Will playing 'tall' be a viable option?

[sumdood]

I could see an empire where occupied planets outside the capital exist simply to provide resources for the capital and the majority of development takes place at the home planet.

 

[TheDungen]

On the face of it, this seems like an obviously true assertion, given the great divergence that reshaped geopolitics in the last half millennium. But the more I think about it, the less sure I am of it or at least the less sure I am that the tall vs wide dichotomy can be applied to the real world. Take France and the Netherlands. You note them as both tall and they were both, in terms of administrative, economic, and military policies, certainly doing the same or similar things. But I think it can be argued that France was wide in comparison to other tall European states and by the time of the Franco-Prussian War, they were soundly defeated by a state less than half their size.

Part of the problem, I think, is that government policy of economic development is a fairly recent innovation. Let's compare Tokugawa Japan and Qing China as another pair of countries that were using similar policies at the same time, but one was clearly wide and the other clearly tall by 1900. Both used, for example, mutual responsibility taxation sytems, central government inspectors to investigate corruption, mostly hands off domestic trade policies, severely restrictive foreign trade policies, and nearly full autonomy in local administrations. Both even responded to the Unequal Treaties in a similar way, up until the Meiji Restoration.

Yet well before 1900 and despite any concerted government policy to that end, Japan had a literacy rate 10 times higher than China (on par with some contemporary European countries, which is amazing when you consider the relative complexity of Japanese writing), double the effective tax rate (or more, Qing records are notoriously unreliable), and urbanization that left the least developed region of Japan as urbanized as the most developed provinces of China. Again, this is despite extremely similar government policies which can be summarized respectively as public-sponsorship for education of the literati/samurai classes while relying on private interests for everyone else; reliance on mutual responsibility groups for tax collection with intermittent inspections from the higher government; and a lack of policy or interference in the movement of peasants to the cities.

The difference it seems is less in the empires themselves than in geo-economic factors happening by themselves and in an apparent geographical or demographic constraint on administrative efficiency. It's not that the wide polities pursued a goal of width, but that they found themselves constrained by their size, nor is it that the tall polities tried to be tall, but that they were more able to adapt to the wave of (pre-)industrialization.

So what changed when governments began to take an active role in shaping their nations' economies? Everyone went tall, because at the end of the day, increasing GDP per capita or per acre increases absolute GDP and conquering more people or acreage is difficult. Looking at the nations that did try to acquire more territory in the 20th Century, you will find that the Soviet Union, the US, Nazi Germany, Communist China, Imperial Japan, and all or most of the smaller aggressors as well all tried to get taller at the same time they were getting wider. At the same time, advances in information technology allowed large countries like the US to endure the bureaucratic weight of trying to administer a rapidly growing population in the hundreds of millions just as well as smaller countries like Germany that would have had a proportional pre-industrial advantage. Perhaps the US and Germany could be called equally successful today despite the former's size.

If this can be generalized to FTL polities, then there is little reason to think they will focus on wide or tall instead of both simultaneously. The geometry of space combat also means that the fundamental limit of political strength, the optimal number of soldiers you can fit in on a battlefield, will be so large that a tallish empire would have to be quite huge itself before the wideish empire would be unable to outnumber them on any particular battlefield. I'll refrain from speculating on the implications of asymmetrical warfare in FTL polities due to holy wall of text, Batman.

Eh no I note france as wide not tall, it was expanding militarily on the expense of it's neighbours, that's pretty much the definition of wide. France, Austria and Russia are probably the best examples of wide empires in the eu4 era. In the vic era brittain (actually brittain begins this in late eu4 era with the conquest of india and the colonisation of australia and the beginings of colonising canada properly) and prussia both go wide (sort of in prussias case seeing that they only reunite parts of the recently abolished HRE), spending the strenght that they hav attained by being focused inwards.
I'd say china is still a wide empire, in todays world being wide is not about military expansion but about holding on to previous military conquests. Japan is tall they let their conquests go. You're tall when you stop wasting efforts on being wide, you're not "tall as long as you spend effort internally", as you pointed out everyone does that.

I'm not even sure if colonialism should count as wide, brittish imperialism might (simply because it such a massive landgrab more or less just because they think brittish africa looks good on the map). Then again russia is a pretty obvious wide part and what they did in siberia was colonialism (though granted what they did on the euroasiatic steppe was imperialism).

 

[Tim_Ward]

If the game hopes to be at all realistic then you never should run out of space. If you run out of space then the game is too small. Sure you may meet the borders of other empires but never all of them, and even they you'll be as much competing for who get to colonise stuff that seems valuable to you both than actually taking land from each other (unless youre a warlike species that like the idea of conquest, but there should be room for a healthy long term rivalry between two relativly peaceful empires too). This isn't civ or EU where the world has a finite amoutn of land area the universe is infitinite and while the game itself cannot represent that it can be large enough compared to it's colonial speed that you'll never run out of places to explore and expand. The limiter for colonial expansion should be that the costs should go up as your overpopulation problems on your core planets start dropping.

Simulating an infinite universe in a grand strategy game may be a bit beyond even Paradox. It's just down to game balance, speed of and ease of expansion and so on.

I agree that choices are good but that means meaningful choices not like wide and tall in EU4 where wide is the superior strategy in every way. Decisions need to have consequences.

Agreed.

 

[Tim_Ward]

I don't think trying to apply terminology that came out of Civ 5 (or did it?) and trying to apply it to real history is a very productive thing to do. It's not as though they're even, really, mutually exclusive choices in the real world.

 

[CptWilly]

EuIV gave it a go with being able to spend monarch points on development, but since there's no real way to build a run-away monarch point engine, it's hard for tall to be particularly viable even then. I think some of the keys mentioned to pulling this off would be uncapping planet total population (if we could find a way to supply the necessary resources, why not 10 trillion POPs on the same planet?) while limiting growth factors so that it is difficult to grow wide without simultaneously stretching thin.

As with everything it would be about balance. I'd want the ability to play tall or wide without either choice being strictly dominant over the other.

 

[TheDungen]

Simulating an infinite universe in a grand strategy game may be a bit beyond even Paradox. It's just down to game balance, speed of and ease of expansion and so on.



Agreed.

Well the galaxy isn't infinite but it's much to big for any spacefaring civilisation to run out of space. And the game can do that. Atleast it can potentially do that, the people who donät liek the idea of not everythign being colonies could ofcourse chose a lot of people on a relativly small galaxy.

 

[Finnway]

Well love is a jsut achemical reaction very much on the first four dimensions. As for the dimensions being 1-4 that's not really true. We just like thinking about them that way. Hence there is not one specific 5th dimension any dimension besides our normal four can be considered the 5th dimension.

I was referencing a common trope in science fiction that "the 5th dimension" is love or beauty. That's Platonic beauty, mind you, not "chemical reactions in our brains."

 

[BrokenSky]

The thing about most 4X games is that a city with 10 pop is normally better that 10 cities with 1 because of:
* Wonders. A high pop city can build wonders faster and in games like civ where first person win, everyone else gets piss all, that's important.
* On - city % modifiers. You only have to build and maintain 1 for the full bonus.
* Units are all built in the same place. Don't have to spend a few turns getting your ships together
* Less land means you can focus all your defense in one place
And worse because of:
* Flat bonuses are given per city, so more is better.
* Growth bonus - more cities means more space which means more places you can build farms, often. (Thinking of Magica, Civ etc)
* In games where population growth cost increases with city size: getting from 10 -> 20 is way easier for wide than for tall.
* More land means that the enemy has to fight all the way across your empire to get it all, giving you time to organize a counter attack.

in Stellaris:
* it seems like wonders are going to be out there and you have to go find them. This appears to benefit wide over tall.
* Wait for next week's dev diary to see how this will work
* Still likely true
* Still likely true
* Wait for next week's dev diary to see how this will work
* Likely true - more planets means more tiles.
* Wait for next week's dev diary to see how this will work
* Still likely true, but depends on enemy FTL type - might be possible to run a strike force to the capital and try a fools mate, and this'd be harder in a tall country than a wide one, but harder to come in undetected in a tall one than wide (think calorimeters).

 

[TheDungen]

I was referencing a common trope in science fiction that "the 5th dimension" is love or beauty. That's Platonic beauty, mind you, not "chemical reactions in our brains."

I'm sorry I have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[Finnway]

I'm sorry I have no idea what you are talking about.

Obviously. Here's an example of what I'm referencing.

 

[TheDungen]

Obviously. Here's an example of what I'm referencing.

Yeah and crap like that is why that movie fails.

 

[ApocalypseMao]

I could see an empire where occupied planets outside the capital exist simply to provide resources for the capital and the majority of development takes place at the home planet.

Neo-mercantilism would probably result in disgruntled colonist pops and independence wars. I wonder if you could balance your ethos/government to avoid this.

 

[CptWilly]

Neo-mercantilism would probably result in disgruntled colonist pops and independence wars. I wonder if you could balance your ethos/government to avoid this.

Or just win the wars and hold your order together by force.

 

[Finnway]

Yeah and crap like that is why that movie fails.

Glad you're job. Now you get the joke (you do realize my original comment was a joke, right?)

 

[sumdood]

Neo-mercantilism would probably result in disgruntled colonist pops and independence wars. I wonder if you could balance your ethos/government to avoid this.

Or just win the wars and hold your order together by force.

Or just clean the planet of organic life-forms and replace with automated machinery.

 

[TheDungen]

Glad you're job. Now you get the joke (you do realize my original comment was a joke, right?)

Yeah but I still say it's a space opera concept not a sci fi one.

 

[Meraun]

About wide Empries. I'am sure there will be problems maintaining a Wide empire compared to a Tall one.

CK II example: In CK II, its much easier to maintain a Tall kingdom than a wide one due Cultural and religios differences. So wihle an Empire Containing France, England Scotland and Ireland with a french king will be able to Summen much more Troops than a Small Brugundy Kingdom with one Culture and one Relgion, its likley that ,IF, the War is long and hard the Empire will face rebellions in England, Ireland and Scotland. Giving Brugundy the change to force a peace or even to win a War.

EU IV Example: We arleady know we can have not only Planet Governours but also Sector governours. A sector will most likley contain several Solarssystems with multiple Planets. Maybe similar to
Colonies in EU IV. So we will face independes movements in Sector's and planets. I guess as further a Sector from the Homeworld is as stronger is the movement. Not to mention if its a different Pop.

So i hope a Wide emprie will be strong, but if a "tall" Empire manages to Survive the first strike and keep the war going, the wide empire will destablize much faster, giving the Tall Empire
a good chance.

Of course, if a wide emprie is very stable, it might not happen... but agent provocateur you know

 

[BrokenSky]

About wide Empries. I'am sure there will be problems maintaining a Wide empire compared to a Tall one.

CK II example: In CK II, its much easier to maintain a Tall kingdom than a wide one due Cultural and religios differences. So will an Empire Containing France, England Scotland and Ireland with a french king will be able to Summen much more Troops than a Small Brugundy Kingdom with one Culture and one Relgion, its likley that ,IF, the War is long and hard the Empire will face rebellions in England, Ireland and Scotland. Giving Brugundy the change to force a peace or even to win a War.

EU IV Example: We arleady know we can have not only Planet Governours but also Sector governours. A sector will most likley contain several Solarssystems with multiple Planets. Maybe similar to
Colonies in EU IV. So we will face independes movements in Sector's and planets. I guess as further a Sector from the Homeworld is as stronger is the movement. Not to mention if its a different Pop.

So i hope a Wide emprie will be strong, but if a "tall" Empire manages to Survive the first strike and keep the war going, the wide empire will destablize much faster, giving the Tall Empire
a good chance.

Of course, if a wide emprie is very stable, it might not happen... but agent provocateur you know

From what they've said so far I imagine that wider empires will be inherently unstable, since they have a higher chance of pop-mutation (ethics changes) and rebellion.

 

[AKicebear]

I have a friend who always complains about me founding city after city in civilisation, when to me that is what the game is all about.

I guess it's just personal preference, but a problem I have with tall empires being viable is that it forces gamedesign to implement prohibitive drawbacks for wide empires (which would otherwise always be superior). Some make sense (like a larger potential for local unrest and revolts) but others (like diminishing returns) do not.
It is hard to do right

Why are diminishing returns nonsensical?

 

[Potkin]

Once I made a little ( slightly cheaty ) mod for eu4 to play as extremely xenophobic remnant of Atlantis in Azores. Some events that would transfer base tax, manpower and production from any owned province to my capital over time, once province is 1/1/1 it becomes uncolonized land. All my vassals get events that drive them into bankruptcy by transferring huge amounts of money to me, of course my vassals don't stay mine for long and usually discarded just before they would rebel. As result my only province is one of the richest most protected places on earth. How ever i got bored of playing that mod very fast due to lack of depth as eu4 isn't intended to be played in such a way, but it's just an example of how one could go about building a tall empire.