New interview with Ed Beach [new info!]

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

There is alot of things we don't know yet. We don't know if citizens provide resources by merely existing. We don't know how specialist works. We don't know what the aqueduct district does.

These things are pretty important to know how valuable growth is. Large cities want good specialist, infitie amount of them if possible as land would be rare for large cities as everything have to be farmed or used for neighbourhoods.

If the aqueduct reduce the upkeep cost of citizens it will reduce the needs of farms which will allow for a larger populations due to allowing farms to be replaced by neighbourhoods. If it increase the housing capacity you need less neighbourhoods and if it reduce the cost to grow then it don't really have much of an effect other then you reach the cap sooner.

Civ IV system was pretty poor in the long run as it really did nothing to stop snowballing after the early game, it made conquest very profitable.

 

[Magil]

Civ IV system was pretty poor in the long run as it really did nothing to stop snowballing after the early game, it made conquest very profitable.

Whether or not that's a bad thing is debatable, but I certainly feel it's infinitely preferable to settling a few cities and leaving the rest of the land bare because you don't want additional cities, and conquest totally unprofitable except in hurting enemies.

 

[Haggbart]

There is alot of things we don't know yet. We don't know if citizens provide resources by merely existing. We don't know how specialist works. We don't know what the aqueduct district does.

These things are pretty important to know how valuable growth is. Large cities want good specialist, infitie amount of them if possible as land would be rare for large cities as everything have to be farmed or used for neighbourhoods.

If the aqueduct reduce the upkeep cost of citizens it will reduce the needs of farms which will allow for a larger populations due to allowing farms to be replaced by neighbourhoods. If it increase the housing capacity you need less neighbourhoods and if it reduce the cost to grow then it don't really have much of an effect other then you reach the cap sooner.

Civ IV system was pretty poor in the long run as it really did nothing to stop snowballing after the early game, it made conquest very profitable.

That is true.

I do believe that we have some good indications that there will be a science penalty pr city (but probably not a culture penalty). So there is a good chance that accumulating many cities early can severely hit your tech rate. Also that you might want a small(er) empire to win a science victory and a larger one for culture/tourism victories.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

They are not using either Civ IV nor Civ V system to limit expansion.

They are also limiting buildings by locking districts behind population limits. The gold cost mean you have to develop your gold production at some point. Given how valuable districts are you are most likely not going to build one that will give you a net negative anyway. The goal should be to make them all relevant without making anyone to relevant.

I doubt we will see Civ IV specalization make a return, most likely large cities will be pretty all around then it comes to resources instead of super focused on a single resource. Im not sure if large empire will be good a tourism as there is likely that each city you found cost amenities and amenities are important in some way then it comes to tourism.

I think 2 victory conditions may favor large empires and 2 victory conditions may favor small empires.

 

[Magil]

They are also limiting buildings by locking districts behind population limits. The gold cost mean you have to develop your gold production at some point. Given how valuable districts are you are most likely not going to build one that will give you a net negative anyway. The goal should be to make them all relevant without making anyone to relevant.

I doubt we will see Civ IV specalization make a return, most likely large cities will be pretty all around then it comes to resources instead of super focused on a single resource. Im not sure if large empire will be good a tourism as there is likely that each city you found cost amenities and amenities are important in some way then it comes to tourism.

Wouldn't city specialization make more sense given that you literally can't build every building in every city? Districts seem like a move intentionally in the direction of city specialization, since at a certain point in the game you might have a campus district in a city or an encampment in a city, but most likely not both.

I think 2 victory conditions may favor large empires and 2 victory conditions may favor small empires.

Based on what?

 

[Haggbart]

They are not using either Civ IV nor Civ V system to limit expansion.

They are also limiting buildings by locking districts behind population limits. The gold cost mean you have to develop your gold production at some point. Given how valuable districts are you are most likely not going to build one that will give you a net negative anyway. The goal should be to make them all relevant without making anyone to relevant.

I doubt we will see Civ IV specalization make a return, most likely large cities will be pretty all around then it comes to resources instead of super focused on a single resource. Im not sure if large empire will be good a tourism as there is likely that each city you found cost amenities and amenities are important in some way then it comes to tourism.

I think 2 victory conditions may favor large empires and 2 victory conditions may favor small empires.

It's going to be pretty different from Civ4, that's for sure. No cottage spam, no GP farm, but you do have a lot of different districts and wonders to fit in with the terrain. So cities are more of a jigsaw to fit in the terrain. Since there is science mali pr city, the campus is basically one district we know that you want in EVERY city, also the military district seems pretty crucial, at least for border cities. So I would argue that we will have way MORE specialization, but very different.

On culture victories: Generally you would want a lot of museums, opera houses and whatever to make room for great works that will generate tourism. That speaks in favour of tourism as a "wide" v.condition.

Also, there is this quote from Dennis Shirk
“One thing we are doing is we’re not gimping the builder anymore. Builders typically went tall in Civ V. We’re now, with local happiness, you can actually have a wide empire and be a builder at the same time. You may not be super technically proficient, but you’re going to super cultural and deep into that civics tree at the same time.”

Which indicate that if culture and tourism is linked kinda like in CiV, tourism will favour wide play.

My guess is that science is the one victory condition where you would not go too wide (with a tech penalty pr city) while also serving as a way of limiting snowballing.

 

[Magil]

Is it confirmed that there's a science penalty per city? I haven't heard that yet but it's entirely possible I missed that in an interview.

 

[Haggbart]

Is it confirmed that there's a science penalty per city? I haven't heard that yet but it's entirely possible I missed that in an interview.

“One thing we are doing is we’re not gimping the builder anymore. Builders typically went tall in Civ V. We’re now, with local happiness, you can actually have a wide empire and be a builder at the same time. You may not be super technically proficient, but you’re going to super cultural and deep into that civics tree at the same time.”


Why else would you "not be super technically proficient" by going wide if there is no tech penalty? But I don't know if it was mentioned specifically in any interview.

 

[Magil]

“One thing we are doing is we’re not gimping the builder anymore. Builders typically went tall in Civ V. We’re now, with local happiness, you can actually have a wide empire and be a builder at the same time. You may not be super technically proficient, but you’re going to super cultural and deep into that civics tree at the same time.”


Why else would you "not be super technically proficient" by going wide if there is no tech penalty? But I don't know if it was mentioned specifically in any interview.

I admit that's a possible interpretation, but until it's confirmed I'm going to be hopeful that there's no arbitrary penalties to science for settling cities.

 

[King Rad]

One other item mentioned about builders is that they can remove features. He stated that they can "create improvements or remove features." This might answer the question that's been asked in several threads about how farms are removed/replaced in the later game.

edit: and the "builders" I'm discussing here are the worker replacement, not civ players who are "builders."

 

[gfeier]

I'm still trying to figure out if districts can be replaced by other districts. Any ideas?

 

[Deggial]

... Since there is science mali pr city, the campus is basically one district we know that you want in EVERY city, also the military district seems pretty crucial, at least for border cities. So I would argue that we will have way MORE specialization, but very different.

On culture victories: Generally you would want a lot of museums, opera houses and whatever to make room for great works that will generate tourism. ...

As the tech-tree is now split into tech- and cultural-tree (which includes many/most/all government types and probaply many other crucial achievements), I don't think we should discriminate science- and culrural buildings (districts) the same way as in the past. Cultural districts will be as necessary as science ones - even without the cultural victory in mind.
So, you may want science AND cultural districts in every city or - which is more likely due to the restrictions and different bonuses - at least science and cultural spezialiced cities in +/- equal numbers.

I am not sure about military districts. You want a strong industry in them, which is more likely in your core cities. I believe, we will have less military-focused cities than in previous games due to the district restrictions; maybe only three or four (due to the type-specialization). We might want to build some encampments to get the additional fortification, of course. I doubt, however, that our main unit-production will be widespread over many cities. (At least in a domination game, frontier cities change fast enough anyway... )

@gfeier: In the first play-through movie, farms were replaced by more suitable districts/world wonders. So, the answer is: Yes! I think, it is a simple act of "build over".
Edit: on the other hands... Farms are no districts! Hmmm...
But in all previous games, we could sell buildings. It would be surprising, if this wouldn't be possible any more.

 

[LDiCesare]

Cities and citizens have upkeep costs as well so why not buildings?

Because it encourages ICS. Without upkeep costs for buildings, building well-developped cities incurs no penalty. Having buildings cost upkeep mechanically encourages spending your production on more cities with less buildings, which in turn enforces artificial limits to city placement (like civ 5 which increased the distance between which you could build cities in a patch because otherwise spamming cities was too successful).
Overall, it's a very brittle system. I wish I could find Soren Johnson's rationale about why he removed building maintenance in Civ IV. In addition, to me, it's simply not fun to build stuff that costs upkeep after playing civIV. The costs of inflation and pop growth, which are more or less hidden and don't require a conscious action on my part, are ok. I'm not being penalised for stuff I do. But for buildings, I am. For units, I don't mind, because waging wars has always been the most expensive activity of nations, and I can easily disband them if I want to lower my costs.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

That buildings have upkeep don't encourage ICS. ICS is only encouraged if the cost of fouding and maintaining the city is low and that may not be the case in Civ VI.

If the gain of the building outweights its cost it is worth building and that is likely to be the case in Civ VI as long as it is sensible, like building a market in a city that don't produce any gold don't make sense.

Civ IV did not really have any cap whatsoever against wide, you just needed to get over the early game wall and then everything after that was profitable which made anything after the early game dull.

 

[AriochIV]

Part of Montezuma's special ability is "Luxuries give Amenities to extra cities", implying that Luxury resources don't normally give Amenities to all cities.

 

[Magil]

Civ IV did not really have any cap whatsoever against wide, you just needed to get over the early game wall and then everything after that was profitable which made anything after the early game dull.

This is quite misleading. It's true that once you got over the early game hump, cities were generally a net profit within a reasonable time-frame (which is good), but by that time, all of the land (or most of it) was claimed.

Conquest was always beneficial in terms of cities claimed, but the tension is supposed to be "can I accomplish a quick and decisive victory", at which point war is a good idea, and if you think it'll be a slog, then it's not a good idea. And then there is the consideration, "can I win with the land I have", in which case, while war may be beneficial, it is not strictly necessary (in a MP situation these considerations change slightly but are largely the same). It was not always the perfect system, but it worked very well and in my humble opinion was far from boring. Civilization IV had hands-down the best approach to managing expansion.

I'm still really fuzzy on how VI will handle expansion, but I've always felt that a science penalty was arbitrary and the result of the developers throwing up their hands and finding no better way to curb ICS for two expansions' worth of patch cycles. My hope would be there would be a better system--because really, there's no reason why a large empire shouldn't be good at science and the science penalty feels very artificial and gamey.

 

[Haggbart]

As the tech-tree is now split into tech- and cultural-tree (which includes many/most/all government types and probaply many other crucial achievements), I don't think we should discriminate science- and culrural buildings (districts) the same way as in the past. Cultural districts will be as necessary as science ones - even without the cultural victory in mind.
So, you may want science AND cultural districts in every city or - which is more likely due to the restrictions and different bonuses - at least science and cultural spezialiced cities in +/- equal numbers.

I am not sure about military districts. You want a strong industry in them, which is more likely in your core cities. I believe, we will have less military-focused cities than in previous games due to the district restrictions; maybe only three or four (due to the type-specialization). We might want to build some encampments to get the additional fortification, of course. I doubt, however, that our main unit-production will be widespread over many cities. (At least in a domination game, frontier cities change fast enough anyway... )

@gfeier: In the first play-through movie, farms were replaced by more suitable districts/world wonders. So, the answer is: Yes! I think, it is a simple act of "build over".
Edit: on the other hands... Farms are no districts! Hmmm...
But in all previous games, we could sell buildings. It would be surprising, if this wouldn't be possible any more.

The reason why I mention encampment district is that your cities don't get any ranged strike without it + walls. So you would probably want it on cities bordering other civs, since you gain two ranged strikes from it as well as a second health bar that must be broken down before your city HPs. You might even build it in early cities that will eventually end up surrounded by your other cities, to protect against early barbs and for unit prod.

Also, I realize that culture is important, but since the indication is that there is a per city penalty to tech and not to science, there seems to be MORE important to build the campus district in every city. And the basic culture building (monument) is constructed in the city centre and not in a district, while the first science building (library) is built in the campus district.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Per the information we have gotten before, you only need a city wall to gain a ranged attack for a city. And the city wall is built in the city center, not the Encampment, but it will also protect the Encampment if the city has one.

The defensive benefit of the Encampment is that it also has a ranged attack like the city center.

 

[Haggbart]

Per the information we have gotten before, you only need a city wall to gain a ranged attack for a city. And the city wall is built in the city center, not the Encampment, but it will also protect the Encampment if the city has one.

The defensive benefit of the Encampment is that it also has a ranged attack like the city center.

Yes you are right, I misread

So it seems the campus district is the only crucial one as far as we now know....

 

[King Rad]

Yes you are right, I misread

So it seems the campus district is the only crucial one as far as we now know....

This assumes that science will be as crucial in VI as in V. We don't actually know if this district will be as, more or less important than any other district. Without more information we also don't know if the location of your civ or cities (i.e. map features) and/or your desired victory condition will affect this.