Anyone come up with a solution to low production?

[Montymolethedog]

Everything seems to take ages to build in Civilization VI. Any solutions?

 

[Ornen]

You can't build everything – if you're struggling with production you're probably trying to build too many districts per city. For the most part, you should try to fill in existing districts before building new ones.

 

[Infiltrator]

Solution is to build the industrial district everywhere, asap and work from there. There's really no other way other than that if you're trying to compete for any type of victory condition.

 

[Montymolethedog]

Solution is to build the industrial district everywhere, asap and work from there. There's really no other way other than that if you're trying to compete for any type of victory condition.

Yeah, I always do that, and I even try to build the industrial district in a location that allows the factory bonus to reach as many other cities as possible. I have still found that making ship parts, wonders and new districts takes a very long time.

 

[se7en]

You really don't need to build everything that you might think you do to win even on high difficulty levels. Focus more on tech boosts than science buildings, keep your units alive, don't build too many wonders, make sure your builders have improved your tiles, and get your industrial district up as soon as you can. Production is scarce, but it makes for interesting decisions about where you're going to allocate the capacity you have vs. mindlessly building everything in every city.

 

[Arigold71]

vs. mindlessly building everything in every city.

That^

I dominated my game, took over the whole continent just to lose to a civ in an island elsewhere because I filled the whole continent with cities (so other civs wouldn't settle) and built absolutely everything in them. Basically -300 GPT at 0 reserves and the down spiral of rebellion.

Don't go crazy with building buildings kids!

 

[Nefelia]

Have a few strong core cities with IZs and factories That takes care of production at your core.

For the periphery: Build traders in the core cities and transfer them to your weaker cities at the frontier and have those cities set up trade routes with your strongest cities. That should get you +4 food and +5 production for your smaller cities (at Renaissance, no idea if it goes up later in the game).

 

[Montymolethedog]

Have a few strong core cities with IZs and factories That takes care of production at your core.

For the periphery: Build traders in the core cities and transfer them to your weaker cities at the frontier and have those cities set up trade routes with your strongest cities. That should get you +4 food and +5 production for your smaller cities (at Renaissance, no idea if it goes up later in the game).

Food and production yields from trade routes are based on the districts in the target city rather than the era.

 

[UncleJJ]

Adding an industrial district to a low production city is usually a bad idea. Without an adjacency bonus from at least 2 mines it takes a huge amount of time to pay off and the workshop is just as bad costing 175 hammers for only 2 returned. Together they cost 2 gold per turn in upkeep as well! City states can boost the output (only for buildings and wonders) if you pursue them strongly but that has opportunity costs in terms of losing other bonuses to science, gold etc from other districts. Plus city states have to be available and the AI might conquer them.

Low production cities should just slowly build the districts that they have the best adjacency bonus for, with rivers a commercial hub, with mountains a campus and so on. Forget trying to boost their hammers just use the hammers they do have as efficiently as possible and build only the essential districts and buildings. Transfer hammers to them by building builders in other cities or buying them, and send internal trade routes bringing hammers and food. They can still be very useful with low production just don't build units there or try for wonders, you have other high production cities specialised to do that (or should have )

 

[rpgalon]

just build:
-comercial hubs/harbors
-industrial districts
-builders for mines/lumber mils

The game is too imbalanced towards production and traders that everything else is only worthy once you have these 3 things up (with the exception of encampment and military units, because sometimes you need them to survive and holy site for religious victory).

 

[Underseer]

What mechanic is causing this? Even something as simple as a granary takes ridiculously long to build later in the game, and that's on the lowest difficulty setting. I thought this was related to the total number of cities, but I just tried a game with a lower number of cities and ran into the same problem.

 

[rpgalon]

You should only go for a Science/Culture focus after you have your traders/factorys/mines kicking in, otherwise you will feel like it takes forever to build stuff.

Focusing on them gives little to no reward because the production cost of higher tech stuff you unlock goes up exponentially (each new era unit/wonder/building has like double the production cost of the equivalent from the era before it), so there is no gain in focusing on tech before production because even if you invest so much in culture/tech that you will unlock units/wonders a reasonable time earlier, you will lack the production to build it effectively anyway.

 

[ExemplarVoss]

What mechanic is causing this? Even something as simple as a granary takes ridiculously long to build later in the game, and that's on the lowest difficulty setting. I thought this was related to the total number of cities, but I just tried a game with a lower number of cities and ran into the same problem.

I haven't found that. Early game buildings are still a small amount of production.


As far as how to get production, my current approach is a three city triangle as my core. It kinda doesn't matter if the third city is a poor location, though obviously it isn't preferred.
Like most things in civ 6, you want to build the core cities in a triangle (basically aim to share a single tile in the middle), and that is where you start building up districts. Terrain adjacency bonuses don't actually matter that much, and anything choppable in the central area gets chopped to push growth and production along. (Personally I chop every to give the cities a push, but it helps to time it to things that matter- don't chop just to push granaries along)

The big things that need to go in the center are industrial districts (and entertainment later), but you can and will build up significant district adjacency if you pile everything in the middle. Harbors usually can't participate, which also makes commercial a question (their specific adjacency bonuses can be hard to pass up, as can rivers for commercial). This will make campuses and holy sites a bit weaker in the short term, but better in the long term.
Side note- for Germany specifically, adjacency of commercial districts is even more complicated, because of the commercial/hansa adjacency bonus.

Anyway, the goal is to get the factories and power plants (and zoos and stadiums later) to overlap all three core cities. Additional cities, if possible should go in a ring around the core cities, so that their industrial districts can affect at least 2 core cities. It doesn't matter much at all if these cities are good- they exist to dump +7 production (or more, with the right great people, especially if you get one that extends the range of factories) into the core.

With the core established and supported, you can do pretty much whatever with the rest of the tiles. Mine hills, maybe keep non-hill trees around for lumber mills, but that really depends on taste and production needs. You want farm triangles. You need the food and housing to make the cities grow to ridiculous size.

As far as campus and theatre districts... I'm rarely finding a need for more than two. Maybe more theatres for more museums if you're trying for the culture victory, but there are so many ways to push tourism that it really isn't necessary (and by having the interior district core, you can leave the outskirts for parks and resorts.
Leave space in the non-core cities for wonders that require district adjacency- they will really wreck district adjacency bonuses in the core. There are a few that are worth it, however. Great Zimbabwe makes for amazing trade routes in a city wth a lot of bonus resources.

Which leads into the the last element of production- internal trade routes. You want them. You want a lot of them. At minimum, you want the three core cities trading with each other (so 6 routes, minimum), and also to support cities with industrial zones. External routes honestly don't matter much, at least until you can take the policy that gives +5 production and +10 gold.

You should only go for a Science/Culture focus after you have your traders/factorys/mines kicking in, otherwise you will feel like it takes forever to build stuff.

I haven't found this to be true. I usually have several (5-6) districts up and running before I get my industrial zones. It isn't that slow, and factories usually happen shortly after my first three industrial zones have workshops.

 

[rpgalon]

I haven't found this to be true. I usually have several (5-6) districts up and running before I get my industrial zones. It isn't that slow, and factories usually happen shortly after my first three industrial zones have workshops.

Before or after you get a ton of traders? Before or after you flood your city with Mines/lumber mills?
Industrial zones are only a big deal if you have factory tech unlocked, till them, you flood your lands with workers/traders.
I'm not saying this is the only way to win, I just think it's the one that gives better results.

Also if you are saying you have 5-6 districts before industrial zones, it means your cities needs like 16+ pop to put an industrial district down. I don't know how you play, but my cities have factory tech with like 10-13 pop.

Arround what turn you get these 16+ pop cities? how many cities? and did you build any military? I would like to know how you get cities this big before even building an Industrial District.

Serious question, no sarcasm, I would like to know if I can grow my cities faster.

 

[aethokh]

.

Any chance you have a screen shot of this?

 

[GAGA Extrem]

The solution for early game production problems is:
(a) Beelining for Currency and Apprenticeship to use Trade Routes and Industry Districts to boost city production asap.
(b) Building a Mine on at least one tile for each city.
(c) Chopping down non-river forests to get a one-time boost (ideally for the districts mentioned above).

 

[CaiusDrewart]

In terms of improvements, there's not much you can do other than spam mines and quarries. Hills are really important, try not to put districts and the like on them unless you really have to. I usually am chopping forests instead of putting lumber mills on them (particularly if it's a forested hill), but some cities might need lumber mills.

There are four districts that give +production: the encampment, the industrial zone, the commercial hub, and the harbor. Those last three can add production to other cities beyond simply the one that built them.

Put industrial zones where you can, obviously with a mind to the bonus factories and power plants give to nearby cities. Go wide and build as many commercial hubs and harbors as you can. Each of those grants you another trade route. If you make that an internal trade route, it should be +5 or +6 production (in the late game) in whatever city you want.

The encampment has several buildings that grant +production (to everything, not just military units). A barracks gives +1, an armory +2, and a military academy +3.

Make sure you use the policy card that doubles the adjacency bonus of industrial zones.

Finally, the Ruhr Valley wonder is really, really good. Build it.

But note that even if you do all of these things, production is still painfully slow in the mid-to-late game. It's totally fine in the early game. The game just isn't balanced right at the moment.

 

[Zanaku]

I haven't found that. Early game buildings are still a small amount of production.


As far as how to get production, my current approach is a three city triangle as my core. It kinda doesn't matter if the third city is a poor location, though obviously it isn't preferred.
Like most things in civ 6, you want to build the core cities in a triangle (basically aim to share a single tile in the middle), and that is where you start building up districts. Terrain adjacency bonuses don't actually matter that much, and anything choppable in the central area gets chopped to push growth and production along. (Personally I chop every to give the cities a push, but it helps to time it to things that matter- don't chop just to push granaries along)

Can you post some screenshots of this layout. Im curious to see what it looks like. Like are your core cities like 4 tiles apart (just outside the 3 tile minimum) or are they like 6 tiles apart so that their borders connect when they grow?

 

[jsteele14]

I haven't found that. Early game buildings are still a small amount of production.


As far as how to get production, my current approach is a three city triangle as my core. It kinda doesn't matter if the third city is a poor location, though obviously it isn't preferred.
Like most things in civ 6, you want to build the core cities in a triangle (basically aim to share a single tile in the middle), and that is where you start building up districts. Terrain adjacency bonuses don't actually matter that much, and anything choppable in the central area gets chopped to push growth and production along. (Personally I chop every to give the cities a push, but it helps to time it to things that matter- don't chop just to push granaries along)

The big things that need to go in the center are industrial districts (and entertainment later), but you can and will build up significant district adjacency if you pile everything in the middle. Harbors usually can't participate, which also makes commercial a question (their specific adjacency bonuses can be hard to pass up, as can rivers for commercial). This will make campuses and holy sites a bit weaker in the short term, but better in the long term.
Side note- for Germany specifically, adjacency of commercial districts is even more complicated, because of the commercial/hansa adjacency bonus.

Anyway, the goal is to get the factories and power plants (and zoos and stadiums later) to overlap all three core cities. Additional cities, if possible should go in a ring around the core cities, so that their industrial districts can affect at least 2 core cities. It doesn't matter much at all if these cities are good- they exist to dump +7 production (or more, with the right great people, especially if you get one that extends the range of factories) into the core.

With the core established and supported, you can do pretty much whatever with the rest of the tiles. Mine hills, maybe keep non-hill trees around for lumber mills, but that really depends on taste and production needs. You want farm triangles. You need the food and housing to make the cities grow to ridiculous size.

As far as campus and theatre districts... I'm rarely finding a need for more than two. Maybe more theatres for more museums if you're trying for the culture victory, but there are so many ways to push tourism that it really isn't necessary (and by having the interior district core, you can leave the outskirts for parks and resorts.
Leave space in the non-core cities for wonders that require district adjacency- they will really wreck district adjacency bonuses in the core. There are a few that are worth it, however. Great Zimbabwe makes for amazing trade routes in a city wth a lot of bonus resources.

Which leads into the the last element of production- internal trade routes. You want them. You want a lot of them. At minimum, you want the three core cities trading with each other (so 6 routes, minimum), and also to support cities with industrial zones. External routes honestly don't matter much, at least until you can take the policy that gives +5 production and +10 gold.



I haven't found this to be true. I usually have several (5-6) districts up and running before I get my industrial zones. It isn't that slow, and factories usually happen shortly after my first three industrial zones have workshops.

Interesting idea. How close do your cities have to be in order to share districts?

 

[King Jason]

Industrial districts and Entertainment Complex tier 2 and 3 buildings have a radius of 6 tiles.

Spoiler :

All 5 of those cities are getting bonus production from each factory.

Now, apparently I misplaced Damascus' Industrial zone - it should have been one tile to the left. It isn't affecting Baghdad. The idea is still the same though - do something like this in your games and you wont have much of an issue with production scaling through out the ages.

I'd suggest getting at least 3-4 cities being able to influence each other with their industrial zones, if not more.