[GS] Are IZs and Production good now? (Post June 2019 update)

[acluewithout]

So, are Industrial Zones and all the other things that give you production “good” now? Do people like the changes?

Some thoughts:

- Industrial Zone bonuses feel less dependent on the terrain, and more about just having infrastructure. But I’m not sure. Strategic resources will be more of a factor in placement, which is kinda cool. Also aqueducts are interesting - it may make sense to have City Centre Aqueduct IZ triangles particularly if you can get some Strat Resources.

- I sort of don’t like the changes to Lumber Mills. They just feel more ... boring. You get them earlier (less delayed gratification) and there’s no adjacency games around rivers. Maybe there will be some fun stuff around how boosts unlock through the tech tree. Dunno. I liked that lumbermills were situational - I agree they needed a buff, but the current changes feel to blunt.

(I’d suggested elsewhere farms getting +1 food or something from being next to a river after you get irrigation. It would be great to see something similar for mills, eg +1 production next to rivers, once you research eg mass production.)

- I’m in the middle on rainforest lumber mills. The whole design philosophy was that you basically had to chop rainforest because they were negative appeal and didn’t do anything. GS made that even more interesting (well, in principle), because while rainforest were crap chopping them hurt the environment. Just letting you build lumbermills just undercuts that dynamic, although at least it requires a mid game civic (and it’s interesting it’s a civic not a tech - noice).

- Is Workshops are +3 instead of +2. Is that enough? Are they okay now? Umm. Yeah, maybe. I don’t know. +2 was sad. +3 is ... not sad. Maybe okay. Yeah. Sure. It’s okay.

- I’ll be a bit sad if Military Engineers and Railways haven’t got some love. I was really hoping we’d get something like Civ V where connecting cities to your capital by rail gives production boosts. MEs may get a buff. You never know - I’d be surprised if they can’t build roads without charges given lots of people asked for that and there’s lots of mods that do it.

- Overall, it feels like more hammers for everyone, everywhere. And I don’t think that’s actually a good change. Playing the map means playing out territory where you have less production. How is there going to be anywhere on the map with less production?

- Not sure if this should go here, but I’m still happy about the buffs to Tier 3 buildings.

 

[pokiehl]

I dunno. Haven't played the patch yet.

 

[iammaxhailme]

Well, I'm glad Mines will not be so much more notable than Quarries and Lumber Mills now. I still think Camps need a buff compared with Pastures.

I liked that Lumber Mills got an extra production next to rivers. It made sense, as lots of saw mills used water/log flumes to drive the logs through, plus logs were sent down river. It made sense thematically. It's not like river mills are worse now, but I do think they should be better than regular mills in some way. Maybe add 1 gpt if even more production would be OP...

 

[acluewithout]

Well, I'm glad Mines will not be so much more notable than Quarries and Lumber Mills now. I still think Camps need a buff compared with Pastures.

I liked that Lumber Mills got an extra production next to rivers. It made sense, as lots of saw mills used water/log flumes to drive the logs through, plus logs were sent down river. It made sense thematically. It's not like river mills are worse now, but I do think they should be better than regular mills in some way. Maybe add 1 gpt if even more production would be OP...

Yeah. I think the little adjacency games around improvements are fun - eg Farm adjacencies. I think losing that little mini-game around Lumbermills is a step backwards.

I’m also really not a fan of LMs coming earlier. There is already too much tech front loaded into the start of the game.

Some of the changes feel a bit “dial it up to 11”. That’s not a good thing.

 

[Ziad]

I am disappointed that they didn't give Harbor a major adjacency bonus for Industrial Zones with all these changes. It makes sense.

 

[UWHabs]

One interesting balance I think intentional is that now that mines aren't the biggest production spots, you're going to be more likely to keep forests around to lumbermill, and more likely to replace mines late-game with stuff like windmills. Definitely going to be a little bit of a change, but I think it will be good on the whole. And yeah, since you can now lumbermill rainforests, I don't know if I'm going to keep them all around, but I definitely see myself keep 2 of them for the Campus adjacencies more often.

 

[acluewithout]

@UWHabs I think Mines will remain the biggest source of production.

Mines are still a good source of production because hills are everywhere, the tech unlocks very early, and +1 production at Apprenticeship. The only change is that they’re maybe not as good for IZs, but that only matters if you want to IZs - IZs weren’t good before and I’m not convinced that they’re that better now.

I think all that’s going to happen is you’re going to keep chopping Woods and Jungles and Stone on hills - instant production boost + can still build a mine.

I suspect what FXs maybe needed to do was not give the Apprenticeship boost to Mines unless they had a Strategic or Bonus resources - that way, random mines on hills would only be good in the very early game, and developing resources (bonus, woods, rainforest) would have got better in relative terms.

I really think the big change here, which is not positive, is that basically all land will be high production. Flat, hills, whatever. The only difficult terrain will be empty grasslands and desert. This seems the opposite of “play the map”.

Hopefully, patch in hand, the game will play out differently. I really don’t want to be the guy complaining when FXS have obviously made such huge efforts here and have tackled so much stuff. But to be honest, some of these changes to production feel a bit like “let’s scale pillaging yields” over the top stuff.

 

[Sostratus]

Hot takes at the bottom.

Mines are still a good source of production because hills are everywhere, the tech unlocks very early, and +1 production at Apprenticeship. The only change is that they’re maybe not as good for IZs, but that only matters if you want to IZs - IZs weren’t good before and I’m not convinced that they’re that better now. ... I really think the big change here, which is not positive, is that basically all land will be high production. Flat, hills, whatever.

Perhaps you are forgetting yourself already!
Hills are already better than flat land because they give 3 yield natively. That's just amazing. I can see where the devs saw that perhaps a district focused around production shouldn't be useful where there is already production (hilly areas) and useless elsewhere. The IZ buildings have been permanently weak ever since they nixed factory stacking at release. (Since they have no card to boost them.) The production from hills and thus, mines, will be extremely desirable. I don't think the new IZ is actually an increase in production as much as a lateral shift away from pure mines and towards more map based sources.
Aqueducts, canals, and dams, are all heavily limited by the map. Strategic resources and quarries are also expressly limited by the map. The only thing you can guarantee is mines and lumbermills, which are weaker.
(I kind of like how they are attempting to set up "do I chop the stone" conundrums.) I feel like it was just yesterday that we were discussing giving IZs a bonus with dams and canals. I'm happy to see it made it in.

So, are Industrial Zones and all the other things that give you production “good” now?

For most civs, this isn't really a big improvement. (Yes, the workshop buff is nice though.) It's going to make +3 and +4 much easier, but many civs will likely find +6 a bit tougher than before where you only needed a plateau of hills. If I've learned anything from the Incans, it's that aqueducts rarely cooperate with you. IZs should be more consistent, but that doesn't mean brainless like mining for adjacency. It's going to be a real puzzle to get the most out, which I think is a good thing!

The big winner here is Japan, who now get +3 (!) from Canals, Aqueducts, and Dams. A 3 tile Japanama canal is what, 4 spots for +6 IZ without doing anything else?
Dutch are pleased that IZ on river now makes combining with an Aq or Dam very easy: AQ-IZ-Dam is minimum +7 on the river, and two cities on the same river can double up usage of that dam.
Rome is pleasantly surprised, since they want Bath spam anyways.
Inca and Khmer have the mixed blessing of their AQ space being highly competitive for farms, although for all 3 of the big AQ users, the combine potential with Machu Picchu is really high if you end up in the mountains.
Lastly, Germany. The differential between them and literally everyone in Gathering Coal is massive. IMO this patch is widening that gap: they haven't lost anything unlike the miners, but now they have 3 new sources of +2 benefits. The added things you can do with AQs and dams around rivers will strictly improve the Hansa. Working around with canals late game is just another way to pack on more yields. It's going to be much easier to turn a raw +7 and +8, into +10 and +12. I am convinced that someone at firaxis is secretly a Hansa Supremacist like me. They just keep getting better and better!

The true beneficiary is the Craftsmen card. Hopefully, having widespread and consistent IZs at decent yield will push players to run it more. That is a massive paradigm shift in how the game actually plays for those used to the barebones "Alpha Centauri Choprocket" playstyle.

 

[acluewithout]

@Sostratus Are IZs more or less map dependent? I was debating this with myself when I posted. I’m really not sure.

I agree the changes are more a shift to IZs leveraging infrastructure. That was kinda why I suggested they should get adjacencies from Harbours.

I think that shift is ... probably good? You’re right, it’ll still take some map work given dams etc can’t go everywhere (and is a nice backdoor buff to dams etc). It might also be more fun mechanically, because while your IZ city has to build the IZ, other Cities can support the Canals etc via Military Engineers. So, it’s more of an investment for your whole empire.

Overall, I tentatively like the IZ boosts, although I don’t think the IZ is going to suddenly become crazy good and will probably have smaller adjacencies on average but maybe higher adjacencies at the extreme.

I’m more bummed about Mines and Lumbermills. Just feels like the changes will make the game a bit flat. I often built lumbermills instead of mines, and they were challenging to get right - I’d keep those on rivers but then chop those one tile from the river. I’d have to think through district placement etc to keep some mills.

Mines on the other hand are kinda boring. You just end up improving every damn hill if you’re not careful.

And really, making the land just give more production across the board undermines the value of IZs, because if you can get more hammers from builders, then why bother building IZs particularly if you need to also build canals, aqueducts etc? My guess is that these changes might make IZs more “fun” as a “puzzle”, but actually maybe even less useful overall.

I really think it’s a missed opportunity not nerfing bare hills slightly if they were going to buff all these other improvements. And the more I think about it, a +2 from Harbours seems like no-brainer given the other changes.

My list of stuff I wish worked better is going to be REALLY short after this patch comes out. Really really short[0], particularly if they get the unit balancing and resource balancing right (so far it looks promising). But the changes to improvements just seem a bit off to me.

Although, you know, some bits look okay? I think having Mills for Rainforests unlock at Mercantilism is not a bad compromise, even if personally I would have just left Rainforests alone.

[0] I mean, gee whiz, looks like AA is getting some love, they literally said in the video “too many thinks need niter not enough need iron”, and even the Sea Dog has got a backdoor buff. The flipping Sea Dog got better? What on earth is going on???

Assuming there are some more unannounced buffs to things like Military Engineers, and rebalance units, I think my list would practically just reduce down to: IZ +2 from Harbours; nerf bare mines just a little and make Farms and Lumbermills get adjacency from Rivers (linked to irrigation for farms and some tech for LMs); nerf Markets a little, and maybe still buff Coastal Cities a tad (eg City Centre gets +1 production at Celestial Navigation and Mass Production); some sort of bonus for Colonial Cities (eg Diplo Favour but requiring a card) ... and tweaking units prices and or a few buffs for units from the late game techs if that’s still not right. I’d also still like to see railways do something for production.

[1] I may need to just sit down and take a few deep breaths. So much patch. So much anticipation. So much ... England not sucking. Just so much “much”.

[2] Alpha Centauri Choprocket is my new favourite expression.

 

[MrRadar]

Rome is pleasantly surprised, since they want Bath spam anyways.

Yes, Rome has been generously compensated for the mine adjacency downgrade and pushed in the general direction of the industrial nations. And with that extra housing they can staff their IZ less painfully. Have their gain unexpectedly been the greatest, if taken in relative terms? If map gods are kind and supply a convenient confluence, Rome can get, what, +11 IZ? 3 baths, 2 dams and a quarry or GP. Usually it would be about half of that, probably, but still they will be among those, who can afford IZ specialists more easily.

I wonder though what would be the reasoning in connection with RL to add +2 adjacency for AQ and Baths? Canals, dams quite understandable. But AQ and Baths? Well, maybe industrial processes do require a lot of water and high workers' hygiene do improve their work efficiency. Ok, I buy it. I'm also happy that AQ value keeps increasing.

But why, o why FXS neglected to give same generous bonus for adjacent Harbours and Encampments? Military-Industrial complex and all that. Maybe in the future?

And that sneaky Workshop buff (small, but nice) rekindled my hopes to see something similar done for the Factory - that's probably the only thing left unknown in the revamped IZ.

And really, making the land just give more production across the board undermines the value of IZs, because if you can get more hammers from builders, then why bother building IZs particularly if you need to also build canals, aqueducts etc? My guess is that these changes might make IZs more “fun” as a “puzzle”, but actually maybe even less useful overall.

Yes, that's a concern. Now if only land improvements for production were not granted additional cogs so easily only for researching a tech, but require to have some industrial infrastructure, like workshops and factories instead, at least to be in the coverage area of a factory...

I really think it’s a missed opportunity not nerfing bare hills slightly if they were going to buff all these other improvements. And the more I think about it, a +2 from Harbours seems like no-brainer given the other changes.

Yes, a hundred times yes. It is high time for the mines on barren hills to make that 33% category of 'things left out in the new installment'. Sprinkle a bit more bonus or strategical resources, add more resource variety, but don't make us to dig dirt from those them hills again and again and again...

 

[King of Prussia]

Overall i am glad they are buffing production.(and increasing tech costs) The production vs tech/civic pacing was bad for a very long time. It got worse and worse as the game went on. I eventually got tired of it, and modded a lot of the mid to late game units costs to be 10-20 % on average less than what they were. I never got around to doing it to buildings, but eventually i would of done it.

as for giving the IZ standard/major adjacency to certain districts like an encampment or harbor sounds good to me.


i am still not 100% convinced of the nerf to mines and adjacency but i guess we will see.

 

[iammaxhailme]

This isn't new to this patch, but Aqueducts (and presumably Baths) get amenities from being next to geothermal fissures. That combined with the new industrial zone adjacency makes me want to try a new Rome game. I always thought the Bath was pretty lame as a unique before, but it's a bit better now.

 

[criZp]

I also liked lumber mills getting +1 prod from river adjacent. They could perhaps have given mines a bonus prod for adjacent mountain. And kept the river thing for the lumber mills.

 

[Sostratus]

Are IZs more or less map dependent? I was debating this with myself when I posted. I’m really not sure.

I think the problem before was my brain could autopilot IZs by simply looking at where hills are. The paucity of any strategy was very annoying compared to a civ like japan or dutch or germany. But now I'm going to actively search out ways to incorporate all the green districts. This is much more fun. Industrialization, ahoy!

That was kinda why I suggested they should get adjacencies from Harbours.

I remember in whatever thread of yours I suggested the +2 from dams, harbors got brought up. I can see some hesitation from the FXS crew over this because CHs already get +2 from harbors, and almost all harbor+city spots have just 2 land tiles touching the harbor. If 3 was actually common, it would mean i could build polders everywhere. So people would just ditch the CH for the IZ-Harbor-City triangle because +2 production (ultimately +8) is worth way more than +2/4 gold. I see the appeal though. Right now it feels like they added the canals and dams, then decided to make all the green "engineering project" districts count with the aqueduct. I do think it's a cool idea, though I'd rather it + the CH bonus go on the harbor than the IZ. (Or be split between them as +1.) Harbors are districts, too. They need love.

I think having Mills for Rainforests unlock at Mercantilism is not a bad compromise, even if personally I would have just left Rainforests alone.

Well rainforest starts were terrible because you could only get Chichen in one city. I think being able to improve them is a great thing. Would it have made a great brazil ability? yes, yes it would have. But at least there be jungle left late game. Big help to sacred path and brazil in general!

If map gods are kind and supply a convenient confluence, Rome can get, what, +11 IZ? 3 baths, 2 dams and a quarry or GP.

Here's the rub: It's possible to sandwich a tile between two aqueducts, by going City-AQ-tile-AQ-city (in fact inca have an achievement for doing this,) but because cities have to be 3 apart, there's no way to get a third aqueduct in there. People are overestimating just how easy it is to place aqueducts. In fact, when I write an expanded Hansa and IZ guide after this patch, I will likely point out that City-AQ-tile-AQ-city actually has 2 spots between the 2 AQs, so each city can place their IZ in. Would work great along most rivers.
Same issue with canals; you have to place a canal next to a city, so you can't actually get 2 canals next to the same tile in most cases. And we don't know yet if the central tile of the panama canal counts for a canal or if it's going to be just a wonder tile. Sure, you can build a city one tile inland to late build a canal, but then you're just trading the +2 prod of the harbor's shipyard for +2 prod on the IZ.

i am still not 100% convinced of the nerf to mines and adjacency but i guess we will see.

It's really going to depend on your dedication to the IZ life. If you don't run craftsmen then it's just a 1/2 prod loss to the IZ, but the mine still gives the same +3 so going from 3+1 to 3+1/2 production (tile yield+adjacency) is barely noticeable. However, if you run craftsmen and spam coal plants, then 1 adjacency=4 production net, so this is a -2 production per mine nerf. They currently give +7 next to such an IZ (3+4), they will now on average give +5 (3+2.)

 

[Jewelrunna]

I hesitate to say they're good now, in the way the commercial hubs and campuses are good, but I think you can build them without feeling bad. The changes to the IZ are more substantial than the (realistically, minor) buff to workshops, and they might be enough to make cities without lots of hill tiles nearby workable. But I dunno; we need to play the patch first.

 

[MrRadar]

Here's the rub: It's possible to sandwich a tile between two aqueducts, by going City-AQ-tile-AQ-city (in fact inca have an achievement for doing this,) but because cities have to be 3 apart, there's no way to get a third aqueduct in there.

Wouldn't something like the schematic below work?
Sorry, I'm still rubbish with the map tool. Mountains are for city centres, deserts - for baths, and the central plains is IZ. With some luck there are FPs and two tiles for dams, plus one for at least GP. I agree that such locations won't be coming up very often.

 

[Sostratus]

Wouldn't something like the schematic below work?

Yes, yes this would work. I was thinking of just having a single straight river. I stand corrected!
Although hopefully this highlights that it's not going to be easy to stack a lot of the new infrastructure - for example here, you'd likely be best off putting the dam in the center and then each city's IZ around it (so all 3 have adjacency with 3 of the civil projects, one of them could have a second dam next to it) but there's virtually no way to get canals involved. Maybe some very esoteric lake placement?

I think we'll see a lot more 3-5 IZs in flat land, but a lot less in hills; unless of course you have mountains for Aqueducts.

 

[kaspergm]

- I sort of don’t like the changes to Lumber Mills. They just feel more ... boring. You get them earlier (less delayed gratification) and there’s no adjacency games around rivers. Maybe there will be some fun stuff around how boosts unlock through the tech tree. Dunno. I liked that lumbermills were situational - I agree they needed a buff, but the current changes feel to blunt.

I agree with you on this, I feel lumbermills should offer something slightly different from mines. I liked how in Civ5 (I think?) they gave gold besides the production. I also liked how lumbermills got the +1 production from rivers which made them situationally very competitive to mines, particularly since you didn't get the negative appeal. Lumbermill adjacency to industrial zone is welcome, however.

- I’m in the middle on rainforest lumber mills. The whole design philosophy was that you basically had to chop rainforest because they were negative appeal and didn’t do anything. GS made that even more interesting (well, in principle), because while rainforest were crap chopping them hurt the environment. Just letting you build lumbermills just undercuts that dynamic, although at least it requires a mid game civic (and it’s interesting it’s a civic not a tech - noice).

Again I agree, this is a sort of sad design. Jungles in Civ6 already are way too good imo., having a jungle start should really be uphill and encourage you to chop they jungles if you wanted fast growth and production, and I liked how in late game, you suddenly got many different bonuses from keeping the jungle tiles (like the science from the zoo, it helps with environment, etc., although I think it should work better with natural parks.

- Is Workshops are +3 instead of +2. Is that enough? Are they okay now? Umm. Yeah, maybe. I don’t know. +2 was sad. +3 is ... not sad. Maybe okay. Yeah. Sure. It’s okay.

I still don't understand why Workshops don't have an AOE like the Factory. Feels like a better buff to me.

I appreciate they looking into production overall, though, so I guess I'll just have to mod some of those things to my liking.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I think having some factories could be nice.

But they still won't be seen early game because they take up a district slot, and IMO they really need to fix some of these bad Great Engineers before it can really be a thing. This is also why harbors often just can't keep up with hubs-- merchants have more utility.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I agree with you on this, I feel lumbermills should offer something slightly different from mines. I liked how in Civ5 (I think?) they gave gold besides the production. I also liked how lumbermills got the +1 production from rivers which made them situationally very competitive to mines, particularly since you didn't get the negative appeal. Lumbermill adjacency to industrial zone is welcome, however.


Again I agree, this is a sort of sad design. Jungles in Civ6 already are way too good imo., having a jungle start should really be uphill and encourage you to chop they jungles if you wanted fast growth and production, and I liked how in late game, you suddenly got many different bonuses from keeping the jungle tiles (like the science from the zoo, it helps with environment, etc., although I think it should work better with natural parks.


I still don't understand why Workshops don't have an AOE like the Factory. Feels like a better buff to me.

I appreciate they looking into production overall, though, so I guess I'll just have to mod some of those things to my liking.

Lumber Mills don't give gold in civ 5. Maybe they did before BNW, but they definitely don't with a fully up to date version