Industrial Zone Placement

[paulmclem]

Quick question regarding IZ. In my last couple of games I've only been putting down an IZ in some cities i.e. ones which will in time reach out via their tier 2/tier 3 buildings (Factory/Power Plant) to cities within 6 tiles. This has allowed me to not spend the turns on an IZ/Market in every city. I've been winning ok, but reading on here, suggests that this is not the optimum strategy route. Would I be correct in saying that most players are doing this:

• IZ + Market in every city
• Factory/Power Plant in whatever city has the best 6 tile reach

Therefore every city gets the base boost of an IZ/Market, but tier 2/tier 3 hammer buffs should come via a shared Factory/Power Plant within 6 tiles i.e. you want the minimum number of Factory/Power Plants possible required to hit all your cities.

Cheers,

PaulC.

 

[Forbiddentwo]

People have been saying that it isn't necessary to have an IZ in every city anymore as a result of the nerf to factories, presumably because the additional hammers minus the overlapping factory bonus aren't quite worth it.

 

[Beamup]

A Workshop takes 88 turns to pay for its own cost if not using the specialist slot, 44 if it is. The IZ itself, even with a decent (say +2) adjacency bonus, can take 100 without much trouble. Figure the game's probably pretty well decided by turn 200-250 (if not before), and that you're not starting the build at turn 1... well, waiting that length of time for a payoff gets really questionable IMO.

If you're getting per-zone city-state boosts for them, though, the picture can get a lot rosier. And of course this doesn't factor in the Great Engineer points.

 

[chazzycat]

I'm definitely not building IZ in every city anymore. It's just not worth it for a few extra hammers. It's not just a flat calculation of "time to recoup investment" to consider...there's also the opportunity cost, which is significant at that point in the game.

Basically, to me they are now on the same level with the other non-trade-route-giving districts. Build them in strategic locations such as for Ruhr or Venetian Arsenal, or if you can get a really nice adjacency bonus. Otherwise just try to minimize the total number of factories & power plants needed to cover all your cities.

 

[Forbiddentwo]

A Workshop takes 88 turns to pay for its own cost if not using the specialist slot, 44 if it is. The IZ itself, even with a decent (say +2) adjacency bonus, can take 100 without much trouble. Figure the game's probably pretty well decided by turn 200-250 (if not before), and that you're not starting the build at turn 1... well, waiting that length of time for a payoff gets really questionable IMO.

If you're getting per-zone city-state boosts for them, though, the picture can get a lot rosier. And of course this doesn't factor in the Great Engineer points.

What about chopping, or Aztect district rushing? Or.. I dunno... Cleopatra's bonus to making districts along rivers?

 

[Beamup]

You could have built something else with those forms of production too. Where the production came from doesn't matter to the calculation - only that you're sinking it into an IZ, which will then generate production that you will use to build other things, instead of just building those other things directly. The payback period is the length of time where you have less other stuff than you would have had if you'd skipped the IZ and moved directly on to said other stuff.

If you had some form of production that for some reason could ONLY be profitably invested into an IZ then that would indeed be different. Say if you're in a game state where you don't have the tech to invest in other infrastructure yet, though I've never actually encountered that.

 

[paulmclem]

To be honest most of the replies here are the reason I wasn't building an IZ in every city....there are other things to be building. Think for now I'll stick to one per every few cities i.e. the minimum number required to get a Factory & Power Plant buff in every city.

 

[whacker]

Regarding pure efficiency, it is not worth to get any IZ at all in my opinion. They just take too long to amortize and GE`s are not important. Maybe one if you have a really nice spot for a 6-8 city factory.

What about chopping, or Aztect district rushing? Or.. I dunno... Cleopatra's bonus to making districts along rivers?

The chopped cogs could also be invested into sth more useful, so this is actually not a good reason to get workshops. Workshops have always been really inefficient and now that overlapping factories/powerplants are gone they are just bad.

 

[sugerdady87]

Regarding pure efficiency, it is not worth to get any IZ at all in my opinion. They just take too long to amortize and GE`s are not important. Maybe one if you have a really nice spot for a 6-8 city factory.




The chopped cogs could also be invested into sth more useful, so this is actually not a good reason to get workshops. Workshops have always been really inefficient and now that overlapping factories/powerplants are gone they are just bad.

Have you done your analysis with industrial city-states in mind? Allying 2 industrial city-states gives +8 production per IZ. Does anyone think it's worth it?

 

[joncnunn]

Have you done your analysis with industrial city-states in mind? Allying 2 industrial city-states gives +8 production per IZ. Does anyone think it's worth it?

A significant factor will be when the price for the IZ was locked down. (Note that you don't even have to put 1 turn of production to lock in price; so if you are willing to potentially have a tile per city unused by everything, you can the moment you have the tech for IZ place them in all cities but not put any production into them until/unless you get sufficient industrial city states.)
However, on the highest two difficulty levels a lot of city states get conquered by the AI in the ancient & classical eras; I've seen a livestream in which close to 50% of the city states were knocked out by Deity level AIs by then.

 

[whacker]

Have you done your analysis with industrial city-states in mind? Allying 2 industrial city-states gives +8 production per IZ. Does anyone think it's worth it?

Yes, i did keep that in mind. In the previous patch, when IZ`s still were a thing i actually focused on industrial CS instead of scientific/mercantile because i rushed IZ`s as soon they were available, gaining most of the bonus production for other buildings.
When i`m saying that i find IZ`s obsolete, i`m only talking about efficiency regarding turns until you win the game. Of course, if you like to play 300+ games using everything the game has to offer, IZ`s become much more interesting because you have the time to grow your cities to13+ and basically build any district you want - it obviously matters most by which way you have most fun playing civilization.

Also production is used to build the faith/gold/science/culture generating buildings while those resources generated by envois give them immediatly. (except military units)

A scientific envoy gives +2 science for every campus, which equals a library that costs 80 cogs. If you opt for IZ`s and industrial envois the payback time, compared to a campus with a scientific envoi regarding science, in many cases will outlast the game lenght or at least the time window were +2 science is most impactful. That also applies to gold, culture and faith.

 

[Jarms48]

A scientific envoy gives +2 science for every campus, which equals a library that costs 80 cogs. If you opt for IZ`s and industrial envois the payback time, compared to a campus with a scientific envoi regarding science, in many cases will outlast the game lenght or at least the time window were +2 science is most impactful. That also applies to gold, culture and faith.

I actually rather like gold envoys. Mainly because I make sure a commerce hub is often the first district in every city (with an exception of the capital perhaps), meaning I get the envoy bonus in essentially every city, making it very reliable. Every other city state is fine to put at least 1 point into, more if I want the Suzerain bonus, but other than that it has to be a very specific play style for me to even place greater emphasis on envoy resources other than gold.

The only time I might try and get production envoys is when I'm playing as Germany, thanks to the better adjacency bonuses and cheaper IZ's, meaning I might still place one in every city. For example:

- if you can build 3 commerce districts and 3 hanza's in a cluster you can guarantee 1 of those hanza's to have a minimum adjacency bonus of +6, whilst the other 2 will have a minimum of +4. With the Craftsmen policy card you can double those to +12 and +8, making those hanza's pay for themselves very quickly. Though post Industrialization the strategy does start to fall behind, thanks to the factory/power plant nerfs, however, it's all about taking early game advantage. This is where you can use production envoys to make up for the factory/power plant changes.

 

[Forbiddentwo]

TLDR:

Conquer the industrial city states aside from Toronto (unless you're Pericles, I guess).

Don't bother with Industrial Zones except for lone factories to cover multiple cities.

That about right?

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

TLDR:

Conquer the industrial city states aside from Toronto (unless you're Pericles, I guess).

Don't bother with Industrial Zones except for lone factories to cover multiple cities.

That about right?

Other Industrial CS's can be situationally useful too, depends on your game.

• Auckland: The best unimproved tile by far is coastal oil while suzerain of Auckland post-Industrial Era (1 food, 1 gold and 5 production unimproved - more than a usual plains hill mine)
• Buenos Aires: Alleviates amenity problems after all the conquering
• Hong Kong: Play a SV game while using projects to rush Great Scientists until Kwolek and Sagan. The combo will build all parts in 1 turn (you can squeeze in the Moon Landing too).
• Brussels: Arguably the less useful of them. Still, 15% bonus wonder production can help building those good wonders, such as Ruhr Valley, Forbidden City, Big Ben or Eiffel Tower.

In favor of IZs, there's the +1 cog to trade routes as well. Though Encampments and Harbours also give it as well, and Encampents give housing apart from production (and have a production-boosting card as well).

 

[chazzycat]

TLDR:

Conquer the industrial city states aside from Toronto (unless you're Pericles, I guess).

Don't bother with Industrial Zones except for lone factories to cover multiple cities.

That about right?

definitely wouldn't agree with that. If you find a few industrial CS early on, it's probably worth building more IZ for that reason alone.

Everything is situational...not black & white

 

[fortydayweekend]

Regarding pure efficiency, it is not worth to get any IZ at all in my opinion. They just take too long to amortize and GE`s are not important.

What's your time frame on this? I see most of your games ending before T170 or T180 - what about games lasting 200-250 turns?

 

[whacker]

What's your time frame on this? I see most of your games ending before T170 or T180 - what about games lasting 200-250 turns?

That`s what i`m saying, a game played towards maximum efficiency will take less than 200 turns, at least for standard map size and for every type of map when going for SV. As i said, if you like to play more drawn out games things might change, but i don`t have much experience with 200+ games. I like playing against myself, so finishing asap is what i try most of the time.

 

[Victoria]

I have played 4 games where the sole intention is to win a points victory at the end.
This really gives you scope to play, its a long slog in some ways but building satellite countries is fun
In this case there is no need to rush and you do end up with quite a few IZ by the end of it but they are scattered

 

[chazzycat]

What's your time frame on this? I see most of your games ending before T170 or T180 - what about games lasting 200-250 turns?

what game speeds are you guys talking about??

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

what game speeds are you guys talking about??

Standard speed, mostly. Yes, it's doable on Small maps (the default one).