[GS] Waterparks and Entertainment Complexes

[acluewithout]

Is it just me, but are Waterparks and Entertainment Complexes kinda terrible?

The thread about Lakes got me thinking about Waterparks. If Waterparks were good, well, then that would be at least one thing you might build in a Lake, which might make Lakes sort of cool?

WPs and ECs don't work for a heap of reasons. I usually don't need the amenities - because I can get amenities elsewhere, and frankly my people being happy isn't such a big deal. Bread and Circuses is sort of never useful - the only place I'd want to run it is in small border cities, but I'd never be able to build an EC in time for it to be useful in those Cities.

Frankly, I think the biggest issues are that the districts probably shouldn't take up a district slot (just like our Dams don't) and there should maybe be a card to boost their production a bit like walls and encampments get a car.

It's a pity these districts are so poor, because if WPs and ECs were better, then that would be two more districts to build plus all the buildings.

 

[sethryclaus]

Colosseum is off the hook IMHO and it's also one of the wonders that you can actually build at higher difficulties.
For example, if it hits 5 cities that's 10 culture plus probably a couple of +2 adjacency theatre squares. That's your whole game's culture sorted in the medieval era.

With the new buffs to production, the proportional bonuses from high amenities are stronger. I'm still learning about the impacts as have only just started playing again since the June patch.
I think they also buffed specialists so the combination of all of that makes them great late game.

Try a game where you get Colosseum as Eleanor - rush to spies, spam bread & circuses and try to place your cities keeping pressure in mind.

 

[acluewithout]

I agree one EC is valuable for the Colosseum, although I stopped building the Colosseum because I felt I was building it every game (which, in fairness, you can because it's pretty awesome).

Bottom line though, the WP and EC need a reason to be built beyond just nabbing one particular wonder.

 

[Victoria]

They are the reason you do not send your cities over 10 but if you like big fat cities they are a must and the fat city game is fun. I would never have got to 10 cities of 30 pop without them. One of the reasons they are there.

There is an inspiration for 3 entertainment complexes.

Water parks can give a coastal city a good science buff

Brazil would disagree with you. Running projects early nets engineers and merchants often before anyone else and there is a GM inspiration and I love the early wonder engineer.

I'll use them for adjacency as they are much cheaper to build than other districts later purely because you don’t build them. Sort of ironic.

 

[Tech Osen]

Water parks can give a coastal city a good science buff

Same for entertainment complexes with zoo's and jungles. Being able to put mills on jungles is an indirect buff to zoo's.

 

[Deadly Dog]

Funny i was just spamming EC's and WP's last week, for the first time ever

Just finished playing Maori, settling a large region of small islands in a small continents world. Put a Harbour and a TS in every single city, for starters but then had so little land available for districts....in particular my capital was using 3 woods tiles, a quarry, and 6 fishing boats, and only had 3 other land tiles. But since 5 of those boats were on reefs with turtles, I got this idea about building an aquarium....

I had so many reefs and rainforests, and was so fully immersed in the civ at this point, and so starved for land, and while culture was insane had Korea to keep up with in science. So after getting each city a Marae, netting me culture and faith not from buildings but directly from the land, I though I'd go the same way with science. So aquariums and zoos everywhere!

In any case I use EC and WP in many games, the first one mainly for Colosseum but also in general I find as long as I can find the housing I like to have at least +2 amenities in the cities, and eventually those cities that can grow need the extra amenities. Playing as Cree a lot even after GS I always end up with lots of EC's.

 

[Tech Osen]

I do think they'd be more worthwhile if the tier 1 buildings also had a regional amenity effect. It's a long track to national history if you're low on amenities early on.

 

[Disgustipated]

but if you like big fat cities they are a must

This. I don't hold my population at 10. I can think of no good reason why I should. I know it's a game, but come on. If you aren't building up a magnificent glorious civilization then why are you playing? I refuse to limit the sizes of my cities.

I find land tiles at a premium. I never seem to have enough. So building water parks is often a good idea. Though late game there are some pretty good improvements you are losing out on with good water tiles taken up. I try to build them not adjacent to a sea resource, but that isn't always possible, especially if I try to maximize the 8 tile rule.

And these are a must if playing Scotland. You should be going for all ecstatic cities. But even if not playing Scotland, ecstatic cities are pretty good. I too often neglect amenities until I get the civic for zoos and water parks. Sometimes getting sufficient amenities can be difficult, because I often don't want to build an entertainment complex in every single city (unless I'm Scotland). I would rather wait for zoos to spread amenities. And late game I do like to build Estadio.

My only complaint is water parks should contribute to the professional sports inspiration. I often build water parks over entertainment complexes because land tiles are at a premium.

 

[Ziad]

For settler spammers like me theyre eventually more important than other districts.

 

[Pure24]

I tried a bread and circus + spy game. Oh boy, was it fun!

So I was Canada, right... and going for the Diplomatic Victory (my Hall of Fame hungers for more DVs). So while in the Future Era waiting for the competitions to finish and the World Congress to roll around, I had an idea; why don't I push for loyalty flipping nearby Hungary's cities. They weren't even in a Dark Age. Just a normal one. So, here's what I did:
- picked 'Bodyguard of Lies' Dedication (25% reduction on operation time)
- Slotted the 'Cryptography' and 'Machiavellianism' Diplomatic policy cards (+1 level for offensive operations, -25% time)
- slotted that Future Era Wildcard for picking spy promotions and made sure each spy had -25% time, and spying levels higher for 'Covert Action' and 'License to Kill
- made sure I have EC/WP in my border cities (and they had huge populations so I'd already built them. Convenient!).

Having 6 spies, I sent two to a city at a time. One Neutralises the governor while the other foments unrest. Each mission would take a maximum of three turns, but usually just 2! Meanwhile, my border cities are running Bread and Circus on a loop. Within a short time, I'd flip the cities... the Bread and Circus would make sure they do not flip back to Hungary.
This even managed to work on the capital! I won the game while it was still a free city...

...

Point is, I get why they're there. Similar to the issue of lakes; not everything is supposed to be optimal. Some are there for flavour. For instance, when I'm roleplaying (like the Canada game), I do not ever want my cities to be unhappy. So Entertainment Complexes are great.

I guess if you're min-maxing your game they might not be as handy. But still not completely useless (e.g. for building Colosseum)

 

[ShakaKhan]

Bigger cities use more tiles and specialists which generate more production, gold, faith, etc - more of all the resources that get you the stuff you need to succeed and win. Based solely on population, the also add a slight addition to both science and culture, each of which also help you succeed in any victory condition. Since R+F, they also give you the option of utilizing the "Loyalty ATTACK!" strategy which is more effective for some civs than others offensively, but is always sound defensively. Further, they also unlock additional district slots, which kind of has diminishing returns (first you build the districts that actually help you win, then you build districts that kind of boost your overall infrastructure, then you build districts that provide bonuses to certain areas that you don't really need but help your overall position related to your opposition.) As such, the bigger the city is = the more value the city is providing and the more return on the initial investment you made in obtaining the city. A size 20 city is always going to be more advantageous than a size 4 city in every way, although I will concede than 5 size four cities are more advantageous than 1 size 20 city. Anyway...

That said, there are three things that you need to maximize in order to get your cities at maximum size: amenities, housing, and food. Since R+F, 3 of my favorite (maybe my 3 absolute favorite) civs are the Kongo, Indonesia(particularly on islands), and the Cree. The Mbanza, the Kampung, and the combination of Mekewap/Favorable Terms gives each of these three civs nearly unlimited food and housing. The only other criteria to address is amenities. Sure, one EC and a Colosseum that reaches to 4-7 cities is probably enough amenities to support an empire that can win the game on any difficulty level. But why not give yourself some insurance? By having those cities get bigger, you gain additional resources in every category and pad your lead and progression which can overtake many of the anomalies to the strategy you're utilizing.

For civs other than these three, it's still very relevant. For the three things you need to maximize (food, housing, and amenities,) food is always available - the fact that hills no longer subtract 1F from tiles means that most tiles are either able to provide the two food needed to support the citizen working it or only need one instead of two food to "feed it." farming triangles compensate for this, internal trade routes, which provide more of the most valuable yield, production, also add some additional food in addition to their main purpose, the almighty hammer. Other elements of the game, such as lighthouses and some cards, further supplement food generation. So food isn't an issue early or ever. As for housing, once you unlock neighborhoods housing is pretty much unlimited in all your cities. Which only leaves amenities, to which there are several methods (cards, new luxuries, etc) which give you a broad but ultimately FINITE sources. The fact that having every city you have within the AoE of both a entertainment district and a water park with all of their AoE buildings allows all of your cities to reach size 15 even before considering all of the methods of further extending your amenity pool (luxuries, cards, wonders, etc.) means that all of your cities can reach nearly unlimited size, which means that all of your cities can maximize their ability to help you win.

 

[Pfeffersack]

IMHO, both suffer from the bigger issues that amenities are too plentiful. Especially the fact that any new city basically gives you one "free" amenity keeping the first two citizen happy is a problem. That just isn't needed.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Entertainment Complexes don't do much, I agree. It's a real pity because the idea of them is good, but if they provided more adjacency to districts, or more housing, or built-in loyalty or some other bonus (the Arena especially is an offensively weak building) they wouldve been a lot better.

No complaints about the Water Park, ironically enough. Easily spammable, giant nine-tile range, extra science from sea resources, gives my coastal cities something to do. It's a good district. A pity it's also much better than EC is.

 

[acluewithout]

I mean, the core problem is EC and WP are (1) a huge investment (escalating production cost, district slot) but at the same time (2) there are easier ways to get amenities, loyalty, science and tourism.

I think the two best use cases for them is building them in a reasonably sized city, and then (1) using their bread and circuses abilities to loyalty flip neighbouring cities, and or (2) using their regional amenities and Bread & Circuses to keep surrounding fringe cities loyal.

Using a reasonable sized city to build them makes the most sense, because your reasonably sized city can actually build the blighters. But that's the problem. For (1), it's easier just to capture cities if you're going to all that effort, or like just settle somewhere else. Lot of set up just to capture some random cities. For (2), you can lock in fringe cities by just chopping in population and you can get amenities elsewhere.

I agree ECs and WP help support higher populations generally, but then we come back to that issue that high pop just isn't all that useful, which is a whole other thing (FXS, hint hint, you need more Governors in the game and have some of them be like Pingala and Reyna, so you have an incentive to have more tall cities but not make all your cities tall).

I think ECs and WP just need to be easier to build, frankly. It would also help if amenities were a bit harder to come by. I don't think either ECs or WPs need additional bonuses or effects - their later tier buildings do enough of that already for what it's worth.

 

[UWHabs]

To me, 99% of the time, there's other districts that are more useful early. Commerce Hub/Harbor for trade routes, plus usually a campus, or maybe a holy site. So by the time I get around to them, it's like the 4th district I want.

So, it makes sense, because that's when you're pushing 10 pop in a city, and that's usually when you start really needing the amenities. But it's annoying, because it's kind of weird to not have any desire to build an arena in the ancient era. And even at that point, sometimes I can't even fit it top-4 districts in a city - if I need 1 encampment, 1 government plaza, a couple theatres, maybe a holy site or two, or a captured district, then it can be a long time before I even have the space in my "core" group of cities to actually put one down.

 

[Victoria]

For me it’s annoying your city only rebels at -6.
It’s just about not worth thinking about amenities for a 10% difference.

 

[Arraz]

Funnily enough, I think my screenshot from the lake thread is also relevant here :

Check out the city's amenities. +11. Let's consider the Huey Tocali not here, it would still have +5 amenities.
At the point of the screenshot, I had 2 infrastructures that brought amenities : Colosseum & EC with Arena.

The EC with Arena only impacts one single city and adds only +2 amenities.

Yet every single city in this 9 cities empire already has +5 amenities....

Assuming that they grow even further and that I dont invest at all in amnities, most of them will still retain +3 amenities which is the minimum requirement for being ecstatic.

Conclusion : Amenities are very very easy to get through trade and luxuries.
The Colosseum + luxuries are more than enough to support the empire's amenities till basically the industrial.
Amenities are currently far too easy to get for EC's bonuses to actually matter.
Both the Zoo and Bread and circuses may be useful in some circumstances though.

A nice improvement would be if +5/7 amenities were more useful than +3.
Then adding an EC/Arena would represent 5 to 10% bonus to non food yield (+quicken growth) which would make it more useful.

It would be great if the amenities loss was also more punitive. Rebellion at -3 would (imo) makes things far more interesting and would give more value to both EC/WP and war weariness

 

[acluewithout]

For me it’s annoying your city only rebels at -6.
It’s just about not worth thinking about amenities for a 10% difference.

Agreed.

...Conclusion : Amenities are very very easy to get through trade and luxuries... The Colosseum + luxuries are more than enough to support the empire's amenities till basically the industrial.... Amenities are currently far too easy to get for EC's bonuses to actually matter... A nice improvement would be if +5/7 amenities were more useful than +3...

Then adding an EC/Arena would represent 5 to 10% bonus to non food yield (+quicken growth) which would make it more useful.

It would be great if the amenities loss was also more punitive. Rebellion at -3 would (imo) makes things far more interesting and would give more value to both EC/WP and war weariness

Agreed.

There's lots that could be done here.

I wonder if part of the problem is that the effect of happiness isn't well visualised in the game. I know there's that little blinking icon or whatever, but if you had better visualisation of happiness (e.g. happy cities glowing, unhappy cities looking dark and smoggy, or maybe a happiness lense) I think people would make more of an effort to keep their cities happy.

I also feel like happiness should be more tied to era score and maybe even maintenance. And don't get me started on how resources and powering Cities doesn't produce unhappiness. I mean, if you're a modern era empire and your cities don't have electricity and there's oil for planes, cars and plastic straws, you'd expect people would be a bit cross!

I guess all of this gets filed under FXS's little folder called "we got totally burnt with happiness and maintenance and killing wide in the other versions of Civ, so totes not doing any serious economy stuff in Civ VI. Here, have some gypsum."

 

[Victoria]

I played GOTM69 last night. Deity Dom game. I just went to war with everyone and wasted but AI did not build the coliseum, had loads of cities and amenities just never caused me any grief.
Global war with huge empires should have some challenges in this area, loyalty has overridden amenities and requires no district.
It has become a district where if you make everyone happy you get 5% or if lucky/push it 10% at most.
The other side of the coin I was overall at about 3% last night, without the coliseum
The game is quite soft.
One way to make it better would be to make the city rebellion figure -4 on Prince, -3 on king, etc.
So at deity if your cities go unhappy they start generating rebels.
I may change the xml from -6 to 0 to see how this runs. as I understand it at -6 rebels do not appear, there is a chance they appear.

That said, there are three things that you need to maximize in order to get your cities at maximum size: amenities, housing, and food. Since R+F, 3 of my favorite (maybe my 3 absolute favorite) civs are the Kongo, Indonesia(particularly on islands), and the Cree.

I decided to go for 10 cities of size 30 and looking at all the civs I went for Khmer, surprised you did not give them a mention.

 

[Pure24]

IMHO, both suffer from the bigger issues that amenities are too plentiful. Especially the fact that any new city basically gives you one "free" amenity keeping the first two citizen happy is a problem. That just isn't needed.

But wouldn't you say it is necessary? I mean, that means settling your first city IMMEDIATELY takes you into amenities issues.
Okay, fine. Maybe an exception for the capital. But settling on another continent IMMEDIATELY takes you into amenities issues! Or forward settling IMMEDIATELY takes you into amenities issues... and so on. I think removing that free amenity would bring the issue of amenities front and centre, which I think isn't the point of it. You don't want to worry about too many things as an area of immediate concern.

For me it’s annoying your city only rebels at -6.
It’s just about not worth thinking about amenities for a 10% difference.

Here's an idea... scale amenities issues with difficulty level! Because currently amenities are at 'Settler' level.
I mean, how many real-life places seceded from their parent nation because of unhappiness? Too many to count! And there are separatist movements pretty much everywhere today; be it USA, Sudan, Zambia, Brazil, Spain, China...

You could make Deity have rebels spawn at -2! By -4 (the threshold for Prince difficulty), it is pretty much guaranteed to have rebel issues every turn. Thing with difficulty in Civ is, I get what they're going for. I really do. And I support them. However, DEITY should be something you're scared to try, something that requires actual praise for winning. Even if you don't min-max, it is quite easy to win a deity game