New Districts

[Victoria]

Ahhhh my error. tx for educating me.

 

[Candido Rondon]

Perhaps there's a life expectancy built into the system? Higher appeal neighborhoods attract healthier, wealthier citizens whose income gives them access to better food, healthcare, etc. Whereas lower appeal neighborhoods are literal tinderboxes in which fire, crime, and disease constantly threaten to wipe out masses of the poor who live in such close proximity.

An interesting perspective. That makes me think that possible benefits for potential buildings like Police Stations, Fire Departments, and Hospitals could be to raise the Appeal in Neighborhood districts in the city.

I'll list off some of the things I'm working on in my own mod.

Mutually-exclusive buildings across districts. Like the Art Museum/Archaeological Museum but applying across the city. You can build a General Hospital in the City district (Housing and Amenities) OR a Research Hospital (Housing and science) in the Science Campus. You can build a Research Lab (lots of research) in the Science Campus OR a Testing Range in the Encampment (some research but also more XP).

City Park: A district that boosts the Appeal of adjacent districts. City Parks also get a space for a single building. Players can build a War Memorial (less war weariness), Art Installation (more culture), Worker's Monument (extra production), Playground (more amenities), or a Botanical Garden (science and culture).

 

[UWHabs]

To me, the aqueduct district should essentially transform into a sort of "health" district:
-By default, the district provides +1 housing to the city, and can be built anywhere.
-The first building is an aqueduct (if placement allows it). Alternately, maybe you can build a well for +1 housing.
-Next building is the sewer (or if you want to keep that in the centre, then maybe an apothecary or something)
-Final building is a hospital, which is a regional building (like a zoo or stadium). Maybe its effect could be something like +1 housing for every neighbourhood in its zone. That would give a cool bonus where you might also need to plan your neighbourhoods in range of your hospitals.

I also think that every district should be changed so that at least one building is a "regional" building (broadcast centre, research lab, stock exchange, airport wouldn't take a lot of trouble to think of as regional buildings, although I guess the harbor probably wouldn't have one though). You could even consider making every district have its final 2 buildings as regional buildings - if you did it that way, that would give an even bigger benefit to building different districts in each city, but then you might have the problem of that pushing too much in favour of an ICS style.

 

[Zaarin]

Something like land reclamation. But yes, exactly like the harbor.
It doesn't need to be restricted I think. It should be a late technology (it is a restriction by itself), but that allows you to build a late district in a coastal city. For instance, your capital might be restricted district wise by being a coastal city more than by population. You could add airport, neighbourhood or entertainment late in the game. It does make sense, and some big coastal cities did it in real life (tokyo, dubai, ...).

About the cost, maybe 50% increase of the district coast is reasonable.

It doesn't have to be a late technology. The Neolithic inhabitants of Scotland and the Aztecs both created artificial islands (a missed opportunity, IMO)--it should just be expensive early on.

 

[Leyrann]

To me, the aqueduct district should essentially transform into a sort of "health" district:
-By default, the district provides +1 housing to the city, and can be built anywhere.
-The first building is an aqueduct (if placement allows it). Alternately, maybe you can build a well for +1 housing.
-Next building is the sewer (or if you want to keep that in the centre, then maybe an apothecary or something)
-Final building is a hospital, which is a regional building (like a zoo or stadium). Maybe its effect could be something like +1 housing for every neighbourhood in its zone. That would give a cool bonus where you might also need to plan your neighbourhoods in range of your hospitals.

I also think that every district should be changed so that at least one building is a "regional" building (broadcast centre, research lab, stock exchange, airport wouldn't take a lot of trouble to think of as regional buildings, although I guess the harbor probably wouldn't have one though). You could even consider making every district have its final 2 buildings as regional buildings - if you did it that way, that would give an even bigger benefit to building different districts in each city, but then you might have the problem of that pushing too much in favour of an ICS style.

Would be fine for me. I love expanding until the very last tile of land is used. And imo there's already enough restrictions in place with increasing settler costs, having to spend part of your production on actually getting some districts going so you don't fall behind, and having to build a military to hold off attackers (mods only).

 

[Captain Potato]

I like the City Park idea. You can see how that would be situationally powerful with the right planning and the right districts and improvements around it. I think that's the key to making the district system work well; the positioning and adjacency bonuses.

Of the current districts, the one that really bugs me is the entertainment district. It's boring because it only does one thing (amenities), doesn't do much as regards to position, and worse than that it's actually strong as well and eventually trivialises that mechanic. Plus, of all the districts it's the one that makes the least sense from a real life perspective. If it were up to me I'd do away with the whole district and spread amenity bonuses among other districts (probably putting several in the culture district, since that's probably the weakest of the main districts).

For other districts, how do people feel about a return to national wonders? You could put significant positional requirements on them such that it would be unfeasible to build them all in the same place, and hence create more personalisation between different cities.

I think that's the key actually. At the moment you kinda end up building the same things in every city. You want districts that are more situationally useful, not just towards particular goals, but with positional requirements or bonuses that make them not viable in every city.

 

[Leyrann]

I agree about the Entertainment District. It's probably the most non-interactive district of the game, even before Encampment (which you might sometimes be able to use to defend a choke point) and Theater Square (you might accidentally build a wonder or two despite their super high costs).

Would also tie in with my earlier proposal of the R&D district, of which the final building gave an amenity. You could then decide to add an amenity to the Amphitheater, one to a museum, etc. I don't think every building in a district should grant amenities though.

Maybe I'll dive some more into coding and start working on a district mod... Not promising anything though, as I'm good at having lots of ideas and then never working them out.

 

[Elucidus]

Perhaps there's a life expectancy built into the system? Higher appeal neighborhoods attract healthier, wealthier citizens whose income gives them access to better food, healthcare, etc. Whereas lower appeal neighborhoods are literal tinderboxes in which fire, crime, and disease constantly threaten to wipe out masses of the poor who live in such close proximity.

I feeel like this was the intent, but I think you should be able to fix that, like someone mentioned below. Adding hospitals and police stations.

It is not a new district (well, it could be ...) but I would like to have the possibility to build (at least some) districts on water tiles that connected to land tiles. Real life example of artificial islands or land extensions exist. For instance, the Haneda airport in Tokyo is an artificial island.

I really like this idea, but you can only put buildings in one district, so perhaps secondary or specialty buildings would go in here?

You mean like a harbour?
What you are suggesting seems to be land reclamation. A great idea but I doubt should be cheap and probably limited to a single tile per city to stop rude things being written in A fine game by Firaxis.

Not sure i understand the last statement about rude things. I think if the resources are available a city should be able ot reclaim the tiles it wants, perhaps make it so it cannot be built next to a harbor?

An interesting perspective. That makes me think that possible benefits for potential buildings like Police Stations, Fire Departments, and Hospitals could be to raise the Appeal in Neighborhood districts in the city.

I'll list off some of the things I'm working on in my own mod.

Mutually-exclusive buildings across districts. Like the Art Museum/Archaeological Museum but applying across the city. You can build a General Hospital in the City district (Housing and Amenities) OR a Research Hospital (Housing and science) in the Science Campus. You can build a Research Lab (lots of research) in the Science Campus OR a Testing Range in the Encampment (some research but also more XP).

City Park: A district that boosts the Appeal of adjacent districts. City Parks also get a space for a single building. Players can build a War Memorial (less war weariness), Art Installation (more culture), Worker's Monument (extra production), Playground (more amenities), or a Botanical Garden (science and culture).

I am doing similar things in my mod with neighborhoods, though I can't stand that name.

I like the City Park idea. You can see how that would be situationally powerful with the right planning and the right districts and improvements around it. I think that's the key to making the district system work well; the positioning and adjacency bonuses.

Of the current districts, the one that really bugs me is the entertainment district. It's boring because it only does one thing (amenities), doesn't do much as regards to position, and worse than that it's actually strong as well and eventually trivialises that mechanic. Plus, of all the districts it's the one that makes the least sense from a real life perspective. If it were up to me I'd do away with the whole district and spread amenity bonuses among other districts (probably putting several in the culture district, since that's probably the weakest of the main districts).

For other districts, how do people feel about a return to national wonders? You could put significant positional requirements on them such that it would be unfeasible to build them all in the same place, and hence create more personalisation between different cities.

I think that's the key actually. At the moment you kinda end up building the same things in every city. You want districts that are more situationally useful, not just towards particular goals, but with positional requirements or bonuses that make them not viable in every city.

Yeah I can't stand the idea of the entertainment district, so I ram removing it, moving its buildings to the theater district, though that will be renamed as well. And national wonders are a must, for restrictions you can make them all exclusive in the city, so only one can be built, I believe that is what he did in wondrous wonders mod.

 

[Victoria]

@Elucidus I mean people reclaiming land into the shape of a penis and then posting it online.
... Or worse, I am sure Firaxis would be keen on avoiding such things

 

[Leyrann]

@Elucidus I mean people reclaiming land into the shape of a penis and then posting it online.
... Or worse, I am sure Firaxis would be keen on avoiding such things

Only allowing reclamation of coastal tiles would fix that, I suppose.

And besides, World Builder exists.

 

[Victoria]

And besides, World Builder exists.

Very true

 

[CaptainShootALot]

I'm trying to work out a system for a mod that I intend to make that (among other things) adds the ability for cities to really benefit from nearby resources and specialise towards individual industries. I was wondering what way would be better to try to achieve this general idea: creating different specialty districts with adjacency bonuses, mechanics and a set of buildings tailored to a specific branch OR one 'guilds' district that has a number of slots for buildings that will specialise this district and add bonuses over time

 

[Leyrann]

I'm trying to work out a system for a mod that I intend to make that (among other things) adds the ability for cities to really benefit from nearby resources and specialise towards individual industries. I was wondering what way would be better to try to achieve this general idea: creating different specialty districts with adjacency bonuses, mechanics and a set of buildings tailored to a specific branch OR one 'guilds' district that has a number of slots for buildings that will specialise this district and add bonuses over time

You could change the buildings for districts (probably mostly the Commercial Hub and Industrial Zone) where there are a bunch of mutually exclusive buildings that do different things, for example for the Industrial Zone you could maybe, instead of a Workshop, choose between a Forge (production from iron) or a Carpenter's Shop (production from forest).

EDIT: You could even just add the Forge and Carpenter's Shop, and say, for example, that the Forge gives +3 production for Iron, while the Carpenter's Shop gives +1 production per forest tile, while you leave the Workshop as it is (+2 production, right?). That way you can gain a better boost if you have iron or are working forest tiles, while you can also decide to just build the "standard" Workshop, which gives a smaller bonus but doesn't require anything on the map.

Just throwing out idea's here though.

Actually scratch that last sentence. Can I help you with making the mod? I have many, many different ideas for mods, but I have no practical experience whatshowever (I have yet to figure out how the .modinfo file works, just to name something).

EDIT #2: All this said though, I guess you might want to add a few more districts to avoid having either 10 buildings to choose from or one building working for 5 different resources.

 

[Candido Rondon]

I'm planning to have a number of mutually-exclusive buildings not just per district but across districts that will let players really specialize their cities.

Something else that I realized the other day too is that breaking buildings out on to tiles allows us to very easily do something that was trickier in previous games. I tried to mod Civ4 years ago so that you had to "employ" people to operate a Factory. It would take a population point out of the pool for Specialists and working tiles. It never worked well, but we've already got worker placement on tiles!

So you could remove the flat production bonus for a Factory and instead give a production bonus per citizen working in the Industrial Zone. This allows you to specialize not just by amassing certain buildings but by how you employ your population.

Another thing to consider is allowing multiples of the same district per city. Lots of mutually-exclusive buildings might penalize smaller civs too much, so allowing two Science Campuses or two Industrial Zones might be necessary to offset that penalty.

 

[TruthfulCake]

I would like a "Security and Intelligence" district, where you can fit buildings such as constabulary, police station, intelligence agency, etc. The district would serve as a secondary source of amenity (not through entertainment, but through security), and it will function as an encampment for spies, in that newly trained spies will get promotions, or spies can be trained faster, etc. The district can also decrease enemy spy effectiveness in the surrounding hexes by a certain percentage, although counterspy is still needed to capture an enemy spy.

Other than that, I think that the other districts as suggested in this thread can be extensions of the existing districts, i.e. you only need to introduce new buildings, not districts per se.

 

[CaptainShootALot]

I was also thinking of a set of ''sub-districts'' that either need to be adjacent to, or require their base district. They would function as an extension of the base specialty districts that we have now. Think of a writers guild district that will increase the output of your great works of writing that you already amassed in your theatre square or a foundry district with weapon- and armoursmithies that will benefit your armies.

 

[TruthfulCake]

I was also thinking of a set of ''sub-districts'' that either need to be adjacent to, or require their base district. They would function as an extension of the base specialty districts that we have now. Think of a writers guild district that will increase the output of your great works of writing that you already amassed in your theatre square or a foundry district with weapon- and armoursmithies that will benefit your armies.

That would require a lot of tiles to execute. As it is, between the existing districts, neighborhoods/farms, tile improvements, and wonders, you already have a shortage of tiles. I don't think building a sub-district will be appealing if it only gives marginal bonuses over their parent district. Unless you are proposing a sub-district within the existing district tile, at which point it is not much different from having an extra building, IMO.

 

[Elucidus]

@Elucidus I mean people reclaiming land into the shape of a penis and then posting it online.
... Or worse, I am sure Firaxis would be keen on avoiding such things

lol, I had no idea.

I'm trying to work out a system for a mod that I intend to make that (among other things) adds the ability for cities to really benefit from nearby resources and specialise towards individual industries. I was wondering what way would be better to try to achieve this general idea: creating different specialty districts with adjacency bonuses, mechanics and a set of buildings tailored to a specific branch OR one 'guilds' district that has a number of slots for buildings that will specialise this district and add bonuses over time

I am trying to add this to my mod at the moment, using local resources, but the biggest problem is there is no way to enforce the resource being within the city radius or even building the district over the resource, as that would also allow you to focus it. You can only plant it next to the resource. There is a workaround in the works, but iI haven't checked on it in a few days. refinement of resources into new resources is a great use of this as well. Also there aren't really slots in the districts so much as the buildings are assigned to them. I don't think you could assign like 10 different buildings but only allow five to be build. Perhaps I am misunderstanding you, see the above post, I do that somethings.

I'm planning to have a number of mutually-exclusive buildings not just per district but across districts that will let players really specialize their cities.

Something else that I realized the other day too is that breaking buildings out on to tiles allows us to very easily do something that was trickier in previous games. I tried to mod Civ4 years ago so that you had to "employ" people to operate a Factory. It would take a population point out of the pool for Specialists and working tiles. It never worked well, but we've already got worker placement on tiles!

So you could remove the flat production bonus for a Factory and instead give a production bonus per citizen working in the Industrial Zone. This allows you to specialize not just by amassing certain buildings but by how you employ your population.

Another thing to consider is allowing multiples of the same district per city. Lots of mutually-exclusive buildings might penalize smaller civs too much, so allowing two Science Campuses or two Industrial Zones might be necessary to offset that penalty.

Yes, very good ideas. The multiple districts per city is also something I have been playing with as well.

I would like a "Security and Intelligence" district, where you can fit buildings such as constabulary, police station, intelligence agency, etc. The district would serve as a secondary source of amenity (not through entertainment, but through security), and it will function as an encampment for spies, in that newly trained spies will get promotions, or spies can be trained faster, etc. The district can also decrease enemy spy effectiveness in the surrounding hexes by a certain percentage, although counterspy is still needed to capture an enemy spy.

Other than that, I think that the other districts as suggested in this thread can be extensions of the existing districts, i.e. you only need to introduce new buildings, not districts per se.

I'm not sure that is an entire disctrict, sounds like perhaps a couple of buildings in teh city center, no?

I was also thinking of a set of ''sub-districts'' that either need to be adjacent to, or require their base district. They would function as an extension of the base specialty districts that we have now. Think of a writers guild district that will increase the output of your great works of writing that you already amassed in your theatre square or a foundry district with weapon- and armoursmithies that will benefit your armies.

I have to agree with TruthfulCake, that would take a lot of districts and you wouldn't have a lot to show for it I think.

 

[TruthfulCake]

I'm not sure that is an entire disctrict, sounds like perhaps a couple of buildings in teh city center, no?

At first I thought so too, which is why I proposed an additional effect of AOE spy effectiveness reduction. With it as a district, the effect can be applied where you want as opposed to when confined to the city center. Not that this effect is entirely necessary, but it would add complexity and risk to espionage.

 

[Elucidus]

Good point.