Ed on districts in Civ7

[Krikkit1]

Sure. But I suspect that we'll want as many cities as we can "afford", whatever resources go into calculating this "afford". Because there are very few games, especially strategy game, where a player-controlled thing is not better than the automatic version of it without having some heavy penalty towards an excessive number of the player-controlled variety. I'd be very pleasantly surprised if deliberately *not* upgrading many large towns when you could do it will be a viable strategy. At best, my guess is that the best strategy is going to be to have a roughly fixed ratio of towns to cities (as of yet unknown) which might depend on civilization, leader, government, era, etc... but *not* on total size.

But I would like if the optimal number of cities was fairly constant between play throughs, somewhere around the 3-12 range. A "wide" empire would make up the rest of its size with towns, while a "tall" empire would have far fewer towns but about the same number of cities. This is because I want both tall and wide empires to be viable, AND to never have to micromanage dozens of dozens of cities. This is something that have a city cap could probably achieve this design goal, but a city+town cap seems incapable of.

One point on that. It was mentioned that the penalty for going over might be something like 5 in each city. But there is also global happiness.

So it could be (limit 3)
2city 1 town all good
3 city 1 town -5*3=-15 global happiness
2 city 2 town -5*2=-10 global happiness

So if you are wide (many settlements) you may want less cities.

 

[ggmoyang]

So... 1 city and infinite town is a possible exploit?

 

[Jkchart]

So... 1 city and infinite town is a possible exploit?

Not an exploit, but you’d get one super city with all the resources going to it, but that’s also only one city where you can build what you need since it’s the only one with a production queue

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

So... 1 city and infinite town is a possible exploit?

No. The City Cap is actually a settlement cap, per PotatoMcwhiskey and SpiffingBrit. And towns count as settlements.

 

[Binkov]

I wonder what the optimal town to city ratio will be. Probably decided by the ratio of combined city pop count to combined town pop count. Will that combined pop ratio be close to 1:1?

 

[AriochIV]

I wonder what the optimal town to city ratio will be. Probably decided by the ratio of combined city pop count to combined town pop count. Will it be close to 1:1?

I think it will depend on your leader and current civilization, since there are related special abilities. Such as Augustus getting an extra +1 Production in the Capital for every Town.

And also on your strategy, and your Town specializations, since they supply different resources. If you want a huge capital, you'll want as many Towns and as few Cities as possible, so all the bonus food is fed into the capital. Etc.

 

[Krikkit1]

So... 1 city and infinite town is a possible exploit?

No if it works like I think

limit 3
2 city 1 town all good
2 city 2 town. -5*1 excess*2 coties =-10
2 city 3 town. -5*2 excess*2 coties =-20
2 city 4 town. -5*3 excess*2 coties =-30

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I guess you'll get a healthy bump to your settlement cap when you hit the Exploration Age?

 

[Nikolai II]

No. The City Cap is actually a settlement cap, per PotatoMcwhiskey and SpiffingBrit. And towns count as settlements.

Yeah this seems to be the case. And as for settlement cap being small, we know it's 3 in the start, but for all we know it could be 8, 10 or 12 when the age ends. We'll have to wait and see.

 

[Nikolai II]

I guess you'll get a healthy bump to your settlement cap when you hit the Exploration Age?

That is an interesting possiblility!

 

[The_J]

We will probably get before already.
I think the first screens always show a settlement cap of 1/3 after the first city is settled, whereas some of the others show 2/4 (indicating a higher cap).
Or here:

1724186498622.png

• Laurana Kanan
• Aug 20, 2024

Where the cap is 15.

 

[Disgustipated]

My main concern with districts is the illusion of choice. You are always going to want to put your civ specific cultural buildings in the same district. You could put them in separate districts, but why would you? Combining them gives you that unique district. And I suspect the same is true for other buildings as well. The only option perhaps, is opportunity cost. In that you may be waiting for tech to unlock before you can place a building, so you have to leave a building slot empty and eat up another tile for another urban district to place another building and then later fill in those empty slots for the adjacency bonuses. We'll see how that goes.

I'm guessing because of the ages mechanic, that we can overwrite buildings in districts. So that shouldn't be an issue. And I'm guessing districts can be taken out even during the age transition.

 

[Atlas627]

My main concern with districts is the illusion of choice. You are always going to want to put your civ specific cultural buildings in the same district. You could put them in separate districts, but why would you? Combining them gives you that unique district. And I suspect the same is true for other buildings as well. The only option perhaps, is opportunity cost. In that you may be waiting for tech to unlock before you can place a building, so you have to leave a building slot empty and eat up another tile for another urban district to place another building and then later fill in those empty slots for the adjacency bonuses. We'll see how that goes.

I'm guessing because of the ages mechanic, that we can overwrite buildings in districts. So that shouldn't be an issue. And I'm guessing districts can be taken out even during the age transition.

Each of those buildings, and the district itself, give different bonuses, several of which seem to be adjacency-based. It is possible you won't get much use out of the district bonus and instead would get more value out of the buildings being separated (or only 1 being built in that city at all).

 

[SupremacyKing2]

You could put them in separate districts, but why would you? Combining them gives you that unique district.

There could be other adjacency bonuses that you get from putting the buildings in separate districts so that there is a decision between getting the unique district or getting some other bonuses.

 

[AriochIV]

Also against the opportunity cost of the adjacency bonus that a different building in that slot would bring.

 

[acluewithout]

I very much like the new district / building system.

I also like the idea of overbuilding buildings they way it’s being presented - the previous buildings remain but are less super charged, meaning you have to decide whether to keep investing / reinvest or pivot.

I very much like the idea of unique ‘quarters’. That sounds very cool.

My only worries are:

1. Capping game to two districts, with two building, is underwhelming. Hopefully new district with more building lots open up in later Eras - I’m happy ditching the ‘campus’ and ‘theatre’ districts, but would love to see Harbours, Encampments, Industrial Zones, and maybe Government Districts make a return.

2. I’m still not loving the idea of how ‘improvements’ work. I loathed how turning hills into mines worked in Civ 6, and all the similar false choices around that sort of thing, but I do think some sort of choosing between improvements is important to Civ’s
gameplay loop.

3. I’m still not pumped about city size tied directly to pop and population working all tiles - again, choosing which tiles to work feels key to Civ’s game loop. And it never created any micro issues for me, because you had the option to just set resource priority +lock tiles.

 

[AriochIV]

I very much like the new district / building system.

I also like the idea of overbuilding buildings they way it’s being presented - the previous buildings remain but are less super charged, meaning you have to decide whether to keep investing / reinvest or pivot.

I very much like the idea of unique ‘quarters’. That sounds very cool.

My only worries are:

1. Capping game to two districts, with two building, is underwhelming. Hopefully new district with more building lots open up in later Eras - I’m happy ditching the ‘campus’ and ‘theatre’ districts, but would love to see Harbours, Encampments, Industrial Zones, and maybe Government Districts make a return.

2. I’m still not loving the idea of how ‘improvements’ work. I loathed how turning hills into mines worked in Civ 6, and all the similar false choices around that sort of thing, but I do think some sort of choosing between improvements is important to Civ’s
gameplay loop.

3. I’m still not pumped about city size tied directly to pop and population working all tiles - again, choosing which tiles to work feels key to Civ’s game loop. And it never created any micro issues for me, because you had the option to just set resource priority +lock tiles.

1. I'm not sure what you mean by "capping game to two districts."

2. This is not confirmed, but I think it's very likely that you will be able to choose between different improvements in some cases. There are at least two unique improvements that we know of that can go on the same terrain as other default improvements (notably Farms), so unless you're forced to always use the unique improvement, then you're probably allowed to choose. The UI looks like it could support it, as there is room to show two possible improvement icons instead of just one.

As an example, the Caravanserai can go on Desert or Plains. If you're not able to choose improvements, that would mean you can never place any other kind of improvement on Desert or Plains. And the Hawlit "must be placed on flat terrain." It's hard to believe that you could never place any other improvement on any flat terrain.

3. Bonus food provided by Towns appears to be a major factor in the maximum size of cities. It seems very likely that your largest cities will want to specialize away from food production and depend on imported food.

 

[acluewithout]

…

1. I mean there are only two types of districts, urban and … er, the other one. Can’t think of the name right now.

2. You might be right - hope so.

3. Agreed. I’m happy to ‘wait to see’ on this aspect of the game.

 

[AriochIV]

1. I mean there are only two types of districts, urban and … er, the other one. Can’t think of the name right now.

Rural districts are tiles with improvements on them that are being worked by city population; they don't have any buildings on them, other than the improvements.

Your Urban Districts will depend on what buildings you put in them, and there are combinations of buildings that give them special bonuses. For example, if you put both of your civilization's unique buildings in the same district in becomes a unique Quarter with special bonuses. And it was hinted that if you put, say, two Science buildings or two Gold buildings in the same district, you get additional bonuses.

So it appears, at least, that it's a much more flexible system.

 

[King Flevance]

Rural districts are tiles with improvements on them that are being worked by city population; they don't have any buildings on them, other than the improvements.

Your Urban Districts will depend on what buildings you put in them, and there are combinations of buildings that give them special bonuses. For example, if you put both of your civilization's unique buildings in the same district in becomes a unique Quarter with special bonuses. And it was hinted that if you put, say, two Science buildings or two Gold buildings in the same district, you get additional bonuses.

So it appears, at least, that it's a much more flexible system.

This is something that I hope more depth or choice has been added as it could still hold just an illusion of choice rather than actual flexibility. I suspect it probably hasn't had too much depth poured in yet but I could be wrong and I am hopeful that 7 will grow into it over time even if I am right. For example, as you describe, the obvious choice here is to always stack your districts and make them either a market district or science district whenever you can. Market building + market building will probably yield a bonus 1-3 for instance. It would be cool though to see combinations where putting market + science building have it yield a bonus +2 and +1. Or maybe +1 +1 and +1. (Or +1 ,, etc. basically, an odd bonus outside commerce and science.) In this way the bonus is not lost or wasted for not doing it the only optimal way, it is just a less specialized bonus due to a less specialized choice. Which creates a new valid option that may warrant using different combos intentionally.

The illusion of choice has always plagued Civ's core tile improvement mechanics. There is typically always a best option regarding your upgrades. This leads to all of our discussions about "bad starting locations" which essentially means crappy basic terrain to improve. One thing I enjoy about the district idea is you can make it so that the basic terrain is less of a determining factor for how good your starting location is. (Though not irrelevant) Luxury and strategic resources are always going to pull at this. However, if the tile yield itself is a simple 1-3 yield unimproved but adding a district will increase that yield by 3-6 up to 6-9. Then what you put on the tile is more relevant than what the tile is. But now we run into the problem of how many options do I have? IMO every tile in the game should have at least 3-4 options of relatively equal weight. Deserts and tundra should not suck for anything non-food related. Getting a basic yield of 0-2 is already a huge drawback. Especially if a city has 6ish bad tiles like this to work with. That would be 6-18 missing resource yields right off the jump. This can be very punishing for a circumstance you did not choose as the map generator handed it to you - and now a lot of the terrain surrounding you (more tundra/desert) is similarly missing yields due to the way the map is (and should be IMO) generated. I know we are going for a certain abstract level of realism in Civ but making all starts viable despite realism seems like something that could make every new game exciting instead of "screw that, I am restarting". A "bad start" should feel like that this game is 'not worth restarting over' it just simply is 'going to be a bit different' than my last game.

I don't know, I could spout ideas all day but I have very little actual information so far, plus any information now is also subject to change by February. Then it will also be subject to change with every patch and every expansion. I am not convinced the new system will have flexibility, but I think districts are a good way make tile improvements have versatility and even be able to build upwards on them for specialization. They hold a lot of potential, for sure. How you describe rural districts is interesting as I had thought they also were able to get buildings. It would be nice to see them get upgrades as well like a barn, or a field, or a granary, greenhouse, etc.