The Stellaris-Definitions of "tall" and "wide" aren't really convincing since in both Cases, You do the same Thing: Colonizing more Worlds, Which includes the Building of more Habitats ...
The only Difference is the Circumstance, that the same Amount of Colonies/Habitats are located in a few Star-Systems ("tall" (Stellaris)) or in many Ones ("wide" (Stellaris)) ...
It's a Fata Morgana until You're looking into the Star-System-View instead of the Galaxy-One ...
This view is exactly why people tend to not grasp the Wide/Tall concept Wiz is implementing.
Yes, of course, you can expand via colonization of remote systems whilst 'playing tall', just as you can build habitats whilst 'playing wide'. But by doing so you are actually not doing the 'playing x' part to 100%.
Buildings habitats is confirmed to take time and extensive amount of ressources (minerals).
Conversely, for the same amount of minerals you can colonize several new worlds with colony ships instead. (Which is a step necessary after a Habitat finishes construction anyways)
Or, you could declare war, seize a few planets and use the minerals to rebuild/increase your fleet.
The key difference is that Habitats are 'less cost-effective', but can be used to increase your planet count whilst expanding 'inward' (or would you prefer 'upward', aka tall), whereas the latter 'more effective' approach requires you to extend your borders (thus expanding 'outward'), either by grabbing planets not yet settled (something impossible past the middle game) or by conquest/vassalization.
Wide = Having many Worlds, Which are relatively lowly developed, Which means their Buildings are relatively lowly upgraded ...
Tall = Having few Worlds, Which are relatively highly developed, Which means their Buildings are relatively highly upgraded ...
The issue why this doesn't work is because you ALWAYS upgrade your buildings, completely regardless of whether you're going tall or wide. There is no reason ever not to, as long as you got avaible ressources. And once all are upgraded, the planet hits a cap cannot be 'developed' further.
Planets are not affected by the choice 'do I get many planets or do I get more developed planets', since all planets will end up developed in due time. And, conversely to other games like Civilization, this point in time is actually reached within the span of the game. (Theoretically, in Civ, you can reach a 'cap' of city as well, namely a city that has the maximum amount of pops it can somehow effectively feed and happi-fy plus all buildings. The difference is, in Civ you will rarely even reach that state with one city, much less with multiple ones. Whilst in Stellaris you 'cap' planets frequently (by tech limits), and even a 'maximum' cap is achieved after one or two centurys.)
That are my Definitions and I would rather see, that You colonize a new World, You start with 1 Tile + 1 POP, You have to invest into your Colony to get a second Tile, Which would randomly generated with Nothing or a native Resource and after You've got a second POP, You have the Permission to invest into your third Tile and so On and so On and so On ...
Which is a fine concept. But, rather obviously, one that Wiz doesn't intend to implement. Which means that, as nice as it is, it's completely irrelevant for Stellaris.
Currently, It's way too easy to play "wide" (my Definition) since You colonize a new World and Let your POPs breed, so that You have in no Time a fully populated World, in Which all POPs are harvesting all its native Resources, because with the Exception of Hydroponic Farms, You don't really have to invest Something to achieve this Aim ...
Yep, because fully developing a planet, as described above, is not designed to be 'a special objective', but just the default course of the game.
