District Cost Increase

Did some scrubbing in Quill's series and found some answers to questions I raised in the Theorycrafting thread. I didn't want to derail that thread with this stuff, and thought it could warrant its own thread.

Seek said:

Questions regarding escalating district costs:

1. Does the cost go up for each one started or for each one completed?
2. Does the cost go up for each type of district individually?
3. Are costs adjusted dynamically?

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1. Cost rises for each district started.
2. No, it's universal.
3. Couldn't tell for certain, but it seems not.

Edit: Updated with new info
The actual costs of the districts seem to follow the following equation: B*1.1^n (floored - ie, rounded down), with B=Base cost (60 on quick/standard map size) and n=number of previously built or currently under construction districts.
(Thanks to stealth_nsk for the equation!)

Essentially this means that each new district will be 10% more expensive than the last. Two other things of note: City center tiles are apparently counted as districts here, and any civ's Unique District does not increase later district costs (although it is affected by other districts).

etc.

There are some oddities, for example one city of Quill's (Leeds in part 4 @ 6:03) showed the cost at one point to be 108 while other cities showed 112, a strange anomaly. Also, Aqueducts did not seem to strictly follow the cost increases other districts were showing - not really a surprise since they do not have a population requirement.

Edit 2: Please keep in mind that the data pool is quite small and that we are drawing numbers from an alpha build that is from early July, about four months before release! Anything is subject to change.

Edit 3: Update with info from Marbozir's playthrough:

Seek said:

In the final part of the series he has:

6 City Centers (including captured Aztec city)

2 Campus
2 Holy Site (1 in capture Aztec city)
2 Theater Square
1 Commercial Hub
1 Encampment

2 Aqueduct

1 Harbor (in production)
0 Industrial Zone

1 Street Carnival
_______

17 total Districts that theoretically/potentially count toward increased district cost (ie, excluding UD) if earlier assumptions were correct. We would expect the next district to cost ~300 production.​

However, District costs do not reflect this; different types of districts have different nominal costs:

• Ind Zone and Harbor cost 141p,
• Aqueducts have a derived cost of ~154p (determined from turns to build/production in two cities)
• Normal ("Specialty") Districts (Campus, HS, Encamp., CH, TD) cost 188p
• [Street Carnival UD cost 93p]

If the equation 60*1.1^n holds true, then a cost of 188p would imply that only ~12 of the districts are adding to the total - or that the equation is not quite accurate, or that there are some other totally unknown factors.

In any case, the slope seems much more gentle than previously thought.

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(Btw, 50% speed makes Quill a very drunk-sounding man.)

Have you looked into if city centers increase district cost?

Maybe the cost increase on a local level and on a global level.

One obvious thing which could affect the cost is hammer overflow. Could you check it? Other than this I can't think about anything affecting the district cost.

Also, maybe building different districts increases the district cost in different way?

Denkt said:

Have you looked into if city centers increase district cost?

Maybe the cost increase on a local level and on a global level.

Click to expand...

City Centers count as districts for adjacency bonus, so I would not be surprised if this were the case.

Denkt said:

1. Have you looked into if city centers increase district cost?

2. Maybe the cost increase on a local level and on a global level.

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1. Hmm, maybe! I've seen that suggested before but I forgot - I'll look into it.

2. There was evidence that it was strictly global; many of the values I listed were seen in multiple cities on different turns and with varying numbers of districts.

stealth_nsk said:

1. One obvious thing which could affect the cost is hammer overflow. Could you check it? Other than this I can't think about anything affecting the district cost.

2. Also, maybe building different districts increases the district cost in different way?

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1. I don't think so, I was looking at tooltips only, and as mentioned above, different cities had the same values (mostly! see Leeds footnote in OP)

2. Aqueducts seemed to be different, cheaper than normal districts (and without pop reqs), and of course the Royal Harbors were (as expected) about 50% of normal values.

It definitely increase.
There's "Base Cost" in the tooltips, and all district have same initial cost, 60 Production
Also, the tool tips for "City Center" says nothing at all

does it include city center districts?
(ninja'd)

Okay, went back and checked some things: For the second district the cost was actually 87, and this is while the first is still being constructed. This is true both before and on the same turn Leeds (his third city) was planted, then it goes up to the 97 that I had listed above.

However, before Manchester (fourth city) the nominal cost of a district is 97, at which point he starts on a Harbor in the cap. When Manchester is plopped down, the cost is 105 on both that turn as well as on subsequent turns.

So it would seem the unique district does not raise the cost of districts and city centers do. This would even out the jump from 79 -> 97 and result in the costs being approximately 10% over the last. It appears to round down as well. This also fits nicely with BenZL43's observation above: 60 (base) -> 66 (settle cap) -> 72 (settle second city) -> 79 (first actual district cost) -> 87 (second district) -> 97 (third) etc.

Very interesting. So it's not exactly a Tall v Wide scenario, but at the very least plopping down new cities appears to have a global impact on your ability to build districts back home. That's especially interesting for the Aztecs, who explicitly are pushed toward a Wide strategy but also have an ability to speed up District growth--great synergy.

Do you think the same cost factor is being applied to Settlers? We know they get more expensive as you build more, could they be tied to the same variable, so that the cost is actually based on Districts + Cities, not just the number of Settlers built?

I also wonder if capturing or losing a city has any effect on costs.

is the suggestion that each district per city goes up 10% or per civ?....if it is per civ at 10% increases 4 districts per city for 16 cities would get you to 27,000 production for that last dist (problematic for wide )....doesn't sound realistic so hopefully it is by city or some other mechanism to mitigate the cost

Seek said:

Okay, went back and checked some things: For the second district the cost was actually 87, and this is while the first is still being constructed. This is true both before and on the same turn Leeds (his third city) was planted, then it goes up to the 97 that I had listed above.

However, before Manchester (fourth city) the nominal cost of a district is 97, at which point he starts on a Harbor in the cap. When Manchester is plopped down, the cost is 105 on both that turn as well as on subsequent turns.

So it would seem the unique district does not raise the cost of districts and city centers do. This would even out the jump from 79 -> 97 and result in the costs being approximately 10% over the last. It appears to round down as well. This also fits nicely with BenZL43's observation above: 60 (base) -> 66 (settle cap) -> 72 (settle second city) -> 79 (first actual district cost) -> 87 (second district) -> 97 (third) etc.

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Nicely theorycrafted! These penalties seem very harsh though!
Before i always assumed it was individual per distrikt.

Maybe the cost increase has a hard cap at some point when a district costs as much as a wonder?

I still feel like my concern here is that a city can't do much of anything at all without districts, and if the district costs keep increasing like that, it seems like there would come a point where a newly founded city would become fundamentally useless because it would take a prohibitively long time to build a district, especially if city centers count. I hope I'm wrong here.

So the cost equation is simply B*1.10^n

B is the base cost (could be different for different speed settings)
n is the numbers of non unique districs (including city centers)

Maybe this formula is more correct: Cn+1 = Cn*1.10
With Cn being the cost of the n district, round down the value to the interger.

I still feel like my concern here is that a city can't do much of anything at all without districts

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You still get your citizens and they can provide atleast science, culture, food, production and gold and the rest of the resources as well. Districts and buildings could be seen as a form of citizens more then anything else. They are similar to the specialist in the older games provding rare resources as well as great people points.

Seek said:

Cost rises for each district started.

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By that wording, it implies that each started district permanently increments a counter which can never be lowered. Is that really the case? Or is the cost based on a formula which sums the number of completed districts currently in your borders plus the number of districts that were under construction at you moment you started this one?

Let's say you have two districts already fully built, and you start on building a third for 105. While you are building the third district, barbarians invade and manage to destroy one of your districts, leaving you with only one completed district and one district in progress. Does the cost of your construction project drop to 97? Or will it stick at 105, and the next district also cost 105? Or (worst of all) will the current project stick at 105, and the next district cost 112?

Alternatively, consider this (very) hypothetical scenario:

On Turn 40, the cities Rome, Antium, and Cumae await new build orders. No districts have been built in your empire yet.
First, you tell Rome to build a Neighborhood for 79.
Next, you tell Antium to build a Holy Site for 97.
Finally, you tell Cumae to build a Military Encampment for 105.

On Turn 41, a Barbarian Scout is spotted near the borders of Cumae. You can't reach and kill the Scout, so you'll have to order some units to protect Cumae from the inevitable raiding party. Obviously, it will help a lot if Cumae finishes its Military Encampment first.

Will you be able to do the following set of actions?:
Remove the districts from the production queues of Rome, Antium, and Cumae.
Resume Cumae's work on the Encampment for 79.
Resume Rome's work on the Neighborhood for 97.
Resume Antium's work on the Holy Site for 105.

I find it very likely that this cost will get to a prohibitive point... and then you'll get a civic that is -75% production costs for districts! Or something of that nature. The the cost will balloon to impossibilities again before another huge discount through a policy or tech or building

BrokenBokken said:

I find it very likely that this cost will get to a prohibitive point... and then you'll get a civic that is -75% production costs for districts! Or something of that nature. The the cost will balloon to impossibilities again before another huge discount through a policy or tech or building

Click to expand...

I also wonder, if city centers are part of that cost.... are the settler hammer increases tied to the same growth as districts?

Ack sorry for the double post! I thought I hit edit.

Denkt said:

So the cost equation is simply B*1.10^n

B is the base cost (could be different for different speed settings)
n is the numbers of non unique districs (including city centers)

Maybe this formula is more correct: Cn+1 = Cn*1.10
With Cn being the cost of the n district, round down the value to the interger.


You still get your citizens and they can provide atleast science, culture, food, production and gold and the rest of the resources as well. Districts and buildings could be seen as a form of citizens more then anything else. They are similar to the specialist in the older games provding rare resources as well as great people points.

Click to expand...

so far I haven't seen a way for citizens to provide gold (no "city connection" bonus from roads)..only UI gold boosters

But for the others, yes you can get that from citizens/regular tile improvements)

(basically all but gold, faith, amenities and Great People points)


There is the issue if conquered districts count (also do conquered unique districts retain their properties?? since they will have been placed due to them)
As well as the issue if the counter can be dropped (ie if I lose some cities)

...They got rid of global happiness only to replace it with a mechanic that's fundamentally similar (if anything, even more annoying)? If there is no mitigation, or it's inadequate, the first thing I'll do is mod out this arbitrary barrier. Who ever heard of a marketplace costing more in London on account of York building a new factory (etc)? Not to mention that it punishes players for playing the game well (expanding in an empire-building game!)... Exactly like global happiness.

There are policies that make builders and settlers cheaper to build. I can't imagine that there isn't one also for districts.