Ripe for return of sliders?

[Magil]

I'm with Denkt on this one. Also, unit upgrade costs seem absurd right now. To Upgrade from an Archer to Composite, and then to Crossbow in civ5 is about 180 gold on standard speed. To upgrade from an Archer to Crossbow in civ6 is 200 gold on quick speed that we've seen. Horseman to knight was what, 100 gold on standard speed? Chariot to Knight was 190 gold on quick in civ6.

Furthermore, Units and Buildings require maintenance and these costs increase the more advance something is. For example, a Library may cost 1 gold per turn, but a university may cost 2. A warrior may cost 1 gold per turn, but a knight might cost 3.

Then there are the other uses for gold - The purchasing of tiles will be commonplace in this game - a regular part of the strategy utilized to develop and plan your cities since you'll want your districts in very specific spots and can't leave that up to the culture crawl. You can purchase buildings and units as usual and then you can spend gold towards great people which is probably the largest advantage you can acquire with gold. Oh, and of course there are the diplomatic uses.

I don't think gold is going to have any shortage of uses in this one.

High costs are exactly what promote a healthy need for gold as a resource as opposed to the opposite. If you're never generating up the amount needed to upgrade your units then all of your veterans would remain in the stone age.

If there's one thing I learned from previous games, if gold costs for certain things are too high, then it's unlikely that gold will see much use for purposes other than upkeep. And upkeep costs are quite high in VI, from the looks of things. But none of the numbers we see are final, so maybe it'll turn out different. I reserve judgment on that matter until we see how things play out.

But that's slightly off topic - Others have already mentioned the main problem is that sliders basically nullify the idea of strategic city planning. If I can spam commercial hubs and use them to invest in science - why wouldn't I? That narrows the path toward an optimal play style by finding the most worth-while yield (science usually), building your infrastructure primarily around that one, and then just use the slider to make up in the other areas as needed.

I disagree with this, though. Even assuming that, given the hypothetical idea of a commerce slider, that commercial hubs directly produced commerce rather than gold, then buildings such as libraries and districts like campuses would still -be- quite useful if they were multipliers on local science output rather than flat local yields (which are admittedly of less value in a commerce-based system). Remember, in past Civ games that utilized the commerce slider, most buildings provided multipliers rather than flat yields, which was why it worked.

The system isn't designed from the ground-up with the slider in mind, so as is, it would conflict too much with the idea of a commerce slider if they just stuck it into the game haphazardly. I don't think districts themselves conflict with the idea of the commerce slider, though, they'd just need to be redesigned to work with it, which is completely possible.

That is perhaps the domain of a mod though, as we know for a fact that VI will not use either the concept of commerce or a slider.

 

[King Jason]

If there's one thing I learned from previous games, if gold costs for certain things are too high, then it's unlikely that gold will see much use for purposes other than upkeep.

Well in this area we must have different perspectives then.

I disagree with this, though. Even assuming that, given the hypothetical idea of a commerce slider, that commercial hubs directly produced commerce rather than gold, then buildings such as libraries and districts like campuses would still -be- quite useful if they were multipliers on local science output rather than flat local yields (which are admittedly of less value in a commerce-based system). Remember, in past Civ games that utilized the commerce slider, most buildings provided multipliers rather than flat yields, which was why it worked

Yes but there isn't a limit to the buildings you can build in your cities in civ4. If you have a library and a market in the same city in civ4 then when going from one end to the slider to the other, the output for the particular yield is the same. You can go from generating 10 science to generating 10 gold in the snap of a finger and all the city-planning you needed was to build every building in one city.

I don't think it should be as easy as that to completely swap a city's output values. Of course, the slider affected the entire civ as a whole but the idea of being able to transform a science city into a gold city in one turn, and then back to a science city on the next turn is just not something I find as meaningful as civ6's apparent implementation.

 

[Magil]

Yes but there isn't a limit to the buildings you can build in your cities in civ4. If you have a library and a market in the same city in civ4 then when going from one end to the slider to the other, the output for the particular yield is the same. You can go from generating 10 science to generating 10 gold in the snap of a finger and all the city-planning you needed was to build every building in one city.

I don't think it should be as easy as that to completely swap a city's output values. Of course, the slider affected the entire civ as a whole but the idea of being able to transform a science city into a gold city in one turn, and then back to a science city on the next turn is just not something I find as meaningful as civ6's apparent implementation.

Well, policies and governments are being set up in such a way that you can shift the empire's focus quickly in at least one area. So it's hardly at odds with VI's design philosophy.

The key design of the commerce system is that buildings and the lands work in tandem. A library in VI provides +2 science, +1 great scientist point. Okay. A library in a pre-V Civ game provides a % multiplier on science and no flat yield. It does nothing if you don't work commerce tiles, or if the slider is set to 0% science. Specialization in older games mostly came from certain world wonders (there were certain wonders that boosted the output of a single city) and later, national wonders.

Districts work in combination with the land... but only in terms of placement. They're not dynamic in and of themselves (though you can build other things next to them to improve their yields, which is a plus). Buildings, however, don't seem to have the same dynamic design in VI. I think buildings are definitely an area where the designers could aim to do better, at least with what we've seen so far. And district bonuses are separate from actually working the land. You don't have to work districts, and districts receive bonuses from features independent of cities actually working those tiles that you're receiving a bonus from. Maybe this is a design decision done for the sake of simplicity, but it rankles me for some reason--I just must sound like an old-timer, "why, back in my day, we had to actually work the land to receive any benefits from it"!

I'm not certain that divorcing tile-working from the system entirely is such a good move. But I can't say for sure which system will work better. I just feel the trade-offs do need to be more acutely acknowledged.

 

[jjkrause84]

I don't think it should be as easy as that to completely swap a city's output values. Of course, the slider affected the entire civ as a whole but the idea of being able to transform a science city into a gold city in one turn, and then back to a science city on the next turn is just not something I find as meaningful as civ6's apparent implementation.

I think it is a total straw man to suggest that you could 'transform a science city into a gold city in one turn, and then back to a science city on the next turn'. A city with loads of financial improvements and no science improvements can never be turned into a big science producer, and vice-versa.

I think it is best to look at sliders (if well implemented) as passive EQ. They can only cut, not add. You can't add science beyond the capacity you have to produce it. In many ways it is about controlling the amount of money you accrue after your expenses. Do you want to accrue a lot of money as a buffer, or do you prefer to run things closer to the red and have a marginal advantage in research and culture at the cost of reduced flexibility in case of an emergency. Within this you can then give slight preferences to science or culture or faith to emphasize one over the others given your priorities and situation. Lots of interesting trade-offs that build on the trade-offs in construction and city development, rather than obviating them.

 

[VicRatlhead5199]

Honestly, I hope not. Never liked them. I was surprised at their popularity when I joined this community.

 

[King Jason]

Well, policies and governments are being set up in such a way that you can shift the empire's focus quickly in at least one area. So it's hardly at odds with VI's design philosophy.

Correct which means the idea of what sliders offer is already in the game in a multitude of ways. There's even a policy that increases campus and holy site adjacency bonuses by as much as 100%. In the early game, where a simple +2 bonus on your district is the same as the building inside of it. That means running the Science policy will effectively increase your science output by 30-50%, but then if you swap it out for the Faith policy, you're losing that bonus and getting about 30-50% Faith instead. Just like a slider. I would not be surprised if later policies increase one's ablity to enhance these outputs further. By adding increases to building yields, and specialists yields.

If so, with governments you can swap between science emphasis and culture emphasis already.

I think it is a total straw man to suggest that you could 'transform a science city into a gold city in one turn, and then back to a science city on the next turn'. A city with loads of financial improvements and no science improvements can never be turned into a big science producer, and vice-versa.

My point was that is possible to have a city with loads of science improvements and loads of financial improvements.

They can only cut, not add. You can't add science beyond the capacity you have to produce it. In many ways it is about controlling the amount of money you accrue after your expenses. Do you want to accrue a lot of money as a buffer, or do you prefer to run things closer to the red and have a marginal advantage in research and culture at the cost of reduced flexibility in case of an emergency.

These statements contradict. If I have a city with a campus running at it's "max capacity" and that same city also has a good commercial hub - any ability to transfer excess gold into science is putting me above capacity.

Every yield is already interconnected with the others in civ6. If you invest in any one yield you can use it to provide benefits to all of the others. Doesn't matter if it's Science, Gold, Culture, or Faith.