However, these increases are more than overcome when you can grow those settlements to yield more than 5% of your science yield, and more. Settling an additional city increases your science costs by 5% per city, and increases your social policy costs as well. This is backwards compared to the view of many players, who see tall as the-name-of-the-game. If your only choice was to play either a wide, sprawling empire, or a tall, small, highly populous one, which would make these four 'X's easier? Although occasionally tall has its necessity and merit, the answer is, far more often than not, wide. These four things are the four 'X's of a 4X strategy game, which Civilization V is considered to be. Explore, Expand, Exploit, and Exterminate.
