It seems that going "wide" always eclipses any sort of "tall" build and that no amount of upgrading will ever save small empires from wider ones.In oldschool RTS like C&C it's obvious because those games don't have upgrades, so all you can do is build more.That's why I'm wondering how a strategy game could make tall builds viable.Even games that do have global upgrades usually cap out at +2 or +3, like StarCraft. In Dawn of War, you can upgrade your Space Marine health and damage a little bit but never enough to make true super units.I understand why this is being done for balancing reasons and all that, but it seems there is no game that rewards a turtle player who successfully fights off rushes and then techs up. It technically works in StarCraft but not because of the teching, it's just because the rush player is too far behind after you counter him.Stronghold Crusader comes close because you can find ways to survive and defend even when your farms are being raided, but it has no teching.In the end, you won't be able to keep up with the attacker.
>>2164048I think tall is viable in every single game. Maybe not necessarily optimal but viable absolutely.
>>2164048>It seems that going "wide" always eclipses any sort of "tall" build and that no amount of upgrading will ever save small empires from wider ones.Wide builds generally mean more things to do for the player, more cities/units/numbers/area to keep track of. More effort and work demanded from the player and thus it should rightfully pay off more.Tall builds inherently have a restrictive element to them but they always emerge naturally from game states when choosing them is the logical decision, for example when your simply have no room to go wide because the map restricts it. Like being stuck on an island surrounded by oceans with no other place worth the resources to colonize or conquer.In the situation where place is available playing tall means the majority of the map remains unused and thus wasted effort, wasted data, wasted space, wasted process. Opportunities unused, if you think of 4X startegy terms +eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate" playing tall means you are not doing the 2nd and the 3rd X-es from the 4 core fundamental principles of the game. It's like not playing 50% of the game.
>>2164048The problem with building tall is that space is limited and control of space is a zero sun game. By not actively fighting to control space, you cede space. By actively fighting to control space, you deny space to your competition. Even in a hypothetical game where building tall and upgrading existing assets is more cost effective than building new ones, the benefits of controlling space usually make it the optimal path regardless.And why would you necessarily want to invert that? Controlling space is proactive and engaged. If there was no need to interact with your opposition throughout the game, then the gameplay would revolve around SimCity base building and teaching towards inevitability. Why even have units and not just an I Win button that you tech towards? Why is it necessarily that you can't be proactive and control space with your units while also developing tall with your tech and infrastructure? Multitasking is a core component of real time strategy.I think you don't really understand the thing you want or what it would look like if you had it.
>>2164048Aren't upgrades in Starcraft super slow to research? You need like an hour to get them all.
Wide can also go tall with a bit of time. Tall can not decide to go wide without war.
>>2164048i'd argue castle rushing in aoe constitutes building tallbesides that there is only really ck2 and meiou i can think ofthe issue is that more is more and few games have resource efficiency so only games where being wide means your tech lags are ones where being tall works but, again, more is more so typically wider = more tech too
>>2164048Because you touch yourself at night and didn't have the time to learn new things.https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/5/51/Tabitha.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20101224215006Normal Humans can't find themselves comfortable in 3D environments because we are bipedals and designers have brain cooties.Protoss warp in buildings and units from the psionic matrix, ground planet factories, space platforms and spaceships, there is no need for modularity. Terran are young and desperate enough exploit everything without thinking about the future. The zerg just don't care.The Xel'Naga and Halo Forruners had literally space elevators and both were hunted to death, because factions were envious* of unlimited energy resource gathering. Always, Everywhere.https://youtu.be/PHaD-xZkj4A?si=Xy5R9jW-KxF8lvkvhttps://youtu.be/jvoaUUMFLm8?si=Wc9IDYutsgKI2LqRWe keep using qwerty and I am tired of it.>zsa moonlander>razer tartarusNah, just kill me already!
>>2164048I think you're approaching this from the wrong angle.Going tall is perfectly viable in games like Europa Universalis and Civilization and many nations specialize for that. It's just a different playstyle to focus on building up an overpowered starting location and relying on say a trade empire to win big. Sure playing as the usual big blobs will always be the best way to "win", but sometimes you just want to try and have fun with a different challenge than just min-maxing your land filling giga empire.But that's genres like GSG and their ilk. For your basic RTS and such camping out in one base and surrendering all resources on the map to your opponent is just dumb. So building tall is and can be a viable and fun experience, it's just that some genres are better for it than others and I couldn't think of a worse one than say competitive StarCraft.
>>2164048Go back to tower defense games friend. RTS games are clearly not for your taste.
>>2164048pick any game that has a research curve and try falling behind it>play short>die young and childless
>>2164048
>>2164048Empire Earth
>>2168044How?
>>2164048>That's why I'm wondering how a strategy game could make tall builds viable.through research, cultural, or exploration victory
>>2168073That's more of a 4X and GSG kind of thing. I think OP was wondering about it in the case of RTS titles.
>>2164048The tall/wide distinction isn't a thing in RTS. You're not supposed to limit yourself. You just attempt to succeed in spite of your circumstances, and games do allow this.
>>2168075>I think OP was wondering about it in the case of RTS titles.wide and tall don't really exist as categories in any starcraft-style RTS i've watched. The openings in those games fall on a scale from greedy, expansion-based openings where you sacrifice units for production, to aggressive, rush openings where you sacrifice your late game in an attempt to cripple or kill the opponent early.I guess in SC2, protoss plays more of a deathball style game whereas zerg tends to grab an extra base earlier than everyone else, but it's not like one faction ever has ten bases while another only has one.
>>2164048Civ 5 is a game where going tall is much better than going wide but that's because the game punishes you hard for going wide because of the retarded happiness system, increasing costs for policies and tech, and road/building maintenance. It sucks the fun out of the game because on easier difficulties were going wide is viable you'll be stomping shit anyways and on harder difficulties you're just going to lose hard if you go wide so you'll just be doing the same tall strats over and over.Anyways talking about tall vs wide in RTS is stupid since that paradigm doesn't really exist in those games but half the posts in this thread are pointing that out.
>>2164048Tall is finet. Tall Civman
>>2164106>I win buttonNot inherently tall, but Age of Empires 2 wonders let you turtle and win by doing so.
in order to stop everyone playing going tall solitaire in a game where heightmaxxing is meta you'd have to have some kind of largely space-independent contestable resource or otherwise pair tall players with wide opponents frequently enough
>>2169285lmao
>>2169321Alright good talk.
Netherlands in EU and many civs in many civ games are quite fine building tall. The "issue" is most games hesitate to punish going wide because why restrict player freedom?
