Best elements of Civ 6 that should be retained

[aieeegrunt]

Your mileage my vary here I guess. The Civ AI has never been particularly smart, but i found it was noticeable how much worse it did when I went back to playing a version of civ without loyalty.


I like the idea of incorporating culture into the loyalty system, it makes sense and would be a nice extension.

Just my guess, but I suspect culture bombs/tile flipping are relatively rare in civ6 because of the addition of districts. Firaxis seemingly decided decide that districts couldn't be flipped, so you produce some weird/counterintuitive results when city tiles change hands.

Oh Lord they really threw everything under the bus for their district puzzle minigame didn’t they

 

[DImensiondog]

Civ6 had a lot of great concepts with incredibly bad execution

I think this sums up my experience of civ 6 coming From civ 5 and somewhat civ 4.
I think loyalty was good but the mod uprising empire did it better

Trade routes were better, simple changes that were nice.

Religion was great but religious combat was okay.

Ages had potential but didn’t hit the mark plus dedications should go in exchange for general bonuses.

Alliances are great, I think 1 on 1 diplomacy was good world Congress worse than civ

Go back to civ 5 combat as support units were overpowered but walls too hard without them. Plus almost every battle I had I knew to have at least 10 more strength and I would win and 10 strength too easy to get.

Overall civ 6 wasn’t nessacarily better but more on par with civ 5 and didn’t have a generational leap like civ 5 did.

 

[LMT]

I like how there's a real competition to get a religion in VI and that there is a significant opportunity cost in pursuing one. I'd like to keep that in VII.

That being said, I wish the rewards were greater. Maybe not giving every civ a pantheon. Or simply making the beliefs a little more enticing. Or allowing multiple religions to get the same beliefs.

But overall, I like consequential decisions in the game. Deciding to go for a religion is one of them.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I think this sums up my experience of civ 6 coming From civ 5 and somewhat civ 4.
I think loyalty was good but the mod uprising empire did it better

Trade routes were better, simple changes that were nice.

Religion was great but religious combat was okay.

Ages had potential but didn’t hit the mark plus dedications should go in exchange for general bonuses.

Alliances are great, I think 1 on 1 diplomacy was good world Congress worse than civ

Go back to civ 5 combat as support units were overpowered but walls too hard without them. Plus almost every battle I had I knew to have at least 10 more strength and I would win and 10 strength too easy to get.

Overall civ 6 wasn’t nessacarily better but more on par with civ 5 and didn’t have a generational leap like civ 5 did.

The one saving grace Civ6 has is that there is a solid foundation to serve as a base to hang mods on that fix almost all of those issues

Except City Wall Ranged Strikes

I like how there's a real competition to get a religion in VI and that there is a significant opportunity cost in pursuing one. I'd like to keep that in VII.

That being said, I wish the rewards were greater. Maybe not giving every civ a pantheon. Or simply making the beliefs a little more enticing. Or allowing multiple religions to get the same beliefs.

But overall, I like consequential decisions in the game. Deciding to go for a religion is one of them.

It’s a good concept ruined by the silliness of Apostle spam.

Use a mod that makes Religion passive spread only and it gets way better

 

[Josephias]

Late to the topic, but just trowing my two cents in the main topics... I'd skip loyalty, however as I've not read all the discusion - and it is probably one of these "good only if improved" topics we'll need to extend a lot about. On other topics:


City States: Agree basically with @AntSou initial point about city states, but @TheMarshmallowBear 's comments about envoys are on the point: I would like to add here as maybe a minor improvement (that could be also applied to eurekas/inspirations) that maybe some features have made too simple for them to be enjoyable: this is the case of missions for city states - there is just one mission at a time, which is not specially cumbersome to accomplish, and then nothing. ¿Why do not have an higher number of missions of this type, running on parallel, but with less reward?. And then, if you want an high-reward mission, make it more complicated, history-driven and maybe multi-layered (CivBE three-step missions come to mind).

*I take the opportunity here to introduce the point about eurekas/inspirations: I would also think the game would be much more dynamic and interesting if, instead of having just a single eureka/inspiration providing 40% value, each tech/civic would have around 4 eurekas/inspirations, maybe a bit easier to accomplish, providing 10% value each. This would make more difficult to just play for the eurekas (as there wouldbe much more work to do), but still will include the map/gameplay tech selecting factor, as determinate map locations/way to play will easily trigger all the eurekas, and others none (and you will have 1, 2 and 3 eureka locations in the middle...). I think this kind of approach (altough probably implying more work to code) would contribute to the "less binary" need that I read in some posts.

Districts: Agree it is a must stay, and (opposite @Alexander's Hetaroi in this case) I don't mind city spread: you need to switch thinking of cities as cities, and more as "provinces", and this works both in ancient times and modern times.
-> minor and "fun-factor" possibility - having the option to "name" districts might be immersive to this way of thinking (e.g. Athens' dock could be named Pireus, Rome's dock Ostia, Madrid's campus Alcalá and London's Oxford, or Los Angeles theather square Hollywood). This naming could be automatic (but editable - sort of how it works with cities now) and hidden if you don't toggle it on, so it does not interfere with quicker games.
Regarding buildings, I think an intersting flexibility compromise would be to have a space in city center to build lvl1 distric buildings: this way you could have a market, or a workshop, without need for the full district. To not mess too much graphically, this slot could be limited to 1 district lvl1 building at once. And this building would be moved to the district once placed, to make space in the city center for a different one.
I agree as well adjacencies might be revamped and made more dinamic, having more options and tying some of them maybe to (alternate) buildings (as above, make the system less binary). And I'd like to see as well alternate buildings depending on adjacent districts (e.g. Science Lab might be substituted by an Economics Faculty providing gold bonuses + science IF a CH is adjacent to a campus, or to an Engineering School providing production + science bonuses if you have an IZ adjacent to the campus).

In general, regarding comments about victory types, i have mixed feelings about how they were implemented in Civ 6. Religious victory, in special, I'm in favor of just integrating in cultural victory (as an early way to achieve it or a contributor in the long term). Religion may have as well long-term impacts in Diplomatic victory (as a source of favour/diplomacy points). Science (Space) victory is the one that irks me the most as I'm ok with the rationale for it being a way to win, but does not seem a reason to lose at... (well, a civ just migrated to other planet... why do you lose in this planet? ).

On diplomatic and work congress I'd comment @Eagle Pursuit : I like the ideas on how WC is working on Civ6, but I cannot like how it is implemented: it seems quite rushed, with options coming out the blue and not being integrated enough with other system. Of course, I don't think Civ V option to having just the leader define the agenda is the best one. (I think I commented some time ago on more complicate options: having you governors become delegates of several WC "comissions" and your strenght in each of the "comissions" areas (science, culture, military...) allowing you to influence the agenda - this could be an innteresting way to handle the WC)

And.. well i think this is long enough

 

[aieeegrunt]

Late to the topic, but just trowing my two cents in the main topics... I'd skip loyalty, however as I've not read all the discusion - and it is probably one of these "good only if improved" topics we'll need to extend a lot about. On other topics:


City States: Agree basically with @AntSou initial point about city states, but @TheMarshmallowBear 's comments about envoys are on the point: I would like to add here as maybe a minor improvement (that could be also applied to eurekas/inspirations) that maybe some features have made too simple for them to be enjoyable: this is the case of missions for city states - there is just one mission at a time, which is not specially cumbersome to accomplish, and then nothing. ¿Why do not have an higher number of missions of this type, running on parallel, but with less reward?. And then, if you want an high-reward mission, make it more complicated, history-driven and maybe multi-layered (CivBE three-step missions come to mind).

*I take the opportunity here to introduce the point about eurekas/inspirations: I would also think the game would be much more dynamic and interesting if, instead of having just a single eureka/inspiration providing 40% value, each tech/civic would have around 4 eurekas/inspirations, maybe a bit easier to accomplish, providing 10% value each. This would make more difficult to just play for the eurekas (as there wouldbe much more work to do), but still will include the map/gameplay tech selecting factor, as determinate map locations/way to play will easily trigger all the eurekas, and others none (and you will have 1, 2 and 3 eureka locations in the middle...). I think this kind of approach (altough probably implying more work to code) would contribute to the "less binary" need that I read in some posts.

Districts: Agree it is a must stay, and (opposite @Alexander's Hetaroi in this case) I don't mind city spread: you need to switch thinking of cities as cities, and more as "provinces", and this works both in ancient times and modern times.
-> minor and "fun-factor" possibility - having the option to "name" districts might be immersive to this way of thinking (e.g. Athens' dock could be named Pireus, Rome's dock Ostia, Madrid's campus Alcalá and London's Oxford, or Los Angeles theather square Hollywood). This naming could be automatic (but editable - sort of how it works with cities now) and hidden if you don't toggle it on, so it does not interfere with quicker games.
Regarding buildings, I think an intersting flexibility compromise would be to have a space in city center to build lvl1 distric buildings: this way you could have a market, or a workshop, without need for the full district. To not mess too much graphically, this slot could be limited to 1 district lvl1 building at once. And this building would be moved to the district once placed, to make space in the city center for a different one.
I agree as well adjacencies might be revamped and made more dinamic, having more options and tying some of them maybe to (alternate) buildings (as above, make the system less binary). And I'd like to see as well alternate buildings depending on adjacent districts (e.g. Science Lab might be substituted by an Economics Faculty providing gold bonuses + science IF a CH is adjacent to a campus, or to an Engineering School providing production + science bonuses if you have an IZ adjacent to the campus).

In general, regarding comments about victory types, i have mixed feelings about how they were implemented in Civ 6. Religious victory, in special, I'm in favor of just integrating in cultural victory (as an early way to achieve it or a contributor in the long term). Religion may have as well long-term impacts in Diplomatic victory (as a source of favour/diplomacy points). Science (Space) victory is the one that irks me the most as I'm ok with the rationale for it being a way to win, but does not seem a reason to lose at... (well, a civ just migrated to other planet... why do you lose in this planet? ).

On diplomatic and work congress I'd comment @Eagle Pursuit : I like the ideas on how WC is working on Civ6, but I cannot like how it is implemented: it seems quite rushed, with options coming out the blue and not being integrated enough with other system. Of course, I don't think Civ V option to having just the leader define the agenda is the best one. (I think I commented some time ago on more complicate options: having you governors become delegates of several WC "comissions" and your strenght in each of the "comissions" areas (science, culture, military...) allowing you to influence the agenda - this could be an innteresting way to handle the WC)

And.. well i think this is long enough

The mod Real Eurekas does something similar to what you are saying

Steam Workshop::Real Eurekas

steamcommunity.com

The eurekas are more granular and also have a bit of random variation to them so gameplay doesnt stagnate and stereotype

 

[xehgre]

Districts: fun Idea and I love seeing them on the map. Changes: more building choices would be nice. Specialists should play a bigger role in the usefulness of the district. I wonder if moving from adjacency bonuses to giving bonuses to features and/or improvements within the same city would play better. I also think this would be easier on the AI.

 

[rocksinmypath]

Most issues I have with the game are related to execution of features, rather than the concept behind said features. World Congress is a good example. I think it absolutely deserves a place in Civ, and I think the concept of diplomatic favour as a resource you can accumulate through different ways is really clever. I think it's a terribly implemented mainly because it fails to provide the player any sense of agency.

Having said that, my favourite high-level element of the game is its framework. It has an incredibly elegant structure that greatly contributes to the game's replayability, and I'm sure it's played a big role in the game's commercial success. The game's ruleset consists of immutable and mutable rules. Immutable rules ensure whatever changes that are made to mutables are coherent and don't break the game. For example, unique districts are really just variations of vanilla districts. This ensures there's no problem when a player conquers someone else's city. There are many, many mutable rules, and these are what make the game fun. Examples:

- ability to work mountain tiles
- starting the game with certain Eurekas (e.g. Dido with Writing) or techs/civics (e.g. Kupe with Sailing and Shipbuilding)
- rewards provided by tribal villages and barbarian encampments (e.g. Gilgamesh and Caesar)
- amount of science/culture provided by eurekas and inspirations (e.g. 100% science for Hammurabi, +10% for China)

There's structure to how rule changes are applied, and this is another strength of the framework. Each leader is essentially a package of rule changes, and these are compartmentalized into:

- Leader unique ability
- Civilization unique ability
- Unique unit (one tied to civilization, optional one tied to leader)
- Unique infrastructure (ditto)

I believe this structure is what allows the devs to efficiently add as many leaders and civilizations to the game as they have done, and I can't complain about that as a player.

I also appreciate the way game modes were introduced to the game. Being able to pick and choose which game modes I play with is great.

For Civ 7, I'd like to see a few changes regarding the framework. First of all, although I'm overall in favour of having multiple leaders for each civilization and even multiple personas for each leader, but I'd like to see better execution than in Civ 6. Eleanor ability, for instance, doesn't synergize at all with either England's or France's ability. Mongolian Kublai Khan provides an interesting culture-focused alternative to Genghis Khan's total-domination kit, but Chinese Kublai Khan is bland, especially compared to Qin Shi Huang, whom I'd consider to be one of the iconic leaders of the game (I think there was a post that said he's the most played leader in the entire game).

Secondly, I'm hoping Firaxis will discover a way of efficiently customizing the AI and add it to the package of mutations each leader comes with. I think it's really unfortunate that the AI plays pretty much the same way with every leader. I understand that every leader has an agenda, and it does affect the way they play. For example, Victoria will aggressively settle foreign continents, Eleanor doesn't like to make cultural alliances, and Robert doesn't attack his neighbours. This isn't really enough, though, because there's a general competency problem. Every leader seems to love to focus on building as many campuses as they can, even if the campus don't synergize well with their kit. Every leader has the same preferences regarding religion beliefs. Robert will still mull about with his units on my border even if he doesn't "plan" on attacking me presumably because the AI just looks at the combat strength difference to decide whether to go to war, and the only reason Robert doesn't attack me is presumably because his "Declare War" button is greyed out.

Finally, I'd like to see the devs take it further with mutable rules. I imagine eureka and inspiration requirements can be customized for each leader. There have been instances where I feel like this would be appropriate. For example, Nzinga can't found a religion, so the requirements for boosting Theology and Divine Right make no sense, and these are key civics to unlock for him.

 

[Linklite]

My major bugbear with loyalty is, as has been mentioned, the lack of nuance. It's either 100% loyal, or not. The only factors that vary is whether you can tip it over that edge, then how fast you can get it to flip. They nerfed the unit's intended to help flips so hard that they're only useful (for that function) in very niche situations and are effectively neutered.

It does prevent land grabs and it does make invading areas not contiguous to your empire more interesting. I also like the fact that it provides a way of peaceful expansion. People say the AI doesn't handle it very well, but I've found that it often does. It's definitely improved in this regard; when I first played GS, I'd accidentally take over entire continents by flipping. I'd take a couple of cities (or settle them), but then they'd flip one or two, and it would cascade until all of them were mine. That doesn't work anymore and I might take a couple, but that's it. Eleanor's ability, while cool, is just not that useful.

So yeah, I like it. I just wish there was more to it than "loyal" or "X number of turns until it flips".

 

[ManoftheHour333]

I think districts were a great idea but optimized horribly. I want to see them come back but like a couple people have mentioned, adjacency bonuses need to be toned the hell down and you should have to build districts in a way that they border other districts. Improvements can be anywhere that the city owns but districts should have to start being adjacent to the city center so that there is natural growth. That way cities that are obviously so far from being coastal can't have a random harbor far flung off to the side or a city on the flatlands can't plop down a campus waaaaay off in the mountains. Sure with time you could build in that direction (Especially if they add more "green" districts that could allow you to expand your cities). I also think like many that you should be able to automate cities to build all buildings available in each district based on needs-like if you put a city in science mode it'd put specialists into university slots and build production and campus buildings automatically. And it should also optimize district placement so you don't have to-this would be key late game and assuming they go with more restrictions (Must be near another district) it would be easier to code as well.

Wonders being on the map was cool for many wonders (Pyramids, Eiffel Tower, SoL) but for some of them, they should be replacements for districts. Petra could totally be a commercial hub, Stonehenge needs to be a holy site, etc.. A good idea in most cases but could have been tweaked a little bit to make things more equal and make some wonders useful beyond wasting a tile (Hermitage lol).

In a weird way, I do kinda like the housing system. I think that districts should be providing housing themselves somehow or that you can build housing in your districts. As long as damn partisans don't come back since that was, and is, never fun. I also strongly think that coastal cities should have the same housing as rivers though.

I like that you have to outright build walls; I just do agree like many that they need a nerf from being impenetrable besides with siege weapons. However I think it would be much cooler if they put walls around the entirety of your city (Should you build them). Like your ancient walls could just be around your city center and an adjacent holy site but your medieval walls can be around 3-4 districts and movement would be reduced within those walls. But I also wouldn't mind just keeping the walls icons around the citadel/city center...I just think that assuming districts get more restrictions on placement, it would be cool to see some kind of defensive play from the map during sieges (Urban warfare lol).

Governments were great but the card-slotting made decisions not matter and government bonuses felt unimpactful. Looking back, card slotting was just...meh. I didn't like that card decisions could be changed so willy nilly as it made my civilization not have a consistent culture of beliefs. Say what you will about Civ V's social policies but they were easy and felt SO much more impactful. The cards were just another thing to do and read. Again great for single player but annoying on multiplayer unless everyone is a Civ VI master and knows all the cards. I think a system of "era cards" where you pick era bonuses along a separate tree might be good while culture gives you access to nice bonus policies that some governments allow could be a compromise but...yeah this needed work to reduce the blot despite being a great concept.

Monopolies and Corporations should be expanded and controlling large amounts of luxury resources should flatly give you a bunch of money somehow. This would add so much more depth to the late game and if it's just controlling industry improvements or certain cities (Trade nodes? They could totally designate areas like this...) that would integrate nicely into military development as all civs have to worry about defense etc..

While this is mostly positive, one thing that has to be axed (Pun intended) is the importance of chopping. It is so unsatisfying to have to not get free production from woods by placing a district down on woods; that should count as a chop by itself or that they just remove the MASSIVE bonuses it gives you; particularly with Magnus. This isn't to say we shouldn't be able to remove ALL resources and features but the micromanaging headache of having to make sure your worker is in the perfect position to chop the feature right when you need to build the district. Moving towards a more automated system that could reduce mid/late game bloat, stuff like this NEEDS to happen.

 

[Zaarin]

Improvements can be anywhere that the city owns but districts should have to start being adjacent to the city center so that there is natural growth.

I'd rather they make it visually more explicit that districts are separate urban centers.

Wonders being on the map was cool for many wonders (Pyramids, Eiffel Tower, SoL) but for some of them, they should be replacements for districts. Petra could totally be a commercial hub, Stonehenge needs to be a holy site, etc.. A good idea in most cases but could have been tweaked a little bit to make things more equal and make some wonders useful beyond wasting a tile (Hermitage lol).

I'm torn on this. The idea of some wonders being supercharged districts is cool--but it also takes away the opportunity cost of placing a wonder on the map.

 

[UWHabs]

I'd rather they make it visually more explicit that districts are separate urban centers.

I flip flop on whether I feel districts should basically be treated as urban centres and so are fine to space around, or whether they should be extensions of the city centre. I kind of like the idea of forcing you to build them connected to your city centre, at least until you discover Urbanism. At the very least, that way if you want mountain bonuses, you would actually need to settle your city nearer to them, and can't simply buy 3 tiles and magically construct a university across a mountain range.

I'm torn on this. The idea of some wonders being supercharged districts is cool--but it also takes away the opportunity cost of placing a wonder on the map.

Yeah, agreed. Although I will also say that the current placement rules do often make it so that about half the wonders get skipped any game. The way it works now, you often don't meet the adjacency rules for the Colosseum until like the medieval period. If the rules were more relaxed, then at least more of the wonders would be able to be built in their appropriate eras.

 

[Josephias]

I flip flop on whether I feel districts should basically be treated as urban centres and so are fine to space around, or whether they should be extensions of the city centre. I kind of like the idea of forcing you to build them connected to your city centre, at least until you discover Urbanism. At the very least, that way if you want mountain bonuses, you would actually need to settle your city nearer to them, and can't simply buy 3 tiles and magically construct a university across a mountain range.

I'd rather manage that as an upkeep cost for distant districts (with terrain type increasing the "distance") than by forcing districts to be near to city center. Depending on culture, population has lived more concentrated or scattered, so forcing the "all around the city center" model seems too narrow for me.

 

[Zaarin]

I flip flop on whether I feel districts should basically be treated as urban centres and so are fine to space around, or whether they should be extensions of the city centre. I kind of like the idea of forcing you to build them connected to your city centre, at least until you discover Urbanism. At the very least, that way if you want mountain bonuses, you would actually need to settle your city nearer to them, and can't simply buy 3 tiles and magically construct a university across a mountain range.

I agree with @Josephias that I think treating districts as separate urban centers better represents human history on Civ's scale; you don't see sprawling megalopolises (megalopoloi?) until the tail end of the Industrial era when new agricultural methods increased the ability of humans to congregate in sprawling urban centers. I rather dislike HK's sprawling cities, for example.

 

[ManoftheHour333]

I'd rather they make it visually more explicit that districts are separate urban centers.


I'm torn on this. The idea of some wonders being supercharged districts is cool--but it also takes away the opportunity cost of placing a wonder on the map.

Oof I disagree in regards to the districts; if they are all different urban centers then how can you actually have cities? You'd need to completely restructure how the game views territory and cities. Not saying it can't be done, but it would be difficult and potentially even more complicated for late game management, and especially, AI development. Honestly if it comes to the visual weirdness of having such far-flung districts all over the map and hard to plan out cities again I would rather have no districts. Again I think they're close but making it more distinct is just not how I'd move forward.

In regards to the wonders-I think a better way to stomach it would be to make "era-important" wonders supercharged districts and "game-important" wonders actual standalone tiles. What I mean by this is that something like Stonehenge-it just gives you a religion and is then worthless. This is the case for other wonders too like Terracotta Army, Statue of Zeus or the old Statue of Liberty ; the bonuses are not game-long buffs really but are quick ways to give your empire a boost during a specific age. The thing is, these wonders fall of a cliff and it makes it annoying that they only give you so little in the late game despite being in the middle of some of your oldest/largest cities. If they were districts they could have so much more utility late game; maybe at a cost of less late-game tourism or something.

 

[Zaarin]

Oof I disagree in regards to the districts; if they are all different urban centers then how can you actually have cities? You'd need to completely restructure how the game views territory and cities. Not saying it can't be done, but it would be difficult and potentially even more complicated for late game management, and especially, AI development. Honestly if it comes to the visual weirdness of having such far-flung districts all over the map and hard to plan out cities again I would rather have no districts. Again I think they're close but making it more distinct is just not how I'd move forward.

It's what we have right now. The devs have been clear all along that districts represent smaller urban centers; the artists have not.

 

[ManoftheHour333]

I agree with @Josephias that I think treating districts as separate urban centers better represents human history on Civ's scale; you don't see sprawling megalopolises (megalopoloi?) until the tail end of the Industrial era when new agricultural methods increased the ability of humans to congregate in sprawling urban centers. I rather dislike HK's sprawling cities, for example.

While I agree with you that humans don't congregate in metropolises until far later in history, we do know from Harappa/Mohenjo Daro (Along with some Chinese mega cities) that humans did create massive urban complexes that could support hundreds of thousands. I don't think Civ needs to perfectly capture perfect history as to me, that's less of the point of the game but it's not unheard of historically to have them as just disparate parts of a larger city. I just reject the idea that we need 2 rows of farm tiles and random elephant camps inbetween a theatre square a city center. I haven't played HK (No time or money lmao) so I don't know what you mean but sprawling cities sounds better to me.
The biggest issue is what discrete city centers suggest in regards to conquest. Why would conquering a city center (citadel?) mean that the invader controls the whole city including far flung districts? If they districts were at least all nearby of the same city it would at least give the illusion that they are controlled by the city center. Having districts be more independent just sounds like a trainwreck for confusion and for AI.

 

[Zaarin]

Having districts me more independent just sounds like a trainwreck for confusion and for AI.

I'm literally suggesting no gameplay changes at all; I'm only suggesting making the districts represent visually what they're already representing in the game: small satellite cities of the urban center.

 

[Josephias]

Oof I disagree in regards to the districts; if they are all different urban centers then how can you actually have cities? You'd need to completely restructure how the game views territory and cities.

It was explained by devs, and I basically repeated in my post here: you need to break the concept of Civ cities as "cities" and treat them more as provinces: There is an administrative center (the "city"), and then there is different supporting quarters/hamlets/towns/sites (the "districts"), which depend on the city center for government / administration / community. Military it works, because if you conquer the citadel/city center the different districts should then gets its administrative support from you and not from the former owner (altough I won't object a more dinamic management of districts, with the option to re-assign them to different cities), and probalby the district inhabitants have fleed nevertheless to the city center for protection...

As @Zaarin said, it is not matter of making a district a city on its own, but a matter to make it easy to underestand visually a city represents a full province, with several urban centers, with the one named the city the being "core" one, to which all others are satellites.

 

[UWHabs]

It was explained by devs, and I basically repeated in my post here: you need to break the concept of Civ cities as "cities" and treat them more as provinces: There is an administrative center (the "city"), and then there is different supporting quarters/hamlets/towns/sites (the "districts"), which depend on the city center for government / administration / community. Military it works, because if you conquer the citadel/city center the different districts should then gets its administrative support from you and not from the former owner (altough I won't object a more dinamic management of districts, with the option to re-assign them to different cities), and probalby the district inhabitants have fleed nevertheless to the city center for protection...

As @Zaarin said, it is not matter of making a district a city on its own, but a matter to make it easy to underestand visually a city represents a full province, with several urban centers, with the one named the city the being "core" one, to which all others are satellites.

Yeah, and it "helps" to think of districts less so as the only spots for those buildings, but more the specialization. So London might be the city, with its "campus district" representing essentially Oxford or Cambridge, its Harbor might be Dover, maybe its industrial zone is Manchester, etc... Yes, obviously the city of London has libraries and universities and whatever in it as well, but the campus is the abstraction for that.

Now, that being said, even on the scale of civ, you could make an argument that all those areas really could be adjacent to the city centre anyways. Frankly, on the scale of civ, half of those locations would be on the same tile the city centre was built on. But I think that's really where the scale gets messed up - even on a huge map, Great Britain itself is only a handful of tiles large. Scotland is never more than a couple tiles. etc... The fact is that anything that you pretend about what a tile or district represents just is so vastly different scale from IRL that all of this is just for gameplay reasons anyways. And in that sense, it ends up being more of a question of whether it makes more sense for gameplay reasons to force districts together, to give a little struggle to planning and playing the map, or if it's better to let them spread around and cover more ground, giving you more freedom to set things up in a more optimal way?