The Eureka mechnism

[noontide]

I really like it. For me it's a better new feature than the districts. Now instead of bee-lining the tech I want at any given moment it gives me more sense of purpose to grow my tech tree, and science has a more immediate impact on game play than simply racking up beakers. And an Eureka perfectly timed gives an enormous sense of achievement.

In terms of districts... I feel like unless you play Germany they are too expensive and take too long for the beneficial effect to matter. Same thing with the late wonders. I have a well developed city with a population of 15, with workshop, still the Oxford University take something like 36 turns. In mid- to late game that's eons. And Great Engineers are largely frivolous now.

 

[CoconutTank]

I like the eureka system as well. Gives me something to plan out and prioritize when I'm navigating both trees, but an unexpected eureka/inspiration is nice to come across once in awhile

Dunno if this is something you've tried yet, but city layouts in Civ6 are dependent on good positions of cities and of districts. In particular, you want your Industrial Zones and Entertainment Complexes to overlap as many cities as you can allow for while leaving enough space for them to work on, which means cities are generally more packed than they are in Civ5. The specific buildings that do this are Factory/Power Plant for IZs and Zoo/Stadium for ECs. My production problems became far more manageable once I started making sure that my cities' IZs were able to affect multiple cities from each, so each city could get help from multiple IZs.

 

[Roxlimn]

I don't even get why everyone seems to think that the Hansas are the shizz. It's not like you're NOT going to build the IZ if you're not Germany, and by the time they really matter that much (Factories), they should already be built in the first place, so Germany doesn't get faster Factories or anything. Functionally, the Hansa just means that Germany gets one or two more Districts in their cities compared to other Civs. So they get an extra Theatre or Campus district. That's something, but it's not an overpowering advantage, and it only comes online in the Medieval.

 

[kaspergm]

I don't even get why everyone seems to think that the Hansas are the shizz. It's not like you're NOT going to build the IZ if you're not Germany, and by the time they really matter that much (Factories), they should already be built in the first place, so Germany doesn't get faster Factories or anything. Functionally, the Hansa just means that Germany gets one or two more Districts in their cities compared to other Civs. So they get an extra Theatre or Campus district. That's something, but it's not an overpowering advantage, and it only comes online in the Medieval.

Well, I think you both have a point and miss the mark completely. You do have a point in that Hansas are not particularly much stronger than normal IZs. However, normal IZs are extremely imbalanced (imo.) because you basically NEED an IZ in every city to get anything build once you get past midgame (because of high build price and super high cost increases when going wide). And seen in that light, the Hansa is extremely powerful, because the ability to build it in half time makes a HUGE difference in new cities, and the fact that it doesn't count towards your district limit is just the icing on the cake. But bottomline - I do agree that the balancing problem is not with the Hansa, but with the IZ itself (or rather, really - with the Factory and the Powerplant, but since those require an IZ to be build, that comes down to more or less the same).

 

[Nefelia]

I don't even get why everyone seems to think that the Hansas are the shizz. It's not like you're NOT going to build the IZ if you're not Germany, and by the time they really matter that much (Factories), they should already be built in the first place, so Germany doesn't get faster Factories or anything. Functionally, the Hansa just means that Germany gets one or two more Districts in their cities compared to other Civs. So they get an extra Theatre or Campus district. That's something, but it's not an overpowering advantage, and it only comes online in the Medieval.

Well, the Hansa costs half as much to build as a normal IZ. That is moderately helpful for low-production cities looking to boost production... but in that case trade routes to a fully developed city would already be taking care of the issue. Hmm.

 

[CoconutTank]

Well, I think you both have a point and miss the mark completely. You do have a point in that Hansas are not particularly much stronger than normal IZs. However, normal IZs are extremely imbalanced (imo.) because you basically NEED an IZ in every city to get anything build once you get past midgame (because of high build price and super high cost increases when going wide). And seen in that light, the Hansa is extremely powerful, because the ability to build it in half time makes a HUGE difference in new cities, and the fact that it doesn't count towards your district limit is just the icing on the cake. But bottomline - I do agree that the balancing problem is not with the Hansa, but with the IZ itself (or rather, really - with the Factory and the Powerplant, but since those require an IZ to be build, that comes down to more or less the same).

I agree with this. There's almost no reason to not have an IZ in every city, even one that's somewhere far away on its own island, away from your other cities. The IZ might not be the first thing built in a new city (that's usually Monument or Granary), but the IZ is most likely the first district the city will build, if I ever want that city to build subsequent districts in due time. The other choices might be Commercial Hub or Harbor, but this is mostly so that I get another trade capacity, for another Trader, so that the new city can internally trade for production from another city.

 

[Roxlimn]

It really depends on the city? A city starved for space at the edges of the empire (so will only affect one other city) won't be bringing a lot to the table by getting an IZ, so an IZ in that location might not be the top priority. Sometimes it'd be a Campus. In the late game, an Airport is key to getting improvements up and units across the sea, so that's a probable first build for one of three cities.

We don't question the need for a Monument or a Granary. Heck, we didn't question the need for Factories in most cities in every previous iteration of Civ. You just built them after Industrialization because industrializing a region was key to developing it. That seems to be a design intention. If this were just a game, it might be a balancing problem, but this is Civ, and if there's going to be a district that's going to be in every City, the most theme-appropriate after Industrialization would be the Industrial Zone. It's only a balance problem if you don't intend it to be necessary.

 

[CoconutTank]

It really depends on the city? A city starved for space at the edges of the empire (so will only affect one other city) won't be bringing a lot to the table by getting an IZ, so an IZ in that location might not be the top priority. Sometimes it'd be a Campus. In the late game, an Airport is key to getting improvements up and units across the sea, so that's a probable first build for one of three cities.

We don't question the need for a Monument or a Granary. Heck, we didn't question the need for Factories in most cities in every previous iteration of Civ. You just built them after Industrialization because industrializing a region was key to developing it. That seems to be a design intention. If this were just a game, it might be a balancing problem, but this is Civ, and if there's going to be a district that's going to be in every City, the most theme-appropriate after Industrialization would be the Industrial Zone. It's only a balance problem if you don't intend it to be necessary.

Hmm... I guess for satellite cities, in which I only want them to exist for a specific purpose, it could be okay to just build that one important district and leave it alone for the most part. I've generally been very greedy and want all of my cities to be as fully functional as possible. But thinking back to my last game, yes an Aerodrome in one of the far off cities would've probably been very helpful for actually getting my air force in the right places. I would've had to redirect a lot of trade routes out of that city to get the Aerodrome built on time, though I guess the lesson is that internal trade routes are a very flexible source of production that I should think about more.

 

[Roxlimn]

If you're landing onto a new Continent, I find space for 3 cities, or I don't bother founding. Two of them will get IZ as a priority. The last one will prioritize an Aerodome and Harbor ASAP. The reason the Harbor is so important (it will have to be a port city) is because the interior cities can't benefit from core city routes until after you get a Trading Post and Harbor in a foothold city - once that's online, the IZs can come in, powered by internal routes. Basically, anything outside your industrial network is screwed without your internal routes, so you need to pave the way for internal routes before you can set up industry - so Harbor comes first.

Which is one of the reasons for why Victoria is so much better at that than Barbarossa. He gets his Hansa half off. She actually gets Internal Routes. Big difference.

 

[CoconutTank]

Ah, that seems like a solid plan I know that trade routes over water have a greater max range than land trade routes do, but do Harbors increase that range any further? I've never actually tested for the latter. Just curious if being a port city is enough for the city's trade routes to get the increased range.

 

[Roxlimn]

A new city founded on the coast automatically gets the double distance routing to the home cities. So it gets internal routes. You use that to create a Harbor and a Commercial Hub, which boosts its hammer output to internal routes. Once those are up, you reset the internal routes (or use the new additional ones) to route the inland cities to the Harbor City, which will then give +5 cogs per route. Once the Trading Port is up in the Harbor City, the inland cities benefit from the doubled distance (distance resets at the trading post) and then can route back to the mainland. Sometimes the IZs are up and it's moot. Sometimes not. Depends on the cogs on the tiles inland.

If you have a friendly ally on the other Continent, it's actually a lot simpler. You can just land the cities and route to the AI! We're assuming that its cities are worth something here. If they're worthless, then you have no choice. This won't be an option.

 

[kaltorak]

I really like it. For me it's a better new feature than the districts. Now instead of bee-lining the tech I want at any given moment it gives me more sense of purpose to grow my tech tree, and science has a more immediate impact on game play than simply racking up beakers. And an Eureka perfectly timed gives an enormous sense of achievement.
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but beelining was planing your tech tree. Now you just take whatever tech already has an eureka. I think it's worse. I love the idea of eurekas, but they should be the exception, not the norm.

 

[narmox]

but beelining was planing your tech tree. Now you just take whatever tech already has an eureka. I think it's worse. I love the idea of eurekas, but they should be the exception, not the norm.

In my experience so far, beelining is still a thing. Deciding between waiting to get a Eureka or just going for what I need _now_, is a thing too. Perhaps because I don't build everything everywhere anymore, like in Civ5? Although I've had some games with nonstop eurekas/inspirations at least until the middle ages, it always tapers off eventually as my empire takes shape and I have priorities coming out. I do like the system, just like the OP said.