Early game amenities?

[rolypoly]

I am coming from Civ 5, so I don't even get what amenities are (I guess they replace happiness?) But what can I build at low level that gives amenities? Trying to grow the city fast, but the city is complaining that there are not enough amenities, but there is nothing I can yet build that increases it.

[Shiva]

Originally posted by rolypoly:

Yeah but I'm ignoring these districts cuz they don't provide food or production bonuses. There science and culture from these, but that stuff is not important in early game. Early game is super important food food food to grow fast and all I'm hearing is you're supposed to be building districts and I'm like why

You are too caught up in the strategies of earlier CIV games. Food and growth is nice and all, especially in the beginning, but districts are by far (!) the most important aspect of city building and therefore of your empire. Getting districts as early as possible offers huge advantages during the playthrough. In fact, there is NO WAY to be even halfway decent as a civ in Civ 6 if you don't plan and build good districts.

The golden word for districts is "adjecency bonus". Special districts give your cities the edge over the AI. Only by planning meaningful district configurations you will be able to be successful against the AI on higher difficulties. Otherwise their huge bonuses will crush you.
The AI is not as clever as the player in building districts so there is your advantage.

Therefore you should get familiar with districts asap. Learning where to place districts is key. I'll give you an example:
Currently I'm playing with the Netherlands on Deity on a Lake map. The AI starts with 3 settlers, 1 builder and a couple of warriors. I started with 1 warrior and 1 settler. By the time I have my second city out the AI has already built it's forth or fifth city. How am I suppose to counter that?
By building good districts! The Netherlands get "high adjecency bonuses" for campus, theater square and industrial zones when build next to rivers. So I go out and build my cities in such a way that they get the highest adjecency bonuses for those districts. In the current game I was able to secure a lot of +4, +5 and even some +6 campuses! That means that those campus districts will produce +X amount of science each turn without me investing anything else into it.

By going thorugh the tech tree you'll get special policy cards which improve on that even further. There's one that's key for my playthrough that gives 100% adjecency bonuses for campus districts. As I want to win a science victory ofc I plug it in and suddenly my +6 campus produces +12 (!) base science. The one +6 campus city will therefore produce as much science as 2, 3 or even 4 times the science the AI produces in their badly planned science cities.

Ofc all that needs to be applied to all the other districts that are import as well. Building for example Industrial zones next to Aqueducts and dams gives them +5 production because of the +2 bonus each of those districts give to Industrial zones and another +1 for two adjecent districts. As you build industrial zones at rivers anyways that only makes for a +7 industrial zone. That can even be buffed further. Again in the same match I have three +10 (and more) industrial zones. The same logic as above applies to this district. With the right policy this bonus is doubled. Building a factory and a power plant later more than doubles that. So. now I have 3 cities that have around 100 production per turn! Buildings take only a couple of turns, units 1-3 turns to build.

That is how you win the game.

Admittedly as a beginner it is not easy to understand the right district placement. I strongly advise to get the following mod:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2428969051

With this mod planning districts is much more viable as it calculates the adjency bonuses for you and displays them when putting down planning pins.

[rolypoly]

Thanks, I think I understand what districts are all bout now. The complicated adjacency bonuses stuff aside, districts are actually... part of the city itself. If in early games you would build all of the city's buildings in the city itself, you now have to build those in the district. Or rather you cannot build them unless you have a district. Some buildings can still be built with the city alone, like granary and monument, but for example to build a library you need a "campus district" first. To build entertainment buildings (called amenities now) you need an "entertainment district" first, and so on for other districts for production and culture and faith. So this means you need to specialize your cities with the districts that you build for them, since you can't build all of them I guess (haven't gotten that far yet).

[Shiva]

You kind of can build most of the districts in one city but you never want to. At a certain point the usefulness of a district is overcome by the lack of tiles to actually work. So as you rightly said you specialize.
A science city for example needs a good campus and good production. Good production is used to get research projects done quickly for science and great people points as well as for your space projects later. So it would make sense to plan the city accordingly.
A culture city needs an entertainment complex for the adjecency to theater squares. Also wonders work. Because an entertainment complex provides amenities for cities in a six tile radius it needs to be centralized. Good planning helps to minimize ressources used and maximizes efficiency. For that reason it would not make much sense to build a theater square in the city if it hasn't any good adjecencies. Sure more culture is nice but the time it costs to build all that is necessary you could probably do better things for the city, like build builders or do projects or whatever. Just because you CAN build a district doesn't mean you ought to do so.

Same is true for industry. Once elecricity is researched you can build power plants. Those give huge bonuses to your industrial districts. If those are all within reach of one power plant this one power plant can provide elecritiy for them all! Therefore sometimes it is more important to get all districts within reach of each other than having perfect adjecencies.

What I always do is to spend at least half an hour or more in the beginning of the game to plan at least the first three or four cities and all their districts. These might change during the course of the game due to ressources popping up or a world wonder squezed in... but one needs a general building strategy. With that you don't re-thing every decision and prevent do make harmful errors. It will never get perfect and especially in the beginning errors are natural but with time I'm sure you'll figure it out!

[rolypoly]

So am I planning it right?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2900823314

[Sleepysteve]

Early to midgame all you need is luxury resources. Then throw in one to two well positioned entertainment complexes and you will be all set. Expand on that and there are tons of ways to get amenities.

[Aimee]

As others have said to some extend or another, you get Ameneties from Luxery resources. If you hover over a resource is tells you if its a Luxury, Bonus, or Strategic resource.
Bonus resources give extra yields and sometimes other bonuses depending on Civ bonuses and wonders. And can be removed by a Builder for some extra production and/or food, to boost building something or population growth. But they are best left and Improved by your Builders for more yields and housing if posible. Only remove them if you realy need that tile for something els.
Strategic resources give 1 of their yield when Improved (Iron with a mine on it), and you need them to produce certain units. You cant make horse units without having the horses strategic resource.
Luxury resources give extra yields, and when upgraded also give their Ameneties. The city that owns it gets 1, and the 3 cities that need ameneties the most each get 1 as well. For a total of 4. Every time you settle a new city, you should consider if they have New Luxury resources within 3 tiles of their citycenter. That you can claim and improve for more Ameneties.
Excess Luxury resources can be traded with other players or AI, if you want to.
You always start with atleast 1 Luxury resource within the borders of your capital city, assuming you have not moved them from their starting location too far.

Originally posted by rolypoly:

So am I planning it right?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2900823314

Not completely, If you are planning out where to place districts, you also want to take into account what you are giving up and gaining. Not every city needs all districts and sometimes you do want them all, but their location becomes more important the more you build. Since you do need tiles that provide food, production and housing.
Because a lot of Wonders have very specific placements in Civ.6 you want to take that into account before placing down districts as well.
Civ.6 is much more of a city builder/planner kind of game than Civ.5 was. This is because no matter what you build be it a district or wonder, you are giving up something to get what they provide. You want to take this into account when placing down districts and wonders, and want to find the right balance between getting enough food and production, as well as placing down the things you want.

Civ.6 is also a lot better to look up info on the wiki, and learn/spoil the game a bit. Since there is a lot more content to the game that you can play around with, and might need to take into account.

You are placing a lot of districts on tiles like Copper and Stone, that provide bonuses and can have mines and quaries build on them. Providing more production and giving potential adjecency bonuses to potential Industrial zones.
Not all districts need to be next to eachother and next to the city center. Not only are the adjecency bonuses only +0.5, but you often have to give up important tiles to do so. It is however good to try and get 3 districts in a triangle if you can, but your main focus is placing them where you dont lose much but gain a decent bonus (Campus/Holysite next to mountains)
You did not build a Holysite districts, and its realy imporant to have atleast 1. Even if you dont go for a religious victory, you gain large bonuses from having a religion and also need it to counter other religions so they dont get an easy win.
You dont always need an aquaduct in every city. Not only are there plenty of ways to get housing, but you rarely have your districts placed in a way to get the most out of it without giving up a lot. The +2 bonus towards Industrial Zones is not much if you can place your industrial zone closer to 2 hills that can have mines on them.
You Do Not want a Government Plaza in your capital city. Loyalty in the game is only decreased from cities you settle near other civilizations and far from your own cities. Your capital city can almost never lose loyalty because it gains huge bonuses to loyalty, so you wont gain any loyalty bonuses from placing it there. Only ever place it if you realy need loyalty in a city or want its bonuses from buildings placed in it.
Industrial Zones dont need to be placed in every city. Its often a good idea to place one in your capital city because of great people points. But you should only place it in cities that realy lack production or need more of it. Also Industrial zones have a building that provides production to every city within 6 tiles of the District, and that bonus does not stack. So its better to place it in a location where the Industrial zone is within 6 tiles of a few other cities, and then not build it in those cities.

This Youtube channel's videos realy helps with learning the basics;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKZmRBy2QrY