CIV6: Thinking more on District Cost Scaling

[Sareln]

Is it possible to access the civilopedia from the main menu?

Notation is Domestic / International Route Yield

Acropolis +1 Food / +1 Culture
Aerodrome, Aqueduct, Bath 0/0
Campus +1 Food / +1 Science
City Center +1 Food, +1 Production / +3 Gold
Commercial Hub +1 Production / +3 Gold
Encampment +1 Production / +1 Production
Entertainment District +1 Food / +1 Food
Hansa +1 Production / +1 Production
Harbor +1 Production / +3 Gold
Holy Site + 1 Food / +1 Faith
Industrial Zone +1 Production / +1 Production
Lavra +1 Food / +1 Faith
Mbanza, Neighborhood 0/0
Royal Navy Dockyard +1 Production / +3 Gold
Spaceport 0/0
Street Carnival +1 Food / +1 Food
Theater Square +1 Food / +1 Culture

[Magil]

To increase production the most for internal trade routes, you want an Encampment, an Industrial Zone, a Harbor, and a Commercial Hub, it would appear.

If district scaling was to be removed, something would probably need to be done about traders--perhaps they could scale up in costs like builders.

[yuris125]

perhaps they could scale up in costs like builders.

Pretty sure they do

[scooter]

Not really as you can have 3 districts with size 7 which doesn't take much work. As the CS-benefits work for districts there is no real drawback for having as many districts as possible.

Todays timeconsuming building (if not holding back research deliberately) you have to make decisions between district building and Units/Wonders/Buildings. Make districts easy and cheap to build and they become the one right choice to build anytime possible.

There was no cost scaling in Civ4. Did you build every single building in every single city? Getting the base cost correct and having those costs scale up in an unclear way are two different things.

Also, is it so bad for certain districts to be built in every city?

[Magil]

perhaps they could scale up in costs like builders.

Pretty sure they do

Do they? I've never really noticed, they're always so cheap. Maybe it could be increased then.

[Rowain]

Not really as you can have 3 districts with size 7 which doesn't take much work. As the CS-benefits work for districts there is no real drawback for having as many districts as possible.

Todays timeconsuming building (if not holding back research deliberately) you have to make decisions between district building and Units/Wonders/Buildings. Make districts easy and cheap to build and they become the one right choice to build anytime possible.

There was no cost scaling in Civ4. Did you build every single building in every single city? Getting the base cost correct and having those costs scale up in an unclear way are two different things.

Also, is it so bad for certain districts to be built in every city?

In Civ4 costscaling happened with each new city and time-induced costscaling via inflation. The difference is that in Civ4 the cost were paid in Money in Civ6 it is hammers.

It is not bad if you can built every district in every city. But if building a district happens fast so you don't have to decide if it is worth building one now for the next 20 turns or building xyz during this time then Districts are always the better build.

[T-hawk]

There was no cost scaling in Civ4.

There was, and has been since Civ 1. It's just hidden by giving things different names. The university does the same thing as the library but costs more.

[scooter]

There was no cost scaling in Civ4.

There was, and has been since Civ 1.  It's just hidden by giving things different names.  The university does the same thing as the library but costs more.

Building more libraries has never resulted in libraries costing more. You could still always build them cheaply because they're libraries. Why would they get more expensive. You're talking about base cost.

Civ6 has scaling base costs of buildings just like every Civ game, yes. It also has scaling total costs of the same buildings as the game goes on. That part is completely new to a Civ game.

[Gaspar]

I don't think the cost scaling is really designed to get you to not build the districts. I think its mostly designed to slow down expansion. One, by making everything cost more you're slowing down how quickly you can get out the Settlers/Traders/Builders to get new cities out and then running. Two, by making the districts/buildings cost more, you're locking yourself down for x turns without building Settlers/Traders/Builders when building them. Three, eventually they get prohibitive so you're spending a ton of turns getting Commercial Hubs, Harbors and the like up in the new burgs, to the point where you debate if that's really worth it.

I don't really think any of this works if you're playing optimally. It makes me, who isn't playing optimally, start making bargains and decide to just start growing up rather than out eventually. But if you're really on the ball, while I don't think pure ICS is a correct Civ6 play, you could make a pretty strong case for settling even very marginal sites once you have enough TRs to get the next Hub down in a reasonable amount of time get another Trader and so on.

Every Civ game has done something to try and stop you from covering the map in cities. The first 3 were totally ineffective at it. Civ4 put an early handbrake on and gradually eased it so the maps at endgame were completely covered in cities as well. Civ5 is the only one whose brake was effective, when in BNW the tree penalties eventually got heavy enough that it was better to stop at a medium size empire. Of course, most hate that hamhanded approach to the problem. Civ 6 seems somewhere in between 4 and 5 on this but the feel isn't great - it feels punitive even if it really isn't so much. That's a loss on both counts - feels bad but doesn't really stop what its trying to stop.

[T-hawk]

Building more libraries has never resulted in libraries costing more. You could still always build them cheaply because they're libraries. Why would they get more expensive. You're talking about base cost.

A university is the same thing as a second library. It just fools you into thinking it's something different by having a different name.