District cost mechanics. A very questionable design choice?

[bbbt]

I'd prefer scaling by era rather than number of techs - it adds a bit more strategy (do I beeline for a tech/civic I really want, or take some techs I don't want as much while I built more districts).

I think the biggest issue is not the scaling but the fact that they can only be made with production. A few policy cards/beliefs, even if limited, would go a long way (I.e. policy card - you can buy commercial and harbor districts with gold, belief - you can buy districts with faith in a city you already have a holy site, etc.)

 

[Cymsdale]

Districts are already limited by population, so why bother scaling them at all? Maybe bump up some of the population tiers to encourage growing a city first before you plant your first district, and move some of the inherent benefits of the district (such as +1 trade route from commercial) into the buildings themselves.

 

[Kingreaper]

I like this so, so very much. It would force you to specialize your cities, and to plan your expansion carefully. However, it could kinda make conquer way more OP than it is already (conquering districts wouldn't count as "built").

Could easily be based on the number of owned ones. Conquering them would still be great (they don't have to get built) but not a way to avoid scaling, and it would mean that when you get conquered your scaling goes back down.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

However, this would hurt expansion quite a lot. Maybe it's just me but I don't want to return to the boring 4-city "empire" ala CIV5.

That depends on the cost progression.
Say districts cost 80+5 per previous district
That would only be a minor brake on expansion, small compared to builders and settler costs

 

[TimTurry]

Prefer to have cost ties to the number of districts per city. I make no logical sense for cost of districts to go up based on the number already built. Plus it limits expansion. I hate civ5 style 2-city empires.

This. We finally have a Civ that rewards wide empires. News flash (sorry to sound like an ass), but that what our world really looks like. The more cities you have, the better. While giving us the ability for ICS, they should have added more automation, but that is another topic.

 

[VanitysFiend]

That depends on the cost progression.
Say districts cost 60+10 per previous district
That would only be a minor break on expansion

I was thinking 60+20 myself, with the cost increasing per district in a city, not per district type. The first district each city builds is always 60, doesn't matter how many districts other cities have...

 

[smartcanuck1988]

It is interesting to see how we after a week or so of playing the game came to realize this weird design choice and quickly put some alternatives that seem like they would satisfy more people.

So my question is, what was the logic behind the system that the devs chose? I'm not making jokes, I'm genuinely intrigued because the devs had significantly more time designing and testing out this game, so surely at some point our simple suggestions have crossed their minds? I'm convinced that there is some effect that the devs are more concerned about that they chose this unintuitive design over much simpler solutions. I just don't know what it is.

 

[skyclad]

I just dont want a system that punishes me for expanding. I like the version where each new district in each specific city goes up the more there are, possibly tied also to each district of a certain type goes up in cost the more you have overall (so, base cost x modifier for nr of districts already in the city x modifier for nr of that district already in your empire).
This would cut back some on the industrial zone and commercial hub spam since those specific districts get better, as well as make small cities not useless.

What I like about the current system is that expanding does not hurt you. It just needs to be changed so that progress also doesn't hurt you. Diminishing returns is good but punishing success is bad.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I was thinking 60+20 myself, with the cost increasing per district in a city, not per district type. The first district each city builds is always 60, doesn't matter how many districts other cities have...

That's poor since you want to have fairly high district costs later in the game, otherwise they are trivial.
(even late game new cities get lots of production from regional factories and trade routes)

I'd go with something like 60-80 + 5-20 per any other district started/owned (values depend on balance..possibly map size)
(City Centers, Aqueducts, Neighborhoods, Spaceports don't count..and have their own cost progression)

The issue is not that the cost goes up (it should) but that the way it goes up encourages
1. locking down district as soon as you have the pop
2. avoid researching techs/civics

If all that matters is the order of the districts it is perfectly reasonable for your 100th district to cost more than your first district (regardless of which city it is in).

Because districts have flat yields, all districts are equally good regardless of being with a pop 1 city or a pop 30 city (except for terrain/regional effects)...so each district should only go up in cost as your number of districts goes up (for a slowly diminishing returns).

and then the 75% discount for less common districts (either your # of this district < your average of other districts OR each other players average number of this district)

 

[RealHuhn]

It is interesting to see how we after a week or so of playing the game came to realize this weird design choice and quickly put some alternatives that seem like they would satisfy more people.

So my question is, what was the logic behind the system that the devs chose? I'm not making jokes, I'm genuinely intrigued because the devs had significantly more time designing and testing out this game, so surely at some point our simple suggestions have crossed their minds? I'm convinced that there is some effect that the devs are more concerned about that they chose this unintuitive design over much simpler solutions. I just don't know what it is.

I like your way of thinking .

My best guess would be that they wanted to find a way to make science less important. With the current system, if you focus only on science you cannot produce anything anymore because district costs explode. And it works 100%. Now I feel like it's much more beneficial to build a well balanced empire. Of course, the civic tree also plays a huge part in this (and civics also increase the costs, so yeah, I don't know ^^).

However, if you'd change this to the "increased district cost per district" idea, the game design would change quite significantly because progression in science would have zero negative effects again.
You could rush a few campuses, go straight to industrial zones and build them for dirt cheap because nothing but the 2-3 campuses increased their costs at that point in time.

That's why I feel like the mechanic has to stay somehow.

So maybe instead of drastic changes we should get rid of the lock-down effect first. And then go from there.

 

[smartcanuck1988]

I like your way of thinking .

My best guess would be that they wanted to find a way to make science less important. With the current system, if you focus only on science you cannot produce anything anymore because district costs explode. And it works 100%. Now I feel like it's much more beneficial to build a well balanced empire. Of course, the civic tree also plays a huge part in this (and civics also increase the costs, so yeah, I don't know ^^).

However, if you'd change this to the "increased district cost per district" idea, the game design would change quite significantly because progression in science would have zero negative effects again.
You could rush a few campuses, go straight to industrial zones and build them for dirt cheap because nothing but the 2-3 campuses increased their costs at that point in time.

That's why I feel like the mechanic has to stay somehow.

So maybe instead of drastic changes we should get rid of the lock-down effect first. And then go from there.

I think what you say is true. The lock-down is definitely silly and looks more like an oversight than a deliberate decision in my opinion.

I wonder if this can be modded so we "play test" it using different systems and can discuss our actual experiences.

 

[Malachi256]

Meh, cost should be related to number of actual science units researched, not number of researched techs, IMO.

Beelining should be discouraged, not encouraged...

edit: and if science needs some sort of check & balance, they should figure out something else, cause this methods fails on both the fun and immersion level, for me at least.

 

[RealHuhn]

Meh, cost should be related to number of actual science units researched, not number of researched techs, IMO.

Beelining should be discouraged, not encouraged...

edit: and if science needs some sort of check & balance, they should figure out something else, cause this methods fails on both the fun and immersion level, for me at least.

Yes, I'm very interested in how this would play out. The micro management of techs/civics and the lock down effect are the main reasons I don't like this system. Making it dependent on total science and culture would be a step in the right direction without removing the design idea behind it.
Teching faster would still have the opportunity costs of increased production but the annoying micro management would be gone. Beelining industrial zones would still be an issue though.

 

[UWHabs]

I mean, you can see why they would go at it - the further along you get in game, the more expensive things should be. It's a catch-up mechanism.

But I think what they didn't account for was:
-science goes too fast, so it's easy to get way far ahead
-the way they do it, it encourages beelining. So it's highly beneficial to skip the ocean techs entirely.

Honestly, even a simple change to be based on era not based on number of techs would be a much better system. Then you really have to decide - am I ready to move to the next era, or should I back-fill techs first until my current batch of districts are done.

 

[Tristram]

Maybe a non-linear increasing cost per district in a city, say Fibonacci: Cost 1x, Cost 1x, Cost 2x, Cost 3x, Cost 5x, Cost 8x and so on.

Some amount of basic city spam still feasible, but you maybe couldn't afford to go tall too quickly or in too many cities. Tall wouldn't be redwoods, but more like stalagmites (wider base, but tall in the middle). May lose a bit of 'pure X' where X is tall / wide. It more be more a strong tendency either way

Then civ unique talent would be an (India?) would be 1x, 1x, 1x, 2x, 3x.

 

[RealHuhn]

I mean, you can see why they would go at it - the further along you get in game, the more expensive things should be. It's a catch-up mechanism.

But I think what they didn't account for was:
-science goes too fast, so it's easy to get way far ahead
-the way they do it, it encourages beelining. So it's highly beneficial to skip the ocean techs entirely.

Honestly, even a simple change to be based on era not based on number of techs would be a much better system. Then you really have to decide - am I ready to move to the next era, or should I back-fill techs first until my current batch of districts are done.

Yep, an additional modifier per era could work as well. However, it might be simpler to just nerf OP beelines. Staying in one era as long as possible just to prevent higher district costs feels kinda weird too.

I personally don't think that science goes too fast. Science victory cannot be achieved earlier than in CIV5. Yes you advance quicker in eras but just because you beelined to renaissance era doesn't mean anything when you still have to backfill 10 techs. It only feels too fast because when you don't abuse district mechanics, you don't have enough production to build anything. This feeling gets even stronger when you try to tech as fast as possible and ignore this new mechanic.

 

[NukeAJS]

Of everything I've read/heard so far, I think increasing the cost of a specific type of district depending on how many there are in your empire AND an era based system is the way to go.

Both these would encourage civs to broaden out as far as district planning and teching/culturing. Increasing cost per # of districts means spamming districts is not always the best way to go and encourage city specialization. Increasing cost per era discourages extreme beelining.

The only bad thing I can see is that the vital industrial zone could get prohibitively expensive for new cities. Also, making costs increase by era is theoretically the same system as more techs/civics logically mean advancing in era.

 

[smartcanuck1988]

The warmonger penalties go up with the era you are in, and I already dislike that system so not sure I'd like it for district costs. All it does is encourage you to game the system by forcing your civ to stay behind in tech. It just sounds opposite of what playing civ should be all about.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

I don't like the idea of era-based cost increases. They existed in Civ V's faith purchasing and I hated them then. To make that a vastly more significant mechanic by applying it to districts? Yuck.

Have a VERY mild cost increase for each of a district built. This should NOT be super punitive, just a little thing to discourage players from building 28 Commercial Hubs and 0 Holy Sites.

 

[Big J Money]

Increasing cost per type would make Germany more effective, not less.