Regional building question (post patch)

[rjg85]

So the Winter patch has nerfed regional building stacking - fine, but it's not 100% clear to me.

My question (for those able to test today) is this:

Do the new mechanics mean a city gets it's own local district yields in addition to 1 regional yield?

E.g. Hypothetically, if I have only 2 cities, both with an IZ in range of the other city, will each city receive the local Factory yield (+3) from it's own IZ, plus the regional Factory yield (another +3) from the other IZ?

Lets say the 2 cities I have are London (with Factory) and York (without). Ignoring adjacency, they would both receive the same +5 production:

London (5)

• IZ (Workshop +2, Factory +3)

York (5 = 2 local +3 regional)

• IZ (Workshop +2)

If I build a Factory in York does the production remain the same in both (i.e. would it be completely pointless)? Or would it result in the following:

London (8 = 5 local + 3 regional)

• IZ (Workshop +2, Factory +3)

York (8 = 5 local +3 regional)

• IZ (Workshop +2, Factory +3)

Sorry if this is convoluted, I just want to clarify whether building Factories in multiple IZs is now completely redundant or just nerfed.

 

[Cymsdale]

If it ends up being redundant, it would be nice to have an alternate building line for the IZ. It feels wrong to have the option to build a building in a city that costs maintenance but literally provides nothing. Although I suppose you could make an argument that factories in cities that are already covered by a factory can essentially extend the range of the factory coverage to other cities that weren't under the first, so it's not completely useless.

 

[ggalindo001]

This is really a good question. I think we will have to play a game (or load a save) to find out. I hope that it is at least additive for one regional building -- if not, it is really dumbed down too much. I liked the original design, AND IT MADE SENSE TO ME -- you get synergies when you have multiple industrial centers in real life and specialization that allows for greater output. The current design now does not feel as real world to me -- build one to serve 3/4 cities but no synergies. A balancing nerf could have been that each successive production center results in a diminishing additive hammers, but with overlap that allowed for more strategic "guns v hammers v butter" decisiions.

I'm sure a few of the diehards would disagree with what I am about to say, but this is the first time that I can recall in a patch where a major design component was "oops, what we meant to do was this". And I am not buying it for a second.

I am actually troubled by this "balance fix" as I think the root cause was not that it was not designed to work the way it did in legacy (multiple bonuses), but rather that the AI couldn't compensate for it, so it was abandoned for something simpler. Why I am troubled is that a competent AI could easily OPTIMIZE district placement (and even city placement) from early on, and make minor tweaks accordingly -- the number of computations to optimize would far exceed that of a human player -- and could also give flavor in terms of scaling difficulty (maybe 1000 computations per city on settler, 1+ million on deity for example). And in this optimization, could easily optimize major production cities with/without Ruhr. In my latest 2 games, I was starting to do exactly that -- city placement with the notion of where there would be 3x, 4x or event 5x overlap of production districts. And it would come at the expense of potentially commerical hubs, theatre districts, etc. The fact that it was simplified, in my view, to potentially compensate for a poor AI, does not bode well for other -- far bigger game breaking issues with the tactical and combat AI. And it may have an inverse effect -- now the destruction of an production center is regionally empire crippling -- and knowing the AI does not prioritize repairs (or even do them at all virtually all of the time), and this has the effect of really handicapping the AI.

What the design team was trying to achieve by "playing the map" and bringing strategy into every decision is rapidly moving right back into rock, paper, scissors decision making.

Not a good change.....am looking forward to the answer to at least know if there is still some semblance of a strategic element here vs. the use of a production center as simply a power plant for a given radius.

g

 

[Magil]

According to this post, you can get the local bonus from the factory in addition to a regional bonus, so a city can benefit twice from a factory/power plant (but not more than twice). I have not verified this personally so fair warning, but it seems like a reliable source.

 

[rjg85]

According to this post, you can get the local bonus from the factory in addition to a regional bonus, so a city can benefit twice from a factory/power plant (but not more than twice). I have not verified this personally so fair warning, but it seems like a reliable source.

Great that's what I wanted to know

It seems common sense that building a Factory in a city should at least increase that city's output.

 

[ElGuapoCiv]

The new system at least doesn't force you to build cities in a certain schematic to maximize the regional bonus synergies as much. At least if I understand it correctly.

 

[Athmos]

It wasn't always beneficial to do so previously either. The whole first part of the game until you got to industrialization was already dominated by the importance of adjacency bonuses.

 

[Magil]

It wasn't always beneficial to do so previously either. The whole first part of the game until you got to industrialization was already dominated by the importance of adjacency bonuses.

I believe you are overemphasizing the importance of adjacency bonuses. Most of the best districts in the game are considered as such for their effects that are entirely independent of their adjacency bonuses (at least, before this patch).

 

[Athmos]

OK, but I'm thinking of industrial zones, and placing industrial zone so that you get +2, or +3 bonuses from mines and quarries, not considering anything else, is relatively easy. And it is a sizeable bonus when a workshop is only +2.

 

[steveg700]

The new system at least doesn't force you to build cities in a certain schematic to maximize the regional bonus synergies as much. At least if I understand it correctly.

Well, if I understand it correctly, all they did was remove the benefit of being able to stack regional bonuses, which means the regional effect now only benefit less-developed, lower-production cities that don't have their own factories and power plants.

So, instead of thinking along the lines of something you were "forced" to do (I'd be air-quoting that word pretty hard if we were face-to-face), the reality seems to be they simply subtracted a beneficial element of industry-focused city-planning. It's not necessarily a bad thing, especially if it drives people to feel less (ahem) forced to build IZ's in every city. But to balance it out, building costs have to be streamlined. I didn't commit the patch notes to memory, but I only recall seeing a reduction in wonder and space project costs. What we really need are reductions in district constructions costs.

OK, but I'm thinking of industrial zones, and placing industrial zone so that you get +2, or +3 bonuses from mines and quarries, not considering anything else, is relatively easy. And it is a sizeable bonus when a workshop is only +2.

Well, it *can* be easy if the map allows. Then you have other situations where a city has to rely on lumber mills for production, which give IZ's no love.

 

[Jabulani]

Firaxians explain patch just like they do with civilopedia.....

 

[Athmos]

Well, if I understand it correctly, all they did was remove the benefit of being able to stack regional bonuses, which means the regional effect now only benefit less-developed, lower-production cities that don't have their own factories and power plants.

As it is, you still get the benefit from the local IZ, plus the benefit from the best distant one in range. Building IZ everywhere will probably remain the best strategy, the only difference is that you won't be able to get more that one distant district influence on top, so their placement doesn't matter as much.

So, instead of thinking along the lines of something you were "forced" to do (I'd be air-quoting that word pretty hard if we were face-to-face), the reality seems to be they simply subtracted a beneficial element of industry-focused city-planning. It's not necessarily a bad thing, especially if it drives people to feel less (ahem) forced to build IZ's in every city. But to balance it out, building costs have to be streamlined. I didn't commit the patch notes to memory, but I only seeing a reduction in wonder and space project costs. What we really need are reductions in district constructions costs.

Construction costs are huge in the late game. The cost of space projects and late wonder has been reduced, let's assume it won't take longer. the change will only make everything else slower. I think the end game is already quite a grind, late districts and building will take ages to build everywhere instead of only outside of you core. Welcome 10 turn builders !

With scaling costs and almost no multiplier, I thought the stacking of district bonuses was the intended way to provide late game production. Without it, I'm afraid of the endless slog, and I still can't see what this will ADD to the game. Of course like everyone else I'll have to test it before drawing conclusion, but it is worrying me.

Well, it *can* be easy if the map allows. Then you have other situations where a city has to rely on lumber mills for production, which give IZ's no love.

Yes, of course. But the way I was playing, The position of potential mines and quarries has always played a pretty important role in the way I placed cities. Even If I also place cities that couldn't get GREAT IZ, this was an important consideration already. the incentive to maximize overlap for late game made the puzzle of optimal city placement richer to me, I never felt that it trumped all other positioning consideration. Thus why I feel that removing that part (or making it trivial, which is the same) is removing an aspect of this puzzle and makes it weaker.

 

[Magil]

Great that's what I wanted to know

It seems common sense that building a Factory in a city should at least increase that city's output.

It seems this player did further testing and took back that statement, it seems they don't stack. You won't get any local benefit from a factory if the city is already receiving a regional bonus.