The district system

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I guess if a district is captured you lose the benefit it give to your city. If it is destroyed I don't think you lose the buildings but you need to pay a cost to repair it.

 

[oddtail]

OK, a few ideas/comments I have (hopefully I haven't repeated any points already from the thread. I read it, but I may've missed something):

1) I think there will be only one district of the same type per city, but I *hope* not. It would be interesting if it was allowed to build more of the same type. It would allow for more flexibility.

2) I love the fact that apparently Wonders will have their own tiles. That makes land very important, makes sense thematically and will look nice. I hope Wonders will not just be "super-districts", though, and that they will offer bonuses to the city/civilization at the cost of losing some tiles. That'd allow for interesting choices.

3) I wonder how roads will work in this system. Will city centres generally be connected via roads, similarly to Civ 5?

4) I *really* hope Civ 6 will avoid the problem I had with Civ 5 of simple additive power. A large city in Civ 5 is better at everything. More pop = more science, and generally you want huge cities, that's all. I hope the number of districts will not *solely* be a function of city population, and that the number of districts will be somewhat variable depending on civilization/strategy/policy. For example, the capital would, I hope, allow for more districts than other cities, and depending on strategy (tall vs wide, naval), certain cities would have a larger or smaller max number of districts. Population would still be a factor, but that would allow for different strategies: one huge capital with some smaller cities, a large number of cities with quite a few districts each, cities with very few districts (due to some upper limitation), focused almost entirely on tile improvements, a civilization that is allowed a large number of sea-based districts but few land-based ones... in theory, this could diversify strategies a *lot*, beyond a simple "tall vs wide". I hope it will not be just that at a certain point in the game, each city is allowed N districts (or worse, that a city of pop X always has Y districts, which would be a little boring).

5) I hope districts are not static and that they will grow/improve/upgrade in time, hopefully in variable ways. That is, that they can change in ways other than just plopping a building in them.

6) Similarly, I hope there will be circumstantial/optional bonuses to certain districts (from policies, technologies, resources nearby) that are not the same every game. Remember how different tile improvements had bonuses depending on government type in Civ 4? I would really like that to return in some form with the new district mechanic.

7) Points 4-6 are even more relevant if you consider capturing cities. Taking a juicy city like an enemy capital would allow you to have a powerful city with useful/numerous districts that you may not be able to build on your own (in effect, you might have two "capital"-level cities if you win a major war). This would add an interesting layer to the game.

8) I am somewhat fearful of AI not being able to handle districts too well in times of war. I hope I'm wrong.

9) I'm worried that some districts may just be a no-brainer. For example, "if you don't build a campus, you will be behind in tech". That'd take some careful balancing, or otherwise players will soon find the only viable two-district combination for their starting city. I don't see how this could be handled, but I hope the devs will find a good way to deal with this possible problem.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

8) I am somewhat fearful of AI not being able to handle districts too well in times of war. I hope I'm wrong.

Yeah, this could be an issue. Districts could make it easier for the human player to steamroll the AI if the AI is not able to defend their districts. By placing a big part of the city's power outside the city itself, it makes the city more vulnerable to a player who is able to outmaneuver the AI. A human player might be able to go after certain districts, raze them, and thus cripple the AI from ever being competitive.

In fact, I wonder if civ6 will introduce a new strategy where players will periodically declare war on an AI, raze their science districts, make peace, then repeat and thus cripple the AI's science for most of the game allowing the human to far outpace the AI in tech.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

In fact, I wonder if civ6 will introduce a new strategy where players will periodically declare war on an AI, raze their science districts, make peace, then repeat and thus cripple the AI's science for most of the game allowing the human to far outpace the AI in tech.

I think the new diplomacy system can stop such things as it is likely that everyone will hate you if you do declare war often.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I think the new diplomacy system can stop such things as it is likely that everyone will hate you if you do declare war often.

Not in the early game, as the devs have stated that war will be common then. And the human player just needs to set back the AI in science at the start of the game to get an advantage that will carry forward to the rest of the game.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

It depend on how much resources you need to invest in the war, maybe it take several turns to raze a district.

It is possible that war is not as cheap as it is in Civilization V and it is possible that science is not as important either. And just because war may be common in the early game don't mean they can have diplomatic consequence that will haunt you for the rest of the game.

There is to many what if to say if early raiding will be a good idea or not.

 

[Seek]

My take on the district system is this:

• Availability: Since they are tied to pop, perhaps it's one district for every, say, 5 pop, which would slow down district spam (not to mention that there are surely new districts unlocked in later eras) making 12 districts require 60 pop. This would make it *essentially* impossible to have every district in one city, not to mention tile availability being a limiting factor.
• Buildings and units: I suspect that all cities can still make all buildings and units, but are enhanced by districts. For example, if I have a military district I get a unit production modifier and increased xp, economic buildings are more effective if on an economic district, etc.
• District bonuses: We already have an example of how a military district gives the city an extra shot, but I wonder how the adjacency bonuses will work for the other districts? Could be that they gain actual yields on the tiles (eg, sci district gets +1 science on the district tile for each science building there and for each adjacent jungle, and once an observatory is built, for each adjacent mountain as well) or they might add % modifiers for buildings and adjacency. Would be nice if all the districts provided more unique bonuses also.

Overall, I just don't see them disallowing buildings in cities without specific districts, and that the district system will be elegantly designed (it is Ed Beach after all!).

As to whether there should be multiple districts of the same type I can't say, but it seems like a pretty straightforward design decision to only have one of each.

 

[Jewman]

Just thought of something. What if one of the districts is an embassy district? Other civs can place their embassies there (once the appropriate technology to found embassies is established) and it allows diplomatic bonuses with civilizations with embassies and as you develop new "diplomatic" buildings you unlock new bonuses like student exchange programs (science bonus), military coordination (military production bonus or maybe the ability to set military targets for allies in war).
Seems like it would be kind of hard to pull off but some sort of tangible project that you could work towards to improve diplomacy would be a nice touch.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

It depend on how much resources you need to invest in the war, maybe it take several turns to raze a district.

It is possible that war is not as cheap as it is in Civilization V and it is possible that science is not as important either. And just because war may be common in the early game don't mean they can have diplomatic consequence that will haunt you for the rest of the game.

There is to many what if to say if early raiding will be a good idea or not.

I am just saying that the "early district raiding" strategy needs to be looked at to make sure it is balanced.

 

[oddtail]

I just thought of a possibility of keeping one district of each type per city, while still allowing further specialisation...

What if National Wonders return in Civ 6, and are somehow tied to districts? Since we already know that World Wonders occupy their own tile, National Wonders could do that too. With a limit of one National Wonder per civilization (same as Civ 4 or Civ 5, but with possibly different requirements for building one), one might conceivably have a National Wonder (say, Great University) that would work similarly to a Campus district, in effect allowing one city to have a double Campus, which in turn would allow for one city more heavily focused on science than others.

And since land around a city would be limited, there would be no possibility of having TOO many National Wonders in one particular city without some tradeoffs.

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

My take on the district system is this:

• Buildings and units: I suspect that all cities can still make all buildings and units, but are enhanced by districts. For example, if I have a military district I get a unit production modifier and increased xp, economic buildings are more effective if on an economic district, etc..

Overall, I just don't see them disallowing buildings in cities without specific districts, and that the district system will be elegantly designed (it is Ed Beach after all!).

As to whether there should be multiple districts of the same type I can't say, but it seems like a pretty straightforward design decision to only have one of each.

To this point in particular, one of the articles stated that there would be an advantage to placing your military district outside of the city walls as that would allow you to pump out units to take the enemy in the rear as they are sieging the city. That seems to imply the possibility that units and buildings may be district dependent; you may not be able to train military units without that military district present.

 

[Jewman]

Oh I see someone posted about a possible embassy district before me. Woops!
But I just thought of something more. The embassy district would also house spies. So unlocking a certain tech lets you send out spies to your embassies, but another or the same tech lets you build a counter-spy or information sharing building in your embassy district that helps stop other spies and let's you share the intelligence your spies gather with allies.

 

[oddtail]

To this point in particular, one of the articles stated that there would be an advantage to placing your military district outside of the city walls as that would allow you to pump out units to take the enemy in the rear as they are sieging the city. That seems to imply the possibility that units and buildings may be district dependent; you may not be able to train military units without that military district present.

I think the most interesting approach would be for only *some* units to be available with a military district, and others being available in any city. So a military-focused civilization would be able to build (more of) specialised/elite units, and a less warlike one could get by on armies fielded by regulars, perhaps?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

http://mashable.com/2016/05/11/civilization-6-reveal-details/#ZshGDkLp_8qC

This article mentions Neighborhoods. Do you suppose that is a type of District, an improvement, or just another term for a District?

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Not only that but they say that farms become less needed in the late game.

They said you build neighbourhoods to allow more citizen in the city so it sound like there is some sort of pop cap system.

 

[dexters]

In the IGN rewind trailer Ed or Dennis mentioned the image of the Czech uprising was included in the trailer to highlight that attack cities will no longer be just about taking the city central tile but involve fighting for control of the districts outside of it

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I think if you control the central tile you control the city but you can cause problems for the city owner by capturing districts.

 

[dexters]

I think if you control the central tile you control the city but you can cause problems for the city owner by capturing districts.

That is my assumption. But I assume this is highlighted to point out pacifying outlying districts or at least some key districts may be required or at least recommended prior to take the city center. Perhaps the cultural borders won't flip with just the Centre captured and the enemy could surround the attacking force and cut them off.

 

[spfun]

I have no idea how coastal or island cities are going to work with the district system. Seems like you only want a couple of water tiles max or you'll run out of room fast.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I have no idea how coastal or island cities are going to work with the district system. Seems like you only want a couple of water tiles max or you'll run out of room fast.

Just like in real life, islands are less than ideal locations for cities unless they are pretty close to more land or ridiculous amounts of maritime resources.