Leyrann
Deity
Pretty much since the release of this game - over five years ago now - the production costs have frustrated me to no end in various ways. Back then, I already tried various heavy-handed solutions, like slashing them all in half, and more recently I've taught myself basic modding skills simply to try and implement more sophisticated solutions.
However, the fundamental issue with production costs in this game actually lies deeper, and in a way that I do not think can be solved with simple modding - you either need to do a total overhaul, or hope that Civilization VII will be better. I will actually divide this post into two parts, first giving my thoughts about buildings and wonders and then moving on to the main course, districts.
Also, because I'm me, this post got far longer than intended. I'm sure the regulars from a few years ago won't be surprised.
Buildings and Wonders
My issue with buildings and wonders is quite simple. Have you ever wondered why a Workshop is so expensive, or why a Barracks and a Stable are not priced the same despite being functionally identical, save for which units they buff up?
This is because all building and wonder production costs in the game rely on one thing only: Where are they found in the tech tree? This is why a fancy Market (also known as the Colossus) is more expensive than the amazing Pyramids, and why a Workshop takes a whopping 195 production (a non-GS workshop takes almost 100 turns to pay itself off!). There is no consideration for the actual power level of any buildings or wonders, their use cases, or anything else.
I don't usually criticize developers, but in this case, it is simply lazy design. There are no excuses. It's literally five minutes work to go through the xml-file and adjust the production costs to better reflect the value of the buildings and wonders.
There is also the separate issue that late-game buildings, wonders and indeed also units are, in my opinion, overpriced, often taking as long as or even longer than their early game equivalents to complete, even in cities that were settled early and have had a very long time to develop. Gathering Storm somewhat alleviated this issue with buildings (some of which lost more than a quarter of their production cost!), but not quite enough in my opinion. It also did not address units or wonders, even though they suffer from the same problem.
Districts - The Current Situation
And then we get to the big one. Districts.
First of all, I want to mention that I love districts. The ability to make cities sprawl and grow on the map is something I absolutely adore, and I even remember how in Civ V, before VI had ever been announced, I already used the buildings from Great People to create fake city sprawl.
However, the scaling production cost has been something that I've always hated. When I realized that this issue is intimately related to something else I've always disliked about the implementation of districts, I decided to make this post.
But first, let's consider the current situation. Early game, I have no complaints. You build a district in roughly ten turns, maybe you get some adjacency yields (which could use a bit more flavor/accessibility in some cases, but that's a separate topic), and then you get to add buildings to it. All good.
Then you get to the midgame and... wait a second, do districts take fifteen turns now? Why are they getting more expensive in number of turns even though my cities are increasing their production output? And in this new city I just settled in the late medieval era, the projected time for the first district is sixty turns? How long is it going to take to establish this city?
Usually, at least if you've stopped expanding and only have cities that are already developed, this gets somewhat better in the lategame. However the issue is still present to a degree, and many cities will not be able to dip below that early game standard of 10 turns.
This problem was not present in previous games, and it's incredibly annoying.
Districts - Why were they designed like this?
But wait, wasn't it there previously? Let's load up a save game from Civ IV or Civ V, say from the Industrial or Modern Era, and settle a new city. Now, in our big cities, we're currently building Factories, Hospitals (notable omission from Civ VI btw!), Power Plants and more such buildings; they take a while to build, and indeed have a corresponding high production cost. We check our new city, take a look at those buildings... and indeed, they have a similarly long estimated time to build. Sixty, even a hundred terms.
But in that new city, why would we build them? We're building Markets, Forges, Libraries. Cheap buildings, with early-game production costs that are quite feasible for a developing city, settled late. And as it turns out, by focusing on production buildings, it doesn't actually take all that long to reach a point where a Factory, and then a Hospital or Power Plant, can be built in a reasonable time frame.
So where does the difference come from? Well, if you think about it, those cheap buildings are still present in Civ VI. A Library in the lategame is still 90 production. However, they are locked behind the cost of an incredibly expensive district that might be as much as 400 production.
So do we make the cost of a district a flat, say, 80 production? But no, now our developed cities 1- or 2-turn their new districts, making it absolutely trivial to expand.
Let's put it in clear terms. New cities need cheap builds in order to get started, existing cities need expensive builds to not make continued development trivial. And the separation of cheap and expensive builds is one that depends on game time. In the early game, you unlock cheap builds for your cities to develop, and in the late game you unlock the expensive builds.
We've got that working for buildings. But what about districts? Holy Site? Ancient Era. Campus? Ancient Era. Commercial Hub? Classical Era. Theater Square, or indeed several other districts? Classical Era. Except for the Aerodome, the only specialty district that does not unlock in the first two eras of the game is the Industrial Zone, which is located on an easily rushed early Medieval Era tech.
Based on the tech that unlocks them, all districts should be cheap. But unlike in older instalments in the series, districts are a fundamental part of city development throughout the entire game, and by giving them a flat cost, you trivialize these existing cities. Not only that, this particular issue already exists in the game. If you build a Commercial Hub in the Modern Era in your capital, you then 2-turn the Market. Firaxis has, for Civ VI, chosen to make district costs scale with game era, but leave building costs flat.
Districts - The Solution
I could probably write another post this length just talking about various solutions, but it's gone on long enough so I'll go straight to my own preferred solution: I want to see districts that have a flat cost and unlock throughout the game. Take some of the basic buildings out of districts and into the city center, allow all cities to do some general development, and let them specialize with districts. A Library now gets built in the city center, but you need to allocate land to science by building a Campus (unlocked in the Medieval Era) before you can build a University, Observatory or Research Lab. Industrial Zones now unlock at Industrialization. Commercial Hubs unlock in late Medieval or early Renaissance. Holy Sites still unlock very early. And so on.
By making districts a method of specialization, rather than a requirement to build anything but a monument, granary or water mill, you again allow cities to develop with cheap buildings. At the same time, you get to (partially or fully) disconnect scaling costs from districts. Holy Sites will remain cheap, requiring little infrastructure, and Industrial Zones with all their support will be expensive. But neither production cost needs to scale with the game, and that removes a major source of frustration. And, as a bonus, the kind of exploit-y strategy of locking district costs by placing them early.
However, the fundamental issue with production costs in this game actually lies deeper, and in a way that I do not think can be solved with simple modding - you either need to do a total overhaul, or hope that Civilization VII will be better. I will actually divide this post into two parts, first giving my thoughts about buildings and wonders and then moving on to the main course, districts.
Also, because I'm me, this post got far longer than intended. I'm sure the regulars from a few years ago won't be surprised.
Buildings and Wonders
My issue with buildings and wonders is quite simple. Have you ever wondered why a Workshop is so expensive, or why a Barracks and a Stable are not priced the same despite being functionally identical, save for which units they buff up?
This is because all building and wonder production costs in the game rely on one thing only: Where are they found in the tech tree? This is why a fancy Market (also known as the Colossus) is more expensive than the amazing Pyramids, and why a Workshop takes a whopping 195 production (a non-GS workshop takes almost 100 turns to pay itself off!). There is no consideration for the actual power level of any buildings or wonders, their use cases, or anything else.
I don't usually criticize developers, but in this case, it is simply lazy design. There are no excuses. It's literally five minutes work to go through the xml-file and adjust the production costs to better reflect the value of the buildings and wonders.
There is also the separate issue that late-game buildings, wonders and indeed also units are, in my opinion, overpriced, often taking as long as or even longer than their early game equivalents to complete, even in cities that were settled early and have had a very long time to develop. Gathering Storm somewhat alleviated this issue with buildings (some of which lost more than a quarter of their production cost!), but not quite enough in my opinion. It also did not address units or wonders, even though they suffer from the same problem.
Districts - The Current Situation
And then we get to the big one. Districts.
First of all, I want to mention that I love districts. The ability to make cities sprawl and grow on the map is something I absolutely adore, and I even remember how in Civ V, before VI had ever been announced, I already used the buildings from Great People to create fake city sprawl.
However, the scaling production cost has been something that I've always hated. When I realized that this issue is intimately related to something else I've always disliked about the implementation of districts, I decided to make this post.
But first, let's consider the current situation. Early game, I have no complaints. You build a district in roughly ten turns, maybe you get some adjacency yields (which could use a bit more flavor/accessibility in some cases, but that's a separate topic), and then you get to add buildings to it. All good.
Then you get to the midgame and... wait a second, do districts take fifteen turns now? Why are they getting more expensive in number of turns even though my cities are increasing their production output? And in this new city I just settled in the late medieval era, the projected time for the first district is sixty turns? How long is it going to take to establish this city?
Usually, at least if you've stopped expanding and only have cities that are already developed, this gets somewhat better in the lategame. However the issue is still present to a degree, and many cities will not be able to dip below that early game standard of 10 turns.
This problem was not present in previous games, and it's incredibly annoying.
Districts - Why were they designed like this?
But wait, wasn't it there previously? Let's load up a save game from Civ IV or Civ V, say from the Industrial or Modern Era, and settle a new city. Now, in our big cities, we're currently building Factories, Hospitals (notable omission from Civ VI btw!), Power Plants and more such buildings; they take a while to build, and indeed have a corresponding high production cost. We check our new city, take a look at those buildings... and indeed, they have a similarly long estimated time to build. Sixty, even a hundred terms.
But in that new city, why would we build them? We're building Markets, Forges, Libraries. Cheap buildings, with early-game production costs that are quite feasible for a developing city, settled late. And as it turns out, by focusing on production buildings, it doesn't actually take all that long to reach a point where a Factory, and then a Hospital or Power Plant, can be built in a reasonable time frame.
So where does the difference come from? Well, if you think about it, those cheap buildings are still present in Civ VI. A Library in the lategame is still 90 production. However, they are locked behind the cost of an incredibly expensive district that might be as much as 400 production.
So do we make the cost of a district a flat, say, 80 production? But no, now our developed cities 1- or 2-turn their new districts, making it absolutely trivial to expand.
Let's put it in clear terms. New cities need cheap builds in order to get started, existing cities need expensive builds to not make continued development trivial. And the separation of cheap and expensive builds is one that depends on game time. In the early game, you unlock cheap builds for your cities to develop, and in the late game you unlock the expensive builds.
We've got that working for buildings. But what about districts? Holy Site? Ancient Era. Campus? Ancient Era. Commercial Hub? Classical Era. Theater Square, or indeed several other districts? Classical Era. Except for the Aerodome, the only specialty district that does not unlock in the first two eras of the game is the Industrial Zone, which is located on an easily rushed early Medieval Era tech.
Based on the tech that unlocks them, all districts should be cheap. But unlike in older instalments in the series, districts are a fundamental part of city development throughout the entire game, and by giving them a flat cost, you trivialize these existing cities. Not only that, this particular issue already exists in the game. If you build a Commercial Hub in the Modern Era in your capital, you then 2-turn the Market. Firaxis has, for Civ VI, chosen to make district costs scale with game era, but leave building costs flat.
Districts - The Solution
I could probably write another post this length just talking about various solutions, but it's gone on long enough so I'll go straight to my own preferred solution: I want to see districts that have a flat cost and unlock throughout the game. Take some of the basic buildings out of districts and into the city center, allow all cities to do some general development, and let them specialize with districts. A Library now gets built in the city center, but you need to allocate land to science by building a Campus (unlocked in the Medieval Era) before you can build a University, Observatory or Research Lab. Industrial Zones now unlock at Industrialization. Commercial Hubs unlock in late Medieval or early Renaissance. Holy Sites still unlock very early. And so on.
By making districts a method of specialization, rather than a requirement to build anything but a monument, granary or water mill, you again allow cities to develop with cheap buildings. At the same time, you get to (partially or fully) disconnect scaling costs from districts. Holy Sites will remain cheap, requiring little infrastructure, and Industrial Zones with all their support will be expensive. But neither production cost needs to scale with the game, and that removes a major source of frustration. And, as a bonus, the kind of exploit-y strategy of locking district costs by placing them early.
). Keep it only possible for Buildings (including Wonders).
