If I'm correct it works like this:
District costs are only dependent on the amount of techs and civics you have acquired.
A completed (or conquered) district doesn't increase the cost of the next one.
Advancement to the next era doesn't increase costs (only the tech you researched to get there).
Some types of districts (usually harbor) get cheaper when you have less of them (compared to the AI???).
Unique districts are always half the costs.
Quote by "Dynamic" in strategy&tips forum:
How does it influence gameplay?
To keep costs as low as possible you should do three things:
1. Tech as few techs and civics as possible. How? Beeline expensive techs and civics like commercial hubs and industrial zones. Avoid cheap techs/civics as long as possible. Research techs/civics until one turn before completion or one turn before half completion if eurekas aren't fulfilled yet and switch to something else.
2. Start to build districts as soon as they are available in a city which means at size 1,4,7,10 etc. After that you immediately switch to something else and the district cost is locked down forever!!! Get back to it whenever you want to. Plan the placement of districts in advance, buy tiles and chop forests/marsh before you can build the next one.
3. Expand as quickly as possible to keep amount of techs and civics at a minimum. This way you can lock down costs of districts a lot earlier.
Which civ benefits the most from this mechanic?
Germany:
Not only do they get a cheap industrial zone with insane adjacency bonuses but also they can build one more district than it's usually allowed. This means that you can lock down the costs of two districts at size 1, three districts at size 4 etc. This plus the high production from the Hansa leads to an insane amount of cheap districts and production. Completely OP.
What's my opinion on it?
Pro:
It's fun in a sense because it's a logical puzzle and it rewards efficient expansion, planning of district placement and builder management.
In general, I think it's great that production in CIV6 is limited and you cannot spam each district in every city (unless you play as Germany ). City specialization and city placement became more important again. Builder management is fun and rewarding. Expansion feels very rewarding. Science became less important. I really like the game because of this. And how costs of districts increase in CIV6 has a huge influence on all this.
Contra:
It's counter intuitive and micro intensive. Counter intuitive because, in the early game, teching fast and getting as many eurekas as possible actually hurts you more than it benefits you. Switching production immediately feels unnatural. Expansion becomes top priority. Building early wonders instead of expanding should be avoided because district costs constantly shoot up while you build them.
Micro intensive in a negative way because you have to check your tech and civic advancement each turn and switch to other techs before you complete them (unless you really need those techs of course).
Overall, I'm getting a little annoyed by this mechanic already because researching techs/civics and building early wonders is fun but it ruins production.
Few ideas on how to fix it:
With all this being said, I don't know how to fix it but here are a few ideas.
1. Districts of each type get more expensive everytime you build one of them. This would hurt expansion and get rid of the new trade off in CIV6 that science and culture make districts more expensive! Science would probably become king again. Please be careful with it! But it looks like many people like the idea so far.
2. Make it dependent on overall beakers/culture generated. That way you wouldn't need to micro manage techs anymore, at least, and it wouldn't really change anything else. Again, this mechanic has a lot of positive effects on gameplay. So maybe it has to stay somehow. Costs scaling can be adjusted as well to make it less ridiculous around turn 60-100 or so. My personal favourite
3. Make it dependent on time. Costs increase slightly each turn. This would punish those who lag behind in science. A very "lazy" way to change it ?!
4. Get rid of the "lock-down-effect". It would be interesting to know if it's intended to be in the game by the devs.
Or a combination of those.
What do you think about it and have you already adjusted your strategies because of this?
Edit: Made it prettier and more organized .
Edit 2: After reading the first three pages of replies, I had to add a stronger negative statement to suggestion 1. I don't feel like it's a good solution because it would change the design of the game too much. You can still disagree, of course.
District costs are only dependent on the amount of techs and civics you have acquired.
A completed (or conquered) district doesn't increase the cost of the next one.
Advancement to the next era doesn't increase costs (only the tech you researched to get there).
Some types of districts (usually harbor) get cheaper when you have less of them (compared to the AI???).
Unique districts are always half the costs.
Quote by "Dynamic" in strategy&tips forum:
It looks like:
District Main Cost = RoundDown(60 * (1 + P * 9)),
P = RoundDown(100*MAX(TechNum/67, CivicNum/50))/100;
Where 60 - base cost (normal speed), 67 - number of techs in the tree, 50 - number of civics in the tree.
If you have fewer of a given district than the average player has, that district's cost is reduced by 25% for you.
Unic district always costs 50%.
How does it influence gameplay?
To keep costs as low as possible you should do three things:
1. Tech as few techs and civics as possible. How? Beeline expensive techs and civics like commercial hubs and industrial zones. Avoid cheap techs/civics as long as possible. Research techs/civics until one turn before completion or one turn before half completion if eurekas aren't fulfilled yet and switch to something else.
2. Start to build districts as soon as they are available in a city which means at size 1,4,7,10 etc. After that you immediately switch to something else and the district cost is locked down forever!!! Get back to it whenever you want to. Plan the placement of districts in advance, buy tiles and chop forests/marsh before you can build the next one.
3. Expand as quickly as possible to keep amount of techs and civics at a minimum. This way you can lock down costs of districts a lot earlier.
Which civ benefits the most from this mechanic?
Germany:
Not only do they get a cheap industrial zone with insane adjacency bonuses but also they can build one more district than it's usually allowed. This means that you can lock down the costs of two districts at size 1, three districts at size 4 etc. This plus the high production from the Hansa leads to an insane amount of cheap districts and production. Completely OP.
What's my opinion on it?
Pro:
It's fun in a sense because it's a logical puzzle and it rewards efficient expansion, planning of district placement and builder management.
In general, I think it's great that production in CIV6 is limited and you cannot spam each district in every city (unless you play as Germany ). City specialization and city placement became more important again. Builder management is fun and rewarding. Expansion feels very rewarding. Science became less important. I really like the game because of this. And how costs of districts increase in CIV6 has a huge influence on all this.
Contra:
It's counter intuitive and micro intensive. Counter intuitive because, in the early game, teching fast and getting as many eurekas as possible actually hurts you more than it benefits you. Switching production immediately feels unnatural. Expansion becomes top priority. Building early wonders instead of expanding should be avoided because district costs constantly shoot up while you build them.
Micro intensive in a negative way because you have to check your tech and civic advancement each turn and switch to other techs before you complete them (unless you really need those techs of course).
Overall, I'm getting a little annoyed by this mechanic already because researching techs/civics and building early wonders is fun but it ruins production.
Few ideas on how to fix it:
With all this being said, I don't know how to fix it but here are a few ideas.
1. Districts of each type get more expensive everytime you build one of them. This would hurt expansion and get rid of the new trade off in CIV6 that science and culture make districts more expensive! Science would probably become king again. Please be careful with it! But it looks like many people like the idea so far.
2. Make it dependent on overall beakers/culture generated. That way you wouldn't need to micro manage techs anymore, at least, and it wouldn't really change anything else. Again, this mechanic has a lot of positive effects on gameplay. So maybe it has to stay somehow. Costs scaling can be adjusted as well to make it less ridiculous around turn 60-100 or so. My personal favourite
3. Make it dependent on time. Costs increase slightly each turn. This would punish those who lag behind in science. A very "lazy" way to change it ?!
4. Get rid of the "lock-down-effect". It would be interesting to know if it's intended to be in the game by the devs.
Or a combination of those.
What do you think about it and have you already adjusted your strategies because of this?
Edit: Made it prettier and more organized .
Edit 2: After reading the first three pages of replies, I had to add a stronger negative statement to suggestion 1. I don't feel like it's a good solution because it would change the design of the game too much. You can still disagree, of course.
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