Locking district costs

[Mahi]

I have a hard time accepting the mechanics that allow the player to set a district before enter a new era and then switch to another build, locking the district cost so it doesn't go up, when entering the new era.

First of all, I'm forgetful. Yes, that's on my side when playing a civ game. That will always punish you in this game but I feel this is punishing you for something that isn't a logic setup and more of an game exploit that intended gameplay. And the punishment (extra hammer costs) is quite severe.

Does anyone know if the AI is using this tactics? (meaning it's a viable game mechanics).. If not this should be fixed so the AI can exploit this cost lock as well.

Is it only me that thinks this system is weird? I'm not sure if this was intended as exploit on purpose but it feels like it isn't.

 

[Victoria]

Does anyone know if the AI is using this tactics?

No it does not at all.

Is it only me that thinks this system is weird

Yes it is very weird and has had a huge amount of discussion and anger about it.
For a start district costs go up by 10x through the game while production only 4x.
Because chop also goes up at the same speed as districts, chopping in districts keeps the balance right.
However pre placing has the effect of significantly catching up with the AI which is why it is done.
These things are very core mechanics in this release and I doubt they will change.

I tend to be OK with it although I do not like it, I have got used to it. However one of my pet peeves just came up elsewhere where someone stated all strong YouTube players milk the oppositions gold before they attack them. I personally hate this one while most people are OK with it. I always do a GPT unless handing over an item. That is my choice and I do not mind if that does not make me a strong player because I am not “in to win” because I do not consider game winning a priority. However I will preplace districts so am to a degree hypocritical.

I suspect in Civ VII they will keep districts but change the mechanism.

 

[Bitterman]

I suspect that raising costs of districts is a tool to hinder the progress of players with many techs and civics and prevent them to win even more easily. It should help the weaker ones to get a little bit on par as the time passes but I'm not sure if that's the case.

 

[Mahi]

No it does not at all.

Yes it is very weird and has had a huge amount of discussion and anger about it.
For a start district costs go up by 10x through the game while production only 4x.
Because chop also goes up at the same speed as districts, chopping in districts keeps the balance right.
However pre placing has the effect of significantly catching up with the AI which is why it is done.
These things are very core mechanics in this release and I doubt they will change.

I tend to be OK with it although I do not like it, I have got used to it. However one of my pet peeves just came up elsewhere where someone stated all strong YouTube players milk the oppositions gold before they attack them. I personally hate this one while most people are OK with it. I always do a GPT unless handing over an item. That is my choice and I do not mind if that does not make me a strong player because I am not “in to win” because I do not consider game winning a priority. However I will preplace districts so am to a degree hypocritical.

I suspect in Civ VII they will keep districts but change the mechanism.

So the district cost should just go up even if the foundation of a district was placed before a new era? That shouldn't be a difficult fix. The reason why I ask to this is because I want to know if the game should be played with or without this exploit, and honestly I feel more like I'm cheating than exploiting, when using this trick.

Interesting fact about chop vs. production cost. So when building districts in new city you actually almost HAVE to chop in order to ever get a district up in a late placed cities?

Regarding the trading with the AI before going to war with them. Did they remove the '10 turns rule', where you couldn't declare war for 10 turns after a deal? Why? I actually thought that worked quite well. Usually I play as a peacemonger so I haven't noticed this actually.

 

[Mahi]

I suspect that raising costs of districts is a tool to hinder the progress of players with many techs and civics and prevent them to win even more easily. It should help the weaker ones to get a little bit on par as the time passes but I'm not sure if that's the case.

Sure, that makes sense. It just doesn't make sense that you can 'override' this rule by setting up the foundation to the district before moving into a new era.

 

[Victoria]

Interesting fact about chop vs. production cost. So when building districts in new city you actually almost HAVE to chop in order to ever get a district up in a late placed cities?

Have a look above my signature and click on the link Chop Example... it’s a little old but mostly still valid. It also has the costs values for districts and chopping in tables.

 

[Mahi]

Pretty cool post, which explains alot. That kind of knowledge is the "exploit" I want the human players to use in a civ game. Not these cheesy "just place it before new era" tactics.

 

[Victoria]

Pretty cool post, which explains alot. That kind of knowledge is the "exploit" I want the human players to use in a civ game. Not these cheesy "just place it before new era" tactics.

The new era does not lock in costs of districts.
They will research a tech or civic until just about done then swap before the new era because the price of the tech/civic drops with the new era. It is quite an advanced tactic with a small reward.

 

[criZp]

District cost does not depend on era, but on the number of techs and civics you have discovered. Each tech/civic you have adds +4 production cost to any district you place.

There are some mods on the steam workshop that changes the district cost formula. I only remember the name of one of these mods thought and that is my own one, the "production cost rework" mod.

 

[Leucarum]

So the district cost should just go up even if the foundation of a district was placed before a new era? That shouldn't be a difficult fix. The reason why I ask to this is because I want to know if the game should be played with or without this exploit, and honestly I feel more like I'm cheating than exploiting, when using this trick.

Interesting fact about chop vs. production cost. So when building districts in new city you actually almost HAVE to chop in order to ever get a district up in a late placed cities?

Regarding the trading with the AI before going to war with them. Did they remove the '10 turns rule', where you couldn't declare war for 10 turns after a deal? Why? I actually thought that worked quite well. Usually I play as a peacemonger so I haven't noticed this actually.

I suspect they did it that way since having district costs go up after placement would have the odd effect of changing production costs while you were building it if the era changed mid production. It would lead to an odd incentive to build districts as soon as possible after entering a new age...

 

[Sostratus]

So the district cost should just go up even if the foundation of a district was placed before a new era? That shouldn't be a difficult fix. The reason why I ask to this is because I want to know if the game should be played with or without this exploit, and honestly I feel more like I'm cheating than exploiting, when using this trick.

I suspect they did it that way since having district costs go up after placement would have the odd effect of changing production costs while you were building it if the era changed mid production.

Dynamically changing the production cost is probably not very easy to do. Changing the production modifier is very easy to do on the fly. Although, It wouldn't make players very happy to see a -90% production towards districts at the end of the game hence it's locked on placement. And the original mechanic behind chopping calculations and it's magical overflow would have made a growing negative modifier extremely easy to circumvent. Stop being so observant of costs!

Also, afaik they haven't changed it in GS, but the multiplier that affects both districts and chop value is based on the number of techs or civics you have, not the game era specifically. It's actually:
Multiplier = 1 + 9*(max(#ofTechs/max#oftechs, #ofCivics/max#ofCivics))
In other words, it starts at 1x and as you progress down the tech or civics tree, it scales up to 10x once you researched everything in one of the trees.

Also, districts and chops aren't the only thing that scales 10x - units and buildings do too. (A heavy chariot costs 65, a modern armor cost 680. Etc) They scale in a very similar way, units are just set based on their column in the tech tree, which roughly tracks "farthest progress in either tree" that districts go with. (Ever wondered why units and buildings have costs that don't seem to correlate at all to usefulness? This is why.)

The core issue of production vs cost scaling is actually entirely localized to the post industrial eras; Because the tech tree has a roughly similar amount of techs per era, the era costs end up looking like this:
Start: 1
End of... Ancient - 2
Classical - 3
Medieval -4
Renaissance - 5
industrial - 6
Modern - 7
Atomic - 8
Info - 9
(obviously slightly rescaled but the concept is the same.) See how the costs go up essentially one unit per era? Well productivity effectively caps in the industrial era once you have industrialization (since that gives you the last mine bonus + factories+coal plants) but every era, like clockwork, costs rise. From the end of the renaissance/start of industrial to the end of the game costs almost double, but your mines, factories, and cities only get more production from the combination of population growth + unworked mines.

 

[Victoria]

Dynamically changing the production cost is probably not very easy to do. Changing the production modifier is very easy to do on the fly. Although, It wouldn't make players very happy to see a -90% production towards districts at the end of the game hence it's locked on placement. And the original mechanic behind chopping calculations and it's magical overflow would have made a growing negative modifier extremely easy to circumvent. Stop being so observant of costs!

Also, afaik they haven't changed it in GS, but the multiplier that affects both districts and chop value is based on the number of techs or civics you have, not the game era specifically. It's actually:
Multiplier = 1 + 9*(max(#ofTechs/max#oftechs, #ofCivics/max#ofCivics))
In other words, it starts at 1x and as you progress down the tech or civics tree, it scales up to 10x once you researched everything in one of the trees.

Also, districts and chops aren't the only thing that scales 10x - units and buildings do too. (A heavy chariot costs 65, a modern armor cost 680. Etc) They scale in a very similar way, units are just set based on their column in the tech tree, which roughly tracks "farthest progress in either tree" that districts go with. (Ever wondered why units and buildings have costs that don't seem to correlate at all to usefulness? This is why.)

The core issue of production vs cost scaling is actually entirely localized to the post industrial eras; Because the tech tree has a roughly similar amount of techs per era, the era costs end up looking like this:
Start: 1
End of... Ancient - 2
Classical - 3
Medieval -4
Renaissance - 5
industrial - 6
Modern - 7
Atomic - 8
Info - 9
(obviously slightly rescaled but the concept is the same.) See how the costs go up essentially one unit per era? Well productivity effectively caps in the industrial era once you have industrialization (since that gives you the last mine bonus + factories+coal plants) but every era, like clockwork, costs rise. From the end of the renaissance/start of industrial to the end of the game costs almost double, but your mines, factories, and cities only get more production from the combination of population growth + unworked mines.

That was the long version of “district costs go up by 10x through the game while production only 4x”
But looking at it realistically, late game cities are often around 40 production per turn a max district cost 600 production or 15 turns, not too bad. The problem is new cities rely on the chop to get that 600 quickly.

 

[criZp]

Units and buildings have production cost that scale with strength and yield, so that scaling actually makes sense.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I think it is a pretty poor mechanic and responsible with late game boredom. Who wants to develop cities when things cost so much?

It is also just busy work.

 

[Victoria]

Also units are very expensive late game. That is the real killer I guess. You have most of your districts by then but do you really want to pay that much for a balsa wood biplane?

 

[criZp]

Also units are very expensive late game. That is the real killer I guess. You have most of your districts by then but do you really want to pay that much for a balsa wood biplane?

They are rather necessary if you don't want to be conquered. And if you don't fear an invasion then you have no reason to make units, even if they were cheaper.

 

[Victoria]

And if you don't fear an invasion then you have no reason to make units

3 biplanes and 3 privateers would be nice regardless.

 

[Sostratus]

Units and buildings have production cost that scale with strength and yield, so that scaling actually makes sense.

Units actually get cheaper over time, in a sense. With a few wacky exceptions that they don't seem to want to talk about, unit strength goes up 10 points per era almost universally. Because combat is relative, +10str = +50% attack & defense. This virtually guarantees every unit upgrade is cost effective over the one before it - so in that sense advanced units are "cheap." There is no point in the game where it's more effective to fight with an outdated unit.** Unfortunately, the cost to upgrade units is so cheap that economically speaking, building new units is extremely punishing vs upgrading. But developed cities can easily churn out an army of a unit as fast as early/midgame cities were building single units.
*select UUs that don't replace anything like redcoats can, if you include their combat bonus, be more effective than infantry while being cheaper, but that's why those units don't upgrade to infantry directly.
**The only time this was true was on release of RF; the Georgian Khevsur was so bad (modeled on the pikeman's combat stats, so it had 40str, cost 200) compared to a swordsman (36str, cost 90) that it was actually worse than a sword. A group of Khevs was about 70% as good in combat as an equal production group of swords. That's why those Military tactics UUs all got buffed.

Buildings are abjectly awfully balanced. As I said, their costs are strictly tied to their location in the tech tree. A library costs 90 (used to be 80), provides 2 science. A workshop provides 2 production, but costs 195. (It used to be 175.)
They change da bunch of building costs in the february update. Even if production was worth the same as science, does it make sense that two buildings that both grant +2 cost wildly different amounts? This is a big reason why many consider IZs to be pretty bad; their buildings are ruthlessly priced and give relatively little yield that cannot be boosted by any card.
They tweaked a lot of building costs and almost universally raised them. Single Buildings are often more expensive than districts!

But looking at it realistically, late game cities are often around 40 production per turn a max district cost 600 production or 15 turns, not too bad.

I sense that if one were to play the game relatively similarly at the end as they do at the start, the build times aren't all that bad; especially given that new cities in the late game can be boosted with trade routes, have great improvements, all sorts of stuff.
If you try to win as fast as possible and efficiently then yeah, return on investment will almost always kill late game stuff.

 

[NukeAJS]

I made a mod that notifies me every 2,3,4,7,10,13,16... pop points. Pops 2 and 3 is because I like to make sure the city isn't working a "bad" tile when it's small. Pops 4,7,10,13,16 etc ... are to remind me to plop a district down (as well as check in on what tiles are being worked). I usually only let a handful of cities get larger than size seven, but it's still useful nonetheless.

 

[Archon_Wing]

People hard build late game units?

Why would you do that when you can just churn out a bunch of previous era units with a card before you research the tech and then just upgrade? Waiting multiple turns for a unit to sounds horrifically inefficient even with high production. It makes even less sense now with the resource requirements. Not to mention with Total War, it reduces resource requirements by half too. And if you come under attack and try to start making units; gl with that.

There's a reason why most UUs that can't be upgraded to are just plain ignored.