Amenities are either totally broken or I simply don't understand how they work

Have a look a my city overview of amenities in an AW game I am currently playing. I have 20 cities in this overview.

Now, I have a policy enabled that give 1 added amenity for a military unit stationed in each city. That alone should account for at least 10+ amenities (I am playing always war and need to defend a lot). Then, if I don't understand incorrectly, per luxury, we should get 4 amenities? Or how on earth does this system work? I mean, I got a big empire with some of luxuries claimed (sugar, diamonds, dyes, gypsum, marble). Four luxuries should give at least 16 amenities.

So, with some entertainment built, the 1 added amenity for the capital, around 15 military unit amenities and 16 luxury amenities, we should have 32 total. In the overview below, I can only count 16 total. Is the rest being 'eaten up' by war weariness?

 

I believe so. Look at iwnw and Boston. It shows -1 amenities, yet the war weariness alone is -4 or -5. So it must be getting that + from somewhere. Which means that all those war weariness are sucking up what would otherwise make for a happier empire.

 

My issue is it's not clear how many luxuries you need and what you can trade away. The UI doesn't make this clear. So when jugging multiple copies of multiple luxuries, I'm a bit lost. Anyone have a better understanding and can explain?

 

The last I heard from MadDjinn is that extra luxes do absolutely nothing. If that's right, then it's a simple rule of "Each unique lux gets you 4 amenities spread out somewhere". And remember that you need 1 per 2 citizens past the free citizens. So I think of each unique lux as allowing 8 citizens.

Spares are therefor good for trade. Get some gold, goodwill, or if you're lucky swap for another lux.

I'll let someone correct where I'm wrong.

 

Each unique luxury only helps 4 cities. From the manual: "Only one source of a specific luxury provides amenities, shared with the four neediest cities in your empire. For example, if you have 2 Citrus resources improved around your capital, only the first will be providing amenities to your empire"

 

I think you mean "each unique luxury". Yet another point of confusion in this game because they renamed something abstract "happiness" with something tangible "amenity". Even though an amenity isn't a tangible entity you can see in the world.

 

Indeed, I meant luxury. Fixed it, thanks.

 

wait so 2 copies of a same luxury wont be able to provide amenities to 8 cities now?

 

Exactly. I haven't tested extensively to disprove this, but reading between the lines of MadDjinn's comment, he had spent some time with Civ VI before we got it perhaps.

 

I thought 2 copies gave 8 amenities too; 1 for each city so up to 8 cities instead of 4?

 

How does luxuries work with multiple cities then? 1st 4 get the first unique lux, next 4 get the next lux? how do we get more one luxury to work per city?

 

It's assigned automatically based on need. I think you're overthinking it. It's really as simple as:

Each unique luxury provides 1 amenity to 4 different cities. Thus, 2 unique luxes provide for 2 sets of 4 different cities. This could be 1 across 8 cities, or it could be 2 across 4 cities. If you have 6 cities, then it would be 2 across 2, and 1 across the other 4.

If you want to imagine how it fills them, think of water seeking the lowest level. Every new amenity seeks the lowest level.

 

Each unique luxury has 4 amenities (no matter how many copies you have of it)

Each city goes up and takes no more than 1 amenity from each unique luxury pile, until it is happy/content

So if you have 3 different luxuries, 4 cities can get up to 3 amenities.... if you have more than 4 cities, those amenities will get spread out to make every city equal.

 

Amenities have never been an issue for me, but housing has. I'm rolling in amenities every game with no idea how the system works, but I always have two or three cities that are struggling with housing. I know what I need to build to increase housing, but sometimes it can take forever.

How do you control population this year?

 

War weariness is automatically deduced from that overview.

What is happening is that all your amenities that are flexible (from luxuries) are going to the war wear cities to try and get them as close to zero as possible, and so none are left over for others. Thus many cities simply have the 1 - from the garrison.

Ie: You have -26 from war weariness, however those cities sit at a net position of 0 amenities. That means you are pushing 26 amenities in to those cities - pretty much all your luxuries will be tied up in them, so even if you have 6 luxuries you're not gaining.

Take away the war weariness from those cities and your amenities will go up 1-2 in every other city.

Once you remember this the overview makes perfect sense.

What would be interesting to know if how war weariness is calculated. My capital never got it at all despite spending the whole game at war. Perhaps because it was never on the front lines or captured.

 

I'm sure that's what the dev said.

 

So....... when you get luxuries from the AI (and city states too I suppose), where do they show up?
They're not under the "View Reports" window, and they're not listed in the diplomacy screen as tradeable to others.

Seems like another missing piece of functionality.

 

Your statement makes sense. I will monitor this city overview with the game still in progress and then try and get an idea of war weariness mechanisms. Looking at my screenshot, the city with war weariness are rather spread out. I took out China long ago and just conquered USA. Hence, the high value for Xian is a little puzzling. Kumasi was the first city state I took out. Why it has such high war weariness? No idea.

 

I don't believe it goes down if you stay at war. You need to 'rest' for a bit to get it to go down.

 

Cities that are not yours have higher war weariness