"Building tall" as opposed to "building wide" is a bad meme

[mudcrabmerchant]

You made a good point without even realizing it. Comparing Singapore to Indonesia shows just how powerful playing Tall can really be, then you go and compare them to China and say "Well playing tall just doesn't match up". Well obviously China is out of their league, but if you compared China to Japan, another extremely tall nation. living on a thin island which is mostly mountains, I think you would be surprised to know that Japan invaded and in fact defeated China in WWII. So clearly there is *another* real world example of a Tall nation beating a Wide nation.

Post-Industrial Revolution Earth is not a good comparison for a 4X game where all players start equal. Singapore vs. Indonesia is like a merchant enclave vs. a normal empire 20 years after reaching FTL. That kind of situation is not possible with player empires without horribly screwing up the balance of the game.

And using your own line of reasoning, the real world clearly shows that being both tall AND wide is perfectly possible, and that there isn't a very good correlation at all between country size and level of development. Which means the real world provides no good argument as to why a large empire shouldn't be able to be as tall as a small empire.

 

[GamerSteve]

Frankly, although I have used them myself, I think real-world arguments are irrelevant, as are 'realism' arguments. The question is, does Paradox want to create a victory condition other than 'paint the map your color'? If so, then tall is one way to go, and is a method that has worked, with varying degrees of success, in other games (like Civ, but not only Civ). If not, then it's a moot question. So it's really up to Paradox, and it's a question of victory conditions and what play styles they want to allow or encourage. What happened in real world history is rather beside the point.

 

[Madzai]

So, guessing on last sneak-peeks, PDX definition of "small vs. tall" is "try to expand as much as you can, while trying to hold your belongings" vs. "try to survive being small until your techs and probably traditions allow you to build inward while chipping off bits from wide Empires before they stabilize". Not the worst case, if works.

 

[Finnway]

Going "tall" doesn't have to be viable all game long. They could make is so you can go tall in the early game, and then in the mid-game use your super-powered core-worlds to fund rapid expansion and catch up with the early-game expansionist empires.

Problem is, right now going tall isn't viable no matter how you look at it.

 

[rcasale]

the real world clearly shows that being both tall AND wide is perfectly possible, and that there isn't a very good correlation at all between country size and level of development. Which means the real world provides no good argument as to why a large empire shouldn't be able to be as tall as a small empire.

This right here. This is something that Civ 5 failed to capture. You could run a big sprawling empire which suffers for its size, or a small compact highly efficient empire. There is no possibility to create a very large and very efficient empire.

There should be no restriction on how tall or wide you can go, but doing both of those should be very difficult. Of course making that kind of difficulty is hard, so we'll probably just see additive penalties per population and planet.

Has anyone every played a mod for CIv 4 called Legends of Revolution? I had one very rewarding play through on that mod where it was consistently difficult to maintain control of my large empire, and I went threw several phases of expansion and retraction through out the game. It was very interesting. My strategies weren't just 'expand expand expand' but rather, 'maybe I should abandon this conquered island for now and come back to it later'. Things unfolded very organically. It's an experience that I've only also had in CK II, and I'm hoping here in Stellaris come 1.5 (or if not then, eventually)

 

[khevtol]

Personally, I think enabling tall empires a bit more also helps gameplay. Right now, if you reach past a certain size, normal External empires cease to be a threat. If you haven't reached a certain size, you don't stand a chance against a much larger power, and that makes the game a bit more boring.

We should have a large empire and still have some smaller nations pose a threat, or be a smaller power and be able to pull of an Agincourt with clever planning. It keeps everyone on their toes. Tall doesn't have to have the same advantages as wide. It just has to have something.

 

[Elfwind]

I think empires need to be more defined by their people and their accomplishments. Tall or wide might be too simple to define a civilization.

If an empire seeks to be the most powerful technologically and has solved the Infinity Machine, gathered Enigma technology, and contained and killed a god, they have more than proven their strength, resourcefulness and technological might. Through these quests or other accomplishments there needs to be a story of Ascension, a story of a race becoming powerful and making an impact on history that will cause them to be a topic of discussion and legend long after their gone or their eternal empire reigns over countless galaxies.

We all want to have that race be ours, so maybe tall and wide needs to be defined by the nature of how we play the game, not from the size of an empire but how we play it and what we accomplish with it. So a warmongering Mongols in space race needs a system like tyranny with loyalty and fear or wrath and favor that shows that race is special with unique traits for conquering half the galaxy. Same for expansive, or technological races, instead of numbers from Unity and Tradition this can be a way for people to find greater impact by making a statement with actions that can be tied in with or without quests!

We all know we're superior here, the game can always use more ways to show it and show how we each are uniquely special! =D

 

[Noumenon]

Agreed with the OP, and it actually inspired me to think deeply on and post my idea in a new thread as to how one could 'build tall' and while not be able to 'stand up to the big boys' toe-to-toe, play very differently, manage their 'empire' differently, fight proxy wars, etc, while relying on outsiders with different and interesting dynamics.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

We all want to have that race be ours

I was actually recently contemplating that it'd be interesting if the AI had the potential to "engage" in high-tier/high-complexity event chains like The Worm In Waiting. You'd simplify it on the "coding" end, obviously- but I think that getting messages about Weird Stuff happening to other civilizations, stuff that you've done yourself, would make the galaxy feel much more alive (and make things more interesting- playing The Chosen Empire that changes the shape of the galaxy every single time you play is boring, restrictive, and for what it's worth, unrealistic).

I would love the ability to more or less sit in my corner some games and watch the galaxy experience turmoil around me while I keep to myself and play things safe. This becomes especially true with every additional level of diplomacy and flavour given to NPC entities and organizations- the more the galaxy feels alive, the less I feel players should be Mandated By Design to be the centre of the universe.

 

[shadowclasper]

Come on, mate. That's not true. Singapore is no geopolitical superpower, you don't see the singaporean government sparring vis-a-vis with the US...

I have to say that this is a terrible example.
Does Singapore punch far above its weight class? Yes. It's certainly much more important in the Geopolitical arena than its MUCH larger Indonesian cousin.

But... compared to China? The nation that has used its huge market potential to make nations (like the UK) bend over backwards to meet its economic interests? Uh... no.

-----

The advantages of playing tall should be in less apparent fields that requires more cooperation and conflict by proxy. Like the ability to lead a lead a Federation to victory using superior research, or able to juggle many strong allies/vassals (i.e. how the Better Subjects mod allows a relatively small empire to control more vassals than their military strength can deal with thanks to the ability to raise relations through subsidizing). But even then, you're likely to lose a direct engagement against a much larger power. The only way victory can be achievable is by using superior strategy, born out of the fact that smaller empires are easier to manage while your larger opponent is... distracted ^^

Seriously, even Frederick the Great -- the poster child of playing "tall" in EU4 -- required not one, but TWO "Miracle of the House of Brandenburg" to save his butt.

Again, in the case of Singapore v. China the idea was that China can't just steam roll Singapore militarily. There'd be too much political fallout from the action which would lead to retaliation and China probably being hurt pretty badly as a result. Singapore is tall, but not wide. It can't invade china, and no tall empire -should- be able to realistically invade and take over a wide empire, but because of how it built itself, it also can't be invaded in turn. That's how you make tall empires competitive. They're not going to be winning any of the 'take over the most worlds' objectives. But they leverage what power they do have to prevent themselves from being steam rolled by their large empire neighbors.

 

[Foefaller]

You made a good point without even realizing it. Comparing Singapore to Indonesia shows just how powerful playing Tall can really be, then you go and compare them to China and say "Well playing tall just doesn't match up". Well obviously China is out of their league, but if you compared China to Japan, another extremely tall nation. living on a thin island which is mostly mountains, I think you would be surprised to know that Japan invaded and in fact defeated China in WWII. So clearly there is another real world example of a Tall nation beating a Wide nation.

On the surface, maybe.

In actuality, it was only possible due to a trifecta of decades of decline (due to, among other things, other "wide" empires having their way with China) several internal wars and rebellions that left several regions loyal to the ruling government in name only, and a leader who was literally more interested in stamping out communist dissidents than he was defending his own country from invaders. China of the 1920's and 30's was a shell of the shell of it's former imperial glory, and almost unrecognizable from the world power that it is today.

...and Japan had almost zero chance of holding onto their gains. The reason they decided to bomb Pearl Harbor? Because the US stopped the sale of oil and other war materiel for their invasion of the mainland, which pretty much killed their ability to occupy the parts of China they controlled for the long haul; War with the US was a million-to-one last ditch hailmary, fueled by leaders high on their string of success in China to get the United States to drop sanctions and let them keep pretending that they were an imperial power.

 

[mangalore]

On the surface, maybe.

In actuality, it was only possible due to a trifecta of decades of decline (due to, among other things, other "wide" empires having their way with China) several internal wars and rebellions that left several regions loyal to the ruling government in name only, and a leader who was literally more interested in stamping out communist dissidents than he was defending his own country from invaders. China of the 1920's and 30's was a shell of the shell of it's former imperial glory, and almost unrecognizable from the world power that it is today.

...and Japan had almost zero chance of holding onto their gains. The reason they decided to bomb Pearl Harbor? Because the US stopped the sale of oil and other war materiel for their invasion of the mainland, which pretty much killed their ability to occupy the parts of China they controlled for the long haul; War with the US was a million-to-one last ditch hailmary, fueled by leaders high on their string of success in China to get the United States to drop sanctions and let them keep pretending that they were an imperial power.

People look too shortsighted. Yes, a wide empire should squash a small one when it is able to mobilize the resources it has. Point in Stellaris there are no working mechanics limiting your access to those resources. Sectors are tame, factions weak, you have no geography limiting your expansion or deployment of forces far away from your capital, all stuff creating great problems for big empires usually occupying them more than the small neighbor next door. This gameplay should be improved. CK2 is fun precisely it accomplished a great mechanic that can screw with you even if you are the Holy Roman emperor or opens a path to greatness when your great nemesis stumbles.

Japan had established Manchuko (you know, the place the last Chinese dynasty came from so not entirely unimportant even though at their border), conquered Korea, beaten Russia which was the basis of their empire. You add reasons for their demise as if they didn't have any success at all. They did. It just does not always work against everyone forever.
The Netherlands beat the English, held out 80 years against the Spanish to win the war and established itself as a major colonial player. Portugal was filthy rich for its small size. Prussia could maintain an army rivaling the Great Powers for a time. Sweden was once considered the Great Power of Eastern Europe pummeling Poland and Russia.

Can a great power get its act together and squash a small one? Sure. Usually however big empires have more issues on their plate so they can't and precisely that has great gameplay potential if it were there and is how small, plucky nations survive against big ones. Equally it would have great potential if small empires could become those small champions (e.g. trade powers, military specialists, great schemers).

Additionally I miss some sensible behavior towards aggressors alas EU4.

 

[Robrecht]

...and Japan had almost zero chance of holding onto their gains. The reason they decided to bomb Pearl Harbor? Because the US stopped the sale of oil and other war materiel for their invasion of the mainland, which pretty much killed their ability to occupy the parts of China they controlled for the long haul; War with the US was a million-to-one last ditch hailmary, fueled by leaders high on their string of success in China to get the United States to drop sanctions and let them keep pretending that they were an imperial power.

This isn't actually the case. The reason Imperial Japan attacked Pearl Harbor was that they had convincing (but wrong) intelligence pointing to a declaration of war and attack by the US being imminent and they launched the attack mainly to attempt to cripple the US's Pacific Fleet before it could spread out across the Pacific and force the Imperial Navy to split its forces. At the point of the Pearl Harbour attack, Japan wasn't reliant on US oil any longer, they were getting most of their oil from the (recently captured) Dutch East Indies.

 

[praftd]

People really are way over-complicating a very simple idea.

Tall: A very small, highly developed group of cities/planets that receives certain bonuses for being small and highly developed.
Wide: A very large group of cities/planets that, due to it's sheer size, has access to vast amounts of resources.

In this context, Tall and Wide are mutually exclusive. We already have a taste of it with smaller empires gaining fairly decent science bonuses.

This is what these two things are referring to when talking about Civ and Stellaris. That's it. The entire purpose of this is to provide a bit of asymmetry to the game and allow for a variety of play styles with a variety of results. More importantly, it is a GAME MECHANIC. It has zero to do with real-life in any way shape or form. The purpose isn't to emulate reality nor is it to allow empires with 1 planet to face-roll massive ones militarily. It just allows a bit of flexibility and challenge for people to want to play in different ways. It also provides smaller empires with a bit of teeth whereas traditionally it was game-over right off the bat once you got dwarfed by a large empire.

Options are a good thing. People arguing against this are basically supporting late game stagnation and galaxy paint. Which is BORING.

 

[mangalore]

People really are way over-complicating a very simple idea.

Tall: A very small, highly developed group of cities/planets that receives certain bonuses for being small and highly developed.
Wide: A very large group of cities/planets that, due to it's sheer size, has access to vast amounts of resources.

In this context, Tall and Wide are mutually exclusive. We already have a taste of it with smaller empires gaining fairly decent science bonuses.

This is what these two things are referring to when talking about Civ and Stellaris. That's it. The entire purpose of this is to provide a bit of asymmetry to the game and allow for a variety of play styles with a variety of results. More importantly, it is a GAME MECHANIC. It has zero to do with real-life in any way shape or form. The purpose isn't to emulate reality nor is it to allow empires with 1 planet to face-roll massive ones militarily. It just allows a bit of flexibility and challenge for people to want to play in different ways. It also provides smaller empires with a bit of teeth whereas traditionally it was game-over right off the bat once you got dwarfed by a large empire.

Options are a good thing. People arguing against this are basically supporting late game stagnation and galaxy paint. Which is BORING.

I fully agree, I just think history tells us there are plausible game mechanics that could foster such asymmetry even if it only works for a time or doesn't work if a wide empire grows tall as well. Currently there is just little depth to the empire system that forces decisions between investing in your core systems or colonizing the next 12 planets, the later is always the right choice.

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

People really are way over-complicating a very simple idea.

Tall: A very small, highly developed group of cities/planets that receives certain bonuses for being small and highly developed.
Wide: A very large group of cities/planets that, due to it's sheer size, has access to vast amounts of resources.

In this context, Tall and Wide are mutually exclusive. We already have a taste of it with smaller empires gaining fairly decent science bonuses.

This is what these two things are referring to when talking about Civ and Stellaris. That's it. The entire purpose of this is to provide a bit of asymmetry to the game and allow for a variety of play styles with a variety of results. More importantly, it is a GAME MECHANIC. It has zero to do with real-life in any way shape or form. The purpose isn't to emulate reality nor is it to allow empires with 1 planet to face-roll massive ones militarily. It just allows a bit of flexibility and challenge for people to want to play in different ways. It also provides smaller empires with a bit of teeth whereas traditionally it was game-over right off the bat once you got dwarfed by a large empire.

Options are a good thing. People arguing against this are basically supporting late game stagnation and galaxy paint. Which is BORING.

So where do we set the point at which you just can't make up for the size gap? 75% of the opposing "wide" empire? 50%? 25%? 10%?

All of these will have significant effects on the game, and each will require more and more distortion of game mechanics. Else how do you keep a tiny enclave remotely competitive with a large empire? We're not talking about steamrolling - just being able to survive (regularly) as the equivalent of a 5-city Civ versus a 15-city one in Stellaris would require massive, massive changes to game mechanics. There isn't any mechanic in game to make any goal but galaxy-painting fun or engaging.

I'm alright with there being mechanics to make small empires more interesting, but they should never be competitive, in any end-game sense, one on one against a real empire. We already have federations, which even allow you to win the game as a small empire. And I'm all for additional mechanics for small empires (which should only be "taller" in the short term) that give them the ability to have fun games with engaging mechanics besides normal territorial expansion.

Stuff like the equivalent of merchant republics that make trade deals and give and take loans to maximize credit income, or research enclaves that try to research every tech and anomaly in the galaxy, and trade off their science for protection. But if you go it alone, these should be tied to alternative victory conditions that only apply to these special types of empires - in CKII terms, it would be like playing a size-locked merchant republic that has to dominate with trading posts, while the normal players are fighting for kingdoms and empires. And if you win as a stellar merchant republic, it shouldn't be counted as a normal victory, which in MP terms means "you win, everyone else loses". It should count as an MR victory, an achievement to aim for but not something considered comparable with dominating an entire galaxy.

 

[Ixal]

Sadly Paradox missed the opportunity with Habitats to empower tall gameplay by making Habitats upgradable and having you decide between habitat improvements and planetary improvements (through different techs in the same branch for example).
Instead Habitats favor the one with the most uninhabitable planets (hint, that is not the tall one).

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

I fully agree, I just think history tells us there are plausible game mechanics that could foster such asymmetry even if it only works for a time or doesn't work if a wide empire grows tall as well. Currently there is just little depth to the empire system that forces decisions between investing in your core systems or colonizing the next 12 planets, the later is always the right choice.

What, exactly, does history tell us about this? There is no correlation between small size and high technological development - the tiny countries and enclaves which crowd the top of the GDP per capita and HDI rankings are there from oil wealth or from exploiting a limited number of economic niches (such as sitting on major trade routes, or serving as tax havens for rich neighboring countries).

And there are many examples of tall AND wide empires throughout history, and whenever these existed there was absolutely no competition from tall and small countries if the big and tall empire wanted to screw with them (the main limits on these empires being the technology of the times and their local geography).

The Greeks fell to Rome, the Chinese expanded from the Yellow River to the natural borders of steppe, mountain, and jungle all around them, and there has arguably never been another country with the same comparative advantage over the rest of the world as the USA (people citing Japan's early success in WW2 as a tall empire wrecking house seem to forget that Japan was utterly wrecked by another empire that was not just wider, but also significantly taller in every measure).

 

[mangalore]

What, exactly, does history tell us about this? There is no correlation between small size and high technological development ...

That's the bait and switch. I said nothing about small. I said something about tall. I never said anything about tall and wide being exclusive, I said something about wide having challenges not simulated by Stellaris.

There are plenty of examples of small but tall countries outperform wide and big ones in wealth, access to resources and capability to militarize. Sure, there are also examples of big empires being wealthy but that is the point: There are dynamics in there that one is not a guarantee for the other. 19th century geostrategic thinking expected the 20th century to have three superpowers: The USA, Russia and one European power (that thinking was a major reason for WW1, everyone knew if they weren't that guy it would suck). Instead Russia was stumbling from one civil war into the next, was defeated in several wars and failed at industrializing until the 1930s. Europe tore itself apart. The only wide and tall empire that succeeded was the USA. It is the exception, not the rule. It's the only superpower not because it succeeded but because everyone else failed at one or the other road block. And in the timeframes only time will tell if the USA is really that special. It certainly has some geographic advantages but most wide and tall empires had a rather specific half life the USA has not achieved, yet.

Again with Japan you focus on WW2 and it attacking the US. That's a strawman. Japan founded its empire (territory several times its island's size) defeating big Great powers and taking stuff from them for more than a generation. This didn't happen 1941, it happened from 1905 onward. It's the reason they were considered the only non western Great Power. They had that empire when they ended up in war with the US.

China is the oldest civilization in history but it existed in a very defined geographic space it only rarely broke out of. Why? Because once the various dynasties peaked in territorial expansion within those confines their empire became completely occupied with internal turmoil. That's why every couple of centuries some foreign invader could topple the entire empire and take over the centralized bureaucracy for themselves.

The point is lack of game mechanics mixing it up.

There are plenty of examples either way but tall and wide together is an alignment most empires in history only managed for a very specific time frame in their existence and usually not unconditionally. Not even the USA.

 

[TerrBear]

Again, in the case of Singapore v. China the idea was that China can't just steam roll Singapore militarily. There'd be too much political fallout from the action which would lead to retaliation and China probably being hurt pretty badly as a result. Singapore is tall, but not wide. It can't invade china, and no tall empire -should- be able to realistically invade and take over a wide empire, but because of how it built itself, it also can't be invaded in turn. That's how you make tall empires competitive. They're not going to be winning any of the 'take over the most worlds' objectives. But they leverage what power they do have to prevent themselves from being steam rolled by their large empire neighbors.

Singapore would only be able to avoid a war from china in this scenario with the backing of the US, it has nothing to do with Singapore being 'tall' but a bigger player on the block protecting it and the only reason America would block China expanding would be to stop it from becoming more powerful. Singapore in and of itself would not be able to force others to support it.