The district system

[Minor Annoyance]

The opportunity to upgrade a district so it could hold multiple citizens seems like a much clearer and more Civ-like alternative to building multiple of the same districts/buildings

They call those specialists!

 

[Seek]

If science is unbalanced, then they should balance science v culture/faith/production/gold.
Instead of Forcing you to build non-science districts, they should make it something you Want to do (in certain circumstances)

I get the sense that these are both goals of the dev team; it's going to be quite a feat to achieve this given how strongly science has always been king is civ games, and well neigh impossible if multiple districts are allowed.

The thing is, unless we end up with a large amount of small, flat yield producing buildings (re: BE ) we will see per-pop and/or %-based buildings just to give each building it's own flavor; plus, flat yield buildings promote ICS. So even with just *one* % building it's likely going to be more efficient to stack all your science districts into one city, thus leading to the city not just being "specialized" but *only* producing science districts and buildings (and I'm using science as an example here, the same could be said for culture, faith, gold, etc. - any global yield). As I said earlier, this would be unfun/boring, and opens up more issues than it solves (come to think of it, I'm still not sure what issues would be solved tbh).

It just makes good sense - and is a clean, elegant design decision - to only allow one district type per city imo.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I get the sense that these are both goals of the dev team; it's going to be quite a feat to achieve this given how strongly science has always been king is civ games, and well neigh impossible if multiple districts are allowed.

The thing is, unless we end up with a large amount of small, flat yield producing buildings (re: BE ) we will see per-pop and/or %-based buildings just to give each building it's own flavor; plus, flat yield buildings promote ICS. So even with just *one* % building it's likely going to be more efficient to stack all your science districts into one city, thus leading to the city not just being "specialized" but *only* producing science districts and buildings (and I'm using science as an example here, the same could be said for culture, faith, gold, etc. - any global yield). As I said earlier, this would be unfun/boring, and opens up more issues than it solves (come to think of it, I'm still not sure what issues would be solved tbh).

It just makes good sense - and is a clean, elegant design decision - to only allow one district type per city imo.

That assumes that the % effect would be duplicated

What if it was

Library +1 citizen working this tile, if a city has 1 or more Libraries it gets +10% science.

(per pop bonuses are OK for duplication as long as all districts have some... you can have 4 science per pop or 4 culture or 1 sci, 1 culture, 1 gold, and 1 production*)

*values subject to balance


[another way to balance science .. particularly v. production is to make the buildings and units of higher techs increase in cost more... if a Mech Inf was 4,000 hammers, having a lot of science in my empire isn't as good as having the hammers to produce the units

 

[Ryika]

If building 5 Workshops (say they Didn't give the +10%, but only the +2) meant that you could build any Marketplaces, Libraries, Monuments, or Barracks in the city.. then it wouldn't be imbalanced

You can't know anything of what you're saying is correct, you're just making wild assumptions of how balance will play out. Reality is: The more freedom you have to stack yields, the more chances there are that unreasonable results happen.

My history in RTS, TBS and even MMOs (WoWs Theorycrafting) has shown me that even with stark diminishing returns being able to stack a yield can be extremely efficient and get you results that are clearly undesirable for the game balance.

I mean, take the most obvious example - a well-placed, defensive city that has 7 Military Districts. Yes, that city would probably not contribute much else, but it would be a completely impenetrable fortress. That's one thing taken to an extreme that should not be possible.

Other examples are not that easy to visualize, but that doesn't mean the possibility doesn't exist. And if yield-stacking is too weak to even be worth it, then why would multiple districts even be allowed?

I remain confident that being able to construct multiple of the same district would be silly and bad for the game.

 

[Seek]

That assumes that the % effect would be duplicated

What if it was

Library +1 citizen working this tile, if a city has 1 or more Libraries it gets +10% science.

(per pop bonuses are OK for duplication as long as all districts have some... you can have 4 science per pop or 4 culture or 1 sci, 1 culture, 1 gold, and 1 production*)

*values subject to balance


[another way to balance science .. particularly v. production is to make the buildings and units of higher techs increase in cost more... if a Mech Inf was 4,000 hammers, having a lot of science in my empire isn't as good as having the hammers to produce the units

Sure, it all comes down to balance, I'll give you that, absolutely. However, I still don't think my main points:
1. It's boring/unfun to build the same thing over and over again
2. What are the benefits from allowing multiple instances of districts?
3. One district type per city is good, clean, elegant design
4. Balance would be much more difficult to achieve
have been addressed, even given perfect balance.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Sure, it all comes down to balance, I'll give you that, absolutely. However, I still don't think my main points:
1. It's boring/unfun to build the same thing over and over again
2. What are the benefits from allowing multiple instances of districts?
3. One district type per city is good, clean, elegant design
4. Balance would be much more difficult to achieve
have been addressed, even given perfect balance.

Yes, this. I don't see any single reason for having more than 1 district of the same type in a city other than people suddenly realizing it's unrealistic, after 5 games where it wasn't a problem.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I think the "financial" district should be in the main city hex, but that's just me imagining what the center of most cities are. Gameplay-wise I'll be interested in seeing how this works.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Sure, it all comes down to balance, I'll give you that, absolutely. However, I still don't think my main points:
1. It's boring/unfun to build the same thing over and over again
2. What are the benefits from allowing multiple instances of districts?
3. One district type per city is good, clean, elegant design
4. Balance would be much more difficult to achieve
have been addressed, even given perfect balance.

1. Argument for 1 district/building per empire, not 1 district per city

2. City with multiple good locations for a particular district type, possibly make multiple copies of a district in a City a Eureka moment/requirement for a Wonder/building

3. District is limited by terrain+population rather than also being limited by cities seems more simple+clean

4. Balancing it around 1 per city seems like a kludge to deal with the fact that science > all (and then they have to add the additional kludge of limiting number of cities)

If science is imbalanced, why not just penalize total # of science districts in your empire, instead of forcing it to be 1/city and penalizing cities.

Yes, this. I don't see any single reason for having more than 1 district of the same type in a city other than people suddenly realizing it's unrealistic, after 5 games where it wasn't a problem.

Opportunity for greater diversity of your empire as a whole (do you have 10% science districts or 90% science districts)
Opportunity for Greater diversity of your individual cities (which is my production city, my science city, my X city)
Opportunity to utilize the map better (place a city site for 3 science districts, where the map wouldn't allow 3 cities... but I have to give up X other good district sites)

 

[SammyKhalifa]

1. Argument for 1 district/building per empire, not 1 district per city

2. City with multiple good locations for a particular district type, possibly make multiple copies of a district in a City a Eureka moment/requirement for a Wonder/building

3. District is limited by terrain+population rather than also being limited by cities seems more simple+clean

4. Balancing it around 1 per city seems like a kludge to deal with the fact that science > all (and then they have to add the additional kludge of limiting number of cities)

If science is imbalanced, why not just penalize total # of science districts in your empire, instead of forcing it to be 1/city and penalizing cities.



Opportunity for greater diversity of your empire as a whole (do you have 10% science districts or 90% science districts)
Opportunity for Greater diversity of your individual cities (which is my production city, my science city, my X city)
Opportunity to utilize the map better (place a city site for 3 science districts, where the map wouldn't allow 3 cities... but I have to give up X other good district sites)

You have a point; however I think it would be highly likely that not matter how much balancing they would do, once the game got out "into the wild" a best district would be discovered leading to massive district spamming instead of the diversity we're looking for. Imagine if you could build multiple libraries or granaries (or whatever) in civV . . .

 

[AriochIV]

There's a reason why you're not allowed to build 10 Libraries or 10 Amphitheaters or 10 Temples in every city; it's because the designers need to set an upper limit on the rate at which you advance through the power levels of particular aspect of the game. It's hard enough to balance a Science-focused civ vs. a Culture-focused civ when each building is unique per city; if they allow you to build unlimited numbers of nothing but the most efficient generator of your resource of choice, balance becomes all but impossible. Each power tree needs to last for the entirety of a playthrough, so you have to throttle the maximum amount of that tree's resource that a player can generate per turn, and you can't do that if you let them build as many copies of resource generators as they like.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

You have a point; however I think it would be highly likely that not matter how much balancing they would do, once the game got out "into the wild" a best district would be discovered leading to massive district spamming instead of the diversity we're looking for. Imagine if you could build multiple libraries or granaries (or whatever) in civV . . .

True, but then that just means ICS a bunch of cities with the one best district, and they fight that with city caps.

If they can't balance the districts directly, then penalize having too many of a certain district in your empire with penalties (tech cost penalties per science district, civic cost penalties per culture district, purchase cost penalties per gold district, etc. for whichever one is too powerful)

There's a reason why you're not allowed to build 10 Libraries or 10 Amphitheaters or 10 Temples in every city; it's because the designers need to set an upper limit on the rate at which you advance through the power levels of particular aspect of the game. It's hard enough to balance a Science-focused civ vs. a Culture-focused civ when each building is unique per city; if they allow you to build unlimited numbers of nothing but the most efficient generator of your resource of choice, balance becomes all but impossible. Each power tree needs to last for the entirety of a playthrough, so you have to throttle the maximum amount of that tree's resource that a player can generate per turn, and you can't do that if you let them build as many copies of resource generators as they like.

But they do... the resource generators for science (and food and production and gold) are population, and there was no limit on population per city in CivV. (most of the buildings were basically multipliers anyways)

not to mention the Total # of districts appears to be limited by population, as well as terrain placement

With Districts, we don't know if any resources will be generated by an unworked district... I would hope not, and additional buildings could easily just increase the # of workers allowed, yield per worker, or value of the first worker.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Opportunity for greater diversity of your empire as a whole (do you have 10% science districts or 90% science districts)
Opportunity for Greater diversity of your individual cities (which is my production city, my science city, my X city)
Opportunity to utilize the map better (place a city site for 3 science districts, where the map wouldn't allow 3 cities... but I have to give up X other good district sites)

1. Diversity for empire as a whole is likely to be just imbalance. Let's say it's possible to have empire dedicated for science, you beat everyone, build a couple of high-tech units which destroy anything coming close and win. If this path would be possible what would likely mean destroyed balance and less actual strategic choices.

2. Same again, if too specialized cities are viable, the number of variants reduces. Have 2 full science, 1 military city and so on. With cities having 3-4 districts each, they become much more complex. Terrain bonuses, which increase planning in case of having 1 district of each type per city, will decrease it for unlimited district. Say you have a city near rain forests - hello, science powerhouse, no options.

3. As pointed above - utilize map better by reducing actual strategic choices.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

1. Diversity for empire as a whole is likely to be just imbalance. Let's say it's possible to have empire dedicated for science, you beat everyone, build a couple of high-tech units which destroy anything coming close and win. If this path would be possible what would likely mean destroyed balance and less actual strategic choices.

That assuming a science district is better than the rest, which means you have taken a basic balance problem (build science districts whenever possible)... that is the problem.

You have that diversity only if 10% science and 90% science are both at the same chance of winning (depending on their terrain, and what the remaining districts are)

Otherwise the diversity is gone, and I go 90% science by going ICS only 1 district per city.

2. Same again, if too specialized cities are viable, the number of variants reduces. Have 2 full science, 1 military city and so on. With cities having 3-4 districts each, they become much more complex. Terrain bonuses, which increase planning in case of having 1 district of each type per city, will decrease it for unlimited district. Say you have a city near rain forests - hello, science powerhouse, no options.

1 city won't necessarily have all of its terrain good for the same type of district (and some districts are of the 'support the city' one... like happiness and industry, assuming that is still local). I'm guessing the districts have some placement restrictions, like can't be to close to each other.

so you could possibly only have 3 really good science sites in a science city, the other districts would be what your other terrain was good for/whatever else your empire really needs

 

[Seek]

Thanks KrikkitTwo, I have a much better understanding of where you're coming from. However, I remain unconvinced. Arioch, Sammy and Stealth all have excellent points. To add my 2¢:

1. Argument for 1 district/building per empire, not 1 district per city

2. City with multiple good locations for a particular district type, possibly make multiple copies of a district in a City a Eureka moment/requirement for a Wonder/building

3. District is limited by terrain+population rather than also being limited by cities seems more simple+clean

4. Balancing it around 1 per city seems like a kludge to deal with the fact that science > all (and then they have to add the additional kludge of limiting number of cities)

If science is imbalanced, why not just penalize total # of science districts in your empire, instead of forcing it to be 1/city and penalizing cities.

1. It isn't - each city has it's own "personality" and it's often a different decision of what to build and when for each. Yes, it can be a slog at times, but after thousands of hours playing Civ games it has never really gotten old. As mentioned by others, it's worked fine for five iterations. Having a super-Xyield city with Multiple Instances of Districts (MID) changes that because the city would be *so* specialized literally all it would do (in order to be efficient) would be to build districts and the appropriate buildings and not bother with anything else since there would be other specialized cities for other yields. From a realism standpoint, there's nowhere in the world where a city/region just does one thing (aside from maybe some fabricated tech communities or something - so maybe allow MID in the Info Age?). Look at Detroit, while a manufacturing haven in the mid-twentieth century, it gave rise to Motown which had an enormous cultural impact on the US.

2. I see what you mean, but this is more an argument against MID for me. Making the decision of where to settle in that situation became a whole lot more interesting - can I squeeze two less optimal cities in next to each other, or should I take the prime spot but lose the other awesome district location?

3. It doesn't to me, but I get where you're coming from. Having just one per city makes the decision of where to place it that much more meaningful and that makes for elegant design in my book.

4. Balancing around city count strikes me as simpler and more effective than around district count. Giving penalties to districts of the same yield seems circular, not fun, and not good design. Balancing around cities, perhaps because of it's long pedigree in the series and other 4X games, seems natural to me. Granted, Civ5's penalties were a little much (science, culture, gold, and to a lesser extent, production and food, were all costs of new cities) - I'd prefer more elegant design here.

(As an aside, I'm surprised we are at such odds here, I generally agree with your positions )

 

[stealth_nsk]

That assuming a science district is better than the rest, which means you have taken a basic balance problem (build science districts whenever possible)... that is the problem.

You have that diversity only if 10% science and 90% science are both at the same chance of winning (depending on their terrain, and what the remaining districts are)

Otherwise the diversity is gone, and I go 90% science by going ICS only 1 district per city.


1 city won't necessarily have all of its terrain good for the same type of district (and some districts are of the 'support the city' one... like happiness and industry, assuming that is still local). I'm guessing the districts have some placement restrictions, like can't be to close to each other.

so you could possibly only have 3 really good science sites in a science city, the other districts would be what your other terrain was good for/whatever else your empire really needs

Strategy choices comes from restriction. Restriction for having only 1 building of each type per city is clear, tested by time and gives strategic choices. Restrictions like not being able to build districts next to each other are very situational and I doubt will work as good.

So, we're diving to examples too deep. In any way, lack of restrictions usually leads to simple, optimal strategies, removing choices. Like no mechanics limiting expansion cause ICS. We can't make a version of the game right now and check how multiple districts of the same type would play - I have some thoughts about where it could fell, but no way to prove it.

What you could do is simple - after the game will be released you can make a mod allowing multiple instances of similar district being built, or wait for one to be released. Once the mod will be out and have some players in it, we'll have clear vision about how well it works.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Strategy choices comes from restriction. Restriction for having only 1 building of each type per city is clear, tested by time and gives strategic choices. Restrictions like not being able to build districts next to each other are very situational and I doubt will work as good.

So, we're diving to examples too deep. In any way, lack of restrictions usually leads to simple, optimal strategies, removing choices. Like no mechanics limiting expansion cause ICS. We can't make a version of the game right now and check how multiple districts of the same type would play - I have some thoughts about where it could fell, but no way to prove it.

What you could do is simple - after the game will be released you can make a mod allowing multiple instances of similar district being built, or wait for one to be released. Once the mod will be out and have some players in it, we'll have clear vision about how well it works.

Strategy choices don't come from restrictions, they come from Options that have Consequences.

Now you need a limited number of options (to keep it sensible), and some consequences need to be limitations in what your next set of options are.

But that doesn't mean all restrictions are good.

What about 1 unit type per city? or why not each city can only make 1 type of district (but can make multiple copies).. it is a strategic decision if this is going to be an Only science, Only happiness, or Only Gold city (you would have to balance for that though to keep it a good decision)

One could see how that would play, but if they are planning it around a 1 of each type per city, then it will have things that will be balanced and designed for that, copies of districts per city would need a radical rebalancing. (just like the reverse is true.... if it is made to allow multiple copies of districts per city and a mod restricts it to 1, the buildings would have to be rebalanced)

 

[stealth_nsk]

Strategy choices don't come from restrictions, they come from Options that have Consequences.

Now you need a limited number of options (to keep it sensible), and some consequences need to be limitations in what your next set of options are.

Imagine a decision field. If no obstacles present, the optimal path is a straight line. To make navigation through the field interesting, it needs to have obstacles, some even not visible behind the closest ones. I believe I saw more formal reasoning for this in some game theory materials, but don't remember the details.

But that doesn't mean all restrictions are good.

Yes, sure, but think about this:
- Do you think none of developers thought about making districts non-exclusive? I doubt so.
- So, whether they had reasons to discard the idea right away (it may have conflicts with game mechanics right away) or they tried it and found what traditional approach works better.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

We don't know for certain that they discarded the idea.

They discarded 0 restrictions on repeat districts ;(since the player could build a campus, but not a 2nd holy site)*

The point is they have an excellent opportunity+mechanism to allow multiple copies of buildings in meaningful ways, instead of just another copy (because the other copy would be on a different tile). And until it is confirmed that it is Always max one district of each type per city (no techs, policies, civics, or governments to change it) we shouldn't assume it is. (and I think it shouldn't be a always 1 copy rule either)


*however, the player didn't have the other starting 3 districts available either, that indicates that the restrictions on districts may not all be the same (maybe some are repeatable and some aren't, or some are available at 3 pop some at 4 or 5 pop)

 

[stealth_nsk]

We don't know for certain that they discarded the idea.

Some ideas are obvious. In this case you could safely assume developers considered them. Maybe not deeper - if they don't see any value in the idea, they may don't want to spend time trying it, but they considered it anyway.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Some ideas are obvious. In this case you could safely assume developers considered them. Maybe not deeper - if they don't see any value in the idea, they may don't want to spend time trying it, but they considered it anyway.

I agree they considered it. We don't know if they discarded it. I haven't seen any confirmation that a city only having one copy of each district is a rule throughout the game. We only know that you can get a campus without necessarily the ability to get a second holy site.