Question about changes to building production/gold cost?

[peter79]

So question for people regarding the recent changes to building costs.

So obviously a 10% increase in cost per additional city is pretty big and its definitely resulted in me having less cities and more towns. However the 5% increase per building (excluding warehouse buddings), I'm curious has that caused people t be more selective and specialize cities more? Also does this apply to civ unique buildings?

 

[stealth_nsk]

As I understand, it applies to unique buildings too.

Regarding specialization - with the limited number of cities I usually want to have as many buildings in each city as possible, so it's more about order of building them than full specialization. However, if you're playing with many cities (i.e. Maya start in Antiquity), you normally have large penalty from the number of cities, which forces you to specialize more (still in form of prioritization). So, in my playthroughs, I more or less specialize cities only is playing wide, but important note - I usually play peacefully, so I don't build a lot of units and could afford building additional units instead.

Another big thing to pay attention to is town specialization. In Antiquity you normally could use Urban Centers to fulfill the need in buildings. However, in Exploration I often need all my towns to be Religious Sites to host all the relics I have (especially if I plan to get extra culture from relics in modern), so only cities have most of the buildings. And in modern I usually mix different types of towns (i.e. Factory Towns if I consider Economic victory).

 

[peter79]

As I understand, it applies to unique buildings too.

Regarding specialization - with the limited number of cities I usually want to have as many buildings in each city as possible, so it's more about order of building them than full specialization. However, if you're playing with many cities (i.e. Maya start in Antiquity), you normally have large penalty from the number of cities, which forces you to specialize more (still in form of prioritization). So, in my playthroughs, I more or less specialize cities only is playing wide, but important note - I usually play peacefully, so I don't build a lot of units and could afford building additional units instead.

Another big thing to pay attention to is town specialization. In Antiquity you normally could use Urban Centers to fulfill the need in buildings. However, in Exploration I often need all my towns to be Religious Sites to host all the relics I have (especially if I plan to get extra culture from relics in modern), so only cities have most of the buildings. And in modern I usually mix different types of towns (i.e. Factory Towns if I consider Economic victory).

Interesting, so when you mean order specialization you mean (as an example) putting down production building before a food building even if you need to wait for research to finish.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Interesting, so when you mean order specialization you mean (as an example) putting down production building before a food building even if you need to wait for research to finish.

For example, in modern I usually unlock Museums and Schoolhouses around the same turn (usually first civic and first tech), but in some cities I start with Museum and in some - with Schoolhouse, depending on adjacency bonuses and resources. And with other things to build coming later, sometimes the other building could be delayed by a lot or even never built before the game end.

 

[uppi]

I often skip the food buildings now. Compared to the food cities can get from towns, the extra food from them does not matter that much and is not worth the extra building cost.

I am also not so keen on happiness buildings unless the cities are in danger of getting unhappy.

I also try to overbuild more. A temple is a good building to overbuild with a warehouse building in Modern if you are not desperate for happiness, because this actually decreases building costs

 

[pjotroos]

It made me specialise cities less. Production, culture & science are premium yields, while gold and food is plentiful from the towns, so even if I have a good coastal tile in a city, I still won't bother with the gold/food buildings if it means sacrificing the important ones. I think the building cost increase for extra city is a good change that makes sense, but the cost increase within city - while well-intentioned - is severely undercooked. If nothing else, the building cost increase from obsolete buildings needs to go away (while overbuilding only would be fine) - otherwise the game is straight up punishing you for having gold, food and happiness buildings in the previous era.

 

[MutilationWave]

I do like that it encourages overbuilding instead of total sprawl. It has made me play more of a tall style. For instance my last game went very well in antiquity and exploration (didn't play modern) but I only had the same three cities in both ages. This is probably not ideal but I did get every building in all three cities just in time to switch over to culture or science projects to get future techs/civics.