Building strategy

[.]

I'm always conflicted if I should build more districts or build within existing ones. What seems to be better?

[Liquidlazor]

Hmmm.... Districts ultimately determine what the function of a city will be in relation to its contribution to the civilization as a whole. You will be assessing the land that a city exists on to determine which districts will provide the maximum yields on said lands, like harbors being favored in coastal cities and campus for cities with mountains. When placing a district you are advised beforehand of its adjacency bonus, which you will get less of if districts that are less suitable to the location are placed. Adjacency can also be cultivated along with other districts, terrain and various other perks and boosts.

For me, the first question is not whether to prioritize districts or buildings within. With proper analysis, you will know what districts you want all your cities to have eventually, given you are limited how many districts you can have by city population. In that, the question becomes rather what the needs of your civilization are at the moment, based on your pre-conducted analysis of these cities and their suitable districts.

So, if you need money, and your city is suited to a commercial hub, you would build the commercial hub and the buildings within. Then it becomes a mathematical decision over the amount of turns it takes for the city to start returning the yield it promises when built. Typically your third building takes longer than your first building within a district, meaning in such a case it might make more sense to start developing another district based on a balanced requirement for the city and the civilization at large.

It means that you could in the example above, end with a situation where, building a commercial hub building in the district take 40 turns to build, but takes 20 turns only after you build an encampment or an industrial district to boost the low production of a city, given sometimes districts themselves need little turns to build sometimes. So if it takes 5 turns to boost production to cut the build time of something in the commercial hub from 40 turns to 20 turns, you effectively prioritize building in such a way that the desired yield is delivered in 25 turns instead of 40.

To sum up I think the best way to view it aside from everything said above, is to recognize the potential of the city and then prioritize building what gives the most yield in as little turns as possible, for the effects of the bonuses are compounding across the game, meaning the quicker you can start earning a bonus the better. It is mindful to remember that a district is inherently tied to produce a specific resource. The initial district bonus is comparitively small in the grand scheme of things unless adjacency is taken advantage of, but once a district is built you are locked in on that trajectory for the development and yield of that city.

So the first choice to make is what districts to prioritize. Then, look at what gives you a prominent yield to contribute to the rest of the empire in as short a time as possible, with deviation towards a specific cause, lets say you are focusing maybe a specific cultural or religious or scientific or commercial or militaristic ambition.

[Evrach]

Originally posted by .:

I'm always conflicted if I should build more districts or build within existing ones. What seems to be better?

It depends on the district and on the situation, but you should always prelock your districts as soon as you can because their cost increase with techs/civics.

[Lemurian1972]

Originally posted by .:

I'm always conflicted if I should build more districts or build within existing ones. What seems to be better?

To the best of your ability, each city should have districts placed to their cap. At minimum place the district as soon as a slot opens up so the production cost is locked in early (if you need to prep a spot with worker chops, do that first of course).

Once districts are down, you can decide to work on them or not, as needed. Whether you work on the next district or work on buildings for your older districts should depend on your immediate needs. I tend to prioritize getting Boosts or Era score over just getting stuff done. Lately I've also begun buying in more buildings, as my resource trading game has gotten more aggressive.

[omnius]

It depends on what your city or empire needs. I always check my city stats to see if I need more amenities or housing or food. Then I can decide whether to build a new district as I may need more science or religion or culture or even civilian or military units.

[Sstavix]

For me, every city needs a library (science district) and a market (commercial district) at the very least. Everything else varies based upon what empire I'm playing, the city location and adjacency bonuses, and what victory type I am pursuing.

[plaguepenguin]

As mentioned, producing the next district, or at least starting production, is something that should be done as early as a city's population limit allows. Districts cost more production the more techs and civics you unlock, but the production cost is fixed at the instant you start producing the district. It doesn't rise even if you unlock a dozen techs and civics before you get around to finishing production.

That optimization doesn't really answer the question, because you don't have to actually produce the district to lock in its production cost. Just choose it from your production list, then switch to producing something else, and the district is locked in at the low price.

The answer to the question is that in most cases you would want to maximize whatever yield the district and its buildings give you, and adding buildings to a district you have invested in already is a cheaper way at increasing the yields you want, than producing a new district in order to get another type of yield. That's the trade-off decision. Which do you need more right now, more science output from that campus you already have, or has some sudden need for more gold made that yield so important right now that instead of a library, you go for a commercial hub or harbor first.

This example illustrates why campuses and their buildings tend to get an across the board higher priority than any other district and its buildings. There are other ways to get gold immediately, by deals especially, that take a lot of the pressure off building those harbors and commercial hubs right now. You need culture to move up the civics tree quickly, but there are side hustles you can use early in the game, monuments always, and any of the culture-yielding tile improvements that you sometimes have access to. Science, in contrast, is far more limited to campuses and their buildings, quite aside from moving up the tech tree being more generally useful and needful than anything else you can do in the game -- aside from expansion, of course.

The really difficult trade-offs aren't really between districts versus buildings, it's between districts and their buildings versus every other priority. Is a young city productive enough to start any district, or should you produce a builder to help boost its food and production output first? Do you need settlers right now more than any type of yield a new district and its buildings would give you? Are military units a priority right now, because defense or conquest is what the game state right now dictates, so you need a bigger army even before you produce a campus to let you get a more advanced army later on? Would some wonder provide such amazing benefits to you in your particular game that it's worth putting off any new district and its buildings for however long the wonder is going to take?

[rahstil]

Start off taking 5-6 Other Civs playing. They will have 5-6 different districts while you will have the 3-4 warriors and 2-3 archers to take every main starting city they have!

[Rift]

Originally posted by rahstil:

Start off taking 5-6 Other Civs playing. They will have 5-6 different districts while you will have the 3-4 warriors and 2-3 archers to take every main starting city they have!

Lol, this. Better to prioritize some military units in the beginning and take a few AI cities than to start expanding your own. Settle a few cities, then crank out enough military units, and you can start building up your own cities while assaulting the AI's, essentially getting free cities in the process. Campuses and Commercial Hubs in almost every city, and usually an encampment in a city that is closest to the AI (for Great General points), preferably adjacent to a hill to build Alhambra (flat tile too if you want Terracotta Army) Edit: The encampment next to a hill and/or flat tile.