All Civs need a unique District

[GKShaman]

Hello All,

Just wanted the community's thoughts on this - I find that a Civ that has a Unique District is awesome because:

A) Cheaper and Quicker to Build

B) Doesn't Count towards the limit.

Thus Germany and Russia become soo nice.

I'll give a more specific example:

India vs. Russia

In all my Civ games India is always fairly weak or awkward and Russia is always strong. In this game same scenario.

The Lavra just beats any combination of stuff India can put together with Satyagraha + Stepwell + Hard Building a Holy Site

Also the Lavra takes 4-10 turns to build. A worker, stepwell, and hard building holy districts are always beaten than by simply plopping a Lavra down.

Also we haven't even touched upon the other benefits of the Lavra (GP Points and Dance of the Aurora).

Thus India cant beat Germany at production - hansa. Neither can any civ that has no uniqe district.

This brings me to my next point - Only Scythia and China I find have any chance of beating a Good Russian or German player. Scythia as much discussed can mass pump cavalry.

China can only hope ot not be attacked early and pump out 2-3 ancient and classical era wonders.

Thus I want this game to have multiple civs with multiple unique district powers so everyone has a chance at a victory condition.

If that's not the case well then the game makes should just release the Tiers of Civs so the players know.

Thoughts?

 

[bbbt]

I agree that unique districts are incredibly strong, but I'd prefer they rebalanced the civs in other ways rather than giving everyone a unique district. I.e. make unique improvements and unique buildings stronger (both are weak now), and also rebalance some of the weaker civs.

And making sure civs with a unique district don't have tons of other strenghts. i.e. Germany is strong because they have a unique district that gives production (the most valuable resource in the game) and they also have the +1 district cap - which is ridiculous in combo with the unique district. Russia gets a unique district, plus one of the best units in the game (the cossack) plus the ability to grab extra territory - three big strengths.

Conversely, England has a unique district, but that's pretty much the only major strength they have. Greece has a unique district, but it's actually their free wildcard policy slot that makes them stronger. So I don't think a unique district alone makes a civ unstoppable, but definitely given a civ a unique district plus a number of other strengths makes them very strong.

 

[Phrozen]

Japan is strong without a unique district. Though they do get half price encampments, holy sites, and theater squares. The main thing is the adjacency bonus for the districts.

 

[Amrunril]

Forcing every civ to have a unique district would take away a lot of flexibility from civ design. It makes sense, in terms of both flavor and gameplay, for some civs to specialize in specific districts and for others to take a more flexible or generalist approach.

I do agree that there are balance issues between civs with unique districts and civs without, but I'd actually consider the opposite solution: making unique districts (perhaps with some specifically defined exceptions) cost the same amount as normal districts and count towards the district limit. This would obviously require some balance changes to the civs that currently depend on unique districts, but going forward, it would allow unique districts to be powerful based on their actual unique characteristics rather than simply by nature of being unique districts.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

Unique districts are extremely poorly balanced. Their unique abilities seem initially designed to match the power of unique buildings or unique improvements--that is, to grant roughly +3 or +4 of some yield, on average.

But then the designers seem to have thought, "we want to be absolutely sure players build these things," and so they made them half off and free against the population limit. Which is grossly overpowered and means that unique districts are universally good only for the fact that they are a unique district, not for what's actually unique about them.

To fix this I would do two things. First, I'd make it so that unique districts took up a population slot. Easy. Then, I'd make unique buildings half price, too. The Electronics Factory would become awesome! I'd make unique improvements now only take half a builder charge. Many of those also need a further yield increase to make them stronger than regular tile improvements.

 

[azzaare]

This above. Maybe I would tweak the builder charge thing to give one charge back to each builder (with a limit of once per builder) when it builds the unique tile improvement.

 

[GhostSalsa]

District discounts are so valuable because districts are too expensive and don't fit into the hammer economy of most cities well at all

I'd rather the game fixed production balance overall rather than adjusting uniques around an imbalance, but also

They should have just made the first UD your civ builds free, all the other copies """"normal"""" cost

 

[Gtdead]

Not every civ is supposed to be equally good at everything.

Take your India vs Germany argument. Who is more likely to survive having Scythia as their neighbor for example? Germany without any early bonuses at all, or India with Varus?

Of course, if the question is "Who is more likely to win a game, Germany or India?", I'd say Germany. That's because Germany has strong bonuses that lead to snowball, while India's bonuses are good at surviving.

I think India needs a rework, but relative balance can still be accomplished without giving a unique district. Perhaps add a more combat oriented aspect to the war weariness bonus or make stepwells a bit stronger by either buffing the UI itself, or adding a relevant pantheon. After all, Lavra with Dance is a lot stronger than without.

Same can be said for most of the civs, except perhaps Harald. Can't save that one.. ;p

 

[Jarms48]

I think the easiest way to balance unique districts is to just remove the fact that UD's can be built regardless of a cities district limit.

The other way to buff UB's is to remove their upkeep cost, make them more powerful, offer civ's two unique buildings when no UD is available (similar to Norway having two UU's), and/or making them build 50% faster/cheaper.

UI's should be made better over the course of the game, offering better scaling than standard improvements, but won't typically increase the two primary yields (food and production). For those that do, the Stepwell for example, be limited in placement.

 

[GKShaman]

Really Appreciate the feedback guys!!

So Overall I agree there are definitely options:

Scythia can definitely be the prime example of a non Unique district tier civ but we cant give that bonus away. The bonus is too good in actually.

Germany is a late game bonus but I personally dont think they should get BOTH district buffs.

As for India it always pisses me off that the civ in real life is super religious but in the game it never is as good at it. Back in the day in Civ 4 that was the best India - fast worker and starting tech of Mysticifism (gave the ability to found two religions really quickly get a lot of benefits).

At first I was super pumped about India, but then completely stopped playing the game since I found certain civs JUST cant compete.

Like India vs. Russia - Russia will outreligion it.
India vs. Scythia - Scythia will outcavalry it.
India vs. Germany - Germany can outproduce and build more districts.

Similar thoughts on Norway. It just feels like every game they game theres two or three amazing civs and the rest are left wallowing in mediocirty.

In other games like Age of Empires 3 Everything is balanced to a degree - (Japan is amazing late game, but their food growth is sloww and can be destroyed in a rush or with some harassment. Or like France might have cavalry but just limit hunts. Every civ has its strength but it can always be countered.

Doesn't seem like the case in this game. The stepwell and satyagraha can never match the a Lavra built in 3-4 turns. If you wanna play religious go Russia. Why would u ever pick India?

 

[God of Kings]

When will there be a civ with a unique Campus? Unique Encampment? Unique Aerodrome?

 

[Halcyan2]

Then, I'd make unique buildings half price, too. The Electronics Factory would become awesome! I'd make unique improvements now only take half a builder charge. Many of those also need a further yield increase to make them stronger than regular tile improvements.

I agree.

Unique buildings are pretty crappy and so are unique improvements (other than the fact that you can build many of them on plain desert). I concur with making unique buildings half cost, and for unique improvements to take half a charge, though I suppose that could potentially be a balance issue with the Great Wall.

 

[GhostSalsa]

And if every civ has a production discount on something, cities may as well start with 200 free hammers. It just shows that production is the only valuable thing in the game right now.

UBs and UIs suck because all non-hammer dots are pretty worthless without V-style multipliers. Mostly, tiles and buildings don't do anything meaningful in this game. It's just districts, TRs, calvary. Putting a citizen on this tile gives an extra dot. So what? Nothing makes a difference in VI except district layout. So UBs and UIs don't need a discount, they need the game to return value to 60% of its own systems. But that all gets back to the problem in the "falls flat" thread...

 

[GKShaman]

True but its gotta be balanced for all civs. All of them should have their bonuses but I hate tiered system in Civ.

Also the newest patch seems to address this:
"Most Civilization unique districts now require population to construct (like normal districts)"