Came back after a few months, district cost formula still kills the game

[agonistes]

"(at this point I refer to my post on the last page or maybe the one before that, reminding everyone that real life new cities aren't built without outside help either)"

QFR:





For this case you mentioned, it's already extreme in that you have 80 cities on a single continent (that or you didn't improve luxery resources, which I assume isn't the case), and on top of that it's extreme that you're going so far away. You can't put a city a bit to the south, in the Middle-East? You can't put one in China? You can't put one in Europe somewhere? And if the map is so full that indeed you can't, then maybe, you know, you could trade for amenities. But okay, let's say that everyone hates your guts and refuses to trade, yet you still don't feel fine just conquering your amenities, and you also don't have a place to put a city closer to your current cities. You put that city on the island. Questoin is, how big is the island? If it's one tile, I refer back once again to one of my previous posts - a huge city on a tiny island is something that doesn't happen. Neither in the game nor in real life. Maybe you'll just have to deal with it being a small city and just take the luxery resource. If it's more than one tile - well, I see production! There's several possibilities. First, plains tiles naturally grant production. But maybe it's all grassland. Well, there's still grassland hills, which grant production and you can build a mine too - that's 4 production per turn from a single citizen that also sustains itself in food. But, it might all be flat grassland. And then you just plant forests, put lumbermills on them, and still get what, 3 production from every tile? So, there's your production. And considering you're close to Australia, any chance you got Auckland? That's 2 production per water tile, while they also grant 2 food (more with resource) and some gold, so you can actually get a good city running there. Yes, that's after the harbor is finished. So yeah, just rush some builders and you got a city running anyways.

And regarding trade routes, no they don't take an age to complete and no they don't scale their completion time. They only scale with length of the route. The longer the route, the longer they take to complete. Or else I wouldn't be reassigning a trade route per turn on average in the Information Era with some 20 total routes.

I am assuming, by the way, that you are at least somewhere around the Industrial/Modern era, considering the building times you're talking about and the amount of cities you have.



Yes I am. See above. If you have no possible production tiles, that means you're looking at a 1-tile island, which means you shouldn't be expecting a big city - once again, I refer to my point made a while earlier.

Oh, one last thing, I wouldn't mind if you were a little less antagonistic. Would make for a much nicer read.

EDIT: One more thing, you can still get +1 production from sending your trade routes to the right international cities, and you can then use the additional gold to partly make up for the production you lost by sending trade routes internationally. Plus those trade routes might also give the city a bit more culture, increasing border growth, which is never a bad thing. It's worse than internal trade routes, but it does give you stuff.

I will try to be less antagonistic. Trying to quit chew and reading civ forums may not be a great idea.

 

[Victoria]

if something costs more then it should provide more benefit. The arbitrary tech/civic-based district cost scaling does not

No, it scales because you production scales, if it did not then it would get cheaper. I though that would be obvious, what a crazy thing to say.

You say arbitrary like it is a correct word to use here? We already gave reasons why it's not arbitary.

I'm really rather confused by your logic in this thread, seems like you are choosing what to say rather than saying what you think. I feel quite let down.

I will try to be less antagonistic. Trying to quit chew and reading civ forums may not be a great idea.

Aaah grumpy guy... you fit right into this forum

 

[Photi]

You say this, but there are many problems with this view. For example:


If it's a better district being built out of more advanced materials then it should provide more benefit. Since it does not, this explanation does not work. From both a "realistic" perspective and a gameplay balance perspective, if something costs more then it should provide more benefit. The arbitrary tech/civic-based district cost scaling does not model this.

For another problem with this logic, if you're trying to control expansion then it would make a lot more sense to have the district scaling based on number of similar districts instead of this model.

They do provide more benefits in the late game than they do in the early game in the form of better trade routes, better policy cards, envoy bonuses, citizen slots which are more capable of being filled after farms are more productive etc.

As materials advance with technology, as codes and regulations develop, as labor unions and worker rights develop, and as governments and societies generally become more sophisticated, the cost of everything goes up. Not arbitrary at all.

 

[rschissler]

No, it scales because your production scales, if it did not then it would get cheaper.

Yeah, but it scales out of whack! The cost inflation races past the production scale, so it is way too expensive. It shouldn't be cheaper, it shouldn't be overly expensive, it should be consistent.

 

[Magil]

No, it scales because you production scales, if it did not then it would get cheaper. I though that would be obvious, what a crazy thing to say.

You say arbitrary like it is a correct word to use here? We already gave reasons why it's not arbitary.

I'm really rather confused by your logic in this thread, seems like you are choosing what to say rather than saying what you think. I feel quite let down.

What? I can't even make sense of this post. Does this even address my point? I have no idea what you're saying. The English also seems broken in places, which is no doubt confusing me.

It's a very straight-forward point. If a district costs more production in AD 1000 then it did in BC 1000, then it should provide more benefit (by itself) than it did earlier. It's kind of basic logic here. More investment, more reward. If you pay more investment for the same reward then that's bad design. Our roads are more expensive than they were a thousand years ago, but they're also designed to allow for much quicker travel. As infrastructure develops and increases in cost, it generally also becomes better.

I believe I've done an adequate job of showing that if their goal was to curb expansion, promote diverse building, or include "catch-up" mechanics in the game, there are better ways to do so than the district scaling.

They do provide more benefits in the late game than they do in the early game in the form of better trade routes, better policy cards, envoy bonuses, citizen slots which are more capable of being filled after farms are more productive etc.

No, those are not the districts providing more benefit, those are the policies/envoys/buildings/etc. providing more benefits. And all of those things have a cost besides the increased district cost. If you discovered a tech that made your science districts better and that tech increased their cost, it would at least sort of make sense (it'd still be unfun, but at least it'd make sense).

As materials advance with technology, as codes and regulations develop, as labor unions and worker rights develop, and as governments and societies generally become more sophisticated, the cost of everything goes up. Not arbitrary at all.

Then why doesn't that logic apply to, say, buildings? Or builders? Or settlers? Buildings have a fixed cost, and the others use a totally different progression model (in the code it's COST_PROGRESSION_PREVIOUS_COPIES, as opposed to districts, which use COST_PROGRESSION_NUM_UNDER_AVG_PLUS_TECH). That's pretty arbitrary if you ask me.

 

[Leyrann]

Then why doesn't that logic apply to, say, buildings? Or builders? Or settlers? Buildings have a fixed cost, and the others use a totally different progression model (in the code it's COST_PROGRESSION_PREVIOUS_COPIES, as opposed to districts, which use COST_PROGRESSION_NUM_UNDER_AVG_PLUS_TECH). That's pretty arbitrary if you ask me.

Buildings have a fixed cost while districts do not because buildings unlock over the course of a game while all districts unlock early on. A flat cost that is appropriate early on is far too little late game, while a flat cost that is appropriate in the late game means that early on you're never gonna bother building it. For a Research Lab or something, it doesn't matter that the flat cost is too high early on, because you haven't unlocked it yet. It is then also better than a Library because, by the time you can build both, the Library is pretty cheap and therefore shouldn't give too many rewards comparatively.

As for the difference between previous copies and tech/civic, this is kind of arbitrary, but it slightly favours expansion, which is, I think (I'm reverse engineering the thoughts of the developers here), because they wanted to avoid the BNW scenario where leaving the map empty was often favourable. This is actually the case with both districts (they get expensive with time* and not with how many you already have) as with builders and settlers (they don't get expensive with time, pushing you towards expanding further if you haven't done so a lot).

*As for why districts scale with techs/civics and not with game time, which is similar but different, a scaling with game time puts players who are ahead further ahead, as they can afford it more easily, while a scaling with techs/civics actually works as a catch-up mechanism. I don't know about your games, but I'm playing the level I'm playing on because of the hard early game, and in the endgame I tend to be ahead of all the AI's, so I very much prefer a catch-up mechanism to a snowball mechanism.

 

[Victoria]

The cost inflation races past the production scale,

Lol.... your city average production at the beginning may be about 10 if you are lucky, at the end it's what 50?

@Magil
Arbitary pffft. Clearly entrenched so much you are personally abusing my English for missing a T, not very nice

 

[Magil]

It is then also better than a Library because, by the time you can build both, the Library is pretty cheap and therefore shouldn't give too many rewards comparatively.

Why does this train of thought not apply to the districts themselves? Why only for the buildings? If you think of a district as just the first building in the building chain the logic starts to break down. And I don't really know why I wouldn't think of it as such, given the current implementation of districts.

As for the difference between previous copies and tech/civic, this is kind of arbitrary, but it slightly favours expansion, which is, I think (I'm reverse engineering the thoughts of the developers here), because they wanted to avoid the BNW scenario where leaving the map empty was often favourable. This is actually the case with both districts (they get expensive with time* and not with how many you already have) as with builders and settlers (they don't get expensive with time, pushing you towards expanding further if you haven't done so a lot).

*As for why districts scale with techs/civics and not with game time, which is similar but different, a scaling with game time puts players who are ahead further ahead, as they can afford it more easily, while a scaling with techs/civics actually works as a catch-up mechanism. I don't know about your games, but I'm playing the level I'm playing on because of the hard early game, and in the endgame I tend to be ahead of all the AI's, so I very much prefer a catch-up mechanism to a snowball mechanism.

I believe I've addressed the snowball issue earlier--if they wanted to do a catch-up mechanic there are better ways to do so. Just as there are better ways to handle district costs. If they must have a scaling cost (and I've seen no good argument why they should), then there are better ways to do it than by unlocked techs/civics.

 

[Photi]

No, those are not the districts providing more benefit, those are the policies/envoys/buildings/etc. providing more benefits. And all of those things have a cost besides the increased district cost. If you discovered a tech that made your science districts better and that tech increased their cost, it would at least sort of make sense (it'd still be unfun, but at least it'd make sense).

All made possible because of the existence of the district in the first place. Maybe the developers should look into sweetening up the direct district adjacency bonuses over time though.

As far as tying expense to specific techs along with increased yields, yes that does make logical sense, but for each increase in cost, if it had to be "better" soon you'd have a theater square producing way more culture than the game needs, and so culture and tourism costs and calculations would have to be revamped along with that. Policy cards, envoys, buildings nerfed. But then again, by tying cost to specific techs or civics, presumably each district having its own set of techs and civics, the game will become much more convoluted and confusing. And at the end of the whole coding process to change all these things, won't you essentially be arriving at the same end?

Let's say you tie district cost to era, then you have people delaying advancement in eras to get those districts down, and then complaining that they have to stall the eras. Let's say you tie the scaling costs to turn number, that makes no logical sense at all and so then people will complain that scaling costs based on turns in illogical and dumb. Let's say scaling is tied to number of same districts previously built, why should a district cost more just because there are 3 others of that type in your empire? Of all the scenarios of scaling district costs, scaling those costs to techs makes the most logical sense. As far as districts should get "better" with the increase in costs, i'm sure they do, but the sort of advancements in quality achieved with the evolution of district design include electricity, roads and sidewalks, running water, indoor toilets, fiber optics etc, mostly quality of life issues and while some of these things would improve district yields, we are brought back to the policy cards that get better over time which is how those district improvements are represented in game.

Then why doesn't that logic apply to, say, buildings? Or builders? Or settlers? Buildings have a fixed cost, and the others use a totally different progression model (in the code it's COST_PROGRESSION_PREVIOUS_COPIES, as opposed to districts, which use COST_PROGRESSION_NUM_UNDER_AVG_PLUS_TECH). That's pretty arbitrary if you ask me.

This is an argument for changing the cost of buildings and builders to resemble the scaling costs of districts, not the other way around. You might be on to something here.

 

[rschissler]

Lol.... your city average production at the beginning may be about 10 if you are lucky, at the end it's what 50?

Were talking about grossly increased district cost as the game progresses. This thread has gone on so long that the opening post has been forgotten...

 

[Magil]

All made possible because of the existence of the district in the first place. Maybe the developers should look into sweetening up the direct district adjacency bonuses over time though.

As far as tying expense to specific techs along with increased yields, yes that does make logical sense, but for each increase in cost, if it had to be "better" soon you'd have a theater square producing way more culture than the game needs, and so culture and tourism costs and calculations would have to be revamped along with that. Policy cards, envoys, buildings nerfed. But then again, by tying cost to specific techs or civics, presumably each district having its own set of techs and civics, the game will become much more convoluted and confusing. And at the end of the whole coding process to change all these things, won't you essentially be arriving at the same end?

Let's say you tie district cost to era, then you have people delaying advancement in eras to get those districts down, and then complaining that they have to stall the eras. Let's say you tie the scaling costs to turn number, that makes no logical sense at all and so then people will complain that scaling costs based on turns in illogical and dumb. Let's say scaling is tied to number of same districts previously built, why should a district cost more just because there are 3 others of that type in your empire? Of all the scenarios of scaling district costs, scaling those costs to techs makes the most logical sense. As far as districts should get "better" with the increase in costs, i'm sure they do, but the sort of advancements in quality achieved with the evolution of district design include electricity, roads and sidewalks, running water, indoor toilets, fiber optics etc, mostly quality of life issues and while some of these things would improve district yields, we are brought back to the policy cards that get better over time which is how those district improvements are represented in game.

For the bolded part, I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree. Of all the possible options, it's the one that makes the least sense to me. You gave examples of complaints for the other forms of district scaling, but there's also complaining about the current one (hence this thread), so it's not like Firaxis made a magic solution that made everyone happy.

Edit: I can think of an explanation, for say, "why should a district cost more just because there are 3 others of that type in your empire?" Because you're also paying for expanding your infrastructure to coordinate the efforts of your districts, as opposed to letting them inefficiently operate in isolation. It's pretty easy to support mechanics like this flavor-wise if you really need to.

It should be pointed out that it's not very consistent either--for example, a Campus district can have its yields increased via city-state envoys, but a Harbor cannot. Yet both costs scale in the same manner. A Campus can have the yields of its buildings doubled via policy, but an Industrial Zone cannot, yet again, the scaling is the same.

It's not like they can't have them scale differently. Aqueducts and Neighborhoods use a slightly different scaling model.

This is an argument for changing the cost of buildings and builders to resemble the scaling costs of districts, not the other way around. You might be on to something here.

In the past, this sort of thing was generally modeled by inflation (as a modifier on maintenance). VI admittedly lacks inflation, but I don't much care for this new way of modeling it.

 

[Victoria]

Were talking about grossly increased district cost as the game progresses. This thread has gone on so long that the opening post has been forgotten...

I have been here since the beginning of the thread, many people that come in later do not read all of the comments to came before. My comment was about the subject in response to someone saying that the speed increase of district costs far outweigh production growth and I was countering saying it did not. That is bang on the discussion in my book.

I agree that the mechanic has caused some unnatural game play but I am also quite happy it was put in place in good faith and it is not the only mechanic that scales with the tree usage. Sure it's not consistent, sure it could have been done another way which I would have no issue with. I just also do not think the cost growth is out of proportion. I can build a district in a new city late game in about 15 turns, just like near the beginning of the game.

Will Firaxis change this? I somehow doubt it.

 

[gettingfat]

"quietness of this board (versus civ4 and civ5)"?

???

Last post made on the bottom thread on the general discussion forum of Civ 6, Civ 5 and Civ 4 (the time a thread takes to fall off the front page):

Civ 6: Monday at 8:02 AM (May 8th 2017)
Civ 5: February 4th 2017.
Civ 4: February 14th 2017.

Amount of threads posted in today on the general discussion forum of these games:

Civ 6: 21
Civ 5: 1
Civ 4: 3

Make sure your facts are correct before you press post.

I am talking about in the year after the game is released. I guess this is just common sense. Apparently not.

According to steamspy.com/app/289070 , there are 1,825,325 owners of Civ VI. We are now seven months into a game with about a 6 or seven year lifespan. There are currently about 10 million owners of Civ V. So 6 is at almost 20% ownership of 5, and we still have 91% of 6's lifespan left, as well as probably at least two expansions, and we all know the expansions generally make the game better than it already is. Considering the great new elements in 6 and the further optimization of these new elements that are undoubtedly already taking place, and i think we can expect great things in the months ahead. 1.8 million owners means the game has grossed 108 million dollars, give or take because now it is on sale at steam, plus income from DLC content.

There are probably better stats/graphs to compare sales historically next to 5, but i'm at work (but i am my own boss, so i can't get into too much trouble).

20% of civ5 ownership and 91% of lifespan? You seem assuming thay the sale is a linear curve. Yeah, I guess if Justin Bieber can maintain his record sale rate of his first year forever he will beat Michael Jackson one day.... one day.

Also don't forget the great sale number at the beginning to a significant extent is the result of piggybacking the reputation of civ5

 

[Felis Renidens]

District do scale according to number of districts too - or at least, you have a discount on your less-used districts. It won't help if you want to build harbors and CH everywhere though. If scaling was mainly by number of districts by the 10th city people would see very high cost for their favorite district - perhaps before they have the techs that gives good production out of mines, making it worse. Then they'll decide that the way to counter it is stay at 4-6 cities at least until industrialization. I prefer the current system.

 

[MooFreaky]

i'm no economist, but it seems unrealistic for a major modern empire to have only one trade hub (which the game mechanic allows). Take for instance the US, it couldn't function like it does if NYC was its only major port, and it would be majorly bad governmental administration is Trump all of a sudden decreed that all trade must pass through the jurisdiction of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. So the game mechanic doesn't seem entirely realistic.

It's a representation. It's not to say that the trade units represent ALL the trade of the Empire, merely a section of them. By giving the player control of some of them it opens options and game play elements. As to historical examples yes there are numerous. It wouldn't see all trade directed to a single city of course, but the construction of numerous important structures, or building projects, all throughout the world see Kingdoms, Empires or Nations flooding workers, resources etc to that city (which is what traders double as in the game). This did massively increase actual merchant trade in the area too though. So it's a perfectly acceptable representation in my eyes.

The declining sales, mediocre fans rating at steam and metacritic, the quietness of this board (versus civ4 and civ5) all indicate that there are real serious issues in this game. You can't just brush aside the majority of the criticism as over-reaction.

20% of civ5 ownership and 91% of lifespan? You seem assuming thay the sale is a linear curve. Yeah, I guess if Justin Bieber can maintain his record sale rate of his first year forever he will beat Michael Jackson one day.... one day.

I don't understand why people feel the need to hate and hate publicly. If you don't like something that's fine, but don't feel the need to bad mouth it. Especially when your facts are out of context.
Civ games tend to have low figures at release and pick up as expansions come out and the game is fully formed. For example Civ5 had 5 million Steam owners in mid-2014 ( http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/04/introducing-steam-gauge-ars-reveals-steams-most-popular-games/), which is FOUR years and both expansions later. It has doubled that number in the last 3 years.
Ditto for quietness on the boards. Civ5 was very unpopular at release and the forums were bombarded with massive hate and sites like Metacritic had extremely average user reviews. After the expansions came out it is now seen as a classic. Civ4 was similar, before the expansions it was seen as great potential but bare bones. Once it was expanded was when we really saw busy forums for it.

These opinions are coming from folks who play on standard speed, probably average maps. Fairly narrow vision.

Which is what the game is built around. I used to play Marathon Civ5 regularly but I knew it wasn't balanced at all. Size and speed will completely alter the game balance and there is no way around that. The shorter the game (and/or larger the map) the more powerful culture and science will be, while military power grows as the games get longer (and with a smaller map size).

Why should those who lag behind get a benefit? You reward players for progress, you don't reward them for lack of progress.

Because otherwise it eliminates playing options. Anyone who plays a peaceful SimCity game will always have an advantage over someone at war. If you want to have AI that are aggressive then you need to have an ability for players to not get left behind with no way out of that hole. Every game would just become start and follow this build order, if I get attacked before turn X restart.

If the districts are so much better that they should warrant higher costs then they should provide MORE benefits, but they do NOT!

If this is your argument then you really need to also be raging at the cost/production ratio of virtually every building. Factories cost far more than workshops, while providing almost identical cogs. The idea is that during a game you can build a district, while having the facilities to make them at a price that is cost efficient. Yes they are more expensive than earlier, but the cost/benefit of building them is accurate. If it was mindless and obvious to always build districts because they are dirt cheap then you would always build them. Instead you have to think about whether it is the right thing. That is actually good game design, not bad.

What? I can't even make sense of this post. Does this even address my point? I have no idea what you're saying. The English also seems broken in places, which is no doubt confusing me.

It's a very straight-forward point. If a district costs more production in AD 1000 then it did in BC 1000, then it should provide more benefit (by itself) than it did earlier. It's kind of basic logic here. More investment, more reward. If you pay more investment for the same reward then that's bad design. Our roads are more expensive than they were a thousand years ago, but they're also designed to allow for much quicker travel. As infrastructure develops and increases in cost, it generally also becomes better.

It's not a strict this is 10x better in real life so it must be 10x better in game. It is a scaling representation. So the important total is how much a city can produce (not the district itself) and thus how quickly other items can be purchased from that. And those districts ARE better later in the game because of what they make available. Granting production bonuses to nearby cities is a very good thing that can only be achieved by having that district. Yes, the district itself doesn't provide it, but the investment of both the district and its buildings needs to be considered.
Again, if it was a cheap no thought needed situation then every city would start looking the same and there would be no need to consider how to develop.

 

[HF22]

From an immersion perspective, would district upgrades make more sense?

So your pop 1 late game city could still build a cheap ancient campus etc, but you would need to upgrade with extra production to get the benefits of a modern version.

 

[Felis Renidens]

From an immersion perspective, would district upgrades make more sense?

So your pop 1 late game city could still build a cheap ancient campus etc, but you would need to upgrade with extra production to get the benefits of a modern version.

For me, no. It does not work like this. A modern city does not build an ancient campus and then makes it modern, it would be a waste of resources and won't comply with modern building standards. Also it's redundant. The ancient upgrade is a library, the medieval upgrade is a university and the modern upgrade is a research lab. The extra development of the districts should be part of the building cost of those buildings. Some buildings (the shipyard) even improve the district's adjacency bonus (and is also seen as an extension of the districts). You want more buildings to behave like the shipyard - that can be an interesting concept.

 

[Leyrann]

Why does this train of thought not apply to the districts themselves? Why only for the buildings? If you think of a district as just the first building in the building chain the logic starts to break down. And I don't really know why I wouldn't think of it as such, given the current implementation of districts.

I explained that in the part of the post you didn't quote. As for "districts as first building in the chain", that just plain doesn't make sense. Districts are basically "everything that's not the buildings themselves". In ancient time you're looking at some sandy roads, while in modern times you're looking at shops, good roads, parking places, etc etc etc.

I believe I've addressed the snowball issue earlier--if they wanted to do a catch-up mechanic there are better ways to do so. Just as there are better ways to handle district costs. If they must have a scaling cost (and I've seen no good argument why they should), then there are better ways to do it than by unlocked techs/civics.

Okay. Give me a better way to handle district costs.

 

[Victoria]

FFS....

Whether I chop a commercial hub in in 205 BC or in 200 AD it will still take the same amount of chop. because they are both based on the growth of tech/civics. Just chop them in
You found a new city and are crying the district is too expensive?... chop it in... and before you say builders are more expensive, your production and gold rates are higher and your builder card is 30% + 5 builds

 

[Felis Renidens]

Chopping increases by techs? Probably didn't chop enough to notice, I guess I'm an environmentalist by heart.