"Remove District" project

[Leyrann]

I'd like to see a project that requires a certain amount of production but lets you remove a district from it's tile, making it available again. This way putting a district on the wrong tile is still a costly mistake that costs you district production cost as well as district removal cost, but at least it's not permanent, for example if an AI built a holy site on the only spot where you can build an aquaduct.

 

[Orange1861]

I agree, it should be take 5-10 turns so that it is something that will be inconvenient but not the insane permanent.

 

[civviefan]

Fantastic idea!

 

[Infixo]

And very easy to implement.

 

[stormerne]

It's the same for wonders if, for example, you mistakenly start it off in a low production city next to your high production one.

I raised a bug report on this with 2K. I said players should be able to repurpose district and wonder tiles, at least during their construction phase. Not to allow that is unnecessarily punitive on the player for what's usually an honest mistake (only fixable by loading a save), and it's completely unrealistic as a parallel of real life.

The 2K guy was sympathetic and indeed shocked that it was like it was. However, in conversations with the developers, he found out that it was deliberately like that. I was appalled. There should be some way to repurpose it, even if builders have to be involved taking it apart.

By the way, I found a way round it - for wonders at least - without loading a save. It's pretty crazy and it can't be guaranteed to work because it relies on the proximity of the tile to the edge of your empire and it needs an aggressive neighbor. It's also very disruptive and takes a lot of time. What one can do is this:

1. Provoke a neighboring civ into declaring war on you.
2. Withdraw all military units from the city with the aborted wonder.
3. Encourage the other civ to attack and take that city. When it becomes theirs, the incomplete wonder build will disappear and the tile will become cleared.
4. Counterattack immediately and retake the city.
5. Negotiate peace. You can now repurpose the tile.

I haven't tried this for districts, and in any case you shouldn't have to do this!

The district system is wonderful. I want to keep it. However, THIS HAS GOT TO CHANGE.

 

[Rosty K]

My guess would be that there are some programming-related issues for this.

And a potential loophole. Of course we'd take cities during the war, remove everything and give them back.

Though I partially agree, there should at least be a way to cancel the unfinished district completely (or re-purpose it for a penalty), with the cost of the action increasing as the construction progresses (or maybe if we're speaking of a pure human mistake, just don't permanently lock it for 3-5 turns). Though this won't be very compatible with the 'price lock' strategy (see, there's lots of things to consider...).

 

[Infixo]

@Rosty K What loophole? Can you be more specific?

 

[Amrunril]

@Rosty K What loophole? Can you be more specific?

I think he's concerned about the possibility of capturing a city and removing the districts before returning it, but I don't see how that would be any worse than just razing the city.

 

[Leyrann]

My guess would be that there are some programming-related issues for this.

And a potential loophole. Of course we'd take cities during the war, remove everything and give them back.

Though I partially agree, there should at least be a way to cancel the unfinished district completely (or re-purpose it for a penalty), with the cost of the action increasing as the construction progresses (or maybe if we're speaking of a pure human mistake, just don't permanently lock it for 3-5 turns). Though this won't be very compatible with the 'price lock' strategy (see, there's lots of things to consider...).

My personal idea was that you can only do the project for fully completed districts, so no removing districts under construction, and that the project for removing the district would have a production cost equal to what the cost of building a district is at that point. So once you say "yes" when it asks you wheter you want to build that district there, you have to spend twice the production cost to get the district out of the way. This way, it is still a very punishing mistake, but at least it's possible if there's a really special case, like maybe finding out that there's a wonder you want that can only fit on that very spot where you built a Campus 3000 years ago. Additionally, this would make it virtually impossible to use that loophole you mentioned. Occupied cities have halved production, so you'd have to spend twice the time to build the districts to get them out of the way. Considering population loss on capture and no growth, that may easily go towards one hundred turns or even more. Good luck not losing to war weariness before you're done emptying the city.

 

[Turrdy]

Additionally, this would make it virtually impossible to use that loophole you mentioned. Occupied cities have halved production, so you'd have to spend twice the time to build the districts to get them out of the way. Considering population loss on capture and no growth, that may easily go towards one hundred turns or even more. Good luck not losing to war weariness before you're done emptying the city.

or make the project only available for non-occupied cities!

another thought: you could also tweak the population needed to build your next district... lets say you have 3 districts and 7 population and you remove a district. then, if you want to build your 3rd district again you'll need population 8 instead of 7. just to make it more undesirable to replace/rebuild a district...

 

[Rosty K]

I think he's concerned about the possibility of capturing a city and removing the districts before returning it, but I don't see how that would be any worse than just razing the city.

Everyone will hate you for razing, but everyone, including the original owner will love you after you return an empty shell of a former city.

 

[Infixo]

Maybe some warmonger points could be added for removing a district if the city is not yours originally. So, emptying the city would have similar effect as razing from diplomatic perspective. Together with huge cost of emptying process, it would not be worth doing. Or at least in some extreme cases maybe.

 

[Amrunril]

Everyone will hate you for razing, but everyone, including the original owner will love you after you return an empty shell of a former city.

True, but that's an AI problem rather than a city mechanics problem.

 

[Manifold]

I'd like to see a project that requires a certain amount of production but lets you remove a district from it's tile, making it available again. This way putting a district on the wrong tile is still a costly mistake that costs you district production cost as well as district removal cost, but at least it's not permanent, for example if an AI built a holy site on the only spot where you can build an aquaduct.

Yes, that should be possible!

Everyone will hate you for razing, but everyone, including the original owner will love you after you return an empty shell of a former city.

it is also possible to raze the city if you have conquer it, so there is no problem the demolition of districts.

 

[Franc007She]

Same with the OP. Sometimes I also consider that I have a wrong tile for the district.

 

[unpossible251]

Make it so.

 

[zyx]

I want districts to be deconstructable too. Sometimes the AI places the districts in a weird way.

 

[Smedley D Butler]

Hi folks, bumping a bit of an older thread here, I know.

There was a mod created for exactly this issue, called "Removable Districts" on Steam Workshop - it's literally the only mod I found anywhere which allows district removal (vastly improved district flexibility is a feature I want badly enough that it's a gamebreaker on current Civ 6). Unfortunately it seems like recent patches broke it.

I was wondering if there was any chance at all that a modder with SQL knowledge could take a look at the mod and see what needs to be done to update it?

The only alternative is to apparently use the Civ 6 dev kit to "cheat" and remove districts. I would much rather have this take time and cost resources as opposed to being free and instant. Any help would be appreciated!

 

[kamex]

At the very least you should be allowed to raze districts upon city capture.

I like to micromanage my districts for max adjacency and appeal, and this reason alone has stopped me from playing aggressively mid to late game. I usually don't capture cities unless they have no districts, or unless I am able to raze that city.

 

[historix69]

I would give players the option to turn districts (or unwanted wonders) into kind of stoneworks so that they can harvest a limited amount of production from that tile, maybe equalling 50% of total production costs. (Original Cost 100 -> 5 prod. per turn for 10 turns)
We are lucky today that the medieval egypts / arabs did not completely reuse the pyramids to build something else.