Amenity Formula

[Atlas627]

Jason, when you say first two cities... 3rd city, etc. you seem to be referring to the order of their build or acquisition. But I noticed in the England video, the order of the city was also the size of the cities. Could it be that the luxuries get distributed to the largest cities?. So the two largest cities would get all the luxuries, the next two largest cities would get all but one of the luxuries etc. Does that work? (not sure how ties would be resolved).

Or one more possibility. You remove all the luxuries from all the cities, then distribute them to the cities based on lowest amenity to highest? So the cities that need them most would get the most?

What if you wanted some cities to be happier than others? I wouldn't want my amenities to be automatically distributed evenly.

If its by order of acquisition, I like that. Your core cities should be founded first, and should have the most luxuries shipped back to them.

 

[Big J Money]

Could this be related to districts and/or buildings?

I.E. You only get the full amenity (from lux) bonus when you have the right configuration of districts or buildings?

Also to be clear Jason, have you 100% been able to confirm that when you see the declining bonus, it's always only the "amenities from luxeries" bonus, and not the total amenity value?

 

[kaspergm]

What if you wanted some cities to be happier than others? I wouldn't want my amenities to be automatically distributed evenly.

If its by order of acquisition, I like that. Your core cities should be founded first, and should have the most luxuries shipped back to them.

I had seriously hoped there would be an option to distribute luxuries between cities, but sadly, I haven't seen this in any previews, so I doubt that is the case. Really, it should work a bit like the great works interface in civ5, i.e. you drag and drop your available luxuries between a list of your towns.

 

[Stringer1313]

I had seriously hoped there would be an option to distribute luxuries between cities, but sadly, I haven't seen this in any previews, so I doubt that is the case. Really, it should work a bit like the great works interface in civ5, i.e. you drag and drop your available luxuries between a list of your towns.

This x100 - and perhaps even give bonus effects to cities that have X feature (like a building or a mountain or something). And then there should be an option to "auto-distribute" luxuries for players who don't enjoy this micromanagement.

 

[Lucius_]

What if you wanted some cities to be happier than others? I wouldn't want my amenities to be automatically distributed evenly.

If its by order of acquisition, I like that. Your core cities should be founded first, and should have the most luxuries shipped back to them.

The only problem with order of cities being founded is what if you don't consider one of your first cities a core city? For example, you discover you are on a mini landmass, alone, connected to the rest of the continent via an isthmus. So discovering this, you settle your first city on that isthmus to block your neighbor from settling on your little personal island. That location may be pretty crappy, perhaps desert, no rivers, lots of useless water tiles etc. You may not care too much about the city, it's only there to allow you to backfill at your leisure.

I know that example is highly situational, but a strategically located city may be settled early and really doesn't need to grow or need the amenities. It just needs defensive buildings and an encampment to do what it was made for and really doesn't need the luxuries.

 

[Atlas627]

The only problem with order of cities being founded is what if you don't consider one of your first cities a core city? For example, you discover you are on a mini landmass, alone, connected to the rest of the continent via an isthmus. So discovering this, you settle your first city on that isthmus to block your neighbor from settling on your little personal island. That location may be pretty crappy, perhaps desert, no rivers, lots of useless water tiles etc. You may not care too much about the city, it's only there to allow you to backfill at your leisure.

I know that example is highly situational, but a strategically located city may be settled early and really doesn't need to grow or need the amenities. It just needs defensive buildings and an encampment to do what it was made for and really doesn't need the luxuries.

Correct, and that is a tradeoff. If you want that strategic location early, even though it won't make for a good core city, do you want to sacrifice one of your core cities for it?

You could say evenly distributing the luxuries is a tradeoff too, but its murky and unclear. Its not intuitive. It would be affected by every single city that grows or is founded, all the time, everywhere. Should I found this new city? I have no idea if its going to use up all the luxuries or not!

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Correct, and that is a tradeoff. If you want that strategic location early, even though it won't make for a good core city, do you want to sacrifice one of your core cities for it?

You could say evenly distributing the luxuries is a tradeoff too, but its murky and unclear. Its not intuitive. It would be affected by every single city that grows or is founded, all the time, everywhere. Should I found this new city? I have no idea if its going to use up all the luxuries or not!

The advantage of doing it by age (that you acquired it) is that a city will never Lose amenities due to what's happening in another city (unless you lose a source of luxuries...or recapture a previously owned city)

 

[Big J Money]

I had seriously hoped there would be an option to distribute luxuries between cities, but sadly, I haven't seen this in any previews, so I doubt that is the case. Really, it should work a bit like the great works interface in civ5, i.e. you drag and drop your available luxuries between a list of your towns.

I was actually hoping that it was based on geographic location. And you could use trade routes to move any resources around where they're needed. So you'd need to move steel to the front lines to build troops there, for example. Or move spices to where you have the most unhappiness.

I guess the same exact thing you're saying but with setting up trade routes to do it so that the enemy could learn your trade routes and disrupt them.