I should be able to destroy my own buildings whenever I want too, regardless

[Fluffball]

The problem with "canceling" building is that it would be incredibly easy to cancel all the buildings in every city that will be conquered soon. This would definitely become a meta "cheesy" annoying strategy.

There was usually some option to sell buildings in previous games (can't remember much about 6 as didn't play it much but Google says you couldn't in 6) and it never became a meta cheese strategy...I am sure some people did it although there were usually restrictions such as only one building per turn and if you wanted to you could put simple restrictions like it would cost gold to destroy them or took a percentage of production to remover them.

The nearest the option became to being any sort of strategy was people often used to sell building in captured cities they were rasing which sounds pretty logical as you are 'looting' the city.

 

[bumpyglint]

There was usually some option to sell buildings in previous games (can't remember much about 6 as didn't play it much but Google says you couldn't in 6) and it never became a meta cheese strategy...

It definitely became a meta cheese strategy At least in multiplayer, not in singleplayer just because the AI is stupid + usually the player doesn't lose cities.

Not only this, but in Civ VI also the last turn you were losing a city, it was meta to reduce as much as possible the lands used by the citiziens of the city in order for the enemy to gain a city which was more little than what it should have been.

I'm really happy that now you can't do this no-sense cheesy strategies.

 

[glaivemaster]

The problem with "canceling" building is that it would be incredibly easy to cancel all the buildings in every city that will be conquered soon. This would definitely become a meta "cheesy" annoying strategy.

As a note on this, you can't build walls in a city that's under attack, so there's clearly some flag for it. If there was to be an option to sell buildings, it could use the same flag.

 

[ThichN]

OK, so I think of this as a struggle between optimization and immersion.

Optimization is what min-max players prefer in moving through a game. It is seeking out the best yields, the optimal city design, the tidy package. Things happen only really because you planned for them to happen. And if they didn't, you'll find a way to correct it and make it not just worthwhile, but optimal. Optimization is reflected in Zigzagal guides: do this first, then this second. OK, for the third thing, you have 2 choices, each leading to X or Y. Do them and you'll win.

Immersion is when we feel transported into a world, absorbed and engaged. Choice is smartly limited to provide players with impactful designs, less decision paralysis, and a sense of fluidity through the game. We're looking at narrative and a flow of events/decisions that feels right and not belabored.

Now, these need not be at odds or at opposite ends of the spectrum, but I find in the Civ community they often are. Balance is ideal; too much of any thing is never good. This includes choice.

The fact that ageless buildings cannot be destroyed symbolically to me represent city planning that transitions to the modern era but hasn't updated. It need not be taken so literally. Ancient roads that suddenly cars can move down in European cities make the city beautiful, but less efficient. Furthermore, if you can move buildings, you're committing yourself to a loss of immersion at the expense of optimization. The game flow would be severely interrupted imho. If after each age transition I can suddenly redesign all of my cities at little to no expense, I'm going to surely forget about the game world. I love this idea of previous layers of your civ obstructing "proper" strategy or optimization. It feels so right to me on so many levels. The map, game, and landscape have changed; you don't need another advantage in that fluid morphing of the world -- or at least, it wouldn't be interesting.

Let's move into balance, then. How can we achieve balance of these two things? Well, what if Ageless buildings can only be destroyed (and thus rebuilt / moved) via natural disasters and war? This would bring yet another "benefit" to floods/volcanoes/storms, and would create interesting choices for when nuclear weapons or artillery are used. If we ever get a 4th age (please no! but if we do...), these kinds of considerations would be interesting. I'd even say that only the most catastrophic disasters should cause these buildings to be permanently destroyed.

 

[Fluffball]

It definitely became a meta cheese strategy At least in multiplayer, not in singleplayer just because the AI is stupid + usually the player doesn't lose cities.

Not only this, but in Civ VI also the last turn you were losing a city, it was meta to reduce as much as possible the lands used by the citiziens of the city in order for the enemy to gain a city which was more little than what it should have been.

I'm really happy that now you can't do this no-sense cheesy strategies.

Gave up on multiplayer a long time ago as someone always has more fun spoiling the experience for others than actually playing against others. Having said that though, nothing wrong with a scorched earth strategy. Humans have done this throughtout history to distrupt attackers. Isn't that what is meant to be better about playing against humans...they aren't stupid and will punish you to the maximum?

 

[aelf]

I swear previous age Golden Age buildings could be overbuilt before. Now they can't. I was surprised when I couldn't complete a unique quarter because I couldn't build over a Golden Age University.

Yeah, they should give you the option of overbuilding anything and choosing what to overbuild, at the very least.