[R&F] Does Civ “Front Load” too much?

[acluewithout]

Making new cities relevant late game is always going to be a struggle because of victory conditions. Every turn that passes is one turn less any new city can help you.

Playing around with settler and district costs is some help, but really the drop in incremental value of new cities is the real killer.

What the late game needs is some reason to want more cities. For example, maybe how much land you control is connected to a diplomatic victory or something. But I can see problems with that too, such as perhaps then forcing city spam on players again.

I think a better approach overall (and which I’ve suggested before) is to have some of the gaps on the map filled up by some sort of “minor civilisations” that are somewhere between the current major Civs and city states / barbarians. Your mighty empire might then absorb these civs somehow. So, you would have to settle more cities in the late game. Instead, you’d just get them through absorption or you just leave areas to be filled by these minor civs (which might be relevant to trade or diplomatic victories etc).

Another thing to think about too is what late game cities should look like. I really don’t think late game cities should have all that many districts. At that point, it should only be cities that have been around for 100s of years that should have districts, unless there is some strategic gap they’re filling. The problem is though, that unless your cities have districts, they’re not much use to you.

Three partial solutions. One, some Tier 3 buildings (eg Research Lab) should have regional effects. That way, late game cities in range of established cities would have some value. Two, there should be some distinction between core and non-core cities. eg perhaps you build some city building which makes the city non core, which has some advantage, but means the city can’t place districts. Three, non core cities should boost core cities, eg by helping them grow eg like “feeder” cities.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

All of this would 'push back' the Campus as a general District to the late-Medieval/early Renaissance and make its first Building a University or Madrasa. The Second Tier Building could be something representing Public Schools, because near-Universal Literacy became a requirement in the Industrial Era, and then the current Research Lab to 'top things off' in the Modern Era.

Ideally, I'd rather see both Libraries and Public Schools as city centre buildings, with Pubic Schools (and Sewers) at some point becoming a near "must build" to get the City to be productive beyond a certain size.

That leaves the University as the tier one building and Research Lab as the tier three. Perhaps a dual slot for tier two, with a choice between an Observatory if near to a mountain and a more generic building elsewhere. No good ideas on that generic tier two building at the moment.

 

[acluewithout]

Universities as Tier 1 would be very cool.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Ideally, I'd rather see both Libraries and Public Schools as city centre buildings, with Pubic Schools (and Sewers) at some point becoming a near "must build" to get the City to be productive beyond a certain size.

That leaves the University as the tier one building and Research Lab as the tier three. Perhaps a dual slot for tier two, with a choice between an Observatory if near to a mountain and a more generic building elsewhere. No good ideas on that generic tier two building at the moment.

Chronologically, after the Renaissance Universities comes the Public/Primary Schooling in the Industrial Era and, in the Industrial Era, the 'Technical Schools' ranging from Massachusettes Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US to the Technical Hochschule in Germany and the Ecole Polytechnique in France. They would make a good Tier of 'Science Enhancers' since they drive a lot of the technical advances during the late Industrial/early Modern Era ranging from mechanical and civil engineering to industrial chemistry and early bio-tech.

So, if I may lay out your proposed Science Buildings:
(Public) Libraries - Classical Era - City Center
Campus District - Renaissance Era
University - Renaissance Era - Campus District (tier 1)
Public School - Industrial Era - City Center (could also be another Neighborhood Building)
Technical School - Industrial Era - Campus District (tier 2)
Research Lab - Modern Era - Campus District (tier 3)

This effectively adds two Science Enhancing buildings to the game, but it moves the Campus District back two Eras and ads the new Buildings in the Industrial Era, in the last half of the game Era-wise, while still leaving Libraries available (but without any Campus Adjacency Bonuses) in the Classical Era.
Of course, if we find 'Bonuses' are still desired of the Library early in the game, two spring to mind: the Greek word 'Academe' or Academy, means a meeting in the grove, where Plato set up his first 'school'. A City Center could get an adjacency bonus for its Library for each forest tile next to it. And since many of the 'Palace' Libraries acquired books through trade (or confiscation from traders), another Bonus could come from any International Trade Routes to the city with the Library.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

So, if I may lay out your proposed Science Buildings:
(Public) Libraries - Classical Era - City Center
Campus District - Renaissance Era
University - Renaissance Era - Campus District (tier 1)
Public School - Industrial Era - City Center (could also be another Neighborhood Building)
Technical School - Industrial Era - Campus District (tier 2)
Research Lab - Modern Era - Campus District (tier 3)

I really like the idea of Public Schools as a Neighbourhood Building, because I think the game would benefit from additional motivation to build these districts. I'm thinking they should have an additional bonus beyond just science. Perhaps an amenity boost as well? Or perhaps something more creative.

I also like Technical Schools as the tier 2 Campus building. I still like the idea of an Observatory as alternate tier 2 Campus building available when the Campus is adjacent to a mountain, but I'm not sure what the best way would be to differentiate them. Perhaps a Production boost from the Technical School and more pure Science from the Observatory?

 

[Kryxal]

If I'm not mistaken, the district cost increases are largely driven by research ... pushing the campuses back may mean less research in the early game, and certainly removes a CS target...

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I really like the idea of Public Schools as a Neighbourhood Building, because I think the game would benefit from additional motivation to build these districts. I'm thinking they should have an additional bonus beyond just science. Perhaps an amenity boost as well? Or perhaps something more creative.

Certainly access to Good Public Schools is a major 'amenity boost' to neighborhoods in the USA, but a more universal attribute might be increased Loyalty both from explicit Propaganda in many States, and a shared World/Historical View imparted by virtually every primary school system ('shared', but unique to that Civ!).

I also like Technical Schools as the tier 2 Campus building. I still like the idea of an Observatory as alternate tier 2 Campus building available when the Campus is adjacent to a mountain, but I'm not sure what the best way would be to differentiate them. Perhaps a Production boost from the Technical School and more pure Science from the Observatory?

The Observatory is certainly associated almost entirely with 'pure' Science, but it and the Technical Schools could also be associated with some very specific Technical Advances.
For instance, having one or more Observatories could give Eurekas for such Techs as Scientific Theory, Flight, Advanced Flight, Rocketry, and even be a Prerequisite for any of the Space Race Projects, associating them intimately with a Science Victory.
The Technical Schools could give Eurekas for 'applied' Technologies/Sciences like Chemistry, Electricity, Plastics, or Synthetic Materials.

The Eurekas from these two buildings could even be configured in that they could apply to More Than One Tech, so that having, for instance, one Observatory/Tech School gets you one Eureka each, and a second one gets you a Second Eureka from each. That's probably enough, but as you can see from the list above, each Building could easily have up to three Eurekas for three iterations of the Building in one Civ.

Another point is that Observatories are frequently located well away from cities, and so perhaps should get a Building Adjacency Bonus if the Campus District they are in is at least one tile away from the City Center, plus a requirement of being adjacent to a Mountain Tile. That makes their Optimal placement even more specific, which is, I think, good for something linked to a specific Victory Type.
You should have to really Concentrate your attention on one Victory or another to win.

 

[UWHabs]

One thing that might be tempting to "backload" things would be to change up how we do districts. So instead of building the district followed by the T-1 building, maybe make the tier-1 buildings city-centre buildings, and require those before you can build the district. So in that case, a district is very much a "refinement" of the regular building. That would also balance things out a little bit with currently having the monument as a culture city-centre building, while we don't have a faith/science/gold tier-1 building. So basically every city would have a monument/library/market/etc... and to build a campus in a city, it must already have a library. to build an encampment you need to have walls, etc... You could even consider in this case moving all districts back to be unlocked an era or two later than they are now - basically early game is like previous civ games, but once you start getting classical/medieval, your cities start growing out of the city-centre and you need to start worrying about districting then.

Another thing could be to alter either the bonuses of districts over time, or alter placement rules. For example, I would say that early game, maybe a city can only build a district if it's adjacent* to the city-centre (you can chain them). So, say your city might have an awesome +4 campus spot in the 3rd ring, you can't just buy tiles and place it there. And then at some point partway through the tech/civics tree, then that rule changes and we get the current rules. Again, doesn't exactly change when things open, but at least makes you decide if it's worth waiting for that awesome +4 campus spot, or you just plant the worse campus earlier. Or you simply play with adjacency bonuses - so a campus gets a bonus from mountain and rainforest early, but maybe late in the game it starts to get a major bonus from neighbourhoods, which changes where you might want to place them.

But overall, I definitely agree that "too much" happens too early. Most games I find have a really exciting 50-100 turns, and then by that point, the game is more or less set and you're just playing out the end. Part of that is that the highs from golden ages probably aren't high enough either. Like, other than some loyalty issues, it doesn't really matter if my neighbour hits a golden age. But if the golden age caused them to temporarily like double their science or production, then suddenly you might have to worry about them a little more. You'd have to rebalance to prevent people from chaining golden ages too much, but that would also cause a little more ebb and flow to the game which at least gives another thing to worry about in the later eras.

 

[Victoria]

- Been doing a little research on 'history of schools', and have come to modify my original assumptions/conclusions a bit.
It seems that virtually all the early (pre-Renaissance) school systems were religion or Palace-based. Temples and the Rulers were the two institutions that needed people to keep track of things, so they ran 'literacy' schools to train scribes and similar 'literacy technicians'. There is evidence of this in ancient Sumer, Egypt, China, and India, and it only took a few minutes to find them, so there are probably a lot more archeological or historical instances that could be cited.
- Classical Greece appears to be the one 'outlier', but the pre-Classical Bronze Age ('Mycenean') civilization of Greece was palace-based, so even the Classical Greeks may have started with 'temple/palace schools' as the basis for their literacy. And Karen Armstrong has argued (in The Great Transformation, a great book on the history of religion) that Greek 'Natural Philosophy' actually served many of the functions of a religion, and it appears (7th - 6th centuries BCE) at about the same time that Kong-Fu-Tse, Zoroaster, and Gautama the Buddha were all teaching, and that the books of the Monotheistic Judeans and the Hindu Upanishads were being codified - as if a light went on somewhere and Someone Said: "Let's have some Religion - Any Religion Will Do!"

So, we can make a good case that the first 'Science Enhancer' mechanism should be a Religious or City Center (Palace-based) Building., and that an 'extra enhancer' would be a Cultural (Civic) mechanism representing the Greek Natural Philosophy and Requirement (which the Romans inherited) that you must be literate and familiar with the 'canon' of poetry, songs, and literature of the society to be a Leader in that Society. This could even be tied to a Civic like 'Heroic Epic' since the basis for much of the 'cultural literacy' was familiarity wth Heroic Epics like the Iliad and the Odyssey .

More specific 'Science Enhancers' could be the 'Public' Palace Libraries like those in Assyria, the public libraries in Greece, and the specific institutions like the Confucian Schools in China, the Academies in Classical Greece, and even a Wonder like Dionysus of Syracuse's Workshop that produced the first Catapults, Crossbows, and Quinquerimes.

All of this would 'push back' the Campus as a general District to the late-Medieval/early Renaissance and make its first Building a University or Madrasa. The Second Tier Building could be something representing Public Schools, because near-Universal Literacy became a requirement in the Industrial Era, and then the current Research Lab to 'top things off' in the Modern Era.
IF we think we still need to speed up Science in the late game (I don't, but IF) a Campus with all three Buildings could be a requirement to build a Wonder like Silicon Valley or the Jet Propulsion Laboratory or Bell Labs or the Max Planck Institute.
Additionally, certain 'general' Technologies would enhance Science throughout your Civ: Printing and Computers for two obvious examples.

Perhaps we cannot build campi initially but at rationalisation we can either convert holy sites to campi or build campi as additional. A radical thought and too much for this iteration of civ but to me it’s more in line with the impact of rationalisation amd would throttle science until the later game

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Perhaps we cannot build campi initially but at rationalisation we can either convert holy sites to campi or build campi as additional. A radical thought and too much for this iteration of civ but to me it’s more in line with the impact of rationalisation amd would throttle science until the later game

There are several interlocking problems:
1. Tech and Civics Research is much too fast in the game now. When people can post about achieving a Science Victory in less than half the allotted game time (less than 250 turns) there is something Deeply and Fundamentally wrong with the Tech Progress.
2. Historically, Campuses are an artificial Game Mechanism for almost all Civs until at least the late Renaissance Era.
3. Converting Districts directly from one type to another is both out of line with the way the game is currently configured, but also doesn't have a lot of historical precedent to guide us as to procedures and ease of doing so.
4. There is a lot of precedent for a Civ changing its Focus from Religion to Culture, or Religion to Technology/Science, or even from 'pure' Learning/Culture to Religion.

So, perhaps the answer is as simple as putting Campuses back to the University (tier 1) in the early Renaissance, but also allowing Districts to be demolished/removed, opening a tile with Adjacency Bonuses for a different District. Allow some 'recovery' of Production Cost from the old District, and so a city/civ's early emphasis on, say, Encampments or Holy Sites can become emphasis on Campuses and Commercial Hubs.

IF the game needs an earlier 'Science Boost', there are several early possibilities:
1. A Social Policy in the late Ancient or early Classical Era (along about Early Empire or Political Philosophy Civics) could allow you to get some Science from Shrines and Temples - a form of in-game 'Temple Schools' for scribes to promote Literacy. This Temple School Boost could also be a new Belief, but I think that would limit its impact too much (only 1 Civ per Game at most)
2. Public Library could be a City Center Building, associated with the Palace and therefore only available in the Capital. This keeps it as an option but keeps the potential Boost limited. - This also leaves open the possibility that a future Assyrian Civ could have a Unique Version of the Library.
3. For those who want to make a major effort, make the Great Library a more general Science Enhancing Wonder, and maybe add one more Classical Era Science Enhancing Wonder like Dionysius' Workshop or Plato's Academy that boosts Science.