Is it possible to play tall?

[Trithemius]

Thanks for the clarification, @QDI, @Zaku, @ahhheygao.

At the risk of sounding like a parody of an astrophysicist, I think we probably need to be more precise about our terminology in order to avoid confusion. I can see two different situations which might be labelled "wide":

Type 1 Wide: I have a huge, undeveloped space within my borders, full of stations and frontier posts, which I use to gather resources. This will be limited by how much influence I can spare for frontier posts; this will stop from investing my influence into my home planets.

Type 2 Wide: I colonise lots of planets, only improving them slightly before grabbing the next one. This will be limited by how much population I can spare for colonised planets and how much dissent I can tolerate; this will stop me from exploiting my home planets fully.​

Are these two different things entirely, or am I misunderstanding?

YESSSSS TERMINOLOGICAL PRECISION

Ahem, sorry about that...

I think a bit of the issue is that tall vs. wide/broad/etc. probably originated in Civ-style games and might not apply as nicely to something like EU4 - although people find the terms convenient proxies for what they mean and so use them despite this being the crime of catachresis!

 

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

despite this being the crime of catachresis!

I learned a new word today. Thanks!

 

[GrafKeks]

If there is a technological victory that can be achieved by playing tall. Tech costs are based on population, so having few colonies, but lots of tech buildings/stations would be beneficial for that.

Wait are tech costs really based on population ? the same annoying mechanic that's in Civ, really?

 

[Trithemius]

I learned a new word today. Thanks!

My work here is done.
*dematerialises*

 

[Trithemius]

Wait are tech costs really based on population ? the same annoying mechanic that's in Civ, really?

It is that, or track tech level for each pop, then average it for a planet...

 

[Cynical Dreamer]

Why do people play Paradox games?

There are two main reasons and goals. Either you try to win and dominate the Clausewitz map or you RP and try to build your little personal utopia.

In the latter case you just do what you like with few "tall" options you have. Customizing realm and RPing, according to ruler's traits in CK2. Developing lands and painting beautiful borders in EU4. Making ideologically homogenous über rich nation with 100% literacy in Vicy 2. Doing crazy things in HoI 3. If it's not about winning but about your vision, then playing tall is viable if little unsatisfactory because game is wired for conquest and "tall" features are not that well developed.

If you try to win, however, tall gameplay is completely worthless. Conquest gives far more profit than building or development or technology. Wide gameplay is so much more utilitarian that it's not even a competition.

This seems like Paradox strategic mindset in general - conquer and you win. Everything else is supplementary. Do I agree with this mindset? Not really. Precedent shows that tall nations can easily beat and dominate wide ones while Paradox blobbing itself is very questionable in terms of realism. That's why I always advocate for more tall gameplay in their games and more potency to those features.

Stellaris needs tall options even more than other games because of it's focus on technology. Small, but technologically superior realm should be able to beat large but underdeveloped one. If you are small on all accounts but you have developed a Doomsday weapon capable of obliterating every single nation in the Galaxy in a second's notice - victory should go to you.

Well argued post.

 

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

My work here is done.
*dematerialises*

*turns to face the camera*

Following the disaster at Gallipoli, Australians have evolved short-distance teleportation. Scientists believe that this is why, when outside of their own country, Australians tend to cluster so much: they get taught in teleporter traps like Earl's Court or Bali.

 

[Trithemius]

*turns to face the camera*

Following the disaster at Gallipoli, Australians have evolved short-distance teleportation. Scientists believe that this is why, when outside of their own country, Australians tend to cluster so much: they get taught in teleporter traps like Earl's Court or Bali.

*rematerialises*
Is that a The Stars My Destination reference?!

 

[Daetrin]

Another issue with comparing tall v. wide in Stellaris versus, say, EU, is that in Stellaris you could call yourself a Tall empire if you grab five planets and work on teching those up rather than expanding further...but within the bounds of those five planets you have many, many more colonizeable ones that you can take when you get other species / the right technologies. Assuming that keeping all your planets relatively close means less ethos divergence and cheaper/easier defense (your fronts are much, much smaller and you can fortress up easier), you could spend your resources on getting them colonizable sooner than a more expansionistic empire. So a Tall empire can become exceeding dense, possibly with a pop parity nearing that of an expansionistic 'wide' empire that needs to be more militaristic and struggles with factions. Which doesn't quite match the classic tall v. wide paradigm as I understand it.

 

[Giacomo1405]

to start calculating something, let's assume every pop past 25 (full homeworld) add 2% cost each
a nation controlling just the homeworld would have normal cost for reasearch (+0%)
when it reaches 50 pops it will have doubled its output but only increased cost by +50% (let's assume, to make it easier, that all factors like happiness, habitability, etc. are equal)
when it reaches 100 pops it will have quadrupled its starting output and increade the cost by +150% (this is the point where, reasonably, the 5 core worlds will be filled)
then at 200 pops it will have 800% starting output and 350% starting cost
at 300 pops 1200% output and 550 cost (here you are already really wide and yet taking new worlds is still very profitable)
at 500 pops 1600% output and 950 cost (probably over 30 planets)
at 1000 pops 3200%output and 1950 cost (and yet taking more planets is only a benefit)

if the 2% is reasonably accurate, there will never be a wide empire that is lagging in tech due to being too big and taking new planets will always be the better min-maxing strategy
the cost need to increase much faster (ideally 4%) in order to have a wide empire outproducing a tall one in energy and minerals but lagging behind in tech, allowing both strategies to be valid

 

[TheDungen]

I'm hoping that going tall will finally be a better strategy for growing your power than goign wide, because wide also comes with the advantage of removing power from your enemies.

 

[Daetrin]

Maths

I'm hoping that going tall will finally be a better strategy for growing your power than goign wide, because wide also comes with the advantage of removing power from your enemies.

Going wide takes power away from competitors (I wouldn't say enemies, necessarily), but it also comes with a whole host of other problems in terms of divergence, factions, and defensibility. The question is not whether a perfectly producing wide empire can outproduce a perfectly producing tall empire (it can), but how close to perfectly producing Wide and Tall empires can each get, and whether the issues with sprawling are significant enough to make Tallness competitive.

 

[TheDungen]

Going wide takes power away from competitors (I wouldn't say enemies, necessarily), but it also comes with a whole host of other problems in terms of divergence, factions, and defensibility. The question is not whether a perfectly producing wide empire can outproduce a perfectly producing tall empire (it can), but how close to perfectly producing Wide and Tall empires can each get, and whether the issues with sprawling are significant enough to make Tallness competitive.

I'm not sure I agree look at Prussia or Britain (remember the empire doesn't really become a thing until victoria) at the end of EU4, compared to much larger neighbours like Austria or France.
I'm mostly just concerned since going tall is a far subpar tactic in Eu4 (not only does it give you less bang for you mana, but also doesn't remove development from the competition) I hope it won't be in Stellaris.

 

[Timelordwho]

Sadly, the scaling does not seem strong enough to make a tall empire better than a wide.

You only gain +2% tech cost per pop above 10. To break even, a 100 pop empire would need to produce 25% more science per pop than a 300 pop empire.

Yeah, but a 300 pop empire has a lot more costs; colonizing many more worlds ( probably ~20 instead of ~5), fighting wars for some of those worlds, infrastructure spending is much higher, dealing with unhappy people & moderate inefficiency of sectors etc. lower average happiness in a large empire of multiple races.

A smaller empire could be, say a direct democracy with all its worlds as core worlds, so very limited ethics divergence, and a higher percentage of it's structures dedicated to science meaning higher average science per pop as well as less costs associated with administering a large empire.

 

[Zaku]

Damn, talking and reading this much about theoretical strategies about a not yet released video game made me realize that I may be an addict.
... Just one more week

 

[QDI]

Yeah, but a 300 pop empire has a lot more costs; colonizing many more worlds ( probably ~20 instead of ~5), fighting wars for some of those worlds, infrastructure spending is much higher, dealing with unhappy people & moderate inefficiency of sectors etc. lower average happiness in a large empire of multiple races.

A smaller empire could be, say a direct democracy with all its worlds as core worlds, so very limited ethics divergence, and a higher percentage of it's structures dedicated to science meaning higher average science per pop as well as less costs associated with administering a large empire.

Indeed, maybe it is possible to get enough science per pop to be competitive but only experience will tell.

 

[persovs]

One of the greatest concepts added to EU4 was the wide vs. tall mechanism, so you are not forced to conquer new territories to become stronger.
But in Stellaris it seems rather doubtful if you could play tall instead of wide. It is relatively easy to max out all your planets, your fleet and all the anomalies you have access to. Diplomacy is rather simplistic, so you can't really gain too much from trading (unless you are able to buy all the tech from your allies making development completely pointless like in the Galactic Civilizations series). And you have no way of boosting your development skills - no other that other "wide" species couldn't get just as you do that is - by only developing of what you already have.
Am I missing something or is there really no way to win a game playing tall in Stellaris?

totally agree, i would say it should take atleast 100 years maybe even 200 years ingame to max out a planet in population, if you look at earth it took 200 years to fill the planet from 1 billion to 8 billion and with future tech maybe 10000 people would take atleast 200 years to fully populate an earth sized planet even with sperm in a bottle

 

[Hull-Tanker]

I think a direct democracy with fanatic materialism will be viable to play tall.

Rush good military techs and colonize 9 planets in close proximity then put fotresses in important choke points and have one small but techy fleet to protect your sov.

Then go with robots to ensure that you have all the planets in close proximity you need and use them for minerals/food and then use main pop for research and energy.

 

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

You know, it's occurred to me that we have not had a single thread asking about whether Stellaris will support wide play, whereas we've had, what, four asking about tall?

I wonder what this means. Are dense, small-population empires just more popular with players?

 

[Zaku]

You know, it's occurred to me that we have not had a single thread asking about whether Stellaris will support wide play, whereas we've had, what, four asking about tall?

I wonder what this means. Are dense, small-population empires just more popular with players?

Well PDS games reward blobbing, so wide playstyle will definitely be viable.