King Cog: How Effective is Bee-lining Factories?

[ccubed]

I have more time to read about Civ VI than play it right now. Production seems to be even more important than ever. Some people have complained about mid/late game buildings and districts taking too long to build. The answer seems to be overlapping Industrial Zones with Factories and Power Plants (Entertainment Complexes with Zoos also help with Amenities.)

So how effective is bee-lining factories? 11 techs. (Pottery, Writing, Sailing, Horses, Currency, Math, Shipbuilding, Apprentice, Education, Mass Production and finally Industrialization.) That’s 2800 science with zero Eureka moments.

3 of the Eureka moments require additional techs (Animal Husbandry for Pasture, Mining for 3 mines, and Machinery for Lumber Mill.) Machinery requires several additional techs. Animal Husbandry and Mining do not and they’re both dirt cheap at 25 science a piece.

You’d have to juggle techs and civics to ensure you can have 3 different district types but it’s doable (Apprentice before Math.) And keeping your tech count lower apparently helps with districts’ scaling costs. Just wonder about the actual feasibility of such a hard focus. Enough units to defend? Ability to maintain infrastructure?

Germany and Japan seem like great choices for this approach.

 

[Zenstrive]

Don't forget that great scientists can give random eureka moments and those techs maybe the ones who are given bonus.

 

[lamaros]

I think people are overstating factories. Unless you are in a low production area I don't think the return is as high on rushing them is that major.

Getting one major industrial town with a heap of mines and then sending trade routes there can be very effective, and flexible, if you need extra production.

If only you could rehouse traders to different cities as needed.

 

[isau]

It's effective because the path there is the same path needed for trade routes and you are literally penalized for every tech or policy you collect, meaning that going anywhere other than to Industrial zones will cost you hammers. This is part of the reason so many have been complaining about the hammer bottleneck. The game is literally making it harder for you everytime you advance down the "wrong" science node.

 

[Nefelia]

If only you could rehouse traders to different cities as needed.

You can. The option t do so is in the right-bottom o the screen... select the trader and look to where normal military units have their 'action' buttons.

 

[lamaros]

It's effective because the path there is the same path needed for trade routes and you are literally penalized for every tech or policy you collect, meaning that going anywhere other than to Industrial zones will cost you hammers. This is part of the reason so many have been complaining about the hammer bottleneck. The game is literally making it harder for you everytime you advance down the "wrong" science node.

Is this confirmed? If so it's an easy fix, increases should be based on tech level, not total techs complete.

 

[lamaros]

You can. The option t do so is in the right-bottom o the screen... select the trader and look to where normal military units have their 'action' buttons.

Sweet. My production problems are solved!

 

[FooTooAy]

You can. The option t do so is in the right-bottom o the screen... select the trader and look to where normal military units have their 'action' buttons.

No. Not true. They can only be rerouted after they complete their trade run, which can be dozens of turns.

 

[Qin Shi Hung]

I think people are overstating factories.

Cities built as close as possible (ICS) can each benefit from 6 or more factories.

That's huge.

 

[chazzycat]

yeah, factories are not understated at all. They are crazy powerful if you have any decent number of cities close to each other. Even without ICS it's easy to get them to hit 4 cities or so. Just 4 factories with 4 cities is worth 48 hammers per turn, that is crazy good...

 

[King Jason]

48 production that doesn't take up any citizens, I might add.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Less effective then beelining a unit and go on a conquest spree but otherwise pretty good.

 

[ShoGuL]

Just wanted to add since no one else has mentioned it that the techs for industrial zone AND factories both give +1 hammers to mines... that's also a huge passive benefit...

 

[rpgalon]

You guys are the reason I can't see at least 2 GP of the same era in a multiplayer...

the campus -> commercial hub -> industrial district (and +1 to mines) is a gorgeous line. You cruise from ancient era to renaissance.

But remember to not delay horseman too much, otherwise you guys are rushed to death.

 

[Nefelia]

No. Not true. They can only be rerouted after they complete their trade run, which can be dozens of turns.

I was referring to the fact that you can build a trader in a core city and then shunt him off to a new/weak city to boost its food and production.

Less effective then beelining a unit and go on a conquest spree but otherwise pretty good.

Yeah. By the time factory stacking comes into play, I've already got my war machine in place. It might be an OP start for some late game victories though, and the factory might end up eating a nerf in the near future anyway.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Nerfing the factory can hurt the industrial zone to much given it is a production investment into more production later in the game and workshops are pretty terrible given how expensive they are for more production althougth great people point are nice. Workshop can not get a boost from cards unlike many other buildings. I could see them nerfing factories and powerplant by -1 production and make a card that give +1 production to powerplant and factories like there is a card that boost stadium.

 

[Nefelia]

I'd rather see factories provide a scaling bonus (+1 cog per 5 citizens, perhaps), along with a smaller AoE bonus (+1 cogs to cities within six range).

The current problem with factories is that it works to well with ICS and just small city spamming around the core cities. Scaling the bonus to population would force the player to actually invest in amenities and housing in order to maximize the benefits from the factory.

 

[Zenstrive]

It's not necessarily an incentive to go ICS.
It works well too with tall civ: build just four cities, position your districts to benefit at least 3 cities with factory, and let the other tiles be mines, lumbermills, and farms.

This will work even more wondrous if workshop actually has AOE that gives +1 hammer to cities, while industrial zone only give +1 hammer to city central. Really make players want to actually make industrial zone early on.

 

[mehukatti]

I don't think this is safe. I'd pick up at least one military unit per era on the way plus ancient walls.

 

[alpaca]

I think people are overstating factories. Unless you are in a low production area I don't think the return is as high on rushing them is that major.

Getting one major industrial town with a heap of mines and then sending trade routes there can be very effective, and flexible, if you need extra production.

If only you could rehouse traders to different cities as needed.

I don't know about overstating, but factories are huge if you go for ICS. You can often get something like 6-10 cities in the radius (12 is the theoretical maximum given layout restrictions, but you will almost never get that), so each factory provides 18-30 cogs, let's call the average 24. For this, you pay 530 cogs for the workshop and factory plus whatever you pay for the district, which provides a break-even point of about 30-35 turns, which is better than your other options. If you are lucky enough to get Toronto, this can increase to a theoretical maximum of 24 (I think, it becomes a little difficult to analyze here), with a more usual number being 15 or so. That is 45 cogs per turn.

Trade route yields are based on districts in the target city as far as I know, so building mines in your target is irrelevant. I do agree that sending trade routes to a specifically tailored target cities is good play, though: I recommend getting an industrial and commercial district as well as an encampment or harbor.

It's not necessarily an incentive to go ICS.

Of course it's an incentive to go ICS. It may also be good in other situations, but it's far better in an ICS scenario because you maximize the number of cities inside the AoE. Being better in one scenario than in another means it incentivizes the former.


On topic: I think a perfect beeline is not that desirable. You'll usually want to get Archery for defensive or rushing purposes, and you might want to get Horsemen for your horse economy and other purposes (stronk!). I also doubt that skipping mining and irrigation is that feasible because you would be sacrificing a lot of amenities and mining will give you the booster for Apprenticeship. On deity, I also found that if I don't get crossbows, my war machine will start to stutter because my units die too quickly, so I'm forced to choose between getting Industrialization a little earlier and keeping conquest going. I usually go with the latter because I can simultaneously conquer enemies and lay down the districts (hilariously, I often find that my cities don't expand fast enough to the tiles I want to build them on, so I need to buy a lot of tiles). Chances are, you won't have enough money to buy factories in bulk if you go for them directly, so you won't sacrifice that much by getting them a little later.