District Cost Increase

[Cyon]

Japan starts to look even sweeter, building three kinds of districts in half time is an amazing ability! Also getting good yeild of all your districts is very nice if you build them close. All UD age a huge Boni!

 

[spfun]

It would also cause balance issues between districts, with a limited number able to be built you have to be really stingy on which cities get what. The weaker districts won't get built at all if it means a much slower 10th campus for science victory game etc...

Though I doubt its as bad as its sounding in this thread.

 

[Thormodr]

Unique districts are going to be pretty powerful. Sure hope the Mongols get one.

 

[qadams]

This whole issue is currently so murky — and so vital to understand for game play — that it really would be nice to hear something explicit from the devs about how it will work and what their intentions are. Firaxis, are you listening?

 

[elitetroops]

I never played Civ 5 and don't know if this has changed drastically, but if it's anything like civ 4, then most of those districts won't be worth building anyway. The rising districts cost, coupled with the fact that AI probably can't handle 1UPT warfare, suggests that the fastest path to victory on difficulties up to immortal would be to expand to 3-4 cities while beelining a strong early military tech, then spam units to take everyone out. Capture the districts instead of building them. I admit I'm not very familiar with all the mechanics of Civ 6, maybe there are some maintenance or upkeep issues designed to prevent this. But still, looking at the list of districts, I can't imagine the situation where I would want to have 15 cities with 4+ districts each until maybe very late in a space game. If even then.

One limiting factor could also be the production capabilities of smaller cities. What kind of hurry production options are there? I've seen that it's possible to buy units for gold. Will there be something like Civ 4 slavery? Do you get production from chopping forests?

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I think the cost increase looks good. You are not ment to have that many districts and citizens can produce pretty much everything. Buildings and districts are more like the specialists in previous games then the buildings in the previous games. They give static not % yields so they do not play the same role as previous civ games. The biggest thing about districts and buildings are maybe the great person points (and given how low the cost are for great people I think you know what happens if you can spam districts).

Civilizations that have a unique district will naturelly have huge advantage but these civs wont get a unique building or unique improvement and both pf these are very powerful as well.

 

[Acken]

This will make late game expansion soooo bad. Good luck building high cost districts with your small city.

Maybe thats by design to limit the exponential power of wide empires but im not sure its the right method.

The part that I find truly awful is the increase in district cost for number of cities if I understand this thread correctly. Just number of district is enough of a penality.

Interestingly this news made Aztecs look even better.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I don't need districts to make a useful city.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

I don't need districts to make a useful city.

But it's more fun to build districts in every city. If you can do it, there's a 2-stage interesting choice: 'which district(s) will I build in this city, and in which tile(s)?'. Even if you can still make an adequate city with that choice removed, it will be as dull as adding numbers to an Excel sheet, comparatively.

Change this or RIOT, I say. (Ofc it might be that our worries are all in vain and the formula is still being adjusted, etc... I wouldn't count on it, if past experiences are anything to go by.)

 

[elitetroops]

But it's more fun to build districts in every city. If you can do it, there's a 2-stage interesting choice: 'which district(s) will I build in this city, and in which tile(s)?'. Even if you can still make an adequate city with that choice removed, it will be as dull as adding numbers to an Excel sheet, comparatively.

We all have different perceptions of fun. What I enjoy the most is working out the most efficient method to beat the game. I'm afraid that won't involve building every single district in every city.

 

[SJSerio]

But it's more fun to build districts in every city. If you can do it, there's a 2-stage interesting choice: 'which district(s) will I build in this city, and in which tile(s)?'. Even if you can still make an adequate city with that choice removed, it will be as dull as adding numbers to an Excel sheet, comparatively.

Change this or RIOT, I say. (Ofc it might be that our worries are all in vain and the formula is still being adjusted, etc... I wouldn't count on it, if past experiences are anything to go by.)

It just seems to me that the need to control districts is unnecessary. I can see city by city but not so much by empire since the districts have some stringent terrain requirements. Planning out along with adjacency bonuses, improvements and wonders makes the choice more strategic. Making the increase global looks to be Civ VI's version of the civic policies.

We all have different perceptions of fun. What I enjoy the most is working out the most efficient method to beat the game. I'm afraid that won't involve building every single district in every city.

I don't think that you would have to have (or want) every district in every city. As I said above, you still have terrain, improvements, and wonders to think about. So you still have to manage the cities. Some districts would be ideal to spread across to many cities, like harbors, etc. But not every city needs a campus or entertainment complex.

Sent from my LG-H345 using Tapatalk

 

[Seek]

I never played Civ 5 and don't know if this has changed drastically, but if it's anything like civ 4, then most of those districts won't be worth building anyway. The rising districts cost, coupled with the fact that AI probably can't handle 1UPT warfare, suggests that the fastest path to victory on difficulties up to immortal would be to expand to 3-4 cities while beelining a strong early military tech, then spam units to take everyone out. Capture the districts instead of building them. I admit I'm not very familiar with all the mechanics of Civ 6, maybe there are some maintenance or upkeep issues designed to prevent this. But still, looking at the list of districts, I can't imagine the situation where I would want to have 15 cities with 4+ districts each until maybe very late in a space game. If even then.

Yes, it does imply militarily obtaining cities and districts will be more important than ever, which will hopefully mean that diplomacy is more important as well, given the casus belli system. In that way I like the ramp-up.

One limiting factor could also be the production capabilities of smaller cities. What kind of hurry production options are there? I've seen that it's possible to buy units for gold. Will there be something like Civ 4 slavery? Do you get production from chopping forests?

Forest chopping provides a lot more production than in both 5 and (iirc) 4, and bonus resources can be "harvested" for a boost to their inherent yield. There are most likely late-game policies to boost production also.

This will make late game expansion soooo bad. Good luck building high cost districts with your small city.

Maybe thats by design to limit the exponential power of wide empires but im not sure its the right method.

The part that I find truly awful is the increase in district cost for number of cities if I understand this thread correctly. Just number of district is enough of a penality.

I tend to agree with these sentiments, but as noted above it may be a conscious choice by Ed, et al to make combat more critical.

Interestingly this news made Aztecs look godly.

Ftfy!

I think the cost increase looks good. You are not ment to have that many districts and citizens can produce pretty much everything. Buildings and districts are more like the specialists in previous games then the buildings in the previous games. They give static not % yields so they do not play the same role as previous civ games. The biggest thing about districts and buildings are maybe the great person points (and given how low the cost are for great people I think you know what happens if you can spam districts).

Civilizations that have a unique district will naturelly have huge advantage but these civs wont get a unique building or unique improvement and both pf these are very powerful as well.

Interestingly it makes civs with a unique faith-generating improvement look much better in my eyes - you'll just need to build one Holy Site for a Great Prophet, then you can rely on your UI for faith. (Unless GPr points have some other, unknown use we don't know about.)

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

One strategy you can use is to build a few cities, build alot of district and then go on an expansion spree. This work because district do not increase cost of settlers but cities do increase cost of district.

Because there are no negative for having cities (other then the district cost) mean that the goal should be to have as many cities as possible because each citizen you have give you culture and science for just existing and more cities mean more population (it would be interesting to see how district cost increase work with neighbourhoods) because it could mean that you will either go absolute wide (get as many cities as possible) or absolute tall (build massive cities) naturally the middle way (in which you have as many cities with as many neighbourhoods as possible) could be very strong.

It could be so that you can reliably build 50 pop cities but maybe only if you have a few number of cities at the neighbourhood tech. Even more interesting is the airport and spaceport, these are district and both are important for victory (airport for culture and spaceport for science). Science victory may be impossible for a large empire because it can not afford to build a spaceport (maybe it can capture a spaceport but I do not know) and it may not be good at culture but I do not know how tourism work.

I think what I said above is very interesting because the game both encourage you to build big and stay smal. Actually I would say that the goal should always be to go big but at which point?

Naturally there is always the choice of go big early but that will lead to an underdeveloped empire, this I think work well for civs who have a unique district such as england or unique improvement because they have alot more flexibility. Some unique abilities such as Aztec work well here.

Another choice is to wait and build up a few cities. The longer you wait the more interesting districts you will unlock and the more powerful these core cities will be. Naturally you should not be passive, raid enemies and do damage to them but be patient because the goal is to outplay them bit for bit. If you can make it to the industrial era and get neighbourhoods you should be in a very good shape and you could continue to stay smal and get to airport and such.

Now I wonder how conquered cities work, maybe they become pupets that do not provide much but do not increase district cost, that would be interesting.

 

[qwerty25]

Did some scrubbing in Quill's series and found some answers to questions I raised in the Theorycrafting thread. I didn't want to derail that thread with this stuff, and thought it could warrant its own thread.



1. Cost rises for each district started.
2. No, it's universal.
3. Couldn't tell.

Edit: Updated with new info
The actual costs of the districts seem to follow the following equation: B*1.1^n (rounded down), with B=Base cost (60 on quick) and n=number of previously built or currently under construction districts.
(Thanks to StealthNSK for the equation!)

Essentially this means that each new district will be 10% more expensive than the last. Two other things of note: City center tiles are counted as districts here, and any civ's Unique District does not increase later district costs (although it is affected by them).

Districts Completed | Hammer Cost
0 | 60
1 | 66
2 | 72
3 | 79
4 | 87
5 | 97

etc.

There are some oddities, for example one city of Quill's (Leeds in part 4 @ 6:03) showed the cost at one point to be 108 while other cities showed 112, a strange anomaly. Also, Aqueducts did not seem to strictly follow the cost increases other districts were showing - not really a surprise since they do not have a population requirement.

Edit 2: Please keep in mind that the data pool is quite small and that we are drawing numbers from an alpha build that is from early July, about four months before release! Anything is subject to change.

(Btw, 50% speed makes Quill a very drunk-sounding man.[emoji38])

Hi seek.
Do you know if this formula affects creating settlers?

Like if i have 4 districts versus 3 districts would the cost of my settler increase?

Because if it doesnt, then it encourages building more settlers up to a certain point.

 

[elitetroops]

Because there are no negative for having cities (other then the district cost) mean that the goal should be to have as many cities as possible because each citizen you have give you culture and science for just existing and more cities mean more population

I was thinking along the same line. If districts wouldn't be too costly to build, then there would be no reason to do anything but spamming as many cities as possible as closely together as possible.

Not only does more cities mean more population, but it also means more districts. By default, a district has to be better than working the same tile improved, otherwise there is little point building that district in the first place. And since district yields don't come in percentages, more of them is always better. For example, if you settle far apart for no overlap and large cities, you get one science district in 37 tiles. Settle all cities as close to each other as possible and you get a lot more science districts in the same amount of land. In addition, with cities closer together, it's easier to cluster your districts for adjacency bonuses. More science districts with more adjacency bonuses means more free beakers and more GPP.

Also, tighter cities means smaller cities, meaning less need for entertainment and housing. For example neighborhoods would be a big waste of space in this scenario. Why waste a tile only to grow one city bigger when you could get more out of the land with more smaller cities?

With all this in mind, some kind of mechanic to prevent infinite city&district spam seems necessary.

I still see some potential for how this could work. Play Monty on a difficulty high enough for the AI to actually build units. Build mainly Eagle Warriors early on and immediately declare on the first AI you meet (no diplo penalty from other civs for declaring very early afaik). Maybe even declare on the first 2 AI you meet, if one AI isn't capable of sending enough units. Stay at war and farm builders from the units the AI sends at you with your Eagle Warriors. Next you spam settlers. First settle outwards to grab land, then backfill to pack the available land as tightly as possible. Grab luxuries early for the combat strength boost to your Eagle Warriors. Use captured builders to get new cities productive quickly and to rush their districts. As long as the AI keeps spamming units, there should be no need to waste turns on building builders and the necessary districts would be up quickly (Aztec builders don't care about the actual cost of a new district when they rush 20% of it). Expansion should be very fast. Any reason why this wouldn't work?

 

[Sansa_Stark]

I guess this adds something to this debate, and it won't make most of you happy. But I think we need to stay calm and wait how it turns out.

(it is from Kongo FL, and we have no info about the state of the game, except for the fact that it is turn 203 and capital has already built 3 districts)

Spoiler :

 

[Siptah]

sadly the minimap is turned off when we see this district cost. how many cities kongo has may have been helpful to estimate the cost.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Maybe district cost is 10% of the total base cost of all your built districts.

 

[Dorindus]

I think the worry among some of the posters is related to Civ always being a game of building something awe inspiring....If these exponential increases don't have a mitigating factor it will effectively turn CIV 6 into a Building Free zone or eliminate any wide strategy....instead of having 20, 30 or 40 different buildings in 5, 10, 20 or more cities, we will have a handful cities with 3/4 districts (few buildings) and all the rest of your cities will be improvements and maybe a district.

In Civs before, including 5, you could go wide if you can manage the penalties but if this plays out as suggested the 21st district would be 404 hammers, 31st - 1047, 41st 2,715, 51st 7,043, 61st district 18,268. This would quickly end anyone who wanted to play wide or on huge maps. Heck large maps would be vast emptiness unless every city you built ignored districts/buildings.

I must admit before this I have been super excited awaiting this release and sooooo impressed with everything they have shown so far. Now I am dreading the confirmation of this mechanic as I fear it would kill about 90% of my enthusiasm for the game. I am hoping.

 

[Matthew.]

There could easily just be a cap at a certain point. As in it is not ever going to scale to 2,715 hammers. It could cap out at say 500 hammers.

I think we need to wait on more info before reacting.