The district system

[Nixalo]

It's possible. It also explains why they neighborhoods replace farms - if you hit the cap, you don't need more food. What bothers me:
- How the game should handle the pillaging of neighborhood? Is it immediate pop drop?
- Hard population cap was an issue in earlier Civ games but was thrown away after Civ3 in favor of more dynamic systems. I'm not sure I see the real goal behind returning the system back.

A pillaged neighborhood probably you keep the pop but get a happiness penalty for being over the cap.

Suburbanites would run to the city when the army comes.

Sounds like a city would have a cap of population (lets say 10 or 12) then get like a +1 pop cap per neighborhood. India's city pop cap might be double or 150%.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

We don't know if neighbourhoods are a hard cap or soft cap. In Pandora First Contact they are used to increase a soft cap so you don't get unhappiness for overcrowding.

 

[Jewman]

A pillaged neighborhood probably you keep the pop but get a happiness penalty for being over the cap.

Suburbanites would run to the city when the army comes.

Sounds like a city would have a cap of population (lets say 10 or 12) then get like a +1 pop cap per neighborhood. India's city pop cap might be double or 150%.

This is going to be a lot of fun in modern warfare since I believe they mentioned airplanes can bombard improvements and presumably districts too. I always felt like the AI was completely unaffected by pillaging and destructive actions short of capturing cities.

Now my mind is running... if the ideologies system is back in some way, shape or form, it would be interesting to punish civs with differing ideologies in warfare with the intent of regime change rather than conquest with the intent of creating a certain ideological bloc for diplomatic or cultural purposes. So you destroy their happiness districts, luxury improvements, and "neighborhoods" to force their empire to get unhappy. Although I suppose if happiness is local now that mechanic won't work as well... would be fun to add a "human rights" resolution to the UN in late game diplomacy that punishes those targeting civilians and districts in wars too.

Either way, the idea of ruined or pillaged districts spawning rebels that fight either the occupier or city owner is something fun that needs to be added.

 

[Nixalo]

We don't know if neighbourhoods are a hard cap or soft cap. In Pandora First Contact they are used to increase a soft cap so you don't get unhappiness for overcrowding.

My guess is a soft cap. Each city could have a soft cap of something like 10 or somethingand every pop over 10 is massive unhappiness. Neighborhoods for your capital and food cities would raise the cap.

If someone pillages the burbs, neighborhood people run to the city and become major bummers.

 

[bjbrains]

I don't think so. From the info we have, they have clearly different roles. Districts host buildings and thus there's 1 district of each type per city. Neighborhoods are going to mostly replace farms, so they are likely to be more than 1 per city and thus be an improvement.

What interests me a lot is a vague mention of neighborhoods used to house population. If that's gameplay mechanic, not some random words, this could mean completely different population system.

I disagree- We don't know if you can only have one of each district per city, but assuming this is true, there's still 12 types of district to build. We know 'neighborhoods' replace tile improvements as your city grows, but isn't this also true for districts? We know there are pop requirements for districts, and we know they take up space on the map. It seems entirely reasonable that this one article talking about how your city grows and gets 'neighborhoods' added means districts instead. Having wonders, up to 12 districts, and 'neighborhoods' seems like there's too much on the map.
It's all up in the air obviously, but this seems like an odd element to be completely missing from every other interview and preview article.

 

[kaspergm]

My gut feeling is like bjbrains that "districts" and "neighborhoods" are synonymous, but I wouldn't mind if they were two different things - i.e. districts focuses on a certain yield (science, culture, faith, etc.) whereas neighborhoods focuses on population. However, a different spin on this that I would also support would be a return to the Civ4 mechanism of trade posts growing into villages and towns, but with this being tied to a population cap in the city. This would mean that you would gradually need to replace your farm areas with trade posts (that grow into villages and towns), which makes very much sense historically. Meanwhile, as you progress technology, you should be able to improve your remaining farms to give higher food yields, with fertilizers etc.

Actually, I could even see a complete decoupling from the old concept of working certain tiles, and instead have every improved tile automatically give the city yield, but having the number of tiles you can improve depend on the population of the city and the era, so that as your city grows and time progresses, you unlock new tiles, but you need to decide whether you'll use them for a district (to provide specialized yields), for an improvement (to provide food/production), or for trade post/village/town (to provide housing and gold).

 

[Tantor]

I Wonder which buildings that will be buildable in the city centre?

Districts see like a cool concept, but if there are a some District that is needed in every city, then there will be a generic District spam that is the same for every city.

Every city needs production, gold, science and defense/military. But sometimes I only want to build a Library without progressing further down the science building line. Then I don`t want to make a campus for one silly Library.....

Districts make me Dizzy

 

[stealth_nsk]

I Wonder which buildings that will be buildable in the city centre?

We've seen Palace, Monument and Granary, although their functions aren't clear. It looks like there's 1 more slot in city center.

 

[m15a]

If only 4 or so buildings can be built in the city center, it may be that those are the ones that may need to be built before the city can support districts. For example, the monument might be in the city tile so that your borders can expand enough to get a good district tile. Or the granary might be necessary in some cases to grow the population enough to support a district. The palace is presumably the exception since it's probably free.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Maybe every building can be in the city center but if you want more than one you need a district. That would be a significant change though as buildings would have to be balanced with the ability to have several per city possible.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

[Haig]

What about espionage buildings, where they could be located in, if they exist in Civ6 ?

 

[Hail]

This is going to be a lot of fun in modern warfare since I believe they mentioned airplanes can bombard improvements and presumably districts too. I always felt like the AI was completely unaffected by pillaging and destructive actions short of capturing cities.

airplanes can bombard and destroy districts (& likely improvements too).

What about espionage buildings, where they could be located in, if they exist in Civ6 ?

an espionage building(s) will probably go into the military district.

 

[stealth_nsk]

an espionage building(s) will probably go into the military district.

We know about Barracks, Stable and Military Academy. Since districts usually host 4 buildings, it's unlikely encampment is used for espionage buildings. It also not very good from logical standpoint as encampment is built in cities targeted for unit production.

So, if there are espionage buildings, they have their own district or are joined with other buildings, like high-level happiness - depending on how espionage actually works.

 

[boghog]

We know about Barracks, Stable and Military Academy. Since districts usually host 4 buildings, it's unlikely encampment is used for espionage buildings.

That got me thinking: If you only ever get four buildings in a district (that seems to be the case) and there are already four +XP-buildings in Civ V plus stables plus whatever (do fortifications count?) it might make sense that some buildings supplant others. So you won't have barracks AND a military academy, a library AND a university, an amphitheatre AND an opera house. The later ones might be upgrades to the earlier ones in some cases. That way you won't run out of district slots so easily.

 

[Thormodr]

I'm on the fence on this one. The districts make for a very disjointed looking city and that is certainly not how cities grew in the real world. Also, the colour coding of districts seems kind of lame.

The idea seems good but I'm not sure that the execution of it won't fall flat.

 

[Gorbles]

I'm on the fence on this one. The districts make for a very disjointed looking city and that is certainly not how cities grew in the real world. Also, the colour coding of districts seems kind of lame.

The idea seems good but I'm not sure that the execution of it won't fall flat.

Why is there this seemingly-religious belief that games have to mirror real-world population dynamics 100%?

 

[Ikael]

Why is there this seemingly-religious belief that games have to mirror real-world population dynamics 100%?

It is not necessary to archieve a 100% realistic simulation (and that approach also has its own set of problems) but mirroring real world dynamics does have many benefits:

- Game becomes more intuitive. For example, one can easily understand that gunpowder technology will help your military while Education will increase your research, since we have these historical frames of reference. Conversely, if you make game systems too "gamey" they might become counter-intuitive and obscure, such as popullation becoming unhappy because you have founded an additional city or suicide catapults.

- Realism also make the game more flavourful. Why making a game about history at all if I am not going to feel like ruling over the fearsome Zulus, the clever Greeks or the refined French?

- Some real world mechanics are fun, since the real world is full with political dylemmas, grey areas and hard strategic choices, rather than a clear tidy path to victory.

 

[Nixalo]

We know about Barracks, Stable and Military Academy. Since districts usually host 4 buildings, it's unlikely encampment is used for espionage buildings. It also not very good from logical standpoint as encampment is built in cities targeted for unit production.

So, if there are espionage buildings, they have their own district or are joined with other buildings, like high-level happiness - depending on how espionage actually works.

Makes more sense that the espionage buildings like constabulary and police station go in their own "police" or "law" district.

Maybe that is where the courthouse is too?

 

[Gorbles]

It is not necessary to archieve a 100% realistic simulation (and that approach also has its own set of problems) but mirroring real world dynamics does have many benefits:

- Game becomes more intuitive. For example, one can easily understand that gunpowder technology will help your military while Education will increase your research, since we have these historical frames of reference. Conversely, if you make game systems too "gamey" they might become counter-intuitive and obscure, such as popullation becoming unhappy because you have founded an additional city or suicide catapults.

- Realism also make the game more flavourful. Why making a game about history at all if I am not going to feel like ruling over the fearsome Zulus, the clever Greeks or the refined French?

- Some real world mechanics are fun, since the real world is full with political dylemmas, grey areas and hard strategic choices, rather than a clear tidy path to victory.

Oh, sorry, those are quite broad examples (which I completely agree with).

I was talking specifically about population growth and how it's represented as the city "grows". Trying to model accurate population dynamics requires a simulation with far greater fidelity than Civilisation has ever offered. The franchise has always gone with "one point of Population equals one workable tile, etc, et al". There has never been a accurate modelling of the a City's population which is why I find it a bit silly to expect the City's aesthetics to 100% mirror some kind of organic population growth. At best you'll get a rudimentary approximation, which is fine because you can't really program that kind of simulation accurately without an absolute metric ton of geographical data (including census surveys and so on).

 

[Jewman]

Makes more sense that the espionage buildings like constabulary and police station go in their own "police" or "law" district.

Maybe that is where the courthouse is too?

i think you're onto something. It could be a district that is unlocked early in the game for when you conquer a new city and want to control local happiness with a courthouse. But the catch is, besides using up a district on law and order, that you don't get the later buildings, i.e. constabulary, police station, intelligence agency until the late game.

In terms of spies, I've been increasingly convincing myself that we will have an embassy district (one per civ maybe) that lets you house foreign diplomats and unlocks certain special interactions, one of those being spies.