[R&F] Governor District Buildings - thoughts

DrJambo

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So, the first set:

Ancestral Hall - extra builder fr every new city and settlers 50% cheaper
Warlord's Hall - 20% increase on production each time you conquer a city
Audience Chamber - 1 amenity and 4 housing in each city with a governor, -2 loyalty in each city without a governor

My initial thoughts is the Ancestral Hall is by far and away the best deal here. Cheaper settlers plus a free builder is absolutely amazing!
Warlord's Hall is ok if you plan on conquering left right and centre but even still, hard to prioritise over Ancestral Hall. Similarly Audience Chamber is also ok, but that negative could be quite a deal breaker later on.

I've gone Ancestral Hall each time. You guys?
 
It depends where you are when you unlock it. If you've already done most of your settling, then ancestral hall isn't great. I find that it's more cost effective to produce military units than settlers so I tend to go for Warlord's Hall.

Audience Chamber is more situational than the other two - the game favours playing wide and loyalty is a big factor in the game. The cities which suffer most are your fringe cities which are likely to be the ones without governors. That said, if you're playing with a core of 7 or less cities then it becomes much more powerful.
 
Audience chamber boosts tall play which is something Civ6 really needed. I used it in my first game with Korea. That being said, wide play might indeed still be better, which makes Ancestral Hall the more powerful choice.

I like this first tier of government buildings a lot, since all three seem useful to me. The other two tiers I like much less, because those buildings are so specific, there's always one obvious best (or least irrelevant) choice.
 
So far I've only picked Warlord's Hall (in my first and only RF game, so far), because I was not going to make much new cities at the moment and I was just about to start completely conquering Norway :) So it was a clear choice. Plus my intention is to play militaristic also in the future (Zulu).
 
I haven't finished a game yet but I've been quite happy with the Ancestral Hall. I can set up three core cities before Political Philosophy (capital Great Person farm with Pingala, Government Plaza city with district adjacencies for Liang, and a production city set for settlers with Magnus). Then once I get to Political Philosophy I can start spamming fast settlers with free builders all over the land.

Even if I plan to warmonger, it seems like such a massive save of hammers to use the Ancestral Hall.
 
I haven't built the Ancestral Hall yet. By the time I get my government building, all the good spots are taken. I guess in theory I can be more aggressive in exploring or in cutting off land to leave me room to settle. I've just ended up in situations where having a smaller core empire was better unless I'm conquering it. So, I've only built Warlords and Audience. But I'll try the Ancestral Hall soon.
 
I like how it's a real decision.

I picked Ancestral hall, since I knew I still had a bunch of cities to settle, and I had way too much housing as it was (playing as the Cree, and basically all my cities were riverside anyways). Maybe I should have gone warlord to get the pseudo-permanent +20% production, although it is so satisfying to plop down a city and immediately have a builder to work with. Although a couple times I settled the turn before throwing the +2 builder charge policy in. Oops. I didn't actually use the settler building bonus too much, since I had a couple golden ages running Monumentality so I just ended up faith purchasing most of the settlers I needed.
 
Even as a tall player I'd probably roll with the Ancestral Hall, but all of my cities are settled before I hit Political Philosophy. As such, the Audience Chamber is my Tier 1 building of choice. It has the added bonus of looking really nice aesthetically, so there's that.

Where do most of you put the Government Plaza district? In your capital? Pros or Cons?

I place mine in my capital since it has the early production to get it up and running quicker. This frees my other cities up to build other early districts once they're up and running. I place the GP adjacent to whatever tile is going to house my IZ to squeeze a bit more production out of my capital come Apprenticeship.
 
I ended up placing it in the middle of conquered land. Mostly, because I had a little "district alley" going on there, so it ended up having a bunch of neighbours to give extra adjacency to. Of course, then I realized that I couldn't buy buildings for it, so in retrospect I would have placed it in a spot with a bit better production.
 
No question all three of these buildings have their use and which one you choose depends on your situation.

Ancestral Hall is great for expanding through settlers but has a limited time of usefulness.

Warlord is great for expanding through conquest and has continued usefulness if going for domination.

Audience Chamber is a solid bonus that remains useful for the entire game.


Excellent game design here as there is no clear choice that is always better. You have to assess your situation and goals and choose the path you want your civilization to take.
 
Where do most of you put the Government Plaza district? In your capital? Pros or Cons?

I think its best placed in a city that has solid growth and production but lacks sites with good adjacency bonuses for districts. That way, you're using up a district slot in a city where that's not as big a sacrifice, and you're also setting up its future districts to be better. I haven't really thought much about the loyalty bonus, my logic being that once a city's in a good enough position to build the government district, its probably in a fairly good position loyalty-wise too. I suspect there will be exceptions, though, so that will be a possibility to look out for as I get more experience with the expansion.
 
No question all three of these buildings have their use and which one you choose depends on your situation.

Ancestral Hall is great for expanding through settlers but has a limited time of usefulness.

Warlord is great for expanding through conquest and has continued usefulness if going for domination.

Audience Chamber is a solid bonus that remains useful for the entire game.


Excellent game design here as there is no clear choice that is always better. You have to assess your situation and goals and choose the path you want your civilization to take.

I don't know . . . Free Builder tips the scales in my mind. Of course I've only played one game but even without a TON of expansion pays for itself.
 
Honestly looking at the bonuses assumed I would always go Ancestral Hall but I'm pleasantly surprised how balanced the three buildings are. The Civic Requirements + Prod needed to build the Gov District and the building + the fact that gov district takes up a district slot make it very difficult to get the AH up in time to do a huge settler push. I think that Rome (with faster Political Philosophy), Germany (with that extra district slot) and England/Spain (who are built around settling mid-game cities on different continents) can all make great use of this building.
 
I don't know . . . Free Builder tips the scales in my mind. Of course I've only played one game but even without a TON of expansion pays for itself.

No question it’s good if you have time to build a government district and the building before you begin expanding or if you plan to expand to other continents (England, Spain) but you may not always be able to do that.

In my current game I took the golden age bonus that allows you to buy civilian units with faith and reduces the cost. I bought several instant settlers in the Magnus city, lots of instant 6 charge builders In the Liana city (with policy card) and a few instant traders... all with faith. So ancestral hall is good but there are other good options for expanding and that plus 4 housing from audience chamber makes cities grow real fast.
 
No question it’s good if you have time to build a government district and the building before you begin expanding or if you plan to expand to other continents (England, Spain) but you may not always be able to do that.

In my current game I took the golden age bonus that allows you to buy civilian units with faith and reduces the cost. I bought several instant settlers in the Magnus city, lots of instant 6 charge builders In the Liana city (with policy card) and a few instant traders... all with faith. So ancestral hall is good but there are other good options for expanding and that plus 4 housing from audience chamber makes cities grow real fast.
Well that's true . . . I was playing Cree and didn't have any problems growing cities at all. Lots of camps and lots of internal TRs early going to the Magnus city. Everything fits together really nicely with this civ.
 
4 housing from audience chamber makes cities grow real fast.

Alternatively, it allows you settle a city just about anywhere without worrying about water. You can plot a city down in the middle of the desert and slap a governor in it and have the same base housing your capital on a river had, no aqueduct necessary.
 
Alternatively, it allows you settle a city just about anywhere without worrying about water. You can plot a city down in the middle of the desert and slap a governor in it and have the same base housing your capital on a river had, no aqueduct necessary.

Excellent point, I hadn’t even thought about that.
 
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