[Vanilla] District Management

Does anyone have a set order of District by city; Capital, 2nd 3rd 4th? I usually dont get an encampment in my Capital right away as I go Campus, Faith, Commercial. I do play at King level. Do others have set order for districts in 2nd 3rd 4th etc to balance Faith, science, commerce.

 

If you do want religion, Holy Site needs to come as soon as possible, because the race for a Great Prophet is super important and every turn counts.
Then settler/army builds are super important, especially in your capital.
After that, Campuses are really important (especially if Hypatia is the first Great Scientist), and then Commerical Hubs.
Encampments are super situational - if you want Horsemen/Knight pushes and you don't have those resources, you might build this after your Settler pushes.
Entertainment Districts are also situational - they're very important for late-game Domination victories, but that's about it.
Theater Squares aren't so important, unless you have serious bonuses for them - they don't provide much culture and tourism is easily earned through other ways, like Seaside Resorts.
Industrial Zones are also mediocre, and you should only really get them if there's a big adjacency bonus.

 

If you try to use the same formula every game, you're gonna have a bad time. Being balanced is not necessarily the best strategy since every civ and map is so different. For example if you are not a religious civ then most likely you'd be better off skipping the holy sites. If you are playing as Alex or have the Aztecs next to you then an encampment is a great idea, but those can be skipped too quite often. If you come across a perfect spot surrounded by mountains, it would be foolish to build anything besides a campus. Etc. Etc.

I also disagree with the previous poster about theaters, those are important and do provide a lot of culture. Speeding through the civic tree helps all victory types.

 

Also theatres are the source of Great Artists, Musicians and Writers which are important if you're going for a cultural victory and start giving you tourism quite early in the game

 

i was more concerned about what districts to build and in what order for say first 4-6 cities. For my capital i will build Faith, Campus then Commercial.

My 2nd and 3rd cities i'll build an encampment 2nd or 3rd after faith and campus depending on my place in research. And will build Commercial 4th.

If you have any comments id be grateful

 

From your comment, encampments are the main thing that stands out. To me those are very situational, not something to build in every city, certainly not 2nd. The rest sounds like it should work fine on king level. There isn't really one ideal build order to follow, thanks to the randomness of maps and different civs abilities.

Skipping religion is also an option to consider. Personally I choose whether to pursue a religious victory before the game even starts. If I didn't pick a religious civ, I will just skip religion. Get a pantheon and that's it - no holy sites required. Skipping holy sites means you get those other districts much faster, you get great people earlier, etc.

 

I sort of disagree with this. One early Encampment leads to a number of culture boosts and is well worth building. Only one, though, not more than that.

That's a pretty good approach.

The only thing I'd add is to identify a centrally located City or two, and either place or save a district slot for an Industrial Zone and Entertainment District where you can get 5 to 7 cities within 6 hexes reach.

 

wow, I always thought industrial zones were one of the MOST important districts (maybe second to commercial/ harbor/ unique/ holy if your going for RV) not only is it hammers but it also gives you sweet sweet great merchant points! why do ppl not prefer industrial zones? does it take too much time to make? I will say it is a bit of a ways down the tech tree...

I don't have R&F so that might influence my opinion if I played by those rules though.

 

I don't think we actually disagree, because I only said that you shouldn't build them in every city. One city is reasonable.

 

The "un-love" for IZs is mostly it's because there's very little "stuff" you need to build in the game, so getting extra hammers doesn't move you towards victory as much as other yields. Partially it's because what hammers you do need are more efficiently obtained from Mines (and chopping if you do that) than from using up a district spot. Partially it's because gold/faith is much more flexible than hammers and can be used to buy the "stuff" you need instantly and in the spot you most need it.

That said, I do build an IZ every game, mostly because I like to find a couple of spots that cover 5 to 7 cities in total and build an IZ and Entertainment Zone there. Mostly because it seems like something I "should" do, and also because despite what I wrote above, the production-to-cost benefit of the Factory is okay if it covers 5+ cities and so I like to buy one as soon as the building becomes available (less so the Power Plant mostly because it's closer to the end of the game, but by that time, usually I'll have enough gold to buy one anyway).

My bad. I misunderstood your initial comment.

 

When i played as England and got a good coastal river spot, getting CH, Civic square and harbour makes +4 for trade routes and TBH in that situation not having an IZ to have it +5 if you have a few traders is nice. thats when I build them... and for the eureka but it's not meaning its efficient, just feels nice.