Encampments vs. Industrial Zones: Does Anybody Talk About This Dichotomy Anymore?

[steveg700]

To me it always sucks to build a workshop, being as expensive as it is just to get +2 hammers. More expensive than barracks for the same yield and no extra housing.

I do take long breaks from Civ, so please catch me up. Is this something we now accept as balanced by the eventual benefit of getting a regional bonus from factories and power plants (which no longer stack), and getting some extra production from adjacency bonuses? Or is it something that folks think could use a tweak at some point?

 

[stealth_nsk]

Industrial zone grants production from adjacency bonus, plus it spreads bonus production from Factory and Power Plant. It's pointless to directly compare buildings from different districts.

 

[empresskiova]

Buildings in general are all over the place as far as balance is concerned. But yeah, IZ’s suck if you aren’t using the Factories. Encampments arent too great either, but they do give Housing and a second city strike...

 

[Trengilly]

R&F is making the buildings much more important because the City State bonuses are attached to them, instead of just granted when you build the district.

 

[stinkubus]

Won't that change just give even more incentive to conquer city states rather than dump cogs into a building?

 

[Softly]

Workshop yields double with the card. Also great engineering points are great.

 

[isau]

I don't think you can double the Encampment bonus with a policy card. That's the main thing.

Assuming you get around +2 in adjacency bonuses from the IZ itself, with the Workshop and policy card you get around +6. If you also run the card that gives double adjancency Production that becomes +8. If you got a really good IZ for adjacencies that could be +10, +12, or more.

Worth it? Depends I guess. But the IZ does outproduce the Encampment if you're dedicated to that strategy.

You can also purchase the Workshop with Gold, which is often worth it for smaller satellite cities I find.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

The problem with Encampments is that you usually only need one or two dedicated military production cities. That's not only true for Civ 6, not only for Civ games, but for pretty much all 4X games.
Industrial Zones win because they can get adjacency bonuses, more useful Industrial City State yields and Great Engineers are much more useful than Great Generals unless you go full warmonger.

 

[steveg700]

Industrial zone grants production from adjacency bonus, plus it spreads bonus production from Factory and Power Plant. It's pointless to directly compare buildings from different districts.

Not at all. Like so....

The problem with Encampments is that you usually only need one or two dedicated military production cities. That's not only true for Civ 6, not only for Civ games, but for pretty much all 4X games.
Industrial Zones win because they can get adjacency bonuses, more useful Industrial City State yields and Great Engineers are much more useful than Great Generals unless you go full warmonger.

I don't think you can double the Encampment bonus with a policy card. That's the main thing.

Assuming you get around +2 in adjacency bonuses from the IZ itself, with the Workshop and policy card you get around +6. If you also run the card that gives double adjancency Production that becomes +8. If you got a really good IZ for adjacencies that could be +10, +12, or more.

Worth it? Depends I guess. But the IZ does outproduce the Encampment if you're dedicated to that strategy.

You can also purchase the Workshop with Gold, which is often worth it for smaller satellite cities I find.

Fair points! Here's my thinking.

Major adjacency bonuses come from mines, and those adjacency bonuses can't always be taken for a given. So if you're not going to have an IZ nestled between four other districts to get a +2, base yields aren't going to be too generous. If you're looking for a production boost (and a flatland city would be), why not build the encampment? It will give +1 housing in the early game, and another +1 later on, a benefit only harbors match. The regional effect is a consideration, but as they long ago were patched not to stack, you might already be already receiving that bonus, making a encampment a much better investment for gaining more hammers.

The CS bonuses are pretty much a wild card factor. The trick with them is that as soon as they get locked down with envoys, some uppity civ who doesn't have the guts to step up directly will decide to bulldoze them.

 

[Esperr]

To me it always sucks to build a workshop, being as expensive as it is just to get +2 hammers. More expensive than barracks for the same yield and no extra housing.

I do take long breaks from Civ, so please catch me up. Is this something we now accept as balanced by the eventual benefit of getting a regional bonus from factories and power plants (which no longer stack), and getting some extra production from adjacency bonuses? Or is it something that folks think could use a tweak at some point?

The only reason people used IZ in the first place was for factory bonus spam before they patched it away. Workshops take, I don't even remember off hand anymore, 90 turns to pay for itself? The only reason I ever build them anymore is just to get my receiving city to +4 per route, other then that theres never time to build them and theyre just not worth it.

Encampments are just good for GG early game and buying units when you only have one of something. Worth it, but still worse most of the time then Campus or CH.

 

[steveg700]

The only reason people used IZ in the first place was for factory bonus spam before they patched it away. Workshops take, I don't even remember off hand anymore, 90 turns to pay for itself? The only reason I ever build them anymore is just to get my receiving city to +4 per route, other then that theres never time to build them and theyre just not worth it.

Encampments are just good for GG early game and buying units when you only have one of something. Worth it, but still worse most of the time then Campus or CH.

Well, the very position I was advancing is that workshops seem overcosted for the bonus they provide, and shouldn't be so disproportionately more expensive than a barracks, but that's a distinction based on era, with IZ's being one of the later districts to come along.

However, I don't really look at it only in terms of how long it takes to pay for itself, but rather that when I need to do some major production it'll be around. But yeah, I'd probably build a campus first.

 

[UWHabs]

A few things:
-Barracks is +1 prod, not +2. So the workshop does get an extra bonus, but obviously lacks the housing
-There's no +100% industrial zone building card (yet?). There's none for the encampment either.
-With the change to add the +building bonus from CS to buildings, assuming that effects workshops, that's slightly more incentive to build a workshop.

But I would definitely agree that the workshop costs too much that I basically don't build them except to get to a factory. It can be useful to build an industrial zone if you can get the +3 or so adjacency, but even that's not worth building if it replaces a mine, unless if you have a lot of points in industrious city-states. Of course, often times, I get "bored" in my games, so I'll pop down an industrial zone just for something to do in the city.

 

[Japper007]

I use both extensively in MP games, Great Generals are well... Great in Multiplayer the housing, production, XP and army bonuses are just icing on the cake. IZ's are a more reliable source of hammers than the whole Single Player thing where you preserve chops to maximise production.

 

[dunkleosteus]

I prefer IZ over encampment. The IZ adjacency bonus is by far the easiest adjacency bonus to get. Stone often comes in clumps and the IZ gets a standard adjacency bonus from any mine, no resource required. Every hill adjacent to an IZ gives it +1 production (with a mine). The workshop isn't stellar, but great Engineers are incredibly strong, especially if you can swing Mausoleum, which I usually can. If I'm going for mausoleum, I save at least one charge on all my great engineers until I get it. Da Vinci is +2 culture for workshops (with his extra charge. I'm going to assume all your engineers get the extra charge). James Watt is +4 production on all factories. Nikola Tesla's two charges each grant "This district's regional buildings provide +2 production and reach 3 tiles farther." spending both on the same city means +6 range and +4 production each on the factory and powerplant. That gives a 12 tile radius on both which combined grant 15 production to each city in that radius. Joseph Paxton grants "This district's regional buildings provide +1 Amenity. This district's regional buildings reach 3 tiles farther." his two charges mean your radius is now 18 and you get +4 amenities (each building grants 2).

Basically Great Engineers are monsters if you can get the Mausoleum. I never question my need for Industrial Zones.

Have you seen the Great Engineer that grants "Space Race Production +100%"? With Mausoleum, that's +200% production!

 

[darkace77450]

I build an Encampment in my capital for the extra production for my other cities from early trade routes to the capital and for the extra housing, though the value of that housing is going to be greatly diminished by the Audience Chamber when R&F is released. The Encampment itself triggers a eureka, and later Military Engineers trigger two more. The capital also gets an Industrial Zone and Workshop, as do all my cities. This triggers the eureka for Industrialization. And though the production value takes a LONG time to replay itself, the Great Engineers that boost Wonder production in the Medieval through Industrial Eras help recoup some of that investment. Governor titles are going to be in painfully short supply, but I might give Vertical Intigration a go with Magnus the Steward.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Encampments are situational for lack of resources or extra defense. Great Generals can be good at actual combat.

IZs are trash for exactly the reason you describe; workshops being a waste of space and take forever to generate GE points (often i just faith buy the ones that build wonders). Not only do you take 88 turns to break even in production, you have to pay 1 GPT just for the privilege! So they suck early-mid game. Facorites and power plants are much better, taking 22 turns only each if you got 6 cities within range but you have to pay 5gpt for both. Of course, they come so late that 22 turns is way too long already.And we didn't talk about building the actual zone.

I never build them outside of very high adjancency except for Germany or if I want Venitian Arsenal; but that's not good either. As a side note, I have no idea why they nerfed Ruhr Valley either from 30% to 20%. They're probably the 2nd worst district; any other district besides an entertainment district has more use and I'd even argue you're better off not building a district at all.

Well, sometimes I do build one next to the spaceport city to share some production over. Not really sure if that helps.

 

[Midori]

I don't like building workshops, but industrial zones are good if you can get a high adjacency or a factory that affects several cities.

The encampment buildings are better, but they don't get adjacency. Very good for protecting cities and there aren't any spy missions that wreck encampments right now.

And sometimes if you want more production, lumber mills on forests adjacent to rivers and aqueducts/neighbourhoods are the best.

 

[TomKQT]

If you cannot decide, just build both of them Production is always needed.
Seriously, in my games it almost never is a choice between those two districts because of production. I either prioritize encampment because I need the defense or because I will be making units in the city. Or IZ for production boost. And often I will get them both anyway.