Should Builders even be in the game anymore?

[bbbt]

Considering builders no longer build roads between cities, they basically build everything within the city limits.
You have to build/buy them, and then they build things instantly.
There's already the mechanism to place things by the city (with districts and wonders).

Maybe they should cut out the middle man and just have improvements built or bought (cheaply) from the city build menu.

There'd be some rebalancing needed (no more out of the city chopping for quick starts, no more building builders in your capital and sending them to new cities to quick start), but they sort of seem like an unnecessary extra layer in the game at this point.

 

[Chinese American]

i suggested that. since they clog up the map for little purpose.

1UPT is designed for fewer unit types, not more.

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

There would be no way to get a new city up and running quickly without builders/workers.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

There would be no way to get a new city up and running quickly without builders/workers.

Just allow improvements to be bought with faith/gold (with a civic perhaps). Problem solved.

Tbh, I really liked building roads with my workers, and somewhat resent being robbed of that ability (Military Engineer comes way too late and only has 2 lousy charges! ). I might dl a mod that adds that back, if it's ever made. Or they should make it so that you can edit the proposed trade route to your liking, so you can direct the roads to make optimal patterns.

 

[demidyad]

There would be no way to get a new city up and running quickly without builders/workers.

That's wrong; even as it stands now, by far the best way to get a new city up and running in Civ 6 is through traders, not builders.

 

[Chinese American]

i wouldn't mind having to spend less time on the map away from the mess that is 1UPT. and refocus on reconnecting with our cities and citizens. there are many functions that have no need to clutter the map. especially the religious spam ( i mean in the game)..

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

That's wrong; even as it stands now, by far the best way to get a new city up and running in Civ 6 is through traders, not builders.

Trade routes are finite and you don't necessarily have an open route to assign to a new city when its founded. Improving tiles is still incredibly important, and represents a transfer of production from an established city to a new one. Having to queue up improvements would be silly.

 

[blciv4]

There'd be some rebalancing needed (no more out of the city chopping for quick starts, no more building builders in your capital and sending them to new cities to quick start), but they sort of seem like an unnecessary extra layer in the game at this point.

I don't know what game level or speed you're playing, but this strategy is "ungood" on emperor huge maps using standard speed. You're thinking civ v tactics and this one does NOT work. Please allow me to explain why. The advantage given to the ai, at least on emperor, makes it so while you're building workers to go out and burn their charges chopping down trees for quick starts, the ai is building units and come and kill your undefended or barely defended city.

I will concede It's possible I'm missing a game mechanic that impedes my performance against the ai.

EDITED for a blocked word. I guess the word I used to convey "To cause to move or proceed slowly; delay or impede." isn't acceptable. I hate newspeak.

 

[Chinese American]

I started a new topic on mod forums to gather ideas and start the project going: http://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/idea-improvements-from-city-screen-remove-builders.602908/

Quote myself:
"So instead, if possible, move the improvement action to the city screen instead. Actually makes lot of sense when you do all tile management in that screen anyway. Including districts, tile buying, citizen assignment. Only thing left is improvement. Unlike the former workers that stuck around, since builders disappear eventually, really pointless to turn them into units that clog up the already cluttered 1UPT map.

"If this is possible, the mechanic will have to be rethought from the ground up. i.e. the cost, the interface, the civ and leader ability, and AI handling."

 

[Ryika]

Builders are great, and in my opinion superior to any city-based system, because the builder-system has a lot of extra depth.

They allow you to spend resources is one city to get another city going.
They force you to think about routing instead of just placing improvements.
They are a bigger investment that has to use all its charges.
They must be protected from Barbarians.
They can be stolen or generated (The Aztecs are a good example).
etc.

 

[Chinese American]

you mean a lot of unnecessary overhead and clutter. most of the stuff you mention rarely happen and have very little effect on the game. (besides, the franchise is moving away from depth.)

workers needed protection because they stay around for a long time. builders get used up in a flash.
city to city resource , you mean like gold and trade routes? why couldn't city screen accommodate that?
by routing you mean pointless micromanagement.
stealing rewards can be converted to pillaging and trade route plunder

 

[Browd]

By transferring production from city to city, he means build a builder in City A and send him to city B to improve tiles.

I think you're going to find that you have to change many, many other elements of the game to accommodate what you desire. Not only are you going to have to find an alternative ability for the Aztecs (both builder capture and use of builders to speed district production) and China (extra builder charges and use builder charges to speed production of early wonders), and the Pyramids (free builders and extra builder charge), but you're also going to have to rebalance all of the production values in the game, if cities are going to asked to "produce" tile improvements on the city build menu. Yes, they already do that in one form by having to balance production of builders vs. production of buildings, units, districts and wonders, but how many turns of production will be required to produce a farm on that tile, and how many hammers are needed to remove the woods on that tile. And how do I replicate the ability to generate a builder in City A to remove Woods in city B? Also keep in mind that there are policies in that game that provide boosts to either builder production speed or number of builds -- those boosts are limited to builders produced while those policies are in effect -- how do you replicate that functionality without an in-game token (a builder) embodying those boosts/benefits?

 

[bladex]

i use builders all the time but those civil engineers don't need to in this i've never used them once i just use a trader to make a road. even if you do use them they die in 2 builds and i've never needed to build a fort either.

 

[Ryika]

you mean a lot of unnecessary overhead and clutter.

No, I meant exactly what I said.

The "If I formulate this in the most negative way possible and ignore reality some people will buy my argument!"-nonsense is getting really old lately.

 

[playshogi]

You could have it both ways. At a certain tech, introduce a policy card that eliminates builders, but allows the citizens working the tile to improve it similar to the way cottages worked in Civ4. That way, those who like their builders can keep them, and those who don't can get rid of them.

 

[criZp]

I plan to make a mod that give builders something like 9999 movement and non-turnending actions, so that I can finish off my business with each builder in just one turn. Gonna have to come up with some ideas to avoid the builders becoming super-scouts, I'm thinking to give them 0 vision and only allow them to move into tiles where there is no fog, so that they cannot scout at all.

Oh and popping the chinese wall all in 1 turn might be an issue to solve.

 

[Kougar7]

That would be pretty boring to have no workers... the city already spends forever building everything, adding more for it to build (and repair) would just make it worse. Even on emperor where I can't build most wonders my cities have no time to be building hex improvements or fixing them when it takes a crazy amount of turns just to build district improvements.

The excuse to "just buy the improvements" is horrible, we're turning the game back into V where you go for mass gold farming, found a city, mass-buy culture or scie or gold buildings per victory desired, rinse and repeat. There are many things I need to be spending gold/faith on already.

Having no builders also reverts the game back to a castle mentality, if an attacker pillaged hexes his only way to stop you from repairing them is to park units on them. Which doesn't work because the city defense will attack them. This lets people castle indefinitely, which was already a problem in V. The builder mechanic is irreplaceable in how VI functions and I like how it is currently implemented compared to V.