City Specialisation vs Free Resource/Production Buildings

[fortydayweekend]

I like how much city specialisation you need and how much it cuts down the micromanagement. So it seems strange to have buildings that give enough free resources & production (the +4/+8 ones) to make them worthwhile to build in every city (because they would make a profit if the city used that production to build wealth).

Was this intentional? It means you have to build certain buildings in every city, which is more clicking than decision-making.

It seems pretty simple to fix too, either lower the free resources, increase the maintenance cost, or reduce the effect of "wealth" building.

[player1]

In my opinion, the biggest issue with free resource/production is that it is not affected by morale.

That way +4 or +8 building are very very valuable to be in every city.

Not to mention, that effect on gameplay this has is that it becomes beneficial just to up taxes on %100, without too much resource/production penalty, since more then half of the resources/production will come as free, not affected by morale.


I think it would be very beneficial, in order to keep later game balance, to reduce effects of these buildings.
Keep +2 for first tier. But have others also give just +2 of free resources/production.

Anyway, idea would be to build higher tier buildings only if you want city to specialize, and not just everywhere, due to free bonuses.

[boulugre]

You need to keep in mind that you will not always have the perfect starting area to provide you with specialized city spot. If you land on an artic coast with no or few hills/mountains, you still need a way to get ressources. If +X building where nerfed, I can imagine some case where your starting spot would actually screw your development and put you in a hole.

[fortydayweekend]

You need to keep in mind that you will not always have the perfect starting area to provide you with specialized city spot. If you land on an artic coast with no or few hills/mountains, you still need a way to get ressources. If +X building where nerfed, I can imagine some case where your starting spot would actually screw your development and put you in a hole.

Yep good point, I really like how starting position isn't incredibly important - you can just pour everything into science in your first city in a terrible location and use the free colonizer to get minerals from your 2nd.

The beta has reduced wealth effects which makes the low-tech buildings only break even, and reduces the bonus a lot for the advanced ones (such that there are probably more beneficial things to build instead).

[player1]

You need to keep in mind that you will not always have the perfect starting area to provide you with specialized city spot. If you land on an artic coast with no or few hills/mountains, you still need a way to get ressources. If +X building where nerfed, I can imagine some case where your starting spot would actually screw your development and put you in a hole.

That's why +2 buildings should not be nerfed. But +4 and +8 ones should, since they currently encourage ICSing, and make morale less important.

And if by the time of mechanized era, you don't have place to get resources, then it's a matter of bad planning, not of starting position.

[willgamer]

Instead of nerfing existing buildings, how about improving the bonus for each of the specials.

Adding a +3 to +5 morale bonus to each the special tiles in addition the its normal bump should lessen ICS without entirely removing the possibility of a all purpose city without a special.

[jdmillard]

How about:
-Nerf the flat bonus (+4/+8) by whatever amount.
-Increase the percentage bonus (but not too much)

This way you have to still manage morale rather than bank on the flat bonuses, and the specialized cities are encouraged... which I think is just a cool feature of the game.