Wide vs Tall - Making Tall more competitive

[Xaviarlol]

So the age old issue of Wide being better than Tall is upon us in Civ 7.

The main issue is that there are no penalties to adding more settlements, until you reach the settlement limit, in which the penalties are quite minor. However, I don't think its fun that it is always optimal to get to your settlement limit. I would like to look at ways to reward Tall play.

Idea 1 - Provide a free Migrant unit every age for every unused settlement limit. eg. If you have 5 settlements but have a limit of 8 (ie 5/8), you receive 3 Migrants at the end of the age. For those who don't know, the Migrant is a unit in the game that can be used in a city to increase its pop, allowing you to take a new rural tile.

Idea 2 - Add a mechanic that reduces science and culture for every city, either above the city cap (easy to mod) or for every city regardless of cap (harder to mod).

Regarding idea 1, do any modders know or have any ideas on how to get the game to determine total settlements vs settlement limit, and apply the modifier as per above?

 

[PoundedChicken]

So the age old issue of Wide being better than Tall is upon us in Civ 7.

The main issue is that there are no penalties to adding more settlements, until you reach the settlement limit, in which the penalties are quite minor. However, I don't think its fun that it is always optimal to get to your settlement limit. I would like to look at ways to reward Tall play.

Idea 1 - Provide a free Migrant unit every age for every unused settlement limit. eg. If you have 5 settlements but have a limit of 8 (ie 5/8), you receive 3 Migrants at the end of the age. For those who don't know, the Migrant is a unit in the game that can be used in a city to increase its pop, allowing you to take a new rural tile.

Idea 2 - Add a mechanic that reduces science and culture for every city, either above the city cap (easy to mod) or for every city regardless of cap (harder to mod).

Regarding idea 1, do any modders know or have any ideas on how to get the game to determine total settlements vs settlement limit, and apply the modifier as per above?

There is a game effects for this that firaxis hasn't used. I haven't tested it, but I assume it has been implemented. As you can see, there's one for over and one for under, so makes sense. Unfortunately I don't think you will be able to use these to grant a free migrant however.

EFFECT_CITY_ADJUST_YIELD_PER_UNDER_SETTLEMENT_CAP
EFFECT_CITY_ADJUST_YIELDS_PER_SETTLEMENT_OVER_CAP

But I'm right there with you on tall v wide. Firaxis in Civ 7 seems to define "tall" as few cities + many many towns towns whereas "wide" is just many cities + many towns.

Question is do you make global modifications that affect user strategy to go one way or the other, OR, do you design leaders/civs specifically to favour one vs the other.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

There are some policies that are for tall vs. wide that could be changed.

 

[Xaviarlol]

Can any other modder figure out why this doesn't work, there seems to be something special with GameEffects:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<GameEffects xmlns="GameEffects">
<Update>
<Where ModifierId="TRAIT_MOD_PENALTY_OVER_SETTLEMENT_CAP_SETTLEMENTS"/>
<Set>
<Argument name="YieldTypes">YIELD_SCIENCE, YIELD_PRODUCTION, YIELD_CULTURE</Argument>
</Set>
</Update>
</GameEffects>

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

Can any other modder figure out why this doesn't work, there seems to be something special with GameEffects:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<GameEffects xmlns="GameEffects">
<Update>
<Where ModifierId="TRAIT_MOD_PENALTY_OVER_SETTLEMENT_CAP_SETTLEMENTS"/>
<Set>
<Argument name="YieldTypes">YIELD_SCIENCE, YIELD_PRODUCTION, YIELD_CULTURE</Argument>
</Set>
</Update>
</GameEffects>

Missing table are you updating?

If it's not that, I can't tell if the commas work in all the arguments. I could be mistaken, it's hard to test.