Empire-wide district balance

[contrasupra]

I realize this is highly situational based on your land/goals/etc, but can we talk a bit about about the proportional breakdown of different types of districts across your empire? I find that I often get to the middle of the game and realize I have completely neglected, say, theater squares or encampments without even realizing it - and perhaps I have more commercial districts than I need, or not quite enough campuses, or whatever. I'd love some advice or rules of thumb on how to achieve an efficient balance. Thoughts?

 

[DouLou]

The way to play civ that interests me is to win as fast as possible... its the only real challenge in a standard game.

Saying that, you build what you need.

Science vic will have comm and science districts, with industrial in your space producing city.

Culture with be comm and theatre.

Military is a bit different cause it depends on your timing pushes and captured cities already have districts.

You cant really have enough comm districts in a science vic IMO since you want to buy all research labs and that is a lot of cash.

Culture vic is kinda the same.. you want to buy all museums.

Winning on civ asap is simply ignoring everything you dont need. Who needs culture when you're colonizing mars in 1650ad? Who needs science when you're turtling with 800 tourism per turn by t200?

 

[stinkubus]

My general game plan when it comes to districts is as follows:

Spam: Commercial Hubs and Harbors
Build at least one: Entertainment District
Build at least two: Campus
Build at least three: Industrial Zone

The Entertainment District ensures I can build the Colosseum, and it almost always goes in the capital. The Campuses help with science and let me get eurekas for Astronomy, Printing, and sometimes Education, and I usually get more than two, but I tend to reserve them for the juiciest spots. Three Industrial Zones are enough to ensure the cities that matter can get the factory bonus and they also let me get the eureka for Industrialization.

Everything else is situational. If a particular district is necessary for the victory condition you have chosen then spam it, but otherwise they may not be necessary and may even be a huge waste of cogs and a precious district slot. If all you want is raw culture to advance through the civics tree Theater Squares in particular don't pay off well, imo, and there are policy cards that will provide adequate culture (Trade Confederation and Meritocracy) for any other VC. Holy sites are a complete waste unless you want to try an RV, imo, and you can capture plenty of Holy Sites from the AI if you want some faith income. Campuses for raw science are subject to diminishing returns, and I only spam them when going for a science victory.

Encampments are a bit trickier, as even if you aren't playing a dom game they can still provide useful cogs and housing to cities in poor (few hills and/or no water) locations and may sometimes be worthwhile. If you are playing dom, or suzerain of Carthage, then obviously spam them, as Great Generals are awesome and so are trade routes.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Winning on civ asap is simply ignoring everything you dont need. Who needs culture when you're colonizing mars in 1650ad? Who needs science when you're turtling with 800 tourism per turn by t200?

For culture VC, cultural zone and campus are preferred. For me, I'd rather have more campuses. If you're 800 tourism at T150 instead of T200, that's significantly better.

 

[DouLou]

For culture VC, cultural zone and campus are preferred. For me, I'd rather have more campuses. If you're 800 tourism at T150 instead of T200, that's significantly better.

Oh thats a good point. I usually build campus third in my cv victories and hitting computers by t200 is my best. I can see how ignoring commerce in favour of science could speed this up dramatically.... maybe i should try this.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Oh thats a good point. I usually build campus third in my cv victories and hitting computers by t200 is my best. I can see how ignoring commerce in favour of science could speed this up dramatically.... maybe i should try this.

I often got Computer around T140. I think
Science is extremely important in every type of VC.

By the way, I never build Commercial Hub. I'm very negative towards this useless district.

 

[JustifierNA]

Ever seen the production/growth you get from 30+ trade routes in one city? It's a beautiful thing.

 

[DouLou]

I often got Computer around T140. I think
Science is extremely important in every type of VC.

By the way, I never build Commercial Hub. I'm very negative towards this useless district.

Interesting. Ive found the internal trade routes to be essential but I have to say I haven't experimented near enough.

 

[JustifierNA]

Interesting. Ive found the internal trade routes to be essential but I have to say I haven't experimented near enough.

It's opinionated personally I value the Commercial hub more than any other. You can use it to pick and choose where you want production/population in your cities. Also you have to have trade routes to put down infrastructure to guard a larger empire.
Also there's some cool things you can do with them such as two turns before you want to build a wonder/district you can stop all trade within your entire empire, send them all to one city and trade to all the rest of your cities to drop the production time of that wonder like a rock (when I do this for Rhur/Big Ben it drops the production time from around 15 turns to 9) but I'd say this comes in most handy when you're trying to build the Petra early


This is something I specifically like with Japan since you can use decentralized trade to one city (usually the capital) early by building the 3 1/2 cost districts and then a commercial hub in every other expand to send it to the capital for 3/2/2-4 trade routes.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Ever seen the production/growth you get from 30+ trade routes in one city? It's a beautiful thing.

I think researching Future Tech at ~T160 Standard Speed is much more beautiful. I never waste my turns on useless items.

Those wonders come from tree chopping instead of handcrafted building since oftenly we need it them in less than 5 turns instead of your many turns.

 

[JustifierNA]

we talking multiplayer or singles here? I doubt anyone with half a brain would allow you to get nearly that many campuses out without conquering you in multiplayer. Usually they start going ham on you when you get around 20-30% more spt then them

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

I generally build lots of encampments - they are underrated here. Military is always useful and you save on on builders, settlers, and traders as well. With Carthage they are the best districts by far.

 

[JustifierNA]

I generally build lots of encampments - they are underrated here. Military is always useful and you save on on builders, settlers, and traders as well. With Carthage they are the best districts by far.

Something else to consider here that I always try to get people to understand: Encampments are the only district that has a global production bonus towards (Veterancy)

 

[Lily_Lancer]

we talking multiplayer or singles here? I doubt anyone with half a brain would allow you to get nearly that many campuses out without conquering you in multiplayer. Usually they start going ham on you when you get around 20-30% more spt then them

I'm usually talking about PVE games.

Once in an Standard Speed MP game I got T124 Anti-Tank with 10 campuses, and the holder (Still in Medival Era)k icked me off. Kicking sb. off is always the best way than attacking sb. After that I avoid playing MP games.

 

[jkg777]

I think researching Future Tech at ~T160 Standard Speed is much more beautiful. I never waste my turns on useless items.

Is there a guide/overview (or best of all a video) of some sort that shows how to get those kind of times?

I'm just not catching on to CIV 6 after many hours of CIV 5. I'm never sure what I should be focusing on. I know there are more choices/paths instead of a cookie cutter approach that was how to play CIV 5. But I still don't understand what districts I need to focus on for the various victory conditions.

Say I'm playing on a continents map and want a domination victory. What do I focus on and in what order? I know that building archers early and if possible rushing nearby civs/CS is how to start. But what happens when walls go up?

It seems like beelining the techs to clear out my continent would mean I was ignoring the sailing techs to get to the other continent.

I'm not sure what is useless and what is not?

Thanks.

 

[kb27787]

Depends on the CS on the map really... Computers T140 is undoable without several blue city states... (unless you get incredibly lucky with mountains and have several +5 campuses)
Try to balance between harbors and CHs (cities that can build harbors should build them) now that you only get one route even if you have both. Just to minimize the scaling district costs.

 

[JustifierNA]

I'm usually talking about PVE games.

Once in an Standard Speed MP game I got T124 Anti-Tank with 10 campuses, and the holder (Still in Medival Era)k icked me off. Kicking sb. off is always the best way than attacking sb. After that I avoid playing MP games.

I've never seen a Standard speed MP game before.... sounds fun

 

[DrCron]

I often get to the middle of the game and realize I have completely neglected, say, theater squares or encampments

Keep in mind that if you are not going for cultural victories you absolutely don't need to build theater squares at all. Just get the "meritocracy" civic and you should have enough culture to win any game (especially a religious one).

You can also totally win domination victories without ever building an encampment, even on deity.

 

[myclan]

Keep in mind that if you are not going for cultural victories you absolutely don't need to build theater squares at all. Just get the "meritocracy" civic and you should have enough culture to win any game (especially a religious one).

You can also totally win domination victories without ever building an encampment, even on deity.

I think globalization is so strong for SV that I will focus on getting it before getting all the tech(except Rocketry for the Spaceport of course). And Theater District, especially archaeological museum provide so much culture when themed that I will build several of them to boost my culture.

 

[contrasupra]

Keep in mind that if you are not going for cultural victories you absolutely don't need to build theater squares at all. Just get the "meritocracy" civic and you should have enough culture to win any game (especially a religious one).

You can also totally win domination victories without ever building an encampment, even on deity.

Yeah, this is probably true. I get bummed when half my city state envoy quests are "recruit a great artist/writer/musician" but unless I'm really pushing theater squares I'm never going to catch the AI on that anyway. I have a hard enough time getting the Education eureka, lol.