Speculation on Amenity: quantity, and indirect control.

[MadDjinn]

In this Marbozir video, you can see when he clicks the 2 ivory on the trade screen, it puts both into the trade window and he had to adjust it back down to 1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6doJ5mXXfuE&t=19m40s

I don't think there is an example of an actual trade of two luxuries. This just shows the interface allows it, at least in that build.

hmm, not sure we should count on a older build at this point.

 

[Silverdawn]

hmm, not sure we should count on a older build at this point.

I agree that we shouldn't but I think that is how far back you have to go to see possible trading like that. The underlying system could have changed or they could have tweaked the interface (e.g. so it starts with one copy for luxuries).

I don't think there have been any trades in the Firaxis livestreams with the newer builds. We should find out later this week.

 

[joncnunn]

Note that they'd had to make a change in the interface from Civ V with regards for luxuries even for this screenshot to have occurred.

For old builds; sections where changes vs Civ V has occurred are much more reliable than sections with no change.

 

[Babri]

One of the videos showed them able to sell two copies of the same luxury to the AI.

I doubt the interface would have allowed that if it were impossible for the second copy to benefit the AI.

It was an old video, in the latest stream there appeared to be no such option. Barbarossa only demands tea, not 1 tea or something. It pains me to say that but I think they are going with 4 amenities per luxury only for simplicity as well as a way to balance wide Vs tall. Coupled with rise of settler & district costs wide may not be as good as they sound.

I do think that they considered the option of multiple luxuries supporting more cities at one point though, which is supported by Marbozir video.

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[Lucius_]

Note that they'd had to make a change in the interface from Civ V with regards for luxuries even for this screenshot to have occurred.

For old builds; sections where changes vs Civ V has occurred are much more reliable than sections with no change.

With a new engine, would they be able to recycle code like that? I'd expect if they are using a new engine, they'd want to write new code and start from the ground up and have much cleaner code specifically for Civ VI.

Though the ability to trade multiple resources is promising, but it does not totally satisfy my fears as of yet. I really do not want to see an optimal 4 city setup again, which is very likely to happen if luxury copies aren't providing amenities to additional cities. I've got my fingers crossed that you are right at this point though.

 

[Shadole]

It was an old video, in the latest stream there appeared to be no such option. Barbarossa only demands tea, not 1 tea or something. It pains me to say that but I think they are going with 4 amenities per luxury only for simplicity as well as a way to balance wide Vs tall. Coupled with rise of settler & district costs wide may not be as good as they sound.

I do think that they considered the option of multiple luxuries supporting more cities at one point though, which is supported by Marbozir video.

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In the Barbarossa trading screen I can specifically see the number "1" in the tea icon...

 

[dturtle1]

I like how different threads reach different conclusions. In this thread most people assume additional copies of luxury resource give additional amenities, while in strategic resources thread, most later post agree what it's likely the additional copies don't provide more amenities and could be sold freely

While I strongly belief the latter, I understand the wording used by developers isn't very clear and we have to wait for let's play videos to close the question.

Strongly Agree Hey, Well i Strongly Disagree.....PISTOLS @ DAWN

I Happened to remember it that most people wanted to Believe that multiple copies would affect extra cities but unfortunately there was no clear cut proof

Honestly at this point who knows...
Yes, we will have wait but for the Love of all Deities i hope i am right, if not, I am not sure how well i will take it... it will bug me soo much

 

[MadDjinn]

It was an old video, in the latest stream there appeared to be no such option. Barbarossa only demands tea, not 1 tea or something. It pains me to say that but I think they are going with 4 amenities per luxury only for simplicity as well as a way to balance wide Vs tall. Coupled with rise of settler & district costs wide may not be as good as they sound.

I do think that they considered the option of multiple luxuries supporting more cities at one point though, which is supported by Marbozir video.

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I'm not sure this bothers the 'tall' vs 'wide', wrt if a lux only gives 4 amenities period, no matter how many copies you have.

IE -- have 2 unique luxs, that's +2 per first 4 cities. after that, it would shift to a mix of +2 and +1 per city, as you add new cities (to eventual +1 per city for 8 cities).

now, there's a list of amenity sources that mostly are driven by you:

Civics -- This is a direct player choice thing
Entertainment -- 'build the district or don't'
Great People -- not reliable, but player driven
Religion -- player choice, if you choose early enough
National Parks -- if you want less usable hexes in your territory.

So lets say you have those 2 lux from before. if you build an entertainment complex in your core cities, that shifts their needed amenities from lux based to entertainment based, and the 'new' cities all of a sudden have some extra luxuries to spare.

Tag on whatever civic choices are available (Classical Republic gives +1 amenity if the city has a district) along with religion, and your early game expansion can still continue. Ofc, hoping that you expanded in cities 2-8 to add more unique lux on top of the starting 2 you had - or extra to trade with an AI that has extra.

 

[mzprox]

Would be nice if we had toggles for amenity distribution, like:
1: minimize unhappyness (the more unhappy cities will get priority when distributing luxuries)
2: even distribution (each city will get the same amount)
3: realtive to population (the more populated cities get more amenities)

And maybe some other option.: so without micromanagement we had some control at least.

 

[kaspergm]

I'm not sure this bothers the 'tall' vs 'wide', wrt if a lux only gives 4 amenities period, no matter how many copies you have.

IE -- have 2 unique luxs, that's +2 per first 4 cities. after that, it would shift to a mix of +2 and +1 per city, as you add new cities (to eventual +1 per city for 8 cities).

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying, but I think the reason it would affect the wide/tall balance is that we know (with certainty?) that each lux can only be applied to each city once. This means that a 4-city empire would only benefit from one copy of each lux, whereas an 8-city empire would benefit from two copies of the same lux. Whether that benefits wide or tall more is open for debate, however.

 

[joncnunn]

With a new engine, would they be able to recycle code like that?

Yup it's trivial to do so if they've not changed the language to start as a copy paste of either the released branch of Civ V BNW or the development branch of what would have been the next patch had there been one, and then tweak as necessary for any changes in the API of the engine. There's even a high possibility since they probably wrote the engine in house that for functionality already supported by the old engine that the API was kept the same as much as possible. (Cut and Paste can even be a starting point if the language changes since it expresses the logic of what the old version did, sometimes more completely than converting the old logic into a tech spec document.)
In case of Civ V, it was extremely easy to see after they released the C++ files making up the DLL that large sections of the code were cut and pasted from Civ IV; and in at least on case, the method retained with everything commented out.
This is why I have some minor concerns that known bugs on the UI of Civ V last official patch will be on the CD version of Civ VI where functionality is similar.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying, but I think the reason it would affect the wide/tall balance is that we know (with certainty?) that each lux can only be applied to each city once. This means that a 4-city empire would only benefit from one copy of each lux, whereas an 8-city empire would benefit from two copies of the same lux. Whether that benefits wide or tall more is open for debate, however.

With sufficient trading partners, it's a minor advantage of the 4 city one since they can trade the spare copy of each luxury for unique luxuries.

However, a wider empire should have more of both total luxuries and total unique luxaries within its borders than a taller one.

 

[Sansa_Stark]

Did Sansa not already definitely demonstrate the existence of a second bonus level on the top of page 2?

She did, but nobody listens to young girls apparently

Anyway, if they didn't change it, +1 and +2 provide 5% boost, +3 and more (we've seen up to +5) provides +9%.

 

[Haggbart]

It was an old video, in the latest stream there appeared to be no such option. Barbarossa only demands tea, not 1 tea or something. It pains me to say that but I think they are going with 4 amenities per luxury only for simplicity as well as a way to balance wide Vs tall. Coupled with rise of settler & district costs wide may not be as good as they sound.

I do think that they considered the option of multiple luxuries supporting more cities at one point though, which is supported by Marbozir video.

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I do understand the concern, but compared to CiV I think the brakes/limiters to number of cities are peanuts.

Remember we had global happiness, a lot of national wonders that required every city to have certain buildings AND percentage-penalties to culture and science for every new city. So I'm confident there will be more cities than in CiV, no matter how the amenities function (your main source of amenities probably won't be luxuries anyway as the game progress).

 

[Herakleides]

Amenities are better than happiness. There is a depth to the system(even without playing it) that I can see that wasn't in Civilization V. Coupled with the housing mechanic and districts it means that cities are becoming more like characters in this story in their own right.

Implementation again is key.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Amenities are better than happiness. There is a depth to the system(even without playing it) that I can see that wasn't in Civilization V. Coupled with the housing mechanic and districts it means that cities are becoming more like characters in this story in their own right.

Implementation again is key.

Depth is a dangerous word It's often a sign of simulator not strategic game, see Civ vs. EU thread. For strategic game the system should bring choices with predictable consequences.

I like Civ6 system as it allows more complex empire setups (like small number of large cities and large number of smaller ones), but I really dislike shady department of amenities.