How many cities do you build and around what turn

[steinernein]

The problem with more units is that the initial cost for production isn't a joke after awhile nor is the upkeep, so you need to expand and then focus on building to maintain or to increase production where as if you halt expansion you can afford upgrades. I think there is a nice balance there where the game isn't going to punish you horrendously for not REXing / ICSing in a given time frame.

Each unit is going to cost you anywhere from 40 energy to 300 without price reductions and upkeep of 4+. Plus energy for tactical operations and demands. Factor in any strategic operations per turn and you start having a decent case for not churning out units and focus on quality.

 

[Sarmatian]

30 Cosmite(sp) 100 Energy is a pretty hefty cost early game. It's still a pretty big tax even through mid game when you want to be flooding the map with units/armies/upgrades or when you're building your end game weapons which are 50c each.

If you're building cities and not units, then the old question comes back which is, "Why build cities when I can just take them over?"

I guess if you aren't warmongering then you have a case of making cities everywhere but then that will piss off the AI eventually.

How you get cities is unimportant, the important part is that you have to get them and aren't penalized for doing so.

There is no reason not to have that +1 city. The cost argument is irrelevant. You need resources to expand, you gain resources by expanding -> expand more -> get more resources...

There isn't a single downside, no diminishing returns.

If that is the case, then at least real estate should be harder to come by, because even smallest maps have room for dozens of cities, and building cities up is pretty much a repetitive, no brainer task, after a certain point.

 

[Von Thoma]

I am gaming since the 90s, and be it friends, or internet, over all the years I have always heard the same complaint: Managing too many colonies is not fun, but repetitive. I even have some friends that think Master Of Orion 1 is better than MOO2, because it had less micro of colonies.
Yet, every 4X that I play, with the exception of CIV5, has colony spam and super repetitive build-order management. It's really weird.

yeah I also don't understand game designers, who do that, but that is the easiest way to say for them ...
look how long you have to play on one game , even it is a terrible grind ...

One of the worst at the moment is Gal Civ III ...
at CIV you could at least increase the allowed city spawn distance ...
or in Stellaris reduced setting to 0,1 habitat planets

BUT HERE no such settings , so when you play on the largest map you need to have 15-20 cities to win, or AI will spawn everything full with cities ...
and somehow they are all the same ... :-( only difference are because of the landmarks, BUT it doesn't feel different ! Most of the time you ignore it, as you already have 10+ cities and even forgot where the special buildings are , somehow !

 

[steinernein]

How you get cities is unimportant, the important part is that you have to get them and aren't penalized for doing so.

There is no reason not to have that +1 city. The cost argument is irrelevant. You need resources to expand, you gain resources by expanding -> expand more -> get more resources...

There isn't a single downside, no diminishing returns.

If that is the case, then at least real estate should be harder to come by, because even smallest maps have room for dozens of cities, and building cities up is pretty much a repetitive, no brainer task, after a certain point.

You're over simplifying.

There are plenty of cases where having +1 city immediately does more harm than good; taking another city means possibly losing units and extending logistics where you can't catch up, producing a settler may mean missing out on units desperately needed for defense; expanding may also mean rubbing up against the AI which may cause a war that you cannot afford to have.

There are no hard down sides but there are plenty of reasons not to have that +1 city.

 

[Sarmatian]

You're over simplifying.

There are plenty of cases where having +1 city immediately does more harm than good; taking another city means possibly losing units and extending logistics where you can't catch up, producing a settler may mean missing out on units desperately needed for defense; expanding may also mean rubbing up against the AI which may cause a war that you cannot afford to have.

There are no hard down sides but there are plenty of reasons not to have that +1 city.

I think you are nitpicking, rather than me oversimplifying. Yes, sure, there are instances when you'll want to delay building a city short term, but that doesn't change the overarching point is that you always want that +1 city long term. Talking from a pure game mechanics stand point. Personal play-styles or roleplaying not accounted.

There is no 'going tall'.

Most strategy games either have diminishing returns or a fixed number of administrative units (cities/provinces/castles) on the map, or even both.

 

[Eji1700]

The problem with more units is that the initial cost for production isn't a joke after awhile nor is the upkeep, so you need to expand and then focus on building to maintain or to increase production where as if you halt expansion you can afford upgrades. I think there is a nice balance there where the game isn't going to punish you horrendously for not REXing / ICSing in a given time frame.

Each unit is going to cost you anywhere from 40 energy to 300 without price reductions and upkeep of 4+. Plus energy for tactical operations and demands. Factor in any strategic operations per turn and you start having a decent case for not churning out units and focus on quality.

1. City buildings do not have an initial cost. If you cap out your energy spend you've still got plenty you want to do with more cities. Build upgrades once your energy is low.
2. More cities = more energy at a VERY efficient rate. A well specced city (especially once you've got a city to feed it and another to handle production) can pump out an absurd amount off energy to help handle your economic costs. There is no reason you can't just cycle building food/production/energy feeder cities as needed.
3. More cities = more cosmite. I think this is one of the biggest issues in that one of the best buildings to make if you're not making units will be the +5 cosmite thing.

So in a 1 player casual game, you can go tall, but it's not really "tall" as there's nothing that rewards you for doing so other than less tedious micro. None of the in game mechanics support it well and nothing really prohibits going wide. In a competitive setting the only thing that might stop you from 100% city spam is threat of raids, and even then that just means you'll spam a little less, not stop.

 

[steinernein]

1. City buildings do not have an initial cost. If you cap out your energy spend you've still got plenty you want to do with more cities. Build upgrades once your energy is low.
2. More cities = more energy at a VERY efficient rate. A well specced city (especially once you've got a city to feed it and another to handle production) can pump out an absurd amount off energy to help handle your economic costs. There is no reason you can't just cycle building food/production/energy feeder cities as needed.
3. More cities = more cosmite. I think this is one of the biggest issues in that one of the best buildings to make if you're not making units will be the +5 cosmite thing.

So in a 1 player casual game, you can go tall, but it's not really "tall" as there's nothing that rewards you for doing so other than less tedious micro. None of the in game mechanics support it well and nothing really prohibits going wide. In a competitive setting the only thing that might stop you from 100% city spam is threat of raids, and even then that just means you'll spam a little less, not stop.

1. 100e 30c (specific reference to the initial cost of the settler)
2. Depends on the math and context.
3. iirc cosmite is only available for the HQ, not for individual colonies. Cosmite is also limited to the amount of spawns on the map rather than available tiles.

For context, I'll take the domination approach of Civ for "tall" which is get a few cities then invade the rest instead of building your own settlers. It is true that you do want more cities but you don't want to be the one building them in this game. Which means you'll definitely stop spamming settlers because all your resources are going into military units or your end game race condition.

The only time where I see a resumption of settler spam is when there is a lull in combat, but that brings into light the context of the match.

 

[steinernein]

I think you are nitpicking, rather than me oversimplifying. Yes, sure, there are instances when you'll want to delay building a city short term, but that doesn't change the overarching point is that you always want that +1 city long term. Talking from a pure game mechanics stand point. Personal play-styles or roleplaying not accounted.

There is no 'going tall'.

Most strategy games either have diminishing returns or a fixed number of administrative units (cities/provinces/castles) on the map, or even both.

Depending on the game, mode, and really I guess I should say context, all "tall" means is when you stop expanding and begin attacking. You can say that the overarching point is that you always want that +1 city but you're missing out on the constraints unique to this game in each of the phases of the game (early, mid, late etc.), hence oversimplification.

We'll see where the meta lands.

 

[Sarmatian]

Depending on the game, mode, and really I guess I should say context, all "tall" means is when you stop expanding and begin attacking. You can say that the overarching point is that you always want that +1 city but you're missing out on the constraints unique to this game in each of the phases of the game (early, mid, late etc.), hence oversimplification.

We'll see where the meta lands.

I think the misunderstanding is that we take 'tall' to mean different things.

Going tall vs wide is generally about investing similar amount of resources into two opposite play styles and then comparing the results.

So, having a lot of low development cities vs having a few highly developed cities. It is not about whether you build or conquer, that is irrelevant.

In all strategy games, wide is almost always a bit better, simply because you want to encourage conflict and friction, as opposed to players just turtling and building up. Here, however, there is almost no downsides to going wide. If a city gives you X resources allowing you to maintain Y amount of army, 2X give you 2Y, 3X allow for 3Y.

So, unless there's a system that gives diminishing returns so that 2X allow 1.8Y and 3X allow 2.5Y (or a totally different speed bump), going wide is only available strategy there is for optimal play.

Without really going for complicated corruption systems/distance to capital/waste etc... a relatively simple solution would be to make techs scale with number of cities. Then we'd have at least one downside. And going tall should be a possible way of playing, as there are several ways of achieving victory that involve little or no conquering.

 

[Ethorin]

that would be a downside that would rapidly murder anyone's ability to research anything IME.

you NEED cities specced into production or you won't keep up militarily with someone who does, to pay for that army you NEED cities specced into energy, then to keep those cities from starving you need breadbaskets, and while you can hybridize a bit that either means you aren't maximizing SOMETHING or you are in even more desperate need for breadbaskets, and the export tax means you need a LOT of breadbaskets.

and like, ok, if you're Kir'ko you can probably use breadbaskets as makeshift production centers but that will run into issues when/if you run into someone with higher level production zones... +3 armor is kind of a HUGE advantage, even with all the ways Kir'ko have to strip it.

Also Happiness in this game is kind of a Tall Tax to boot.

tbph, while ICS was a problem I don't think AoW is ever really going to like tall strats, they are predicated too hard on the idea of securing a big tech lead/winning the game without actually needing to interact.

 

[steinernein]

I think the misunderstanding is that we take 'tall' to mean different things.

Going tall vs wide is generally about investing similar amount of resources into two opposite play styles and then comparing the results.

So, having a lot of low development cities vs having a few highly developed cities. It is not about whether you build or conquer, that is irrelevant.

In all strategy games, wide is almost always a bit better, simply because you want to encourage conflict and friction, as opposed to players just turtling and building up. Here, however, there is almost no downsides to going wide. If a city gives you X resources allowing you to maintain Y amount of army, 2X give you 2Y, 3X allow for 3Y.

So, unless there's a system that gives diminishing returns so that 2X allow 1.8Y and 3X allow 2.5Y (or a totally different speed bump), going wide is only available strategy there is for optimal play.

Without really going for complicated corruption systems/distance to capital/waste etc... a relatively simple solution would be to make techs scale with number of cities. Then we'd have at least one downside. And going tall should be a possible way of playing, as there are several ways of achieving victory that involve little or no conquering.

Tall vs Wide is game context dependent, it absolutely does matter whether it's about conquest or about building them because some games simply do not give you that flexibility, hence why I keep saying you're oversimplifying too much. More to the point of what the OP's title is since what you provide gives absolutely no value to it - yes, we know we need cities, but when and why? That's what most conversations about Tall vs Wide are about, it's about inflection points.

When you speak of things in terms of "all strategy games" you gloss over what makes them interesting and that is the context they provide furthermore by saying things such as "almost always" dilutes the value of whatever you're saying because it does not answer the question of where and when to apply it. I don't think I am being unreasonable when I ask you to treat Planetfall's nuances (which is obviously what the OP is asking for, not a grand unified theory) a bit more carefully.

The point of contention is not "going wide is suboptimal" but when to go to wide and when it is not optimal. By your own admission players will find themselves in situations where spamming would be a death sentence or cripple them which flies against the whole "more cities has no downsides".

Our differences are simply this: you think that there is no such thing as tall => wide and insist that there is only wide, I am saying that there is such as a thing as tall => wide and also wide => wider. You'll find this pattern in Civ 5 when people talk about domination victories and timings. You'll also find that answering the OP's question with your logic flies in the face with actual game play and ... strategy.

Lastly, it's fucking fine, there are enough indirect hindrances to prevent ICS and to allow alternative openings IMO but when the meta settles then we'll know for sure.

 

[Sarmatian]

that would be a downside that would rapidly murder anyone's ability to research anything IME.

you NEED cities specced into production or you won't keep up militarily with someone who does, to pay for that army you NEED cities specced into energy, then to keep those cities from starving you need breadbaskets, and while you can hybridize a bit that either means you aren't maximizing SOMETHING or you are in even more desperate need for breadbaskets, and the export tax means you need a LOT of breadbaskets.

and like, ok, if you're Kir'ko you can probably use breadbaskets as makeshift production centers but that will run into issues when/if you run into someone with higher level production zones... +3 armor is kind of a HUGE advantage, even with all the ways Kir'ko have to strip it.

Also Happiness in this game is kind of a Tall Tax to boot.

tbph, while ICS was a problem I don't think AoW is ever really going to like tall strats, they are predicated too hard on the idea of securing a big tech lead/winning the game without actually needing to interact.

Well, to be honest, I'm not unhappy with how the game plays. But, down the line, having more than one strategic approach would be nice. I just cited research as most simple way of doing it. Larger but less advanced army (wide) vs smaller, but more elite army (tall). Then you could make the decision which to use based on the map, faction, techs, opponents and your personal preference at that particular point.

 

[steinernein]

tbph, while ICS was a problem I don't think AoW is ever really going to like tall strats, they are predicated too hard on the idea of securing a big tech lead/winning the game without actually needing to interact.

Tall strats in this game will look like RTS all-ins and one/two base strategies from a SC2 perspective -- stock pile resources, get research, field upgrade, rush. So you'll maybe need two or three cities at most before collapsing in on an enemy as opposed to sprawling out then swamping your opponent with endless production.

Cosmite production is limited.

 

[Eelectrica]

I'm playing simple scenarios to get my starting strategy down better.
I've restarted the first vanguard mission a few times already and probably headed for another restart.

 

[Booo]

I'm probably a bit extreme in this case, but up to 11 cities by turn 30 playing skirmish. The thing about colonization is that it's heavily dependent on getting cosmite nodes early, but if you can get a couple you can colonize rather quick. I find this is the number of cities where you hit diminishing returns in the sense that more cities don't really make you research or make units much faster. The main value of more cities is instead about increasing cosmite income and to control territory.

I have also had starts where I've been so cramped up I haven't had room for more than 5 or so cities, but on those maps I take cities from others earlier than I otherwise would.

 

[Promethian]

Do you guys play on the largest map setting? ICS is a problem in other games because of the huge map. The normal map for Planetfall isn't particularly large. Also the cities in this game are way less micro than in previous games. Planning every tile for adjacency bonuses and controlling a variety of units that exist solely to build up those individual tiles is far more micro than what is required in this game. Hell the recent WH40k 4X has more city micro than this game. Set sector exploitation (at most 4 per city). Upgrade exploitation level. Such decision making. Much time spent. Wow.

 

[TheDeadlyShoe]

I usually go for 4 cities asap one way or another. One settlement, one colonizer, and then another one of either. Ideally another settlement. Cosmite crunch is real early game. You can afford two colonizers, but 3 is prohibitively expensive unless you manage to loot a bunch of cosmite.

I'm a big opponent of ICS and I hated AOW3 with city-founding on. I don't mind it much in planetfall because the sectors system minimizes how much city spam you have to do, imo.

Perhaps because the city militia defenses minimize the effects of hide n seek raiding strategies.

 

[Frank327]

Do you guys play on the largest map setting? ICS is a problem in other games because of the huge map. The normal map for Planetfall isn't particularly large. Also the cities in this game are way less micro than in previous games. Planning every tile for adjacency bonuses and controlling a variety of units that exist solely to build up those individual tiles is far more micro than what is required in this game. Hell the recent WH40k 4X has more city micro than this game. Set sector exploitation (at most 4 per city). Upgrade exploitation level. Such decision making. Much time spent. Wow.

AoW 3 arguably had less city micro though. The way you specialized cities was to get high base income of something and then use production to increase it by 50%. So your gold city and research city didn't build anything after several buildings which meant you only chose production for around two thirds of your cities.

 

[Mauer]

Regarding the impossibility of going tall, I knew the game was going to be like this already since I got a negative response regarding this when I asked in a stream, however I find this game easier to manage than most 4x games. The sectors system sort of limits ICS and the limited amount of buildings to build on each colony means you get to dedicate them to repeatables (wealth/research) early on and often, limiting the tedium of setting build orders every turn (but we need them to requeue automatically, please devs!), plus having armies instead of individual units also makes moving them around much easier.

However I think the maps are way too large for the amount of recommended players, thankfully one can go above the player limit in the advanced settings because even in small maps I would have room for over 10 colonies by simply expanding peacefully, and that's way more than I'm willing to babysit every turn early on.

 

[Sarmatian]

Tall vs Wide is game context dependent, it absolutely does matter whether it's about conquest or about building them because some games simply do not give you that flexibility, hence why I keep saying you're oversimplifying too much. More to the point of what the OP's title is since what you provide gives absolutely no value to it - yes, we know we need cities, but when and why? That's what most conversations about Tall vs Wide are about, it's about inflection points.

Again, different expansion approaches don't really influence tall vs wide strategy. i'm not disagreeing with your statement that there are different approaches in how to get cities, but that is beside the point.

When you speak of things in terms of "all strategy games" you gloss over what makes them interesting and that is the context they provide furthermore by saying things such as "almost always" dilutes the value of whatever you're saying because it does not answer the question of where and when to apply it. I don't think I am being unreasonable when I ask you to treat Planetfall's nuances (which is obviously what the OP is asking for, not a grand unified theory) a bit more carefully.

We're talking about game as a whole. Of course I have to use broad strokes in that case. Your focus on minutiae to try to show there is no big picture is just obfuscating.

Also, literally the first paragraph of the OP is "Do we have city spammers? Or 1 city only challengers?" - Obviously that is a reference to tall vs wide approach.

The point of contention is not "going wide is suboptimal" but when to go to wide and when it is not optimal. By your own admission players will find themselves in situations where spamming would be a death sentence or cripple them which flies against the whole "more cities has no downsides".

So, your idea of playing tall is deciding how and when to go wide???

Our differences are simply this: you think that there is no such thing as tall => wide and insist that there is only wide, I am saying that there is such as a thing as tall => wide and also wide => wider. You'll find this pattern in Civ 5 when people talk about domination victories and timings. You'll also find that answering the OP's question with your logic flies in the face with actual game play and ... strategy.

Again, you are focusing on nuances to obfuscate.

It is very simple - if two players reach mid to late game, one playing tall focusing on 5 large developed cities, can he compete with the other player who was playing wide and has 10-12 cities? The answer is no he can't.

Lastly, it's fucking fine, there are enough indirect hindrances to prevent ICS and to allow alternative openings IMO but when the meta settles then we'll know for sure.

Of course it is fine. We disagree about a game. I don't see the need for your confrontational tone but ok. You can advocate waiting for the meta to settle, but numbers are simply not on your side.