Are Adjacency Bonuses Powerful?

[Aaron Claypool]

I thought I understand how they work but they seem a marginal improvement at best. And when I see the policy cards for 100% Adjacency Bonus, it's even more confusing.

If I get an average +3 AB in each of my 4 cities for Campus', then the card will provide me with an additional +12 Science. That doesn't seem like too much by the time I have my Civ up and running.

Am I missing something?

 

[EgonSpengler]

Am I missing something?

Only that 4 cities is very few. I typically have 12-20 cities, and more than 20 isn't that uncommon (my high-water mark was 35, iirc).

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

The adjacency bonuses are more important in the beginning of the game than the end. And the bonus modifier policies are not that great unless you manage to get a bunch of awesome spots for a bunch of districts of the same type.

 

[UWHabs]

It's not unusual for me to have, say, 40 science, and of that, 2 are from campuses with +3 each, for example. Running the "double adjacency" policy will give me an extra 6 science, which is a 15% science boost.

It becomes less powerful the larger your cities are (as you get more science from pop), or once you get university+ into the campuses.

They're also stronger if you can otherwise get extra adjacencies. For example, dance of the aurora + all tundra tundra + natural wonder holy site can be +8 or +9 adjacency, which gives a lot when doubled. Or civs which get an extra adjacency bonus (Brazil with rainforest, Japan with districts, Australia with appeal) can run higher than the default, potentially making the adjacency bonus more valuable.

 

[MadDjinn]

they aren't quite as powerful as they should be, but do have real benefits earlier in the game.

buildings eventually take over (and there's a policy card for that as well), but it would be nice if the adjacency bonuses were brought into the later buildings so that they remained important later on. Though, it's sort of historical that 'placement' of 'districts' (IE where you put that mass factory) wasn't as important wrt resource location later in history. Ie, the better our transportation systems, the further away the industry could be and still be similarly productive.

 

[Browd]

I thought I understand how they work but they seem a marginal improvement at best. And when I see the policy cards for 100% Adjacency Bonus, it's even more confusing.

If I get an average +3 AB in each of my 4 cities for Campus', then the card will provide me with an additional +12 Science. That doesn't seem like too much by the time I have my Civ up and running.

Am I missing something?

As UWHabs noted, the impact of these cards depends on your then-current science run-rate. If, to use your example, the card gives you an extra 12 science, and at that time your empire is producing 80 science, that's a 15% boost to your empire's science output. Is that beneficial? Certainly. Is it so overwhelming that the card is a "gotta have"? Of course not, but I would hope no cards are so OP that you simply must take them in every game.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

It also depends on district type. Holy Sites can get absurd adjacency bonuses with the right pantheons. Commercial Hub's adjacency bonus from river is quite easy to get (and you should have plenty of them), so doubling it can go a long way. Depending on Campus placement, those can also stay relevant for longer (at least until Universities).

 

[Siptah]

as australia, adjacency bonuses can be quite enormous. in today's livestream, we just saw a +9 commercial hub.

 

[Cerilis]

as australia, adjacency bonuses can be quite enormous. in today's livestream, we just saw a +9 commercial hub.

The scenario might have some special rules though.

 

[Siptah]

The scenario might have some special rules though.

Well, it was River + Harbor + City Center + Appeal. Can be the real thing, no?

 

[UWHabs]

The scenario might have some special rules though.

No, that one didn't have any extra:
+2 for river
+2 for harbor
+1 for 2 adjacent districts
+4 for appeal (breathtaking)

 

[Cerilis]

Well okay, that makes sense (I forgot where the extra bonus for australia comes from ).

 

[Kyro]

The values are mostly weak and not something you can't make up with additional population. That's why they nerfed tall play to the ground by bottlenecking growth. Can't have you peacefully growing a handful of cities for Victory. You have to expand non-stop for them to add up to something useful.

 

[Southern_Hunter]

Had a holy site with +9 today on an Indian game (not that it relied on it being India). Everest x 2 +2 +3 mountains. Nice.

 

[Leyrann]

The values are mostly weak and not something you can't make up with additional population. That's why they nerfed tall play to the ground by bottlenecking growth. Can't have you peacefully growing a handful of cities for Victory. You have to expand non-stop for them to add up to something useful.

Which makes sense, really. No civilization in history ever got ahead of it's neighbours without expanding it's territory one way or another.

 

[Art Morte]

The only adjacency bonuses I tend to care about are for commercial district and industrial zone.

What I find somewhat weird is that you have both kinds of policy cards: 100% adjacency bonus and 100% more gold/science/culture from buildings in those districts. The latter cards are much more powerful than the former and there's not that long a wait between them, making those adjacency bonus cards all but obsolete to begin with, imo.

 

[EgonSpengler]

After trying a couple of peaceful games, I'm curious to try a couple of "tall" games. From a distance, I don't see what the appeal is; it seems like that's just making it harder on yourself, but maybe there's something I can't see without trying it. Every time I see an AI civ with fewer than 6 cities, I feel like they're inviting me to conquer them, but of course the AI is a clown.

The only adjacency bonuses I tend to care about are for commercial district and industrial zone.

What I find somewhat weird is that you have both kinds of policy cards: 100% adjacency bonus and 100% more gold/science/culture from buildings in those districts. The latter cards are much more powerful than the former and there's not that long a wait between them, making those adjacency bonus cards all but obsolete to begin with, imo.

You said it yourself, you have both types of cards. They aren't mutually-exclusive. This game - any strategy game, really - is about stacking up bonuses.

 

[Kyro]

Which makes sense, really. No civilization in history ever got ahead of it's neighbours without expanding it's territory one way or another.

I have nothing against constant expansion itself; like you said all successful civilizations expanded.

What I am against is what was taken away from the game to make it attractive(population size/growth advantage)how players are forced to do so as a result and how it is used as part of the greater picture to encourage war.

As a peaceful player preferring many mega cities and good relations the changes to expansion are mostly unwelcome.

 

[isau]

Saladin/Arabia can get very good adjacency bonuses thanks to his unique building that gives you bonus faith that matches the science adjacency bonus of your campus. If you end up near mountain ranges or natural wonders you can stack campuses and holy sites for very strong faith generation. If you manage to get one of the pantheons that provides bonus faith from a tile type on top of that, the bonuses can get out of control.

 

[Victoria]

So typically I try to get 3 adjacency for my harbours. With a double adjacency card and a shipyard this is +6 gold and +6 production which I am quite happy with.
Adjacency cards are the poorer version of double yields of district buildings