What's the better Industrial Zone Replacement?

[UWHabs]

This would be a downside except the CH is like, one of the most sought after districts due to its trade route capacity.

You have to play around the Hansa. You can see links in my signature to IZ/Hansa guides, but in short you want to set up all your cities in clusters of 3-4, which means you don’t really have a main ring and smaller cities.

I mean, the Hansa would certainly be a worse district without Germany's bonus district slot, but yeah, the fact that you can pretty much always find space for a CH means it's not like you're going far out of your way to slot in a district you otherwise wouldn't be building. Even if you only plan your cities in pairs, you can virtually always find at least a +4 or +5 Hansa without any trouble, and with only a little planning can easily be slotting in +7 or more ones

 

[hhhhhh]

I don't think it's so much about what the final max yields are but rather what the average yields are throughout the course of the game.

Putting up an aqueduct and a dam and possibly even a commercial hub and a canal that you may otherwise not have even bothered with just to get an extra +2 production each out of a Hansa is a significant investment requiring a lot of planning and comes at the opportunity cost of anything else you could have spent those hammers on.

Consider not only that, as mentioned, Oppidum comes to its max power quickly (requiring only building quarries... strategic resources don't even need improvements, and both provide major +2 adjacency), but that building one unlocks Apprenticeship to immediately give your mines +1 production as well, many turns in advance of anyone else getting Apprenticeship.

I don't build Dam or Canal, but my Hansa can still get like 9-13 adjacency. I just tried about 30 turns in a game with Gaul, the most adjacency I can identify are +4 from two quarry. I can recall in some past game I'd get a +7 or even +9 as Gaul (e.g. 3 iron mine + another mine) but that's about it.

To make things worse, if I really want to have those +4 Oppidum, then I will have to settle 2 tiles away from the potential +4 Oppidum, which excludes some good city spots. Now this is the most annoying thing to me. If I didn't actually play it I wouldn't imagine that.

My feeling is that Oppidum adjacency is for those who don't want to plan - if you slam a district wherever the highest adjacency is, then Oppidum is for you. But if you do careful planning from the very beginning, then +4 IZ is really easy (yeah you have to build an aqueduct but that's about it), and you can normally get +4-+7. For Hansa it's like +8-+11. Yeah they are not online fast enough but once the base of Hansa is there things follows up quickly.

 

[kryat]

I’m going to give a devil’s advocate on why the oppidum is better than the hansa. They’re both excellent, and the hansa can easily have a higher yield (though my first try with Gaul I got a +8 and a +10 oppidum). But I think there’s actually a lot of value in getting IZs early. They come early enough that there’s not a lot of competition of deciding what to build, other than a long list of excellent wonders that you’ll cruise too. It also takes minimal effort to max out, costing just builder charges (that also enhance production, compared to needing to build waterworks. Also, getting IZs in early classical pairs well with the very low cost on early districts, sometimes being able to hard build new districts in less than 5 turns.

All that said though, the Hansa feels more rewarding and less dependent on RNG.

 

[lotrmith]

The problem with Gaul as a whole in the IZ game is you cannot build compact city clusters and optimize your terrain due to no districts in the first ring. So it’s not going to be 1 Oppidum vs 1 Hansa, it’s going to be more 3 oppidum vs 4 Hansas.
Look at the distribution of strategics and quarries on the map some time. Suppose you find a nice pair of iron mines next to each other and wow, even a stone quarry there so you can get 2 +7’s and a +5 if you triangulate 3 cities around that spot. You have just sacrificed 18 tiles to not being able to hold districts and lord help you if this positioning means forgoing fresh water somewhere.

That’s the core problem- I also need to think about good campus sites, fresh water, getting EC coverage, and some CHs ideally on rivers. But Oppidum sites are locked in by the map. Something will have to give.

However, I know I can bolt together some kickass Hansas literally anywhere with open space in a very compact way.

The "kickass Hansas" are in my experience harder to plan for as not only do you want/need rivers the same way and Oppidum wants/needs quarries and strategics, but planning a double or even triple dipping Hansa cluster means some rather difficult aqueduct and dam considerations (and you're limited to one dam per flood zone) that compete with river-adjacent commercial hubs. And the cities need more land both individually and overall to accomplish the central cluster while Oppidums can stand alone and only need a single 2nd ring tile.

 

[Leucarum]

They're both very different? That feels like my take home message. In terms of raw power the Hansa is an order of magnitude better but the Oppidum synergizes with the rush aspect of Gaul to make them early game production powerhouses which in turn helps them snowball long term...

 

[iammaxhailme]

I think the Hansa is better soley becuase it gets dam/aqueduct bonuses. Honestly, I don't see why the Oppidum doesn't; the civ ability says "specialty districts do not get minor adjacency bonuses for being next to each other". The aqueduct and dam aren't specialty districts, and while the Oppidum is (and that's the one getting the bonus), its not one of those typical "specialty district minor adjancecies". If the Oppidum got those bonuses, it would be way better than the Hansa, mostly becuase it comes so early, and also becuase it will give +1 production to all your mines early by unlocking apprenticeship an era and a half before you would have likely got it otherwise.

 

[lotrmith]

I don't build Dam or Canal, but my Hansa can still get like 9-13 adjacency. I just tried about 30 turns in a game with Gaul, the most adjacency I can identify are +4 from two quarry. I can recall in some past game I'd get a +7 or even +9 as Gaul (e.g. 3 iron mine + another mine) but that's about it.

A base Hansa with a CH and Aqueduct is +5... if you get a good cluster where it is able to share another city's commercial hub *and* aqueduct you'll be at +10. But that's dependant on really good placement, requires two cities, and excludes the 2nd city from getting as high of an adjacency. You can get more with adjacent resources but there's a physical limit of 6 tiles to provide adjacency to a single Hansa... The max would be +15 and that's completely surrounded by CH and green districts... +13 requires as least 5 districts and a resource in the 6th tile...

Are you talking about while running adjacency policy card?


+7 or +9 production from an Oppidum at turn 30 is bonkers good for a Civ to have.

 

[Equilin]

I think Oppidum is slightly ahead because in Civ, early is always better. Reaching +4 in classical is better than +6 in medieval, and it snowballs from then. Also as another player mentioned, the extra production can be invested in wonders, or even settlers and military units earlier.
Gaul culture also means it will likely reach the IZ card earlier, adding to the snowball.

 

[Bast]

I think Oppidum is slightly ahead because in Civ, early is always better. Reaching +4 in classical is better than +6 in medieval, and it snowballs from then. Also as another player mentioned, the extra production can be invested in wonders, or even settlers and military units earlier.
Gaul culture also means it will likely reach the IZ card earlier, adding to the snowball.

I agree with this. Germany's advantage is a much slower burn. Gaul is like Russia on hills, fast expansion with production and land grab.

 

[hhhhhh]

A base Hansa with a CH and Aqueduct is +5... if you get a good cluster where it is able to share another city's commercial hub *and* aqueduct you'll be at +10. But that's dependant on really good placement, requires two cities, and excludes the 2nd city from getting as high of an adjacency. You can get more with adjacent resources but there's a physical limit of 6 tiles to provide adjacency to a single Hansa... The max would be +15 and that's completely surrounded by CH and green districts... +13 requires as least 5 districts and a resource in the 6th tile...

Are you talking about while running adjacency policy card?


+7 or +9 production from an Oppidum at turn 30 is bonkers good for a Civ to have.

No I'm not talking about running adjacency policy (how do you get 9 or 13 with that? With adjacency policy it should be 18-26).

Here is a screenshot of a real game:

and here are the district I planned (presented by @anonxanemone ):

This was what I had in mind when I talked about 9-13. It wasn't even my game -- I only did the planning for a redditor (who later implemented a similar configuration provided by me, with slightly lower adjacency, so it wasn't ruined by niter). (TS is only there to symbolize a random district, nothing significant.) I don't know if I can do better if I were playing this game, but being able to think about where to settle will grant a lot more possibilities.

I think one difference in play style is that maybe you settle your cities further apart than this so it's hard to plan a cluster of districts like this. I usually settle compactly unless I want to use a city to claim some land. But my play style is a bit awkward when it came to Gaul. I settled my 2nd city 4 tiles away from my capital then I realized a lot of places are impossible for districts and the districts has to scatter here and there.

One thing in district planning is that a lot of people tend to ignore the +1 per 2 adjacent districts. However it's kinda important if you want to realize the full power of districts. So Gaul not being able to utilize that is a big turn off for me, but probably not for many people who don't plan that specifically. (Not related to IZ but obviously one can see it's hard for Gaul to get a +3 campus unless there are two reefs or 3+ mountains.)

 

[Sostratus]

A base Hansa with a CH and Aqueduct is +5... if you get a good cluster where it is able to share another city's commercial hub *and* aqueduct you'll be at +10. But that's dependant on really good placement, requires two cities, and excludes the 2nd city from getting as high of an adjacency. You can get more with adjacent resources but there's a physical limit of 6 tiles to provide adjacency to a single Hansa... The max would be +15 and that's completely surrounded by CH and green districts... +13 requires as least 5 districts and a resource in the 6th tile...

You really want to be using 3 cities in tandem as much as possible as germany. @hhhhhh 's image shows off a classic application of some of the principles in my hansa guide; namely, you can architect layouts where 1 district is boosting multiple Hansa, while also having multiple districts boost each Hansa. Utilizing that concept makes getting at least a +10/+10/+8 for 3 cities fairly trivial even without any resources or dams. (In 9/10 situations, Hansas should never touch each other directly.)

Actually, while I'm here, let's look at how he laid out the 4 hansas: it's forming 2 triangles (one centered around "o" and one around "n".) The triangle is a great shape because one tile can boost all 3 hansa, and 3 more tiles can boost 2 hansa. Even without those "fill" districts he would be looking at +12/+12/+9/+8, which is a 10.25 average. And he only has one dam, and no government plaza. It's much easier to plan 3 cities instead of 4 just due to the space required, but if you do this a few times it becomes automatic. The ramp up in efficiency for having 3 cities working together instead of 2 is crazy. And don't tell me it isn't meta to pack cities together, it totally is.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Hansa is clearly more powerful.
It is also more consistent, and (most importantly for me) fun, because it takes a lot of planning to set up, both in regards to future city placements and the required districts.

 

[kaspergm]

Hansa is clearly more powerful.
It is also more consistent, and (most importantly for me) fun, because it takes a lot of planning to set up, both in regards to future city placements and the required districts.

I kind of agree with this, but when that's said, I still think the Oppidum is good. Contrary to what was first speculated, I actually think they've hit a pretty good balance on the Gauls. Where Hansas are super strong, but also one of the few really good things Germany has going for them, the Gauls have several bonuses that are each good but not amazing in their own right.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

I kind of agree with this, but when that's said, I still think the Oppidum is good. Contrary to what was first speculated, I actually think they've hit a pretty good balance on the Gauls. Where Hansas are super strong, but also one of the few really good things Germany has going for them, the Gauls have several bonuses that are each good but not amazing in their own right.

They do seem decently balanced, but as I just wrote in a different thread, I think they don't synergize too well with a CV (I guess SV is the most natural pick for them, perhaps domination as a second option, but they don't seem to excel at neither of those).
Mines giving +1 tourism each (or +1 for every two adjacent mines if it ends up too strong) upon flight research would make their playstyle a lot more interesting if one were to go down that route, and somewhat balanced out by ruining your appeal for seaside resorts and natural parks.
Right now Gaul does get a lot of early culture, but few ways to translate that culture into a CV, which is a shame given how culture is apparently one of their traits.

I do like their early archer rush and flexibility gained from a strong early culture game though, that part looks good.

 

[CrabHelmet]

I am inclined to agree that the Hansa is better, but I don't think the margin is enormous. The mean problem the Oppidum has is inconsistency. It is pretty random whether you can get good adjacencies for it and you can't improve the adjacencies with better city-planning because most of them are out of your control. If you get a +4 Oppidum, it's better than a Hansa simply by virtue of how early it comes - Production now is better than Production later. Sometimes, however, I can't get a single good adjacency on an Oppidum, in which case... meh.

I agree with the poster earlier who suggested Aqueducts and Dams should still contribute to the Oppidum.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

If you get a +4 Oppidum, it's better than a Hansa simply by virtue of how early it comes - Production now is better than Production later.

Kind of agree, but also kind of disagree.
While I agree that an early +4 (or more) Oppidum can have a massive influence early on, I think Hansas have two main benefits.

As long as you've pre-planned a city triangle (where one or two cities have already set up parts of the triangle with comm hubs and/or aqueducts or dams), the third city comes up to speed very fast by laying down it's Hansa first into the already setup grid.
I've also noticed that some cities have no real benefits early on anyway, so you are forced to take a more long-term perspective on it.
For instance a freshly settled city in the Medieval Era, which just lacks the production to do anything worthwhile, even if it would get an early +4 Oppidum up.
It would be "unproductive" in the sense that it has no available district slots for other districts (after the Oppidum is built), and either way has so little residual production that even building a Campus (or even wonder) can still take in excess of 30 turns.
In those case I like to view Hansas as an "investment into future production" so to speak, where there is a good and consistent production bonus once you get it up, and more importantly, you still have an available district slot and more likely to have better production to build that Campus/Comm hub/wonder or whatever once the Hansa is online.
And even when you settle cities even later (renaissance or later, where campuses etc. are even more expensive), you can view that production into a Hansa as a long-term investment for late game builder production for your science victory, or for running projects.

It's not really possible to test this in a vacuum of course, but I strongly believe that its worthwhile settling in the lategame as Germany, as even a fresh city with a Hansa has something useful to do in the long term as long as the Hansa grids are pre-set up.

 

[monikernemo]

I havent really tried Gauls, but from my experience it is the case that (latent) early production is better than late (latent) production; I have frequently played Work Ethics and DotA to experience its benefit.
I believe that Oppidum is an adequate substitute for Work Ethics Lavras/Holy Sites if the right conditions are met (also, a reminder that Oppidum immediately gives +1P to mines).

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

The "kickass Hansas" are in my experience harder to plan for as not only do you want/need rivers the same way and Oppidum wants/needs quarries and strategics, but planning a double or even triple dipping Hansa cluster means some rather difficult aqueduct and dam considerations (and you're limited to one dam per flood zone) that compete with river-adjacent commercial hubs. And the cities need more land both individually and overall to accomplish the central cluster while Oppidums can stand alone and only need a single 2nd ring tile.

I didn't find this to be the case personally.
Yes I might have to skip the odd aqueduct (dam placements are too RNG), but as long as the comm hubs are set up properly, you're still getting pretty decent hansas, and any aqueduct is really just icing on the cake for an already strong setup.
All it takes is really just three cities in a triangle, and if necessary I'll even sacrifice the river (which would fuel comm hub adjacencies and aqueducts).
Heck, I've even built the clusters from two cities, and while weaker, it's rather easy to set up.

The real benefit of Germany is that the extra district slot fits so well together in the overall picture.
Once you get the Hansa up, you essentially are allowed to place a "free" comm hub as well (a district you usually want anyway), which lends itself some extra production/food/(+ extra gold, science, culture, faith, if you have an alliance) to help get the rest up faster as well.

An early Oppidum (even when strong) forces you to make a consideration of whether the production is worth it over a different district, and that's the part I dont like for Gaul.

I havent really tried Gauls, but from my experience it is the case that (latent) early production is better than late (latent) production; I have frequently played Work Ethics and DotA to experience its benefit.
I believe that Oppidum is an adequate substitute for Work Ethics Lavras/Holy Sites if the right conditions are met (also, a reminder that Oppidum immediately gives +1P to mines).

Absolutely, but personally I consider Work Ethic stronger if we're considering "production now".
Along that extra production, you also get a lot of faith, which ties in nicely with a long-term investment plan (faith buying settlers, naturalists, rock bands, units from GMC etc.).
With Oppidum you only get "production now", and you have to hold out on any spill-over effects (since you just locked in a district slot).
(You can of course use that production to build monuments, granaries, builders etc., but I think those are less impactful in the grand scheme of things)

 

[monikernemo]

Absolutely, but personally I consider Work Ethic stronger if we're considering "production now".
Along that extra production, you also get a lot of faith, which ties in nicely with a long-term investment plan (faith buying settlers, naturalists, rock bands, units from GMC etc.).
With Oppidum you only get "production now", and you have to hold out on any spill-over effects (since you just locked in a district slot).
(You can of course use that production to build monuments, granaries, builders etc., but I think those are less impactful in the grand scheme of things)

Yes certainly you get faith alongside work ethic, but I am comparing Oppidum to Hansas right now.
At least in the early game, the more costly buildings are still Govt Plaza buildings. An earlier ancestral hall means faster expansion, which in my opinion seems more valuable than what Hansas can give.

Finally, I think while Hansa's adjacency bonus is great, it is hardly immediate. One has to grow the city large enough to use Hansa's adjacency bonus, but at least Germany's ability can compensate for that but nonetheless, it still requires one to build plenty of district to earn it.

 

[lotrmith]

No I'm not talking about running adjacency policy (how do you get 9 or 13 with that? With adjacency policy it should be 18-26).

Here is a screenshot of a real game:

and here are the district I planned (presented by @anonxanemone ):

This was what I had in mind when I talked about 9-13. It wasn't even my game -- I only did the planning for a redditor (who later implemented a similar configuration provided by me, with slightly lower adjacency, so it wasn't ruined by niter). (TS is only there to symbolize a random district, nothing significant.) I don't know if I can do better if I were playing this game, but being able to think about where to settle will grant a lot more possibilities.

I think one difference in play style is that maybe you settle your cities further apart than this so it's hard to plan a cluster of districts like this. I usually settle compactly unless I want to use a city to claim some land. But my play style is a bit awkward when it came to Gaul. I settled my 2nd city 4 tiles away from my capital then I realized a lot of places are impossible for districts and the districts has to scatter here and there.

One thing in district planning is that a lot of people tend to ignore the +1 per 2 adjacent districts. However it's kinda important if you want to realize the full power of districts. So Gaul not being able to utilize that is a big turn off for me, but probably not for many people who don't plan that specifically. (Not related to IZ but obviously one can see it's hard for Gaul to get a +3 campus unless there are two reefs or 3+ mountains.)

You don't think that's even a little bit harder and requires just a little more luck than the typical Oppidum?


((That's a lot of open land with a favorably curving river floodplain that allows a damn right in the center and 3/4 commercial hubs to have river adjacency, and a lake just right that let's 3/4 cities start with fresh water, a single mountain/volcano in just the right place to let the 4th city have an aqueduct, and the truffle and cattle in the right place to round out the adjacencies (and not have the truffle block any placements, and not any other resources like sugar or horses or anything else unremovable that might scrap this whole plan). The inward contribution of the 4th city also practically limits the planning to this one cluster, as the space is hemmed in by twoneighbors and an ocean with deserts in between ))