Yield Balance and Pre-Launch Prediction

[Krikkit1]

Since Cities become towns at age transition one could argue gold doesn’t fully carry over as well (barring Economic
Legacy golden age).

Well your treasury carries over

They do, but I’m now not sure if it’s all new buildings (overbuilding definitely doesn’t count) or just a new Urban District derived from constructing a building. I suspect the latter, so it’s fair to say a portion of building Production is Food.

Having trouble finding definitive proof one way or another due to the woefully low-information City screen, but just compare any city or town’s pop with the number of Improvements. It’s particularly clear in the latter portion of the antiquity stream before specialists come into play.

They add Tiles, but do they change the Population of the city?
[although even if they do, that population does nothing...its the building that does something]

Production and Food are definitely the two Separate ways to increase an individual city's output.

 

[civfanatic4sure]

Eh? I thought it was production.

Not so sure about that. A small amount of early culture is extremely powerful to unlock better governments faster but you don't need that much. The same could be said about faith : a small amount of early faith is extremely powerful, if only to get that free settler, but that doesn't make faith the dominant yield.

I love a good 'ol production is king debate! I respectfully disagree. If we're playing for fastest victory by turn count, ripping through the culture tree is the most predictive of how fast we will win. Doesn't mean there aren't edge cases for certain choices or that the other yields don't matter, they're just playing second fiddle to culture more often than not. One counter example would be Choral Music vs Work Ethic -- Work Ethic almost always outperforms, but that's not because "production is better" it's because you get the yield immediately vs needing to build shrines and temples to get the culture. In general, production is weaker because we can buy everything in the game with faith or gold. Only wonders and districts need actual production and it's more efficient to get those through chops and even faith buying great people for wonders. By the end of the game, we should be faith or gold buying a spaceport in a science victory anyway, with most of our production coming from trade routes via government + policy cards unlocked in the civic tree. There is a point where culture does fall off in importance, but it's much later than is being implied here. This also isn't about optimizing fun just from the perspective of winning as fast as possible.

The balance is almost never between the yields directly but between the options giving those yields. The goal isn't to make 1 gold = 1 prod = 1 culture. The goal is to make sure the +X culture option is not always the best choice and that in some cases you can also make good use of the +Y gold option depending on the Civ, terrain or objective you have. In general, CIV is at its best when there is good synergy opportunities between your terrain and your choices.

Also, for "interyield" balance you need to actually have a choice to make. As an example, influence doesn't seem to be a very common yield that you can choose to increase so even if it is important there won't be a lot of time where it will be at the expense of another. Influence looked very valuable for that early boost in culture presented in the streams but it also looked mostly passively accumulated.

For civ7 it is almost impossible to really predict at this stage which options will systematically be viewed as the best.

+100 to this. The game design goal should be having as many situations as possible that allow for contextual choices to be more important than what we're choosing from.

Also, while this thread is about yield dominance, your point on limited sources of influence starts cutting through to Leader/Civ dominance. If it turns out that influence is king (which is my current hypothesis), then the Machiavelli + Greece starting pair is going to be very hard to outperform. Though I'm hopeful the age mechanics and legacy path "rubber banding" will allow for others to be competitive.

 

[Seek]

that population does nothing...its the building that does something

You’re probably correct but there may be yields per pop still, I haven’t seen evidence one way or another (again, that awful city screen!)

 

[GeneralZIft]

To be honest, I find that almost any yield in large amounts can be very strong. But the issue is, if you don't have a good amount of food, production or gold (in varying amounts depending on the circumstance), then you won't be able to survive very long. Although, that sounds like common sense, I don't see why culture specifically is going to be a powerhouse... If anything, it'd be Happiness because Happiness is tied to City Cap right?

Can someone explain to what extent Influence is different from the Diplomatic Currency in Civ6? I didn't pay full attention admittedly, but I don't really see why it would be as crucial as the base resources.

 

[stealth_nsk]

To be honest, I find that almost any yield in large amounts can be very strong. But the issue is, if you don't have a good amount of food, production or gold (in varying amounts depending on the circumstance), then you won't be able to survive very long. Although, that sounds like common sense, I don't see why culture specifically is going to be a powerhouse... If anything, it'd be Happiness because Happiness is tied to City Cap right?

Can someone explain to what extent Influence is different from the Diplomatic Currency in Civ6? I didn't pay full attention admittedly, but I don't really see why it would be as crucial as the base resources.

Influence has nothing in common with diplomatic currency in Civ6, it's closer to Beyond Earth.

 

[King Flevance]

Can someone explain to what extent Influence is different from the Diplomatic Currency in Civ6? I didn't pay full attention admittedly, but I don't really see why it would be as crucial as the base reresources.

Influence in 7 will be a currency used to influence city-states, espionage missions, enact foreign deals that improve or deteriorate relations. (research agreements, trade sanctions, etc.) It is the only way to do such things.

If a diplomatic legacy path were to come in later this would certainly play a role. Luckily it is like bypassing World Congress, and just letting diplo favor do direct initiated deals with each other.

 

[GeneralZIft]

Influence in 7 will be a currency used to influence city-states, espionage missions, enact foreign deals that improve or deteriorate relations. (research agreements, trade sanctions, etc.) It is the only way to do such things.

If a diplomatic legacy path were to come in later this would certainly play a role. Luckily it is like bypassing World Congress, and just letting diplo favor do direct initiated deals with each other.

Ah thank you so it's like a combination of Diplo favour and the city state envoys / city state influence systems

 

[Evolena]

New buildings don't add population??
Buildings+New population are the two separate ways to acquire blank tiles... put a new pop on it or build a building on it

Also buildings have both Happiness and Money maintenance costs.

Building a building does nothing regarding population, you just get the buildind (and if it results in a new urban district, you get the neighbouring raw tiles, and if there were an improvement on the tile before, you get the population back to reassign).
When you settlement grows, then you get a new population, that you can assign either on a raw tile to make an improvement on it (and get the neighbouring raw tiles), or on an urban district to get a new specialist on it.

 

[Seek]

Building a building does nothing regarding population,

I mean that’s just factually untrue, compare any settlement’s number of improvements with the number of pop, they all have far more pop than improvements. Again, I’m not 100% on whether it’s just the Urban District or building that grants a population (and no idea if it matters wrt actual ingame effects), but it seems clear there absolutely is an interaction here.

The rest of your post is correct though

 

[TheGhostEnthusiast]

I mean that’s just factually untrue, compare any settlement’s number of improvements with the number of pop, they all have far more pop than improvements. Again, I’m not 100% on whether it’s just the Urban District or building that grants a population (and no idea if it matters wrt actual ingame effects), but it seems clear there absolutely is an interaction here.

The rest of your post is correct though

The devs showed that purchasing buildings grows population in the Exploration stream with their first colony, so this is true. It's just not a "growth event" that lets you expand/add a specialist.

 

[Seek]

The devs showed that purchasing buildings grows population in the Exploration stream with their first colony, so this is true. It's just not a "growth event" that lets you expand/add a specialist.

Thanks for the confirmation, I thought I had remembered that from the Antiquity stream, no wonder I couldn’t find it!

 

[Krikkit1]

I mean that’s just factually untrue, compare any settlement’s number of improvements with the number of pop, they all have far more pop than improvements. Again, I’m not 100% on whether it’s just the Urban District or building that grants a population (and no idea if it matters wrt actual ingame effects), but it seems clear there absolutely is an interaction here.

The rest of your post is correct though

You can have specialists on the building tiles.

 

[Seek]

You can have specialists on the building tiles.

Sorry, I don’t quite follow, was there supposed to be another part to this post?

 

[Krikkit1]

Sorry, I don’t quite follow, was there supposed to be another part to this post?

You said to compare population to number of improvements
ie Population>Improvements
so it must be
Population = Improvements + Buildings

but we know that
Population = Improvements + Specialists+ ?Buildings?(the part in dispute)

So just because the population > Improvements doesn’t mean buildings are part of it.

Anyone have a timestamp where they added a building and population went up?

 

[Seek]

Just found it: Exploration stream @1:31:25 Carl says “Buildings do add a population”. He then purchases two buildings and the pop rises from 2 to 4.

It seems that overbuilding counts, too - earlier in the stream two overbuildings were constructed in Athens, each of which added a pop on completion (and the food/growth meter on the city banner did not fill). However, when the Temple was purchased, also an overbuilding, the population did not rise, oddly. Perhaps a bug.

 

[Evolena]

Anyone have a timestamp where they added a building and population went up?

It's a shame they ended the first part of the Antiquity stream just the turn before the Granary was finished.

Don't forget the settlement has 1 population when it's found, so with only improvements the population should be 1 + nb of Improvements.

 

[Krikkit1]

Just found it: Exploration stream @1:31:25 Carl says “Buildings do add a population”. He then purchases two buildings and the pop rises from 2 to 4.

It seems that overbuilding counts, too - earlier in the stream two overbuildings were constructed in Athens, each of which added a pop on completion (and the food/growth meter on the city banner did not fill). However, when the Temple was purchased, also an overbuilding, the population did not rise, oddly. Perhaps a bug.

Thanks…it seems Overbuilding probably shouldn’t count* (since that keeps a simple Pop=Improvements + Specialists + Buildings formula)

And I guess there it answers the question as to why Population from buildings would matter…to hit the Settler Threshold.

* ie I hope the times it did gain from overbuilding were the bug rather than the times it didn’t

Looks like it is "City Size"=Buildings + Pop
and
Pop=Specialists + Rural Districts

but "City/Settlement Size" is important for being able to get a specialty/become a city/make a settler

 

[civfanatic4sure]

Looking closer at the tech and civic trees from streams, I'm realizing how much the science tree instantly unlocks now vs only unlocking things you had to then spend gold or production to build. This makes science much better in 7 than in 6. It also seems like it has more of the '+' instant unlocks than the civic tree, which is unlocking more policies (traditions) that while instant still need to be slotted into limited government slots.

 

[Monika TSarn]

I think in the early game, food has become more important then in Civ 6. In Civ6, a new population still needs to claim a good tile to work on, and to improve it by a worker(production). You have situations where more population doesn't help at all, because there are just no good tiles available.

In Civ 7, a new pop get's an improved tile automatically, and a free culture bomb. It's always a plus, since there isn't even supposed to be any bad terrain anymore.

 

[UWHabs]

I think in the early game, food has become more important then in Civ 6. In Civ6, a new population still needs to claim a good tile to work on, and to improve it by a worker(production). You have situations where more population doesn't help at all, because there are just no good tiles available.

In Civ 7, a new pop get's an improved tile automatically, and a free culture bomb. It's always a plus, since there isn't even supposed to be any bad terrain anymore.

The preview streamers seemed to be mostly talking about picking bonuses that give extra food being strong. I do think the pop=culture bomb is big. Especially since you can choose where to expand to, stretching your city out to get a resource in the 3rd ring doesn't seem that challenging.

Although buildings culture bomb too, so I do think production is still always valuable. I feel like science is probably going to be the least valuable relative to any other civ game. Because you don't really have the whole "slingshot to musketmen" as much as in the past, that eliminates one big feature of the science tree. Although I'm definitely curious to see how much science you can get, and how deep into the masteries can get you.