[NFP] Do you find it weird that Entertainment Complex takes a district slot?

[Sostratus]

First game after the patch and i will say my first impression of the amenity changes is good. With that said, it really reveals how bad of a district the EC is. Water parks are just so much better. They take up a less valuable tile and you get their buildings available around the time you unlock them.(it is really nice sticking them in those 1 tile lakes) The buildings are better. They need to find a way to make this district useful before Zoos and stadiums outside of the new adjacency bonus.

Zoos and stadiums are really strong buildings. But I agree that the arena phase really just seems off. We don’t use bread and circuses project- perhaps reworking that would make the EC a bigger draw without having to dump amenities on players. Perhaps it could make the city ecstatic while ongoing? Or it could be a project that adds food growth to the city and loyalty, instead of a different yield plus GPP. (Would feel weird, though.)

 

[Timberdoodle]

I can see culture games in which I go for an Entertainment Complex + Colosseum, so I can pick up two +4 Theatre Squares adjacent to them. While EC's are still weak, I welcome the +2 culture adjacency from theatre squares as I feel they now have situational uses.

That said, I don't believe EC's really have much value in culture game. If you are building national parks, you're not going to be short on amenities as each national park provides 6.

Where I see a niche for EC's is in domination games, where they can buffer your amenities and loyalty. So in that regard, I'm happy for them to take up a district slot, if it's the cost you pay for owning half the world!

Removing the free amenity was a good change, but I'm also not so sure about reducing the negative happiness thresholds by 1. I wish the unrest and revolt effected loyalty more too. Displeased gives -3 loyalty and unhappy gives -6, but then unrest and revolt also give -6. I wished those carried on the trend and increased that to -9 and -12 loyalty respectively, and then have EC's positioned to counter that.

 

[monikernemo]

That said, I don't believe EC's really have much value in culture game. If your building national parks your not going to be short on amenities, as each national park provides 6.

Hmm I don't think we can rule out straight away. I think to some degree EC is still synergystic with CV since ECs boosts appeal as with TS, you might find some way to earn culture and gaining appeal from your city.

 

[Myomoto]

EC's are quite nice for culture games. Their buildings provide tourism, and they boost appeal to adjacent tiles, letting you plan out a national park or two by proper placement of your EC, Theatre Squares, and Holy Sites.

The biggest problem for me is just how much of a stinker the EC is on its own, and how utterly underwhelming the arena building is as well. I'm fine with the EC being a warmonger district tax (with a potential use in tall peaceful civs) - but it hardly fulfills this function right now.

 

[The googles do nothing]

It makes conceptual sense that it takes up a district spot because it's something you (in theory) build in cities have already grown, as opposed to a aqueduct which helps you city grow.

I'm fine with the EC being a warmonger district tax (with a potential use in tall peaceful civs) - but it hardly fulfills this function right now.

That's the use i was trying to get at with suggesting some kind of great person from the EC's. If you could earn 'great entertainers' who could go a city and give it a non-permanent boost. Early entertainers would have loyalty boosts, later ones tourism.

 

[King of Prussia]

Zoos and stadiums are really strong buildings. But I agree that the arena phase really just seems off. We don’t use bread and circuses project- perhaps reworking that would make the EC a bigger draw without having to dump amenities on players. Perhaps it could make the city ecstatic while ongoing? Or it could be a project that adds food growth to the city and loyalty, instead of a different yield plus GPP. (Would feel weird, though.)

Zoos to me are ok. Not great. They tend to lose their value as time goes on. They definitely give the EC more value than it was before them. Before this patch, outside of the coliseum, i didnt think EC were worth building until Zoos. not enough there to justify an early district slot. Stadiums are pretty nice. Problem is that it is pretty much at the very end of the game. By that time, i am probably doing ok to swimming in amenities. By that time, i have water parks in a lot of areas.

I dont have a problem if they rework the project. I barely used it to exert loyalty pressure. Problem with giving it a boost to growth/food is that all you will end up doing is growing faster, leading to even more amenity issues when the project finishes. Maybe more GPP for all GPP that city produces, or maybe even nearby cities. The arena which does not receive any buffs from any CS or policy cards, needs to be stronger for a tier 1 building. Buffing city tiles, providing more yields to the city it belongs to, or nearby cities would be nice.

My biggest issue with the amenity changes is that food was left unchanged. You dont want your cities to grow if you are a somewhat large empire. The change nerfed farm triangles even more. There are not a enough amenities in the early to mid game that you want your cities to be big. In the late game, you have a lot more options.

 

[hhhhhh]

EC's are quite nice for culture games. Their buildings provide tourism, and they boost appeal to adjacent tiles, letting you plan out a national park or two by proper placement of your EC, Theatre Squares, and Holy Sites.

This is a case where EC and Water Park need to be discussed separately. Water Parks are nice in this case, giving appeal to seaside resorts while not taking up spaces in this case. But building EC on land for the tiny amount of amenity and tourism they provide is just weird. I have an on-going game where I have two TS with a space between them, so after the update I briefly thought about putting an EC there, since it will give +2 culture to both of the TSs. I end up leaving the Moai I had over there - since the volcano soil nearby make it +3 culture and also tourism, and I decided that I can build a Water Park to boost future seaside resorts.

 

[Timberdoodle]

EC's are quite nice for culture games. Their buildings provide tourism, and they boost appeal to adjacent tiles, letting you plan out a national park or two by proper placement of your EC, Theatre Squares, and Holy Sites.

That makes sense, maybe I'm undervaluing them a bit. I'll work a few extra into my culture games and see how it goes!

Water Parks are nice in this case, giving appeal to seaside resorts while not taking up spaces in this case.

I agree, late game I often value Water Parks over Entertainment Complexes. Aquarium's have regional range of 9 too, so that's nice. Can be a good way to make use of a central lake tile.

Stadiums are pretty nice. Problem is that it is pretty much at the very end of the game.

I agree with this as well. Stadium's suffer the same problem many of the tier 3 buildings face in coming so late. The amenities are nice, and every bit of tourism helps in a culture game, but it just feels like they don't do enough if you're close to wrapping up the game.

Just spit balling some ideas, but they could add a unique promotion to rock bands trained in the city, or unlock a project that generates tourism. They could use something that does more to help you close out the game when you don't have so many turns left.

 

[Myomoto]

I think late game ECs are fine, the 'problem' is just the base yields of the district and how terrible the arena is. ECs are unlocked in the classical era, and only give reasonable yields by the industrial/atomic era (arena also gets tourism at conservation).

Meanwhile the water park unlocks and immediately has multiple buildings with worthwhile yields, AND it is competing for much less important real estate by being a coastal district.

I still think a more reasonable approach is for the EC to give all/half of its tile's appeal in amenities. Then the arena can give some kind of military bonus, or give the other half of the EC's tile of appeal in amenities. I also very much liked the idea of offering a second building like a garden or something that boost great people generation instead of the arena.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I'd like the addition of a circus building, maybe exclusive to the Zoo in the Industrial Era, and could focus on generating culture instead of science.
This is all considering at this point the EC kind of almost feels like another tourist district late game.

 

[hhhhhh]

I still think a more reasonable approach is for the EC to give all/half of its tile's appeal in amenities. Then the arena can give some kind of military bonus, or give the other half of the EC's tile of appeal in amenities.

I like this idea. If Arena can reduce war weariness from units produced by this city by 25% (a very small bonus but good to have anyway), give 25% more XP to units produced by this city and then half of the tile appeal from amenities (usually this means 2-4 amenities) then it is certainly worth the 150 production they are costing right now.

 

[Myomoto]

I like this idea. If Arena can reduce war weariness from units produced by this city by 25% (a very small bonus but good to have anyway), give 25% more XP to units produced by this city and then half of the tile appeal from amenities (usually this means 2-4 amenities) then it is certainly worth the 150 production they are costing right now.

The arena literally shows jousting (we can argue if that is reasonable for a classical era building, but whatever ), I think it should be somehow tied to military units. Either as an XP bonus like the encampment, or just a small +1/+2 'fitness' bonus to melee strength even.

Roman arenas were famous for propagandizing military victories and conquests - a bonus to the city that negates war weariness a bit could be very appropriate.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

The arena literally shows jousting (we can argue if that is reasonable for a classical era building, but whatever ), I think it should be somehow tied to military units. Either as an XP bonus like the encampment, or just a small +1/+2 'fitness' bonus to melee strength even.

Roman arenas were famous for propagandizing military victories and conquests - a bonus to the city that negates war weariness a bit could be very appropriate.

Jousting is probably more family friendly than gladiatorial combats though I agree it doesn't make sense for the Classical Era in that aspect.

Of course they could always do chariot racing, but maybe they are holding back on that for a unique hippodrome for the Byzantines.

 

[Myomoto]

Jousting is probably more family friendly than gladiatorial combats though I agree it doesn't make sense for the Classical Era in that aspect.

Of course they could always do chariot racing, but maybe they are holding back on that for a unique hippodrome for the Byzantines.

If the Byzantines finally get added and their unique is a freaking arena replacement...

To be honest, they could just have left the arena empty as a small 'track and field' sports arena, and it would look kind of appropriate for most eras. When you get to the modern era, I just always assumed the historic arena got replaced by a Medieval Times restaurant

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

If the Byzantines finally get added and their unique is a freaking arena replacement...

If they base it off of the one in Constantinople it can be big enough to be a tile improvement and take up a whole tile. I mean Canada's Hockey Rink takes up a whole tile instead of replacing the stadium, so I think a hippodrome should as well.

To be honest, they could just have left the arena empty as a small 'track and field' sports arena, and it would look kind of appropriate for most eras. When you get to the modern era, I just always assumed the historic arena got replaced by a Medieval Times restaurant

Considering there are tents all over the EC I just think of it as a continuous Renaissance Faire going on all the time since the Modern Era.

 

[Galvatron]

First game after the patch and i will say my first impression of the amenity changes is good. With that said, it really reveals how bad of a district the EC is. Water parks are just so much better. They take up a less valuable tile and you get their buildings available around the time you unlock them.(it is really nice sticking them in those 1 tile lakes) The buildings are better. They need to find a way to make this district useful before Zoos and stadiums outside of the new adjacency bonus.

There's no raisin for zoo's to come so late. There were zoo's for ages before the industrial revolution. Maybe the tourism ought to come later, since tourism doesn't exist until then.

If there are too many amenities then maybe some districts could start emitting pollution of something to make stuff suck. Or maybe happiness should be affected by appeal.

I dont have a problem if they rework the project. I barely used it to exert loyalty pressure. Problem with giving it a boost to growth/food is that all you will end up doing is growing faster, leading to even more amenity issues when the project finishes.

That's kind of the point. Instead of having one use it has two now

 

[acluewithout]

A small buff to the Arena would do wonders. While they’re at it, maybe they could buff the Workshop and Market, because they're both pretty terrible too.

I think what would really help the whole happiness thing is just a few more ways to actually lose happiness, other than War Weariness and Bankruptcy neither of which are really a thing.

 

[Lord Lakely]

The problem with EC has always always always been how incredibly weak they are. A fully built-up EC is barely better than a single luxury, which is utterly ridiculous. The Arena is by far the worst building in the game with pathetic yields that don't justify the cost until Zoo's are unlocked

As Lily_Lancer correctly pointed out in another thread, it's always better to not have horrible amenities than it is to have good amenities and therein lies the fatal flaw for ECs. It is not only too easy to obtain amenities via other sources (Luxuries, policy cards, tile improvements, etc), the effects Happy Cities grant are too small to really justify them in the first place. Entertainment districts imo should exist, as entertainment and public spectacles held some importance throughout history, but their implementation in Civ 6 is poor because Amenities themselves have been poorly implemented.

It works for Brazil because their carnival project synergizes very well with their faster Great People generation and the Zoo synergizes very well with jungles.The others, m'eh. Scotland likes them because they're the only civ to benefit from Happy cities but Scotland also has buffed Golf Courses so the need for an EC is less pressing than it used to be. Hungary and Canada like them because of the Thermal Bath and Ice Hockey Rink, but only of the terrain allows it. Water Parks work in conjunction with Entertainment Complexes in the endgame because their effects overlap and your empire usually reach a size where happiness from luxuries has been maxied, but this is an endgame problem. The Civ 6 endgame is one where one no longer *thinks* and instead just builds whatever is available out of sheer boredom.

The patch is a step in the right direction, but it's kind of like trying to treat an amputated leg with a band-aid. As long as the base EC and the Arena FAIL to have an area of effect or some other meaningful ability, ECs are doomed.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

There's no raisin for zoo's to come so late. There were zoo's for ages before the industrial revolution. Maybe the tourism ought to come later, since tourism doesn't exist until then.

The first public zoos appeared in the 1700s though so I think it's appropriate. Of course royals had their own personal menageries since the Ancient times so that's different.

As for what they can do early game maybe like the museums and the power plant they could split the arena into different types:
Combat Arena: +1 Amenity. +2 Culture. Reduces War Weariness in this city when killing an enemy unit.
Jousting Arena (Unlocks at Medieval Faires): +1 Amenity. +2 Culture. 25% XP for both Light and Heavy Cavalry units trained in this city.

 

[Galvatron]

The first public zoos appeared in the 1700s though so I think it's appropriate. Of course royals had their own personal menageries since the Ancient times so that's different.

You mean publicly owned? That's not exactly a deterent, given that we have lots of facilities... and governments that are not public. How is a personal menagerie any less valid? The animals are still on display, and people still gawk at them, and that's the whole function of a zoo for our purposes here.

I don't mean to put words in your mouth, so if I'm wrong when I say this I apologise: are you confusing personal ownership with personal use? Because even though the zoos are privately owned, the express purpose of the zoo is to be viewed by the public. It's not like nobles can drain exotic birds of some magical essence to live longer.

As Lily_Lancer correctly pointed out in another thread, it's always better to not have horrible amenities than it is to have good amenities and therein lies the fatal flaw for ECs. It is not only too easy to obtain amenities via other sources (Luxuries, policy cards, tile improvements, etc), the effects Happy Cities grant are too small to really justify them in the first place. Entertainment districts imo should exist, as entertainment and public spectacles held some importance throughout history, but their implementation in Civ 6 is poor because Amenities themselves have been poorly implemented.

What's the solution? Is there another game that does this better?