Will Civ6 punish players for expansion?

[stealth_nsk]

I'm totally ok with huge maps and going wide, but the question is different. If expansion is the only viable early strategy (and without additional limits it is), the early game looses it's strategical choice. I don't want to see wide empires punished, I want to see unlimited early expansion punished. That's completely different thing.

 

[killmeplease]

I think the devs have chosen the "tall" side for a reason, as it should be that for most players its boring to manage 10+ cities. They tried vassal states and puppeting with little success maybe they'll come up with something new this time. There should be some form of scaling or indirection to keep the number of objects under the player's control within the limits of 5-7 throughout the game.

 

[skyclad]

I think the devs have chosen the "tall" side for a reason, as it should be that for most players its boring to manage 10+ cities. They tried vassal states and puppeting with little success maybe they'll come up with something new this time. There should be some form of scaling or indirection to keep the number of objects under the player's control within the limits of 5-7 throughout the game.

For lots of players its also boring to manage an "empire" of 4 cities Hopefully they can come to some nice compromises. Just please no half-empty continents way into the industrial era as we see today...

 

[civbone]

It's not boring controlling 10+ cities if there is a inherent advantage to having 10+ cities. If you're constantly being crushed by various forms of maintenance, then I can see it being boring. But ultimately, the goal of any civ should be to grow larger if possible. In real history, the boundary of nations are always pushed to the maximum. There's practically no area without governance.

Have they said anything about the diplomacy of civ 6? I know they regretted the complex hidden algorithms behind diplo in civ 5.

 

[Socrates99]

I hope there's always impetus to expand. Even just balancing tall and wide makes tall the better strategic choice. Less hammers/gold spent on settlers, less risk of angering neighbors, a tighter cluster to defend from invasion, less need for exploration, etc. Balancing them, making them even, is just wrong. Especially as drastically as it was done in V.

I'm all for making Tall viable but for me Civ has always been "one more city" just as much as it's "one more turn."

 

[stiiknafuulia]

I think the devs have chosen the "tall" side for a reason, as it should be that for most players its boring to manage 10+ cities. They tried vassal states and puppeting with little success maybe they'll come up with something new this time. There should be some form of scaling or indirection to keep the number of objects under the player's control within the limits of 5-7 throughout the game.

In the poll where I asked about this (which was admittedly very flawed), 6-10 cities did gather the most votes for preferred number of cities in a typical game, but it was still only 33 %. Taking into account those who favored 1-5 cities, the number (1-10 cities) rises to a little over 40 % of all voters. So, this would seem to indicate that a majority (60 %) favors over 10 cities in a typical game. For various reasons though, the poll is likely to be slightly biased towards voters who prefer larger games; mainly it's because the people who come to these forums to vote are a biased sample in that they favor more long-term and strategic play, as opposed to a casual romp of a few hours for the typical player. So, I suspect the 'real' numbers might be 50-50, or even 60-40 for the side that favors less than 10 cities.

How to reconcile such a disparity in players' wishes is easier said than done. Perhaps the various handicaps (Science penalty per city, etc) could be made adjustable, to allow each player to have the empire size that s/he prefers.

It's worth mentioning that a notable 8,72 % voted preferring over 100(!) cities in a typical game on a Standard map, so there is a non-trivial demand for much larger empires than in any Civ game since III. Even with adjustable handicaps, I don't see how manually managing districts and improvements optimally in 100+ cities is going to be even remotely plausible.

 

[toft]

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[Babri]

Population = science was a thing in CIV too, it was just that the pop point needed a cottage (or Gold/etc.) tile to work in order to become science.

I really like the way CBP mod handles science in ciV. Basically most of your science will come from scientists, science buildings & some other buildings (eg mosques) & mechanics (eg: killing units with appropriate policy). Since population wasn't directly tied to science it suddenly made more sense to put emphasis on your infrastructure if you want good rate of tech progress.

 

[Babri]

For lots of players its also boring to manage an "empire" of 4 cities Hopefully they can come to some nice compromises. Just please no half-empty continents way into the industrial era as we see today...

This. Half of the fun in civ games is finding great settling spots & then deciding what exact position would be the best one for your next city. ciV almost removed this after the first part of the game. Once you had 4 cities there was not much purpose of expanding your empire.

Larger empires also mean more borders to protect from barbarians as well as other civs, it means more competition with other civs etc which overall means more engaging gameplay.

 

[killmeplease]

the poll is likely to be slightly biased towards voters who prefer larger games; mainly it's because the people who come to these forums to vote are a biased sample in that they favor more long-term and strategic play, as opposed to a casual romp of a few hours for the typical player.

slightly huh? this site is called civfanatics
actually theres also a study about this

 

[killmeplease]

Larger empires also mean more borders to protect from barbarians as well as other civs, it means more competition with other civs etc which overall means more engaging gameplay.

larger empires have smaller perimeter to defend related to number of cities

 

[Ryika]

larger empires have smaller perimeter to defend related to number of cities

Why would that matter? If in a wide empire 10 cities produce the same amount of yields as 7 cities in a tall empire then the wide empire still has more problems to defend their borders, and a higher likelihood to run into conflict with neighboring civs.

Both of which are good things for high-level play.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

slightly huh? this site is called civfanatics
actually theres also a study about this

Well, we can't really know how much the poll being on this site affects the vote results. This is a problem with any forum, though, as casual players typically don't go to them. The only reliable way to poll them would be to have the poll be within the game itself, which would be awkward and confusing, to say the least. I just went with my gut with the 50-50 or 60-40 number, but you're welcome to use any numbers that you want. Fwiw, I'll make another, better construced poll closer to release, as more new members will have joined the forum (and we'll know much more about the game) by then.

As for humans only remembering 7+-2 things, that is hardly relevant, as you don't have to keep every city in your memory. You can see their size, produced item, etc, at a glance whenever you need to. If anything, Civ VI makes it easier to manage more cities, as the buildings can be seen directly on the map, so you'll instantly know that the city with the yellow roofs nearby is your commercial hub, etc. And realistically you'd only start to forget such things when you've got dozens of cities, which likely won't happen in a regular game of Civ VI, as they would've already made a remark or two to that effect (it being such a huge departure from Civ V).

 

[killmeplease]

Why would that matter? If in a wide empire 10 cities produce the same amount of yields as 7 cities in a tall empire then the wide empire still has more problems to defend their borders, and a higher likelihood to run into conflict with neighboring civs.

Both of which are good things for high-level play.

difference in per-city production is compensated with less space required for each city so in result you get more hammers per tile of a border. especially as you get to mountain ridges and shoreline

 

[Ricci]

How to reconcile such a disparity in players' wishes is easier said than done. Perhaps the various handicaps (Science penalty per city, etc) could be made adjustable, to allow each player to have the empire size that s/he prefers.

Such a disparity of taste in empire number of cities has been already "reconciled" in civ 1 and throughout the entire series in the enlightened form of map sizes!!!
Want 5-10 cities, play standard, 2-4, play duel, 15+, play huge. Want to play on big continents with losts of unsettled land for the duration of the game, just play BNW.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

True in a sense, but changing the map size affects science cost and means there might be more or less opponents on the map than you'd prefer. How large the various map sizes will be in relation to Civ V will be a major factor; if a Huge map in Civ VI were to be equal in size to a Standard sized map in Civ V (an admittedly horrible, worst case scenario), then you might not get the 15 self-settled cities that you'd prefer, unless you cut down the number of opponents--which in turn you might not want to do.

All will be well(...ish) as long as Huge is huge enough and Tiny's tiny enough... But it wouldn't hurt to have adjustable sliders for things like science cost and penalty, etc. Hide them away in Advanced Options so they won't confuse the newbies.

EDIT: There is the issue that if you start alone on a huge continent, then with no mechanic in place to curtail expansion, you will balloon out of control in no time at all; while if such a mechanic existed, you'd have to take it slower and plan things well to optimize the expansion, which is more interesting than simply spamming cities. This also applies to the AI; with no stops in its way, we might see some fearsome early runaway AIs.

 

[Thormodr]

Such a disparity of taste in empire number of cities has been already "reconciled" in civ 1 and throughout the entire series in the enlightened form of map sizes!!!
Want 5-10 cities, play standard, 2-4, play duel, 15+, play huge. Want to play on big continents with losts of unsettled land for the duration of the game, just play BNW.

Well put. That's the way it should be.

 

[historix69]

Such a disparity of taste in empire number of cities has been already "reconciled" in civ 1 and throughout the entire series in the enlightened form of map sizes!!!
Want 5-10 cities, play standard, 2-4, play duel, 15+, play huge. Want to play on big continents with losts of unsettled land for the duration of the game, just play BNW.

I agree ... mapsize usually determines max number of cities and when there are too many opponents or not enough space to settle, there is still the option to start a war ...

 

[MkLh]

Districts seems to naturally favor the "tall" playing style. A large empire has awful lot to manage and it's probably better to develop your premium sites instead of settling marginal sites with no room for districts.

 

[joncnunn]

Districts seems to naturally favor the "tall" playing style. A large empire has awful lot to manage and it's probably better to develop your premium sites instead of settling marginal sites with no room for districts.

They'll be times in which the marginal sites will be useful after the better spots are already taken, primarily when a given city is at either the current local happiness or local habitation cap.
Plus primarily settling after the first few cities have been built will happen from cities further from the capital which will also be closer to where they are being founded.

Now the districts does lean towards looser city settlement patterns.