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

[WackenOpenAir]

Meeting CSes first is a huge thing in those first 50 turns, but after that, when you have a few dozen total income of each resource, those 2 in capital matter much less. If you use the get 2 envoys for the first 1 sent civic for a short moment, you can also negate the effect of getting the first one for free or not on the road to getting 3 or 6. (which thus effectively are 2 and 5).
By the time you get the envoys to really get those bonusses rolling you should have scouted most of the map and met them all.

I do still agree that the effect of meeting first in early game is too big, too much a luck factor.

And i also agree that the focus on many the same districts in as many is possible cities is a thing, and i think it is unfortunate.

 

[teks]

Trade hubs scale. No other district does that. Traders get better and better as the game goes on, while district buildings remain the same.

 

[Quillan]

[QUOTE="Victoria, post: 14655184,
Too much science/culture?
[/QUOTE]

Too much as in you miss a lot and its valuable and missing too much of a good thing is bad while a little is ok.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I just did a bit more experimentation. As I mentioned earlier, I used to not focus on commercial districts and instead did primarily campus/industrial and then did just enough commercial to keep me in the black money wise. Well I played 2 games (one as Germany one as Kongo) on deity and in both games I built maybe 3 campuses at the start and then switched to building commercial in pretty much every city. Both games I am performing more strongly than usual. This is primarily due to 2 things:

(1) I can purchase granaries rather than hard build them. This allows me to grow faster while still building district stuff and settlers.

(2) I can upgrade my military to swordsmen/crossbows faster, which allows me to conquer more quickly, and thus force the AI to give more money sooner in peace deals. Then I could use that money to accelerate other things. So yea, overall I think buidling as many CD as early as possible is a strategy change that I will be adopting.

Exactly my experience.

In case people are unaware As England up until this threat I would typically have as many harbors and CZ as I could have and they seem to work. My issue was, If I have 10 cities and 20 Trade routes and good money making cards I start going crazy with what I spend it on.

I just started a game as England over the weekend, and I found myself on a track for a Science victory. Playing at Immortal, I built 5 cities in a cramped area, and didn't seize any cities from my immediate neighbors (which was almost certainly a mistake). I noticed that I was slipping behind in research, so I concentrated on building Campuses. Then I found a large island, occupied only by a City State that hadn't claimed much land, with room for 4-5 cities. I could see that a few other Civs had discovered the island, so I had to hurry. I settled 4 new cities on the island simultaneously, but with only ~1,500 gold in the bank, I was unable to get them built as I would have liked. I'm also using all 8 of my trade routes on those 4 cities, as domestic routes to boost their food and production, so my gpt has plummeted.

I think that, even for my science-oriented goal, building 5 CZs and 3 Dockyards in my 5 "home" cities (3 are coastal, 2 are inland) would have been a better investment than all those Campuses. My new colony of 4 cities would be in better shape and on its way to practically doubling my science output. Instead, they're struggling to get their walls, granaries, and water wheels built (I used all of my gold building Monuments and seizing hexes, to prevent the AI from claiming any useful land on the island). 8 trade routes on 5 cities was meager; 8 trade routes on 9 cities is nearly catastrophic.

At least in this one game, I made two possibly-crippling errors. I didn't punch my immediate neighbors in the throat early, and I didn't build a CZ in every city. I'm going to keep playing, just to see if I can pull up out of this dive. If I'd done both of those things, I'd have 12-15 strong cities churning out whatever I wanted and I'd be able to pick any VC except religious.

 

[Victoria]

Yes, I suspect I have been spoilt as England with trade routes, museums and redcoats.
But getting those cities out first is critical on deity. My current game had no islands and all coastal was gone so fast I was pushed in by Germany who has encampments in every city

 

[EgonSpengler]

Yes, I suspect I have been spoilt as England with trade routes, museums and redcoats.
But getting those cities out first is critical on deity. My current game had no islands and all coastal was gone so fast I was pushed in by Germany who has encampments in every city

Those free colonial regiments are pretty nice. I was worried Tomyris might see me stretching my forces to cover the 4 new cities, but it was nothing a little conscription couldn't solve. Now I'm racing to get a few of these 28-gun "frigates" to sea. Admiral Santa Cruz insists they'll resolve the pirate problem in our newly-christened English Channel in a single season. Vice Admiral Nelson believes we're thinking too small and should armor them - literally clad them in iron! - and give them a second gun-deck. Can you imagine?

 

[Victoria]

Can you imagine

Indeed one can.... and with those battleships just over the horizon, if one feels so inclined one can rule every tile within 3-4 of a coast... and those colonial regiments pop up in every city taken. Even on the back foot at this stage it does become a faceroll but quite a different pleasant one.
It is why one gave up on domination... England is a mid game comeback kid.
It certainly sounds like one is enjoying the game which is what its all about.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

What are you building instead that gives better utility than the trade route yields? VCs don't require more than one district aside from one focused towards them, which means by pop 7 you're at 2 additional districts other than VC district, and you might as well build the ones that get city infrastructure going first.

So what non-VC district are you putting in place of CD/IP and why? You can make a case for research sometimes, if that's looking to be a bottleneck and you're not reaching pop 10 (odd for a research city).

If you replace it with harbor it's similar in utility but go ahead on water maps.

 

[Victoria]

Do you have to replace it? as opposed to just not building it?
Saying that I wonder if you could get a deity domination victory with 0 districts. hmmmm

 

[Captain Queeg]

I do build CD's in pretty well every city.

In the early game, I will alternate building campuses and commercial districts, since I start so far behind in tech and want to catch up asap.

I'm usually going for a dom victory, so by mid game, everyone usually hates me. Since I can't sell luxes for anything decent, cd's are the only reasonable way I can get enough cash to keep upgrading my military. Lots of traders are useful too for building roads to newly conquered or target cities, or "wasting" on city state quests

 

[Tacgnol]

So I just skimmed the thread but no one seems to have mentioned what in my last game was the biggest factor...the merchant CS bonus.

The other bonuses are +2, not that huge, and you generally build less Campus/Theater Square/Holy Sites because the bonus is less versatile and adjacencies are less readily available, the production bonuses are huge but only applicable some of the time, Industrial CS are still my favorite. But the merchant CS bonus is +4, double the standard adjacency you will get, if you put 6 envoys or add a second merchant CS that doubles to +8. So now just for building a CD you get a free +8 gold, in addition to the adjacency and added benefit of a trade route which is already arguably worth more than the other districts. Max out 2 merchant CS which is easily doable by mid-late game and you are getting +16 passive GPT in every single CD. You can have a small colony city, making like +10 production and +2-4 culture and science and +6 gold, and either add an IZ for +2-3 production, Theater Square for +3-9 culture, a Campus for +3-9 science, or a CD for +18 gold AND a trade route, with 2 CS.

Couple this with the fact that Harbors don't benefit from any type of CS and they are outclassed by CDs even on water maps provided you have land tiles to place them on.

In my last game, I was getting +24-27 gold from each CD, just passively with no buildings, it was ridiculous, I was making 1200+ GPT late game, 2600 GPT with like 80/110 trade routes by the end (was a world conquest on a Huge map). Merchant CS bonus is just insanely powerful, it needs a nerf, should probably be split with Harbors so it's +2 gold per CD/Harbor rather than just +4 per CD.

To answer if you can spend that much...yes, a Modern Armor or Rocket Artillery Army costs 12k gold, a Jet Bomber costs 4k, I spent all my money on the conquest and buying traders until the last 50 turns or so and didn't even have enough extra to purchase builders or buildings in my cities, my conquest was slowed mainly by awful production and not enough siege units, I would have been able to win a lot faster if I had a higher income earlier on.

 

[MyOtherName]

The gold bonuses are quantitatively larger, but don't forget that gold is worth less; if you're purchasing units and buildings, you have to pay 4 gold for every 1 cog you purchase.

 

[knighterrant81]

Random thought: after all this discussions about districts, I'd like to see a nerf to Trade Routes to bring Commercial Hubs more in line with other districts. I don't think they can really buff other districts, because buffing can get out of control very quickly and introduce new problems. Directly nerfing trade route yields would probably just make them worthless. Instead, what I would do is break Trade Routes off of Commercial Hubs completely, and tie Trade Route capacity to Tech/Civics, Governments, or Wonders (like Civ 5). Commercial Hubs would probably need some kind of buff at that point, actually since the buildings themselves are rather meh. This would serve to make choosing districts a bit more interesting.

 

[Victoria]

But the merchant CS bonus is +4

The game seems to treat gold as half the value of culture/science/prod... and seems to make rough sense so the merchant CS bonus is the same

they are outclassed by CDs even on water map

I would say that is a blatant overstatement with no quaification bar CS values. When you make such statements it devalues what else you state. A harbour is not to be underestimated It has a completely different function. Worse... this thread is about how many... on a water map you may be better off with 3 CD and a harbor... That is what this thread is about.
For example are you are telling me you need 2600 GPT to win a domination game? I suspect you will find some people will disagree with you

I do agree it is a good idea to split the CS with Harbors.

High income early, sure it seems the key thing for most strats (not necessarily for the fastest non reigious culture victory)

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

Random thought: after all this discussions about districts, I'd like to see a nerf to Trade Routes to bring Commercial Hubs more in line with other districts. I don't think they can really buff other districts, because buffing can get out of control very quickly and introduce new problems. Directly nerfing trade route yields would probably just make them worthless. Instead, what I would do is break Trade Routes off of Commercial Hubs completely, and tie Trade Route capacity to Tech/Civics, Governments, or Wonders (like Civ 5). Commercial Hubs would probably need some kind of buff at that point, actually since the buildings themselves are rather meh. This would serve to make choosing districts a bit more interesting.

Sincerely, I didn't like the limited trade routes from Civ 5. 10 trade routes were only ok because you wouldn't have much more than 4 core cities. I'd only be ok with this if every pop give me something like 0.5 production per turn to compensate the loss of production (and help the slow production in the game).

 

[The googles do nothing]

Random thought: after all this discussions about districts, I'd like to see a nerf to Trade Routes to bring Commercial Hubs more in line with other districts. I don't think they can really buff other districts, because buffing can get out of control very quickly and introduce new problems. Directly nerfing trade route yields would probably just make them worthless. Instead, what I would do is break Trade Routes off of Commercial Hubs completely, and tie Trade Route capacity to Tech/Civics, Governments, or Wonders (like Civ 5). Commercial Hubs would probably need some kind of buff at that point, actually since the buildings themselves are rather meh. This would serve to make choosing districts a bit more interesting.

I don't think CH are more powerful then other districts. They are just more necessary. Especially the domination victory requires a lot of money to pay for unit maintenance and upgrades (not so much against AI..). I think you do have a point about trade routes and the cogs they provide making external trade routes not very meaningful. I would be nice if sending a external trade route had a more affect on how much the like you, how much war wariness a human got from declaring war on you, or occasionally earned you one of your trading partners boosts or techs. If couldn't just plow all your trade routes into cogs that would be better way to nerf them

 

[knighterrant81]

Sincerely, I didn't like the limited trade routes from Civ 5. 10 trade routes were only ok because you wouldn't have much more than 4 core cities. I'd only be ok with this if every pop give me something like 0.5 production per turn to compensate the loss of production (and help the slow production in the game).

I'm not really attached to the Civ 5 version, just that Trade Routes are really what is making CH's so powerful. That and how easy they are to build. You don't see people (other than Victoria ) rushing Harbors. Removing trade routes might make them more balanced.

I would say that a limit on the number of trade routes would be helpful - otherwise, whatever you attach trade routes to becomes the new OP thing that you just spam.

 

[knighterrant81]

I don't think CH are more powerful then other districts. They are just more necessary.

I don't see the distinction here.

I would be nice if sending a external trade route had a more affect on how much the like you,

I think you do actually get a bonus for sending them a route? Or maybe I'm not remembering correctly. Guess that's what happens when you never send a route to the AI

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

I'm not really attached to the Civ 5 version, just that Trade Routes are really what is making CH's so powerful. That and how easy they are to build. You don't see people (other than Victoria ) rushing Harbors. Removing trade routes might make them more balanced.

I would say that a limit on the number of trade routes would be helpful - otherwise, whatever you attach trade routes to becomes the new OP thing that you just spam.

Maybe if every 2 Commercial Hubs unlock a new trade route, and leave Harbors as they are. Harbors are somewhat situational and is in a dead-end tech.

I think you do actually get a bonus for sending them a route? Or maybe I'm not remembering correctly. Guess that's what happens when you never send a route to the AI

You get a +2 or +3 from "Good trade relations" modifier, which is pretty minor. Also, it brings more gold and might bring other yields (such as Science or Culture), depending on which districts they built.

 

[knighterrant81]

Maybe if every 2 Commercial Hubs unlock a new trade route, and leave Harbors as they are. Harbors are somewhat situational and is in a dead-end tech.

Districts require so much investment that this would probably lead to either the situation we have now (CH spam) or no one building CH/using trade routes.