Appeal is irrelevant

[FearSunn]

Is it me or Appeal is basically not important at all in this game? How frequently do you check appeal lenses? Why?

 

[Naeshar]

Appeal is used in only a few mechanics. I can think of Neghborhoods, some improvements like Chemamull or seaside resort, the earth goddess pantheon, Australian districts and of course National Parks. The only time I check the appeal lenses is when I finally could set up an NP - and usually discover there is no such place.
If you have a specialty based on appeal it is good to check, otherwise I dont care. Appeal is new to Civ, and doesn't really make much impact. It should be either reworked or removed in next game ... Right now it's just fine.

 

[Victoria]

The only time it used to be for me is at seaside resorts where it made a huge difference, especially when twinned with Cristo. Fast culture games its not so important.
Public transport can be a massive 1 off hit which really helps for fast games if you can stomach using it, the fact Firaxis doubled the payout for the card indicates either they wanted to exploit the export or had no idea you did not have to complete the neighborhood for payout (you do loose the farm I guess)

 

[Human Crouton]

Appeal requires way too much planning and micromanagement for way too little payoff.

I'm not totally against it, but the game would be fine without it. At this point I think the game either needs to add some other mechanic that increases appeal's usefulness, or remove it entirely.

 

[qadams]

I mostly play peaceful games, aiming for a Culture victory, and I like the appeal mechanic. I use it for neighborhoods, where it can really boost your housing, and of course for national parks.

 

[FearSunn]

Ok. Thank you all for feedback.
This is sad... Myself in the heart being environmentalist would prefer Appeal having a bigger role in the game. Surroundings are very important for humans. I would expect Appeal have some impact on population. Immediate thinking is to link it somehow with Amenities (Happiness). For Happiness have direct link with population growth and productivity. Any ideas?

 

[Human Crouton]

I think it would work well if they added an immigration/emigration mechanic.

High appeal cities attract more tourists from nearby foreign cities with less appeal. After a certain threshold, this tourism adds one population to the high appeal city, and decrements one population from the foreign city. Obviously, happiness and other modifiers could factor in, but giving appeal a heavy modifier for this would make sense because high appeal in a city also equals a higher population cap from pretty neighborhoods.

It's not fully thought out, but that's what I've been mulling over when I consider improving appeal.

 

[Victoria]

Its all a bit broken.... A high appeal Neighborhood gives high population but as I understand Neighborhoods, high population = slums and poor appeal.

@FearSunn , high pop = low appeal so perhaps the wrong approach. I think seaside resorts have it right... if you had a similar thing without the tourism for cities, so you could build an affluent neighborhood for gold per appeal and effluent one for population and reduced surrounding appeal.

Its tricky, something like an anamistic religion could feed off appeal

but as you say, the happiness side that could be the largest beneficial part if the right mechanic is in place. One suspect VII will be required for such a change.

 

[Xandinho]

I only check appeal when I will build seaside resorts. I think the appeal system, in general, rather limited, this should be more linked with other systems of the game.

 

[criZp]

what they need to do is add a reason to care about appeal early game

perhaps just make earth goddess a general mechanic. charming tiles get +1 faith, breathtaking tiles get +2 faith.

 

[Naeshar]

what they need to do is add a reason to care about appeal early game
perhaps just make earth goddess a general mechanic. charming tiles get +1 faith, breathtaking tiles get +2 faith.

This is actually a good idea. Faith was present in pretty much all ancient cultures and beautiful places inspire now as well. Thinking of how much use Faith with R&F got, it could provide a reliable way of getting it, countered by mining industry. Jungles, however...

 

[acluewithout]

Ok. Thank you all for feedback.
This is sad... Myself in the heart being environmentalist would prefer Appeal having a bigger role in the game. Surroundings are very important for humans. I would expect Appeal have some impact on population. Immediate thinking is to link it somehow with Amenities (Happiness). For Happiness have direct link with population growth and productivity. Any ideas?

And that’s the hilarious thing. Appeal already does all that: appeal gives you housing (via Neighbourhoods), amenities (via National Parks) and even faith (via Earth Goddess) and Gold (via Seaside Resorts).

I really like the Appeal Mechanic in principle. FXS have the right idea, and the game has all the right pieces. FXS just need to look at it again. Maybe Neighbourhoods or something like them need to come earlier. Maybe Earth Goddess should be a policy card. etc. It just needs a serious look. It sad if we have to wait for a whole other Civ 7 to get that.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I really like the Appeal Mechanic in principle. FXS have the right idea, and the game has all the right pieces. FXS just need to look at it again.

Appeal is the sort of thing that could be a bedrock mechanic that other systems are based off of, to help tie everything together. It's a universal measure of how "nice" it is to live in a particular area. Even the game graphics could perhaps show this in some form or another.

Within the context of Civ 6's existing framework, perhaps the easiest change that would (I think) generally improve gameplay would be to tie Appeal directly to Amenities (which themselves then tie to Loyalty, Productivity, etc. through the Happiness system). Something like:

• Working a tile or having a District on a tile with Charming Appeal or better gives +1 Amenity
• Working a tile or having a District on a tile with Uninviting Appeal gives -1 Amenity
• Working a tile or having a District on a tile with Disgusting Appeal gives -2 Amenities

This nerfs mines, which are the primarily source of production currently, so that knock on effect would have to be considered and addressed. That would be good, though, to my mind, as mining every hill in the game and having people work those hills instead of working in a Factory is a bit immersion breaking to me.

 

[acluewithout]

Apart from Earth Goddess becoming a Policy Card, my other thought was maybe having Universities give Science based on appeal rather than flat Science (I think I saw a mod using that idea). That would make Campus placement more important. It would also maybe create some interesting dynamics - mountains would be much better for campuses and jungle would be a trade off as you’d eventually want to chop jungles to boost your universities.

I think Appeal works better as something you exploit, eg via policy cards or buildings, rather than something that’s always good. Although, I think there’s a good case for really bad appeal hurting overall happiness.

 

[FearSunn]

Appeal is the sort of thing that could be a bedrock mechanic that other systems are based off of, to help tie everything together. It's a universal measure of how "nice" it is to live in a particular area. Even the game graphics could perhaps show this in some form or another.

Within the context of Civ 6's existing framework, perhaps the easiest change that would (I think) generally improve gameplay would be to tie Appeal directly to Amenities (which themselves then tie to Loyalty, Productivity, etc. through the Happiness system). Something like:

• Working a tile or having a District on a tile with Charming Appeal or better gives +1 Amenity
• Working a tile or having a District on a tile with Uninviting Appeal gives -1 Amenity
• Working a tile or having a District on a tile with Disgusting Appeal gives -2 Amenities

This nerfs mines, which are the primarily source of production currently, so that knock on effect would have to be considered and addressed. That would be good, though, to my mind, as mining every hill in the game and having people work those hills instead of working in a Factory is a bit immersion breaking to me.

@Trav'ling Canuck
Ha This is almost exactly I've already drafted and currently testing with the mod. Only with improvements, not districts. Cultural, scientific or faith Improvement on a Charming appeal gives +1, industrial or food improvement on Uninviting takes -1. Negative impact limited to the human player only, because AI is not trained to deal with negative amenities.

PS: Negative impact on amenities will probably be replaced with increased negative inpact on surrounding Appeal, like additional -1 or something.

 

[Blackwolf803]

Appeal is far from irrelevant if you try a cultural victory, although I agree it would benefit from more mechanics interacting with it.

 

[Archon_Wing]

It doesn't help that neighborhoods themselves are pretty useless and can be a liability because they can recruit partisans from it.

In some fantasy land, Firaxis thought C-hubs and neighborhoods were gonna be so good they needed these disadvantages.

I think neighborhoods should make a city richer.

 

[chazzycat]

I think the appeal system is...fine? Culture is my favorite victory to pursue, so it's certainly relevant. I find myself making choices all the time between "get stuff now" or "get tourism later" and it's not always the easiest decision.

I kinda disagree that it needs to be incorporated into other areas. In addition to the culture game, it already affects religion substantially, because holy sites are boosted by mountains, natural wonders, and woods. These are the same things that boost appeal. The only things missing are appeal from coastline & wonders. Coastline is the big one, but they can't really add that for everyone, because its Indonesia's unique ability. Anyways, my point is that religion is already heavily influenced by appeal, just by a different name (holy site adjacency). Plus there is the Earth Goddess pantheon which could be a nice source of faith with really appealing land.

IMO this is around the right balance. Affecting two of the four victory conditions, particularly the ones where natural beauty is thematically relevant, seems appropriate to me. It's not like scientists or the military really need pretty scenery to do their jobs...

With respect to neighborhoods, it comes down to play style. Personally I do like that mechanism as well, but I am more of a role player myself and generally plan on playing well past 200 turns (closer to 300). I'm guessing players focused on the earliest win times would skip neighborhoods entirely. Does that mean the mechanism should be changed so more players get a benefit from appeal? In my opinion, no. If you are just trying to win as fast as possible then appeal SHOULD be irrelevant. It's a long term strategy for the late game eras. If you plan to conquer everyone before resorts are even invented, it would make perfect sense to ignore appeal.

 

[acluewithout]

...IMO this is around the right balance. Affecting two of the four victory conditions, particularly the ones where natural beauty is thematically relevant, seems appropriate to me. It's not like scientists or the military really need pretty scenery to do their jobs...

Space and Dom victories mean (in principle) mines and industrial zones, which lower appeal. I think part of the discussion here is whether this lowering of appeal should have a negative impact for Civs going for Dom or Science, either by creating a negative (lower amenities ) or denying those Civs some bonus (faith, amenities etc). Not because Dom and Science need to be nerfed per se, but to create trade offs that make the game more interesting and create more interesting trade offs and decisions.

Good point about appeal and Holy Sites.

 

[UWHabs]

Appeal is a hit or miss mechanism to me. Like, when it works well, it's an amazing game piece. The way that National Parks, Seaside Resorts, etc... work I find flows so well and is great.

But other parts, it misses on. Like, neighbourhoods sometimes make great sense (people prefer to live in nice areas), but the way they give appeal, it actually is counter-productive. It means you want your neighbourhoods far away from your industrial areas, and you want them in the middle of mountains or forests, which doesn't make sense in reality. And obviously the biggest flaw being that you barely have to ever build neighbourhoods, and if you do, the extra +1 or +2 housing doesn't tend to make a huge difference. I would rather see neighbourhoods be better when you build them next to other districts, not when you build them in the middle of nowhere, but that's a separate argument.

Adding in a global Earth Goddess mechanism, or the amenity suggestion above would certainly be very interesting to play with. Definitely feels like there should be some reason to care about appeal in all games, even if it's just a small piece that comes into play earlier on.