List of Housing and Amenities Sources

[Browd]

Hm, I am a little bit confused. How are the amenities of luxuries now working? The civilopedia says one lux -> 1 amenity in 4 cities, that's it... And judging from the lets plays it looks like it is the case.

For reasons that are not at all clear to me, many in the community seem convinced that a extra copy of a luxury can be used to provide amenities for cities 5 through 8 (and that a third copy can support cities 9 through 12, etc.). I see nothing in the Firaxis livestreams or in the few preview vids by YouTubers that I've watched to support that view, but there is a lot of theory-crafting going on that depends on/assumes that is the case. If it is not the case, then extra copies of a luxury will be good for only two purposes: (1) trading with the AI (for a new unique luxury, or other goodies) and (2) serving as an "amenities insurance policy" (in case barbs or an enemy pillage your first copy of that luxury).

 

[Bkeela]

For reasons that are not at all clear to me, many in the community seem convinced that a extra copy of a luxury can be used to provide amenities for cities 5 through 8 (and that a third copy can support cities 9 through 12, etc.). I see nothing in the Firaxis livestreams or in the few preview vids by YouTubers that I've watched to support that view, but there is a lot of theory-crafting going on that depends on/assumes that is the case. If it is not the case, then extra copies of a luxury will be good for only two purposes: (1) trading with the AI (for a new unique luxury, or other goodies) and (2) serving as an "amenities insurance policy" (in case barbs or an enemy pillage your first copy of that luxury).

I came here just to ask that. If that is the case, I want to allocate these resources myself rather than have it done for me. I might prefer to spread them around so that my various cities grow evenly, rather than the top 4 always getting everything.

 

[Browd]

I've seen nothing indicating that you will have the ability to designate which cities get allocated luxuries, but it appears you will have control over other amenity sources (e.g., where you build an entertainment district and its associated buildings, and for those with area effects, where you choose to locate that district in relation to other cities, or where and when you will take advantage of various policies, like the +1 amenity for a city with a garrison policy), so you may be able to indirectly affect where luxuries are allocated by managing those other amenity sources. Or maybe some modders will change the amenity governor to give you more direct control.

 

[nzcamel]

I guess that means we should be selling surplus copies, i.e. copies that are sitting idle because all our cities already each have a copy. It doesn't help to sell off a copy when we only have 2 copies and got 6 cities. It'll leave 2 of our cities without luxuries.

Are we going to have to check up on how many copies of each luxury we have, every time we do trades? Or are the resources in the Make a Deal window limited to only resources we are absolutely not using at the moment?

This was my biggest UI beef with V. The Trade screen didn't show how specifically how many of a given luxury we had.

Forest would be removed. You'd need to clear Marsh with a builder first. Not allowed at all on Floodplains (unless playing Egypt)

The UI most definitely currently allows you to trade away luxuries you are using in full. It's the main reason most of Quill's cities in his videos are at -1 amenity. (He traded luxuries for GPT)

And given this then, I'm hoping that the interface in Trade Negotiations does give total numbers of resources. It can't be hard?

Mhrm. I'd actually like a mechanic to distribute them myself. It can still be done by governor by default, but that way you could put a focus on certain cities.

I think keeping you from favouring some cities over others may be one of the reasons that it is out of our hands to control.

Is this confirmed? I got the impression from previous discussions that the luxuries are distributed evenly throughout the empire as much as possible, with no regards to what cities need or don't need it.

Pretty sure how much your cities need them is taken into account. So if Brazil (with say 10 cities) turns on it's Carnival project in City B, while it runs, B doesn't need as many luxuries; so the governor will move them to benefit other cities as a result. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

I came here just to ask that. If that is the case, I want to allocate these resources myself rather than have it done for me. I might prefer to spread them around so that my various cities grow evenly, rather than the top 4 always getting everything.

That is what the governor does...I'm pretty sure.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

For reasons that are not at all clear to me, many in the community seem convinced that a extra copy of a luxury can be used to provide amenities for cities 5 through 8 (and that a third copy can support cities 9 through 12, etc.). I see nothing in the Firaxis livestreams or in the few preview vids by YouTubers that I've watched to support that view, but there is a lot of theory-crafting going on that depends on/assumes that is the case. If it is not the case, then extra copies of a luxury will be good for only two purposes: (1) trading with the AI (for a new unique luxury, or other goodies) and (2) serving as an "amenities insurance policy" (in case barbs or an enemy pillage your first copy of that luxury).

In this video (in the very end), Marbozir confirms that this works in the former way (i.e., 1 luxury provides amenities for 4 cities, and extra copies each provide amenities to the next 4, etc). As to how they're being distributed, he doesn't say; but the devs have implied before that it can't be done manually. There may be ways to subtly manipulate the allocation of amenities (by order of settling the cities, etc), but I guess we'll have to wait until release to know for sure.

 

[Leyrann]

In one of the live streams, the devs said that you cannot manually distribute the luxery resources, however, they also said that they typically did not even notice them being distributed because it worked so well. And to be fair I can't see what's too hard about it - first, you try to make sure every city has enough amenities that there's no unhappyness, and then you divide the rest over the cities in the most even way. How it reacts exactly when you don't have enough luxeries to make everyone happy, however, I don't know. It could be either throwing a lot at one city to get them happy, or dividing it and making everyone a little unhappy. That is probably also something that people might want different, but this is a severe case of "have to experience ingame before being able to say anything solid about it".

 

[homan1983]

Has it been confirmed that additional luxuries of the same type provide provide amenities to more than 4 cities? I know we had a discussion about this before and we left without a confirmation.

I also know that filthyrobot assumes in his vids that it does, but I'm not sure it's been confirmed: but he has also made assumptions in his vids that I know for a fact are not true.

In this video (in the very end), Marbozir confirms that this works in the former way

He just states it, it is not proven or shown.

 

[elitetroops]

In one of the live streams, the devs said that you cannot manually distribute the luxery resources, however, they also said that they typically did not even notice them being distributed because it worked so well. And to be fair I can't see what's too hard about it - first, you try to make sure every city has enough amenities that there's no unhappyness, and then you divide the rest over the cities in the most even way. How it reacts exactly when you don't have enough luxeries to make everyone happy, however, I don't know. It could be either throwing a lot at one city to get them happy, or dividing it and making everyone a little unhappy. That is probably also something that people might want different, but this is a severe case of "have to experience ingame before being able to say anything solid about it".

From what I've seen, it tries to get the happiness level in all cities as even as possible. So if one city is at -1 while another is at 0, an additional amenity would go to the -1 city to even out the situation. This is very different from how a human player would manage them if we were given the option to do so. As far as I know you get a small boost to all yields at +1 (happy) and a larger boost at +3 (ecstatic). Being at +2 is useless as it does not increase your productivity. However, the system would aim to get all cities to +2 before making any city ecstatic. This makes it very hard to get the +3 bonus until regional buildings are online.

 

[Promethian]

From what I've seen, it tries to get the happiness level in all cities as even as possible. So if one city is at -1 while another is at 0, an additional amenity would go to the -1 city to even out the situation. This is very different from how a human player would manage them if we were given the option to do so. As far as I know you get a small boost to all yields at +1 (happy) and a larger boost at +3 (ecstatic). Being at +2 is useless as it does not increase your productivity. However, the system would aim to get all cities to +2 before making any city ecstatic. This makes it very hard to get the +3 bonus until regional buildings are online.

Maybe that is intended. We should be required to put a bit of effort into getting a % boost to all yields.

 

[nzcamel]

From what I've seen, it tries to get the happiness level in all cities as even as possible. So if one city is at -1 while another is at 0, an additional amenity would go to the -1 city to even out the situation. This is very different from how a human player would manage them if we were given the option to do so. As far as I know you get a small boost to all yields at +1 (happy) and a larger boost at +3 (ecstatic). Being at +2 is useless as it does not increase your productivity. However, the system would aim to get all cities to +2 before making any city ecstatic. This makes it very hard to get the +3 bonus until regional buildings are online.

Maybe that is intended. We should be required to put a bit of effort into getting a % boost to all yields.

I suspect it is very intended

 

[Martinus]

I was talking more about the balance of the encampmebt. The fact it gives housing is worth noticing.

I think it's more related to a fact that an encampment is taking up a slot from another district, such as a neighbourhood. So it's there so that your specialized unit production cities are not completely out of luck when it comes to housing - for a non-military city, building a neighbourhood will almost always be better than building an encampment

 

[Zenstrive]

Housings from non-city center district buildings may be to abstract the multiplier effects each has.
Lighthouse may have small village around it.
Barrack and Stable may have small villages of sellers and support people around them.
Etc.

I am still curious on why would they use this amenity system anyway?
We don't have national happiness anymore and only local? Maybe that's why. Previously we have flat 4 happiness per luxury, now we have 4 amenities distributed to cities.

 

[Promethian]

I think it's more related to a fact that an encampment is taking up a slot from another district, such as a neighbourhood. So it's there so that your specialized unit production cities are not completely out of luck when it comes to housing - for a non-military city, building a neighbourhood will almost always be better than building an encampment

Neighborhoods don't count against your district cap. It only applies to the "specialty districts" which you can easily identify by if they provide great people points or not.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

How did this not get any likes

Atleast now it do have a like

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Neighborhoods don't count against your district cap. It only applies to the "specialty districts" which you can easily identify by if they provide great people points or not.

Not quite, entertainment, airport (and I believe spaceport) are specialty districts.

Basically all districts besides City center and "housing districts" (neighborhoods and aqueducts) are "specialty" ones