Hills are overpowered

[Wolle68]

Rising cost of builders and districts compensate each other here. If chopping new growth forests brings as much production as old growth, pushing new cities up would be quite easy - bring a couple builders from your core cities and voila - a district, some buildings and everything is up and running.

But you would have invested a lot of hammers in those builders, so I'm not sure that it would be an exploit.

 

[stealth_nsk]

But you would have invested a lot of hammers in those builders, so I'm not sure that it would be an exploit.

Core cities should be able to fire a lot of hummers with industrial zones, their regional bonuses, etc. For them a couple of builders will not be a problem.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Core cities should be able to fire a lot of hummers with industrial zones, their regional bonuses, etc. For them a couple of builders will not be a problem.

Hey, maybe you could give us the exact numbers you gathered when playing the upcoming release thanks to your time machine

Remember we are talking about an unreleased game. Discussing balance doesn't make much sense if we don't have the definitive numbers, and then even with numbers what looks OP when theory-crafting might end up just right when playing the game.
Specifically:

• How many cities will we plant that late? In Civ5 it was rare to plant new cities in industrial era unless there was a really important strategic resource on a free island or something similar. Such a city doesn't even need a large infrastructure.
  
• How many turns will it take your core cities to produce those workers. You might be working on something important like a costly late game building, a project or a wonder. There will be an opportunity cost.
• You need a specific Policy to plant forests, one that you might not want to use unless you are going for tourism victory. Opportunity cost.
• It takes 2 charges to plant/chop. You need another Policy if you want your builders to be able to do this more than once. Opportunity cost.
• How much production do you get from trade routes, factories and what not this late? Is 70 production that big a deal or merely a few turns worth of production?

Back on topic for hills. I like that their yield depends on the terrain rather than a flat 2 production. I'm not sure about adding a flat +1 production rather than +1 prod-1food. They certainly look powerful on paper without the game running. As a non improved tile, they are obviously better than flat land. They can certainly help in the early game before you have improvements. But again, we'll have to see how the game plays before discussing balance.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Hey, maybe you could give us the exact numbers you gathered when playing the upcoming release thanks to your time machine

Right now we're discussing prerelease build and there are a lot of exact numbers. Surely, they'll be balanced, but core game concepts are unlikely to change.

 

[Martinus]

I don't know if this was mentioned already but I assume that it is pretty rare to get hills adjacent to a river. Given that rivers give a massive boost in Civ6, I believe this offers the much needed balance.

Besides, terrain yields play a much lower role in Civ6 than in earlier games, as you will be using tiles for wonders and districts - and I am not sure you can place a lot of those on hills.

 

[Magil]

I don't know if this was mentioned already but I assume that it is pretty rare to get hills adjacent to a river. Given that rivers give a massive boost in Civ6, I believe this offers the much needed balance.

Besides, terrain yields play a much lower role in Civ6 than in earlier games, as you will be using tiles for wonders and districts - and I am not sure you can place a lot of those on hills.

Hills next to a river don't seem all that rare based on what we've seen.

 

[indradiva]

there are powerful wonders like Oracle or Cristo Redentor that require hills. Also the Aerodromes and Spaceports cannot be placed on hills, all other have no special requirements (except Harbors). However, I don't think that hills are overpowered, because you mostly build mines on them. And where are mines, there are Industrial Zones, where you don't build Neighborhoods and therefore you don't need farms there either.

 

[Brianstorm]

Overpowered is one way to put it, or just really good is another. Rivers are also "overpowered" and tundra and especially desert are underpowered. There's nothing wrong with that.

 

[kaspergm]

The tile yield design they've used for Civ6 is nothing short of disastrous in my opinion. Naked jungle hills giving more food AND additional production compared to farm grasslands? That's just silly. Plain marshes give more food than plain grassland? Seriously? Hills effectively being a bonus resource? Makes zero sense and is totally illogical. I was really disappointed with how in Civ5, settling on hills was artificially promoted through extra free food and production (which is really unneeded and totally illogical), but Civ6 takes the same concepts and then moves it several steps further.

 

[agonistes]

In Civ5 it was rare to plant new cities in industrial era

Well, gee, in one of my current 5 games I've planted about 60 since the beginning of the industrial era. In fact, 5 seems to be the version which has the longest delay in city spamming. So far. In 6, some of the civs are just starting to hike up their skirts and start running in the industrial era.

I'm not sure why you are so dismissive of someone else's subjectivity when you yourself are being so subjective.

Maybe the chop thing is exploit-by-design.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

The tile yield design they've used for Civ6 is nothing short of disastrous in my opinion. Naked jungle hills giving more food AND additional production compared to farm grasslands?

They give the same food as pre feudal farms but farms give housing which is very valuable in the early game.

Hills block farming and can be a pain for adjacency farms so they are not all that great before you can farm them which make them complete superior to flatland for improvements although some districts can not be built on hills.

 

[Atlas627]

The tile yield design they've used for Civ6 is nothing short of disastrous in my opinion. Naked jungle hills giving more food AND additional production compared to farm grasslands? That's just silly. Plain marshes give more food than plain grassland? Seriously? Hills effectively being a bonus resource? Makes zero sense and is totally illogical. I was really disappointed with how in Civ5, settling on hills was artificially promoted through extra free food and production (which is really unneeded and totally illogical), but Civ6 takes the same concepts and then moves it several steps further.

If you don't farm the land, which gives you more food? Forests where you can hunt, flatlands where you can hunt, or hills where you can hunt? Oh hey, they're all the same. But which one can you farm? Flatlands!

In the meantime, hills give you rocks to use for building and forests give you trees. Flatland gives you nothing.

Another thing is that hills don't represent one big hill. They are several hills and valleys. I can imagine that variety results in overall better yield.

 

[Mal de Nic]

I don't see why terrain has to be balanced. In my opinion it is a good thing if there are good and bad locations for cities; it allows for choices like having fewer optimally placed cities, and it leads to realistic competition for the best spaces. Terrain in Civ V always felt too samey and balanced for me, with little meaningful variation in the quality of tile yields.

 

[killmeplease]

first farmers were

If you don't farm the land, which gives you more food? Forests where you can hunt, flatlands where you can hunt, or hills where you can hunt? Oh hey, they're all the same. But which one can you farm? Flatlands!

Non-forested terrain was no better than desert for hunt before horseback riding. While hills and mountain valleys were preferred for farming before irrigation, given theres enough rainfall. Btw i miss rainfall feature from Alpha Centaury, different areas had different rainfall depending on landscape (waterbodies and mountains).

 

[Atlas627]

Non-forested terrain was no better than desert for hunt before horseback riding. While hills and mountain valleys were preferred for farming before irrigation, given theres enough rainfall. Btw i miss rainfall feature from Alpha Centaury, different areas had different rainfall depending on landscape (waterbodies and mountains).

I agree, though I am assuming that by game start we are close enough to horseback riding to give flatlands equal food with other territory.

 

[Montov]

Hills should subtract 1 Food from a tile and give 1 extra Production.
Coast should give 3 Food and 2 gold.
Tundra should give 1 Production.

Every other terrain/improvement/feature should double its yield from what it is now (except Marsh and Jungle). And calibrate the game accordingly.

So sort of the same as the HP * 10 multiplier in Civ5 G&K which gave more variety and nuances.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Right now we're discussing prerelease build and there are a lot of exact numbers. Surely, they'll be balanced, but core game concepts are unlikely to change.

Right, but small adjustments to numbers can greatly affect the balance of such a complex game without touching any core concept.

I'm not sure why you are so dismissive of someone else's subjectivity when you yourself are being so subjective

I wasn't dismissive, i was sarcastic and made sure it was obvious. As to why i was sarcastic, it's because i've read, and keep reading a lot of threads about "balance" while we still can't judge balance very well. It will take us all a lot of time to figure the balance after we have the game, and realize that something that seemed OP at first glance actually have a big opportunity cost and there are more efficient strategies, so discussing balance based on streams of a pre-release version seems rather unproductive to me.

Of course, we all need something to do while waiting for Civ6, which is probably why i spend some time answering "unproductive" threads , but doing this we should all remember that a) numbers are probably not fixed in what we see, and b) it's hard to appreciate the balance without spending (a lot of) time playing the game ourselves.

On a related note : wow 60 cities after hitting industrial , must have been a very special game, you don't see this very often.

 

[agonistes]

On a related note : wow 60 cities after hitting industrial , must have been a very special game, you don't see this very often.

Just trying to recreate Soviet Russia's RL territory (plus a wee bit more) on the giant YNAEP. But you need an ideology to do this, unless you limit the growth in your core for a long time. And ideologies are industrial.

So now my Russia is Sea of Norway to Pacific.

 

[Galbias]

Agreeing that putting -1 Food on Hills would've made sense. Come to think of it, does the fact that they seem to basically be a feature now mean that Desert hills only have 1 production?

I do like that Flood Plains give 3 food now, it's a nice way of compensating for the lack of food in a regular desert.

I don't know if this was mentioned already but I assume that it is pretty rare to get hills adjacent to a river. Given that rivers give a massive boost in Civ6, I believe this offers the much needed balance.

Besides, terrain yields play a much lower role in Civ6 than in earlier games, as you will be using tiles for wonders and districts - and I am not sure you can place a lot of those on hills.

What's changed with rivers? afaik Civil Service freshwater boost no longer exists but I'm not sure what else.

 

[Acken]

Agreeing that putting -1 Food on Hills would've made sense. Come to think of it, does the fact that they seem to basically be a feature now mean that Desert hills only have 1 production?

Yes. Non floodplain Desert (unless Petra) and Tundra (unless Russia) are just really bad terrain only good for wonders/districts. I don't even understand how a desert city with floodplains is supposed to get decent production from. Well I guess floodplains + desert hills is somewhat similar to grassland + grassland hills in production but lower in food.