District/Settler/Builder cost formula (October 2016)

[Tomice]

Has anyone found them yet? The ingame tooltips and civpedia don't even tell you that they increase in price. The price increase seems to be significant, though. Young cities in a wide empire need ages to build districts or builders.

 

[Tomice]

Some recommendations while collecting further experience on the topic:

- Only build districts that have really good adjacencies, they get expensive very fast. Don't bother about mediocre locations.
- Make your strategy dependent on the terrain. If there's no suitable location for a district, consider changing your strategy.
- If your starting area doesn't offer a good location, expand. More cities don't result in a penalty, too many (bad) districts do.
- Send builders from your core cities to the periphery, they'll soon get too expensive to build in underdeveloped cities.
- Build your settlers in your core cities as well. There are semi-hard caps on population before neighborhoods, so use them for population control.

 

[Seek]

Some recommendations while collecting further experience on the topic:

- Only build districts that have really good adjacencies, they get expensive very fast. Don't bother about mediocre locations.
- Make your strategy dependent on the terrain. If there's no suitable location for a district, consider changing your strategy.
- If your starting area doesn't offer a good location, expand. More cities don't result in a penalty, too many (bad) districts do.
- Send builders from your core cities to the periphery, they'll soon get too expensive to build in underdeveloped cities.
- Build your settlers in your core cities as well. There are semi-hard caps on population before neighborhoods, so use them for population control.

Good advice, though as I'm finding in my first game, a rough starting area can be tough to deal with! I have neither fresh water nor mountains..

Re: adjacency bonuses - Some districts are better than no districts, no?

On topic, I want to dig around in the files to find the cost increase formula, but I am enjoying playing (finally!) too much to do that yet.

 

[MadDjinn]

I'll likely cover this on Beyond the Monument Saturday.

 

[Montrealer]

One thing that can help is sending your traders to new cities so you get the benefits in the new city; it can really boost early production.

 

[esoba]

Some recommendations while collecting further experience on the topic:

- Only build districts that have really good adjacencies, they get expensive very fast. Don't bother about mediocre locations.
- Make your strategy dependent on the terrain. If there's no suitable location for a district, consider changing your strategy.
- If your starting area doesn't offer a good location, expand. More cities don't result in a penalty, too many (bad) districts do.
- Send builders from your core cities to the periphery, they'll soon get too expensive to build in underdeveloped cities.
- Build your settlers in your core cities as well. There are semi-hard caps on population before neighborhoods, so use them for population control.

Can't +1 this enough. My first game I only played a couple hundred turns (on marathon) and I fell into the trap of trying to put districts in the best place even if there were no bonuses. It really put my civilization way way behind because they are cost heavy. You really must adjust your strategy to your location, bonuses, and resources that are around you. Plus your location really determines if you need to quickly push out other cities in order to have good locations for districts.

 

[Tomice]

One thing that can help is sending your traders to new cities so you get the benefits in the new city; it can really boost early production.

Indeed, but you need harbors or market districts to have more than one trader, it's a vicious circle!

Unique improvements may be better than initially suspected. Getting science from Ziggurats without having that many dedicated science districts seems very strong.
Even better when you lack good adjacencies, and really amazing when you consider that they don't delete the base tile yield (food/production).

 

[Big J Money]

- If your starting area doesn't offer a good location, expand. More cities don't result in a penalty, too many (bad) districts do.

More cities means you chew through your luxes and have fewer amenities, no? Not that the penalties for this are huge, but I wouldn't call it no penalty.

 

[Seti_PL]

I found some information in \Sid Meier's Civilization VI\Base\Assets\Gameplay\Data\Districts.xml
For most of districts configuration looks like:
Cost="60"
CostProgressionModel="COST_PROGRESSION_NUM_UNDER_AVG_PLUS_TECH"
CostProgressionParam1="25"

For Aqueduct, Neightbourhood:
Cost="60"
CostProgressionModel="COST_PROGRESSION_GAME_PROGRESS"
CostProgressionParam1="1000"

For spaceport, city center and wonders there is no CostProgressionModel configured.

It look like cost formula may be connected to game progress/number of technologies/number of districts.
I have no idea about exact formula yet. I need to gather some more test data during gameplay


For workers and settlers there are also some parameters in Units.xml:
Settler:
Cost="80"
CostProgressionModel="COST_PROGRESSION_PREVIOUS_COPIES"
CostProgressionParam1="20"

Worker:
Cost="50"
CostProgressionModel="COST_PROGRESSION_PREVIOUS_COPIES"
CostProgressionParam1="4"

On standard speed cost of settler goes like: 80, 100, 120...
It looks like cost formula of these units, is connected only to the number of specific units already produced: Cost + CostProgressionParam1 * number of unit already produced.

 

[Magil]

More cities means you chew through your luxes and have fewer amenities, no? Not that the penalties for this are huge, but I wouldn't call it no penalty.

It depends, cities at low population numbers don't require any amenities. I think your first amenity is required at 3 population. It's very feasible to settle "satellite" cities to claim resources and don't grow them until you can support them. The housing cap for cities not near fresh water will prevent them from growing very much anyway.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I found some information in \Sid Meier's Civilization VI\Base\Assets\Gameplay\Data\Districts.xml
For most of districts configuration looks like:
Cost="60"
CostProgressionModel="COST_PROGRESSION_NUM_UNDER_AVG_PLUS_TECH"
CostProgressionParam1="25"

For Aqueduct, Neightbourhood:
Cost="60"
CostProgressionModel="COST_PROGRESSION_GAME_PROGRESS"
CostProgressionParam1="1000"

For spaceport, city center and wonders there is no CostProgressionModel configured.

It look like cost formula may be connected to game progress/number of technologies/number of districts.
I have no idea about exact formula yet. I need to gather some more test data during gameplay


For workers and settlers there are also some parameters in Units.xml:
Settler:
Cost="80"
CostProgressionModel="COST_PROGRESSION_PREVIOUS_COPIES"
CostProgressionParam1="20"

Worker:
Cost="50"
CostProgressionModel="COST_PROGRESSION_PREVIOUS_COPIES"
CostProgressionParam1="4"

On standard speed cost of settler goes like: 80, 100, 120...
It looks like cost formula of these units, is connected only to the number of specific units already produced: Cost + CostProgressionParam1 * number of unit already produced.

Nice info.... (I can guess what Game progress is (ie % of the way through the game.... they seemed to top out at 600 so maybe 60*1000*Game turn/Max game turns/100)

what about Trader units

 

[agonistes]

Only build districts that have really good adjacencies, they get expensive very fast. Don't bother about mediocre locations.

I keep forgetting to check... if I build my specialty district, which DOESN'T go up in cost, will building one still make a common district go up in cost?

edit: I totally forgot all about this. I thought a 120 turn campus seemed a bit rough. I chaulked it up to poor terrain.

 

[Seti_PL]

I did some additional testing with campus cost. Beelined Campus technology on standard speed, and then checked every turn when cost goes up.
Only one city, no districts constructed or started. Looks like cost of campus is connected to number of techs already researched.
When I loaded turn before cost increase and changed technology to another one (to avoid research completion), cost was still the same.

Next step: check if cost increase is connected to cost of researched technology (or only number of them)

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I did some additional testing with campus cost. Beelined Campus technology on standard speed, and then checked every turn when cost goes up.
Only one city, no districts constructed or started. Looks like cost of campus is connected to number of techs already researched.
When I loaded turn before cost increase and changed technology to another one (to avoid research completion), cost was still the same.


View attachment 456163

Next step: check if cost increase is connected to cost of researched technology (or only number of them)

Cost does seem to make sense...

Since you seem to show that neither civics nor game turns affect it directly, and the 'cost increase for a tech' goes up and down*

*Also it might be interesting if Campus cost goes up with techs (since its enabled by a tech) does Theater cost go up with techs or civics?

 

[indradiva]

Indeed, but you need harbors or market districts to have more than one trader, it's a vicious circle!

One solution could be to get a GM that increases them, or to get Merchant Republic early. There are also two Wonders that do it, but they are pretty expensive. You can also simply switch your available Traders often, assigning them to your newest cities and trading with the others. Which, IMO, adds a whole new layer of strategy. Sorry for offtopic.

 

[fanlong]

Anyone figures out exactly how is the district cost calculated?