Will Civ6 punish players for expansion?

[Magil]

Personally I agree. Even if they were 100% balanced and both were optimal tall would still be better because its easier. Less to protect, less production spent on settlers, trade income is higher relative to maintenance, less chance of incurring the wrath of your opponents, etc. I hate the idea of actual balance between the two to be honest.

I only pointed to the tall scientific and wide cultural empires because that was the way V was leaning. Go wide for more GW slots, more landmarks, museums, etc. while tall is better for focusing the population in well developed cities to crank out beakers. Only drawback to that in V was the fact that well developed tall empires with a tech lead snagged all the wonders in their mega-hammer producing cities. Adding requirements and putting wonders on tiles means they'll be more spread out. That'll favor wide empires.

It was really only like that in BNW, and I think the tech cost for each city was a way of them throwing up their hands and giving up on trying to balance ICS any other way. Culture costs have increased with empire size since vanilla, and before tourism tall was better at all times for culture. It's only even slightly debatable because of great works.

 

[Socrates99]

It was really only like that in BNW, and I think the tech cost for each city was a way of them throwing up their hands and giving up on trying to balance ICS any other way. Culture costs have increased with empire size since vanilla, and before tourism tall was better at all times for culture. It's only even slightly debatable because of great works.

Sure for unlocking sopols but if you're able to keep up with wonders wide definitely can churn out tourism like mad. Especially once archeology hits. I think that'd be the route to go if they truly want to balance it. Use culture for one and science for the other.

 

[Felis Renidens]

They hinted something like this in one of the talks. I think science wide\ culture tall rather than the other way around is more intuitive but perhaps it's a necessity because:
a) wide + science will lead to snowballing because conquest will lead to more science, better units and more conquest and with tall science\wide culture tall will be able to defend itself with a smaller more advanced army against well-organized hordes that will still have a chance because of civics.
b) wide will need more advanced governments just to manage itself and will benefit more from civic bonuses and will probably be able to get more great works\ archaeology\ tourism.

Perhaps I'm just used to science coming from trade and culture related to big shiny cities. I think one of the problems with BNW was changing from wide science tall culture to wide culture (or at least tourism) tall science without warning (and without a good civics system to support it).

 

[Ikael]

Perhaps I'm just used to science coming from trade and culture related to big shiny cities. I think one of the problems with BNW was changing from wide science tall culture to wide culture (or at least tourism) tall science without warning (and without a good civics system to support it).

I always considered that "reversal" a little tad weird. I mean, I do get where the developers are coming from: You need to make both tall and wide strategies viable, you need to put some anti snowball mechanism on place, and ideally, you would need to make different flavours for each type of gameplay style.

Perhaps is just me, but I always related cultural gameplay with megacities and wonder collectathons, not with widespread empires with small cities inside their frontiers. Culture has always been, afterall, about cities that everyone wanted to emulate (Rome, Athens, Mecca, New York, Shangai, etc) rather than about having the biggest frontiers (Uzbekistan, Canada or Nigeria are not exactly known for their big cultural influence, afterall).

 

[Socrates99]

I always considered that "reversal" a little tad weird. I mean, I do get where the developers are coming from: You need to make both tall and wide strategies viable, you need to put some anti snowball mechanism on place, and ideally, you w ould need to make different flavours for each type of gameplay style.

Perhaps is just me, but I always related cultural gameplay with megacities and wonder collectathons, not with widespread empires with small cities inside their frontiers. Culture has always been, afterall, about cities that everyone wanted to emulate (Rome, Athens, Mecca, New York, Shangai, etc) rather than about having the biggest frontiers (Uzbekistan, Canada or Nigeria are not exactly known for their big cultural influence, afterall).

But if you notice, most of those cities you named have been part or even capitals of large empires. I mean, sure its possible to think of tourism bases from small nations but the really well known ones with long history are or were major components of big empires.

 

[Felis Renidens]

Well, even in BNW a huge empire by itself won't be enough. You'll have placeholders and multipliers but if your museums are empty and your broadcast towers only broadcasting soap operas nobody will come to your hotel. On the other hand if you manage to dig or loot artwork people will come to see it. Either that or getting Great People. Having many cities is not enough. Having many cities each with it's own unique cathedral or a art display or great work + touristic facilities can work.

Still, I'm not fond of tourism as a way to victory. It makes culture a passive victory where you just sit back and build your cities and you'll get it eventually. I hope that in 6 I'll have to work to get it like in Civ4 and 5 before BNW.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

I we assume wide has a higher total population I can see why wide would be cultural and tall scientific.
Do advances scientifically you only need a few geniuses to understand and create new things and the rest of society can just use them. Everyone can use a radio, a gun and read a newspaper, but without having any idea how a radio works, aerodynamic or ballistics, or how to build a printing press.
Culture is hard to quantify though, but it's more shared ideas so you need many people behind it for it to transform a society. Meanwhile there are people who hate science but are talking about the evils of science from an iPhone that exists from science.

 

[Socrates99]

Well, even in BNW a huge empire by itself won't be enough. You'll have placeholders and multipliers but if your museums are empty and your broadcast towers only broadcasting soap operas nobody will come to your hotel. On the other hand if you manage to dig or loot artwork people will come to see it. Either that or getting Great People. Having many cities is not enough. Having many cities each with it's own unique cathedral or a art display or great work + touristic facilities can work.

Still, I'm not fond of tourism as a way to victory. It makes culture a passive victory where you just sit back and build your cities and you'll get it eventually. I hope that in 6 I'll have to work to get it like in Civ4 and 5 before BNW.

Hasnt culture pretty much always been a "build this stuff and wait" victory? I mean the tourism mechanic was definitely more interesting than just collecting SoPols.

 

[Magil]

Hasnt culture pretty much always been a "build this stuff and wait" victory? I mean the tourism mechanic was definitely more interesting than just collecting SoPols.

While I think BNW's culture victory is probably the most interesting take on it, in IV a large part of getting a quick cultural victory was collecting religions so you could build as many of the +50% culture mega-temples as possible. There was some empire management to it. But again, I think BNW's tourism take is more interactive and less turtling.

I will again emphasize that I still think wide versus tall is a load of crap though, you should always be rewarded for expanding your empire so long as you have the economy to support it. The trick should be getting the economy to support it (whatever aspect of your economy you're paying to support it).

I think using cultural progression as a check to expansion can work so long as it's possible to overcome it. The problem with V's system is that it was nearly impossible to make cities that were conquered or settled past a certain date produce enough science to overcome the % increase in tech costs. It simply takes too long to grow and build in V.

 

[Felis Renidens]

Hasnt culture pretty much always been a "build this stuff and wait" victory? I mean the tourism mechanic was definitely more interesting than just collecting SoPols.

Before BNW to have enough policies before going to space I usually needed to take piety instead of rationalism and focus on culture rather than science buildings - And then I had to build a project and if I wanted I could still try to win some other way by not building it. With BNW I have to hold myself and not build hotels or not get theming bonuses. If I do all the stuff I enjoy doing I'll have a cultural victory (or diplomatic).

It was even worse in 3 where having all wonders meant culture victory. It was better in 4 because I had to spread wonders and religious buildings between 3 cities. Too spread or too centralized wouldn't work.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Wide vs tall would have worked if it was a choice of building great cities in the best locations vs building many cities in any location instead of the best choice being to build 4 and no more with the last update and spam cities with the initial release.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You need to make both tall and wide strategies viable

No, you need something to create a disincentive to unchecked expansion. That does not implicate "tall needs to be viable". More stuff should always be better in a vacuum, though getting there not necessarily so easy.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

Just no science or culture penalty per city this time around, pretty please! It's such a ham-fisted way of adding balance; it basically spells out 'we couldn't figure out a proper mechanic, so have a dull punishment instead'. Even if the penalty is modest enough that it's still worth it to found a new city, it just feels like shooting yourself in the foot after hitting the target. It needs to go and if it's included in Civ VI, I will mod it out as a first thing, balance schmalance!

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Just no science or culture penalty per city this time around, pretty please! It's such a ham-fisted way of adding balance; it basically spells out 'we couldn't figure out a proper mechanic, so have a dull punishment instead'. Even if the penalty is modest enough that it's still worth it to found a new city, it just feels like shooting yourself in the foot after hitting the target. It needs to go and if it's included in Civ VI, I will mod it out as a first thing, balance schmalance!

I still think that a Stability counter a la RFC is a good way to go.

Instead of slowing you down you lose control and cities gain independence (which opens up door for others to conquer them and you to gain warmonger penalties as a reuslt of your negligence).

You could also re-implement buildings such as Courthhouse that increase stability and bring back the function of Forbidden Palace that raise Stability in nearby cities...

Or.. something along those lines.

 

[Thormodr]

I always considered that "reversal" a little tad weird. I mean, I do get where the developers are coming from: You need to make both tall and wide strategies viable, you need to put some anti snowball mechanism on place, and ideally, you would need to make different flavours for each type of gameplay style.

Perhaps is just me, but I always related cultural gameplay with megacities and wonder collectathons, not with widespread empires with small cities inside their frontiers. Culture has always been, afterall, about cities that everyone wanted to emulate (Rome, Athens, Mecca, New York, Shangai, etc) rather than about having the biggest frontiers (Uzbekistan, Canada or Nigeria are not exactly known for their big cultural influence, afterall).

You are on these forums precisely because of a Canadian.

Nothing is more cultured than Civ.

 

[sugerdady87]

No, you need something to create a disincentive to unchecked expansion. That does not implicate "tall needs to be viable". More stuff should always be better in a vacuum, though getting there not necessarily so easy.

That disincentives should be other Civs getting mad and declaring war. Nothing else. If I have a bigger army, then I can claim more land. Might should make right.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I believe Civ5 proved what making tall empires viable is a wrong way to go. Tall empires ignore expansion and conquest completely, which could lead to quite boring things.

I'd say some other things need limitations - like too early expansion or military snowballing.

 

[spfun]

I believe Civ5 proved what making tall empires viable is a wrong way to go. Tall empires ignore expansion and conquest completely, which could lead to quite boring things.

I'd say some other things need limitations - like too early expansion or military snowballing.

I consider no war Tall to be fun though and wide/war to be extremely boring. Each to there own.

I will be disappointed if Tall isn't viable in Civ 6. I would like 4 cities to be fine but should need some military units now. I rarely ever built military in Civ 5.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I consider no war Tall to be fun though and wide/war to be extremely boring. Each to there own.

I will be disappointed if Tall isn't viable in Civ 6. I would like 4 cities to be fine but should need some military units now. I rarely ever built military in Civ 5.

I'd say it should be possible to win, but more difficult than with more cities.

Expansion and conquest require effort, settling minimal amount of cities don't require any effort. This should be compensated.

 

[qwerty25]

I consider no war Tall to be fun though and wide/war to be extremely boring. Each to there own.

I will be disappointed if Tall isn't viable in Civ 6. I would like 4 cities to be fine but should need some military units now. I rarely ever built military in Civ 5.

I think we need to change our minds of what "tall" and "wide" could mean. As stealth_nsk said, you can't have a few cities be more powerful than more cities. As that provides a disincentive to grow and capture cities in the first place.

But, I mean they've made religion a lot more powerful right?

Why can't there be a religious civilization that only owes a four cities. But has religious influence over 30 cities. Even if another civilization has plenty of military production, they won't be able to remove the religious effect.(like vatican in the 1200s or something? idk history) And we've heard firaxis trying to add in more religious variety with apostles and missionaries etc. Or perhaps something similar with culture or money could be done. Like america's current cultural output or swiss banks/panama tax havens. (I know the culture and money dominance probably isn't in civ 6)

Basically I'm saying that generally "wide" as in more cities should be better. But "more cities" shouldn't only be from militarily controlling cities. It could be from culture, religion, commerce, etc..