They really should reduce the hammer cost of districts in a rebalance patch

[isau]

Wait, so if your science or culture is too high things actually become harder to build? No wonder some people are struggling. If you don't beeline straight to Industrial zones you are making the game 200% harder for yourself. Argh.

 

[Kingreaper]

It kind of feels like they intended it to scale with something else, and accidentally stuck in techs/civics and didn't notice... that's honestly my best explanation for how someone would come up with the system of scaling they have.

 

[Vaclac]

The biggest problem with production is really that there's one right way to do it - spam trade routes and production districts - and everything else feels painfully slow. Very binary and one-dimensional gameplay.

That guy gets it.

To be more precise :
Commercial district and Industrial are on the same tech beeline. Start a commercial in all cities, chop it if available. Getting an industrial district in the capital is priority #1 as all your trade routes will target the capital and get a good boost because of the district. Once that initial phase is done, complete every city with their own industrial district and once you get factories you'll enjoy short build times.

Exactly. My first couple of games I thought production was crazy slow, and then I started beelining Industrial Zones, and then factories afterwards, and packed my industrial zones in between close together cities. This works well and lets you build all the other specialty districts you want fairly easily. I agree though that this is a problem as it forces you down one path. The fact that commercial hubs are on the same path makes it worse, because that path is basically always the best go down unless going for very early military dominance. They should probably nerf industrial zones somewhat in combination with lower production costs, so that other choices are more viable.

 

[Matthew.]

Ya know, just yesterday I was thinking "finally, city specialization exists" and related to this topic. I agree with the guy that said you are trying to just build everything everywhere. Between the district cap and spreading out tech progress (not only splitting science/culture trees, but eureka bonuses, city-states, wide play not being heavily nerfed, etc.), it seems pretty obvious to me that it is by design you aren't supposed to build everything everywhere unless it is a super late game super large city (which you won't have for most of the game).

If I had to label a problem, it would be the exact opposite: I'm looking at a lot of my cities and thinking "Do I need this entertainment district? Hmm... not really. How about culture? Well I already have a lot. Science? I have a lot of that as well." It isn't that I never want to build anything in most of my cities, it is just that it has never been needed to have everything at once, which is exactly my point. Build up your empire by spreading this districts throughout your cities and add more over time, rather than trying to build everything instantly as they unlock.

 

[Xaviarlol]

There are several issues at play here;
- Early pop growth is slow due to lack of housing pop which constrains production.
- This is further exacerbated by district production costs being tied to amount of techs researched. So basically your tech goes too fast and your production doesn't scale as fast relative to tech.

I'm working on a mod that tries to address all of those factors. It reduces district costs by roughly 25%, reduces Eureka research boosts down to 30% and extends the research times for techs slightly. It also increases housing capacity surgically, especially for new cities without full fertility.

Also thinking about what could be done to increase base production outside of industrial zones, especially in the pre-industrial zone era. Won't be sure if that will also be necessary until I test out the changes above. My concern with flat out increasing city production is that it will make unit production faster also, and I'm pretty happy with how fast unit production is (in fact it might be a little too fast with the right policies).

 

[lamaros]

Ya know, just yesterday I was thinking "finally, city specialization exists" and related to this topic. I agree with the guy that said you are trying to just build everything everywhere. Between the district cap and spreading out tech progress (not only splitting science/culture trees, but eureka bonuses, city-states, wide play not being heavily nerfed, etc.), it seems pretty obvious to me that it is by design you aren't supposed to build everything everywhere unless it is a super late game super large city (which you won't have for most of the game).

If I had to label a problem, it would be the exact opposite: I'm looking at a lot of my cities and thinking "Do I need this entertainment district? Hmm... not really. How about culture? Well I already have a lot. Science? I have a lot of that as well." It isn't that I never want to build anything in most of my cities, it is just that it has never been needed to have everything at once, which is exactly my point. Build up your empire by spreading this districts throughout your cities and add more over time, rather than trying to build everything instantly as they unlock.

Yep. Often the best building choice is a district project, IMO.

I think people are still in the habit of building everything, when they don't need to.

- This is further exacerbated by district production costs being tied to amount of techs researched. So basically your tech goes too fast and your production doesn't scale as fast relative to tech.

I'm yet to see the definitive answers around that causes of district and production cost increases.

 

[isau]

Exactly. My first couple of games I thought production was crazy slow, and then I started beelining Industrial Zones, and then factories afterwards, and packed my industrial zones in between close together cities. This works well and lets you build all the other specialty districts you want fairly easily. I agree though that this is a problem as it forces you down one path. The fact that commercial hubs are on the same path makes it worse, because that path is basically always the best go down unless going for very early military dominance. They should probably nerf industrial zones somewhat in combination with lower production costs, so that other choices are more viable.

What makes it super problematic is that Commercial zones also unlock a trade route, which in combo with an Industrial zone is a huge hammer boost.