CIV6: Thinking more on District Cost Scaling

[Jkaen]

I like the cost scaling and the fact you dont have enough production, you should be choosing about which of the 3 things you really want to build you have the production to do, not just which order to knock all 3 out in

[Ranamar]

I like the cost scaling and the fact you dont have enough production, you should be choosing about which of the 3 things you really want to build you have the production to do, not just which order to knock all 3 out in

The flipside of that, though, is that you can decide to sit there and build all day, if the AIs don't pressure you, something that happened to me in the adventure game.

[HansLemurson]

I like the cost scaling and the fact you dont have enough production, you should be choosing about which of the 3 things you really want to build you have the production to do, not just which order to knock all 3 out in

Right, but the Districts get so expensive that for most of them I can't see how the benefits they offer could ever pay back the production invested.

[Borsche]

I like the cost scaling and the fact you dont have enough production, you should be choosing about which of the 3 things you really want to build you have the production to do, not just which order to knock all 3 out in

Right, but the Districts get so expensive that for most of them I can't see how the benefits they offer could ever pay back the production invested.

Because there's nothing else worth building in new cities, generally, outside of maybe a granary. In old cities, you generally don't actually feel the production cost that much (as long as your industrial overlap is good). At worst you're probably looking at around ~10 turns in a mid game second tier city, which you can also facilitate by chopping (which scales). In the late game I could generally build a district in two or three turns in my core cities (with the exception of the spaceport, which is absolutely insane). 

In very very brand new cities, yeah, you're looking at like 100 turns but you're looking at 100 turns for basically every single unit lol

[fluffyflyingpig]

Trade routes from the new city back to the core, to bootstrap production.

That way the new city can build the districts that allow for more trade routes to be built.

[HansLemurson]

Hmm...this makes England's half-price Harbors more valuable than I had realized.

Still think Districts get way too expensive. Only half-price specialty districts really attract my attention.
Or districts that I start early (and finish later) to peg their cost while still low.

[fluffyflyingpig]

It's actually much better than half priced! Because the harbor replacement is a unique district the cost scaling uses the unit formula not the district formula so it is much much slower.

[Staltran]

It's actually much better than half priced!  Because the harbor replacement is a unique district the cost scaling uses the unit formula not the district formula so it is much much slower.

Huh?

<Row DistrictType="DISTRICT_ROYAL_NAVY_DOCKYARD" Name="LOC_DISTRICT_ROYAL_NAVY_DOCKYARD_NAME" Description="LOC_DISTRICT_ROYAL_NAVY_DOCKYARD_DESCRIPTION" PrereqTech="TECH_CELESTIAL_NAVIGATION" PlunderType="PLUNDER_GOLD" PlunderAmount="50" AdvisorType="ADVISOR_GENERIC" Cost="30" CostProgressionModel="COST_PROGRESSION_NUM_UNDER_AVG_PLUS_TECH" CostProgressionParam1="25" RequiresPlacement="true" RequiresPopulation="false" Coast="true" Aqueduct="false" FreeEmbark="true" NoAdjacentCity="false" AdjacentToLand="true" InternalOnly="false" ZOC="false" TradeRouteCapacity="1" TradeEmbark="true" CaptureRemovesBuildings="false" CaptureRemovesCityDefenses="false" MilitaryDomain="DOMAIN_SEA" TravelTime="2" CityStrengthModifier="2" TraitType="TRAIT_CIVILIZATION_ROYAL_NAVY_DOCKYARD"/>

For comparison:

<Row DistrictType="DISTRICT_HARBOR" Name="LOC_DISTRICT_HARBOR_NAME" Description="LOC_DISTRICT_HARBOR_DESCRIPTION" PrereqTech="TECH_CELESTIAL_NAVIGATION" PlunderType="PLUNDER_GOLD" PlunderAmount="50" AdvisorType="ADVISOR_GENERIC" Cost="60" CostProgressionModel="COST_PROGRESSION_NUM_UNDER_AVG_PLUS_TECH" CostProgressionParam1="25" RequiresPlacement="true" RequiresPopulation="true" Coast="true" Aqueduct="false" FreeEmbark="true" NoAdjacentCity="false" AdjacentToLand="true" InternalOnly="false" ZOC="false" TradeRouteCapacity="1" TradeEmbark="true" CaptureRemovesBuildings="false" CaptureRemovesCityDefenses="false" MilitaryDomain="DOMAIN_SEA" TravelTime="2" CityStrengthModifier="2"/>

Seems to use the same cost scaling to me, unless I am seriously misunderstanding something.

[fluffyflyingpig]

It's actually much better than half priced!  Because the harbor replacement is a unique district the cost scaling uses the unit formula not the district formula so it is much much slower.

Huh?

<Row DistrictType="DISTRICT_ROYAL_NAVY_DOCKYARD" Name="LOC_DISTRICT_ROYAL_NAVY_DOCKYARD_NAME" Description="LOC_DISTRICT_ROYAL_NAVY_DOCKYARD_DESCRIPTION" PrereqTech="TECH_CELESTIAL_NAVIGATION" PlunderType="PLUNDER_GOLD" PlunderAmount="50" AdvisorType="ADVISOR_GENERIC" Cost="30" CostProgressionModel="COST_PROGRESSION_NUM_UNDER_AVG_PLUS_TECH" CostProgressionParam1="25" RequiresPlacement="true" RequiresPopulation="false" Coast="true" Aqueduct="false" FreeEmbark="true" NoAdjacentCity="false" AdjacentToLand="true" InternalOnly="false" ZOC="false" TradeRouteCapacity="1" TradeEmbark="true" CaptureRemovesBuildings="false" CaptureRemovesCityDefenses="false" MilitaryDomain="DOMAIN_SEA" TravelTime="2" CityStrengthModifier="2" TraitType="TRAIT_CIVILIZATION_ROYAL_NAVY_DOCKYARD"/>

For comparison:

<Row DistrictType="DISTRICT_HARBOR" Name="LOC_DISTRICT_HARBOR_NAME" Description="LOC_DISTRICT_HARBOR_DESCRIPTION" PrereqTech="TECH_CELESTIAL_NAVIGATION" PlunderType="PLUNDER_GOLD" PlunderAmount="50" AdvisorType="ADVISOR_GENERIC" Cost="60" CostProgressionModel="COST_PROGRESSION_NUM_UNDER_AVG_PLUS_TECH" CostProgressionParam1="25" RequiresPlacement="true" RequiresPopulation="true" Coast="true" Aqueduct="false" FreeEmbark="true" NoAdjacentCity="false" AdjacentToLand="true" InternalOnly="false" ZOC="false" TradeRouteCapacity="1" TradeEmbark="true" CaptureRemovesBuildings="false" CaptureRemovesCityDefenses="false" MilitaryDomain="DOMAIN_SEA" TravelTime="2" CityStrengthModifier="2"/>

Seems to use the same cost scaling to me, unless I am seriously misunderstanding something.

You're right.  That's what I get for trusting reddit.  Only the Neighborhood, Aqueduct, and the Neighborhood and Aqueduct replacements are not scaled that way.

[Ranamar]

The half price effect, combined with the fact that COST_PROGRESSION_NUM_UNDER_AVG_PLUS_TECH is an opaque and remarkably complicated formula had Reddit confused for a very long time, even after someone dug into the xml.

Incidentally, I'm not sure what kind of average the average is, because I found about half my districts tended to be reduced-price despite having many times the AI number of cities in the adventure. To be fair, that half was the half that I wasn't building many of, but it felt like I could build a lot more than the number of districts I thought the AI had built of some of those types to get it to regular price.

This leaves me wondering if the average that it's under is the average number of each type of district that you have, but that seems crazy, because it's not a catch-up mechanic like we thought, but rather a mechanical way to encourage you to diversify your districts.