If Civ V had districts...

[acluewithout]

If Civ V (somehow) had districts like Civ VI, then which game do you think would be better?

I guess I'm kind of asking how important do you think districts are to making Civ VI "fun"...?, and at the same time, asking what Civ VI has other than districts which is better or unique...?

 

[Katakanja]

If Civ V (somehow) had districts like Civ VI, then which game do you think would be better?

I guess I'm kind of asking how important do you think districts are to making Civ VI "fun"...?, and at the same time, asking what Civ VI has other than districts which is better or unique...?

Well, even if Civ V had districts, presumably boring old 4-city tradition would still be the preeminent strategy since it was global happiness that was the limiting factor in V.

Personally that makes it an easy call for me to say that Civ VI would still be better if both games had the district system

 

[Amrunril]

Well, even if Civ V had districts, presumably boring old 4-city tradition would still be the preeminent strategy since it was global happiness that was the limiting factor in V.

Four city tradition was dominant at the end of Civ V's development, but that doesn't mean that it was an inevitable consequence of global happiness. Vanilla had the same global happiness system (after the first couple patches), but wide play bordering on ICS was actually the dominant strategy. The developers gradually made changes, particularly to the opening policy trees, that favored tall play, and eventually they overshot.

As for the overall question, at this point I think I'd say Civ VI. I don't think I'd want to lose Eurekas or civic progress or go back to great people and city states being identical within categories. There are definitely things I miss about V, though, especially having tourism as a fully developed mechanic. I also think religion was a bit more flexible when it didn't have to support its own victory condition, and I did like the long term customization that social policy trees provided.

 

[MisterBoomBoom]

Civ5 with districts and governors would be something I would gladly pay for as it would be better than Civ6. Why they ever started from scratch with the Ai is beyond me-

 

[Ferocitus]

As much as I liked Civ 5, Civ 6 would still be light years ahead.

 

[liv]

Civ V has eclipsed Civ 6 in players on Steam again. It is pretty amazing how well that game is doing. It has something for sure.

 

[Katakanja]

Civ V has eclipsed Civ 6 in players on Steam again. It is pretty amazing how well that game is doing. It has something for sure.

Eclipsed is a bit strong. There's only ~1000 concurrent players separating them and the peak numbers are roughly equal.

Now, before R&F, that was when V was eclipsing VI - it was normally at least half a dozen places higher in the list. IMO it will stay equal like this now for a while and VI will possibly rise up a few more places again the next time more content is released.

 

[liv]

I meant eclipsed as surpassed.

It will be interesting to see if it stays equal. Civ V gained players and Civ 6 is of course seeing a downwards trend as the R&F enthusiasm is gradually passing

 

[DeutschDachs]

Districts don't really do anything for me. They're just gates to build the buildings you would normally build.

Governors may as well be called "Magnuses" but I do enjoy being able to spam settlers more effectively

 

[isau]

Civ 5 was a nice transition game from Civ 4 to introduce new systems, but IMO Civ 6 does almost everything better. Civ 5 was left in a very unbalanced state after the second expansion in particular. Vox Populi and mods correct a lot of the issues, but I can't say I miss Civ 5 at all.

Among Civ 5's problems:

• It's a Civ game that punishes you for building cities beyond a certain point in time. I found this so unbelievably frustrating. Not only was there no incentive to found a city past a certain point in the game, it actually hurt you.
• Archer rushes were the ideal way to take a city. Melee units worthless except to run in after the city lost all its HP and grab it.
• City States gobbling up the best spots on the map, often right next to Natural Wonders, which then become irrelevant.
• Killing a City State so heavily punished as to completely derail the game.
• The LOLPiety tree. Policy trees in general.
• Everything about the National College. Especially the grip it had on gameplay that forced a very particular strategy.

Civ 5 has some great ideas, to be sure, but they didn't reach fruition until Civ 6. Civ 5 now feels to me like the test run of the concepts that would eventually become Civ 6.

 

[MrRadar]

Yet (not) another 5 vs 6 thread...

Oh, well then, for me, even if Civ 5 had districts, Civ 6 would be much better.

It's not even about the districts, it's about Civ 5 having a mortal sin - double punishment of players for expansion through global happiness and increasing tech/policy costs for every new city. In my eyes, those two factors alone put Civ 5 into the lowest place in the whole Civ franchise. And if this wasn't enough, there is 'a specific building in EVERY city' requirement for national wonders. I can't imagine how could you discourage expansion more. Whatever you do, don't build/take another city! Civ 5 is a 'lazy man's game', where yo can call 3 cities an 'empire', and a game too easily put on rails.

Civ 6 policy card system is much more fun than the rigid 'pick and forget' policy trees of Civ 5, for which I had no love from the start.

Civ 6 has more fun great people, with unique abilities. In Civ 5 the mass hoarding of great scientists towards the end game and bulbing through the last techs got stale very soon.

Civ 6 has more fun city states, with unique bonuses, and now, that you can kill off rival envoys with spies it's even better.

And even with all the shortcomings still present, Civ 6 now has more sensible diplomacy than 5. In 5 it was far far too easy to bribe other civs away into wars.

Civ 6 has more fun barbs. Oh, yes, after Civ 1 to 4, the barbs in Civ 5 were a laughing stock. And if you wanted an easy game to become even easier, you picked 'Raging barbs'. Then the pickings of barb captured AI workers/settlers could be truly endless.

Civ 6 has more interesting religion system. Now it can create a little bit more of a tension between nations with different religions. In Civ 5 it was inconsequential. But I still miss real religious wars like in Civ 4, and leaders like Isabella, who took their religion really seriously and tried hard to see to it that you did too

 

[BenitoChavez]

Districts do add some strategy to Civ 6 in terms of placement and pillaging but other than that, they function essentially like buildings did in Civ 5. What I like about Civ 6 is basically everything that MrRadar and isau wrote in their posts.

 

[isau]

I think another question worth asking is: Would Beyond Earth be a superior game if it was a Civ 6 clone versus a Civ 5 clone? And to that I would say a resounding "yes." That game had a lot of other issues--mainly IMO in being far too pedestrian and lacking variety in the different planets you could find yourself on--but the districts system would have a lot to add, particularly with the later expansions that let the player make use of water tiles.

 

[Morningcalm]

Districts are a mixed bag--while they do "specialize" the cities, the exorbitant upfront cost means you may not be able to access libraries for a very, very long time. At least in V districts weren't a prerequisite for science buildings. And V had neat terrain-specific touches like the observatory that had to be built near mountains.

I'm unsure whether V would be better with districts. Maybe if production costs were lower (which is true of V vis-a-vis VI production costs). But I like that V allows you to build different buildings without a high cost prerequisites (aside from earlier buildings, like a library being necessary for a university).

 

[Arent11]

I would prefer if district would organically "grow" from the city center. If a city grows, neighborhoods are created adjacent to the city center & you have to place specialized districts adjacent to the city center. & if you want to conquer the city, you have to fight throught the suburbs until you reach the center.

The way it is now the districts are all over the place & your "city" consists of a city center in the valley, a campus in the mountains, a commercial hub down the river & an industrial district on the other side of the hills. You basically have 5+ "cities" that count as one.

 

[Kruos]

If only Civ4 would have hexagons and modern graphics.. it would eclipse both of his little brothers (maybe not Civ6 when he will have his 2nd expansion).

Civ 5 was a nice transition game from Civ 4 to introduce new systems, but IMO Civ 6 does almost everything better. Civ 5 was left in a very unbalanced state after the second expansion in particular. Vox Populi and mods correct a lot of the issues, but I can't say I miss Civ 5 at all.

Among Civ 5's problems:

• It's a Civ game that punishes you for building cities beyond a certain point in time. I found this so unbelievably frustrating. Not only was there no incentive to found a city past a certain point in the game, it actually hurt you.
• Archer rushes were the ideal way to take a city. Melee units worthless except to run in after the city lost all its HP and grab it.
• City States gobbling up the best spots on the map, often right next to Natural Wonders, which then become irrelevant.
• Killing a City State so heavily punished as to completely derail the game.
• The LOLPiety tree. Policy trees in general.
• Everything about the National College. Especially the grip it had on gameplay that forced a very particular strategy.

Civ 5 has some great ideas, to be sure, but they didn't reach fruition until Civ 6. Civ 5 now feels to me like the test run of the concepts that would eventually become Civ 6.

Agreed, but you forget the ultra boring military game with 1UPT micro-management and unit congestions. Civ 6 partially correct this issue, but create also a new one with the religion game alas.

 

[Zenstrive]

Let's just hope Civ V's district costs would not go exponentially higher for each cities.

 

[Kyro]

Civ 5 with districts/unpacked wonders but no additional workable tiles beyond the 3rd ring and lowered tile expansion costs would be terrible.

The same population limit (housing)that also needs to be imposed because of districts would completely destroy the game play of Civ 5.

Population and working improvements for yields, i.e growing top quality cities as game-long investments is one of the key rewarding experiences of Civ 5. The unpacking of cities and limit on population however, completely does away with the strengths of either.

 

[Katakanja]

Another thought - just imagine Civ V national wonders combined with districts. Then, not only do you need to build a library in every city asap to get the NC, you probably also have to have a campus built in every city first too!

 

[Infixo]

Districts changed a strategic game, focused on interaction with other civs into a board game, where you focus on internal development and caring about where you build things and not caring about other civs.
I would trade them in an instant for a decent diplomacy and world congress system.