Concept

Tall versus wide

You might say: few big cities or many cities

Two ways to build an empire: a few large, developed cities (tall) or many cities (wide).

What it does

Is a real strategic choice only when the expansion brake is tuned so that both can win.

Ask

Does playing tall ever beat playing wide in this game?

Sources

1. Soren Johnson, GD Column 17: Water Finds a Crack, Water Finds a CrackThe essential problem is that 50 size-2 cities are more powerful than 5 size-20 cities as a number of bonuses are given out on a per-city basis.
2. Soren Johnson, GD Column 17: Water Finds a Crack, Water Finds a CrackThe sweet spot for game design is when a specific decision is right in some circumstances but not in others, with a wide grey area between the two extremes.

Use it on your project

teardown-apply: hold "Tall versus wide" (tall-vs-wide) from the teardown at https://teardownatlas.com/4x-strategy/ against my project

Paste it into a coding agent that has the teardown skills.

An AI agent wrote this map with the teardown skill. It can contain errors: check the sources before you rely on a part. About and legal