Then it throws its resources back to the metropole and the metropole can build stuff in that territory attached to that city. When you make an outpost claiming an area, you don't have to build it into a city. It makes going tall with a civ feel good and not disadvantageous at all. My favorite thing about the game so far is the territories system, I think.

The choices only get hard in this game when you're under real pressure. Do not play the base difficulty they suggest, too easy. The techs are often quite meaninfull, but the tree system sometimes feels like who cares go for the cheapest one. The tech system is still just pouring things from the tree on top of you as you hit each research. There's still late game sprawl and micro, but I've only gotten to about the 1800s techwise. Still really enjoying this one, still has all the excess problems of civ 6 with some of them improved and shaved off. If you see it on sale I can strongly recommend you get it, but before then maybe stay on the sidelines unless something you hear sounds especially good. I really like it so far but it's a big ask at 50 bucks. It's easy to replace those population points because the game doesn't really scale to the number of citizens in the same way that other games do, the underlying math is a little flatter and different on average, but it means your opponent is literally throwing people and production to you if they meat grinder at your cities which is a significant cost. So when guys die in the field it's a whole population point that's dying. Oh, and my other favorite thing is that making units is really costly-you use a population point for any war unit you make. So far it's a great system to make expansion worthwhile but not force you to micromanage a ton of cities and I love it. Instead you have to make little territory outposts which you can attach to your cities which throws their resources to that city. I'll report back if that cap goes up too high and it's just as annoying to micro as late game civ is. I have three cities and it is hitting my micro sweet spot.

You grow to 3 or 4 through tech and civics in the classical era, and then again 1 or 2 more in the medieval era but that's as far as I've gotten. It's soft-capped, so you can go over it, it's just that you hemmorage influence if you do. My favorite little thing about this game so far is the extremely tight city limit and one city per defined territory limit. So if you did not like civ 6 but liked other civs, I would stay away from this. But you can only claim another Wonder once you finish the one you have claimed.ДЄnother aspect about it is that this game *specifically* doubles down on things that Civ 6 went in for hard, which was about specificity of tiles, growing cities through districts, and the importance of specific natural resouces. Still not sure about their Wonders model-you have to claim them with influence so others can't build them, so you don't get into that frustrating race where someone else finishes something you were one turn away from building. The civ choice really matters because their special buildings tend to be extremely consequential. In my first real game (I've played like 7 hours in three work day/nights, so it has me), I went heavy into money since I was on the coast and opened with the Phoenicians and Carthagians but then got into these protracted wars with some minor civs and fighting with the major civs in the frontier territories so shifted to a fighty civ. I actually have found myself switching civ type. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about this, but I really like it. As I mentioned in the other thread, the front of the box feature is the changing civs each era, with a draft of civs so if you advance first you'll get your pick and if you do it later you'll be limited in what you can choose.

It's actually easier to tell you what's different from civ than what is the same. This is the civ game from the Endless Space/Endless Legend people. I talked about this in the video game thread and mezike expressed some interest, so I thought I'd split it out.

Humankind city cap