T w e n t y S i d e d

Like I said last time, I really missed being able to play tall in Civilization VI. The other thing I miss is min-maxing by building “specialty” cities. And the other, other thing I miss is building wonders.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Civilization Part 5: Making Cities Less Special”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Like I said at the start of this series, Civilization VI frustrated me by deliberately working against my preferred playstyle. So let’s talk about where it all went wrong.

Broadly speaking, there are two main approaches to building your empire in these games: You can build tall, or build wide. Building wide means expanding rapidly and covering as much of the map as possible with small cities. In contrast, building tall means focusing on a small number of cities and making them as large and as sophisticated as possible. 

These two strategies can have an enormous impact on your power level, your city development, and even how long it takes to play the game. 

Go Tall or Go Home

As many people already guessed in the comments, I am a huge fan of the tall playstyle. In fact, I think that’s the central appeal of the series for me. I obsess over making sure my cities are placed far apart so they have lots of breathing room and don’t crowd each other in the late game. I enjoy having lots of workers buzzing around my cities, improving tiles and laying down roads. I’ll obsess over tile improvements and look for ways to optimize land usage to make my cities flourish.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Civilization Part 4: Tall Play”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.