On the topic of City Package and Unpackage

[stealth_nsk]

That's my issue with it, when they unpacked cities the maps should really have grown by 2 or 3 times.

Gameplay could be adjusted for various settlement radiuses. For example in Civ7 with specialists for cities and growth stop for town, current settlement radius works just fine. Sure, it's possible to design game where cities will combine their urban sprawl with a lot of rural tiles and that would require bigger settlements. Probably it would even look better on the map, but there will be many consequences. Will the map also grow bigger? If not, smaller maps will have too few settlements. If yes, a lot of problems will sprawl from larger maps - longer wars, longer games at all, technical limitations and so on, so forth.

 

[kaspergm]

3. Adjacency bonuses, after years of Civ VI and now Civ VII, I am increasingly convinced need major re-thinking. Buildings of the same type (Production, Military, Gold, Religious, etc) may benefit from being grouped into a Specialized District, but many of the terrain adjacencies are purest game design drivel, and cities would be much more playable and customizable without them. IF the game must have adjacencies, make them among the buildings/districts, not because the game designer thinks a great university has to be next to a mountain.

I think adjacency bonuses are a very two-edged sword. On one hand, they offer for great gameplay. I will not lie about the fact that (ab)using the various game mechanics to get those super-production Holy Sites is one of the things I find most fun about Civ6. On the other hand, I'm also very aware that it completely kills the strategic meta and severely limits the room of viable strategic options.

To return to OT, here are a few thoughts I have about (un)packing cities:

• I like the ideas of specialized districts that add specialization and flavor to the town.
• I dislike the open sprawl of Civ6. I think districts should go adjacent to or connected to city centre and be limited to first ring for early game, while third ring should only be available for late eras. Things like Harbor and perhaps Encampment could be exempted from this rule.
• I think some sort of adjacency feature is good, but massive amounts of flat yields is very bad for balance. Certain buildings being unlocked by adjacency would be good: Observatory only available in Campus if it's build next to mountain, Wildlife Institute if it's build next to rainforest, Ocean Conservatory if build next to reef, etc. Similar could be done for many/all other districts, for instance Windmill/Watermill in Industrial Zone.
• I haven't played enough Civ7 to really grasp the idea of warehouse buildings. I'm not a fan of these buildings sort of blocking district tiles - not considering what good or bad it does for gameplay, it makes cities occupy way too many tiles. Either these buildings need to be associated with certain districts, go in city center, or have a district of their own?
• Number of urban/speciality districts should be limited, the population-limit in Civ6 was both logical and functional.
• Specialists should have bigger impact on yields, flat yields from adjacencies and buildings should have less impact (I think Civ7 got that part right?).
• On a more radical note: I dislike how resources are tied to specific tiles in all the Civ games. I want a more regional approach: This region has potential for wine, this region holds iron ore, this region can support horses, etc. Then you decide yourself where you want to place the mine/farm/plantation. The way that we are stuck with having a Gold Mine or an Incense Plantation in the middle of the urban area in both Civ6 and Civ7 is both nonsensical and annoying.
• I was super excited about the idea or urban cities vs. rural towns. I really don't think Civ7 pulled this off at all. Again, I think a more regional approach would be better, where each region can hold an urban center and then rural towns that feed food/production as well as strategic/luxury resources into the urban center.

 

[Krikkit1]

I think one of the issues with the game is the requirement to keep pushing your buildings out further from your capital to get good spots. This leads to ungainly sprawl, and placing down something like a granary just to reach a better spot at the edge of your city feels like it's not really how you'd want the game to work

The solution there maybe to restrict range, probably of buildings. 1 seems a bit too severe, but I could see “no 3rd ring buildings until Urban Planning”

 

[stealth_nsk]

I haven't played enough Civ7 to really grasp the idea of warehouse buildings. I'm not a fan of these buildings sort of blocking district tiles - not considering what good or bad it does for gameplay, it makes cities occupy way too many tiles. Either these buildings need to be associated with certain districts, go in city center, or have a district of their own?

From city sprawl point of view, they aren't blocking district tiles, they are unlocking them. You build warehouse buildings to reach spots with good adjacencies or just to cross 1-tile sea, for example.

EDIT: although from other points of view, I'm not sure the idea of warehouse buildings is that great.

EDIT 2: One of the pretty common situations I found is that settlement sprawl is blocked by a resource (I think there should be specific urban districts buildable on them to prevent blocking, but that's different story), but I can use sea-based warehouse district to reach land past the resource.

 

[McSpank01]

On a more radical note: I dislike how resources are tied to specific tiles in all the Civ games. I want a more regional approach: This region has potential for wine, this region holds iron ore, this region can support horses, etc. Then you decide yourself where you want to place the mine/farm/plantation. The way that we are stuck with having a Gold Mine or an Incense Plantation in the middle of the urban area in both Civ6 and Civ7 is both nonsensical and annoying.

I just want to say I also really hate this. It looks completely silly and spoils the visual appeal of cities completely to have a huge mine in the middle of a city. I'd be ok with having the ability to just build on top of resources and keep their benefits.

The solution there maybe to restrict range, probably of buildings. 1 seems a bit too severe, but I could see “no 3rd ring buildings until Urban Planning”

That is one solution. Another solution is to rework how adjacencies work and promote them more from other urban tiles rather than resources. Does it really make sense that research buildings should be built next to a resource? I don't see the connection there. It all feels a bit gamey and arbitrary. There should be more encouragement to keep your urban tiles together, and not build so many.

 

[Krikkit1]

I just want to say I also really hate this. It looks completely silly and spoils the visual appeal of cities completely to have a huge mine in the middle of a city. I'd be ok with having the ability to just build on top of resources and keep their benefits.

That is one solution. Another solution is to rework how adjacencies work and promote them more from other urban tiles rather than resources. Does it really make sense that research buildings should be built next to a resource? I don't see the connection there. It all feels a bit gamey and arbitrary. There should be more encouragement to keep your urban tiles together, and not build so many.

I think more “Quarter bonuses” could help with that. Say instead of buildings being 3 or 4 base yield per age they are 2 or 3 per age..+1 per age if in a Quarter

 

[stealth_nsk]

On a more radical note: I dislike how resources are tied to specific tiles in all the Civ games. I want a more regional approach: This region has potential for wine, this region holds iron ore, this region can support horses, etc. Then you decide yourself where you want to place the mine/farm/plantation. The way that we are stuck with having a Gold Mine or an Incense Plantation in the middle of the urban area in both Civ6 and Civ7 is both nonsensical and annoying.

Again, tiles in civilization games are very abstract, they could be seen as regions. I, honestly don't see any problems from immersion standpoint, though.

Visual element is clearly a problem and plantation in the middle of a city is not great. That's why I think there should be a way to turn resources into urban industrial districts - plants, factories, etc. to process those resources. I'm not sure it's possible in Civ7 with its resource regeneration on ages and factories already integrated deeply in, but as a potential idea for future games it should fix the visuals.

 

[pjotroos]

I just want to say I also really hate this. It looks completely silly and spoils the visual appeal of cities completely to have a huge mine in the middle of a city. I'd be ok with having the ability to just build on top of resources and keep their benefits.

Since we're all spitballing - what could be really interesting is making it so land-based warehouse buildings can only be built on a resource, letting you retain that resource and converting the tile to urban; and science / production buildings were getting their adjacency bonuses from warehouse buildings instead.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Since we're all spitballing - what could be really interesting is making it so land-based warehouse buildings can only be built on a resource, letting you retain that resource and converting the tile to urban; and science / production buildings were getting their adjacency bonuses from warehouse buildings instead.

That's interesting idea. Not sure about "only" on resources, that would be too limiting providing primary warehouse building function of extending your city sprawl to desired tiles. But the ability to build them on top of resources could be an interesting concept. Also, in that variant it's compatible with Civ7 resource reset - warehouse buildings built on top of resources just become normal warehouse buildings.

 

[pjotroos]

That's interesting idea. Not sure about "only" on resources, that would be too limiting providing primary warehouse building function of extending your city sprawl to desired tiles.

I don't like them being that, hence my brainwave. I think it makes settling towns too predictable in mid- and late-game - in the middle of the biggest cluster of resources, buying warehouse buildings to quickly reach them.