Must you build a Commercial District in every city? Are they really that OP?

[Quillan]

I appreciate the GP point but GP can be rushed with projects/faith/gold so as long as you have a couple of CD you can mitigate the per turn bonus lost while basking in the glory of the lighthouses!

 

[Chibisuke]

Yea but the more great person points you have the lower the cost to rush. Especially on deity, there is a huge difference between paying 800 gold for a great person vs 6000.

 

[agonistes]

To me, it's the fact that they basically do about 4 things:
And then combined with the fact that gold can be exchanged very easily for everything, including if you have enough cash reserve it can basically act as an immediate defensive force, or a rush on GPP, it's just too versatile. Even if they didn't yield extra trade routes, sure, I'd build less of them, but I think they'd still be roughly 3rd on my list of what to build. It's just too versatile to basically hoard cash and then buy what you need than to slow-build things.

Money in the game is almost (not quite) as useful as raw production.

I generally build them because both gold and trade routes are incredibly flexible and useful resources. It's not always a slam-dunk, but I'd need a very good reason to prioritize another district (and these reasons do exist, just not most of the time for me). Honestly if you can't spend your gold then I'd say you're probably not expanding and building enough. Certainly I can't think of why I'd want, say, three districts in a city and not have one of them be a Commercial Hub.

Agree with all of this.

And I guess I have to quote myself from the encampment post:

As it stands, the entertainment district and commercial district are probably the two most valuable districts to build. They are the staples. Is it possible to come up with strategies where that wouldn't be the case? Of course. Easily. Is it possible that certain maps would change that? Of course. Anyone who wins a game with seaside casino resorts should be able to win a game without building a single commercial district. Hell, I could do it. In fact, I bet you (Victoria) could win a game on deity without building a single district.

In fact, let's say that before a game starts, a rule is made: you can only make 2 of each district (meaning 2 of that type total and not meaning 2 districts per city), except 1 type of district, of which you can make as many as you want. Everything about the game will be random: map size, map type, opponents, etc. Except you know there will be goodie huts and camps. Also, you will be ASSIGNED one victory condition that you must pursue, you cannot pick which one to go for (although I guess this rule might not make sense... its possible to 'hammer' your way to any VC you want on any map, isn't it?). Under these conditions, which district would you choose to be able to free build?

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

Yea but the more great person points you have the lower the cost to rush. Especially on deity, there is a huge difference between paying 800 gold for a great person vs 6000.

As people said, Harbours are somewhat situational. So probably you'll still have plenty of CH even if you give priority one to Harbours.

 

[Chibisuke]

Maybe. I agree that there are situations where the harbor is optimal. I'm just saying it would be unwise to prioritize building cities on coasts just to get harbors.

 

[Lanthar]

More gold is always better than less gold. I build CD's in most early cities, though they aren't as highly prioritized in late game cities, when I usually have a good income. A high priority district for me.

 

[Victoria]

I think Buying a GP with gold is showing an excessive amount of gold is present. Its fair enough you want gold and just buy everything with it sure. You can go to that extreme... but is it best value.

If I played a game without building any districts of any type I would run out of gold due to maintenance. So you need some.
If I need that hex taken or that unit upgraded then to a degree fair enough if you really needed that unit or that hex.

Now everyone plays the game for different reasons and if you want to play with 50 armies on the map of course you will need more gold. Are you building bigger numbers of troops because you have the gold to afford it?

I am just taking things a few steps further.... everyone is saying production is king but the longer we play the more we realize we do not need a lot of these things. I mean a +1/+1 water mill for 1 gold maintenance... did we really build it? was it worth it? If we need less buildings then we need less cogs and if we need less cogs maybe we can get away with less cog making buildings. Less IZ and are they really worth it. Aqueduct?... no, granary?.... good question. Sewer never.

This thread is not asking for your opinion, its really asking you to think about of you really need to. me personally I am not so sure anymore.

A CZ makes a LOT of money, more than it needs to service the city. Additional money can be gained if need be by using cards short tern rather than long. For example I used to always have triangular trade always in use but now I will put it into play when I can see upgrades coming up. the rest of the time I can double my campus bonuses or put in meritocracy.

If you did not build so many CS... what benefit could you get? more science and culture?

I do not know any answers.. but all of your chat is appreciated in helping me get there. Thank you!

 

[Victoria]

More gold is always better than less gold

Oh cmon... is more gold better than less gold and more science?... something has to replace that gold and be considered.....
If you are starting to but GP with gold then maybe you have a touch much and can make better use out of another card?

 

[Victoria]

What about this 25% discount if you do not have the average amount of a district. It would be interesting in MP to build CZ a little later than everyone else and get the 25% discount.

Like I suspect the cost of a holy site is cheaper to build a little later if you are just after the RP... or an encampment is popular with the AI... wait a bit, use your cheap encampment card and get 45% off.

Anyone know how much the AI uses CZ?
There is also a prod cost increase based on number of CZ.. is `that right? ... and some good arguments in this thread say early CZ are better than late ones.... so once you have built a few could there be better value in changing?. Its a shame we cannot assess the amount of districts the AI builds easily.

 

[Lanthar]

I like money! (Various characters, Idiocracy (2006))

I usually play with a large military, which creates gold pressure throughout the game. I do admittedly miss out on some good combos of other Policy Cards in pursuit of a good income per turn.

In games where I haven't had a large military, I tend not to build as many CD's. I find myself building CD's almost reactionary - ooops, my gold per turn is really low, where can I stick a CD?

 

[Victoria]

Thanks @Lanthar we are all rubbish at things... I often have done the same... my issue is I tend to dump harbors down. This also clouds my view as harbours and CZ just end up so easily at +500 with a few cards.

 

[Chibisuke]

Regarding the AI, from what I can tell commercial district is their number one priority and then maybe culture then IZ/encampment. Those seem to be the most likely of what I get when I capture AI cities. They seem to mostly ignore campus (probably because they don't need it due to difficulty bonuses to their research). This is how the AI also tends to monopolize great writers/artists/musicians and merchants unless you focus hard on those.

 

[chazzycat]

The thing is gold is pretty versatile. Gold stockpile + Big Ben + Democracy = whatever great people you need for the end game. You can also buy your district buildings so it's not like it necessarily hurts your culture/science output. If you're building campuses or theaters in every city for your VC, surely some of them will have poor production and could benefit from purchasing the university/lab/museum/radio station rather than hard building it.

Also Adam Smith is probably my favorite great person in the game. Free economy slot is amazing. The "2 free luxuries" merchants are great too.

 

[Quillan]

On buying GP - I never said that one should buy them with gold, I said there were other ways to get GP other than building another CD for +gp points per turn. Personally I rarely buy GP outright, but I have done it with gold and I do do it with faith when thats' how my empire developed (lavra + aurora + oracle for instance). Running projects timed to finish at the same time with a small purchase is probably the best way to do it but it tends to depend

Again with the must have more gold thing its probably more indicative of people putting themselves into that situation rather than their choices being optimal from the start! Just because people always build CD and they like the gold that generates doesn't mean its the best choice. ya, the CD makes you gold, but there are other ways of getting what you spend that gold on. I have plenty of gold in games where I am very light on CD or even harbors, it just depends on the choices you make. Its like people who want to make more money IRL so they focus on increasing their wage without realizing that a lower top line income with other benefits or self employed income would leave them more money in the bank at the end of the year! Dogma...

If someone is buying units with gold instead of building them with an encampment there are comparisons to make and i wager one is surely better than the other on average, over the long term.

The game is too easy for most people to say what's optimal. I mean one guy above is saying that entertainment districts are one of the best 2 districts, when personally I build 1- 2 a game, tops. Perhaps he's right, I dont know. If I had to guess I would say campuses are superior to those districts as if you can drive your science significantly past your opposition you only need a couple of units to walk through their empire. You can use your extra gold for calvary while my tanks are coming, u know?

My original point was that dogmatically following what the current meme is isn't always right and people should have the chops to at least sit back and consider other options, even if they end up back at their original strat. Further, continuing to repeat that dogma because that's what they do and it 'works' doesn't make it a dominant strategy.

 

[EpicWestern]

I think CD might be the overall best district but I was completely shocked to find in another thread that people were prioritizing it is as their immediate goto regardless of victory type. Best districts according to victory type IMO:

Science: Campus (and its not even close)................ Industrial zone (I'm a huge fan of engineer points).......CD
Cutlure: Theater Square (and its not even close).................. Campus/CD (depends on city-states (Kumasi))
Religion: Holy Site (and again, not even close)................... other districts don't even matter to be honest
Domination: Here its actually a bit close between CD and Campus and I can see the argument for encampment even

Thing is, CD is always solid at least for your 3rd or 4th district in a city. Theater square, holy site, and encampment are all pretty much useless for the other victory types. Industrial zone is usually worth having one of. Harbor is just a slightly watered down version of CD. Campus is the only district that I think is arguably better.

 

[teks]

Epic,
The big reason people prioritize CD is because of traders which provide food, gold, and production. These can be used to make building the next districts faster, which is why in order of priority they tend to rank over victory districts. This is exasperated by the fact that culture and science growth actually scales up production costs.

So, if you build your production districts first, you'll be able to put those hammers into the next district and get both out much faster.

Victoria I appreciate your mission, I have high doubts, but I look forward to hearing your conclusions.

 

[Silvtown]

Yep, it's the traders. Let's look at how great they are:

• Early extra production in new cities without having to sacrifice food. When you rearrange tiles to get more production, you usually have to sacrifice some growth. Not with traders.
• Roads. Meh, but still, you get them as a bonus!
• They can complete a very common city state quest. In the early going, sending a trade route to a cultural or science city state that wants it is an easy +2 bonus. Same for the other city states.
• Policy card boosts in the mid-game can help you make progress with just about any victory condition that you're planning on.
• In the end game, trade routes don't fall off. The Ecommerce policy can be a production boon for your space race city (+5-7 hammers per route). For culture, tourism gets the 25% boost for other civs that you have a trade route with. This ties directly into the end game for two of the victory conditions.
• Money money money. The most flexible resource.
• Not to mention the other great things from the CD: Merchant points, easy adjacency bonuses, and money buildings.

I don't think it's necessary to build a CD in every city. But I'd say the number is around 80%, maybe 90%.

 

[UWHabs]

Yep, it's the traders. Let's look at how great they are:

• Early extra production in new cities without having to sacrifice food. When you rearrange tiles to get more production, you usually have to sacrifice some growth. Not with traders.
• Roads. Meh, but still, you get them as a bonus!
• They can complete a very common city state quest. In the early going, sending a trade route to a cultural or science city state that wants it is an easy +2 bonus. Same for the other city states.
• Policy card boosts in the mid-game can help you make progress with just about any victory condition that you're planning on.
• In the end game, trade routes don't fall off. The Ecommerce policy can be a production boon for your space race city (+5-7 hammers per route). For culture, tourism gets the 25% boost for other civs that you have a trade route with. This ties directly into the end game for two of the victory conditions.
• Money money money. The most flexible resource.
• Not to mention the other great things from the CD: Merchant points, easy adjacency bonuses, and money buildings.

I don't think it's necessary to build a CD in every city. But I'd say the number is around 80%, maybe 90%.

And one of the best aspects of trade routes is that they're flexible, too.
Lacking money? send it to a nearby civ or city state to get a boost in gold.
Want some science/culture? Run one of the policy cards and now your external trade routes are probably getting 2-3 science/culture/faith each
Allied with Kumasi? Get all the culture you need.
Need food? Run it to a city with a big food bonus.
Need production? Run it to a city with the hammer bonus
And you can give that bonus to whichever city needs it most.

If you treat the trader as part of the district, to me it's like putting down something that generally gives me 2-3 food, 3-4 cogs, 2-6 gold and 0-1 faith for most of the game. Compared to, say, an industrial zone which might give +2 adjacency and +2 for a workshop, it's a pretty obvious choice. Not to mention getting an extra potentially +8 gold from allying with city-states, too.

 

[Jarms48]

Yep, it's the traders. Let's look at how great they are:

• Early extra production in new cities without having to sacrifice food. When you rearrange tiles to get more production, you usually have to sacrifice some growth. Not with traders.
• Roads. Meh, but still, you get them as a bonus!
• They can complete a very common city state quest. In the early going, sending a trade route to a cultural or science city state that wants it is an easy +2 bonus. Same for the other city states.
• Policy card boosts in the mid-game can help you make progress with just about any victory condition that you're planning on.
• In the end game, trade routes don't fall off. The Ecommerce policy can be a production boon for your space race city (+5-7 hammers per route). For culture, tourism gets the 25% boost for other civs that you have a trade route with. This ties directly into the end game for two of the victory conditions.
• Money money money. The most flexible resource.
• Not to mention the other great things from the CD: Merchant points, easy adjacency bonuses, and money buildings.

I don't think it's necessary to build a CD in every city. But I'd say the number is around 80%, maybe 90%.

And one of the best aspects of trade routes is that they're flexible, too.
Lacking money? send it to a nearby civ or city state to get a boost in gold.
Want some science/culture? Run one of the policy cards and now your external trade routes are probably getting 2-3 science/culture/faith each
Allied with Kumasi? Get all the culture you need.
Need food? Run it to a city with a big food bonus.
Need production? Run it to a city with the hammer bonus
And you can give that bonus to whichever city needs it most.

If you treat the trader as part of the district, to me it's like putting down something that generally gives me 2-3 food, 3-4 cogs, 2-6 gold and 0-1 faith for most of the game. Compared to, say, an industrial zone which might give +2 adjacency and +2 for a workshop, it's a pretty obvious choice. Not to mention getting an extra potentially +8 gold from allying with city-states, too.

I'll build a commerce hub and harbour district in every city for these very reasons. You can also centralise production in single cities by sending multiple traders to them, something you can't do with overlapping industrial zones now. More traders are always a great thing, they're very flexible. The gold is just a bonus, you use it to quickly develop your new cities, buy buildings in your newly created districts, buy builders / settlers / military units. All of this lets you save production for the districts themselves and projects.

 

[paulthebug]

As I write this it makes me think more that a genuine mix of districts is best and always having a CD may be fine but probably isn't optimal.

Hmmm... I actually come to a totally opposite conclusion; because of the limited policy card slot.

I also find harbor awkward; dead end tech path, no CS boost, great admiral point and all those...