City building a bit reapititive?

[peter79]

So just finished my first game as Augustus. I mostly enjoyed my run. However I wonder are the adjacencies a bit too simplified, I found I was developing all my city's in the same way with all the same building (obviously there was alight variation between ages with civ unique buildings). Perhaps your meant to lean into the town specialization more but I'm beginning to find the city building side a bit repetitive. Is this just me?

 

[Taefin]

Were you getting any +5 adjacencies? I finally got some of those and it made me want to plan cities around combining resources and wonders to make some powerful specialist quarters.

 

[kryat]

I really don’t like that the only buildable thing to ping adjacencies is wonders. This has felt like a major step backwards compared to the puzzle of putting a VI city together. I don’t like feeling forced to build wonders either. I usually only build those if they have a bonus I care about, and none of the VII wonders have felt like a must-build.

 

[Siptah]

I really don’t like that the only buildable thing to ping adjacencies is wonders. This has felt like a major step backwards compared to the puzzle of putting a VI city together. I don’t like feeling forced to build wonders either. I usually only build those if they have a bonus I care about, and none of the VII wonders have felt like a must-build.

It isn‘t quite the case though. Many unique districts or buildings get adjacencies from buildings of certain types.

 

[peter79]

It isn‘t quite the case though. Many unique districts or buildings get adjacencies from buildings of certain types.

Yeah sure the unique civ buildings add extra adjacency elements but they are spread across 3 different ages. I just feel like I'm building the exact same building in every city and always building around rivers, coasts, mountain and resources. It just feels like if you strip out wonders and unique buildings every city layout ends up being the same. Now perhaps when you learn the civs better and plan ahead you can lean more into unique builds. I don't know.

 

[Siptah]

Yeah sure the unique civ buildings add extra adjacency elements but they are spread across 3 different ages. I just feel like I'm building the exact same building in every city and always building around rivers, coasts, mountain and resources. It just feels like if you strip out wonders and unique buildings every city layout ends up being the same. Now perhaps when you learn the civs better and plan ahead you can lean more into unique builds. I don't know.

You do have a point with repetitiveness and going for the same buildings, i.e., good cities don’t specialize - they just have everything.

Yet, I think geography, wonders, resources and quarters give some incentive to plan carefully, and can make city planning a fair bit unique. But you don‘t necessarily preplan all tiles in antiquity, as you would have done in civ 6.

So far, with 5 games, it didn’t get stale for me, and I haven‘t figured out an optimal build order or anything like that (beyond the very start). Hence, I’m not bored by it (yet).

 

[kryat]

It isn‘t quite the case though. Many unique districts or buildings get adjacencies from buildings of certain types.

That’s technically true, but it’s a lot of niche things to keep track of, especially with age switching. It feels much more constrained than the IZ/water districts, the harbor/commerical districts, or the entertainment/culture districts you could plan for in VI.

 

[peter79]

That’s technically true, but it’s a lot of niche things to keep track of, especially with age switching. It feels much more constrained than the IZ/water districts, the harbor/commerical districts, or the entertainment/culture districts you could plan for in VI.

Yeah the city building has lost some it's "puzzle solving" fun, well for me anyway.

 

[evonannoredars]

I agree it gets a bit repetitive, you can find good spots for buildings but besides wonders and unique quarters there's not much you can do to change what spots will be best for what. There's no real reason not to build the buildings even if you lack good adjacency spots for them imo, so it normally becomes a case of 'build whatever I've unlocked wherever gets me the highest adjacency', so it's hard to naturally specialise a city unless it has a lot of coast/mountains/resources.
I don't think giving regular buildings adjacencies to other buildings would be a solution though, that'd become a planning nightmare. But some sort of special constructible adjacency-booster or specialisation-like mechanic for cities perhaps?
They've talked before iirc about their design goals of complexity arising through interactions of simple systems - theyve simplified city planning really well and I like it conceptually, but introducing another basic system to go with it would allow for more depth and variety imo.

 

[kryat]

I agree it gets a bit repetitive, you can find good spots for buildings but besides wonders and unique quarters there's not much you can do to change what spots will be best for what. There's no real reason not to build the buildings even if you lack good adjacency spots for them imo, so it normally becomes a case of 'build whatever I've unlocked wherever gets me the highest adjacency', so it's hard to naturally specialise a city unless it has a lot of coast/mountains/resources.
I don't think giving regular buildings adjacencies to other buildings would be a solution though, that'd become a planning nightmare. But some sort of special constructible adjacency-booster or specialisation-like mechanic for cities perhaps?
They've talked before iirc about their design goals of complexity arising through interactions of simple systems - theyve simplified city planning really well and I like it conceptually, but introducing another basic system to go with it would allow for more depth and variety imo.

If I were to propose a really basic solution:

Science and production buildings get adjacency from other science and production buildings.

Food and gold get adjacency from other food and gold buildings.

Same for culture and happiness.

If two buildings of the same yield occupy the same tile, their yields get a 1.2x multiplier.

 

[evonannoredars]

If I were to propose a really basic solution:

Science and production buildings get adjacency from other science and production buildings.

Food and gold get adjacency from other food and gold buildings.

Same for culture and happiness.

If two buildings of the same yield occupy the same tile, their yields get a 1.2x multiplier.

I normally end up putting same-adjacency buildings near each other anyway (especially for coast and mountain adjacency types), I don't think that'd do much to make building planning less repetitive as such.

 

[GameExperiments]

I also feel the city building and the "adjacencies puzzle" is much simplified and a bit repetitive. I enjoyed this puzzle aspect in Civ6 pretty much (not everyone did, though). I would really like to have more options to generate adjacency bonuses in Civ7. If my terrain does not provide mountains or river/coast, the culture or gold buildings feel like a waste.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

If two buildings of the same yield occupy the same tile, their yields get a 1.2x multiplier.

They specifically rejected that approach because then it's not really a choice, you'll just automatically put two of the same type together.

I agree something more is needed just not quite sure what.

 

[Menocchio]

I actually enjoy city building more in VII because for one, my main goal: you can make much better-looking cities, and two, making good-adjacency cities becomes a really great long-term puzzle when you take into account unique buildings and wonders: unique buildings because they usually have adjacencies from other building types*, making you think a while on how you might lay out your city over time. And this itself changes depending on your sequential civ choices. Wonders add another layer of city planning, because ultimately the #1 purpose of them in-game (I'm assuming developer intent here) is to provide adjacencies—so you should build sections of your city around them. Do it well enough, and you can make some pleasing urban designs indeed.

*As an example, did you know that the influence adjacency that Rome's Basilica building gets from culture buildings affects specialists? Plan it out well and you can be getting a solid chunk of influence from them, the only building in the game with this adjacency.