City Specialization Brainstorm

[alchx]

Currently, you're almost always going to build National Wonders in your capital, as the bonuses they give will almost always be maximized in the Capital. Its really only the diplomatic national wonders that are viable to build in non-capital cities.

On the contrary, I build national winders outside the capital.

Heroic Epic with Morale promotion - in a city that spends most of its time building units, if not building the Wonder of the World. In this city there is very rarely downtime and any processes are started. In the same city, mercenaries are bought or units are produced for donation to city-states (after all, we respect our allies and send them the best military instructors).

Ironworks with +10 hammers is usually a city remote from the empire, which can be located on an island in the middle of the ocean in a good location. But even with 4 fish, 1-2 atolls and 1 luxury there will still be low production - no hills and forests. The city will have to cost a separate fleet for defense and offense, so Ironworks will help a lot.

Circus Maximus - in the coastal city. Unlimited border growth + %% gold income from all sources (even from border growth).

Oxford - in a coastal city, as there are two literature slots and the city can expand into the ocean for the rest of the game.

The Hermitage is a coastal city - again, unlimited growth of borders. It may well be in the same city as Ironworks, as it is available after turn 200. By this point, other coastal ones already have their own Wonders of the World with 2-3 slots for works. The Hermitage is cheap and build quickly.

The main temple is in a city close to other founders of religions. There will always be a lot of foreign followers in this city, and reducing unhappiness by 2 will help. I would even add religious pressure to the Main Temple for greater immersion - after all, this is the center of counteraction to foreign religions.

East India Company - here you need to carefully choose a city for a monopoly.

The National College is in the capital, as there is always a maximum population - all quests for trade caravans for city-states give food to the capital. You can rework the quest so that the food goes to the city that sent the caravan.

The capital already has several wonders that can only be built in the capital. I remembered two - Apostolic Palace, Karlstein.

 

[CppMaster]

Oxford - in a coastal city, as there are two literature slots and the city can expand into the ocean for the rest of the game.

What's the point of ocean tiles? Are they that important?

 

[alchx]

What's the point of ocean tiles? Are they that important?

Ships cannot heal outside their own or friendly borders without special promotion or construction of Wonder "Grand Canal" through Congress. It is impossible to place 2+ ships in a city for treatment. During a war, you need a deep rear so that ships have the opportunity to recover at least 1-2 turns if the battle takes place in our waters.

Plus, you cannot allow the enemy to blockade the city.

If the battle takes place in the middle of the ocean, then with wide borders it is possible to quickly return ships to territorial waters for repairs.

In addition, within friendly borders you can receive combat bonuses from religion or Anti-warmonger fervor.

 

[CppMaster]

Ships cannot heal outside their own or friendly borders without special promotion or construction of Wonder "Grand Canal" through Congress. It is impossible to place 2+ ships in a city for treatment. During a war, you need a deep rear so that ships have the opportunity to recover at least 1-2 turns if the battle takes place in our waters.

Plus, you cannot allow the enemy to blockade the city.

If the battle takes place in the middle of the ocean, then with wide borders it is possible to quickly return ships to territorial waters for repairs.

In addition, within friendly borders you can receive combat bonuses from religion or Anti-warmonger fervor.

This is a lot of investment just for these tiles. Why not just buy a few?

 

[azum4roll]

Current specializations:

Military city: dedicated to producing units. Heroic Epic and Chichen Itza are built there.
Culture city: usually the Capital. Gets all Culture% bonuses and Great Works. All theming and Culture% wonders and guilds are built there.
Science city: usually the Capital. All Academies and Science% wonders are placed here. Scientists are always worked when the population allows.
Diplomatic city: has all the Civil Servant slots which are always worked. Dedicated to producing diplomatic units.
Religious city: has the Grand Temple, usually in the middle of the continent or coastal (depending on map) to maximize the number of foreign cities affected by pressure. Usually also the Trade city.
Trade city: has the East India Company, usually coastal unless you can get a monopoly by building it elsewhere. All international trade routes are sent from here when possible. Usually also the Religious city.

I don't think we need more, considering this can only be done by humans.

 

[CppMaster]

Current specializations:

Military city: dedicated to producing units. Heroic Epic and Chichen Itza are built there.
Culture city: usually the Capital. Gets all Culture% bonuses and Great Works. All theming and Culture% wonders and guilds are built there.
Science city: usually the Capital. All Academies and Science% wonders are placed here. Scientists are always worked when the population allows.
Diplomatic city: has all the Civil Servant slots which are always worked. Dedicated to producing diplomatic units.
Religious city: has the Grand Temple, usually in the middle of the continent or coastal (depending on map) to maximize the number of foreign cities affected by pressure. Usually also the Trade city.
Trade city: has the East India Company, usually coastal unless you can get a monopoly by building it elsewhere. All international trade routes are sent from here when possible. Usually also the Religious city.

I don't think we need more, considering this can only be done by humans.

Nah, we've already discuss that. The specialization is very weak. You said it yourself that you have almost the same buildings in every city.

 

[azum4roll]

You said it yourself that you have almost the same buildings in every city.

Which isn't a problem. Building order is different. National Wonders are dedicated to different cities. Some niche buildings aren't built by some players, it's just me being completionist and building everything.

 

[CppMaster]

For some, it is a problem. That this specialization is too little. Hence the discussion.

 

[alchx]

Nah, we've already discuss that. The specialization is very weak. You said it yourself that you have almost the same buildings in every city.

In reality, the cities are also very similar. There is a basic set of infrastructure. Shops, post office, transport, factories, markets, schools. It is impossible for any large city not to provide its basic needs at a sufficient level - there will not be enough logistics to supply all goods from afar.

Giant factories can be considered national wonders.

There are universities in every fairly large city or regional center.

In the game, specialization comes from bonuses from the wonders of the world. There are additional points or a %% bonus for Great Merchants - we grow merchants by occupying all trading slots. We produce a lot of units - grow engineers.

 

[Diomedes_]

In reality, the cities are also very similar. There is a basic set of infrastructure. Shops, post office, transport, factories, markets, schools. It is impossible for any large city not to provide its basic needs at a sufficient level - there will not be enough logistics to supply all goods from afar.

That might be somewhat the case today (though I would definitely argue cities are still very heterogeneous), but historically cities very often specialized on a certain trade or manufacture. Take early modern England as an example: Stoke-on-Trent specialized in pottery, London was the Financial center, university towns like Oxford and Cambridge were major cultural hubs, Sheffield specialized in scissor making and iron smelting, Nottingham specialized in medicine and clothing, Manchester in textiles, etc... These weren't just small specializations either, like Sheffield and Stoke-on-Trent, which were never very large, literally made the majority or at least a plurality of all scissors and fine pottery in England, and the number of academics per capita in Oxford and Cambridge dwarfed average cities by multiple orders of magnitude.

In modern countries there are still pretty distinct city identities, take America for example: San Francisco/Bay Area specializes in consumer Tech, Boston specializes in Medicine and Biomedical engineering research, New York is home to the majority of Financial institutions, Chicago handles a great deal of commodity trading, Los Angeles does Movies and culture, Dallas does natural resources, Phoenix has a lot of tech manufactures, Memphis does logistics, DC has all the defense contractors, etc...

Right now, though, by the late game the only meaningful difference between cities in your empire will almost always be just the total yields, the proportion of each yield to one another will be pretty indistinguishable between non-capital cities. That is in part because of the happiness system, and needing to maintain yields to a certain level to prevent unhappiness, but mostly due to the fact that by that point in the game you'll have more or less the exact same set of buildings in each city.

 

[ma_kuh]

I think some of the specialization you're looking for can be done using Events.

Just pulling out one of your ideas as a model:

You could also split a number of stand-alone buildings with multiple affects into two options, each one specializing on a certain attribute. Like the Military Academy could be split into the mutually-exclusive Recruitment Office and Military Academy, the former providing a larger production bonus with the latter providing a larger XP bonus. The Windmill could also be split into three mutually-exclusive buildings, the Sawmill (which would increase production), the Windmill or Grist Mill (which would increase food), and the Textile Mill (which would increase gold).

City Event: "Mill Specialization"
Your city has just completed its Mill. It may be the standard Windmill, or it may be a Sawmill or Textile Mill. Which is it?
Option A: A Windmill. (+2 )
Option B: A Sawmill. (+2 )
Option C: A Textile Mill. (+4 )

Minor tweaks to enable this:
Remove "Granaries and Grocers in the city provide +1 "
Rename from Windmill to Mill

For compatibility with no-events, you might also leave (and simplify) the +2 , but change the options:
Option A: A Windmill. (No changes.)
Option B: A Sawmill. (+2 , -2 .)
Option C: A Textile Mill. (+4 , -2.)


The reason I would suggest it this way is because it doesn't add building bloat (especially on tech cards), nor require additional assets.

 

[ma_kuh]

Also, I did want to mention that right now there's a stark style difference between Great Writer/Artist/Musician production (which only come from up to 3 cities each), and Great Engineer/Merchant/Scientist/Diplomat, which come from anywhere (in theory). I don't think that boiling them both down to Guilds-based production for both groups (cultural vs. infrastructure) makes cities more diverse and special.

 

[Diomedes_]

@ma_kuh While you're right to be cognizant of adding additional assets, I think the difference in yields you detailed would be practically meaningless. I was really trying to suggest like pretty massive differences in building attributes that would lead to sizeable differences in yields city-to-city. I didn't want to include many numbers in my original post, but here I'll give some rough numbers (i.e. idk if they are balanced) to try to explain what I was thinking:

Sawmill:

• +15% production towards buildings in this city
• +3 production to lake tiles in this city
• +1 production to lumber mills in this city

Windmill:

• +15% (base) food in this city
• +3 food to lake tiles in this city
• +1 food to farms and Wheat/Rice/Maize resources in this city (affect stacks)

Textile Mill:

• +20% gold in this city
• +3 gold from lake tiles in this city
• +1 gold to Sheep, Cotton, Flax, Silk, and Dyes in this city

So these are some pretty huge differences in ability, in large part due to how the main attribute of each building is a percentage multiplier on a yield, meaning it will maintain its effectiveness throughout the game.

Also, with respect to your comment saying that guild-based production for all GP wouldn't make cities more diverse and special:

1. I was really only proposing the use of guild buildings for Engineer/Scientist/Merchant specialists either in the early game or in the mid game, either by taking specialist slots off of the Forge/Library/Market or the Workshop/University/Customs House. Every city would still have access to Engineer/Scientist/Merchant specialists, but the number of specialists available for each GP type would vary city-to-city as a portion of the total slots of a particular specialist would be moved onto guild buildings. I.e. in an empire with 8 cities in the current game, with forges and workshops each city has 2 engineer slots, for 16 total. With guilds with a build limit of 3 and no slots from either the forge or the workshop, 5 cities would have 1 engineer slot, while 3 cities would have 3, for 14 total. The drop in total number of slots would likely not need to be compensated for as the total number of worked slots likely wouldn't change as most specialists aren't even worked in the first place, but could be compensated for by the forge or workshop gaining a +X% modifier to engineer production in the city if need be (like the amphitheater/opera house/gallery do for their respective cultural GPs).
2. While I do think guilds would add some city diversity, in that it would make city-to-city yields (especially gold and science) less homogeneous, I do think you are at least partially correct that I'm probably overstating the importance of the affect it would have. Though it would possibly affect how and where you place your GPTIs, as fewer GPs would likely be born in your capital, and the placement of those improvements definitely would increase city diversity.
   1. But I also think that expanding the guild system would be best accomplished were it to coincide with some changes to specialists and specialist vs. tile balance. Even with the current specialist system, increasing the strength of specialist yields compared to tile yields would be a positive change, but with a guild system I think it would be a fantastic change. I'm personally of the opinion that specialists should be rare but strong, and that the main limiting factor for how many specialists a city works shouldn't be unhappiness and food yields (though they should still be a factor), but instead should simply be the availability of slots. Right now, most cities for most of the game never work even a half of their specialists, let alone more than just a few, while a few cities (mostly just your capital) could often work more slots than are available to be built, and the cities with your guilds are almost always working all of those specialists.

 

[ma_kuh]

I think you can apply %modifiers via events to individual buildings as well, it wouldn't need to be just flat yields. I don't think you have the entire flexibility of building abilities, but I'm also guessing by skimming from the database inserts. Again, thank you dev team for making all of this a lot more readable.

Spoiler These, for example :

INSERT INTO EventChoice_BuildingClassYieldModifier
    (EventChoiceType, BuildingClassType, YieldType, Modifier)
VALUES
    ('PLAYER_EVENT_WAR_FERVOR_CHOICE_4', 'BUILDINGCLASS_FACTORY', 'YIELD_PRODUCTION', 10),
    ('PLAYER_EVENT_WAR_FERVOR_CHOICE_5', 'BUILDINGCLASS_BANK', 'YIELD_GOLD', 20),
    ('PLAYER_EVENT_BANK_DECISION_CHOICE_2', 'BUILDINGCLASS_BANK', 'YIELD_GOLD', 5),
    ('PLAYER_EVENT_ADVISOR_DEBATE_CHOICE_3', 'BUILDINGCLASS_BANK', 'YIELD_GOLD', 5),
    ('PLAYER_EVENT_WINDMILLS_MODERNIZE_CHOICE_1', 'BUILDINGCLASS_WINDMILL', 'YIELD_PRODUCTION', 10),
    ('PLAYER_EVENT_WINDMILLS_MODERNIZE_CHOICE_2', 'BUILDINGCLASS_WINDMILL', 'YIELD_PRODUCTION', 15),
    ('PLAYER_EVENT_PUBLIC_SCHOOL_DECISION_CHOICE_1', 'BUILDINGCLASS_PUBLIC_SCHOOL', 'YIELD_CULTURE', 10),
    ('PLAYER_EVENT_PUBLIC_SCHOOL_DECISION_CHOICE_2', 'BUILDINGCLASS_PUBLIC_SCHOOL', 'YIELD_GOLD', 10);

Anyway, didn't mean to side-track into specifics too hard, just trying to think about alternate means of achieving the goal.

I do like this possibility that "Great Person annexes" would be a different, unrequired building that sits next to e.g. the Library, and you only build them when you can afford the literal luxury of a great person. I won't dive too deep into compensation/balance suggestions here, but having a designed group of "half-buildings" that have 50% the era-cost for building (as a rule), and all they do is provide Specialist slots and other specialist-related ribbons, would certainly be a way to force specialization.

I don't know that the Amphitheater is the best model to copy though, the GPs % is wasted in most of your cities, and the scaling gold is actively being removed this congress. Make of that what you will.

 

[Diomedes_]

That's true about %s from events, but I'm still kinda anti using events, partially because the decision doesn't feel as meaningful as the decision between building very different buildings, and partially because a lot of community members don't like the events system (I'm neutral personally), so I'd rather stay away from it.

GP annexes sound pretty interesting though! My one gripe is that they introduce like an entirely new mechanic into the game, while the guild system already exists and is understood. Annexes don't solve the additional asset problems either, unfortunately.

As for the Amphitheater, I think you're right that the GP % is mostly unimportant and that scaling gold is being removed. I personally voted for the removal of the scaling gold, as I do think it was weird due to its interaction with maintenance and just being so small and insignificant to the identity of the Amphitheater, but I wish I had written a counter-proposal that either increased the importance of the gold scaler for the overall strength of the Amphitheater or replaced the gold scaler with a culture scaler. While I generally think that Wide play is too strong in the current game, I think scaling yields on guilds are a good mechanism for balancing Wide vs. Tall. Cities in wide empires are less likely to be able to work both specialists and the yields from great works and cultural specialists are comparatively smaller (due to per-city policy cost increases devaluing culture), and I think it would be good from both a balancing and game design perspective to have some mechanic, i.e. guilds giving X yields of Y per Z # of their sister building on empire, to at least partially compensate for that.

 

[alchx]

The presence of slots for specialists in different buildings allows you to neutralize unsuccessful landscapes.

If a city has no hills, then there are no hammers in the early game. Forests become useful after turn 200. Jungle after 250. But now cities can always use 2-3 engineer slots. Raise an engineer and establish a manufactory.

 

[KlHannibal2]

That might be somewhat the case today (though I would definitely argue cities are still very heterogeneous), but historically cities very often specialized on a certain trade or manufacture. Take early modern England as an example: Stoke-on-Trent specialized in pottery, London was the Financial center, university towns like Oxford and Cambridge were major cultural hubs, Sheffield specialized in scissor making and iron smelting, Nottingham specialized in medicine and clothing, Manchester in textiles, etc... These weren't just small specializations either, like Sheffield and Stoke-on-Trent, which were never very large, literally made the majority or at least a plurality of all scissors and fine pottery in England, and the number of academics per capita in Oxford and Cambridge dwarfed average cities by multiple orders of magnitude.

In modern countries there are still pretty distinct city identities, take America for example: San Francisco/Bay Area specializes in consumer Tech, Boston specializes in Medicine and Biomedical engineering research, New York is home to the majority of Financial institutions, Chicago handles a great deal of commodity trading, Los Angeles does Movies and culture, Dallas does natural resources, Phoenix has a lot of tech manufactures, Memphis does logistics, DC has all the defense contractors, etc...

Right now, though, by the late game the only meaningful difference between cities in your empire will almost always be just the total yields, the proportion of each yield to one another will be pretty indistinguishable between non-capital cities. That is in part because of the happiness system, and needing to maintain yields to a certain level to prevent unhappiness, but mostly due to the fact that by that point in the game you'll have more or less the exact same set of buildings in each city.

Agreed. Modern cities often also have a higher population than nations up to 1800. So they can produce more different things.

 

[martindo]

@alchx I wouldn't say ZERO hammers. There are often luxuries that enable a hammer, esp if on plains. Also, go for Husbandry to see horses appear, and then Bronze Working to see iron -- either of those give hammers.

As for "planting" a Great Engineer to get a manufactory. I very rarely do it because I save them for Wonder production. But I certainly wouldn't raze a manufactory if it exists in a captured city.

 

[myclan]

I’m quite appreciated by the idea that makes specialists a little rarer but much stronger. We can decrease the amount of scientists in each city, but be able to raise more by building "guilds" in several cities, which produce much more beakers than other cities. And Merchant/Engineer can works in a similar way, instead of just producing GP but unsatisfied yields.

 

[alchx]

By simply reducing the number of slots, besieged cities will become a significant burden on the empire, as they will be filled with laborers instead of temporarily filling the slots of engineers, merchants, or scientists. These slots during a siege can be considered a replacement for blocked landscape improvements such as manufactories, academies, and towns. If a city has lost access to the academy and there is no scientist slot, then it is impossible to compensate for the missing part of the science and the city will have a stable unhappiness. This dropped part of science will also affect the overall happiness of the empire. The unhappiness of the entire empire will weaken the army, which will receive a -10..-20% penalty in combat operations.

To compensate for lost culture from villages or luxury, you can simply instantlymove a piece of art or music from one city to another. This cannot be done with local science and gold. since it is pointless to send caravans from a besieged city.

Cities located in the middle of the ocean on small islands will be very difficult to develop, as they clearly have a problem with hammers. But they will have a huge number of citizens, since everyone works in the ocean and produces +2 food, in addition to the food eaten, before modifiers.

Overpopulation will also be a problem in mainland cities due to excess food and fewer specialists.