Wide vs Tall--Balance?

[stealth_nsk]

The main reason why wide and tall - tall as in "expand slower and focus more on growth, not as in "stop expanding before the midgame" - should both be viable is because it allows more strategical choices. If only wide is viable, then every games revolves around finding ways to expand as much as possible as quickly as possible. That can get old very quickly.

There you have your explanation for why people think that way.

Yes I fully agree with this, but that's different from Civ5 definition of Tall and Wide.

In Civ5 Tall meant you stop expanding after the first wave and Wide means you can't have large cities. Both cases look bad to me.

 

[Ryika]

Ya'know, my point was that a well-managed empire was both wide and tall, not that "only wide is viable".

It's the same thing, in the end the only questions are: "How much can I expand? Can I expand now?"

Certainly, we need balancing factors to keep the concept known as Infinite City Sprawl in check. But you see, the strategy enters the picture when there is a desire to always claim more land, because land is power. And if land is power, then more should be better, right?

No, more land should not automatically be better. I agree that throughout the game gathering up more land needs to be one of the primary focuses - because it creates conflict - but the whole game should not revolve solely around it. There should be times when a player can specifically decide to opt out of further expansion for a while and instead invest limited resources to maximize empire growth, and the outcome should be roughly the same. That's tall vs. wide (in the non-Civ 5 meaning of the phrase).

Beyond Earth actually has the exact problem that it's not tall vs. wide, but wide means being tall because of how the trade route mechanics work. It also has a timing problem that makes expanding very worthless very early on, but if this problem did not exist, then all that matters would be expanding as much as you can, building the military to hold that land, and while you can't expand everything you do would be focused on increasing the capacity to expand.

That sort of gameplay should definitely be an option, but it should not be the only viable gameplay.

 

[Matthew.]

There should be times when a player can specifically decide to opt out of further expansion for a while and instead invest limited resources to maximize empire growth, and the outcome should be roughly the same.

Sure, such elements already exist. Just using Civ 5 as a talking point: If you research archaeology and spam out archaeologists, you aren't researching artillery guns and spamming out cavalry/artillery. On one side, you are getting extra great works through a peaceful, non-expansion effort. On the other, you are taking extra great works through forced expansion.

All things considered, the various parts of the game (again, in Civ 5), are already in place. The one part missing is peaceful wide expansion. The main problem: No catch-up mechanics for later settled cities. If there were mechanics in place to allow later settled cities to catch up, then it would be worth expanding. However, as it is, you need to invest 50+ turns or several thousands of gold.

It basically comes down to two options:

1. Allow ICS at the start and all factions spam cities until the map is filled up.

2. Have expansion limitations in place, but have catch-up mechanics unlocked as the game progresses.

Civ 5 BNW went with a third option: Have expansion limitations, but no catch-up mechanics. Thus, the ideal strategy was to not expand after the first 60 turns or so.

 

[Magil]

No, more land should not automatically be better. I agree that throughout the game gathering up more land needs to be one of the primary focuses - because it creates conflict - but the whole game should not revolve solely around it. There should be times when a player can specifically decide to opt out of further expansion for a while and instead invest limited resources to maximize empire growth, and the outcome should be roughly the same. That's tall vs. wide (in the non-Civ 5 meaning of the phrase).

More land should not automatically be better than what? Having less? I'm afraid I disagree with that assertion (to most reasonable extents). I can agree with the assertion that at times it becomes more important to build upwards and improve the land you have rather than simply claim more. This is the economic balancing act--worker (builder in VI) labor to improve land to make it worth working, cities that are productive enough to build districts and become stronger, to support the infrastructure you need to continually claim and improve land.

But no, the outcome shouldn't "roughly be the same". That's not strategy, that's a meaningless choice--if you get the same result focusing inward rather than outward, then you will always focus inward, because it's less risky than reaching out and claiming more land. You're less likely to directly compete with your neighbors (good city spots can be stolen from you in a settling race, but infrastructure cannot, except for Wonders--though military conquest can take either from you, so it's not a relevant point), you don't need as large a military to defend your cities, and you overall have fewer strategic and tactical options to consider. You need a better risk->reward ratio in place.

If, instead, the need for "focusing inward" comes to build up a strong economy and military so that you can again "focus outward", then the tension is back. There's room again for both to coexist in the game, and there are times to play "tall", and times to play "wide", but I hardly see that as "tall versus wide" since you're aiming to strike the right balance between them.

Of course, there does come the time when all the land is settled, and what to do then? Naturally it'd be better to expand outwards and grow bigger, but I feel at that point it's okay if the player is left to weigh the decision as to whether or not a military campaign is beneficial--after all, conquering land should be difficult. Is it necessary for victory? Do you think you can use the land you have better than your neighbors? You can answer that last question with a "yes" even before all the land is settled, but if more land is always better, then you at least have a reason to settle it--after all, if you leave it to someone else, they might change the math.

One problem I see is you're referring to "non-Civ 5 meaning of the phrase". There is no non-Civ 5 meaning of the phrase. There was no concept of tall vs. wide before V, and I've certainly not really heard it explicitly referred to as such anywhere else. The dichotomy leads to, imo, poor design and balance, and it's best left in the past.

 

[Ryika]

But no, the outcome shouldn't "roughly be the same". That's not strategy, that's a meaningless choice--if you get the same result focusing inward rather than outward, then you will always focus inward, because it's less risky than reaching out and claiming more land. You're less likely to directly compete with your neighbors (good city spots can be stolen from you in a settling race, but infrastructure cannot, except for Wonders--though military conquest can take either from you, so it's not a relevant point), you don't need as large a military to defend your cities, and you overall have fewer strategic and tactical options to consider. You need a better risk->reward ratio in place.

[...]

One problem I see is you're referring to "non-Civ 5 meaning of the phrase". There is no non-Civ 5 meaning of the phrase. There was no concept of tall vs. wide before V, and I've certainly not really heard it explicitly referred to as such anywhere else. The dichotomy leads to, imo, poor design and balance, and it's best left in the past.

It's funny how you understand the need for competition on the map, but at the same time seem to lack the basic imagination needed to see how growing tall can get the same basic elements of competition with other players without needing to focus as much on expanding.

World Wonders are the perfect tool to fill that void, they're already competitive in nature, limited in availability and require some heavy investment, both in technology as well as production capacity. Make the wonder race more of a direct competition, and maybe add some more "I'm pissed off because you built that wonder that I was working on"-diplomatic penalties and here we go, focusing on a tall empire has its own set of drawbacks.

Then all you need to do is make wonders strong enough that they can offset a difference of a few cities but don't remove the need for constant, yet slower expansion, make sure tall empires have an advantage at building Wonders, and what you end up with is a beautiful construct of asymmetrical game design in which making both strategies valid is just a lesson in tweaking numbers.

So overall I have no idea why you've internalized the idea that unless all players are constantly in need to push out as many expansions as they can they're somehow not "competing against each other", but it's simply false and nonsensical.

 

[Atlas627]

Civ5 did not invent the terms Tall, Wide, or Tall vs. Wide.

The final goal should be a Tall + Wide empire. Since Tall and Wide should provide different things at different times, there should be a reason to swap between them. Having them both reach the same endgoal (Tall + Wide) but in different ways is a good thing.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I don't understand why limits. You should be able to participate in both Wonder race, Land race, Religion pressure etc. at once. And ignoring Land race for playing "Tall" should have no less consequences than ignoring Wonder race for playing "Wide".

 

[Ryika]

Yes, you should ideally "have to partly take part in both of them", however, the distinction is in how much you devote yourself into each field. If you use your resources to primarily expand, then you're playing wide, if you use your resources to (in my example) primarily build wonders, then you're playing tall.

Depending on your focus you should either end up with more wonders (and thus stronger cities), or with more cities. You should not be able to fully invest into both things at the same time, that's game design from like 1991.

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

Honestly, the problem would be solved if you could check a "Tall" Option in the game settings before a set, just like you would with One-City Challenge.
It would give players who don't want to expand a ton of bonuses for staying small and
giving expanding AIs maluses for expanding per their vision and they can stay happy in that game mode.
The rest of the game design can then go into the traditional Civilization model of
expanding as much as you can without going bankrupt/overextended while growing as much as you can per usual.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Yes, you should ideally "have to partly take part in both of them", however, the distinction is in how much you devote yourself into each field. If you use your resources to primarily expand, then you're playing wide, if you use your resources to (in my example) primarily build wonders, then you're playing tall.

Depending on your focus you should either end up with more wonders (and thus stronger cities), or with more cities. You should not be able to fully invest into both things at the same time, that's game design from like 1991.

But even more modern game design would be - instead of having 1 strategic choice affecting the whole game path, you need to make many smaller decisions. You may delay expansion to dedicate production to military and catch up in conquest later. You may build some early Wonders, use them to jump to Caravels and settle far away lands. Plus plenty of even smaller choices. That what I'd expect.

 

[Brianstorm]

One obvious penalty should be other civilizations noticing your expansion and trying to take you out. This relies heavily on AI but maybe the new Casus Belli will have some effect (multiple surrounding civs and city states joining forces competently for one). IV had it right with the distance penalties as well, maybe make it a bit more pronounced with Social Policies and Wonders if you really want to go wide for whatever reason. A revolution mechanic is another option, Britain reached it's height after losing the 13 Colonies after all.

 

[CIVtube]

I don't think wonders are an adequate boon for tall empires, especially now that they take up a tile and often require a specific terrain type or resource to construct. You won't see single cities building half the game's wonders like you did in Civ V. I'd say this game favors significantly wider play than its predecessor but to what degree is hard to determine with our limited information.

 

[Ryika]

But even more modern game design would be - instead of having 1 strategic choice affecting the whole game path, you need to make many smaller decisions. You may delay expansion to dedicate production to military and catch up in conquest later. You may build some early Wonders, use them to jump to Caravels and settle far away lands. Plus plenty of even smaller choices. That what I'd expect.

Sure, realizing opportunities and adapting to changes should be rewarded as well. That doesn't really have much to do with the tall vs. wide idea though, there's no "rule" that you must stick with one of both during the whole game.

It's easy to imagine a game where one can get a really nice starting location, use that location to push the Capital, then delay expansion to grab a few wonders, use the bonuses from these wonders to blast out a bunch of settlers and go wide for a while. Because you're behind in worker production and other stuff your newest cities would probably not develop as smoothly, but your core would end up bigger than normal, and you'd once again end up having to decide whether to expand and push further into a wide empire, or to start producing heavy amounts of workers to finally make those damn cities do something useful. Ideally, both decisions would have some validity of their own, with the stronger one depending on the exact situation, but that scout of yours that is arriving at the borders of your opponent will certainly tip the balance into one direction or the other, depending on how much of a defense force he finds.

 

[chaotoroboto]

One problem I see is you're referring to "non-Civ 5 meaning of the phrase". There is no non-Civ 5 meaning of the phrase. There was no concept of tall vs. wide before V, and I've certainly not really heard it explicitly referred to as such anywhere else. The dichotomy leads to, imo, poor design and balance, and it's best left in the past.

Yeah, in Civ 4, the dichotomy was Specialist Economies versus Cottage Economies; and those two strategies emerged organically as players mastered the game design. I think because 5 didn't have the economic depth of 4, the developers tried to force a tension between Tall (Specialist Lite) and Wide (Cottage Lite); but they were never able to balance it without the slider. With beakers both being the determining factor for all victories, and beakers being tied strictly to population, any system that let wide empires be happy invariably devolved into ICS being the best strategy. The only option left to the developers by the time of BNW was to kneecap wide at high levels: at some point, you can't be happy if your empire grows too wide under your own power.

I'm a wide player, traditionally, in 4X games. I play wide because I like making interlaced decisions. In fact, I'm playing Civ because I like making decisions. But 5 has a bunch of places where they take the decisions out of the hands of players in comparison to 4. The slider is the obvious one, but Puppeted cities are another. Sometimes you have to leave a city puppeted for the free happiness, but then you lose your agency in the game. And your policies - yeah, they're only ever positive, but you can never change them?

From watching the videos from a couple of weeks ago, I'm hoping that 2 or 3 archetypal strategies (SE v CE, Tall v Wide) will emerge naturally from the tensions of having to select between 4 or 6 civics out of 60+, and of the opportunity cost for pursuing Tech v Culture. I have thoughts on what those archetypes might look like, but it's really too early to tell.

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

Without Civ V's severe happiness mechanic, there's not much to stop you from carpeting the map with small cities, a la Civ II.

The map carpeting with cities is true.
The notion that said cities are small are not.

I'm just legitimately curious. I always thought a well-managed empire was both "wide" and "tall". You expand until there's no room left to expand, and then you build upwards--grow, build infrastructure, military, whatever.

This whole "wide versus" tall thing entered the series with V and didn't really exist as a concept before it, and I still don't see the point of it or why it was a design choice.

I get where you are coming from. From day one when I cracked open the box of Civ 1 I was mainly concerned about building great cities, not expanding. Which made me a TERRIBLE player of both Civ 1 & 2. I tried to adapt but wasn't really what I wanted to do (expanding always). Anyway, I'm guessing there were others who had hoped expanding to every square inch of available land wan't the only way. Civ V kind of provided that. I would like Civ to be viable for both strategies myself, but I can adapt either way it goes. It is only a game afterall.

Like you, I started with earlier Civ titles; Civ2 specifically for me.
And while I play anywhere in the vicinity of Monarch/Emperor/Immortal for both Civ4 and Civ5,
I can't shake the habit of playing Chieftain for Civ2, mostly because that's the one I started with as a child.
TBH, even though I had some bad habits I couldn't shake off for Civ2, but moved past in 4 & 5
(OCD requiring absolutely no overlapping city tiles, building only Wonders in my core cities, etc.),
some basic gameplay concepts still remain true and intuitive no matter what:

This is what I want to demonstrate, because even at a beginner level, this becomes apparent.
Look at how big and encompassing this empire is, and then take a look at the city sizes.
Obviously, I have a well developed core, and the peripheral cities to the core are well developed, if slightly smaller.
The cities in the ring beyond those are not as big, but they are growing, and I have tons of Engineers ready to plop down the next ring.
The progression is readily apparent, like rings in the trunk of a tree.
I'm plopping down more cities, but I'm actively growing them at the same time.
Like Magil said, good empires are BOTH wide and tall, and this true for the first four Civilizations, and even the casual Civ Rev titles.

 

[Ryika]

Like Magil said, good empires are BOTH wide and tall, and this true for the first four Civilizations, and even the casual Civ Rev titles.

Yeah, and that's all good and stuff, I don't think anybody is denying that old Civ games worked like that, but it's not 1991, so what's the argument for why it should be like that? Why should going wide and growing tall go hand in hand? Why is having basically one strong playstyle better than having multiple valid ways of going at it? To me it's just extremely one-dimensional.

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

Yeah, and that's all good and stuff, I don't think anybody is denying that old Civ games worked like that, but it's not 1991,

I've actually seen quite a bit of misconception here that Wide empires necessarily have tons of small cities littering the whole thing with no large cities in other threads.
Especially towards older Civ games where they emphatically did not work like that.

so what's the argument for why it should be like that? Why should going wide and growing tall go hand in hand? Why is having basically one strong playstyle better than having multiple valid ways of going at it? To me it's just extremely one-dimensional.

I like that you challenge the fact that there shouldn't be "one true playstyle" and it's worth examining because I feel that in older Civ games,
there's more variety on the path towards your victory, and you can switch your focus at will, because with well-managed expansion and diplomacy,
a player could essentially give themselves breathing room to shift gears at will.

For instance, in Civ4, most victories in the game,
including the peaceful ones (Diplomatic, Space, Cultural) required piggybacking off being a strong, developed empire.
The rationale in particular for Space and Cultural was essentially this:
The important, core cities could focus on building spaceship parts or culture while mid-tier/border cities could contribute to defense.

Granted, you need to expand in the first place. Whether it be by force or aggressive settling.
But once that's down, it sets up the volleyball spike so the speak for any victory of your choosing.
I feel that is a more open-ended method to achieving multiple victories.

In BNW, I have to know exactly what I want and gun for it without looking at any other opportunities.
The locked-in nature of the Social Policies and Religions while excellent for customizing your civ, also narrow your path to victory.
I only mention the Social Policies because of the overcentralization of the meta towards Tradition,
as well as mechanics like the Science penalty for more cities, Global Happiness, or leaders denouncing you for settling too close to them.
All of these things combine together to point towards staying small as the optimal way to play.

For instance, I'd like to be able to keep cities that I conquer rather than razing them.
Global Happiness, as well as the Science penalty both combine to dis-incentivize that,
which in turn hurt the viability of active (as in initiated by the player) warfare and Conquest Victory.

From my point of view, you could say that they're both two sides of one coin: You have to expand/You have to stay small to achieve your desired victory.
The difference, as I've illustrated is that after the initial set up, older Civ titles gave the player more freedom to pursue a victory of their choosing,
while Civ 5's Tall focus coupled with the inflexibility of Social Policies made it difficult to change your mind/pursue a different victory.
Flexibility and wider viability of different victory types are more apparent in the older systems, and create multiple validities.
For this reason, I feel that a Tall-only system with locked choices and a laser focus towards a specific victory
exhibits more "One True Playstyle" syndrome than the protean Tall+Wide systems of past titles.

 

[jjkrause84]

The old Civ 4 system was still the simplest and most effective: bigger is better, but the more cities you found (and the farther away they are) the more upkeep they cost. Expand too quickly and your whole empire grinds to a halt. It was a system that mandated growth (as all 4X games should!), but also provided a logical check to unbridled, mindless city spamming.

 

[Ryika]

I've actually seen quite a bit of misconception here that Wide empires necessarily have tons of small cities littering the whole thing with no large cities in other threads.
Especially towards older Civ games where they emphatically did not work like that.

I think that is just a problem with how people use the terms. When I say "wide vs. tall" then I specifically mean a system that forces you to decide between the two. Early Civ games did not force you to do that, so early Civ games did not really have wide vs. tall playstyles in the way the words are used here.

I like that you challenge the fact that there shouldn't be "one true playstyle" and it's worth examining because I feel that in older Civ games,
there's more variety on the path towards your victory, and you can switch your focus at will, because with well-managed expansion and diplomacy,
a player could essentially give themselves breathing room to shift gears at will.

For instance, in Civ4, most victories in the game,
including the peaceful ones (Diplomatic, Space, Cultural) required piggybacking off being a strong, developed empire.
The rationale in particular for Space and Cultural was essentially this:
The important, core cities could focus on building spaceship parts or culture while mid-tier/border cities could contribute to defense.

Granted, you need to expand in the first place. Whether it be by force or aggressive settling.
But once that's down, it sets up the volleyball spike so the speak for any victory of your choosing.
I feel that is a more open-ended method to achieving multiple victories.

In BNW, I have to know exactly what I want and gun for it without looking at any other opportunities.
The locked-in nature of the Social Policies and Religions while excellent for customizing your civ, also narrow your path to victory.
I only mention the Social Policies because of the overcentralization of the meta towards Tradition,
as well as mechanics like the Science penalty for more cities, Global Happiness, or leaders denouncing you for settling too close to them.
All of these things combine together to point towards staying small as the optimal way to play.
(etc.)

Yes, it is clear that Civ 5 did not do a good job at creating a working system. It has a good basic set of ideas, but it fails to follow the path to the end. That's why I specifically said that I'm talking about a system different from Civ 5, as I don't regard Civ 5s "tall" as particularly well implemented. A good system not only allows a tall empire to expand, it forces them to do so. Just slower than wide empires. And in such a system a wide empire does not also grow into a tall empire. The core will still be bigger than the rest, but it cannot keep up with the city growth of a tall empire. Limited resources and/or mutually exclusive choices force you to go into either direction - that's the basic idea.

I have to say though, what you call "variety on the path towards your victory" to me sounds a lot like: "After I have played well in the early game I am far enough ahead that I can be as inefficient as I want." - that's not exactly the freedom I'm looking for.

 

[stealth_nsk]

The old Civ 4 system was still the simplest and most effective: bigger is better, but the more cities you found (and the farther away they are) the more upkeep they cost. Expand too quickly and your whole empire grinds to a halt. It was a system that mandated growth (as all 4X games should!), but also provided a logical check to unbridled, mindless city spamming.

The main part of this was ugly corruption system. I would definitely like to see something different.