Why such small empires?

[jjkrause84]

I recently watched the 'religion' play-through and the old fear came back again strong: 'empires' are going to be 4-6 cities max, and that's it.

In the Viking game they posted it was 155 turns in and they had three small-ish cities. How on Earth is that an 'empire-building' game!? What is the point of having so few cities?

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

155 isn't even half of the game's speed.

They were also playing on Island Tectonics/Archipelog map, so there was less space to settle. (there wasn't that much space if I recall).

 

[BrokenBokken]

The devs have said a small empire would be 6 to 8 cities. I wouldn't take one game, built in the classical era on a small map and fast settings, played entirely with the intent to show you a specific mechanic as hard evidence to the contrary. I would need a large sample size to be convinced that your preconceived notions were inspired by gameplay and not... well... preconceived notions

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

They are doing these Livestreams to show off features, not demonstrate ideal gameplay.

 

[jjkrause84]

The devs have said a small empire would be 6 to 8 cities. I wouldn't take one game, built in the classical era on a small map and fast settings, played entirely with the intent to show you a specific mechanic as hard evidence to the contrary. I would need a large sample size to be convinced that your preconceived notions were inspired by gameplay and not... well... preconceived notions

I've watched a few gameplay videos and have never seen one in which there was even room for 6-8 cities per empire, let alone any 'small' empires that size.

I hope I'm wrong in the end, but it is worrying.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I've watched a few gameplay videos and have never seen one in which there was even room for 6-8 cities per empire, let alone any 'small' empires that size.

I hope I'm wrong in the end, but it is worrying.

I think a standard map probably has just enough room for 6-8 cities per empire.(closely packed because the cities are capped in pop size and districts)

An empire is 'small' if it hasn't eliminated some of its neighbors.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

What you see on these videos may not be an optimal way to play.

Settlers have a base cost of 80 and increase by 20 per previous one produced (or atleast that look to be the case) and also use up one citizen (similar to the old civ games) so they are much more expensive to produce then in previous games like your 21st should have a production cost of 500 but there are a card that give 50% production boost to settlers.

But after you have paid for the settler and founded a city there seems to no penalty whatsoever, no science or culture or happines. The only bad thing cities may have is that they may increase district cost (we do not know) and maybe make other civs unhappy.

As you can see the system is designed so that it take longer and longer for each city to pay itself back so while building alot of cities may be a good idea you will likely be behind for a while due to the increased cost of each settler on the bright side cities do not have any direct damage on your economy it is just that you could invest the production in something else then settlers which could have been better for you.

 

[BrokenBokken]

I've watched a few gameplay videos and have never seen one in which there was even room for 6-8 cities per empire, let alone any 'small' empires that size.

I hope I'm wrong in the end, but it is worrying.

How far along have these games gotten? Like just starting the medieval era? On the fastest settings? None of them even hit turn 150. That's like me being concerned that tourism is worthless because we haven't seen it in the streams yet.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

They have not been willing to show the later half of the game yet and I guess they will do that in the futher.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I've watched a few gameplay videos and have never seen one in which there was even room for 6-8 cities per empire, let alone any 'small' empires that size.

I hope I'm wrong in the end, but it is worrying.

Incorrect, you've watched early beta gameplay, with bugs, unbalances and most importantly unpolished and unfinished gameplay.

There is nothing stopping you from settling many cities, because global happiness is gone. That alone means there is no severe restriction on how much you can expand.

Given there is no Policy Trees, over-expanding shouldn't affect too much other than the cost of few things and possibly Tech and Civics cost.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Im pretty sure we have seen no tech or culture cost increase for founding cities. While there are no global happines, a luxury resource can not boost happines of all your cities.

It is a bit funny it took 25 years for the game designers to come up with the idea to limit city founding by production instead by some other penalty.

 

[BrokenBokken]

Im pretty sure we have seen no tech or culture cost increase for founding cities. While there are no global happines, a luxury resource can not boost happines of all your cities.

Yes but the happiness is local. Meaning building a city you can't make happy will limit that cities growth. Not everything in your empire. Therefore you can spam those cities and your core ones will do just as well growth wise. (Districts may be a different case however.)

 

[gunnergoz]

The main limitations I've seen to date in videos have been to do with lack of amenities or insufficient housing. Shortage of both or either could cripple growth & possibly hamper building more settlers, but that remains to be seen.

 

[Magil]

I admit, I would love to see a video or two featuring someone at the helm of a sprawling empire just to show it's possible... every preview build we've seen so far has been someone managing such a tiny empire, no matter how much time they're given. I think one person got up to five cities.

 

[Sansa_Stark]

The devs have said a small empire would be 6 to 8 cities. I wouldn't take one game, built in the classical era on a small map and fast settings, played entirely with the intent to show you a specific mechanic as hard evidence to the contrary. I would need a large sample size to be convinced that your preconceived notions were inspired by gameplay and not... well... preconceived notions

Can somebody provide source of this? I think I've seen almost everything related to Civ6, and I don't remember them saying this. Sounds like an urban legend to me.

Anyway, I think that anybody who expects much more cities than in Civ5 will be disappointed. It's been almost a year since I last play Civ5, but I think I got space for like 4 solid cities on small maps, and maybe 5 on standard. I expect these numbers to increase a little bit, but I really think that it is highly unlikely that 6-8 cities will be small empire (on standard map, without warmongering). If 6-8 is small, then 10-12 would be average, which seems impossible to me (given what we saw in available let's plays).

 

[BrokenBokken]

Can somebody provide source of this? I think I've seen almost everything related to Civ6, and I don't remember them saying this. Sounds like an urban legend to me.

Anyway, I think that anybody who expects much more cities than in Civ5 will be disappointed. It's been almost a year since I last play Civ5, but I think I got space for like 4 solid cities on small maps, and maybe 5 on standard. I expect these numbers to increase a little bit, but I really think that it is highly unlikely that 6-8 cities will be small empire (on standard map, without warmongering). If 6-8 is small, then 10-12 would be average, which seems impossible to me (given what we saw in available let's plays).

I remember hearing it in an early play preview, but I'm not going to put in the effort to find it and I could be wrong. Everyone has a faulty memories to a degree. If I hear it again I'll make sure to make a note of it's location.

In the recent LPs we've see many cities have been at minimal distance from each other. If lands really have 30% more land mass it would stand to reason that there will be more cities.

 

[Buccaneer]

This is what Civilization is: turn-based strategy game in which you attempt to build an empire to stand the test of time.

Where in that does it say that empires have to fill the map with urbanization?? This is not SimCity. If one can win with small and/or fewer cities but using their traits and abilities uniquely and adroitly, then that is a good thing.

 

[Bibor]

6-8 cities on a standard map is more than enough I think. Huge maps have a bunch of cities, and you can always conquer more.

 

[Buccaneer]

6-8 cities on a standard map is more than enough I think. Huge maps have a bunch of cities, and you can always conquer more.

This makes me wonder if some are always viewing this through the lens of huge or TSL maps? I believe those should be aberrations, just as tiny maps are; therefore, the engine optimized at standard size with the standard set of opponents.

 

[Lucius_]

I think a big issue with the livestreams we've seen is the focus is on other things. The most recent Spain video, he could have had more cities, there was space to the west for at least one more from what I remember, but settlers and new cities are a long term investment, which is pretty pointless for a game that is going to only go to 100-150 turns. The priority is to get the religion up and running and spreading asap, so that it can be shown in the stream. Settling a couple cities was sufficient for that so no reason to settle more for the purpose of the video.

I do agree though, the maps do not seem large enough to support 8+ cities without either packing the cities tightly, being particularly aggressive with expansion early, or forcefully making space for more cities.