Disctrict scaling too punishing

[KrikkitTwo]

If there was just a check box to half-fill the tech automatically I wouldn't mind it so much. I think the decision between using your science/culture efficiently with eurekas or brute-forcing your way through a tech you want has potential. But I'm in the same boat where I really can't be bothered with it as a game progresses.

That could work, when it prompts you for "next tech/civic" you have 2 options for each tech where you don't have the Eureka say electricity
'Explore Electricity'...will only complete the "research" part of the tech, then prompt you for what to do next
"Complete Electricity" will research the whole tech, only prompting you when it is done
Once you have the Eureka you just have "Electricity" as an option.

 

[Gamling80]

I also feel that district building times are to long and that the civs different district discounts are very important. It is very strange that the district discounts is not mentioned anywhere in game. The discounts do affect the game-play greatly. I feel that the districts should cost much less, perhaps half as much like those that have the discount for some civs. But I do like the idea that the civs have different focuses using the discounts but the current district cost are to high. It often cost more to build another district than build a wonder and once the district is finished the buildings cost much less. I think this is one of the biggest unbalances of the current state of the game.

 

[Soella]

I would totally agree with "districts are to costly" after my first play through - especially taking into account that I chose Rome and played pretty wide from the start, got tons of civics due to free monument. Now, when I know the formula, it makes a lot of sense to me: you need to plan ahead and build balanced civilisation. Not put everything in science/culture as we used to.

I got all types of victories on deity, and never ever after that first game cost of districts was a serious limiting factor. You simply don't need campuses/theatres/entertainment early on, and if you build new town later in the game (hurray, it makes sense now!!!), you have a lot of ways to speed up things there.

 

[blackbird12]

Why can't district production costs just scale with distance from the capital?

 

[manu-fan]

Why can't district production costs just scale with distance from the capital?

Indeed. Or scale with number of cities. Or scale with pretty much anything else than what they currently do

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Why can't district production costs just scale with distance from the capital?

Why would you want to punish someone who starts at the end of a peninsula compared to someone who starts in the middle of the landmass?

I still think district cost should scale with number of previous copies so you don't mindlessly spam Commercial Hub everywhere and actually choose to specialize your cities. There's already at least one mod for this BTW if you want to try other districts scaling. I don't think the current implementation is too punishing, it's perfectly manageable, but when i see strategies involving stopping research before you actually get a tech in order to improve your science victory timing, i can't help but feel something is wrong, not with how much district cost scale, but rather what determines scaling.

 

[Rathelm]

Why would you want to punish someone who starts at the end of a peninsula compared to someone who starts in the middle of the landmass?

I still think district cost should scale with number of previous copies so you don't mindlessly spam Commercial Hub everywhere and actually choose to specialize your cities. There's already at least one mod for this BTW if you want to try other districts scaling. I don't think the current implementation is too punishing, it's perfectly manageable, but when i see strategies involving stopping research before you actually get a tech in order to improve your science victory timing, i can't help but feel something is wrong, not with how much district cost scale, but rather what determines scaling.

I think this would be easily fixed by, instead of counting every tech and civic they just have specific marker techs and civics that increase the cost. And maybe give an option to where it's random techs and civics that increase the cost. I like the idea of how its done. There's more ICS here than Civ5 and I think anything that helps limit ICS is good, but Civ5's global happiness and 4 tall was too harsh.

Another route they could take would be to greatly expand the concept of city on the board. If every building required a hex then you would need to make sure there's enough space between cities as you wouldn't want to restrict city size so much that you couldn't' build anything.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Actually, i think the current implementation hardly does anything to limit ICS. With a scaling cost based on number of existing districts at least you wouldn't spam cities in the middle of the snow (yes, snow, not tundra) to gain another Commercial Hub, or at least it would take so long to build that the benefit would be minimal.

Placing every single building on the map is done in other TBS games. Elemental (every implementation) does this, but the map isn't supposed to be the whole world and cities are separated by much more (at least 6 tiles, often more due to limited "fertile" land). I don't think it would work in Civ. I think the district system is a good middle ground, but the scaling is weird and creates some silly situation like not finishing your researches if you go for science victory

 

[Arqane]

I can think of two far better ways to balance districts. The first makes more sense to the way Civ usually works. The second would be a departure from the norm, but still work pretty well.

1. With a base of 60, scale each copy of the district with the greatest number by 10, the 2nd greatest by 20, etc.. So, for example, you build a Campus and Holy Site in your first city, and they both cost 60. In your second city, you build another Holy Site for 70. After that, another Campus would cost 80, or any of the districts you haven't built would cost 60. This method encourages either specializing one victory condition for your empire, or specializing each city to its greatest benefit, but discourages trying to build all districts in all cities. So if you had 8 towns, and you built each separate specialty district in the 8 towns, it would cost 480 production total. Quite easy, and each city is specialized, but not overly powerful. Focusing on one particular district for a victory condition in 8 cities would cost 760 production. Also pretty cheap, but you wouldn't be very well-rounded. Putting two districts in each city would cost 1800 production, possible by the middle of the game (the final city would cost 330 production). But the costs would quickly balloon, with the final city costing 3000 production to place 8 districts if all 8 cities had 8 districts. The scaling could be adjusted up or down a bit, but this method worked very well for a MUD that I played long ago where you could multiclass into 5 different classes. Maxing out the first class took some time, but was fairly easy. Maxing out all 5 took a very long time. You could mix and match pretty easily for a while, and even switch focus with some work, but the scaling never got insane unless you really wanted to max out everything.

2. Districts could be built regardless of production. There are a couple ways to do this. You could either make it, say, a flat 5 turns for the first district in any city, 6 for the second, 7 for the third, and so on. Or you could make them similar to Great People/border growth, and remove them from the build list altogether. Start with 50 points needed (add 50-100? each successive time), and add the population of the city to that counter each turn. That way it essentially scales with food/housing instead, which makes a lot of sense if you think about it. The buildings in the district would still cost production, but the districts themselves would be chosen once the meter is filled. It also gives a very good reason to have high culture or buy tiles for when it's done. This wouldn't change people choosing the 'best' district in the game in every city, but at least production wouldn't be so necessary (in fact, it would give high growth/low production cities a boost), and it wouldn't oddly handicap science/culture advancement.

 

[azzaare]

I can think of two far better ways to balance districts. The first makes more sense to the way Civ usually works. The second would be a departure from the norm, but still work pretty well.

1. With a base of 60, scale each copy of the district with the greatest number by 10, the 2nd greatest by 20, etc.. So, for example, you build a Campus and Holy Site in your first city, and they both cost 60. In your second city, you build another Holy Site for 70. After that, another Campus would cost 80, or any of the districts you haven't built would cost 60. This method encourages either specializing one victory condition for your empire, or specializing each city to its greatest benefit, but discourages trying to build all districts in all cities. So if you had 8 towns, and you built each separate specialty district in the 8 towns, it would cost 480 production total. Quite easy, and each city is specialized, but not overly powerful. Focusing on one particular district for a victory condition in 8 cities would cost 760 production. Also pretty cheap, but you wouldn't be very well-rounded. Putting two districts in each city would cost 1800 production, possible by the middle of the game (the final city would cost 330 production). But the costs would quickly balloon, with the final city costing 3000 production to place 8 districts if all 8 cities had 8 districts. The scaling could be adjusted up or down a bit, but this method worked very well for a MUD that I played long ago where you could multiclass into 5 different classes. Maxing out the first class took some time, but was fairly easy. Maxing out all 5 took a very long time. You could mix and match pretty easily for a while, and even switch focus with some work, but the scaling never got insane unless you really wanted to max out everything.

2. Districts could be built regardless of production. There are a couple ways to do this. You could either make it, say, a flat 5 turns for the first district in any city, 6 for the second, 7 for the third, and so on. Or you could make them similar to Great People/border growth, and remove them from the build list altogether. Start with 50 points needed (add 50-100? each successive time), and add the population of the city to that counter each turn. That way it essentially scales with food/housing instead, which makes a lot of sense if you think about it. The buildings in the district would still cost production, but the districts themselves would be chosen once the meter is filled. It also gives a very good reason to have high culture or buy tiles for when it's done. This wouldn't change people choosing the 'best' district in the game in every city, but at least production wouldn't be so necessary (in fact, it would give high growth/low production cities a boost), and it wouldn't oddly handicap science/culture advancement.

I like those ideas. I can try to add one. And no more half-cost specialty district!!!

3. As in real world, when a type a group becomes big, there are some side costs (syndicates, advertisement, whatever). For each type of district, first district has 0 gold upkeep, 2nd 1 gold upkeep and so on. Price of district is fixed at 60.