Specialised cities

[Arlequin]

So I decided to open a thread to present my ideas concerning a system to specialise cities that could encourage tall play, variety of districts, variety of improvements, use of specialists, use of projects, strategic city placement and better policy cards choices.

For now tall play is discouraged because:
- specialists are crap.
- GPP depends on number of districts hence number of cities.
- research/culture/gold/hammer/trade routes depends on number of districts hence number of cities.
- Great economic policy cards give a bonus dependant on number of districts (double adjacency/building yields).

I don't address the problem of districts cost here since I think mods (district change mode, nqmod) have already given a great solution: districts costs don't depend on area but on number of districts of the same kind already built. So I take it as a given.

I think a solution (and I wish to see it in a mod or in the next expansion) is to have a way to specialise cities.
A city can have only one specialisation, and specialisation can be applied to only one city. Specialisations can be the following:
Specialisations unlocked by corresponding district.
- Technopolis: 2x science / GSP in this city.
- Cultural Centre: 2x culture / GWAMP in this city.
- Entertainment Pole: 2x EC local/regional amenities. EC regional effect distance +3. (unlocked by EC)
- Holy City: 2x faith / GPP. 2x religious pressure.
- Trading Center: 2x gold / GMP.
- Industrial City: 1.5x production toward districts and wonders. 2x GEP. Regional effect distance +3.
- Militaristic City: 1.5x production toward military units in this city. 2x GGP.
- Maritime City: 2x production toward naval units in this city. 2x GAP. 2x trade route capacity from wonder/district of this city.
Other possible specialisations unlocked in the culture tree.
- Touristic City: 2x tourism. Tourism generated by improvement on tiles owned by this city is also doubled (ie National parks, seaside resorts...)
- Metropolis: 1.5x production toward projects.

In addition to that:
- Specialists should each produce +0.5GPP.
- Specialised cities have 2x citizens slot for the corresponding district (ie Technopolis has 2x scientific slots).
- Specialisation can be changed during the game. A Technopolis can later stop being a Technopolis and become a cultural centre -> another city can then become the new Technopolis.

Some policy cards can also be added, oriented toward tall play:
- Double citizen slots GPP in specialised districts. (ie In a Technopolis scientists produce 1GPP(x2) each)
- Citizen slots require half housing/amenities and produce +1 food.
- +50% specialised yields for specialised cities (ie Technopolis produce 3x science yield)
- any variation following this idea.

In practice a wide empire will still play the same way, and use +100% district adjacency/buildings yields policy cards, trying to find good spot for some specialised cities, but won"t use much specialists.

However a tall empire will become more competitive in GPP and science/culture/religious yields as long as it build tall specialised cities that can use a lot of specialists and make use of specialists oriented policies.

A tall technopolis with a full campus full slot can produce (4+3)x2 = 14GSP itself (up to 20GSP with correct policy cards) not counting possible wonders, while a wide empire will usually produce 1-3 GSP per city. So the tall empire stays competitive in GPP.
The same technopolis with a worked iron tile (+1 science), and a campus adjacency bonus of 3 will gain (1+3 +2+4+5+6*2)x2 = 52 science (up to 79 with correct policy cards) not counting the population science yields, an possible wonders. This mean this city, if specialized to its full extend, can potentially earn 10x an average city in a wide empire.

This would at the same time greatly encourage world wonder production in specialised cities to take advantage of its GPP/yield bonuses, especially for cultural or touristic cities as you would want as much great works on this city as possible.

This was a long post. I am done for now but I will try to improve it later.
What do you think of this idea ? What are your suggestions to improve it ? Do you think it is reasonable to expect such a change in an expansion ? Do you think such a mod would be possible to do ?

 

[Arlequin]

So I just saw this thread from @masda_gib
City Policies (doing city specialication via policies)

It just gave me the answer to how to define specialized cities: each cities can have one policy card slot where you can put one "regional policy card" unlocked in tech or civic tree. I will read the complete thread and adjust my thread according to it if needs be.

 

[Leyrann]

To be fair, my thought is basically "please no", because I feel like the "tall" empires (which, by the way, did not exist prior to V) are unnatural. There is no reason that cities can be bigger and produce more just because there are less cities in the empire as a whole, right? Or would Los Angeles' culture/tourism production spike if California were to become independent, for no other reason than that New York isn't part of the same country anymore?

 

[Arlequin]

To be fair, my thought is basically "please no", because I feel like the "tall" empires (which, by the way, did not exist prior to V) are unnatural. There is no reason that cities can be bigger and produce more just because there are less cities in the empire as a whole, right? Or would Los Angeles' culture/tourism production spike if California were to become independent, for no other reason than that New York isn't part of the same country anymore?

Actually it makes sense ta have tall empires. Wide empires tend to have more natural ressources but smalll countries can prosper through trade. Others like Japan will use culture/innovation to compensate for their lack of ressources. Also making alliance is sometimes better than warmongering to expand your territory.
There is no reason an empire of 20 underdevelopped cities with citizens on the verge of rebellion would be more advanced than an empire of 5 fully developed cities whose citizens are well fed and happy.

Anyway gameplaywise civVI wanted to focus on specialization but it fails at it. I just want to add more possibility. I don't ask to prevent wide play like civV did. I ask for more options.

Ediy: Sorry I did not answer correctly to your post.
My idea doesn't prevent wide empire to be tall. It just gives empire policy choices: decentralized policies (current ones) will improve empire as a whole. Centralized policies will help develop megalopolis, technopolis, etc: therefore helping specializing some cities. This is perfectly natural and exists in real world.
A wide empire (if it manages to protect its borders and to handle amenities) with centralized policies and internal trade routes can make the same tall cities. Its small cities will however bring it less.
It doesn't make wide empires weaker or impossible, but it allows small tall empires to compete in science and culture (which is the case in real world) though probably not in hammer.

 

[Leyrann]

Actually it makes sense ta have tall empires. Wide empires tend to have more natural ressources but smalll countries can prosper through trade. Others like Japan will use culture/innovation to compensate for their lack of ressources. Also making alliance is sometimes better than warmongering to expand your territory.
Also there is no reason an empire of 20 underdevelopped cities with citizens on the verge of rebellion would be stronger than an empire of 5 fully developed cities whose citizens are well fed and happy.

Anyway gameplaywise civVI wanted to focus on specialization but it fails at it. I just want to add more possibility. I don't ask to prevent wide play like civV did. I ask for more options.

Ediy: I did not answer well your post. My idea don't prevent wide empire to be tall. It just gives empire policy coice: decentralized policies (current ones) will improve empire at a whole. Centralized policies will help develop megalopolis, technopolis: therefore helping specializing some cities. This is perfectly natural. A wide empire (if it manage to protect its borders and to handle amenities) with centralized policies and intern

I certainly don't want to say that a "tall" nation cannot prosper; after all, I myself am from the Netherlands, which is one of the best examples of "tall and advanced".

However, real life has a number of "mechanics" that lack in civilization that are the actual reason tall nations can prosper (can, not will; look at the population numbers in the average African country).

Firstly, and most importantly, technological diffusion. Even though implementing it in the game means a huge change, I still feel like it should be done because it simply makes sense. If the nations around you use mathematics, then it will spread to your nation. No one is going to stop that from happening. Only very recently have we become able to even totally close a border from all traffic (see North Korea or the Warshaw Pact states) and even then things seep through. You don't need to make as much discoveries as your neighbors, as it'll spread to you anyways; you don't have to all discover the wheel. One person discovers it, and everyone who sees it being used starts making it themselves. It isn't rocket science, after all (for that matter, there are of course techs which will be a whole lot harder to diffuse through).

Secondly, leadership is extremely important. Depending on how a nation is led, it can either become backwards or prosper. Taking the Netherlands as example - our Golden Age was the 17th century. And this was because we were (at the time) a very liberal country, with (relative) freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, etc. This allowed the Dutch people to flourish, as well as attracting many great minds that weren't welcome in their own countries.

Third, trade is vital. It allows you to exchange ideas, which isn't truly represented in the game, with at most getting 1 culture and 1 science from a trade route, equal to some 2-3 population in your city. It also has the potential to bring a lot of wealth to the trading focused country - again, just look at 17th century Netherlands. In Civ VI, trade is directly related to the number of commercial hubs and harbors - and therefore, the number of cities. To support a historicaly accurate tall strategy, trade would first need an overhaul to facilitate technological diffusion, eureka exchanging, etc and then it should be changed so that it's dependent on something that is not commercial hubs and harbors, to allow a small nation to flourish by focusing on trade, while a large nation flourishes by their larger population.

 

[Arlequin]

100% agree with that

 

[ShadowWarrior]

I am all for features and mechanics that would lead to specialization of cities, but I wouldn't do it through districts. In fact, I never really liked districts feature at all. It makes the game very cumbersome.

I think the best way to promote city specialization is through a combination of city improvements and specialists. My specific idea is this. Each city improvement (market, light house, granary, etc) has specialist slots. Each specialist that I place in the slot will accumulate for me a certain number of specialist points per turn. When the required number of specialist points have been accumulated, the entire city improvement will go through some kind of upgrade, which confers some kind of bonus to us players.

Let me provide a specific example. Lets say that I have build a granary. Each specialist I put in a granary will generate two specialist points. If I put two specialists in this granary, then this granary is accumulating 4 points per turn. To upgrade this granary to the next level, a total of twenty points are needed. Having two specialists (4 points per turn) in this granary means that I will be able to upgrade in five turns. Upon upgrade, the granary may generate one extra food for each irrigated land tile worked by this city.

The granary can be upgraded again, but this time, it will take 40 specialist points. With two specialists in this granary, I will be able to upgrade again in ten turns. The second upgrade may generate three gold coins for each domestic trade route originating from this city that transfer food to another city.

In another word, we use city specialists staffed in city improvements to upgrade the improvements until those improvements become super improvements. That is the basis for city specialization that I find more organic as well as more realistic.

Some civilizations may have specialists related unique traits. For example, Egypt may have the unique capability to upgrade their granary more cheaply. Greeks may have the unique ability to upgrade their libraries more cheaply.

To add a factor of unpredictability, the specific bonus created by the upgrades should vary from game to game, city to city, and civ to civ. For example, yesterday, I played a game as a Chinese civ. I upgraded my library in Beijing, and got extra two beakers from that library. Today, I played as the American and upgraded my library in Boston, for which I got one extra beaker for every two population head in the city.

I believe this mechanics will allow us to specialize cities and make the game even more enjoyable.

 

[Leyrann]

I am all for features and mechanics that would lead to specialization of cities, but I wouldn't do it through districts. In fact, I never really liked districts feature at all. It makes the game very cumbersome.

I think the best way to promote city specialization is through a combination of city improvements and specialists. My specific idea is this. Each city improvement (market, light house, granary, etc) has specialist slots. Each specialist that I place in the slot will accumulate for me a certain number of specialist points per turn. When the required number of specialist points have been accumulated, the entire city improvement will go through some kind of upgrade, which confers some kind of bonus to us players.

Let me provide a specific example. Lets say that I have build a granary. Each specialist I put in a granary will generate two specialist points. If I put two specialists in this granary, then this granary is accumulating 4 points per turn. To upgrade this granary to the next level, a total of twenty points are needed. Having two specialists (4 points per turn) in this granary means that I will be able to upgrade in five turns. Upon upgrade, the granary may generate one extra food for each irrigated land tile worked by this city.

The granary can be upgraded again, but this time, it will take 40 specialist points. With two specialists in this granary, I will be able to upgrade again in ten turns. The second upgrade may generate three gold coins for each domestic trade route originating from this city that transfer food to another city.

In another word, we use city specialists staffed in city improvements to upgrade the improvements until those improvements become super improvements. That is the basis for city specialization that I find more organic as well as more realistic.

Some civilizations may have specialists related unique traits. For example, Egypt may have the unique capability to upgrade their granary more cheaply. Greeks may have the unique ability to upgrade their libraries more cheaply.

To add a factor of unpredictability, the specific bonus created by the upgrades should vary from game to game, city to city, and civ to civ. For example, yesterday, I played a game as a Chinese civ. I upgraded my library in Beijing, and got extra two beakers from that library. Today, I played as the American and upgraded my library in Boston, for which I got one extra beaker for every two population head in the city.

I believe this mechanics will allow us to specialize cities and make the game even more enjoyable.

I like the idea, though the numbers need to be nerfed quite a bit. I also don't think that making them vary from game to game and civ to civ is a good idea, as that's just randomization for the sake of randomization. With what you mentioned for example, if you have a population of 5+, the second is better than the first. Well, I know not everyone grows his cities to size 20, but even if you keep them at size 7 or size 10 then it's already very clear which one is better.

 

[Arlequin]

I am all for features and mechanics that would lead to specialization of cities, but I wouldn't do it through districts. In fact, I never really liked districts feature at all. It makes the game very cumbersome.

I think the best way to promote city specialization is through a combination of city improvements and specialists. My specific idea is this. Each city improvement (market, light house, granary, etc) has specialist slots. Each specialist that I place in the slot will accumulate for me a certain number of specialist points per turn. When the required number of specialist points have been accumulated, the entire city improvement will go through some kind of upgrade, which confers some kind of bonus to us players.

Let me provide a specific example. Lets say that I have build a granary. Each specialist I put in a granary will generate two specialist points. If I put two specialists in this granary, then this granary is accumulating 4 points per turn. To upgrade this granary to the next level, a total of twenty points are needed. Having two specialists (4 points per turn) in this granary means that I will be able to upgrade in five turns. Upon upgrade, the granary may generate one extra food for each irrigated land tile worked by this city.

The granary can be upgraded again, but this time, it will take 40 specialist points. With two specialists in this granary, I will be able to upgrade again in ten turns. The second upgrade may generate three gold coins for each domestic trade route originating from this city that transfer food to another city.

In another word, we use city specialists staffed in city improvements to upgrade the improvements until those improvements become super improvements. That is the basis for city specialization that I find more organic as well as more realistic.

Some civilizations may have specialists related unique traits. For example, Egypt may have the unique capability to upgrade their granary more cheaply. Greeks may have the unique ability to upgrade their libraries more cheaply.

To add a factor of unpredictability, the specific bonus created by the upgrades should vary from game to game, city to city, and civ to civ. For example, yesterday, I played a game as a Chinese civ. I upgraded my library in Beijing, and got extra two beakers from that library. Today, I played as the American and upgraded my library in Boston, for which I got one extra beaker for every two population head in the city.

I believe this mechanics will allow us to specialize cities and make the game even more enjoyable.

Hello ShadowWarrior, thanks for sharing your ideas.

Three points seems problematic with this ideas.

1- this is a lot of changes and might be difficult to handle: how do you assign specialists to buildings that don't have a specific tile on the map.

2- this is like a third way to build buildings. A city can already build buildings by itself, or have builders build improvements. Now there is a third mechanic that allow specialists to "build" upgrade to existing buildings. This complexify the building mechanics. Also the building upgrade feature already somehow exists: each buildings of a district are like upgrade to this district.

3- finally this don't really specialize cities in the end. If players realize that upgrading libraries is worth it then every single city will improve its libraries the same way as now a lot of players will put CH and campus in every city as a priority and only then start considering other districts. It is not specialization. It's ordering building priority and then build every city the same way, the biggest cities getting the most features.

 

[ShadowWarrior]

I like the idea, though the numbers need to be nerfed quite a bit. I also don't think that making them vary from game to game and civ to civ is a good idea, as that's just randomization for the sake of randomization. With what you mentioned for example, if you have a population of 5+, the second is better than the first. Well, I know not everyone grows his cities to size 20, but even if you keep them at size 7 or size 10 then it's already very clear which one is better.

Thanks for the input. The below is my response.

The reason I recommend randomization is exactly to eliminate the problem you have brought out, mainly that the bonuses sometimes are too powerful, and other times too weak. By randomizing the bonuses that we get each time, we will have to make the best of the cards that we are dealt.

We might not like the bonuses for library this time, because compare to the library bonuses in the last game, this one simply isn't attractive enough. But we might find that the bonuses for barracks, or market is much more rewarding this time. As a result, we might choose to upgrade something else other than library in this current game.

I think this randomization feature is quite important because it makes the game less "formulaic". By that I mean that the Civ games I have played so far becomes very SOP oriented. I do pretty much the same thing all the time, and I don't even bother thinking anymore. However, by randomizing the bonuses, that problem is somewhat reduced.

 

[ShadowWarrior]

Hello ShadowWarrior, thanks for sharing your ideas.

Three points seems problematic with this ideas.

1- this is a lot of changes and might be difficult to handle: how do you assign specialists to buildings that don't have a specific tile on the map.

2- this is like a third way to build buildings. A city can already build buildings by itself, or have builders build improvements. Now there is a third mechanic that allow specialists to "build" upgrade to existing buildings. This complexify the building mechanics. Also the building upgrade feature already somehow exists: each buildings of a district are like upgrade to this district.

3- finally this don't really specialize cities in the end. If players realize that upgrading libraries is worth it then every single city will improve its libraries the same way as now a lot of players will put CH and campus in every city as a priority and only then start considering other districts. It is not specialization. It's ordering building priority and then build every city the same way, the biggest cities getting the most features.

Hi. Thank you for your response.

Regarding your first point, assigning specialists to city improvements would just be like how it was done in Civ 5.

Regarding your second point, what I have in mind is to eliminate district altogether and go back to Civ 5. In that game, you simply build the city improvements inside the city, not the surrounding landtiles.

Each specialist will cost 2 food units. I can specialize in all improvements I want by staffing all improvements with specialists, but my city might starve or barely grow. So in the end, one has to prioritize. Like I said, the bonuses for each upgrade varies from game to game, from city to city, and from civ to civ. I might not like the library bonus in Beijing, but in the same game, I like the library bonus in Shanghai. So I might not choose to waste my specialist on Beijing library, but I will invest human resources in the Shanghai library. However, the risk reward calculation may be altogether different in another game because bonuses change. Therefore city specialization will become a strategic choice from game to game. I can't just formulaically decide to specialize a city in something in each of my game anymore. The bonuses that one actually gets may not justify investing human resources in that particular city improvement.

 

[Arlequin]

Thanks for the input. The below is my response.

The reason I recommend randomization is exactly to eliminate the problem you have brought out, mainly that the bonuses sometimes are too powerful, and other times too weak. By randomizing the bonuses that we get each time, we will have to make the best of the cards that we are dealt.

We might not like the bonuses for library this time, because compare to the library bonuses in the last game, this one simply isn't attractive enough. But we might find that the bonuses for barracks, or market is much more rewarding this time. As a result, we might choose to upgrade something else other than library in this current game.

I think this randomization feature is quite important because it makes the game less "formulaic". By that I mean that the Civ games I have played so far becomes very SOP oriented. I do pretty much the same thing all the time, and I don't even bother thinking anymore. However, by randomizing the bonuses, that problem is somewhat reduced.

Do you mean randomization of all bonuses at the begining of a new game or when you upgrade the building. The first one in fact allows variation between games, while the former one just make the game random and is not fun from my point of you. But begining each game with a new set of building bonuses to learn is probably tedious, so I am not convinced that it is a good idea.

HOWEVER, I like the idea of randomization for Eureka and Inspiration. Having different eureka inspiration each game would really make it more interesting. It cannot be completely random and must be fine tune. An idea could be to have groups of research (military ones, navigation ones, etc) that each can have different kind of eureka that changes each game. I won't go further into this idea because it is off topic I think.

 

[civviefan]

I really like the proposals made here and agree that districts/specialists combo is the way to specialize.
In addition, I would like to see the return of National Wonders (in an innovative way) that feeds into specialisation.
Randomization might help to avoid the repetitiveness of the route to specialization, although it's never appealed to Civ game mechanic, which could be summed up as: you are in total control of every cog and apple out there.

However the specialization mechanic must also feature in domination somehow. For example, dealing a massive blow to a civ close to scientific victory by knocking out their technopolis. This should incur diplomatic penalties and also make the civ keen to broker peace in an attempt to maintain that city.

Also, there could be some penalties to specialization that present players with choice and make a non-specialist approach viable.

Finally, wouldn't it be wonderful if this mechanic found its way in diplomatic discourse - i.e. Gorgo telling Cleo: Kindly remove your troops from my borders, else I shall burn your Memphis, your tourist trap, to cinders!

 

[Arlequin]

Hi. Thank you for your response.

Thank you too

Regarding your first point, assigning specialists to city improvements would just be like how it was done in Civ 5.
Regarding your second point, what I have in mind is to eliminate district altogether and go back to Civ 5. In that game, you simply build the city improvements inside the city, not the surrounding landtiles.

But civ6 won't remove districts. So it is out of the question to go back to civ5.

Each specialist will cost 2 food units. I can specialize in all improvements I want by staffing all improvements with specialists, but my city might starve or barely grow. So in the end, one has to prioritize. Like I said, the bonuses for each upgrade varies from game to game, from city to city, and from civ to civ. I might not like the library bonus in Beijing, but in the same game, I like the library bonus in Shanghai. So I might not choose to waste my specialist on Beijing library, but I will invest human resources in the Shanghai library. However, the risk reward calculation may be altogether different in another game because bonuses change. Therefore city specialization will become a strategic choice from game to game. I can't just formulaically decide to specialize a city in something in each of my game anymore. The bonuses that one actually gets may not justify investing human resources in that particular city improvement.

One has to prioritize indeed. This is not specializing. With randomisation (if it is fixed at the beginning of the game, and not pure random) you may play differently from game to game, but you wont have incentive to specialize city more. You will still in most cases build the same buildings in all of your cities, the order of buildings will just change from game to game.

 

[Arlequin]

I really like the proposals made here and agree that districts/specialists combo is the way to specialize.
In addition, I would like to see the return of National Wonders (in an innovative way) that feeds into specialisation.
Randomization might help to avoid the repetitiveness of the route to specialization, although it's never appealed to Civ game mechanic, which could be summed up as: you are in total control of every cog and apple out there.

However the specialization mechanic must also feature in domination somehow. For example, dealing a massive blow to a civ close to scientific victory by knocking out their technopolis. This should incur diplomatic penalties and also make the civ keen to broker peace in an attempt to maintain that city.

Also, there could be some penalties to specialization that present players with choice and make a non-specialist approach viable.

Finally, wouldn't it be wonderful if this mechanic found its way in diplomatic discourse - i.e. Gorgo telling Cleo: Kindly remove your troops from my borders, else I shall burn your Memphis, your tourist trap, to cinders!

Hi, thank you for your comments.

I liked national wonders in civ5 but they have a pitfall. You tend to need specific opening to build them efficiently (rush them with only a few cities and expand later) which can reduce the diversity of openings. Some mods add national wonders to civ6, but it doesn't work great with the district system. You need to build the same district in all cities to build the national wonders, so you have to standardise your cities => it will not help specialising. It may help doing tall play, but not specialisation. Also they would need to cost much less production which is hard to get in civ6. I prefer a more flexible approach where specialising a city have no requirement for the other cities (why would I want theatres in all my cities to specialise one ? It defeat the purpose)

 

[ShadowWarrior]

Thank you too



But civ6 won't remove districts. So it is out of the question to go back to civ5.



One has to prioritize indeed. This is not specializing. With randomisation (if it is fixed at the beginning of the game, and not pure random) you may play differently from game to game, but you wont have incentive to specialize city more. You will still in most cases build the same buildings in all of your cities, the order of buildings will just change from game to game.

I was thinking of Civ 7 when I suggested the ideas; but point taken.

An alternative proposal is to keep the districts mechanics as it is, and everything else stays the same. But now, the bonuses are district bonuses, not improvement bonuses. For example, if I have a science district, I can keep investing my specialist in that science district instead of a particular improvement inside that district. The specialist will accumulate specialist points until there are enough points for upgrade. Upon successful upgrade, the district will get some kind of bonus.

District bonuses will get more and more powerful with each upgrade. By the fifth upgrade, the science district might be generating 90 percent of the beakers produced by the whole civilization. In another word, the choice is between upgrading each different type of district just one or two times, or focus specialists on upgrading just one type of district many many times until that district becomes a super district. If the first is the case, then I agree that there is absolutely no specialization. But if players go with the second choice, then there could be specialization.

And lastly, if I understand you correctly, bonuses are randomized at the start of each game. In another word, the bonus for the first round of library upgrade will not change ten turns later to something else. Did I understand you correctly?

 

[Arlequin]

I was thinking of Civ 7 when I suggested the ideas; but point taken.

An alternative proposal is to keep the districts mechanics as it is, and everything else stays the same. But now, the bonuses are district bonuses, not improvement bonuses. For example, if I have a science district, I can keep investing my specialist in that science district instead of a particular improvement inside that district. The specialist will accumulate specialist points until there are enough points for upgrade. Upon successful upgrade, the district will get some kind of bonus.

District bonuses will get more and more powerful with each upgrade. By the fifth upgrade, the science district might be generating 90 percent of the beakers produced by the whole civilization. In another word, the choice is between upgrading each different type of district just one or two times, or focus specialists on upgrading just one type of district many many times until that district becomes a super district. If the first is the case, then I agree that there is absolutely no specialization. But if players go with the second choice, then there could be specialization.

Now that it is clearly applied to civ6 I find your idea nicer

It is a bit like giving the civ4 cottage system (which I liked) to specialists and therefore improve specialists and make it an interesting decision about when to start using specialist, limiting growth/production of the city but improving the specialists potential. I think the bonus could simply be an improved yield over time, same as cottages. This can indeed be very cool. However it still doesn't help specialise cities. Why not build all cities the same way and use scientists specialists in all your cities big enough and nothing else.

And lastly, if I understand you correctly, bonuses are randomized at the start of each game. In another word, the bonus for the first round of library upgrade will not change ten turns later to something else. Did I understand you correctly?

You propose for the bonuses to be random, but I don't know what you mean by random.
If the random bonus is determined when you get it, then the player don't know beforehand which bonus it will get. In that case there is no strategic decision just randomness. You don't choose to specialise your city, you just get random bonuses after you made your decisions.
The other possibility is to randomly generate them when the map is created. Each buildings will have bonuses that are known to the player and fixed for the game.
But maybe I don't understand at all what you mean by random bonuses.

 

[Leyrann]

Thanks for the input. The below is my response.

The reason I recommend randomization is exactly to eliminate the problem you have brought out, mainly that the bonuses sometimes are too powerful, and other times too weak. By randomizing the bonuses that we get each time, we will have to make the best of the cards that we are dealt.

We might not like the bonuses for library this time, because compare to the library bonuses in the last game, this one simply isn't attractive enough. But we might find that the bonuses for barracks, or market is much more rewarding this time. As a result, we might choose to upgrade something else other than library in this current game.

I think this randomization feature is quite important because it makes the game less "formulaic". By that I mean that the Civ games I have played so far becomes very SOP oriented. I do pretty much the same thing all the time, and I don't even bother thinking anymore. However, by randomizing the bonuses, that problem is somewhat reduced.

The problem with random bonuses for every game is also that you can't learn how the game works. Every time you play a new game, you have to read the tooltips again to know wheter something is worth it, while in the current system, which certainly needs some more balancing, I if I got a good spot with 4 mountain adjacencies, the choice of wheter to build a Campus or a Holy Site there is dependent on wheter I want or have a religion, instead of "oh, Library is strong this game, Shrine is weak this game, let's build a Campus".

On top of that, if bonuses were to be randomly decided every time again - what if I go for a science victory, but get three weak bonuses in a row, while my opponent who also goes for a science victory gets three strong ones in a row? Because of some dice rolls he now has a huge advantage over me. That's always the problem with randomization in games. It seems like a good idea, until you realize how bad it feels when you get a bad roll.

Do you mean randomization of all bonuses at the begining of a new game or when you upgrade the building. The first one in fact allows variation between games, while the former one just make the game random and is not fun from my point of you. But begining each game with a new set of building bonuses to learn is probably tedious, so I am not convinced that it is a good idea.

HOWEVER, I like the idea of randomization for Eureka and Inspiration. Having different eureka inspiration each game would really make it more interesting. It cannot be completely random and must be fine tune. An idea could be to have groups of research (military ones, navigation ones, etc) that each can have different kind of eureka that changes each game. I won't go further into this idea because it is off topic I think.

There's actually a mod under construction that randomizes eurekas and inspirations. Look up "Real Eurekas".

Hi, thank you for your comments.

I liked national wonders in civ5 but they have a pitfall. You tend to need specific opening to build them efficiently (rush them with only a few cities and expand later) which can reduce the diversity of openings. Some mods add national wonders to civ6, but it doesn't work great with the district system. You need to build the same district in all cities to build the national wonders, so you have to standardise your cities => it will not help specialising. It may help doing tall play, but not specialisation. Also they would need to cost much less production which is hard to get in civ6. I prefer a more flexible approach where specialising a city have no requirement for the other cities (why would I want theatres in all my cities to specialise one ? It defeat the purpose)

National Wonders in V were badly designed (like most of the game). IV also had national wonders, and they came in two types, both better than what Civ V did: The first type were wonders without a special requirement. For example, the "Maoi Statues" national wonder granted +1 production on every water tile worked by the city. The second type were wonders that required X (depending on map size, 8 for huge) buildings of a certain kind. For example, the Globe Theater (no unhappiness in this city) required you to build X theaters in your empire. The only thing you need to do to build those wonders is have a certain amount of developed cities, it doens't matter wheter you have any other cities.

 

[Arlequin]

There's actually a mod under construction that randomizes eurekas and inspirations. Look up "Real Eurekas".

Thanks, I definitely have to try this one.

Finally, wouldn't it be wonderful if this mechanic found its way in diplomatic discourse - i.e. Gorgo telling Cleo: Kindly remove your troops from my borders, else I shall burn your Memphis, your tourist trap, to cinders!

Sounds nice, but maybe it is too much to ask to the AI. It already has a lot to learn in other areas

 

[ShadowWarrior]

Now that it is clearly applied to civ6 I find your idea nicer

It is a bit like giving the civ4 cottage system (which I liked) to specialists and therefore improve specialists and make it an interesting decision about when to start using specialist, limiting growth/production of the city but improving the specialists potential. I think the bonus could simply be an improved yield over time, same as cottages. This can indeed be very cool. However it still doesn't help specialise cities. Why not build all cities the same way and use scientists specialists in all your cities big enough and nothing else.



You propose for the bonuses to be random, but I don't know what you mean by random.
If the random bonus is determined when you get it, then the player don't know beforehand which bonus it will get. In that case there is no strategic decision just randomness. You don't choose to specialise your city, you just get random bonuses after you made your decisions.
The other possibility is to randomly generate them when the map is created. Each buildings will have bonuses that are known to the player and fixed for the game.
But maybe I don't understand at all what you mean by random bonuses.

I see what you mean now. And yes, I can see the problems with my suggestions. Allow me to make modifications. First, forget randomization. All bonuses will be the same from game to game, from civ to civ, and from city to city. The only exception is if we want some bonuses to be unique to a certain civilizations.

As for the bonuses themselves, you are right. There is nothing to stop players from specializing their cities all in the same way, such as, for example, turning all science districts in all my cities into super science districts, while keeping all other types of districts undeveloped by specialists. The way to resolve that problem might lie in making the bonuses conditional on trade routes, resources, or geography. For example, all of industrial districts bonuses are dependent on the hammers already being produced on the worked terrains. The first upgrade bonus will increase output by 25 percent. The second upgrade bonus will increase output by another 25 percent. A city that is located on mostly grassland without forests or mines will not find it worth their while to invest specialists in industrial districts. Another example maybe harbor. All harbor bonuses are tied to the trade routes. The higher number of trade routes, the higher the bonuses. But since we only have limited number of trade routes, not all cities can specialize in harbor.