What is your favorite type of Unique "construction" for a civ?

[Ticio]

If I'm not wrong, a civ can have a unique "construction".

They are divided as a type of unique district (Hansa), bulding (Tlachtli) or tile improvement (Sphinx).
I was wondering which category do you prefer or think are more valuable.

I think that each of them have and advantage and disadvantaged, like districts and building being cheaper in production but also limited to 1 per city, on the other hand tile improvements have a very high cost on production (builders) and space but you can place a lot more.


P.S: I would really like to know too what are the "city state tile improvements" that you prefer (Like the moai or the alcázar) and the one that you like the less.

 

[Leah and Rachael]

I prefer Unique Districts. In terms of the most powerful, I think in general Districts are too.
Unique Buildings cost the same as usual, and their bonuses are not as game changing for them to really shine despite costing the same. They also require the district meaning they come online later.
Unique Improvements, as you mentioned, cost a lot (builder charges and space), and oftentimes must also be worked for you to reap their benefits, and thus you're sacrificing working your citizens elsewhere, especially when the city hasn't grown its population yet.

In the end, there will be instances where any one type is better than another. But if we are talking generally, then Districts. Personally, they give me the biggest satisfaction because of being visual (I use the Unique District Icons mod as well) and conferring the most noticeable effects immediately

 

[agonistes]

I stop for unique improvements. That should be on my rear bumper. Granada is my favorite cs.

If a ud looks cool, that's great.

I think every civ should get a ui.

edit: i just sov'd caguala sp* in my first babylon game (babylon is designed for cs ui), and you can't build that ui on hills. I sulked for a bit.

 

[iammaxhailme]

Tile improvements are the most fun by far imo.

I think districts are the most powerful however, simply by being half price

 

[Daigotsu Max]

Unique improvements are by far my favs. I just like to make the map looks more like my own. Seeing all the chateaux as France is very enjoyable to me, for example. City-state unique UI were some of the best additions to Civ VI imo, all the way back to the Colossal Heads.

 

[UWHabs]

Tile improvements are the most fun by far imo.

I think districts are the most powerful however, simply by being half price

Yep. To me, the biggest imbalance are the UB. UI take one builder charge and suddenly you have a crazy hockey arena. Even the tile improvements that aren't as good (chateau, for example) or that take some effort to get right (great wall) it's still just builder charges to get them, so are so cheap. I do like the extra strategy in the ones that have some big placement bonuses - was playing a Cree game recently and plotting your Mekewaps is certainly nice.

UD being half price makes them super easy to spam. It changes the balance when you can always place them cheaply in cities, and being half price, most of the time you can almost fully chop it out with a single builder charge.

But UB being the regular cost just makes me so much less excited for them. Sure, something like the Madrasa is a building that I would build normally anyways, so great. But something like the Tlachtli is just not enough to justify spamming entertainment districts, so simply ends up being a nice to have bonus but not something that I will really change my strategy for. The new Babylonian one is slightly different in that it replaces a city center building, so has less upfront cost, so at the very least it means I'm going to try to settle more rivers with them than I would otherwise.

As for the city-state improvements, Nazca Lines are my favorite since they can turn completely useless tiles into completely useful ones. Moai are fun if you have a nice setup for them, and Cahokia mounds are another great choice just because they give a good variety of yields (amenity+housing+gold+food in the right spot). My last game I had some nice Bateys, getting up to +5 or +7 on a decent number of tiles, but they're more hit and miss, since in that Cree game, for example, the best Mekewap sites are also the best Batey sites, so despite being suzerain the only ones I've placed are more or less just fillers until a district will go on top of them.

 

[iammaxhailme]

Yep. To me, the biggest imbalance are the UB. UI take one builder charge and suddenly you have a crazy hockey arena. Even the tile improvements that aren't as good (chateau, for example) or that take some effort to get right (great wall) it's still just builder charges to get them, so are so cheap. I do like the extra strategy in the ones that have some big placement bonuses - was playing a Cree game recently and plotting your Mekewaps is certainly nice.

UD being half price makes them super easy to spam. It changes the balance when you can always place them cheaply in cities, and being half price, most of the time you can almost fully chop it out with a single builder charge.

But UB being the regular cost just makes me so much less excited for them. Sure, something like the Madrasa is a building that I would build normally anyways, so great. But something like the Tlachtli is just not enough to justify spamming entertainment districts, so simply ends up being a nice to have bonus but not something that I will really change my strategy for. The new Babylonian one is slightly different in that it replaces a city center building, so has less upfront cost, so at the very least it means I'm going to try to settle more rivers with them than I would otherwise.

As for the city-state improvements, Nazca Lines are my favorite since they can turn completely useless tiles into completely useful ones. Moai are fun if you have a nice setup for them, and Cahokia mounds are another great choice just because they give a good variety of yields (amenity+housing+gold+food in the right spot). My last game I had some nice Bateys, getting up to +5 or +7 on a decent number of tiles, but they're more hit and miss, since in that Cree game, for example, the best Mekewap sites are also the best Batey sites, so despite being suzerain the only ones I've placed are more or less just fillers until a district will go on top of them.

I definitely agree. UBs need a big buff in general. I think they should transition to being city-center buildings as a cost-saving measure, so you don't need to build the district too.

There are some buildings that I'd love to spam all over, like the Stave Church (for a coastal domination civ, production on sea resources is very, very good), but having to build a holy site and a shrine just makes the little bonuses it gives not even close to worth it.

That may be a little too powerful, though. Maybe require at least one of the corresponding district to be built somewhere in your empire, and for UBs that have an in-district prereq (like the Stave Church requiring a Shrine), require that at least one shrine exists in your empire?

 

[DWilson]

I really want a unique ability which allows conquered unique improvements to survive and be worked, possibly with an added culture point or two. Not to build more of them, or anything. I think it would be powerful, but not necessarily overly so.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I really want a unique ability which allows conquered unique improvements to survive and be worked, possibly with an added culture point or two. Not to build more of them, or anything. I think it would be powerful, but not necessarily overly so.

las vegas

 

[Zaarin]

Unique Improvements are the most fun for sure. I'd like Unique Districts better if all of them were as visually transformative as the Cothon and Suguba--on the other hand the lack of visual variety to districts is already one of my top complaints about Civ6. For example, I hate that no matter what civ you play as your Theatre Square looks Greek (unless, ironically, you're playing as Greece ). If districts return in Civ7, regional architecture needs to apply to districts as well as city centers--and then make Unique Districts over-the-top unique.

 

[Caprikel]

Some of my favorite civs are my favorites because of the unique improvements, like Indonesia, Australia, and The Netherlands. I also really like Unique districts that change up district planning like the Hanza and Suguba. Unique Buildings however rarely change how you play, so they end up being underwhelming in comparison. For example, nobody plays Hungary or Babylon for their unique buildings.

 

[NukeAJS]

I'm voting for districts because they are always half cost. The saved opportunity cost is anywhere from 1 to 3 units if you wanna go military or the cost of putting the tier one building in the district.

Of course, some are more valuable than others. Comparing the ikhanda to the seowon -- for example.

Next would be tile improvements, usually because they're fairly spammable and nearly always better than something else you could build.

Last is buildings, if aren't half cost and the benefits are usually marginal. A big exception to that is the Owls of Minerva bank but of course that's the exception, not the rule. If buildings were half cost like districts -- they'd still be bottom tier but not the clear loser, imo.

 

[Stringer1313]

Unique Improvements are the most fun for sure. I'd like Unique Districts better if all of them were as visually transformative as the Cothon and Suguba--on the other hand the lack of visual variety to districts is already one of my top complaints about Civ6. For example, I hate that no matter what civ you play as your Theatre Square looks Greek (unless, ironically, you're playing as Greece ). If districts return in Civ7, regional architecture needs to apply to districts as well as city centers--and then make Unique Districts over-the-top unique.

Agree with all of this x1000. I appreciate the need for consistency, but I think the color coding works well. I also want the buildings slightly larger b/c i am old and cannot see.

 

[8housesofelixir]

I prefer Unique Improvements. They are visually distinctive, and they can really tell what kind of a civ are you.

Unique Districts and Buildings are not bad, but to be honest, they are relatively unimpressive in the grand scale of the maps. Not only do they lack variety, but they also doesn't look like part of the city. IRL cities will not put their Commercial Hub miles away from the city center, you cannot do that before the invention of automobiles.

 

[DWilson]

IRL cities will not put their Commercial Hub miles away from the city center, you cannot do that before the invention of automobiles.

I think the cities of civ vi are better seen as regions, with the city center as a sort of initial settlement and provincial capital, while districts and speciality improvements act as more specialized settlements in the region, (in the real world cities of their own).

 

[8housesofelixir]

I think the cities of civ vi are better seen as regions, with the city center as a sort of initial settlement and provincial capital, while districts and speciality improvements act as more specialized settlements in the region, (in the real world cities of their own).

I can understand that, but visually speaking, the districts, even when standalone, looks un-urbanized. For example, CH doesn't have a full asphalt ground, half of it is grass. The same goes for TS.

 

[UWHabs]

I think the cities of civ vi are better seen as regions, with the city center as a sort of initial settlement and provincial capital, while districts and speciality improvements act as more specialized settlements in the region, (in the real world cities of their own).

I can understand that, but visually speaking, the districts, even when standalone, looks un-urbanized. For example, CH doesn't have a full asphalt ground, half of it is grass. The same goes for TS.

Yeah, I've kind of thought like this, where the "campus" for London is more like IRL Oxford or Cambridge, or the encampment for a city is like your West Point military academy. But visually it doesn't always line up like that, and a strong part of me wishes the game would actually enforce that more. So, for example, how would the game change if you were required to build all districts adjacent to the city centre (or adjacent to something connected to there), at least up until something like Urbanization, where you allowed them to spread out. Suddenly you can't build a city, buy a couple tiles, and somehow build a campus on the other side of a mountain range.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I really want a unique ability which allows conquered unique improvements to survive and be worked, possibly with an added culture point or two. Not to build more of them, or anything. I think it would be powerful, but not necessarily overly so.

That would be an interesting ability for Vietnam.

Yeah, I've kind of thought like this, where the "campus" for London is more like IRL Oxford or Cambridge, or the encampment for a city is like your West Point military academy. But visually it doesn't always line up like that, and a strong part of me wishes the game would actually enforce that more. So, for example, how would the game change if you were required to build all districts adjacent to the city centre (or adjacent to something connected to there), at least up until something like Urbanization, where you allowed them to spread out. Suddenly you can't build a city, buy a couple tiles, and somehow build a campus on the other side of a mountain range.

What I hope they change is the way districts are laid out in future games.
I would have a separate city screen where the city center would have two to three rings of hexes around it to where districts, buildings and wonders can be built so cities don't look so disjointed.
All the other tiles around the city would be for improvements like normal.

Any way to comment on the OP most of my favorite civs have unique improvements, Dutch, Australia and Persia just to name a few. Visually they look appealing and have varied amounts of yields such as food, production and gold for the Polder, not to mention housing.

That being said there are certain civs with unique districts that are powerful but some aren't as varied as improvements.

 

[criZp]

I think the cities of civ vi are better seen as regions, with the city center as a sort of initial settlement and provincial capital, while districts and speciality improvements act as more specialized settlements in the region, (in the real world cities of their own).

That you can do but the districts still don't look like places where anyone live, they barely have any houses. If they are to represent towns then they need more than 3 inhabitants. And if you do put the district right next to the city center so that they are connected wall to wall then the district still looks completely separated not just due to completely different style (each having its own color scheme), but also this empty space that the game puts between the districts.

 

[Ticio]

I see, I thought that all the Unique Buildings came with a reduction of cost... knowing that is not the case seems to be a little imbalanced...

Maybe it would be interesting to remove the "half cost of unique districts". I think they are already an "imperative" district to build, even without the cost reduction, as they grant the civ a unique bonus. It would be the same as the unique buildings and improvements, you build them because is synergic to your civ, so they are imperative... why not the same price for UD? If not, make all the unique buildings half price!