Wide vs Tall--Balance?

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

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.

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.

I feel that's actually a better way for players to advance through the difficulty levels.
Advancing up the ladder, they'll find they get less leeway to pursue frivolous goals but that the overall structure of their development still works;
it may just be that they need to crunch infrastructure/cities/military faster as they move up the ranks or excise specific build orders.
I agree with you on what you said about Civ 5, but just to illustrate for others, with completely different development strategies that are locked in,
it's more like extreme discouragement when a player finds that their strategy is much less viable/not viable at all as they climb the ladder.
Like a Liberty opener or forbid, an Honor opener.

 

[Siptah]

I wonder who is forcing someone to play the most effective or the best method (at least in single player games)? For me personally it doesn't have to be balanced. Whenever I like to play wide in Civ 5, I just do it. I don't care if it is a bad decision - if I can't win, I lower the difficulty for that. "Braindead" strategies are sometimes really fun to play, like ignoring all science buildings with Assyria in Civ 5 and try to get techs mostly by conquering cities (with your technically inferior armies ;-)). Of course I can't do it on Immortal (in fact I only succeeded on "3" with that I think). Why should it be balanced so that every strategy works on Deity? To me that seems wasted time for Devs. I can see that tall vs. wide is a very basic aspect and why people think that is unbalanced. But with all the options to customize your settings, you can always find a solution for your play style. If you are hunting achievements that's probably nothing for you...

 

[ProMeTheus112]

It makes me think, when you play your first game of Civ 1.. you don't know about any victory condition, you're just making stuff happen on the map totally sandbox style no? What pushes you is just growing your cities, not letting enemies take them, researching more tech and.. UPGRADING YOUR PALACE HAHA

 

[stealth_nsk]

It makes me think, when you play your first game of Civ 1.. you don't know about any victory condition, you're just making stuff happen on the map totally sandbox style no? What pushes you is just growing your cities, not letting enemies take them, researching more tech and.. UPGRADING YOUR PALACE HAHA

But surely you need much more for the game to be playable for thousands of hours, like Civ5.

 

[ProMeTheus112]

yeah it's true,
even in order to play around sandbox style for many hours, it's much better if the game is really smartly designed and balanced so that there are many possible ways to play (even if for example you're not even going for a win)

 

[Ryika]

I wonder who is forcing someone to play the most effective or the best method (at least in single player games)? For me personally it doesn't have to be balanced. Whenever I like to play wide in Civ 5, I just do it. I don't care if it is a bad decision - if I can't win, I lower the difficulty for that. "Braindead" strategies are sometimes really fun to play, like ignoring all science buildings with Assyria in Civ 5 and try to get techs mostly by conquering cities (with your technically inferior armies ;-)). Of course I can't do it on Immortal (in fact I only succeeded on "3" with that I think). Why should it be balanced so that every strategy works on Deity? To me that seems wasted time for Devs. I can see that tall vs. wide is a very basic aspect and why people think that is unbalanced. But with all the options to customize your settings, you can always find a solution for your play style. If you are hunting achievements that's probably nothing for you...

Well, one argument would be that you've sort of answered the question yourself there. I want the main strategies to be balanced enough that I can play them all on the standard settings, without having to change the rules to make them even remotely viable.

The other argument is that I don't want to get into the game, already knowing what exact strategy I will be playing from turn 1 to <turn when I win> while the game is loading. I want the map to determine which approach is best, and the skill of analyzing the situation I find myself in, and adapting my strategy should be the way to master the game, not reading about a strategy and following through with whatever build order is written down there.

I don't think anyone is expecting perfect balance in a game as complex as Civ, and the very nature of randomized maps probably already makes it so strategies cannot be equally strong in every situation - but that's a strength that should be built up, not a weakness.

 

[Siptah]

The other argument is that I don't want to get into the game, already knowing what exact strategy I will be playing from turn 1 to <turn when I win> while the game is loading. I want the map to determine which approach is best, and the skill of analyzing the situation I find myself in, and adapting my strategy should be the way to master the game, not reading about a strategy and following through with whatever build order is written down there.

I like to play that kind of way, too. But after knowing the rules of each civ game good enough, I found myself only playing slight variations of the same overall strategy/strategies. So nowadays I mostly play Civ only if I somehow get a basic idea of what to do different this time. Might be a personal preference.
My basic point in the post before was: include the odd choices in your strategy book. In civ 5, wide is an odd choice, in civ 3 tall is an odd choice (that I never really tried before playing civ 5) - if you long to play it that way, you might decide before the start of the game. This doesn't mean following build orders (I don't think much about them beforehand) btw. There's always room for spontaneous decisions and variations, and sometimes also for a change in the big picture. This also means it doesn't have to be balanced to be a fun game that you want to play for hours and hours.

 

[Ryika]

But "Play underpowered strategies from time to time." is not a rebuttal to "It would be great if the game was balanced in a way that all major strategies have a chance to be viable, depending on how the map roles". I very much know that I can get around it by setting up special rules, or just accepting that I'm not playing a top-tier strategy, the argument is that the game would benefit from being balanced in a way that with "All Standard"-Settings a multitude of strategies are somewhat on the same power level.

Which is mainly a response to the people who are of the opinion that there should be one major strategy "Gather up all the land!" and the only struggle should be to achieve that without dying. I'm arguing for why I think my position is better, and I'm reasonably certain that Firaxis will once again try to balance tall and wide like they tried with Civ 5.

 

[Siptah]

You are, of course, completly right.

 

[Acken]

They seem to try but im not seeing much giving you the option to focus on a small sized empire. It requires some way to benefit or create super cities the other strategy doesnt have access to. Like the tradition tree and internal routes being limited.

Without means to do so theres no interest. A bit like BE it would evolve into a REX up to 6 or 7 cities (if we ignore the trade route spam making ics available) then buildup strategy. Especially in a game allowing a 50% settler bonus early it sounds like REX will be how we ll spend the first 70turns then switch out of it and build this up.

Maybe there is something with amenities there but theres also housing that stops your vertical progression. Maybe barbs or ai agression will slow us down too.

 

[Acken]

Like a Liberty opener or forbid, an Honor opener.

Both are viable though.

 

[sugerdady87]

A consequence of the "balance" approach that some people are advocating is that a one-city challenge civilization should be able to compete against a 5 city one. That's utter nonsense. Yes, land should automatically be better unless there's something deficient about it. Tell the early Americans that expanding westward wasn't "automatically better". All the major civilizations had vast lands. Anyone ever heard of a "tall" empire in history? Prior to the 20th century, more people died in cities than born in them because living in these areas was unhealthy and unnatural. If you wanted more population, you expanded outward, not upward. Civ5 actually has the concept backwards (CivBE improved on it).

The way I see it is that settlers should cost more than they were in Civ5 and city defense should be incredibly weaker (latter part true with CivBE). With that, a rapidly expanding Civ could easily be defeated by another who focuses on military prowess from the start. That should be the cost of rapid expansion. But to create artificial limiters which makes no sense on there own (-5% science per city) is something I'll never support.

It's clear that Magil and I would like Civilization 6 to reflect real life mechanics, while Ryika is willing to sacrifice reality for the sake of game play. I don't think these philosophical differences will be rectified. Even the idea that Matthew. put fourth is something I think has it wrong. Tall should not be the default approach with "catch-up mechanics" for late game expansion. If anything, the reverse should be true (like CivBE).

 

[stealth_nsk]

It's clear that Magil and I would like Civilization 6 to reflect real life mechanics, while Ryika is willing to sacrifice reality for the sake of game play. I don't think these philosophical differences will be rectified. Even the idea that Matthew. put fourth is something I think has it wrong. Tall should not be the default approach with "catch-up mechanics" for late game expansion. If anything, the reverse should be true.

You've just made the strongest argument against your position possible. Civilization is a game and gameplay is the most important think for it. Moreover, "realism" is totally subjective as there's always a lot of abstraction and it's up to you to think which abstractions are acceptable and which aren't.

Other than that, I don't see your position being that much different than Ryika's. You both agree what empires with more land should be stronger. You just ignore the details.

 

[LDiCesare]

When the game ends up with large swathes of lands unclaimed in the 20th century, it breaks immersion. Gameplay is nothing without immersion. Otherwise, everyone would still be playing chess and not games with graphics, a historical setting, ambient music and sound effects.

Anyway, tall/wide was done good in IV imo. You want to avoid ICS, but if there's a small number of cities that is ideal for a civ to thrive, then you remove inentive to play with your neighbours, at least militarily, so what's the point of having other civs? It should be possible to go tall, as in OCC, but you could do OCC in civ 2 when the best strategy was ICS. Tall should be possible, but certainly not optimal.

 

[stealth_nsk]

When the game ends up with large swathes of lands unclaimed in the 20th century, it breaks immersion. Gameplay is nothing without immersion. Otherwise, everyone would still be playing chess and not games with graphics, a historical setting, ambient music and sound effects.

As you correctly pointed out, people still play Chess. Gameplay is ok without immersion, but it's much better with it. Immersion without gameplay is really nothing.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

If civilization was based on real life mechanics you would never be able to build a lasting civilization because eventually it is going to collapse. Rome did not survive the test of time.

 

[LDiCesare]

As you correctly pointed out, people still play Chess. Gameplay is ok without immersion, but it's much better with it. Immersion without gameplay is really nothing.

Immersion without gameplay is movies and novels, that's not nothing.
If I don'tbuy civ VI, it will be because of lack of immersion, not of perceived gameplay issues. Both matter, but if Civ has been more successful than SMAC, I believe it is solely because it allowed for easier immersion.

 

[BojanR 81]

I personally think that there was no real balance in Civ 5 BNW wide vs tall. We had just civs with 2 or in best case 4 cities (on standard map) a lot of empty space between them and peacefully game from beginning to the end.

No dubt that devs wanted to do the right think while creating Civ 5, but they failed.

If Civ 6 is about to be as same as Civ 5 BNW was then I'll wait for another Civ iteration.

 

[Magil]

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.

Now you're just being insulting. World Wonders are nice and all but they're not nearly enough to equate to initial land grab. Particularly because a player who plays both "tall and wide" is going to do a much better job at grabbing wonders once their empire is rolling.

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.

Because "tall and wide" isn't just one strategy. There are many paths to victory. We have different victory conditions, right? The problem with enforcing tall versus wide is that's mostly about restrictions, it's far more about the things you don't do rather than the things you do. It's a set of artificial limitations more than it is a real set of strategies.

If civilization was based on real life mechanics you would never be able to build a lasting civilization because eventually it is going to collapse. Rome did not survive the test of time.

Obviously, Civ is not a historical simulation. I'd argue that the prevalence and influence of Greco-Roman culture was certainly a victory of some sort for Rome, though.

You've just made the strongest argument against your position possible. Civilization is a game and gameplay is the most important think for it. Moreover, "realism" is totally subjective as there's always a lot of abstraction and it's up to you to think which abstractions are acceptable and which aren't.

Other than that, I don't see your position being that much different than Ryika's. You both agree what empires with more land should be stronger. You just ignore the details.

I don't really think of it as "realistic", I think about what's good for a strategy game (despite me being silly in my Roman empire comparison). I'm not really sure what "details" are being ignored, though. You're going to have to explain that one.

 

[MadDjinn]

I think probably there's some confused ideas going on here.

the whole 'tall vs wide' doesn't need to exist in a civ game. Yes, CivV added in mechanics and limiters that made 'tall' a thing (4 city tradition style) but that was a strategy developed by players who didn't think it was worth it to fight against the mechanics to expand more; and then it got reinforced more by the developers over the expansions. It made things look very ugly (missing lots of space coverage) and wasn't organic (4 and done, then fall asleep for the win).

ICS (in previous games) was also bad. it's pretty obvious why. ICS relied heavily on widely spread pop gains along with (heavy focus on) the city tile yields. Effectively, more hex yields and more 'easy' city center yields outperformed buildings/etc inside a well developed/grown city.

Both forms of empire relied on shoving one specific concept to the limit.

I expect that neither should in fact exist in a game of civ.

What it's looking like in CivVI is that districts make the world go round - but not exclusively. If we take it that districts are the main drivers of their specific yields (and for specialists/great people/adjacency bonuses that seems to be the case from what we've seen so far), then in fact growing an individual city taller means more districts, which is 'better' in one form. But you still need expansion to go find those district locations that will give you greater benefits (though we haven't seen anything yet that really drives home adjacency bonuses of say +5 being orders of magnitude better than +1 or +2).

Also, I think it's fair to say that 'wide' inasmuch as 'lots of cities, low individual investment' -- Ie focus on 'lots of spread out population' for hex yields and basic yields from pop (civV science for example) is also not a boon in the system. Yes you can get more 'strategics/luxuries/etc' from covering more lands, but those cities won't be getting you that better yield. It also is a risk for getting run over by a better military. An easy prevention of the 'spam' plan is to make cities not be able to buy up all the good units without some development first. If you can't buy more units in the far off expansions, you can't protect them as well.

Which leaves it back in the hands of the 'wide but tall' play -- the middle ground. You do want to expand, but you do also want to get taller and have more infrastructure per city.

Speaking of that though, I don't think that 'wide and tall' is the answer here either. Not every city is going to get tall in CivVI. I say that due to the housing restrictions (water needs. there won't be rivers everywhere), partially from what we've seen from amenities so far as well as the district adjacency bonuses. Not everywhere is a 'good' location for a district so that investment will need to be able to pay off in a timely fashion.

So it's entirely possible that you could end up with an empire with some strategically located 'tall' cities which can grow and add in their specialized districts (or just lots of them) and have the lands to mass farm/etc for growth. Then you would add in the periphery cities. These cities wouldn't be growing 'tall' but would get enough pop to support a few districts. So you'd end up with a blend of tall and small cities based upon what you need and the space available.

Ie, Capital start is not on the coast, but there's a small area of land on the coast that you could use for a port. Drop a city in there and now you can get a harbour in and maybe another district. It doesn't need to be a huge city, but one that is just big enough to produce naval units and possibly add in trade. the 2nd district could be an encampment (to protect the harbour vs bad neighbours), a commerce district (to help with using the city as a trade hub) or whatever else happens to be needed or wanted there.

Could be that the a city location can get a really nice adjacency bonus for a campus and a holy site, but not be able to support the food required to grow more due to limited space. It would still be worth expanding to go get that space, especially if you're lacking the requisite nice terrain around your 'core' cities.

So I think the answer isn't 'there should be these wide and tall options because that makes it a choice', but rather that the 'choices' you make (and terrain features) define how many cities you have or how tall the cities in your particular empire get. Shift the ideal away from 'two' generic empire styles towards more choices per city.