in this topic: we post ideas for railroads

[Candido Rondon]

Well, in this case, the mutual exclusivity is intended to keep to the three buildings per district design philosophy of the developers.

Part of that design philosophy is moving away from the attitude in previous civ games where you could have it all. Sure, there was a certain amount of opportunity-cost with what you choose to produce and research, but the reality is that if you were a good player, it mostly just determined in what order you eventually dominate every aspect of the game. Breaking cities out into districts, limiting how many buildings can be built in those districts, and making Wonders take up whole tiles goes with a different design philosophy that prioritizes choosing particular strategies over broad dominance. If you want to have a civilization that is good at something, you'll like that design approach. If you want a civilization that's good at everything, you'll be aggravated by it. Describing one set of rules as "artificial" or "arbitrary" in a game doesn't really tell you much since a game is defined by being bounded by an artificial set of rules.

I can say that having an unlimited number of buildings in a city is unrealistic. Someone else can say that in real life, two museums aren't going to be so huge that they can't both exist in the same neighborhood, so limiting you to one type of museum or another is unrealistic. In either case, there are abstractions. Unlimited building placement ignores all of the city planning issues that the game doesn't bother to simulate, and limited building placement exaggerates the size relationships of a building to a district. It isn't about one abstraction or another being more or less artificial but whether it works with how you'd like to be playing the game.

Fortunately, there are mods, so if nothing else, somebody will likely create a mod that enhances our preferred experience.

 

[Elucidus]

That is exactly my point, there is nothing that says you can't have a stable and a barracks, yet for some nonsensical reason, you have to make that choice.

No, the game doesn't have to enforce such an artificial and unrealistic limit. I personally, do not get enjoyment out of artificial and unrealistic limits, if they make no sense, why would they put them there? If the designers had to resort to such game mechanics in order to claim strategic choice, then they failed as game designers, IMHO.

 

[Elucidus]

Well, in this case, the mutual exclusivity is intended to keep to the three buildings per district design philosophy of the developers.

Part of that design philosophy is moving away from the attitude in previous civ games where you could have it all. Sure, there was a certain amount of opportunity-cost with what you choose to produce and research, but the reality is that if you were a good player, it mostly just determined in what order you eventually dominate every aspect of the game. Breaking cities out into districts, limiting how many buildings can be built in those districts, and making Wonders take up whole tiles goes with a different design philosophy that prioritizes choosing particular strategies over broad dominance.

Well, that kind of proves my point, the further this franchise develops the more limits they put on players for no realistic reason. I live in a city with 4 million people in it and we have everything built here, yet that wouldn't be possible with those rules, calling them arbitrary and unrealistic in a game that claims to be based on civilization is a fair statement I feel.

If you want to have a civilization that is good at something, you'll like that design approach. If you want a civilization that's good at everything, you'll be aggravated by it. Describing one set of rules as "artificial" or "arbitrary" in a game doesn't really tell you much since a game is defined by being bounded by an artificial set of rules.

Well, those aren't the only two opinions, I can be aggravated that someone else decided my limits versus my city's limits itself. Don't get me wrong I love a lot of what they did, districts being one of them, but arbitrary limits for the sake of strategic choice is not one of them.

I can say that having an unlimited number of buildings in a city is unrealistic. Someone else can say that in real life, two museums aren't going to be so huge that they can't both exist in the same neighborhood, so limiting you to one type of museum or another is unrealistic. In either case, there are abstractions. Unlimited building placement ignores all of the city planning issues that the game doesn't bother to simulate, and limited building placement exaggerates the size relationships of a building to a district. It isn't about one abstraction or another being more or less artificial but whether it works with how you'd like to be playing the game.

Fortunately, there are mods, so if nothing else, somebody will likely create a mod that enhances our preferred experience.

Well, you can say that, but in a city that covers 8,778 square miles, larger than the state of New Jersey, you would be wrong, . Sorry, I know that wasn't your point, just couldn't resist. Anyway, unlimited building placement is not what I was talking about, that would be akin to building 5 barracks in your city to stack benefits, but not being able to build a building because you built a different one doesn't fit the narrative of city planning in my mind either.

Anyway, we can also agree to disagree too.

 

[RealAntithesis]

Well, there's nothing in real life that says you can't have a barracks and a stable in a city, or an art museum and an archaeological one either, but the game has to give you some choices sometimes.

Having to choose between a stable and a barracks is quite annoying - because it does seem like an arbitrary limitation and totally unnecessary. Who cares if a barracks and stable exist in the same city? The player may well want to prioritise one over the other because of how they want to structure their army, the production cost of building vs having to produce units for a war effort etc, but to have to make a choice like this (especially when the game just imposes the limitation without any explanation to justify it) is a bit of a "WTH" head scratching moment. Having to 'specialise' cities in such a way as to turn them exclusively into cavalry production centres or melee/ranged but not both (since now the stable/barracks xp bonus is applied to the unit as a percentage throughout it's entire life rather than an absolute gain when it is just produced) is just annoying, and not much else - it certainly doesn't contribute to a sense of grand strategy.

 

[darkace77450]

No mutually exclusive buildings please. These are just an artificial way of creating some sort of strategic choice mechanic when developing cities. Unless the mutual exclusivity exists historically in real life, doing something like this in game is just forcing the player to make compromises that don't make sense, and hence lessens enjoyment.

Whether it's realistic or not, the mutually-exclusive buildings are already present in the game. We have to choose between a Barracks or a Stable and an Art Museum or an Archeological Museum, so what's one more choice? I suspect the reason the choice exists in the first place is because A) they couldn't think of a 4th building for each district type, and B) they didn't have room within the district to add another ploppable art asset.

To me the railway line woukd roughly follow a road so there is no reason to dirty the map with more lines.

Agreed. The less clutter on the map, the better.

 

[Captain Potato]

The art and archeological museum split is a bit more forgivable since at least they have different gameplay mechanics. The barracks and stable split is totally artificial and I think you could just remove that (combine the two buildings) with basically no effect to the game.

I wouldn't support any more splits unless there was a seriously good reason for it.

 

[masda_gib]

I wouldn't support any more splits unless there was a seriously good reason for it.

Now that factory AOEs don't stack anymore there is a... not a reason but an incentive to have an alternative to the factory or power plant. Since they might not be of use in every city with an industrial district. So some IDs will only have a workshop now.

A suggestion would be the train depot as a factory alternative that gives +1prod & +1gold for any trade route originating in the owner city AND for all cities in 6 tiles radius. (so another different AOE)
Also these trade routes could plant railroads which have better movement than modern roads?

 

[Elucidus]

Whether it's realistic or not, the mutually-exclusive buildings are already present in the game. We have to choose between a Barracks or a Stable and an Art Museum or an Archeological Museum, so what's one more choice? I suspect the reason the choice exists in the first place is because A) they couldn't think of a 4th building for each district type, and B) they didn't have room within the district to add another ploppable art asset.

Agreed. The less clutter on the map, the better.

That is very easily fixed. I suspect the reason is to show off the new game mechanic, but perhaps it's the art asset thing, though that is still a fairly arbitrary reason.

Now that factory AOEs don't stack anymore there is a... not a reason but an incentive to have an alternative to the factory or power plant. Since they might not be of use in every city with an industrial district. So some IDs will only have a workshop now.

A suggestion would be the train depot as a factory alternative that gives +1prod & +1gold for any trade route originating in the owner city AND for all cities in 6 tiles radius. (so another different AOE)
Also these trade routes could plant railroads which have better movement than modern roads?

Wondering if we can fix that when the SDK finally comes out, stackable made sense, though in my opinion not so much for a factory as for a power station (thinking power grid type mechanic), but that is a discussion for another thread.

Also I am pretty sure you will see new buildings for the districts in the second expansion pack, though after looking at the DLC and the SDK, perhaps not.

 

[Montezuma's Revenge]

A similar idea I have been thinking about is public transportation. What if, for instance, you could build a "metro station" building in certain districts which will boost their yields (Neighborhoods gets extra housing, Commercial Hubs extra gold, IZ extra production etc). Unlocked by some modern era tech/civic (Electricity perhaps?).

 

[Elucidus]

That follows a similar idea someone mentioned earlier, though not sure how it would provide extra housing, people sleeping on the busses. lol Sorry, couldn't resist. Anyway, maybe ecology or a civic that falls in that realm, seems like it would be related to a civic more than a tech.

 

[Montezuma's Revenge]

That follows a similar idea someone mentioned earlier, though not sure how it would provide extra housing, people sleeping on the busses.

People can live further away from their workplace due to better communication was my line of thinking

 

[dunkleosteus]

Building railroads is important in my opinion. The ancient roads built by traders make sense because pack animals and people can walk over rough terrain and pack it into a beaten path. A train cannot operate like that and cannot even work on an existing road- an iron or steel railway of a very, very specific width must be built by hand for every inch you want the train to travel.

I think trains would be a good upgrade to land based trade routes- they complete more quickly and with much higher yields, but I think you should have to put in the work to get them- from the trade route selection screen when you are choosing the destination city, you should have the option to "build rail line". Based on the target distance, it will cost a flat amount of gold and a number of turns to build the railway. After this however, you will get significant benefit, for example much more gold, food or production.

I think its still a good idea if the only rails you can build are for trade, as there is a much greater economic impetus than for simple human transport.

After a rail line is built, units and trade routes may use it freely. However, since rails will overlap roads, it would make sense that you could only get the rail movement benefit if you enter the city the railroad is connected to in order to board the train. Otherwise you would travel on the road.