Better City Specialization 1.5

[thecrazyscot]

This mod attempts to overhaul districts and buildings to make city specialization more meaningful.

This is an evolving mod. Comments, suggestions, and feedback are needed!

Philosophy:
This mod's design philosophy is threefold:

1. Reward careful district placement
2. Reward investment over time in districts
3. Increase district importance

To that end the first building in each of the districts updated by this mod provide a basic yield bonus, the second provides yields entirely dependent upon the district's adjacency bonus, and the third building acts as a capstone to the district with a powerful ability.

Additionally, in order to increase the importance of each district the population requirement for each has been raised. This will force players to make harder choices as to which districts to build. Also, the science yield per population has been lowered to make Campuses more important even in wide empires.

Current Version: 1.4
CORE CHANGES
-Increased population requirement per district to 4
-Reduced science per population from .7 to .5
-Increased Industrial, Commercial, Campus, and Theater specialist yields from 2 to 3
-Changed how the Industrial, Commercial, Campus, and Theater district buildings work:

• Industrial
  • Workshop: +2 production
  • Factory: production equal to district adjacency bonus, +1 specialist slot
  • Electronics Factory (UB): production equal to district adjacency bonus, +2 specialist slots, +4 culture
  • Power Plant: +3 production with 6 tile range, +2 specialist slots
• Commercial
  • Receives an additional +1 gold adjacency bonus from Entertainment Complexes and City Centers
  • Market: +3 gold
  • Bank: gold equal to district adjacency bonus, +1 specialist slot
  • Stock Exchange: +2 gold, +15% gold in city, +2 specialist slots
• Campus
  • Library: +2 science
  • University: science equal to district adjacency bonus, +1 specialist slot
  • Madrasa (UB): science equal to district adjacency bonus, +1 specialist slot, +5 faith
  • Research Lab: +2 science, +15% science in city, +2 specialist slots
• Theater
  • Amphitheater: +2 culture
  • Art Museum/Artifact Museum: culture equal to district adjacency bonus, +1 specialist slot
  • Broadcast Tower: +2 culture, +15% culture in city, +2 specialist slots
  • Film Studio (UB): +2 culture, +15% culture in city, +2 specialist slots, +100% tourism towards other civilization in the Modern Era

-City state yields have been reduced to balance Bank, University, Museum, and Factory yields from adjacency bonuses

• Scientific, Cultural, Religious, Commercial, and Industrial city states give their matching district types +1 yield instead of +2
• Commercial city states give capitals +2 gold instead of +4 (other CS bonuses to capitals are unchanged)
• Military city state bonuses to unit production are unchanged

-Updated the Free Market, Grand Opera, and Rationalism policies to provide bonus yields to each building of the proper type instead of a 100% increase (the % increase didn't stack properly with bonus yields from district adjacency bonuses)
-Updated the following policies to provide a +50% adjacency bonus instead of a +100% adjacency bonus (for Campuses, Commercial Hubs, Industrial Zones, and Theaters)

Aesthetics, Craftsmen, Economic Union, Five Year Plan, Natural Philosophy, Sports Media, Town Charters​

MISCELLANEOUS CHANGES
-Integrated the Improved Aerodrome mod

• Aerodrome receives adjacency bonuses: +1 gold from Neighborhoods, +4 gold from Commercial Hubs, +2 gold from City Centers
• Removed Aerodrome population requirement (can now be built in any city)
  
• Biplanes, Fighters, P-51s, and Jet Fighters can be built without an Aerodrome

-Sewer now has +1 Amenity
-Adds new Cistern building: +2 Housing, unlocked at Irrigation, required to build Sewers, granted for free when starting the Industrial or later eras
-Adds new Water Treatment Plant building: +2 Housing/+1 Amenity, unlocked at Plastics. Requires Sewer to build.
(NOTE: if you want to see the new building icons (identical to the Sewer's for both) copy the Icons_Buildings.xml attached in the Discussion OP to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization VI\Base\Assets\UI\Icons and overwrite the original file). Alternatively, you can manually edit C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization VI\Base\Assets\UI\Icons\Icons_Buildings.xml and add the following lines:

<!--TSC Better City Specialization begin-->
<Row Name="ICON_BUILDING_TCS_CISTERN"    Atlas="ICON_ATLAS_BUILDINGS" Index="30"/>
<Row Name="ICON_BUILDING_TCS_CISTERN_FOW"    Atlas="ICON_ATLAS_BUILDINGS_FOW" Index="30"/>
<Row Name="ICON_BUILDING_TCS_WATER_TREATMENT_PLANT"    Atlas="ICON_ATLAS_BUILDINGS" Index="30"/>
<Row Name="ICON_BUILDING_TCS_WATER_TREATMENT_PLANT_FOW"    Atlas="ICON_ATLAS_BUILDINGS_FOW" Index="30"/>
<!--TSC end-->

The new stuff should be added in the pictured location:

Spoiler :

Spoiler Version History :

Version 1.5

-Fixed major bug preventing mod from loading
-Grant free Cistern when starting in Industrial or later eras
-Halved the effects of the following policies which buffed district adjacency bonuses for the Campus, Commercial Hub, Industrial District, and Theater

Aesthetics, Craftsmen, Economic Union, Five Year Plan, Natural Philosophy, Sports Media, Town Charters​

-Reduced Power Plant production to 3 (was 4)

Version 1.4

-Moved Cistern to Irrigation instead of Engineering
-Sewer is now correctly required to build the Water Treatment Plant

Version 1.3

-Sewer housing reduced back to 2
-Sewer now provides +1 amenity
-Added new Water Treatment Plant building, requires Sewer and provides +2 housing/+1 amenity and is unlocked at Plastics.

Version 1.2

-Reduced Stock Exchange yields to +2 gold and +15% gold in city (was +4 and +20%)
-Reduced Power Plant yield to +4 production (was +6)
-Adds new Cistern building: +2 Housing, unlocked at Engineering, required to build Sewers
-Integrated the Improved Aerodrome mod

• Aerodrome receives adjacency bonuses: +1 gold from Neighborhoods, +4 gold from Commercial Hubs, +2 gold from City Centers
• Biplanes, Fighters, P-51s, and Jet Fighters can be built without an Aerodrome

-City state yields have been reduced to balance Bank, University, Museum, and Factory yields from adjacency bonuses

• Scientific, Cultural, Religious, Commercial, and Industrial city states give their matching district types +1 yield instead of +2
• Commercial city states give capitals +2 gold instead of +4 (other CS bonuses to capitals are unchanged)
• Military city state bonuses to unit production are unchanged

Version 1.1

-adds a +1 gold adjacency bonus to the Commercial district for adjacent City Centers and Entertainment Complexes
-Updated the Stock Exchange, Research Lab, and Broadcast Center to provide a small base yield and a percentage boost to that city's yield instead of another adjacency bonus

Version 1.0

CORE CHANGES
-Increased population requirement per district to 4
-Reduced science per population from .7 to .5
-Increased Industrial, Commercial, Campus, and Theater specialist yields from 2 to 3
-Changed how the Industrial, Commercial, Campus, and Theater district buildings work:

• Industrial
  • Workshop: +2 production
  • Factory: production equal to district adjacency bonus, +1 specialist slot
  • Electronics Factory (UB): production equal to district adjacency bonus, +2 specialist slots, +4 culture
  • Power Plant: +6 production with 6 tile range, +2 specialist slots
• Commercial
  • Market: +3 gold
  • Bank: gold equal to district adjacency bonus, +1 specialist slot
  • Stock Exchange: gold equal to district adjacency bonus, +2 specialist slots
• Campus
  • Library: +2 science
  • University: science equal to district adjacency bonus, +1 specialist slot
  • Madrasa (UB): science equal to district adjacency bonus, +1 specialist slot, +5 faith
  • Research Lab: science equal to district adjacency bonus, +2 specialist slots
• Theater
  • Amphitheater: +2 culture
  • Art Museum/Artifact Museum: culture equal to district adjacency bonus, +1 specialist slot
  • Broadcast Tower: culture equal to district adjacency bonus, +2 specialist slots
  • Film Studio (UB): culture equal to district adjacency bonus, +2 specialist slots, +100% tourism towards other civilization in the Modern Era

-Updated the Free Market, Grand Opera, and Rationalism policies to provide bonus yields to each building of the proper type instead of a 100% increase (the % increase didn't stack properly with bonus yields from district adjacency bonuses)

MISCELLANEOUS CHANGES
-Removed Aerodrome population requirement (can now be built in any city)
-Increased Sewer housing from 2 to 4

Installation Instructions
Unzip the files into your Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization VI\Mods directory

Notes
This does not include the Improved Water Yields mod. They are fully compatible.
This does include the Improved Aerodrome mod. Don't use them together!

 

[Littlebob86]

It looks good, although I'm not sure if with using 8 ages of pace to already slow down science, and changing the eurekas to 25% boost, if I'll be screwing myself over, although I'm willing to try!

 

[Shakiko]

First thoughts/comments:
Moving the building yields to better specialist slot should result in the need for more food tiles to feed those specialists. (which also gets supported by the notion that you need 4 pop for a district now instead of 3).
But without any raised housing caps until sewers/neighbourship I doubt you can get the necessary population to offset such a change.

Also, while I think the idea to tie the district buildings' yields to the districts adjacency bonuses is great ! , I think it needs some tweaking.
E.g. Campus districts can get good bonuses with mountains, so you are rewarded to put those into the "right" cities. Esp. as the disctrict buildigns need that bonus, too now.
But for the Commercial disctrict you basically just need a single river tile (which you should settle on due to housing constraints, too), so there is no real choice there. Perhaps add some adjacency bonuses for Commercial districts ?

Some Civilizations bonuses might be quite OP with this - e.g. Meiji restoration from Japan granting 3 districts in a triangle the same +2 bonus that you'd normally just get with good, "proper" placement. Ina normal game that's nice, small bonus, in this mod that bonus basically gets tripled as the subsequent buildings also draw from that bonus.

 

[thecrazyscot]

First thoughts/comments:
Moving the building yields to better specialist slot should result in the need for more food tiles to feed those specialists. (which also gets supported by the notion that you need 4 pop for a district now instead of 3).
But without any raised housing caps until sewers/neighbourship I doubt you can get the necessary population to offset such a change.

Also, while I think the idea to tie the district buildings' yields to the districts adjacency bonuses is great ! , I think it needs some tweaking.
E.g. Campus districts can get good bonuses with mountains, so you are rewarded to put those into the "right" cities. Esp. as the disctrict buildigns need that bonus, too now.
But for the Commercial disctrict you basically just need a single river tile (which you should settle on due to housing constraints, too), so there is no real choice there. Perhaps add some adjacency bonuses for Commercial districts ?

Some Civilizations bonuses might be quite OP with this - e.g. Meiji restoration from Japan granting 3 districts in a triangle the same +2 bonus that you'd normally just get with good, "proper" placement. Ina normal game that's nice, small bonus, in this mod that bonus basically gets tripled as the subsequent buildings also draw from that bonus.

To be fair, the specialists don't come until later in the game, close to when you get Neighborhoods. I can definitely take a look at tweaking early housing, though.

I can definitely overhaul the Commercial Hub's adjacency bonuses. Right now it gets +2 from a river and +2 from a Harbor, as well as +1 for every 2 adjacent districts. Perhaps it could be +2/river, +2/harbor, +1/city center, +1/entertainment district? This would give some extra flexibility in its placement.

Meiji Restoration will definitely need to be looked at, but right now I want to get the basic mechanics down

 

[Littlebob86]

The commercial hub, it doesn't get multiple +2 if surrounded by rivers does it?? Or even if it's on a y fork of a river.. Because I thought it did and got super excited, but I only get the one +2 fir any river tiles, which, kind of sucks compared to all the others that are +2 per tile

Please let me know if my games gone haywire and just not working right?! If so, can you please upload your vanilla file that has the values??

 

[thecrazyscot]

The commercial hub, it doesn't get multiple +2 if surrounded by rivers does it?? Or even if it's on a y fork of a river.. Because I thought it did and got super excited, but I only get the one +2 fir any river tiles, which, kind of sucks compared to all the others that are +2 per tile

Please let me know if my games gone haywire and just not working right?! If so, can you please upload your vanilla file that has the values??

The Commercial Hub only receives the +2 bonus once from rivers in vanilla Civ 6. I can change the amount of the bonus, but I can't increase the number of times the bonus is applied. I definitely wanted to change it to a +1 bonus per adjacent river segment, but it looks like I won't be able to do that.

But nothing's wrong with your game! I'm looking into adding a few more adjacency bonuses to the Commercial Hub to balance it out.

 

[Littlebob86]

Ok I just thought I was going crazy! I think having a +1 per tile would put the pressure on to try put it on a bend, forcing you to compromise more planning (Which is good!), but I do think that +2 for each river tile would be too much

 

[Littlebob86]

Actually would this interfere with delnars ai, or AI + mods??

 

[SupahAmbition]

I really like the idea that the second building and on in a district provides adjacency bonus, instead of a base yeild. Makes it so that placement is the most important factor in a district, and a strong placement can go very far for you.
Very cool idea, I may try it out.

 

[Littlebob86]

-Removed Aerodrome population requirement (can now be built in any city)

That's not apart of your improved aerodome mod, is it??

 

[thecrazyscot]

Actually would this interfere with delnars ai, or AI + mods??

It shouldn't as I haven't touched any AI settings.

This seems interesting. I'm worried that it makes "good" city locations even better than before, while making "bad" ones even worse. I'm all up for playing the map, but if the entire outcome of the game is determined by how many mountains/jungles are around you, it takes away from the player.

This is certainly a valid concern, and I'm not entirely sure how to address although I have a few ideas. The main issue I have is that adjacency bonuses rapidly become (mostly) irrelevant the things currently are, which is a real shame IMO because I think it's a really cool system. I don't want a bad starting location to be an instant "game over" but I definitely think players should react more organically to the terrain than is necessary now.

One thing I'm thinking of is making Japan's unique ability the standard for everyone and just changing theirs. That way even if there are no mountains/jungles/etc the player will still be able to receive some bonuses through careful district placement.

A change I've been considering is adding some % modifiers back into the game. Ideally through specialists, but possibly through buildings. Do you think this kind of thing might be possible with the tools we have?

This is an interesting idea. Perhaps the first building in a district adds a small yield, the second an adjacency bonus, and the third a percentage bonus? That can certainly be done through a modifier...the modifier system is quite powerful (although I've already found some missing possibilities...like I haven't found how to increase a city's production % towards a single unit type). The modifier type we'd need for the buildings is MODIFIER_SINGLE_CITY_ADJUST_CITY_YIELD_MODIFIER.

Anyways, I can give that a go for my next update.

Both with regards to that, and with your mod as it is, does the AI understand the changes? Does it prioritise the adjacency bonuses more?

I haven't touched any AI settings, and tbh AI tweaking isn't really my forte.

I'd be happy to collaborate on improving city specialization as a whole with other modders as well.

 

[thecrazyscot]

-Removed Aerodrome population requirement (can now be built in any city)

That's not apart of your improved aerodome mod, is it??

No

Eventually I'll probably put all of my little mods into another Omnibus mod like I did with Civ 5. But for now they're all compatible with each other.

 

[thecrazyscot]

thecrazyscot updated Better City Specialization with a new update entry:

Update 1.1

-adds a +1 gold adjacency bonus to the Commercial district for adjacent City Centers and Entertainment Complexes
-Updated the Stock Exchange, Research Lab, and Broadcast Center to provide a small base yield and a percentage boost to that city's yield instead of another adjacency bonus

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[Lion King]

thecrazyscot, thanks for the mod, it is really great!

Have two points:
1. Mb it is worth decreasing stock exchange to +15% to make it in line with other improvements. I am a bit concern that it makes too much incentive to send all your trade routes from one city.

2. As districts became much better, did you think about increasing their starting cost (at the same time slightly decreasing exponent component).
Or is there a way to increase districts costs for each additional district to the city?
In my last game I had a feeling that in Medieval-Renaissance era districts were very cheap to build, then in Industrial-Modern era their costs seemed to be adequate. In atomic era district costs were a bit high esp for a new cities.

 

[thecrazyscot]

thecrazyscot updated Better City Specialization with a new update entry:

Update 1.2

-Reduced Stock Exchange yields to +2 gold and +15% gold in city (was +4 and +20%)
-Reduced Power Plant yield to +4 production (was +6)
-Adds new Cistern building: +2 Housing, unlocked at Engineering, required to build Sewers (NOTE: there is no icon in the tech tree and there is a randomized one in the city screen...this is due to current modding limitations)
-Integrated the Improved Aerodrome mod

• Aerodrome receives adjacency bonuses: +1 gold from Neighborhoods, +4 gold from Commercial Hubs, +2 gold from City Centers
• Biplanes, Fighters, P-51s, and Jet Fighters can be built without an Aerodrome

-City state yields have been reduced to balance Bank, University, Museum, and Factory yields from adjacency bonuses

• Scientific, Cultural, Religious, Commercial, and Industrial city states give their matching district types +1 yield instead of +2
• Commercial city states give capitals +2 gold instead of +4 (other CS bonuses to capitals are unchanged)
• Military city state bonuses to unit production are unchanged

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[thecrazyscot]

thecrazyscot, thanks for the mod, it is really great!

Have two points:
1. Mb it is worth decreasing stock exchange to +15% to make it in line with other improvements. I am a bit concern that it makes too much incentive to send all your trade routes from one city.

2. As districts became much better, did you think about increasing their starting cost (at the same time slightly decreasing exponent component).
Or is there a way to increase districts costs for each additional district to the city?
In my last game I had a feeling that in Medieval-Renaissance era districts were very cheap to build, then in Industrial-Modern era their costs seemed to be adequate. In atomic era district costs were a bit high esp for a new cities.

I agree with your suggestion about the Stock Exchange - I've included that change in the latest update!

I'm not looking at implementing district cost changes just yet, but will certainly be thinking about that!

 

[Duke Bilgewater]

I'm enjoying this mod and the emphasis it adds to strategic district placement, however I've noticed it appears to cause de-sync issues in multiplayer LAN. I isolated it as the cause after dozens of de-syncs, although it may be caused by another mod in conjunction. Maybe it's an incompatability with a tech tree mod? Is anyone else experiencing this?

For reference, the mods I am using are:

• Improved Water Tile Yields
  
• Mad Djinn's Tech Tree
• Improved Tech Tree
• 8 Ages of Pace
  
• MOAR Units
• Combined AI
• CQUI

 

[Lion King]

I agree with your suggestion about the Stock Exchange - I've included that change in the latest update!

I'm not looking at implementing district cost changes just yet, but will certainly be thinking about that!

thecrazyscot, thanks for the update!

couple of questions/suggestions:

1. I see you removed aerodrome requirement for building aeroplanes. However, does it mean you need to rebase your planes on the first turn after they built (assuming you cannot keep planes in the city)? In that case, would it be possible to put a requirement that city should have airstrip nearby (aerodrome or airstrip improvement) and newly build planes would appear on that tile?

2. Did you change any adjacency bonuses? I noticed that before I was able to get +5 science adjacency for putting campus in the middle of rainforest (played as Brazil). Now the maximum I see is +3 (playing Kongo) in the identical location.

 

[Early Memphis]

View attachment 458574

Brand new here, and new to Civ VI (first test playthrough) - and the thread I joined to ask a question of appears closed - so I'll try here. What are the Blue Stars on the district placement screen? In the screen cap I’m going to hopefully post, the best (not great) spot for a Commercial Hub is below (touching) the city center on the left (marsh). There’s one blue star arrow (from the city center) (nothing from the end of the river timber mill square ). Does that mean a slight (???) bonus from the city center? If you see a better Commercial Hub placement, feel free to comment. Thanks for any comments/opinions.

 

[thecrazyscot]

I'm enjoying this mod and the emphasis it adds to strategic district placement, however I've noticed it appears to cause de-sync issues in multiplayer LAN. I isolated it as the cause after dozens of de-syncs, although it may be caused by another mod in conjunction. Maybe it's an incompatability with a tech tree mod? Is anyone else experiencing this?

For reference, the mods I am using are:

• Improved Water Tile Yields
  
• Mad Djinn's Tech Tree
• Improved Tech Tree
• 8 Ages of Pace
  
• MOAR Units
• Combined AI
• CQUI

I have played this mod with Improved Water Tile Yields, 8 Ages of Pace, and AI+ (not Combined AI) and have never had any sort of conflicts. It doesn't touch any techs, so doesn't conflict with any tech tree mods and doesn't change any UI features, so it wouldn't conflict with CQUI. It doesn't change any units, so shouldn't conflict with MOAR Units...I don't really know what to tell you, sorry

thecrazyscot, thanks for the update!

couple of questions/suggestions:

1. I see you removed aerodrome requirement for building aeroplanes. However, does it mean you need to rebase your planes on the first turn after they built (assuming you cannot keep planes in the city)? In that case, would it be possible to put a requirement that city should have airstrip nearby (aerodrome or airstrip improvement) and newly build planes would appear on that tile?

2. Did you change any adjacency bonuses? I noticed that before I was able to get +5 science adjacency for putting campus in the middle of rainforest (played as Brazil). Now the maximum I see is +3 (playing Kongo) in the identical location.

City Centers have one slot for air units, so unless that's already filled you won't need to move them away.

Brazil receives extra adjacency bonuses from rainforests which other civs don't get, so that would explain the difference there That would be "working as intended".

View attachment 458574

Brand new here, and new to Civ VI (first test playthrough) - and the thread I joined to ask a question of appears closed - so I'll try here. What are the Blue Stars on the district placement screen? In the screen cap I’m going to hopefully post, the best (not great) spot for a Commercial Hub is below (touching) the city center on the left (marsh). There’s one blue star arrow (from the city center) (nothing from the end of the river timber mill square ). Does that mean a slight (???) bonus from the city center? If you see a better Commercial Hub placement, feel free to comment. Thanks for any comments/opinions.

The blue starts show minor adjacency bonuses. Most districts will receive a +0.5 adjacency bonus for every adjacent district, but it's only applied if there's enough adjacent districts to apply a whole number bonus (so you'll only get the bonus for adjacent districts if there are 2, 4, or 6. It does work if you complete the whole number after building the original district as well, though, so you can actually increase the adjacency bonus over time as you build up your districts.