luxuries in Civ6

[daymost]

Since this is my first time posting I will give a brief introduction. My first civ is civ5 from there I when a bit backwards to 4 then, Alpha Centauri, finally going forward again I played BE. Although not uncommon I've been lurking around the time civ5 came out and I feel finally I have something meaningful to add so here I am now.

With the change of global happiness to local happiness It leaving many questions on how do luxuries work.

Spoiler :

If you look on the top of bar you can see luxuries are listed, what it seem like is that luxuries are a resource that can be use just like strategic resources. So for example Let's say you have 3 wine luxuries you can give 3 different cities the wine luxuriate to increased there amenities. If this is the case that opened up a lot of Interesting possibilities, if you can give cities luxuries than it may also be possible that you can take them away as well. For example if you have wine in City A but no longer need it because City A now has an entertainment district, can you now take away the wine form City A and give it to City B. If so this creates a pseudo global happiness.

The thing throws me in a loop is the Aztec Leader Ability “Luxuries give amenities to extra cities”. At first I thought it would just give you an extra luxury however watching the video that is not the case. It's possible that the Aztecs can use a luxury twice on two different cities before it's used. As an extra luxury could be sold off or traded and not used for its intended use. Its also possible the words got mixed up and what she really meant to say is “Luxuries give extra amenities to cities” this makes more sense to me but there no way to be sure.

What is your opinion on how luxuries will work, if you agree with me what other possibilities can the movement of luxuries can you think of and how do you think the Aztec ability works?

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I think luxueries have a global effect but they may have a local effect as well.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I'll just lazily copy what I wrote on the Aztec thread:

According to an early screenshot Zanzibar's suzerain bonus is two luxury resources which prowide +6 amenities each and there are far more resources than in Civ V. That would give you more than enough to keep spamming cities if it's +6 per city.
Now the narrator in the Aztec video says Aztecs gain amenities for more cities per resource.
Conclusion: Unhappiness and amenities from buildings are local, but amenities from resources are global and distributed over your cities.
If every resource gives +6, it would mean you get +3 per city if you have 2 cities, +2 per city if you have 3 cities, and then we get into fractions.

 

[Stilgar08]

Welcome! I think your idea is intriguing but I also think it's too much MM. So there might be a way to mod it in, but I doubt they'll have it in the base game...

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I think it is more likely you can allocate amenities to a max.
Ie...I have 6 amenities worth of wine.
All my cities have a 'wine slot' and I can put the 6 wine amenities I have in 6 different cities. (Giving them +X amenities)
...possibly (because I have wine all cities get +1 additional amenity)

 

[Battlehelm043]

First off, welcome to the Forum! As for Luxuries, in Civ 6 they play into local happiness via the amenities system. This way your empire is not punished for a poorly placed city, just the city is punished which will force it to take longer to develop. Whether that be in population of in tile/district improvement.

 

[Deggial]

Hi, daymost, welcome to the forum!

Well, if the amenity system would work like you propose, I would freak out - as it would work exactly like the health system (which was basically a local growth-limitating game mechanic) I proposed several years ago for a hypothetical Civ5 expansion.

And yes, it was definitely a bit more micromanagement-heavy than some might enjoy. But I still think, something like this would be manageable.

 

[stealth_nsk]

That's exactly what I fear - what amenities system is "global happiness in disguise" and we'll have the same situation with large empires being relatively weak. We could end up with the same headache as BNW.

My biggest hope is - the Aztec video told about the number of cities, not their size. If the population itself doesn't generate unhappiness (which is totally ok, since we already have food and housing to limit population), this could work well. But the variant leaves a big question - where the unhappiness comes from in this case? Or it could work in completely different way and instead of fighting unhappiness, amenities could just give bonuses to culture, science, etc.

Another good question is - if all civs have the same number of amenities per resource, the resource trading would be pointless (except for Aztecs, which have bonus depending on luxury resource types). So, I assume there are some restrictions depending on the number of luxury resources, like the first one giving 6 amenities, second - 5 and so on.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I'm assuming there is a limit to how much amenities one city can use from one resource.

So if you have 5 wine, 3 cotton, 1 tobacco, 1 sugar and 3 cities...your 2 extra wine are pointless except for trade...but you can stack the sugar and tobacco in the same city or different cities (and you choose)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

- if all civs have the same number of amenities per resource, the resource trading would be pointless (except for Aztecs, which have bonus depending on luxury resource types). So, I assume there are some restrictions depending on the number of luxury resources, like the first one giving 6 amenities, second - 5 and so on.

Ah, but what excites me about the 'Amenities' system - what little we know about it, anyway, - is that the Amenity 'value' can vary, and is not, as in Civ V, necessarilly equal in all resources, all the time.

There's a potential here to show the extraordinary Trade value of some Resources over others. For instance, the high value placed on Gold, Silver, Silk, Spices which made them worth transporting extraordinary distances and supporting the coast of considerable infrastructure to obtain them.

So far, the only amenity value we have is that 2 spices - Cloves and Cinnamon from Zanzibar - give '6 Amenities'. What if the average of 3 Amenity/Spice is standard Only For Spices, but, say, Crab gives only 1 Amenity value, Ivory 2, Gold 4, Silver 3, Silk 5 - and the value modifies the length of the Trade Route - merchants being willing to go much further for high Amenity Value goods?

There was a reason for the historic 'Silk Roads' across Asia that never was present in Civ V - maybe we can recreate that in Civ VI?

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I think amenity work most similar to civ IV happines. Resources likely give a global amenity bonus to all cities.

 

[wanglishi1]

I think amenity work most similar to civ IV happines. Resources likely give a global amenity bonus to all cities.

That was my guess too until I saw the Aztec video in which the narrator says "luxuries give amenities to extra cities". Now I'm afraid that it may works as the "pool theory" which amenities from luxuries are global and can be allocated to your cities. But what makes difference from civ 5 if pool theory is true.

Another explanation is that the narrator in Aztec video just uses obscure words, thus we shouldn't focus too much on her exact words.

 

[Paramecium]

Hm, didnt Ed Beach talk about amenities a bit? I dont have the source now, but I remember he said sth like depending on happiness(amenities?) the growth rate is influenced.

I think the biggest problem of unhappiness wasnt the slower growth rate, it was all the production, research, culture, fighting strength etc mali.

Firaxis might have reduced that or changed it. Maybe those effects will be just local.

I find the hint and the idea, that now ALL ressources are shown in bar on top of the UI, it might be, that amenities are distributed among your cities. They might have just split about the units of (happiness/amenities)/per ressource. Now the ressource it self it splittable, because the luxuries come now in more pieces pro ressource tile.

At least, we just know until now that luxuries give amenities. We dont know which other source might be there, buildings can do it, like the ball playground of the aztec.

And if the only malus of not having enough amenities to grow your population slower or not at all at one city, it can hurt quite a lot now. Without enough citizens you wont get enough districts unlocked and so your city will crumble.

Especially, when most of the special yields like research, culture, tourism, money(?) are linked to districts. So you can only use the tiles around your city, but you wont have the production or possiblity to produce everything.

The biggest question will be, if one city can use more amenities from one luxury ressource. If I have 6 gold, can I use 2 for one city or is it just one of every kind? So will I have a surplus if I just have 3 cities of 3? So I have to trade for other amenities ressources? Or should I sell it for different things, if you have no use for a surplus of one ressource if you dont grow fast enough.

The biggest change would just be, that there wouldnt be that instant loss of 3 happiness per city ...

There are too many questions at the moment I think and we need to know way more about the "happiness" mechanic. What kind of malus (or bonus) will you get from too much or too less happiness?

In contrast housing and food are easy to understand.

 

[WillowBrook]

It's also possible that geography plays a role in what cities get the benefit of amenities. Maybe there's a source of five wine amenities and the default is that the five closest cities to the wine benefit. There would need to be ways to redistribute the benefit I would think, and that could get complicated.

Edit: cross post. IIRC, it's inadequate housing that slows growth, not lack of amenities. I don't think we know what happens if a city lacks amenities.

 

[daymost]

I would like to explain and expand on what we are now calling the "pool theory"

The difference between the pool theory and civ5 happiness is where in civ5 city happiness affects your empire directly the pool theory affects your empire indirectly. For example in civ5 one Cities unhappiness could mean every cities unhappiness, with the pool theory one cities unhappiness only affects that city, now you may decide to take a luxury away from a different city making that city less happy but giving it to the unhappy city however that's completely under your control.

I guess this wasn't clear but I assume that a city can't have two of the same luxuries so if a city given wine I can't give it another, however I would think it would be a neat idea if the city that owns the luxury gets it own free copy. It just makes sense that the city automatically have access to its luxury (and maybe there can be a policy that gets rid of cities free luxury but now gives you an extra global luxury because exploitation!)

My Problem with luxuries having a global effect is that makes going wide really powerful. Now we have no idea what penalty there is for going wide but if every time you get a new type of luxury all your cities get a happiness boot not only can go wide you would grow tall as well. Let's say each new city is less productive than the city before it, from some penalty. As Long as you can build a city next to a new luxury or a luxury that can be traded for a new luxury, every city can grow taller. There will be a point where the penalty will limit cities you want as they drag down your science so you will still need to find a happy medium but by then all you cities with lesser penalty will be greatly boosted from all those with the greater penalty.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Wide become less powerful then each city give -1 amenity

 

[stealth_nsk]

Wide become less powerful then each city give -1 amenity

Well, if we take some "default" civ game where expansion isn't punished at all, in this case the large empires would be too strong, so early expansion and later snowballing will be the only viable strategies. That's not good as well. The game needs some sane balance, so wide empires are definitely stronger than tall, but delayed expansion could be viable too and fighting tall empires is not too easy. So some expansion restrictions need to be applied.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

-1 amenity per city will not punish "resonable wide" but it will make stuff such as ICS a poor idea.

Puppets could be used to avoid the happines hit but they need to be nerfed in some way.

It is not global happines as cities don't share happines. It is most similar to Civ IV happines system but with a global negative for each city.

 

[Valmighty]

If you look on the top of bar you can see luxuries are listed, what it seem like is that luxuries are a resource that can be use just like strategic resources. So for example Let's say you have 3 wine luxuries you can give 3 different cities the wine luxuriate to increased there amenities. If this is the case that opened up a lot of Interesting possibilities, if you can give cities luxuries than it may also be possible that you can take them away as well. For example if you have wine in City A but no longer need it because City A now has an entertainment district, can you now take away the wine form City A and give it to City B. If so this creates a pseudo global happiness.

If this is true, it will create unnecessary micro management. In the first turns, it could be fun. But in the 200th turn...