Do You Have Specialized Cities?

[CivLuvah]

I know that one of the ways that districts work is that they allow you to have specialized cities. In my game I had my capital focus on production and food because I planned it to be a military city (and science as well), and several of my other cities focused on faith, commerce, etc.

Although I do notice that letting one city focus on one aspect doesn't contribute to my total output. With my capital focused on science I noticed that it takes me more turns to research a tech because of my total science output. Is there a way to have focused cities while maximizing the total output?

 

[rpgalon]

No, I think you can build almost everything in any city. And some of them are must have, like industrial and commerce districts.

And adjacency bonus are too small to dictate how you will build your cities.

 

[Zantetsuken]

Industrial and commerce are pretty important ones to have, if you can't really do anything else, otherwise, yes I've started to specialize my cities, partly based on the land and adjacency bonuses, but also based on my plan for that city, I try to balance these things, rather than build all the districts always I use that extra production to build things like walls and builders and such, and work on wonders or district projects when I don't have anything else to do, really been digging the district projects, the great person point infusion (plus other resources) is nice

 

[Nefelia]

Specialization comes into play for smaller cities, and earlier in a large city's development. The limiting factors for districts are population and space.

If you are building a lot of large cities with limited overlap, you will likely bird every district. If you build cities as close to each other (as I tend to do) you will be more discerning with a city's specialization.

 

[Zantetsuken]

Specialization comes into play for smaller cities, and earlier in a large city's development. The limiting factors for districts are population and space.

If you are building a lot of large cities with limited overlap, you will likely bird every district. If you build cities as close to each other (as I tend to do) you will be more discerning with a city's specialization.

I agree with this wholeheartedly

On a side note, I feel the increasing district cost kind of dissuades spamming districts left and right, they can get pretty expensive, especially for new cities with little production and infrastructure, I think once you start to finalize your empire a bit and get more infrastructure down it frees you up to generalize your cities a bit more, until then I rely on specilization and trade routes to get what I need

 

[Zenstrive]

Well, no, not yet, I think.
So far, capital and the second city always build everything, except maybe Holy Site.

 

[Acken]

No because there isnt that much options to specialize. If district were a lot more limited in numbers and if they had better interaction with ressources then I may specialize. The problem is that 1 per 3 pop is rather a lot of districts overall and some of those districts are simply always good.

 

[westyofoz]

So from what I understand, the consensus is Industrial and Commercial always. Go for everything in the capital and maybe first city, and then specialise?

 

[Acken]

But specialize how ? It's not the +2 science of a perfectly placed campus that will have any kind of influence on your game. Sure place your districts where it makes the most sense (harbor + commercial or wonder+theater) but I'm not sure how you'll go much further.

You also want to accumulate as much +production districts in the capital (or elsewhere) so that every route toward it get the highest production possible. There is a list of district trade route bonus somewhere on the forum.

 

[Zantetsuken]

I agree that industrial and commercial districts are important, I specialize my cities at first, and then as I begin to finalize my empire a bit (I never complete ignore possible expansion however) I can generalize my cities a bit more, it's not that the adjaceny bonuses are huge but I prefer to use the production for other things most of the time, like district projects or builders or walls


Play with your playstyle however

 

[RedTopJay]

What are 'district projects'?
Commercial & Industrial districts? Is this SimCity?
Is there a list of Techs I need to research to get these districts?

 

[Zantetsuken]

District Projects are something you can "build" in a city once you build the relevant district in that city, they take a number of turns to complete, and when you complete them you get a an amount of a relevant resource and great person points, say you build a religious district, there is a prayer project you can "build", once you can complete it you get a chunk of faith and Great Prophet points

Commercial District is for gold, Industrial District for hammers (or cogs or whatever)

No, thankfully this isn't Sim City, though I wouldn't mind some City Skylines

Commercial Districts require Currency, Industrial Zones require Apprenticeship, Holy Sites require Astrology, Campus needs Writing, Encampments need Bronze Working, Harbors need Celestial Navigation, Aqueducts need Engineering, Aerdrome needs Flight, Spaceport needs Rocketry

Entertainment Complexes need 'Games and Recreation', Theatre Squares need 'Drama and Poetry', Neighborhoods need Urbanization, these three are Civics

 

[CaiusDrewart]

With very few % modifiers to yields in the game, there's a limit to how far city specialization can go.

 

[RedTopJay]

District Projects are something you can "build" in a city once you build the relevant district in that city, they take a number of turns to complete, and when you complete them you get a an amount of a relevant resource and great person points, say you build a religious district, there is a prayer project you can "build", once you can complete it you get a chunk of faith and Great Prophet points

Commercial District is for gold, Industrial District for hammers (or cogs or whatever)

No, thankfully this isn't Sim City, though I wouldn't mind some City Skylines

Commercial Districts require Currency, Industrial Zones require Apprenticeship, Holy Sites require Astrology, Campus needs Writing, Encampments need Bronze Working, Harbors need Celestial Navigation, Aqueducts need Engineering, Aerdrome needs Flight, Spaceport needs Rocketry

Entertainment Complexes need 'Games and Recreation', Theatre Squares need 'Drama and Poetry', Neighborhoods need Urbanization, these three are Civics

Thank you for the details and the fast response. I now understand and like the 'district project' build.
Corporations, religions, and now districts - I love Civilization.

 

[Staal]

I agree with this wholeheartedly

On a side note, I feel the increasing district cost kind of dissuades spamming districts left and right, they can get pretty expensive, especially for new cities with little production and infrastructure, I think once you start to finalize your empire a bit and get more infrastructure down it frees you up to generalize your cities a bit more, until then I rely on specilization and trade routes to get what I need

District cost only increases based on science/civics (whichever is furthest along). In addition you get a cost discount if you are behind the world in the average number of districts of a certain type. So there is no effect to "spamming" districts other than not getting the discount initially.

 

[Staal]

No, I think you can build almost everything in any city. And some of them are must have, like industrial and commerce districts.

And adjacency bonus are too small to dictate how you will build your cities.

I see this sentiment relating to commerce districts quite a lot. I build them yes, but I don't believe they are nearly as critical as a industrial or entertainment district. More income is always good of course but you don't need to prioritize them. Campus districts have a bad rep on here but I build them before a commerce district.

 

[Erneiz Hyde]

commerce district and harbor is mostly for the trade route, which can be converted to food and production.

 

[King Jason]

Considering you don't need every district in every city, yes, I specialize. Industrial is the only one I currently consider necessary in every city, unless I can't get it to overlap 3-4+ cities then I won't bother with it. On average I rarely have the space/pop to get above five districts - even in the capital - before the game is won. This technically necessitates specialization, especially if I intend to have a religion.

Edit: I should add, that even placement considerations with industrial districts lead to specialization of cities. Due to the nature of the terrain when it comes to clustering your districts, there's likely going to be a few cities you emphasis maximizing the factory overlap over others. So while a few of your cities will have 7+ overlap, the others may have 5 or less. In this way, while every city is getting decent production, you're still essentially specializing a few core cities to have greater production above all of the others.

In the case of your science wins - these are the cities that are going to build your space projects. Which also eats into your district cap, I might add.

Industrial District for hammers (or cogs or whatever)

Production.

 

[Nefelia]

But specialize how ? It's not the +2 science of a perfectly placed campus that will have any kind of influence on your game. Sure place your districts where it makes the most sense (harbor + commercial or wonder+theater) but I'm not sure how you'll go much further.

You also want to accumulate as much +production districts in the capital (or elsewhere) so that every route toward it get the highest production possible. There is a list of district trade route bonus somewhere on the forum.

There are many ways to specialize.

Fringe cities near your core cities will be kept small so as not to use up tiles that your core cities will use. They can build factories and zoos to increase the production and amenities of your core cities.

Cities further out in the fringe can either pump out commercial districts and harbors to give you more trade routes, and then markets, banks, and stock exchanges to increase your finances; or they can build holy sites and shrines, temples, etc to boost faith production if you are running a theocracy; or they can build IZ/workshop/etc, or campus/library/etc and just run district projects to race for great people.

I see this sentiment relating to commerce districts quite a lot. I build them yes, but I don't believe they are nearly as critical as a industrial or entertainment district. More income is always good of course but you don't need to prioritize them. Campus districts have a bad rep on here but I build them before a commerce district.

More income means I can actually afford to pay my massive army and upgrade them. More commercial hubs mean I can build more traders to jump start new cities.

Each district is damned good at what it does, and different play styles will require different infrastructure investments.

 

[lordqarlyn]

There are many ways to specialize.

More income means I can actually afford to pay my massive army and upgrade them. More commercial hubs mean I can build more traders to jump start new cities.

This! I didn't pay attention to commercial districts and found myself running at a huge deficit and with districts taking so long to build, I couldn't rectify the problem in time before I ran out of gold. I lost over a third of my units before I was in the surplus again lol.