Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[Krikkit1]

Yes but the bonuses do not change dramatically tile from tile. What I am suggesting would be to place an “artist” on the kiln for +5 culture. Instead you get 2 science, 2 culture, 2 gold, etc. That is what seems general to me. Basically you just choose the best overall yield. It would be more interesting to say: I really want this city to focus on culture, so I will place artists here.

If your Kiln has 2 adjacencies then a specialist there gets 2 science and 2+1=3 culture
If your Library has 2 adjacencies then a specialist placed there gets 2+1=3 science and 2 culture (if you also have an academy there with the same 2 adjacencies they will get 4 science)
If your Blacksmith has 2 adjacencies then a specialist placed there gets 2 science 2 culture and 1 production.... if it has 4 adjacencies I get 2 production

So if I want to specialize my city, I do it by Where I put my specialists. (if every tile is filled to the max with specialists and I have every possible building...then I am going to have a generic city (maybe specialized based on which buildings have the best adjacencies.)

 

[queenpea]

If your Kiln has 2 adjacencies then a specialist there gets 2 science and 2+1=3 culture
If your Library has 2 adjacencies then a specialist placed there gets 2+1=3 science and 2 culture (if you also have an academy there with the same 2 adjacencies they will get 4 science)
If your Blacksmith has 2 adjacencies then a specialist placed there gets 2 science 2 culture and 1 production.... if it has 4 adjacencies I get 2 production

So if I want to specialize my city, I do it by Where I put my specialists. (if every tile is filled to the max with specialists and I have every possible building...then I am going to have a generic city (maybe specialized based on which buildings have the best adjacencies.)

Because towns can build nothing, cities must build everything. With the removal of districts, specialization of cities has also been removed. We no longer have industrial cities or scientific cites or cultural cities. We have cities that are good at everything. The adjacencies are incredibly mixed and result in specialist tiles which boost essentially every yield.

 

[tman2000]

If your Kiln has 2 adjacencies then a specialist there gets 2 science and 2+1=3 culture
If your Library has 2 adjacencies then a specialist placed there gets 2+1=3 science and 2 culture (if you also have an academy there with the same 2 adjacencies they will get 4 science)
If your Blacksmith has 2 adjacencies then a specialist placed there gets 2 science 2 culture and 1 production.... if it has 4 adjacencies I get 2 production

So if I want to specialize my city, I do it by Where I put my specialists. (if every tile is filled to the max with specialists and I have every possible building...then I am going to have a generic city (maybe specialized based on which buildings have the best adjacencies.)

No offense, but you guys who defend these features always defend the theory but I never hear the practical outcome.

What does it matter if I get +4-5 yields on science for adjacency if my total science yield is >500? It’s not a meaningful choice.

 

[pmarc]

I don’t find that it works outside of being a forced concept. You could still play Civ VII’s lame version of tall if everything was a city and food buildings actually mattered. I can go and mod both those features right now.

What's a forced concept?
The reason I like the towns to cities mechanic, in terms of producing interesting choices, is that you can use gold to rush production of units or buildings for example, or save it to upgrade your towns earlier and get more production queues. It's more interesting to have both short-term benefits and long-term investments with gold, rather than it only serving to rush production.

 

[pmarc]

No offense, but you guys who defend these features always defend the theory but I never hear the practical outcome.

What does it matter if I get +4-5 yields on science for adjacency if my total science yield is >500? It’s not a meaningful choice.

Adjacencies matter more earlier in the game and matter less later, which is not a ridiculous idea... Consider how modern major cities also tend to be academic and cultural centers, no matter if they originally became important due to finance or industry or culture, for example.

 

[queenpea]

Adjacencies matter more earlier in the game and matter less later, which is not a ridiculous idea... Consider how modern major cities also tend to be academic and cultural centers, no matter if they originally became important due to finance or industry or culture, for example.

That would be fine if the specialist bonuses scaled better.

 

[pmarc]

How would you want them to scale better? Isn't most of the science by the modern age coming from specialists?

 

[queenpea]

How would you want them to scale better? Isn't most of the science by the modern age coming from specialists?

The point is what is the reward for +6 science when your overall science yield is above 1000.

Again, instead of supercharging a tile, what if we had a true specialist? Choose to assign a scientist or a chemist or whomever to a specific tile for a specific tile boost. That is what specialization means.

 

[pmarc]

Isn't most of that 1000 science coming from specialists on urban tiles? That's what I don't understand.

I agree about "specialist" being a misnomer in that case, but my point before is that there is some justification to increased urbanization driving up science/culture generally and a bonus on top of that based on the underlying building.

Maybe specialists should just be called citizens. As in there is higher population density in that tile, so whatever building you put there will get more boosted compared to a new building on a tile with no specialists. So the building you place in modern would get maybe +20 on the tile with a few specialists stacked and only +7 without.

That said, for full disclosure I don't think "city specialization" is that compelling a mechanic and I'm not sure it's ever been a good strategy. People used to think in terms of specialized cities in Civ IV for example, but it has been abandoned in favor of strategies where you whole empire focuses on whatever goal you're pursuing at a given time. In Civ VI, there were barriers to putting new districts in a city, but that mostly encouraged keeping cities small, and only spamming in all cities the single district type you needed most for your long-term strategy.

 

[Krikkit1]

Again, instead of supercharging a tile, what if we had a true specialist? Choose to assign a scientist or a chemist or whomever to a specific tile for a specific tile boost. That is what specialization means.

You assign a specialist to a specific tile for a specific tile boost... the type of specialist (and so the type of tile boost) depends on the buildings on the tile
base specialist 2 science 2 culture
Level 2 Scientist...3 science 2 culture (available on a tile with 2 science adjacencies)
Level 9 Scientist...6.5 science 2 culture (available on a tile with 9 total science adjacencies)

Level 3+4 Industrial Artist... 2 Science 1.5 production 4 culture (available on a tile with 3 production adjacencies and 4 science adjacencies)

Now they aren't Very specialized (because you probably get 4-8 total adjacencies max which means 2 science 2 culture and 2-4 of "specialization") but they do tilt toward a particular yield that you choose

 

[tman2000]

What's a forced concept?
The reason I like the towns to cities mechanic, in terms of producing interesting choices, is that you can use gold to rush production of units or buildings for example, or save it to upgrade your towns earlier and get more production queues. It's more interesting to have both short-term benefits and long-term investments with gold, rather than it only serving to rush production.

Which wouldn’t matter if settlers just founded cities instead of towns. Which is why it’s forced. In order for towns to actually matter, there would have to be circumstances where you’d prefer to have towns given the choice, rather than just imposing an arbitrary cost to force players to use towns.

 

[tman2000]

The point is what is the reward for +6 science when your overall science yield is above 1000.

Again, instead of supercharging a tile, what if we had a true specialist? Choose to assign a scientist or a chemist or whomever to a specific tile for a specific tile boost. That is what specialization means.

It would be +500 science +1200 culture or +1200 science and +500 culture. Depending on how you train your specialists.

 

[tman2000]

Adjacencies matter more earlier in the game and matter less later, which is not a ridiculous idea... Consider how modern major cities also tend to be academic and cultural centers, no matter if they originally became important due to finance or industry or culture, for example.

Yes but we’re talking about adjacencies for specialists

 

[Leucarum]

Which wouldn’t matter if settlers just founded cities instead of towns. Which is why it’s forced. In order for towns to actually matter, there would have to be circumstances where you’d prefer to have towns given the choice, rather than just imposing an arbitrary cost to force players to use towns.

I mean, I agree that they don't have the balance on towns quite right yet. But the principle of reducing micromanagement by having fewer build queues is a solid one IMO.

 

[tman2000]

I mean, I agree that they don't have the balance on towns quite right yet. But the principle of reducing micromanagement by having fewer build queues is a solid one IMO.

Ironically totally nullified by the UI making purchases cumbersome.

But they have to do a lot of work on towns to fix them. One idea might be having towns be 2-tile radius in antiquity, but not count toward settlement limit. Towns would be resource colonies which only cost the price of a settler. Where cities will drain gold and happiness. So there’s now a niche they fill where you’d want to have them.

Now that I think about it I wonder if I’d prefer that cities found towns by clicking within a 15 tile radius. Meanwhile settlers always found cities.

 

[pmarc]

Which wouldn’t matter if settlers just founded cities instead of towns. Which is why it’s forced. In order for towns to actually matter, there would have to be circumstances where you’d prefer to have towns given the choice, rather than just imposing an arbitrary cost to force players to use towns.

It sounds like you would prefer for towns and cities do be alternatives at the outset rather than one upgrading into the other, but again it's not clear why one is a legitimate game mechanic and not the other. Is that a point about the mechanic feeling artificial? You can conceptualize it as the town being more "hands off" from the leader's point of view, and the money you spend establishes a bureaucracy so you can directly carry production orders in the city.

But no matter how we want to explain it "in universe", just from a game mechanic point of view I don't get your logic about why some rules/limitations of the game are arbitrary and others... aren't?

 

[tman2000]

It sounds like you would prefer for towns and cities do be alternatives at the outset rather than one upgrading into the other, but again it's not clear why one is a legitimate game mechanic and not the other. Is that a point about the mechanic feeling artificial? You can conceptualize it as the town being more "hands off" from the leader's point of view, and the money you spend establishes a bureaucracy so you can directly carry production orders in the city.

But no matter how we want to explain it "in universe", just from a game mechanic point of view I don't get your logic about why some rules/limitations of the game are arbitrary and others... aren't?

The towns have no preferred utility other than being an imposed gating mechanism on progress. It’s “I don’t upgrade because o can’t really afford it yet” rather than, “these towns are useful I don’t want to upgrade them”.

 

[tman2000]

It sounds like you would prefer for towns and cities do be alternatives at the outset rather than one upgrading into the other, but again it's not clear why one is a legitimate game mechanic and not the other. Is that a point about the mechanic feeling artificial? You can conceptualize it as the town being more "hands off" from the leader's point of view, and the money you spend establishes a bureaucracy so you can directly carry production orders in the city.

But no matter how we want to explain it "in universe", just from a game mechanic point of view I don't get your logic about why some rules/limitations of the game are arbitrary and others... aren't?

I really don’t get this obsession with towns being convenient just because there’s no building queue. There’s like a 30 settlement limit max at the end of modern. Meanwhile you constant have to click on which ploy to expand with growth when in earlier civ games builders could just be automated.

This seems very much like a party line thing of “the official reason for towns is I can set them and forget them”. But you don’t. They’re constantly growing and requiring attention.

 

[pmarc]

Ironically totally nullified by the UI making purchases cumbersome.

But they have to do a lot of work on towns to fix them. One idea might be having towns be 2-tile radius in antiquity, but not count toward settlement limit. Towns would be resource colonies which only cost the price of a settler. Where cities will drain gold and happiness. So there’s now a niche they fill where you’d want to have them.

Now that I think about it I wonder if I’d prefer that cities found towns by clicking within a 15 tile radius. Meanwhile settlers always found cities.

Resource colonies have always existed in Civ. You would found a city with little long-term potential just to grab a resource you need. They have always counted against the previous game equivalent of the "settlement limit" (maintenance, etc.). So you have to decide if the resource is worth settling a poor city (now in this game, town) over.

 

[queenpea]

It would be +500 science +1200 culture or +1200 science and +500 culture. Depending on how you train your specialists.

?

Now they aren't Very specialized (because you probably get 4-8 total adjacencies max which means 2 science 2 culture and 2-4 of "specialization") but they do tilt toward a particular yield that you choose

I understand how it works. I’ve played the game a great deal. The point that I am making is in your conclusion. They aren’t very specialized. Let’s just call them something different or revise the system.

Again, hiring a merchant to super charge gold on a single tile is a more interesting strategic decision then supercharging all yields.