Screenshot analysis!

kaspergm said:
While that is inarguably true, it's a bit besides the point I was trying to make. I used the University example because in [previous] Civ games, a University is generally speaking always desirably, even with it's maintenance cost.

My point was an objection to the argument "if it has no drawbacks, it should happen automatically". I would argue completely opposite: If it has no drawbacks, it must never happen automatically. The whole point of a strategy game like Civ is you need to manage pros and cons of options the game offers you. Every time something becomes automatic like this supposed railroad upgrade, it defeats a part of the entire purpose of the game as I see it.
Click to expand...

If it has no drawbacks it should either
1. happen automatically (since there is no choice)
2. be eliminated ("")
3. have drawbacks added.... enough so that there is a choice

So if universities are always worth building
1. get universities on researching the tech
2. eliminate universities
3. triple or quintuple the build cost of universities (or cause them to reduce population by 5 ...science=horrible human experiments/people laying around uselessly)

sorry for going off topic.... but it appears that all routes have 4 levels, and all levels are equally easy to build
 
KrikkitTwo said:
If it has no drawbacks it should either
1. happen automatically (since there is no choice)
2. be eliminated ("")
3. have drawbacks added.... enough so that there is a choice

So if universities are always worth building
1. get universities on researching the tech
2. eliminate universities
3. triple or quintuple the build cost of universities (or cause them to reduce population by 5 ...science=horrible human experiments/people laying around uselessly)

sorry for going off topic.... but it appears that all routes have 4 levels, and all levels are equally easy to build
Click to expand...
Well, yes, that's my point: That's where construction time and production cost comes into play. Universities are "always"* worth it, but you need to construct them, taking up the construction slot from other things (that might possibly be worth constructing before the university). That's what makes the game work. If you got your universities instantly as soon as you researched the appropriate tech, the game would just be a question of reaching certain key techs first (which, in some ways, it already is, but even more so ...).

That's why I'm advocating for some sort of construction limit/obstacle/opportunity cost** on railroads. Have it take some time, have it cost some money, make it a construction project in the city, make it a unit action, whatever. But something that means you have to invest something to get the benefits. Roads that just upgrade automatically are just ... meh!

And for the record, I hate the automatic upgrade to medieval roads also!


* PS: Instead of the University, use the Market or Bank from Civ5 as examples. There is NO drawback to getting a market. It costs nothing in upkeep. But that does NOT mean you should get markets for free in every city. I think we can all agree on that - right?

** And with regards to the thing about railroads needing certain techs which are off-path to get them. Yes, that is a half opportunity cost. But unless the railroad tech is actually a dead-end off the tech tree, I don't really buy that as a full point, because you'll generally need to go through the tech at some point or another, although of course there's still the matter of tech order which is relevant.
 
kaspergm said:
Well, yes, that's my point: That's where construction time and production cost comes into play. Universities are "always" worth it, but you need to construct them, taking up the construction slot from other things (that might possibly be worth constructing before the university). That's what makes the game work. If you got your universities instantly as soon as you researched the appropriate tech, the game would just be a question of reaching certain key techs first (which, in some ways, it already is, but even more so ...).

That's why I'm advocating for some sort of construction limit/obstacle on railroads. Have it take some time, have it cost some money, make it a construction project in the city, make it a unit action, whatever. But something that means you have to invest something to get the benefits. Roads that just upgrade automatically are just ... meh!

And for the record, I hate the automatic upgrade to medieval roads also!
Click to expand...

And roads should be treated differently than farms because...?
 
Magil said:
And roads should be treated differently than farms because...?
Click to expand...

... they are different? They don't exclude other improvements, districts and wonders. They could coexist with all of them, which could lead to "road spam" case.

Also, the increased farm production is a balancing issue to allow further city growth first and moving to neighborhoods later. Roads don't have such requirement. So non-automatic road upgrades COULD be used for additional gameplay choices. Not saying it SHOULD, but it's surely an opportunity.
 
stealth_nsk said:
... they are different? They don't exclude other improvements, districts and wonders. They could coexist with all of them, which could lead to "road spam" case.

Also, the increased farm production is a balancing issue to allow further city growth first and moving to neighborhoods later. Roads don't have such requirement. So non-automatic road upgrades COULD be used for additional gameplay choices. Not saying it SHOULD, but it's surely an opportunity.
Click to expand...

Actually, I'd argue that increasing the efficiency of roads automatically is exactly the same kind of situation as increasing the efficiency of farms (and other improvements, like mines), something that naturally occurs as technology advances, and does not need the player to rebuild their improvements. Roads are a tile improvement, just one that doesn't exclude others (which is why they provide no yield).

All evidence presented thus far tells me that road spam is going to happen (and I'd argue that since it happened for four Civs prior to V it's not a problem). Districts are all pictured with roads running through them, which to me strongly implies that districts all have roads prebuilt in their tiles. The strategic balancing point seems to be be enemy units being able to use roads, which could punish careless road placement, and that roads can only be built by traders early on (which means that for "spam" to truly take off, you need to wait until military engineers are available).
 
University had no drawback because it was mainly a way to invest science (education) now to get much more science a bit later. The problem is that you must research education anyway to reach deeper into the tech tree which meant the only choice you had was then to research education not if Im going to research education and given that the earlier you got education the earlier you could boost your science and snowball through the tech tree ment that the only sound option meant to get education as early as possible.

We don't know how much movement railroad give and we know that the enemy can use our roads as well which is a huge drawback for building roads. It is also strange that you must build railroads as a separate thing if their only thing is to make your stuff move faster. In previous games railroad have also had a part in your economical development but do we know if that is the case of civilization VI.
 
Denkt said:
We don't know how much movement railroad give and we know that the enemy can use our roads as well which is a huge drawback for building roads. It is also strange that you must build railroads as a separate thing if their only thing is to make your stuff move faster. In previous games railroad have also had a part in your economical development but do we know if that is the case of civilization VI.
Click to expand...

This is a point. If all railroads do is increase the movement rate of units on roads, then this makes perfect sense, and has precedent (in IV, the engineering tech made roads reduce movement costs to 1/3 instead of 1/2, the Vox Populi mod for V did something similar, with roads becoming better as more techs are researched) for the upgrades to be automatic and free, since you've already "invested" in placing the road.

It would make more sense to need to invest in railroads if they provide some other benefit, like an economic boost to cities. But I haven't seen any shots suggesting that.
 
Denkt said:
In previous games railroad have also had a part in your economical development but do we know if that is the case of civilization VI.
Click to expand...


I can't remember any Civ-game where the actual railroad gave any economic boost (except the railroad tech itself that gave an extra trade route in CiV). In Civ 2 railroads gave some production boost as well as increased movement. In Civ 3 it gave a huge movement boost and gave some tiles a boost (+1H for mines and +1F for irrigated farms). In cIV it vastly increased movement, and in CiV it increased movement and increased production to a city that was connected to the capital with a railroad. However CiV also introduced a quite big maintenance cost (-2 GPT) for railroads.


Mod: Feel free to move the railroad discussion to a seperate thread, I realize this is slightly off topic
 
Haggbart said:
I can't remember any Civ-game where the actual railroad gave any economic boost (except the railroad tech itself that gave an extra trade route in CiV). In Civ 2 railroads gave some production boost as well as increased movement. In Civ 3 it gave a huge movement boost and gave some tiles a boost (+1H for mines and +1F for irrigated farms). In cIV it vastly increased movement, and in CiV it increased movement and increased production to a city that was connected to the capital with a railroad. However CiV also introduced a quite big maintenance cost (-2 GPT) for railroads.
Click to expand...

I believe he was using "economic" in a broader sense rather than strictly referring to gold income. In past Civ games, it added to tile yields or provided bonuses to cities connected via railroad, above and beyond what a road connection could give.
 
Magil said:
I believe he was using "economic" in a broader sense rather than strictly referring to gold income. In past Civ games, it added to tile yields or provided bonuses to cities connected via railroad, above and beyond what a road connection could give.
Click to expand...


I do know that the broad definition of economics is not limited to money/finances, but in Civ-context that is usually the case (as evidenced by the bonuses given by the economics tech). So for clarification I just wanted to point out that it was always a production boost (except from Civ 3 where you could get a food boost on some tiles), and that in CiV it could actually hurt your economy with the maintenance.

But yeah, I agree that if the only thing railroads do is increase movement without any drawback, they might as well upgrade automatically. But that would be disappointing and a missed opportunity to give the player a tactical decision. For example a railroad to another Civ could increase TR yields but if you have maintenance and he has increased troop movement to your doorstep, you'd have to consider the tradeoff.
 
Well as I said about 10 pages ago, I'm inclined to think it's a parachute icon over an airship. Google search of parachute icons shows plenty of icons that look almost identical to that one. The only thing about the civ6 icon that seems off is that the top doesn't really round off. So I like Haig's find.

That said, how's this for some wild speculation - What if it's actually a support unit that enables other units to be air dropped?
 
Yeah it could be an airdrop icon.

Now that there's a promotion 'commando' that allows units to scale cliff walls, like a marine, now maybe the upgrades create the marines and paras instead of having units few actually build.. I wouldn't mind.
 
A new 3 tile natural wonder! source 9:43

PiopiotahiMap_zpshhnr1ubi.png


PiopiotahiPopup_zps4uxig2pf.png
 
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