Anyone else barely build districts

[web25]

The more i play i find myself not building them. Id rather build settlers, builders or units. I do like trade routes so i do build harbors and com hubs.

 

[CppMaster]

No. I build district in every city almost as many as I can.

 

[Tech Osen]

No. I build district in every city almost as many as I can.

This.

 

[Leyrann]

My cities are at their strongest when they are capping out on districts, so I definitely build them a lot. Often, I will prioritize getting another district up over getting a tier 2 or sometimes even tier 1 building in an existing district. Part of this is also that districts get more expensive the longer the game goes, while those buildings do not. (you can also place districts early, as that locks in their cost, and then do something else first, but I tend to avoid doing so because it feels a bit like an exploit)

The one exception to this is the very early game. Roughly for a time equal to the duration of the Ancient Era I'll prioritize other things. Mostly because I'm using my capital to expand by building Settlers (and maybe a trade route and a builder or two) while my other cities are still building their city center buildings, which I almost always consider more important than a district.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

The one exception to this is the very early game. Roughly for a time equal to the duration of the Ancient Era I'll prioritize other things. Mostly because I'm using my capital to expand by building Settlers (and maybe a trade route and a builder or two) while my other cities are still building their city center buildings, which I almost always consider more important than a district

True, but you still want to plonk the district down to lock the cost, even if you dont finish building it yet.
Also one important exception is the instance where you get the opportunity to secure multiple high adjacency holy site spots from a pantheon, then getting holy sites down quickly becomes extremely important so that you dont miss the window of opportunity to abuse work ethic and monumentality (to the point that I personally skip almost everything else, because the payoff is so huge).

Otherwise yeah, agree.
I'd even argue that lots of players overvalue campuses early on, to the detriment of their expansion as they dont have the industrial base to reap the benefits of all that science yet (this applies to single player of course).

 

[Leyrann]

True, but you still want to plonk the district down to lock the cost, even if you dont finish building it yet.

This is optimal, yes, but as I said earlier in my post, I don't like doing it. In reality, I only do it when I feel pressed for time or if I have a bad production city/game.

Also one important exception is the instance where you get the opportunity to secure multiple high adjacency holy site spots from a pantheon, then getting holy sites down quickly becomes extremely important so that you dont miss the window of opportunity to abuse work ethic and monumentality (to the point that I personally skip almost everything else, because the payoff is so huge).

Yup, if I go religion rush I tend to put down a few Holy Sites extremely early. Though then again I feel like super adjacency + work ethic is just too strong and I try to not make it a default part of my playstyle. The game is easy enough as it is.

I'd even argue that lots of players overvalue campuses early on, to the detriment of their expansion as they dont have the industrial base to reap the benefits of all that science yet (this applies to single player of course).

Absolutely agreed. For the first 100-150 turns, only 3+ adjacency campuses are worth it, imo, even if you go for a science victory. It's just more valuable to build up your economy first and start spamming campuses after. And of course there's the point where district cost scales with your technologies researched (as does buying tiles, actually), which just means that if you run far ahead in science, building up your empire becomes more difficult and expensive. (I still think this is a bad design choice, but that aside)

 

[UWHabs]

I find it really varies depending on game and terrain. Some games I am maxing out my districts, aggressively pushing to get the next one, and when I get the engineer who gives me +1 district in the city, I rejoice because my plans can continue.

Other games I seem to develop out the land, and even if I have the space, I just can't bring myself to break up a beautiful farming area, or wipe out a banana plantation, with a district, and so might have some size 18+ cities with only like 3 used district slots.

I can't tell you why it happens, sometimes it depends on the civ, or the land, or my mood. I'm sure if I dug back and analyzed it it would be some combination of how close my cities are together, whether I end up settling a floodplain for farming vs planning on a dam/IZ setup, whether I can naturally sprawl my districts out next to mountains for lots of base adjacency, or whether I can only get adjacency from cramming them close together.

 

[tedhebert]

not a single game where i don’t max out on district… and i build granary, sewer and neighborhoods to crank up the population and be able to build some more districts…

only exception is on full coastal games with archipelago maps where I just don’t have enough available tiles for them

 

[Cedbird77]

The more i play i find myself not building them. Id rather build settlers, builders or units. I do like trade routes so i do build harbors and com hubs.

How do you win the game without focusing on districts? If you want to win a Science, Culture, or Religious Victory than you have to have lots of GP points and goodies that come from Districts. Maybe the only victory condition that you do not need districts is a Domination Victory. But even then. You have to have a lot of Science in order to stay relevant enough to conquer the whole globe.

 

[reddishrecue]

I can only imagine a lot of improved land tiles that provide resource bonuses worked by workers and wonders when you say you don't use districts on the lower levels. I also say that because higher levels have you less likely with wonders.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Germany is an absolute powerhouse economically because you can basically have whatever districts you want AND the IZ is half off

 

[Ordnael]

Can u even win a game like that...even in the lowest difficulty setting?

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Can u even win a game like that...even in the lowest difficulty setting?

Domination.

 

[Leyrann]

Domination.

This is correct. I have (admittedly indeed on the lowest difficulty setting) gotten a 101-turn domination victory on a standard sized Pangaea map with the Aztecs. I didn't quite go zero districts, but I wasn't far off.

Maybe I'll give it another try sometime and go for the sub-100 turn victory, I'm pretty sure it's possible. I'd have had it that game if Kupe hadn't settled his capital away from the continent.

The strategy, by the way, is to quite simply spam Eagle Warriors until you can overrun everyone in every direction at the same time. No upkeep cost, and they remain relevant thanks to luxury resource improvements. If really needed, you can get iron and upgrade some of them to Man-At-Arms by the end, but at least on Settler it wasn't needed.

I think I'd definitely be able to pull off this strategy up to King, at least. Above that the AI's starting bonuses (in particular the second Settler) will probably become problematic, as will the combat bonus.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Hin... I tend to not build as many districts as I should, that's for sure. I hit the district limit only in very low population cities barely set by accident (I mean not worrying too much about the yield, oops). I often, often, OFTEN barely build any theater square or holy sites however. Here is what I build and in which order : Campuses, in every city possible. Then Commercial hubs, for unit maintenance mainly if I lack the gold. To build universities faster and research labs, I build industrial districts, otherwise building universities takes eons. And last, some entairtainement districts, in the cities that are not busy with spaceports.

In multiplayer however I tend to develop my cities network first of all, before any district. When I'm aggressed/aggress early, only units. (when necessary, which not always is enough)

That said, no need to build districts instead of commercial hubs and units if you're going to take AI campuses...

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

I probably don't build them as often as I should, because I try to role-play and put districts in "nice-looking" places* and don't have the patience to plan them out Eras in advance...

*places like an encampment on a frontier that I'm blind to, or next to a hostile civ.
campus always surrounded by 3+ mountains.
theater always between 2+ wonders.
industry zone between some mines.
commerce zone between city center and any districts.
and I don't think I ever build a preserve...
etc.
probably not a good strat but hey that's the way I am.

 

[Rg339]

I play on marathon/deity, and on this speed, building anything more than a campus is largely irrelevant.

I find that limited production is better spent on builders rather than districts. The yields from pillaging are too high to ignore; science victories before 1 AD are not out of the question on huge maps with many players. It’s particularly possible if the game has fortunate city states spawn, or if Pericles or Gorgo are present(because pillaging theatre districts is much easier if either are)

 

[rgp151]

Germany is an absolute powerhouse economically because you can basically have whatever districts you want AND the IZ is half off

IMO Germany is overrated. I hardly ever hit the district limit anyway, so that's rarely an issue. It seems like in GS there are just too many ways to increase your pop cap. In Vanilla it was more common to hit the pop cap, so Germany seemed relatively better. But a cheap IZ is hardly worth it IMO, especially since, in many cases the Hansa is worse than an IZ in terms of the bonuses it can get. Spain is 10 times better than Germany, as are many other civs IMO. Yeah, I really don't understand the appeal of Germany, especially in GS.

 

[Leyrann]

IMO Germany is overrated. I hardly ever hit the district limit anyway, so that's rarely an issue. It seems like in GS there are just too many ways to increase your pop cap. In Vanilla it was more common to hit the pop cap, so Germany seemed relatively better. But a cheap IZ is hardly worth it IMO, especially since, in many cases the Hansa is worse than an IZ in terms of the bonuses it can get. Spain is 10 times better than Germany, as are many other civs IMO. Yeah, I really don't understand the appeal of Germany, especially in GS.

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.

 

[aieeegrunt]

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