Proper city district planning really pays off...

[thecrazyscot]

...especially as Japan. These screenshots are taken from my scientific victory on Emperor.

Spoiler Normal view :

Spoiler Strategic view is a bit easier to read :

I ran the 100% increased district adjacency bonus policies essentially the entire time. Most districts were providing 10-12 of their base yield through adjacency bonuses alone.

It's really cool how the regional bonuses stack, though. As you can see in these screenshots...

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

...with proper planning you can realistically get +40 production from regional bonuses alone. Kyoto is in range of 5 different Industrial districts, and if you get the Suzerain bonus which increases your regional effect range you can stack it even further.

Further, careful district planning can also allow you to create insane farm synergies...especially if you have some wheat and rice to buff things up.

Spoiler :

I'm sure you'll notice that I made a few mistakes with several districts (notable the harbors), but I'm really impressed with how carefully you can synergize everything with the Japanese.

You won't be able to do it to this level with other civilizations, but careful planning with Industrial and Entertainment districts can really make a huge difference. Like providing 50% of a city's amenities and production difference.

Bonus:

Spoiler I found the Southern Water Tribe :

 

[redwings1340]

lol, that southern water tribe. Nobody in the village remembers how they got there, or remembers what the rest of the world looks like. They've just lived, in the cold, surviving on whatever they can catch, for thousands of years.

Yeah, I'm starting to realize the value of district adjacency, regional district effects, and farm placement right now. Unlike in civ V, where you wanted about as many farms as you had population, in VI you want as many farms as you can get for housing purposes, and that ends to a much faster development of land if you focus on it. It's not really a big deal to get a farm, then replace it with a district later.

 

[GhostSalsa]

Those are high numbers, but what's really being done with them? It's 1948 and your cities are an ok size, growing at a glacial pace despite those super farms. They are building an outdated wonder that is not needed, accumulating useless faith, etc etc. And there's production so you can produce "big production cost thing" and win. What do all these high values that come about from intense planning really do to make the game go differently from, say, just futzing about until winning ten turns later?

You could make this criticism for a lot of late game V screenshots, too - but I just don't see how slogging over a complex hex puzzle just to achieve "inevitable victory with higher numbers" adds to the fun of VI in its current state.

Waiting for when thinking on one's feet becomes as pertinent as we were told it would be in VI...

 

[Returning Lurker]

Did you happen to find a boy in an iceberg in that village?

 

[Promethian]

You are making a ton of food but I don't see neighborhoods to boost your housing. That food screenshot should be showing a city with over 20 pop easy. Maybe even around 30.

 

[King Jason]

Well, fukuoka is still at pop 15/19 and Shizuoka is at pop 17 of what I imagine is a similar number. He has neighborhoods and his housing is fine.

 

[Nick31]

Good to see Kyoto get large. You can get 300 science pretty easily much, much earlier, too, but of course, we've talked about that a lot on this forum. Glad you had fun with your empire, though. That's something I've struggled with.

 

[Quoth the Raven]

S

Those are high numbers, but what's really being done with them? It's 1948 and your cities are an ok size, growing at a glacial pace despite those super farms. They are building an outdated wonder that is not needed, accumulating useless faith, etc etc. And there's production so you can produce "big production cost thing" and win. What do all these high values that come about from intense planning really do to make the game go differently from, say, just futzing about until winning ten turns later?

You could make this criticism for a lot of late game V screenshots, too - but I just don't see how slogging over a complex hex puzzle just to achieve "inevitable victory with higher numbers" adds to the fun of VI in its current state.

Waiting for when thinking on one's feet becomes as pertinent as we were told it would be in VI...

Some people, including me, play Civ just for the organic beauty of it. Building your empire and improving the tiles and cities. I don't usually go for a specific victory. I've been playing since Civ IV.

 

[Zenstrive]

Congratulations.
You should be awarded an MBA in Urban Planning

 

[dexters]

@thecrazyscot

Can you run through the adjacency bonuses you took advantage of? I'm not 100% clear on all of them myself.

 

[thecrazyscot]

Those are high numbers, but what's really being done with them? It's 1948 and your cities are an ok size, growing at a glacial pace despite those super farms. They are building an outdated wonder that is not needed, accumulating useless faith, etc etc. And there's production so you can produce "big production cost thing" and win. What do all these high values that come about from intense planning really do to make the game go differently from, say, just futzing about until winning ten turns later?

To be fair, I'm not a terribly good player. I was actually behind for most of the game until my momentum pushed me past the AI in the last quarter of the game. In Civ V I never won anything beyond King, so there's lots of room for me to optimize and improve. Some of the smaller cities were founded late in the game, and I made the mistake of not prioritizing food as quickly as I should have.

IRT to the science victory, this is actually far more involved than the science victories of games past. I had much more to do. Every science victory in every iteration of civ has just been about maxing your science/production to build the "big cost thing".

In this one, though, I was able to send my spies to sabotage their space district and set them back. I was able to build a bunch of Industrial projects to rush some key Great Engineers even though I had much fewer GE points than Kongo. This definitely felt more interactive to me than previous games.

@thecrazyscot

Can you run through the adjacency bonuses you took advantage of? I'm not 100% clear on all of them myself.

The great thing about the Japanese is that they enormously simplify adjacency bonuses by making a flat +1 per adjacent district (this includes specialty districts, common districts - Aqueducts, etc - and the city center). My Industrial districts also took advantage of mines/quarries, and my Commercial hubs I tried to sit next to a river whenever possible (+2 gold).

In general, though, here's a great resource to help keep all the bonuses straight.

 

[GhostSalsa]

To be fair, I'm not a terribly good player. I was actually behind for most of the game until my momentum pushed me past the AI in the last quarter of the game. In Civ V I never won anything beyond King, so there's lots of room for me to optimize and improve. Some of the smaller cities were founded late in the game, and I made the mistake of not prioritizing food as quickly as I should have

I'm supportive of sub-optimal play and play for fun myself, my comment was more about how the game trivializes most of what cities do. Specifically that if you wanted to grow fantastic cities in V, it was easy, you looked for good terrain, and now in VI it's a micromanagement slog, and the terrain ends up not very relevant despite stated design intentions to the contrary, and it has not impact on what you can really do in the game (example, Ren era wonders hanging around until turn 340). As far as your late growth starts, that wouldn't matter if industrial growth rates actually scaled correctly (your turns until next pop are very high despite huge food inputs) which they need to, since after all New York City didn't exist before the Enlightenment era either

 

[mnf]

Thank you for sharing these screenshots! This is one of those "when a plan comes together" moments that make strategy games so addictive. I've been playing tall since launch, and this really makes me want to just do a game where I settle each city with only 4 tiles in-between and force myself to see the synergies. It will definitely help people who like to play tall to try this and train their ability to see urban planning in a different perspective.