of effort. A one off city to be proud of but not by any means an average.
Weirdly I look at that city as not being tall, but a wide city because it is so spread out.

42 is not exceptional nor hard.

Try River Goddess + Feed the World + Gurdhara (sp). Seriously make the effort. Beeline astrology and give every city except your capital a monolith-holy site - shrine build order. Then temples come along. Then gurdies.

Try it with Russia or Khmer for giggles. Its kind of like cheating, but first time out you may enjoy it.

Besides... in a tall vs wide discussion, when one says tall, one should mean tall. You can’t argue tall vs wide with tall meaning size 20 or so... I mean, you’d have to make an effort to stunt growth.

You can settle on snow and coast and get a decent city up.

edit: resorts no longer produce gold?

 

[KayAU]

I disagree.

It doesn’t account for 1) trade routes 2) production times 3) citizens.

Personally, I go tall and wide, which is why I place a premium on amenities and religion (which just got buffed again! crazy they keep doing it!)

A tall city can have every district, extra citizens, and have crazy high production. It can work more tiles that have culture or science, and population gives various bonuses.

So a 42 city can work every building in a science hub and spit out science projects.

Taller cities also can work more tourism tiles.

I won’t mention military, primarily because you can dom the world with your ancient units if you just keep upgrading.

If it required more effort to boost pop I would agree, but making large cities is hardly an effort - everything synergizes so well it is a mistake to not go down that path, if you are trying to win. It is a minimal investment with a huge return.

I also like to make giant cities, but there is a serious case of diminishing returns going on here. My claim is that the same amount of population in several smaller cities outperform a giant city, and not just by a small amount. So let's do the comparison, and see how the size 42 city you mentioned would compare to 4 cities of sizes 11, 11, 10 and 10.

Worked tiles
With the same number of citizens, the smaller cities can work as many tiles as the giant one...except, there are not 42 workable tiles within the three hex range. The maximum is 36, from which you would have to subtract all the non-workable tiles, such as Mountains, Wonders and several districts which don't have specialist slots. Then there's the quality of the tiles. The smaller cities will be working their 10-11 best tiles, the giant city does not get to choose, and will be working many weak tiles.
Smaller cities win.

Districts
If my math is correct, a size 42 city has 14 district slots. It will not be able to use all of these, as there are not that many districts in the game which counts towards that limit, and you can only have one district of each type.
The smaller cities in this case has 16 district slots, all of which can be used for useful districts. You can have up to four of each district type, meaning you are free to prioritize what is most beneficial. You would typically have four Campuses, each city would have a Commercial Hub or Harbour, and so on.
There also isn't any great synergies to be had from having more districts within the same city. There are minor adjacencies for most districts. The main synergies are between the Industrial Zone and the green districts, but those don't count towards the district cap, so the smaller cities outperform the giant one in that regard as well. Smaller cities can also put their districts in the same area to benefit from district adjacencies, and even do things like putting an Industrial Zone next to 2 Aqueducts and a Dam. The smaller cities will also have access to better district spots in general, as they cover a much greater area.
Smaller cities win.

Trade routes
1 city gets 1 trade route, 4 cities get 4 trade routes.
Smaller cities win.

Great people
Tied to districts and district buildings, of which the smaller cities get more, and with more flexibility.
Smaller cities win.

Wonders
The giant city will be able to build wonders a bit quicker. However, the smaller cities have a lot more space available, will satisfy more placement restrictions, and their combined production will be much greater.
Smaller cities win.

Specialists
Specialists are not great in Civ 6, but for what it is worth, the smaller cities can have more slots, and if they wanted to, could have more specialists. The only reason why the giant city might be using more specialists, is that it has no better use for its citizens.
Smaller cities win.

Tourism
As has been pointed out, you don't need to work tourism tiles. I would also point out that the smaller cities will have more of both space and high appeal tiles for Seaside Resorts and National Parks.
Smaller cities win.

City Projects
The smaller cities have a higher combined production, and as such, will be able to run more projects.
Smaller cities win.


I think the picture is pretty clear, tall cities just get you a lot less per population. I can only really think of three things for which a giant city is useful:

• Pingala, he can grant a single city the ability to produce a significant amount of science and culture, based on population
• Concentrated production for one-off space race projects
• Concentrated loyalty pressure

I don't think these are sufficient to say that tall cities are anywhere near competitive to smaller ones (per population).

 

[agonistes]

I also like to make giant cities, but there is a serious case of diminishing returns going on here. My claim is that the same amount of population in several smaller cities outperform a giant city, and not just by a small amount. So let's do the comparison, and see how the size 42 city you mentioned would compare to 4 cities of sizes 11, 11, 10 and 10.

Worked tiles
With the same number of citizens, the smaller cities can work as many tiles as the giant one...except, there are not 42 workable tiles within the three hex range. The maximum is 36, from which you would have to subtract all the non-workable tiles, such as Mountains, Wonders and several districts which don't have specialist slots. Then there's the quality of the tiles. The smaller cities will be working their 10-11 best tiles, the giant city does not get to choose, and will be working many weak tiles.
Smaller cities win.

Districts
If my math is correct, a size 42 city has 14 district slots. It will not be able to use all of these, as there are not that many districts in the game which counts towards that limit, and you can only have one district of each type.
The smaller cities in this case has 16 district slots, all of which can be used for useful districts. You can have up to four of each district type, meaning you are free to prioritize what is most beneficial. You would typically have four Campuses, each city would have a Commercial Hub or Harbour, and so on.
There also isn't any great synergies to be had from having more districts within the same city. There are minor adjacencies for most districts. The main synergies are between the Industrial Zone and the green districts, but those don't count towards the district cap, so the smaller cities outperform the giant one in that regard as well. Smaller cities can also put their districts in the same area to benefit from district adjacencies, and even do things like putting an Industrial Zone next to 2 Aqueducts and a Dam. The smaller cities will also have access to better district spots in general, as they cover a much greater area.
Smaller cities win.

Trade routes
1 city gets 1 trade route, 4 cities get 4 trade routes.
Smaller cities win.

Great people
Tied to districts and district buildings, of which the smaller cities get more, and with more flexibility.
Smaller cities win.

Wonders
The giant city will be able to build wonders a bit quicker. However, the smaller cities have a lot more space available, will satisfy more placement restrictions, and their combined production will be much greater.
Smaller cities win.

Specialists
Specialists are not great in Civ 6, but for what it is worth, the smaller cities can have more slots, and if they wanted to, could have more specialists. The only reason why the giant city might be using more specialists, is that it has no better use for its citizens.
Smaller cities win.

Tourism
As has been pointed out, you don't need to work tourism tiles. I would also point out that the smaller cities will have more of both space and high appeal tiles for Seaside Resorts and National Parks.
Smaller cities win.

City Projects
The smaller cities have a higher combined production, and as such, will be able to run more projects.
Smaller cities win.


I think the picture is pretty clear, tall cities just get you a lot less per population. I can only really think of three things for which a giant city is useful:

• Pingala, he can grant a single city the ability to produce a significant amount of science and culture, based on population
• Concentrated production for one-off space race projects
• Concentrated loyalty pressure

I don't think these are sufficient to say that tall cities are anywhere near competitive to smaller ones (per population).

Sure, but I’m looking at the opportunity cost. Or, haha, maybe its too early in the morning... but I maintain its easy to gain pop. I’m saying people undervalue tall because they overvalue the cost of going tall while undervaluing the return on the investment.

Again, make no mistake, I go wide. Just not short and wide.

Another point is settler cost. You can farm settlers, and buy them with faith, but having tall means you are pumping them out much faster. But maybe this final point doesn’t translate well to standard speed - I’m looking at shaving 40-50 turns off a settler at 10x marathon, which is significant. I admit, such a slow speed skews values dramatically.

Maybe I should play a few standard deity again as a refresher? But one district cities? Ugh. Why have one when you can have 4, for the same settler cost.

 

[Victoria]

Seriously make the effort.

... I have. I have built a 45 pop city and civs with over 10 x 30 pop cities.
You can do it, but as I said, it’s laying your population out over food tiles that does it.
Fisheries farms and food halls.

 

[agonistes]

... I have. I have built a 45 pop city and civs with over 10 x 30 pop cities.
You can do it, but as I said, it’s laying your population out over food tiles that does it.
Fisheries farms and food halls.

Maybe my approach to the game is just too alien... I’ll fade into the nethers and shadows.

edit: ahaha! my avatar is invader zim! just caught that

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I'm not sure what people define here as tall and wide but from the sound of it, it seems like it is about spending resources on settlers or spending resources on growing the cities you have. The concept of tall and wide as in civilization V don't make any sense in civilization VI since the conditions that is in Civilization V don't exist in Civilization VI.

Settler cost is 50+30*N

Where N is equal to the number of settlers you have produced +1

Cost of growing a population in terms of food is: 15+8*N+N^1.5

Where N is equal to the total population of the city minus -1

As you can see the settler cost increase linear while the population growth have a exponentiation term which mean the cost of growing population will increase much more rapidly as N becomes large.

Cost to build settlers:

• 5 First cost 700 production
• 10 First cost 2150
• 15 First cost 4350
• 20 First cost 7300

Increase in cost of settlers per group of 5:

• Settler 6-10 cost 1450, an increase of 750
• Settler 11-15 cost 2200, an increase of 750
• Settler 16-20 cost 2950, an increase of 750

So each 5 settler group cost exactly 750 more production than the previous group which is the case when something increase linear.

Cost to grow population:

• To population 6 = 172 food
• To population 11 = 621 food
  
• To population 16 = 1385 food
  
• To population 21 = 2491 food

And the increase in cost of growing pop per group of 5:

• Population 7-11 cost 449 food, an increase of 277 food
  
• Population 12-16 cost 764 food, an increase of 315 food
  
• Population 17-21 cost 1106 food, an increase of 342 food

So while the cost of population are significantly lower than the cost of settlers, the cost to grow each next pop have a larger increase.

Keep in mind that the best tiles and best settler spots will likely go first so there are diminishing returns from both settlers and population, in addition to them becoming more and more expensive. For population you also have the cost of tile improvements (which also increase as builder cost increase) and housing. For example how much sense do it make to grow a city from pop 11 to pop 21 when you need to pay 4 times the food and need 10 more housing. It make more sense to divide the food to several cities to maximize the total amount of pops and generally these pops tend to have access to better tiles and unlock better districts.

If you have an area with lots of food, you want to have that area in range of many cities to maximize the amount of pops gained from that food and it make alot of sense to build farms in such way you have a massive farmland between several cities to allow them all quick growth, while also making the farms as productive as possible due to the adjacency bonus farms have to each other.

This also show why the neighbourhood is such a poor investment:

• It cost like 300 to 500 production
• The 6 or so housing it give take an increasing amount of food to utilize, 1000+ once past population 16.
• The citizens are going to have to work worse and worse tiles

The best time to build neighbourhood is actually if your city have few housing, but once you get to around 15 housing without them it become quite questionable investment.

You can also see that extreme settler spam also don't make all that much sense since each settler become more and more expensive while the gain from a new city tend to be less and less given fewer and fewer turns to pay itself back, it make sense at some point to consider military ways to expand and gain resources over just spaming settlers.

Basically civilization VI is a game that don't seems to encourage extreme amount of self founded cities nor growing cities particular large. Instead it focus on stuff like chopping, pillaging and conquest to make huge amount of resources.

 

[oSiyeza]

I'm not sure what people define here as tall and wide but from the sound of it, it seems like it is about spending resources on settlers or spending resources on growing the cities you have. The concept of tall and wide as in civilization V don't make any sense in civilization VI since the conditions that is in Civilization V don't exist in Civilization VI.

Settler cost is 50+30*N

Where N is equal to the number of settlers you have produced +1

Cost of growing a population in terms of food is: 15+8*N+N^1.5

Where N is equal to the total population of the city minus -1

As you can see the settler cost increase linear while the population growth have a exponentiation term which mean the cost of growing population will increase much more rapidly as N becomes large.

Cost to build settlers:

• 5 First cost 700 production
• 10 First cost 2150
• 15 First cost 4350
• 20 First cost 7300

Increase in cost of settlers per group of 5:

• Settler 6-10 cost 1450, an increase of 750
• Settler 11-15 cost 2200, an increase of 750
• Settler 16-20 cost 2950, an increase of 750

So each 5 settler group cost exactly 750 more production than the previous group which is the case when something increase linear.

Cost to grow population:

• To population 6 = 172 food
• To population 11 = 621 food
  
• To population 16 = 1385 food
  
• To population 21 = 2491 food

And the increase in cost of growing pop per group of 5:

• Population 7-11 cost 449 food, an increase of 277 food
  
• Population 12-16 cost 764 food, an increase of 315 food
  
• Population 17-21 cost 1106 food, an increase of 342 food

So while the cost of population are significantly lower than the cost of settlers, the cost to grow each next pop have a larger increase.

Keep in mind that the best tiles and best settler spots will likely go first so there are diminishing returns from both settlers and population, in addition to them becoming more and more expensive. For population you also have the cost of tile improvements (which also increase as builder cost increase) and housing. For example how much sense do it make to grow a city from pop 11 to pop 21 when you need to pay 4 times the food and need 10 more housing. It make more sense to divide the food to several cities to maximize the total amount of pops and generally these pops tend to have access to better tiles and unlock better districts.

If you have an area with lots of food, you want to have that area in range of many cities to maximize the amount of pops gained from that food and it make alot of sense to build farms in such way you have a massive farmland between several cities to allow them all quick growth, while also making the farms as productive as possible due to the adjacency bonus farms have to each other.

This also show why the neighbourhood is such a poor investment:

• It cost like 300 to 500 production
• The 6 or so housing it give take an increasing amount of food to utilize, 1000+ once past population 16.
• The citizens are going to have to work worse and worse tiles

The best time to build neighbourhood is actually if your city have few housing, but once you get to around 15 housing without them it become quite questionable investment.

You can also see that extreme settler spam also don't make all that much sense since each settler become more and more expensive while the gain from a new city tend to be less and less given fewer and fewer turns to pay itself back, it make sense at some point to consider military ways to expand and gain resources over just spaming settlers.

Basically civilization VI is a game that don't seems to encourage extreme amount of self founded cities nor growing cities particular large. Instead it focus on stuff like chopping, pillaging and conquest to make huge amount of resources.

Civ VI actually encorages a hugue ammount of self funded cities, and of cities adquired by any other mean.

When we say that the game is biased towards wide, means that four 5 population cities are better than two 10 population cities and much better than a 20 population city.

Also, victory is tied to speciality districts, which output don't scale by population, and which you can only build one per city.

Alsoammenities, resources, luxuries and other system make this even more biased.

The problem is basically that the more cities you have the easier the game is, but having a tight empire with less but highly developed cities is far less beneficial per citizen; so basically every new pop a city gets, gives less benefit per turn than the previous one.

The cost of settlers does not negate this advantage in any way, and what is worst there is no reason the develop highly populated cities, and the worst of all managing many cities is incredibly boring when in the end they all are interchangeable and the best strategy is just to spam the district related to your victory condition and ignore all the other stuff.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Civ VI actually encorages a hugue ammount of self funded cities, and of cities adquired by any other mean.

It encourage you to have as many cities as possible, however conquest is far more efficient than building settlers. For example you can build 5 settlers and 16 swordsmen or equivalent for the same production cost as 10 settlers and I suspect the 5 settlers + military units will be alot stronger against the ai than building 10 settlers and that is also ignoring the pop cost of settlers. The whole goal of civilization VI and 4x games in general is to find the most efficient way to get returns on your investment and pave the path towards your victory goal.

When we say that the game is biased towards wide, means that four 5 population cities are better than two 10 population cities and much better than a 20 population city.

I said that the concept of tall and wide as it is in civilization V don't make any sense in civilization VI since the rules and conditions are different.

The problem is basically that the more cities you have the easier the game is, but having a tight empire with less but highly developed cities is far less beneficial per citizen; so basically every new pop a city gets, gives less benefit per turn than the previous one.

Something I pointed out by checking the actual food cost of growing citizens.

The cost of settlers does not negate this advantage in any way, and what is worst there is no reason the develop highly populated cities, and the worst of all managing many cities is incredibly boring when in the end they all are interchangeable and the best strategy is just to spam the district related to your victory condition and ignore all the other stuff.

Was never my point, however spamming settlers is likely a trap when you could be spamming military units instead and I suspect you would say it is even more boring to manage military units and huge amount of cities than just huge amount of cities. The increasing cost of settlers as well the shorter time for them to pay back their investment is significant and mean there is rapid diminishing returns to spam settlers.

 

[oSiyeza]

It encourage you to have as many cities as possible, however conquest is far more efficient than building settlers. For example you can build 5 settlers and 16 swordsmen or equivalent for the same production cost as 10 settlers and I suspect the 5 settlers + military units will be alot stronger against the ai than building 10 settlers and that is also ignoring the pop cost of settlers. The whole goal of civilization VI and 4x games in general is to find the most efficient way to get returns on your investment and pave the path towards your victory goal.

I agree, I just think that the most eficient way to play according to the game rules is too much focused on the number of cities and not enough on the quality of the cities.

I also think you greatly overestimate the efficiency of war as a strategy. It has simply too may drawbacks diplomacy, comercial, and production wise. I also think you overvalue the effectiveness of military units. You simply will not be able to conquer 5 cities with 16 swordmen as easy as funding 5 cities with a peaceful aproach with 5 setlers. First you will need a big source of income to maintain such a big army and still will suffer a lot from unit mainteneance. You will need ranged units is most geographies to attack effectively, and siege weapons to bypass walls that most AIs will have when you have access to swordmen, also extra production to replenish lost units / the ones you will garrison, you will need to secure iron, priorize military tech, fight against emergencies and loyality, suffer diplomatic penalties while losing a lot of turns that you would otherwise use to improve other valuable things. At the same time you may lose a lot of era score that may getting you in a dark age.

I said that the concept of tall and wide as it is in civilization V don't make any sense in civilization VI since the rules and conditions are different.

And I did not argue against that, Civilization VI needs a different way of balancing tall vs wide, nobody argues for the return of the exact same system as in civ V.

Was never my point, however spamming settlers is likely a trap when you could be spamming military units instead and I suspect you would say it is even more boring to manage military units and huge amount of cities than just huge amount of cities. The increasing cost of settlers as well the shorter time for them to pay back their investment is significant and mean there is rapid diminishing returns to spam settlers.

And As I pointed out, spaminming military units can also be a much greather trap than spamming settlers for most players. I did not say is boring, but it will harm greatly your speed of progress.

And as I final note the game needs a system to stablish puppet cities that you dont have to manage directly. So even if you decide to conquer cities, you dont end in a overmanagement gameplay if you dont want to.