Anyone else barely build districts

[Rg339]

Whoa, Hansa worse than IZ? It's super easy to get +4 or +5 on Hansa through smart placement of them and Commercial Hubs, and you want to build Commercial Hubs in every city anyway. Meanwhile for Industrial Zones you have to build Aqueducts (greatly limiting placement options and by themselves not really worth it in cities that already have fresh water, which is usually most of them) and Dams (incredibly expensive and imo only worth building if you also get one or two good IZ's out of it in addition to the flooding protection). And that still only gets you to barely higher adjacencies, despite the far higher production cost for the entire thing.

Also, I personally hit the district limit just fine.

Are either the Hansa or the standard IZ really useful?

Production is only useful if it advances you towards a victory condition, at least from the utilitarian vantage. If you’re investing thousands of hammers into increasing total industrial yields in a city by 10, 20%, you’re probably going to get closer to your VC skipping the IZ entirely and investing the hammers into more relevant yields. If you’re going for immersive play, yeah, there’s satisfaction to be found in becoming an industrial powerhouse.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Are either the Hansa or the standard IZ really useful?

Production is only useful if it advances you towards a victory condition, at least from the utilitarian vantage. If you’re investing thousands of hammers into increasing total industrial yields in a city by 10, 20%, you’re probably going to get closer to your VC skipping the IZ entirely and investing the hammers into more relevant yields. If you’re going for immersive play, yeah, there’s satisfaction to be found in becoming an industrial powerhouse.

It's not that simple.
Often (not always) you are investing into IZ's because you are setting yourself up for the late game where that production does matter (SV).
And often, you dont really have other great investment opportunities in the meantime anyways, so you might as well dump those hammers into the IZ to prepare for the space race.
It's not necessarily about them paying off in terms of pure hammers over time, but paying off when it does matter.
IZ's are (again, especially for SV) mostly about a timing opportunity in the late game.

 

[Rg339]

Still seems pretty limited. SV is probably the most common type of victory. Probably 50% of all played games end in a player SV. Still, that means that in the other 50, the IZ is barely relevant.

Even in SV, the IZ is at best more of speed boost. If you’re only investing in it in mid/late game, even then, it’s only in cities you expect to bear the production burden. By that point, chances are, the player isn’t thinking “will this IZ tip me past the AI?”, they’re probably thinking “will this IZ reduce the drudgery of clicking next turn 50 times till my inevitable victory?”

On the whole, it’s a pretty underwhelming district.

edit: especially relative to the utility of other available options. Campus is the most useful towards nearly any victory(with the exception of religious victories). Theatres play a role in both SV and CV. Holy sites you’re gonna need if pursuing a religious victory(though arguably strategies can be deployed to reduce the # necessary), CH and harbors play a major role in CV and are versatile enough to exploit traders towards yields useful for SV too.

The IZ and the entertainment complex are relatively much less useful.

 

[rgp151]

Whenever I play someone other than Germany I’m constantly hitting the district cap

Sounds like maybe you're not growing your cities fast enough. With domestic trade you should be growing plenty fast. Are you hitting you pop limits, or are you below the pop limits? I tend to find myself in GS with more housing than I expect and rarely hit pop limits until getting into the 15+ pop range, at which point it doesn't really matter. In terms of districts, in most cities you really only need like 3 districts.

Granary +2, University +1, Lighthouse +1, Dam +3, Aqueduct +2, Gurdwara +1, Farm, Pasture, Camp, Planation, Fishing boats, all +.5, in addition to policies, etc.

So, assuming a river city you can easily get to pop 8 in the Medieval era with just a Granary and University, and really with improvements you'll typically be around pop 10 or 11 by then. I often also take Audience Chamber, as I think its overall the best of the first government buildings since it provides a constant bonus that is always active throughout the game and becomes even more useful as the game goes on and you get more governors. That means that in your main cities you can easily have pop 14-16 in the Medieval era, without even doing extra stuff like building an Aqueduct.

If you make an Aqueduct and Dam, now you're at pop 18-20.

But really, the main thing is getting up a Commercial Hub/Harbor, Campus, and Industrial Zone. You may also need a Holy Site.

You only need a pop of 7 for those 3 districts. On some coastal cities its nice to have a Harbor + Commercial Hub, so maybe you'll want 4 districts faster. In games where you build lots of Holy Sites, you often will use Work Ethic, which can delay the need for a IZ, so again there are really 3 main districts. But really anything past pop 10 starts to get irrelevant, because in most cities you rarely have need for more than 3 districts and even less need for more than 4.

I can't say that I never hit a district limit, but its rarely any kind of issue. I view the additional district of Germany as an extremely minor bonus, that rarely comes into play in GS. Is it ever really game changing? I don't think so. When you compare it to Spain or Cree's trade routes, or the Macedonian bonuses,

The other way to think about it is this: You really need 3 to 4 districts in most cities, maybe 5 and rarely 6 in a few. What matters is being able to build those districts ASAP. What really drives your ability to build out districts is population. The real key is not how many districts you can build per pop, but how many districts you can build by turn x since the founding of a city.

Civs like India, Indonesia, Khmer, Cree, Spain, Kongo, etc. all have bonuses that help them grow population faster and in some cases larger, which means that they will be able to build more districts faster. In the end, more population is better and more productive, so I find that fast population civs, like those mentioned have far better economies and much higher production than Germany, which has nothing to help it grow faster. So yeah, Germany can build more districts with a lower population, but in terms of being able to build X number of districts by X turn from settlement, I find that fast growing civs are actually able to build more districts faster than Germany can.

 

[rgp151]

Still seems pretty limited. SV is probably the most common type of victory. Probably 50% of all played games end in a player SV. Still, that means that in the other 50, the IZ is barely relevant.

Even in SV, the IZ is at best more of speed boost. If you’re only investing in it in mid/late game, even then, it’s only in cities you expect to bear the production burden. By that point, chances are, the player isn’t thinking “will this IZ tip me past the AI?”, they’re probably thinking “will this IZ reduce the drudgery of clicking next turn 50 times till my inevitable victory?”

On the whole, it’s a pretty underwhelming district.

edit: especially relative to the utility of other available options. Campus is the most useful towards nearly any victory(with the exception of religious victories). Theatres play a role in both SV and CV. Holy sites you’re gonna need if pursuing a religious victory(though arguably strategies can be deployed to reduce the # necessary), CH and harbors play a major role in CV and are versatile enough to exploit traders towards yields useful for SV too.

The IZ and the entertainment complex are relatively much less useful.

Well, they also provide GPPs, and Great Engineers are very useful. I generally build a IZ and Workshop is just about every city, with rare exceptions, unless doing Religious Victory, but for Cultural you want several cities that can build wonders and for science you want 2 or 3 cities with massive production.

But as Derrick said, there often just aren't any better things to do with your prod anyway, so may as well build an IZ and get those GPPs if nothing else. Plus there is the GE that grants +3 culture per Workshop.

But yeah, generally, production is actually most needed for wonders and projects, and anything else can be bought with Gold or Faith, so maximizing those yields and buying stuff is better than building IZs all over the place, I agree, yet those GPPs are still quite useful.

 

[Leyrann]

Are either the Hansa or the standard IZ really useful?

Production is only useful if it advances you towards a victory condition, at least from the utilitarian vantage. If you’re investing thousands of hammers into increasing total industrial yields in a city by 10, 20%, you’re probably going to get closer to your VC skipping the IZ entirely and investing the hammers into more relevant yields. If you’re going for immersive play, yeah, there’s satisfaction to be found in becoming an industrial powerhouse.

Absolutely. Granted, the Workshop yields are pretty meh, and the cost is too high, so building those is always a bit of a chore. However, a factory provides 6 production to every city within it's radius, which can easily add up to 30 production per turn (or even more). That means you earn back the production cost of the factory in only eleven turns, with everything beyond that being free production. Even if you add the production costs of the base district and the workshop to the equation, it's still less than 30 turns before the factory by itself has paid off all of it together. And that's without considering the benefits of powering late-game buildings. Speaking of, coal power plants can be good in cities with high adjacencies, of course, but oil power plants are basically a repeat of the factory math. (and I don't actually remember whether nuclear power plants give aoe production... oops)

So yeah, don't build an IZ in every city, but make sure to cover every city with one. Usually, the best course of action is to try and find high adjacency bonuses for them, either from strategic resources or from Aqueducts and Dams (it's often worth to plan out a flood plain specifically for that).

As for Hansas, they give what Industrial Zones give, however they're also cheaper and tend to reach high adjacency bonuses more easily. With the higher adjacency bonuses policy card (which is a military card and therefore takes up a lower value slot than economic cards), you can pretty much just get a +8 or even +10 production bonus in every city. At a district production cost of 80-150 depending on turn timer, that means it takes you less than 20 turns to pay off the district.

Sounds like maybe you're not growing your cities fast enough. With domestic trade you should be growing plenty fast. Are you hitting you pop limits, or are you below the pop limits? I tend to find myself in GS with more housing than I expect and rarely hit pop limits until getting into the 15+ pop range, at which point it doesn't really matter. In terms of districts, in most cities you really only need like 3 districts.

Granary +2, University +1, Lighthouse +1, Dam +3, Aqueduct +2, Gurdwara +1, Farm, Pasture, Camp, Planation, Fishing boats, all +.5, in addition to policies, etc.

It sounds to me like you over-prioritize growth, to be honest. And yes, I recognize that it may seem a bit weird that I'm saying that despite earlier talking about how I always hit the district cap and prompting this conversation in the first place.

Dams and Aqueducts are often a very high production investment, and frequently just aren't worth it. Besides which, many cities can't build a Dam in the first place, and Aqueducts are only conditionally useful. In addition, I tend to not build that many campuses (economy is more valuable and I can win a turn 225 SV anyway), and commercial hubs are better than harbors unless the city is coastal. There are also many buildings other than Gurdwaras to consider, and that's assuming I'm building a significant number of Holy Sites anyway, which is strongly dependent on the individual game.

And as far as improvements go, as a rule of thumb production is simply superior to food. You usually want only one farm triangle in a city unless it's really lacking food.

The reason for this is actually something you touch upon later in your post. Most cities don't want more than four districts, maybe five if you're generous, so why spend effort to grow them if they're already hitting size 10 in a reasonable timeframe anyway? Sure, maybe you can get your districts down a little earlier, but then you're stuck with a growth-focused setup that now has no more use but still drains amenities.

I often also take Audience Chamber, as I think its overall the best of the first government buildings since it provides a constant bonus that is always active throughout the game and becomes even more useful as the game goes on and you get more governors.

I disagree, actually. While I do think it's worth building in tall games, I find that the free builder in every newly settled city from Ancestral Hall is just too good to pass up on for most games.

 

[Rg339]

Absolutely. Granted, the Workshop yields are pretty meh, and the cost is too high, so building those is always a bit of a chore. However, a factory provides 6 production to every city within it's radius, which can easily add up to 30 production per turn (or even more). That means you earn back the production cost of the factory in only eleven turns, with everything beyond that being free production. Even if you add the production costs of the base district and the workshop to the equation, it's still less than 30 turns before the factory by itself has paid off all of it together. And that's without considering the benefits of powering late-game buildings. Speaking of, coal power plants can be good in cities with high adjacencies, of course, but oil power plants are basically a repeat of the factory math. (and I don't actually remember whether nuclear power plants give aoe production... oops)

So yeah, don't build an IZ in every city, but make sure to cover every city with one. Usually, the best course of action is to try and find high adjacency bonuses for them, either from strategic resources or from Aqueducts and Dams (it's often worth to plan out a flood plain specifically for that).

As for Hansas, they give what Industrial Zones give, however they're also cheaper and tend to reach high adjacency bonuses more easily. With the higher adjacency bonuses policy card (which is a military card and therefore takes up a lower value slot than economic cards), you can pretty much just get a +8 or even +10 production bonus in every city. At a district production cost of 80-150 depending on turn timer, that means it takes you less than 20 turns to pay off the district.

It’s not like there’s no utility there, it’s just limited, especially when compared to other districts. It’s useful. It’s not gonna blow you away with its yields, though.

The use to those factories is mostly speeding up a foregone conclusion. They themselves do not secure victory, what does that are the more relevant districts laid down much earlier, or the units that have secured a territorial base that guarantees victory.

A typical game of mine goes as follows
Ancient era military expansion. This is nearly always successful enough that it alone secures an inevitable victory. I had my archer squad once wiped by a combined war cart/Egyptian chariot offensive once. The Egyptian UU is difficult to defend against because of it’s mobility, often, it’ll move from out of sight and pop your units before adjustments can be made.

However, failure is so seldom that I can actually recall the one specific instance it happened with decent clarity. Takeaway? Early investment into units has extremely high RoI

Then, build the useful campus in the conquered cities. I’m gonna be decisively ahead of the AI in tech because of the greater scale of my civ and the campus investment, also high RoI. By the time the IZ even comes into play, the most RoI it can bring is to marginally speed up victory, which could be accomplished similarly by efficient chopping, particularly if during conquest cities with a large amount of harvestable resources are strategically targeted

 

[Leyrann]

It’s not like there’s no utility there, it’s just limited, especially when compared to other districts. It’s useful. It’s not gonna blow you away with its yields, though.

The use to those factories is mostly speeding up a foregone conclusion. They themselves do not secure victory, what does that are the more relevant districts laid down much earlier, or the units that have secured a territorial base that guarantees victory.

A typical game of mine goes as follows
Ancient era military expansion. This is nearly always successful enough that it alone secures an inevitable victory. I had my archer squad once wiped by a combined war cart/Egyptian chariot offensive once. The Egyptian UU is difficult to defend against because of it’s mobility, often, it’ll move from out of sight and pop your units before adjustments can be made.

However, failure is so seldom that I can actually recall the one specific instance it happened with decent clarity. Takeaway? Early investment into units has extremely high RoI

Then, build the useful campus in the conquered cities. I’m gonna be decisively ahead of the AI in tech because of the greater scale of my civ and the campus investment, also high RoI. By the time the IZ even comes into play, the most RoI it can bring is to marginally speed up victory, which could be accomplished similarly by efficient chopping, particularly if during conquest cities with a large amount of harvestable resources are strategically targeted

In my experience, early war can be very costly on high difficulty levels, in particular Deity. Sure, it might grant you a city or two if you play it well, but the time spent on building units isn't spent on developing your empire. You can see this reflected in high rank multiplayer, in fact, where an early war is almost guaranteed to doom both sides into irrelevancy compared to the other players.

I also disagree with a heavy focus on campuses. Ahead of era research is more expensive, and economy does more for empire development than science does, because you're usually not out of things to build anyway. In addition, district production cost scales with tech researched. Even if I only build campuses in 3+ adjacency spots (my usual strategy), I can catch up to or even exceed Deity AI by the Renaissance or Industrial Era despite their bonuses. I'd much rather have more gold than unlock a building that takes 25 turns to build when I still have buildings available that I can build in 10 turns, or builders or settlers that I want for that matter.

 

[Rg339]

In my experience, early war can be very costly on high difficulty levels, in particular Deity. Sure, it might grant you a city or two if you play it well, but the time spent on building units isn't spent on developing your empire. You can see this reflected in high rank multiplayer, in fact, where an early war is almost guaranteed to doom both sides into irrelevancy compared to the other players.

I also disagree with a heavy focus on campuses. Ahead of era research is more expensive, and economy does more for empire development than science does, because you're usually not out of things to build anyway. In addition, district production cost scales with tech researched. Even if I only build campuses in 3+ adjacency spots (my usual strategy), I can catch up to or even exceed Deity AI by the Renaissance or Industrial Era despite their bonuses. I'd much rather have more gold than unlock a building that takes 25 turns to build when I still have buildings available that I can build in 10 turns, or builders or settlers that I want for that matter.

On deity, early war is not, in my experience, high risk, particularly if a player has spent time adjusting strategies to the realities of the difficulty. If an effort is made to do that, the player will probably have success. At that point, deity is the rocket ship setting; you can gain large amounts of cities quickly(because of the AI’s bonus cities). No other realistic way to come into control of so much so quickly. Once completed, the player’s put themselves at such a scale that things like good district placement really doesn’t matter; the potential ceiling is more than the AI, which cannot similarly conquer, can replicate.

MP is always different. There’s always a risk of failure when the player across the board has similar tactical capabilities. There’s more symmetry in ability between player/player than between player/present AI. Success rates in early war against other players are naturally going to be lower, and you’ll incur much more risk, but that’s not the case against AI

edit: I’m not entirely sure what parameters the AI has that prompt it to action, but there are predictable patterns that can be exploited in early war.

It has a tendency to gather units then attack a player city. It also has a tendency to gather and then defend one of its own cities. If you’re invading and 8 units appear to contest you, this has probably happened. The units are all the AI probably has, but it won’t assess its chances of victory well at all.

Say you’ve got 6 archers, and the AI 5 warriors, a chariot, and two swordsmen. If you recognize it’s in defense mode, you can move to the edge of its city(just outta wall range) and position yourself on defensible terrain, say, across a river with a couple forested hills nearby. It’ll happily put itself on the strategic defensive and tactical offensive, here. It’s trying to defend its city, but will charge your position without any realistic hope of victory.

Chariot’ll cross first because of its mobility and eat 1000 arrows. Done. The remaining 7 melee units will bumble around, probably crossing 3 at a time. 2 are entirely destroyed, the remaining one will have low health. It’ll make one attack, be destroyed next turn. You rotate the damaged unit behind others with full health and repeat for the remaining 4 units.

AI army is then entirely crushed. You can bombard its walls down with the archers, rotating low health units out as necessary. It’s cities are all effectively yours after. If another AI is nearby before age advancement, repeat.

 

[rgp151]

On deity, early war is not, in my experience, high risk, particularly if a player has spent time adjusting strategies to the realities of the difficulty. If an effort is made to do that, the player will probably have success. At that point, deity is the rocket ship setting; you can gain large amounts of cities quickly(because of the AI’s bonus cities). No other realistic way to come into control of so much so quickly. Once completed, the player’s put themselves at such a scale that things like good district placement really doesn’t matter; the potential ceiling is more than the AI, which cannot similarly conquer, can replicate.

Yeah, this is a common issue in all 4X games. The higher the difficulty level, the more advantageous conquest is, because in virtually all 4X games, increasing difficulty means giving the AI larger and larger production bonuses, which means that their cities grow faster adn get more built, etc. Thus, it makes more sense to conquer what the AI has built than to build anything yourself. So really, the most effective strategy on Deity is to settle 2 or 3 cities and then start conquering. Strats like 10 settlement Science victories are fun and challenging, but they certainly aren't the most effective way to go.

The reason for this is actually something you touch upon later in your post. Most cities don't want more than four districts, maybe five if you're generous, so why spend effort to grow them if they're already hitting size 10 in a reasonable timeframe anyway? Sure, maybe you can get your districts down a little earlier, but then you're stuck with a growth-focused setup that now has no more use but still drains amenities.

I disagree, actually. While I do think it's worth building in tall games, I find that the free builder in every newly settled city from Ancestral Hall is just too good to pass up on for most games.

Right, but I'm talking about the advantage of Germany's bonus vs other civilizations. I'm saying that civs with bonuses that result in faster population growth are better than a bonus that simply allows you to build more districts while growing more slowly. Since the district limit is based on population, I would always prefer a civ that grows faster, allowing you to build more districts faster, than a civ that grows slower but allows you to build an extra district.

Yes, at pop 1 with Germany you can build 2 districts, but that will never happen. The point is, if you look at the turn counter, I guarantee you that in your capital a civ like Cree or Khmer, etc. can have more districts built by turn 150 than Germany can, so the "bonus district" isn't nearly as much of an advantage as what it sounds like. The real question is, who can build more districts faster. Its not Germany, because other civs grow faster, and that additional population results in more production faster, and higher district limits. Being able to build 2 districts at pop 1 isn't really an advantage.

The fact is that by turn 50, all else equal, Cree or Khmer or India or whatever, will have 2 more pop than Germany, by turn 100 3 or 4 more pop, etc., and those extra workers are adding more production on top of increasing the district limit. So at a point the faster growing civ will be more than 3 pop ahead of Germany, meaning that not only can they build as many or more districts that Germany, but they also have more pop that provide more production, and other benefits as well, esp. with Pingala, etc.

 

[CppMaster]

Yeah, but you only compare it with civs that have bonuses to food. When you compare Germany with for example Macedonia then it's clearly an advantage. When you have much more production than food then reaching the district limit is more frequent.

 

[Leyrann]

On deity, early war is not, in my experience, high risk, particularly if a player has spent time adjusting strategies to the realities of the difficulty. If an effort is made to do that, the player will probably have success. At that point, deity is the rocket ship setting; you can gain large amounts of cities quickly(because of the AI’s bonus cities). No other realistic way to come into control of so much so quickly. Once completed, the player’s put themselves at such a scale that things like good district placement really doesn’t matter; the potential ceiling is more than the AI, which cannot similarly conquer, can replicate.

On Deity, if you go too early the AI's starting unit bonus is too much, and if you go too late, you get surprise bent over by crossbows. I will admit that there's a window in between where you can fight a war, but it can be tough to get the timing right, and personally I usually only go for it when I have an early unique unit that I want to use.

That said, I also prefer playing peaceful in general because of the snowball effect you get from conquering. The game just becomes too easy; it already is, in all honesty.

Right, but I'm talking about the advantage of Germany's bonus vs other civilizations. I'm saying that civs with bonuses that result in faster population growth are better than a bonus that simply allows you to build more districts while growing more slowly. Since the district limit is based on population, I would always prefer a civ that grows faster, allowing you to build more districts faster, than a civ that grows slower but allows you to build an extra district.

Ahh, that's a fair point.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

On Deity, if you go too early the AI's starting unit bonus is too much, and if you go too late, you get surprise bent over by crossbows. I will admit that there's a window in between where you can fight a war, but it can be tough to get the timing right, and personally I usually only go for it when I have an early unique unit that I want to use.

Hence why I'm such a fan of Crusade these days, it vastly extends that window of opportunity well into the late classical era.
+10 combat strength is essentially fighting with a tech level higher than your current units.

With crusade and the tortoise promotion, Even warriors can take some level of beating from crossbowmen, while swordsmen can take on crossbowmen without issues.

 

[Rg339]

On Deity, if you go too early the AI's starting unit bonus is too much, and if you go too late, you get surprise bent over by crossbows. I will admit that there's a window in between where you can fight a war, but it can be tough to get the timing right, and personally I usually only go for it when I have an early unique unit that I want to use.

That said, I also prefer playing peaceful in general because of the snowball effect you get from conquering. The game just becomes too easy; it already is, in all honesty.

Agree that if you want challenge, you have to set self imposed limits on how utilitarian you’re playing.
Disagree that the starting bonus is a large obstacle to military success, though. You only really need your starting warrior and two/three archers to overcome the 5 warriors. You can get to that point fast enough that you don’t have to contend with walls often enough for your initial invasion; it’s the walls that really raise the threshold of the bare minimum # of units necessary to succeed.

If you go early and stay fighting through classical, even at online speed the window is large enough to obtain decisive advantages for the entire game.

 

[Canadian Bluebeer]

Hansa, Commercial, Dam, Gov Plaza and the IZ card to double the bonus, you can get 20+ for production.

Toss in Ruhr Valley... don't forget the insane bonus prod too, when doing coal.
Oh, the sneeze wonder Machupichu ;p

Other civs may have more pop, but that extra district can mean a lot.

Everyone has their own preferences, I prefer to out produce the others, then send in the panzers.
(or leave the planet a nuked, smoking, glowing ruin!)
(yes, just before an SV, I'll nuke everyone, just to see the pretty graphics)
(did the same in Civ5. heh)

 

[rgp151]

Other civs may have more pop, but that extra district can mean a lot.

But the point is that Germany's "bonus district" doesn't actually give you the district advantage that it appears to.

Given the same circumstances, a civ like Khmer, Cree, India, etc., will have as many or more districts than Germany by a given turn, since they will grow faster than Germany.

Under the same circumstances, by turn 100 for example Germany's city may be pop 10 and able to build 4 districts, whereas a fast growing civ will have cities of pop 13+, and thus able to build those same 4 districts or more.

Germany does maybe have a slight edge technically in that very early on you can build more districts, like 3 districts in a pop 4-5 city, but how often are you actually doing this? I think its fairly easy to conclude that by the time a German city is pop 6 a Khmer, Cree, India, etc. city would already be pop 7 or more. How often does Germany build 3 districts in a pop 4 city? The cities of faster growing civs will often be 3+ pop ahead of Germany, and thus able to build the same number of districts (or more).

And the thing is that Germany's productivity advantage comes only from a single source: The Hansa paired with Commercial Hub. The fact that the Hansa is cheaper does indeed help, but.... Pop also increases production, so the faster growing civs will have more base production than Germany prior to the building of the Hansa, so they ramp up faster, making the relative time takes to build an IZ with those civs not much different than Germany building a Hansa. So, in other words, prior to making your Hansa Germany will have lower production than a faster growing civ, all else equal. To build the IZ, Germany needs to spend fewer production, but the faster growing civs will have more production to spend, so the number of turns it takes to build that IZ may be about to the same in many cases. Germany does have an advantage in mid-game expansion in terms of being able to settle a new city and immediately build a Hansa, that's true, but its not such a clear advantage, its more situational.

Then as for the bonus production on the zone itself. Yes the Hansas can get higher adjacency in many cases, but they also get lower in some as well since they don't benefit from mines.

So what does it all really add up to compared to a faster growing civ? The ability to build 3 districts during a narrow window when the German cities would be around pop 4 and the faster growing city may only be at 6. Other than that, however, I think the faster growing civs can build as many or more districts than Germany. A cheaper IZ that can be started with lower production, but again, a faster growing civ will generally have higher base production than Germany to begin with, meaning that number of turns it takes to complete the IZ in comparable for Germany or the fast growing civ for most early settlements that have had some time to grow.

And that's really the extent of Germany's bonus. The only other thing they get is the worst free policy card. But all of the fast growing civs have many other advantages on top of how fast they can produce districts. This doesn't even take into account Khmer and Work Ethic or Cree's free trader and powerful improvement, etc. Also when you compare to a civ like Spain, the production bonus of Spain is more useful IMO. Spain can essentially get +3 production (not even counting the gold and faith) from every trade route. With 10+ traders, that's 30+ production that you are able to move around to different cities or concentrate on a single city as you need. Since that production can be moved around, it is often much more useful than the static production bonus of Germany. And Spain's production bonuses can start as soon as you research Foreign Trade.

So anyway, to me Germany just always seems very overrated. Its bonuses don't really seem to amount to much of anything when you really break it down.

 

[SirNovelty]

And the thing is that Germany's productivity advantage comes only from a single source: The Hansa paired with Commercial Hub. The fact that the Hansa is cheaper does indeed help, but.... Pop also increases production, so the faster growing civs will have more base production than Germany prior to the building of the Hansa, so they ramp up faster, making the relative time takes to build an IZ with those civs not much different than Germany building a Hansa.

I don't know if that math checks out. The Hansa is literally half cost, so unless that extra growth is doubling production, or at least close enough to not make a turn difference, Germany's still ahead. More important then the saved time for Germany though, is the superior ROI. Since the Hansa is half cost, even if it has the same adjacency, it pays for itself in double the time, independent of what other production the city has. Of course, it will rarely have simply "the same" adjacency when built, because the IZ adjacency sources from dirt are comparably harder to find, and the CH is something you're far more likely to already have up, or even simply get up sooner/for other reasons, than a Green District. You can consider the cost advantage less than half if you want to factor in the workshop, but honestly I almost never build them until I need to for Factories unless I really want a GE. I actually think I'm being generous, because I've placed many IZs that didn't actually provide any production when finished, needing to wait on other infastructure, whereas that's never happened with a Hansa.

Then as for the bonus production on the zone itself. Yes the Hansas can get higher adjacency in many cases, but they also get lower in some as well since they don't benefit from mines.

I'll admit I almost never make much use of the mine adjacency intentionally outside of Gaul, so I could be off about this, but it doesn't seem very good in terms of placement. At most if you can surround the district by 6 mineable tiles you're getting +3 out of it, with an extra point or two if you're lucky enough to get some strategics in this miraculous clump of tiles. Generally if I'm placing a standard IZ, +5 is my minimum, and I'd like it to itself be providing adjacency to one other district. You can say it's more a supplementary +1 or 2 on the adjacency, but due to Aqueducts and Dams I often want my IZs on rivers, which is also where I want to found, and place a CH anyway, so it's going to end up near a district clump in most scenarios, without a lot of opportunity for improvement adjacency unless the tile is exceptionally good or uncrushable, hence why extending the adjacency to all Resources is so nice.

I will say overall though that I think it's underestimated how little Germany's bonuses matter in the critical early part of the game. I do find that by the time Germany really comes into its own, I'd probably be winning with another civ in this scenario anyway, unless I'm just about to start a mid-game conquest-spree.

 

[Linklite]

Eh, it's mentioned that by t100 population-based civs will have enough pop to have a an extra destruct anyway. However that argument has two problems, beyond the problems inherent with having an increased population. One is that you're comparing Germany to a subset of civs. I'm sorry, but that's silly. That's like moaning that Byzantines, who specialise in cavalry Dom, are rubbish because Scythia gets free cavalry. That's not how it works, and what you're saying, if accurate, is that may those civs are OP. Compare Germany to other civs in general. A lot of people don't bother with prod because it's too slow. Germany tries to fix that by making the IZ a lot cheaper (so it doesn't cost so many resources to boost your prod), it is easier to get adjacencies (so it's more valuable) and effectively doesn't take a slot, reducing opportunity cost.

It's also been mentioned that t100 is when pop based civs catch up. Sorry, but too little, too late. By t100 I'm no longer in the struggle mode when boosts are particularly valuable. I'm in cruise mode at that point and bonuses merely speed me up a bit rather than make a massive difference like pre-t100 ones do. Things snowball, and that early production is nice. It allows me to gain Wonders, get districts online sooner, pump out Settlers, and so forth. That means by the time t100 comes around and, if all things were equal, things would be starting to turn against Germany, all things really aren't equal. I don't know how long it takes for things to swing back fully, but it's going to be a while, long enough that it's not going to make a massive difference.

Germany isn't amazing. The prod goodies, as mentioned before, is meant to make prod a bit more appealing. However, it would truly shine in a protracted war - Germany would be able to pump out units very quickly even of trade routes are cut and gold income becomes an issue. Unfortunately, at least in single player, protracted wars just don't happen very often at all. If they do, it often goes in the player's favour and you're not worrying about trade routes so gold isn't an issue. Eh.

 

[UWHabs]

Eh, it's mentioned that by t100 population-based civs will have enough pop to have a an extra destruct anyway. However that argument has two problems, beyond the problems inherent with having an increased population. One is that you're comparing Germany to a subset of civs. I'm sorry, but that's silly. That's like moaning that Byzantines, who specialise in cavalry Dom, are rubbish because Scythia gets free cavalry. That's not how it works, and what you're saying, if accurate, is that may those civs are OP. Compare Germany to other civs in general. A lot of people don't bother with prod because it's too slow. Germany tries to fix that by making the IZ a lot cheaper (so it doesn't cost so many resources to boost your prod), it is easier to get adjacencies (so it's more valuable) and effectively doesn't take a slot, reducing opportunity cost.

It's also been mentioned that t100 is when pop based civs catch up. Sorry, but too little, too late. By t100 I'm no longer in the struggle mode when boosts are particularly valuable. I'm in cruise mode at that point and bonuses merely speed me up a bit rather than make a massive difference like pre-t100 ones do. Things snowball, and that early production is nice. It allows me to gain Wonders, get districts online sooner, pump out Settlers, and so forth. That means by the time t100 comes around and, if all things were equal, things would be starting to turn against Germany, all things really aren't equal. I don't know how long it takes for things to swing back fully, but it's going to be a while, long enough that it's not going to make a massive difference.

Germany isn't amazing. The prod goodies, as mentioned before, is meant to make prod a bit more appealing. However, it would truly shine in a protracted war - Germany would be able to pump out units very quickly even of trade routes are cut and gold income becomes an issue. Unfortunately, at least in single player, protracted wars just don't happen very often at all. If they do, it often goes in the player's favour and you're not worrying about trade routes so gold isn't an issue. Eh.

Yeah, earlier on Germany was S-tier, but over time, I think they've settled more into the "strong but shouldn't be banned" tier. Where Germany shines best is early on, especially if you get a less than stellar capital location. Like, I was playing a game last night as America, but started in the tundra, and even with Artemis, I don't think I would have been able to get my capital past size 5 until Feudalism. Being limited to 2 districts there just cripples you. Even my other cities just didn't have a lot of food, and were also stuck around size 4 or 5. But if I were playing Germany, now all those cities can get their 3rd districts down.

Now, obviously there are other civs who in my map would have been better. Canada would have slaughtered that tundra area. Someone else would have made better use of some nearby seafood. The Khmer yeah would have gotten some base food from their holy sites that would have let me grow more. But Germany would have helped all those cities. And they got sneakily massively improved by the IZ adjacency card moving to a military card, and since Germany gets a free military card, that's basically all teaming up to give Germany a brutally easily +10 production per city more than other civs. Place a city, place the CH/IZ, chop a forest, and you have a size 1 city that can now hard build their granary and monument in like 4-5 turns.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Place a city, place the CH/IZ, chop a forest, and you have a size 1 city that can now hard build their granary and monument in like 4-5 turns

What.
Germany ramps up fast, but not that fast.
1 chop wont ever get you both a hansa and a comm hub before you reach pop 2.