why I hate the amenity system(I gotta get this off my chest)

[UknowitsE]

Okay, so excuse me for complaining but this has been bothering me for a while and I need to hear if other people have similar feelings, but does this feel like a very arcane and just plain crappy way of dividing up happiness...dont get me wrong, I dont want to have to manage it myself really, I just played civ 4 and 5 and thought either or those were much better ways of doing it(actually I cant remember how 5 did it, but I know it didnt piss me off like this system does). I'm like always short amenities, I play on big maps only, and the 3 or 4 amenities I usually have until late are never enough, then im forced to build a crappy entertainment district in EVERY city, what a waste of space and time, not to mention just one extra amenity or two, then factor in war weariness and it just gets out of control. The housing is bad but at least managable.

Anyway, I just needed to see if others were having the same thoughts, don't ring in if you don't play on big maps because it wont apply for people that play with less than 10 cities.

[Paulytnz]

Originally posted by Prester:

Originally posted by Paulytnz:

I edited my game files so that each luxary I get covers 50 cities instead of the miserable 4. You may think it's cheating, I don't care, it makes the game more fun for me. Anyway it works for the AI too.

The fact that a city can only get to a miserable 2 population (well 4 before it kicks in but it is still only 2 in reality...) before needing a luxary or Entertainment District is just stupid........I say again STUPID.

you realize that ammenities are the only thing limiting expansion. without the restriction you could own 300 level 50 cities and wouldnt have a single drawback. if you like that go ahead and mod it, but it would be silly to balance the game around oddballs like you

You do realise the bigger your nation the bigger your borders/frontlines are right? This is usually why I prefer going with a very small nation so that I have small borders to worry about. But in this game even going small can be annoying with the immenity/District population requirements etc issues. It's like they force you to go wide (because of the district population requirements and wanting you to "specialise cities") and then punish you for doing so via the luxary/immenity thing. The result = frustrated players.

You also do have other restrictions. Actual map space/other civs on that space and then all the micro managment frustrations of those cities. There are others I'm forgetting too I'm sure.

Civ 5 nor the others from what I recall never had these frustrations or isues.

[Sisohiv]

If you lock tiles so no growth based on amenity, you get Starving notices,
If you let the city grow you get Amenity notices,
If you have loads of Amenity, you get housing notices.

Pick the notice you want spamming the screen every turn. It's a loop system you can't really win.

[BladeSe7en [ICON_RESOURCE_FURS]]

Originally posted by UknowitsE:

Okay, so excuse me for complaining but this has been bothering me for a while and I need to hear if other people have similar feelings, but does this feel like a very arcane and just plain crappy way of dividing up happiness...dont get me wrong, I dont want to have to manage it myself really, I just played civ 4 and 5 and thought either or those were much better ways of doing it(actually I cant remember how 5 did it, but I know it didnt♥♥♥♥♥♥me off like this system does). I'm like always short amenities, I play on big maps only, and the 3 or 4 amenities I usually have until late are never enough, then im forced to build a crappy entertainment district in EVERY city, what a waste of space and time, not to mention just one extra amenity or two, then factor in war weariness and it just gets out of control. The housing is bad but at least managable.

Anyway, I just needed to see if others were having the same thoughts, don't ring in if you don't play on big maps because it wont apply for people that play with less than 10 cities.

You're not building your cities right if you need an entertainment center in each city. You only need 1 for every 5-6 cities. Thier regional bonuses do not stack so you're wasting your time building more of them.

Honestly though, I prefer the way the amenities work now compared to civ 5. In civ 5, if you had a few new cities or a few occupied cities it would ruin your entire global happiness. While in civ 6 happiness is on a local city level. Making one unhappy city not affect your whole empire.

Also with proper city planning you can build a 5-6 city Coliseum which will greatly help out your amenity problems as well as give you early culture. If you have a 4+ tile lake nearby building Huey is also a good option

[UknowitsE]

well the range on radius buildings is only like 6 so with the way I build cities im lucky to hit 3 or 4 cities most of the time, the radius should have been something like ten, and it should have a local bonus and area bonus so you can always have 2 bonuses max for each category(they apparently used to let them stack endlessly which would have been even better imo but game devs nerf crap all the time).

Ya, I spread my cities out "perfect" so there is as little wasted or overlapping space as possible, it takes a while to get the cities there but that is how I like to play civ, this game just doesn't seem to lend itself to that design all the time, and that to me is a big design flaw...Oh, I forgot to mention it so far in this thread but in all my threads I like to say how I absolutely hate the one UPT system, sorry for the tangent, just still gets on my nerve every time i play the game eventually.

[BladeSe7en [ICON_RESOURCE_FURS]]

Originally posted by UknowitsE:

well the range on radius buildings is only like 6 so with the way I build cities im lucky to hit 3 or 4 cities most of the time, the radius should have been something like ten, and it should have a local bonus and area bonus so you can always have 2 bonuses max for each category(they apparently used to let them stack endlessly which would have been even better imo but game devs nerf crap all the time).

Ya, I spread my cities out "perfect" so there is as little wasted or overlapping space as possible, it takes a while to get the cities there but that is how I like to play civ, this game just doesn't seem to lend itself to that design all the time, and that to me is a big design flaw...Oh, I forgot to mention it so far in this thread but in all my threads I like to say how I absolutely hate the one UPT system, sorry for the tangent, just still gets on my nerve every time i play the game eventually.

You need to build your cities closer so your regional bonuses hit more cities. The likelihood of you getting all your cities to pop 36 to work every single tile is very slim. Plus if you then place workers in your Districts you'll need about another dozen population.
Death stacks we're atrocious..... I like the balance civ 6 has with limited stacks (general + religious unit + land unit + air unit + support unit) then you also have corps and armies to increase your unit strength

[Martin]

Originally posted by UknowitsE:

Okay, so excuse me for complaining but this has been bothering me for a while and I need to hear if other people have similar feelings, but does this feel like a very arcane and just plain crappy way of dividing up happiness...dont get me wrong, I dont want to have to manage it myself really, I just played civ 4 and 5 and thought either or those were much better ways of doing it(actually I cant remember how 5 did it, but I know it didnt♥♥♥♥♥♥me off like this system does). I'm like always short amenities, I play on big maps only, and the 3 or 4 amenities I usually have until late are never enough, then im forced to build a crappy entertainment district in EVERY city, what a waste of space and time, not to mention just one extra amenity or two, then factor in war weariness and it just gets out of control. The housing is bad but at least managable.

Anyway, I just needed to see if others were having the same thoughts, don't ring in if you don't play on big maps because it wont apply for people that play with less than 10 cities.

Totally agree, also agree with other posts, that if you have multiple copies of the same, then they should also work for at least 4 other cities that aren't currently using an amenity of that type.

The Civ 6 Happiness system is a joke. Ultimately, even with stadiums built, you will eventually run out of amenities and even without war weariness your cities can riot. Although they'd be pretty big and you'd probably be in later atomic/info era. But I've had a few cities around 26-27 pop that were decidedly unhappy forcing me to go hunting for amenities because there were none left near my "area". And just building random cities just to get access to a resource seems like a stupid design flaw.

[SamBC]

Originally posted by Martin:

And just building random cities just to get access to a resource seems like a stupid design flaw.

There have been times you've had to do that in Civ since they introduced resources in Civ3.

[Helio]

Originally posted by leandrombraz:

Originally posted by Helio:

No, even when additional copies of luxuries give amenities it wouldn't be the same as having 2 different luxuries because each city would still benefit from each luxury only once, and luxury amenities are distributed to the cities that need them the most.

Result: Having diamonds and sugar would give +2 amenities to very unhappy cities, while having only two diamonds would still give only +1 amenities to your 4 most unhappy cities and +1 to cities 5, 6, 7 and 8 that don't require them so urgently!

It would still be much more effective to have different luxuries so trading wouldn't become obsolete.


I hope the devs will implement a way to make additional copies of luxuries useful, at least for modders!

I didn't mention this because it defeat the purpose of an auto distribution system for amenities. It's a difference but it's one that require the player to keep track of where the amenities are going. It doesn't suffice to see that a city is unhappy then trade luxuries, you need to check your amount of cities and how the amenities are distributed to see if trading one luxury for another will do something.

No.
Owning two different luxuries will always be superior to owning two of the same type.
There is only one extremely rare exception where it would be equally (but not less!) effective for a turn or two, that's when you have 8 cities that are on the exactly same happiness level so each of them would receive +1.
As soon as you have less than 8 cities or only one city that is more unhappy than the others or any other possible situation, having two copies of the same luxury would always be inferior to diversifying your luxuries via trade.

Players wouldn't have to keep track of amenities, because having as many different luxuries as possible would still be the optimal strategy in any situation.


They also could nerf additional copies to make trading even more worthwhile. Only the first luxury would give +4, each additional copy only +3 or +2.
That would make much more sense than the current solution, where you get all or nothing.

[Sisohiv]

Originally posted by SamBC:

Originally posted by Martin:

And just building random cities just to get access to a resource seems like a stupid design flaw.

There have been times you've had to do that in Civ since they introduced resources in Civ3.

It is a design flaw but as said, you will do it for a strategic resource prettty much every map. Unless you use a citadel mod and yes, I do because flaw or not, strategic resources never in your territory is 'working as intended'.

[SamBC]

Needing to judge your settling pattern and do odd things for luxuries is also as intended, as far as I can tell.

[Martin]

The design flaw.. is the idea that 4 cities can access 1 tea, but the next 20 cities aren't allowed tea at all.

Which sucks if you have 5 teas in proximity to your cap.

Wasn't there a Civ that allowed you to just build a little improvement on resources outside of your area of infulence.. or am I thinking of another game..

[Martin]

Originally posted by SamBC:

Originally posted by Martin:

And just building random cities just to get access to a resource seems like a stupid design flaw.

There have been times you've had to do that in Civ since they introduced resources in Civ3.

Yep, it's been a stupid design flaw in the last 4 Civs.. what's your point? ;)

[Paulytnz]

Originally posted by Martin:

The design flaw.. is the idea that 4 cities can access 1 tea, but the next 20 cities aren't allowed tea at all.

Which sucks if you have 5 teas in proximity to your cap.

Wasn't there a Civ that allowed you to just build a little improvement on resources outside of your area of infulence.. or am I thinking of another game..

Yes that was Civ 4 I think and I think it was a cool little system to have in place. I did miss it when they didn't add it in 5. Kind of how in civ6 I miss the civ 5 strategic resource system. That being you get a number of resources from each one and can build only as many units of the type as you have.

Example one Horse resource may provide 3-4 so you can only build 3-4 knights. You could then of course obtain another horse resource to increase your knight capacity. Why oh why did they take that away from civ6? And why not simply add it to the luxary resources!

One luxary resouce could apply to x amount of cities as the resource woud state. Example, one tea resource could say (2) so thats 2 of your cities covered. Get another Tea resource and you could cover another 2 cities or whatever. But no, they dropped the ball again...

[Helio]

Originally posted by Paulytnz:

Example one Horse resource may provide 3-4 so you can only build 3-4 knights. You could then of course obtain another horse resource to increase your knight capacity. Why oh why did they take that away from civ6? And why not simply add it to the luxary resources!

One luxary resouce could apply to x amount of cities as the resource woud state. Example, one tea resource could say (2) so thats 2 of your cities covered. Get another Tea resource and you could cover another 2 cities or whatever. But no, they dropped the ball again...

I agree!
The way strategic resources were handled in civ5 was really good, why did they have to change it? Managing them was a lot of fun.

And when I have several copies of tea, why can only 4 cities benefit from this resource? Do people in the other cities behave like "no, when someone else can have it, I don't want it anymore"?
Very illogical.

[Sisohiv]

The current Amenity from unique luxury system is a watered down Global system. It's fine for early game but later on you need an entertainment district per 4 cities and it creates grid warfare in where you place cities.

In the end it comes back to the AI city spam. Currently we are "required' to have between 8 and 12 cities to be an end game leader. Mostly that's because the AI dump cities on the map to compensate for low science scores and other similar factors. Our 8 to 12 cities are mostly there to compensate for 18+ City Civs that smother the map.