Do You Place Districts ASAP To Lock The Costs?

[Mustakrakish]

When I think about it. There's no strategy or path that VI forces me into, no preferred way of doing things, little or big. Wow, big applause to the devs! They succeeded in what they wanted to achieve. I mean just thinking about this question, "do I place districts asap to lock the cost?", something I never thought about... and all I can come up with is "who cares", "doesn't matter" and "whatever". This applies to pretty much every part of the game.

 

[Cymsdale]

I'm surprised people are considering this exploitative to be honest. if you still had the tile yield while the district was under construction then maybe, but I feel that losing that yield for the turns the district is placed but being actively being built 'pays' for the cheaper production cost overall.

that makes no sense. Your worker just works a different tile, and it's not like you often place districts directly on your best tiles anyway.

 

[Browd]

As others already said, there actually is some cost when you place the district early and don't finish it.
- you lose a workable tile and get a completely useless one instead
- you quite often have to buy the tile, because the culture border expansion is very slow in this game
- placed district (even when not finished) count against the population limit, so if you place a district but don't work on it, you lock yourself out of any districts
- you have to invest some time and attention into this process and watch whether you already can place the district - and you also have to pick the placement tile early

And you are locked into that district decision -- once you lock down a tile to build a district, you cannot change your mind about what district to build, or where to build that district. There is always value in "keeping your options open" -- locking down a district tile "spends" that value earlier than you might otherwise prefer (if district costs didn't rise through the game).

 

[kaspergm]

I dont usually. The AI doesnt do it so i dont want to take advantage.

I think something needs to be done about district costs. I would prefer if the district costs were determined by the number of the same districts in your empire. So for example 1st copy of each district costs 100 hammers, 2nd costs 110, then 121, 132 +10% for each extra copy just like builders and settlers. Right now i put a commerce district in every city and harbour when possible. this shouldnt be the optimal strategy, i should have use for all districts (except maybe faith).

I don't do it either, mostly because I can't be bothered with micromanagement like that. But I fully agree with above post, I really hope they change this mechanism, it doesn't make any sense logically, and it doesn't do anything good for the game because production time in late game cities are excruciatingly high.

 

[Zuizgond]

You do something that the AI can't.

AI can't capture cities with walls, so we shouldn't do it too?

 

[DemonMaster]

AI can't capture cities with walls, so we shouldn't do it too?

Cute Yes they can. They may be bad at it, but they can (and there are probably some humans that are equally bad at it).

 

[johnnyfoodstamp]

It's not an exploit? Sure, keep tell yourself that if that makes you sleep better at night.

You do something that the AI can't.

It's probably an oversight from the devs.

I guess I shouldn't build bombers either since the AI can't.....

It's not an exploit just because the broken AI can't utilize it. But for the record I don't do it. Because I didn't know district costs go up over time. I will do it now! Thanks for the tip!

 

[DemonMaster]

I have seen the AI building bombers. I admit it is rare, it is probably easier to find an open minded kkk-member but it do happen. I have even seen the AI do an air attack (today, I was shocked).
But the lack of bombers is making an easy game even easier to win and pre-placing districts to save production costs. I see it now, it is the same thing. Both of these things are making an easy game even easier. Funny, most gamers I know, when it comes to gaming, want more challenging and tougher game experiences, not easier, but hey everyone is different I guess.

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

I don't cheat or use exploits. The game is not that hard to begin with so to use cheats or exploits to make it even easier than it already is sounds ridiculous to me.

Yeah, don't use efficient strategies either; makes the game far too easy.

Just build random buildings, expand whenever you feel like managing another city, and when you get bored of 'playing' similization, build an army and win the game.

 

[Cymsdale]

I guess I shouldn't build bombers either since the AI can't.....

No, you shouldn't build bombers because it's a waste of production.

 

[DemonMaster]

Yeah, don't use efficient strategies either; makes the game far too easy.

Just build random buildings, expand whenever you feel like managing another city, and when you get bored of 'playing' similization, build an army and win the game.

So you mean that in order to be efficient you must cheat and exploit a game. That's a sad philosophy.

 

[Cymsdale]

People get bent out of shape over the term "exploit". It's a unintended strategy from an unintuitive mechanic. I wouldn't think it would be better if the developers made the AI do it as well, that would just be doubling down on a bad design.

 

[paulmclem]

To me an exploit is usually something which shouldn't be allowed and will in time be removed. I play EU IV and it has had some ridiculous exploits over the years i.e. doing completely unnatural/illogical things such as sending diplomats, recalling, sending, recalling etc etc over and over to get the benefit of some unforeseen circumstance. Personally I prefer to play the game as it's likely meant to be played. As such exploits wouldn't be used. Just don't think there is a need. There is enough ways to win without them.

 

[TomKQT]

So you mean that in order to be efficient you must cheat and exploit a game. That's a sad philosophy.

Explain please how on the Earth is this a cheat? Do you even know what that word means?

It even isn't an exploit, because it clearly was meant to work this way, you aren't misusing some bug or a hole in the system.
Funny, but I must ask for the 3td time - how do you think it was meant to work? Should the cost go up under your hands when you are building a district? That would be really counter-intuitive and against the game rules.

Like it or not, but placing a district early is just one of the many possible strategies of playing the game optimally. You must invest some time, pay attention to it, there are even some drawbacks, so it's not just a free gain. It easily can be compared to for example carefully picking a good tile for a district by maximizing adjacency bonuses and 6tile range overlaps. Is that also an exploit? Or is it just playing the game optimally?

 

[paulmclem]

Like it or not, but placing a district early is just one of the many possible strategies of playing the game optimally

How does this go? Is it:

Select to build a district i.e. Campus
Stop building after 1 turn
Build other stuff
Come back and continue the build of the district stopped after one turn

...doing this the cost of the District is the cost when you laid it down, not the cost when you actually do 90% of the build? If so that's clever, but feels like you're building something at cost X when the cost is now X+. I'd say there is a fine line between optimal play and taking advantage of what seems like an oversight. Personally I'd say fine, lock the tile, but the cost should be split between original and now price. Still better than now price, but this is perhaps countered by you blocking a tile which could have been used for something else. It's also a risk to do this as perhaps better tiles will open up for districts. Hmmm, interesting one.

 

[Cymsdale]

The fix is really simple. If you stop construction of something, you save all production put toward it, but the cost will change to the new cost the next time you switch back to it. Costs don't go up while you are building something, but if you pause constriction to build something else, you are losing your locked in price.

 

[paulmclem]

The fix is really simple. If you stop construction of something, you save all production put toward it, but the cost will change to the new cost the next time you switch back to it. Costs don't go up while you are building something, but if you pause constriction to build something else, you are losing your locked in price.

I'd agree.

 

[FurballRocker]

I chose no even though i sort of do although i tend to place them down more as a planning exercise rather than trying to deliberately exploit the feature and then i tend to build districts in stages between building more immediate needs. I place them down how i would do if i didn't know about this feature basically just sometimes it works to exploit this feature and sometimes it doesn't.

If i found the game more challenging i would consider it as a deliberate tactic to help optimise my game play.

I don't like this implementation, but what I would change is the cost scaling itself - either remove it or base it on something else.

My suggestion to get around it would be to allow you to only build (have under construction) one district at a time and then have the cost scale based on that rather than era's or some other unrelated factor.
You would then have something like
1st = Base district cost
2nd = 1st x scale factor
3rd = 2nd x scale factor
4th - 3rd x scale factor
etc
Or as you can't actually delete a district just make the multiplier come into effect as soon as a district is placed.

Considering district cost could be used as a wide empire limiter the scale factor could be empire wide rather than local city although in this case i would certainly limit the scale factor to only consider districts built(or placed) by the civ rather than including ones captured so the scale factor would be based on actual built(or placed) districts not number of owned districts.
While that wouldn't completely balance out wide over tall it would certainly add a lot more opportunity cost to going wide.

 

[Larsenex]

I do it all the time. We play this game to have fun. Typically I will lay down a Holy site and switch back to warrior production, then add a few more turns to the holy site, some more warriors and then finish it. I also do this for campus. Ill lock down a spot and go build more military and come back to it.

I do not see it as an exploit at all. If I restricted myself to what folks here thought were exploits there would be no bombers, no city attacks and no win by conquest (since the ai cannot wage wars). Silly. We are here to enjoy and play a game. How I play is mine and how you play is yours. If I can learn from how you do so I will.

Cheers.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

Every way of addressing it has their own exploits.

• If you just remove the district lock (without changing how the cost escalates), the new exploit would be "Leave all techs and civics at 1 turn before completion whenever you can. Don't advance your civilization while you're wave-building districts in all your cities." More or less like a Feudalism wave strategy with districts (which no one complains as an exploit)
• If cost escalates with number of districts from that type, optimal strategies might revolve around not optimizing your empire (say, for faith or culture). Victory routes would be more dependent from civ bonuses than strategy, since every civ would build more or less the same districts. UDs would also be overpowered if they kept half production, or underpowered if not. Also, without district lock, micromanaging which city gets which district first becomes a pain.
• If cost escalates with number of turns, Science becomes again the "King of All Yields" (with Culture being the "Queen"). Beelining new districts becomes very powerful; better to unlock those new districts soon and build them ASAP, and never caring about the buildings unless you don't have anything better to build. Founding cities late game becomes worthless, since they won't be able to finish the necessary districts before the game ends (even more if combined with lack of district lock).
• If cost doesn't escalate at all, then we'd be exploiting trade routes even more. Spam coastal cities to produce Commercial Hubs and Harbours and use them to jump-start even more coastal cities. Then flood the map with traders to get whatever you need, be it producing things in 1 turn or buying it with gold from 60+ trade routes. Also, amenities are cheap because every city can get an Entertainment Complex in a couple of turns.