The new district system should be optional

[AllTheCivs]

I mean it. Sure you'd miss out on making a crazy science disctrict city, but it would simplify things for newer players who don't want to spend 3 minutes thinking sixty turns ahead about tile management when placing a new city. And the AI would play better / be harder too.

 

[Zaarin]

If you don't like districts, I don't think Civ6 is the game for you. :/

 

[Elucidus]

Pretty sure you can remove them pretty easily, or at least make the game function without them. Not sure if the AI will need adjustment to work without them.

 

[AllTheCivs]

As best I can tell Zaarin all the changes in civ6 are either an improvement from civ5 or are not a problem (I could take or leave the art style but it doesn't bother me), except just how much the district system disrupts "normal" gameplay from Civ1 to Civ5.

I will test the AI though. I'll only be able to give anecdotal evidence, though. My guess is that the AI will still use its existing build lines. But since it won't have the constraints that it did before, it will probably perform better on average. I know Civ AI has never been a strong suit but I can't see it making anything worse.

 

[Ryika]

If you don't want districts, just play Civ 5? It's pretty much the same game if you remove that mechanic, just much better optimized for "districtless" gameplay.

 

[Victoria]

Districts add flavour, just play a lower difficulty level and not worry about the strategy of them. Thats what cheftain is for.

 

[RealAntithesis]

I'm kind of finding myself agreeing with this. I know that districts are one of the key mechanics that civ 6 is trying out in a bid to distinguish itself from earlier Civs, but I'm thinking that they are rather superfluous to gameplay and the concept itself doesn't really fit into the strategic type of game that Civ professes to be (if it wasn't for 1UPT that is).

Districts as they are implemented in Civ 6 don't really reflect how cities are laid out in real life (ie you wouldn't have commercial districts or cultural centres so far removed from the cbd hundreds of kilometres away). They don't really fit into the strategic scale of the map very well and they add to the general messiness of the map (as well as taking up potentially valuable tiles). In other words, civ 6 cities are very far removed from what you see from a plane (and hence, for me, not all that immersive).

I think overall, districts detract from gameplay more than they add.

I have an idea though. How about a SimCity style (or traditional RTS-style) city building mini game? This would involve placing buildings (including housing etc) directly onto a zoomed in view of the city, which would also be directly viewable from the zoomed out map perspective. This could also allow larger cities to bleed out into adjacent tiles, but still keep the overall concept of a single contiguous city without being fractured and spread out all over the map in bits and pieces.

 

[Siptah]

One of the most interesting things about the districts is not just where to place them and the specialization of the cities, but that they can be pillaged imho. This adds a whole new dimension (and goals) to starting a war. It also makes 'archer camping in the city' a much weaker defense.
As for immersion, well, that is something many people might see different. I don't have problem with districts here.

 

[isau]

IMO you're over thinking it if its taking you that long. I agree that it can require some pre-planning if you want to get it perfect. But you don't need to get it perfect to win, just need to get it pretty good. Almost like real life cities, sometimes you place something and go "I wish I'd put this somewhere else." But you have to remember that while adjacency bonuses are useful, unless you completely screw them up they're unlikely to sink you. Basically:

• Put Industrial Zones near hills and quarries and kind central to your geography, if that is possible
• Put Campuses near mountains

Do those two things and for the rest of the districts you can totally mess up and it will barely matter in the long run. Adjacencies are nice and can be very powerful but as long as you're getting at least +2 from them or so (maybe +1 from a Theater district) you're probably fine.

I do feel some of the Wonders require too much pre-planning which is why in my "combined tweaks" mod I removed district adjacency requirements for wonders. But, in terms of districts, I actually found myself adding many more adjacencies.

Creating a mod that removes the districts and puts buildings in the city center is fairly easy. But IMO you're missing out on one of the best parts of the game to do that.

 

[TomKQT]

Districts as they are implemented in Civ 6 don't really reflect how cities are laid out in real life (ie you wouldn't have commercial districts or cultural centres so far removed from the cbd hundreds of kilometres away). They don't really fit into the strategic scale of the map very well and they add to the general messiness of the map (as well as taking up potentially valuable tiles). In other words, civ 6 cities are very far removed from what you see from a plane (and hence, for me, not all that immersive).

It would probably look better and sound more reasonable (realistic), if you could place most districts just around the city center (the first circle, 6 hexes). Some specific districts would still be possible to place anywhere, because those would look more realistic further away (airport, encampment, spaceport, harbor).
Or another idea - you can place a district only adjacent to another district, so the overall city could have various shapes, but still would be one connected "mass".

Sure, this would require a new balancing (of adjacency bonuses) and removal of a lot of limitations.

But in general, I don't really dislike the system as it is now, so I don't really call for the changes I proposed in this post. What I would hovewer welcome is removal of a lot of wonder limitations (especially when it's a combination of "next to a specific district" AND "next to some map feature") and probably also a little tweaking of the district adjacency bonuses, because now it really requires a lot of (too much of) thinking and planning.

 

[Victoria]

A city spread on the board is not supposed to be 300 miles and we all get that. Its jst like the 1upt... Different scales used for different things all transposed on a single canvas as best as they can. It s not reality and so much seems like reality until you dig deeper. With even a lot of the quotes being not real one wonders if all was just a little tongue in cheek.

 

[UWHabs]

It would probably look better and sound more reasonable (realistic), if you could place most districts just around the city center (the first circle, 6 hexes). Some specific districts would still be possible to place anywhere, because those would look more realistic further away (airport, encampment, spaceport, harbor).
Or another idea - you can place a district only adjacent to another district, so the overall city could have various shapes, but still would be one connected "mass".

Sure, this would require a new balancing (of adjacency bonuses) and removal of a lot of limitations.

But in general, I don't really dislike the system as it is now, so I don't really call for the changes I proposed in this post. What I would hovewer welcome is removal of a lot of wonder limitations (especially when it's a combination of "next to a specific district" AND "next to some map feature") and probably also a little tweaking of the district adjacency bonuses, because now it really requires a lot of (too much of) thinking and planning.

Forcing all districts to essentially "spread out" from the city would be a neat idea. Or maybe something like districts have to be either connected to another district, or have a "route" to the city, through a river or road? That would also simulate a little about rivers being used for early game transport, as they would allow you to spread your city out further compared to a city that's not along a river, where you need to already have a road out from the city in order to spread to another area.