District ideas.

[VanitysFiend]

Now I'll admit this idea is a tad embryonic atm, but I'm gonna share it anyway. So, atm districts require u to pass population thresholds before they can be built. Why is that? Well I think it's mainly because they (mostly) give passive yields just for existing, so their numbers need to be limited in some way. I think this is a bad idea. Why not treat districts like any other tile improvement and require them to be worked to give out their adjacency benefits?
(I'm kinda imagining the CiV GP buildings, only with variable yields)

I know this would have a knock on effect with the way specialists work in CiVI, given that they basically use the citizen map instead of having their own slots, but that's mainly a graphics and UI change, rather than a rules change.

I'm also leaning towards the idea that it would be better if builders built districts by spending charges, first district takes 1, second 2, etc. Building a district shouldn't be the herculean task it is now, it should be the first step on the road of city specialisation. Atm a districts passive bonuses can feel like the most important contribution it makes to a city.

Any thoughts?

 

[TomKQT]

Hm, overall it seems that you would like to make districts easier to build? (No pop limitation, less building time, even separated from the city build queue when build by workers).
I don't have problems with the current implementation, I think this is pretty well balanced (unlike other things in Civ6...), so making it easier would make it too easy in my opinion.

Yes, it takes very long to build a district in a newly created city when you are already in the later eras and districts cost is very high (while the new city has only very little production output). Maybe this could be tweaked a bit, but in the end even this isn't such a huge problem, because you aready have more advanced tile improvements and can use traders to aid the city.

 

[UWHabs]

I think what should happen is that basically you can always build anything, but essentially you have to actually put a citizen in each building to get its benefit. So basically:
-You can build multiple districts with no population caps at all
-You build the district like normal, except that in order to get the base (adjacency) bonus, you need to allocate a citizen to it.
-once you build a building in the district, again, in order to get its bonus, you have to assign a citizen to it.
-You can't allocate a citizen to a building without having a citizen in its pre-req (ie. you can't simply "move" your librarian to the university, you would need to have 3 citizens "allocated" to the campus district to work the university).

This way, you could essentially "abandon" an old district if you don't want it anymore, but wouldn't have to wait until your next population to work the new district. You would need cities to grow faster, to also have enough citizens to work the fields as well, but it would also be a pretty symbolic view that as your city develops, it becomes more "urban" than "rural" as you literally move people off the fields to work the campus or theatre districts.

 

[VanitysFiend]

Hm, overall it seems that you would like to make districts easier to build? (No pop limitation, less building time, even separated from the city build queue when build by workers).
I don't have problems with the current implementation, I think this is pretty well balanced (unlike other things in Civ6...), so making it easier would make it too easy in my opinion.

Easier to build yes, but harder to benefit from because they need to be worked in order to grant any yields, so population is still the limiter, just in a different way.

Yes, it takes very long to build a district in a newly created city when you are already in the later eras and districts cost is very high (while the new city has only very little production output). Maybe this could be tweaked a bit, but in the end even this isn't such a huge problem, because you already have more advanced tile improvements and can use traders to aid the city.

Traders seem kinda op atm, so I'm not sure it's wise to say that district costs aren't a problem cause you can use traders to bump up a new cities prod to insane levels...

I think what should happen is that basically you can always build anything, but essentially you have to actually put a citizen in each building to get its benefit. So basically:
-You can build multiple districts with no population caps at all
-You build the district like normal, except that in order to get the base (adjacency) bonus, you need to allocate a citizen to it.
-once you build a building in the district, again, in order to get its bonus, you have to assign a citizen to it.
-You can't allocate a citizen to a building without having a citizen in its pre-req (ie. you can't simply "move" your librarian to the university, you would need to have 3 citizens "allocated" to the campus district to work the university).

This way, you could essentially "abandon" an old district if you don't want it anymore, but wouldn't have to wait until your next population to work the new district. You would need cities to grow faster, to also have enough citizens to work the fields as well, but it would also be a pretty symbolic view that as your city develops, it becomes more "urban" than "rural" as you literally move people off the fields to work the campus or theatre districts.

This is pretty much what I want too, except I'm ok with buildings giving mostly passive buffs. I'd like specs to be more powerful though, if they contributed +1 each then they might be pretty good...

 

[steve_indy]

Building districts doesn't take long - make sure your city has an Industrial district before trying to build a lot of districts in it, and don't be shy to shift traders around. Districts, as configured, are sort of "sub-cities." It sounds like you want something in between (cottages in CIV IV?) that's above a simple tile improvement, but below setting up a whole sub-city. I'd be OK with that, it would make cities even more flexible. However, the current District dynamic is too awesome for me to support changing it significantly.

 

[TomKQT]

Easier to build yes, but harder to benefit from because they need to be worked in order to grant any yields, so population is still the limiter, just in a different way.

Yep, but still probably just one population per district, while now it's 3. I know it's quite different, because now you need to have 3 pop in the city to be able to build the district, but then you can use those 3 pop to work any other tile. In your case you would have 1 pop (per district) less to work the tiles around the city. It would need new rebalancing and in the end, I'm not sure the difference would be so huge

Traders seem kinda op atm, so I'm not sure it's wise to say that district costs aren't a problem cause you can use traders to bump up a new cities prod to insane levels...

I think it's absolutely wise, I'm evaluating the game as it is. In would be rather silly to say instead "district costs in the late game are very high and it's a huge problem because you have no means how to deal with it, because you really shouldn't use the OP traders".